Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: Good

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: morning everybody welcome to the Senate Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. Today we are it is a Thursday so we're our primary focus on Thursdays is labor and oh, it is great to welcome so many labor faces in today. We're going to begin with a new bill, S-one 173, and then we're going to address a bill that got beat up last year so and discuss whether or not we will continue working on it. So we have a sponsor for 173 on a rate in. It's pretty sloppy for those of you who don't have to commute out there. So there are people having some difficulty getting it. But Sophie, if you'd be kind of kind of kick us off on the discussion of 01/1973, that

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: would be great. Yes so Sophie Sedatney for the Office of Legislative Council S 173 primarily does two things so one is to revise certain statutory provisions relating to vocational rehabilitation services for injured workers, so it's a workers compensation element to it. Then the second is to create a mediated position in the office of the Board of Commercial Labor Relations Board. So just briefly by way of background, for vocational rehabilitation, the proposed changes are based on information that's come from the workers compensation plaintiffs bar indicating that the vocational rehabilitation screening requirement that's in current law is not working well and so I anticipate you'll be receiving testimony from them as to you know the details of how that is or is not working. And so the proposed changes are to remove the statutory requirement that injured workers eligible for vocational rehabilitation services undergo an initial screening to add language providing the injured workers can initiate vocational rehabilitation services themselves if the employer or carrier does not refer them within ninety days for vocational rehabilitation services and then to add language to make sure that injured workers are informed about their right to seek vocational rehabilitation services in the future. And then just quickly on the mediator position, as you may be aware the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service was a small independent federal agency under the National Labor Relations Act dealing with you know the coverage for that which is primarily private sector employers but Vermont had the benefit on the public sector side of being able to use the mediation services of the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service free of charge. And so what happened last year, there was an executive order from the administration that slashed funding and positions in the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service they went down like by 95%. There's been litigation over it, the FMCS is being rebuilt but one of the questions I think that's still outstanding is whether or not it will continue to provide free mediation services to Vermont's public sector employees because that's not part of its mandate, know, not part of its statutory mandate at the federal level. So I think there's an interest in having a, you know, replicating what previously existed

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: through the

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Federal Mediation Conciliation Service making that service available through our Vermont Labor Relations Board. And that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: was the primary funding for our mediation services? Services?

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We don't have a mediator in the So what happened before was the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service out of Albany would provide free mediation services. So it's regionally handled? It's regionally handled by the number of full time mediators was slashed from 143 mediators down to four or five and now they're back up to 60. From what I can tell it's not clear to me that they would be in a position to continue offering that service to public sector employees. Would still you know individuals that are covered by the National Labor Relations Act I anticipate they would cover but I don't know that they would provide the same service to public sector employees in Vermont because they're not under the National Labor Relations Act, so there's a gap there.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which we will hear more about as soon as we do it or from whoever

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: right and I'm just going to go through the language

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: at the moment is the bar too high for vocational rehabilitation for both rehab? I guess we'll wait for Kesha to explain why we're So

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: my understanding was that what this is seeking to do is remove that initial screening requirement that's in the current law. So yes I assume folks that are on the ground will have more information about why that's being problematic and then it has a number of other things like including making sure the injured workers are aware of their rights to vocational rehabilitation services. So I'm just starting to look through the appeal itself so on page two the introductory language there of section six forty one explains what vocational rehabilitation services are and so essentially you know if an employee is unable to return to the position they had it's really retraining to make sure that they can be in a position to receive other employment that provides them with a comparable wage. And then what this bill seeks to do is it adds and this is at the bottom of page two add the right for workers or I guess the form would provide information to workers about their right to request vocational rehabilitation services in the future so I think this was a separate issue in terms of you may not be able to receive eligible for vocational rehabilitation services today but maybe down the road your injury is such that now you do need those vocational rehabilitation. It has to happen at work. Right. It's a workers' compensation injury. Right. And then, again, this language on page three is really removing the language around the initial screenings that we talked about. And then on page four, this is where it adds in to make sure that an injured worker can initiate vocational rehabilitation services if the employer fails to assign them a rehabilitation provider within the ninety days following the worker being out of work. So that's on the vocational rehabilitation piece and then switching to section two on page four this is just adding in the first one down line 14 is just a technical drafting change and then subsection C adds that the board may employ a mediator to provide free mediation services for public and private sector collective bargaining units and employers upon reaching in class during collective bargaining. So again this would expand, it wouldn't just be for public sector employees, it would also, even though private sector employees are not under any of our Vermont Labor Relations Act statutes, this would also, if there was a mediator in the Vermont Labor Relations Board office they could also provide mediation services as well to private employers. Again at the moment FMCS is being rebuilt so it's not clear how readily available mediation services for the private sector will be as well. And then we have an appropriation to make this a full time permanent position in the office of the Vermont Labor Relations Board and then with an appropriated amount of $115,000 that is obviously up to what

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: you in terms of what

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the amount is. That's kind of a placeholder sort of estimate of what salary and benefits might be. It's, you know, again, it's not not scientifically established. Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: This is this is established for a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: certain level of salary. So thank you, Sophie, for a a quick first walk through. Hey. Yeah. We'd just we'd love to have you explain what what what the problem is we're trying to solve with this, and we've heard a little bit about the cuts the federal cuts on the mediator front. Right. But if you would expand on the why for the need for this bill.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: Well, in the broadest sense, I mean, two chairs ago, right, Senator Clarkson and I and Senator Brock remember, Senator Sorokin, this was a lot of what he would focus on in the committee, is making sure we were up to date on our labor relations and that they were fair and balanced and strong. And so, you know, I appreciate that the advocates are keeping the spirit alive of just telling us each year not, solutions in search of problems, but the issues that arise that are in the way of the labor relations and people getting timely payments, timely care and support. And so, you know, I see these as technical or housekeeping often in nature. We sought another position in the Vermont Labor Relations Board last year that did not make it into the budget. You know, some have asked is this the right position? You know, this was a request and recommendation from labor. I see the value certainly in mediation, you know, impasses and long term litigation take a long time. Mediation is, you know, a way to break impasse. But regardless, you know, whole bill is just a package that we may potentially want to attach other things to but so that we have a technical labor relations bill.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So is a fixed workers' comp a technical? I mean it sounds like it's more than a technical. Well I guess sounds like

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: it's not Well think to hear from the advocates that problems that they're running into that you know people we always ask is this one or two people but when it rises to the level of a pattern that our labor lawyers are seeing you know usually that's when they bring it

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: to us and I think they can explain why. Right,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so yes we need to understand that problem our workers compensation applications being rejected right so thank you Sophie that is it so I think we will first hear from Judith and then there may be others and Kelly is here, but I think Kelly you are going to speak to this and to +1 which Thank you. It is good to have

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you back. Nice to see you, Lou.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Kiera or Jera? Kiera. Kiera. Kiera. Just think Kelly Massipa here for the Vermont Association for Justice.

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: I'm a workers compensation attorney representing injured workers for the last twenty years here in Mount Pilar with Big and Black Skinner. I really appreciate the willingness for this committee always to hear from my side of things and to be open to hearing about improvements that I think can be made not just from my side of things, for injured workers and claims attorneys, but also frankly for carriers and adjusters and the Department of Labor. This bill does first of it's really short compared to last year. Thank you. We have hot days. And the moment coming. I think that's where I heard. There's just modest changes here so far in terms of the workers' comp side of things, but what we're talking about here are the vocational rehabilitation benefits for injured workers. It's only with regards to work injuries. And really we have four main benefits in workers compensation claims. And when I explain vocational rehabilitation, first of all, many injured workers are not entitled to this benefit. The vast majority are not entitled to this benefit. It's only if the work injury leaves somebody unable to go back to the work, so that they believe they had been earning before because of the work injury, because of the work injury. So if I decided to take a year or two off and work on a farm, for example, because I just wanted to enjoy or, I don't know, go on tour with a band for a year or two, and I was earning a much lower wage and I was injured in that job, that's the wage the contractor would be required to help me replace. Not my job as an attorney, not my earning power. It's not like a personal injury claim where you can claim future loss earnings because of the full extent of my earnings. Right. It's the job I was doing at the time when I was injured. So I've got a carpenter right now who really can earn a lot more than what he was earning when he happened to have got injured. We're stuck with what the rules are, which is what was he earning in the twenty six weeks prior to the injury. So it's about the pre injury wage, the job the person was doing when they got injured, and if they had a second insurable wage, another W-two job, that counts too. And we're looking at whether the work injury has affected their ability to go back to that job after treatment, after they've done everything they can do. If somebody's education or training allows them to do some other work to reach that kind of wage, they're not going to be entitled to this benefit. So we're, it's again a very few select people who are entitled to this benefit. So it's rare that somebody might be entitled to this benefit later on and not like to be entitled altogether later on but not initially. So on page two, line twenty, twenty one, and page three, line one, where it's added there that we want this notification, it's not a new right, it just is that we want the DOL to include in their paperwork that injured workers should be aware that you might be entitled to this right down the road if you someday this injury affects your ability to earn that wage. By the way, the wage probably you were earning when you had the injury. So if I've got a client who has a bad work injury to their back at 45, had surgery, gets back to that job, works five years, that's fine, but over time can't do that job anymore and the doctors say so, the medical evidence shows that, that person may be entitled to vote rehab five years later. Same employer, same carrier, all that stuff. Many people not represented don't understand that. And maybe if they don't have a great clearance attorney they don't understand that. We want injured workers to be notified. At least the D on the paperwork. You may be entitled to this in the future if your work injury someday affects your ability to do your job. And the notification happens once they've had after they've had the injury. Correct. There is basically this ninety day trigger that happens. If somebody's been out of work ninety days, there's some paperwork that goes out by the Department of Labor asking an injured worker, are you interested in hearing about this benefit or not? You know, in a perfect world, I wish injured workers understood the extent of what because a lot of people don't return it or say no, and they don't really realize that they might be potentially giving up. I urge people to always say yes, they can always turn it down later. But when that form is filled out or sent out that ninety day out of work kind of trigger, it advises them of some rights. And I just want that notification. Claimants attorneys want this notification to be included by the Department of Labor to injured workers letting them know, hey, you might be entitled to this benefit now or in the future. It's just a notification piece. On to the screening which is It's just notification too. Yeah, it's not an invite that they already have. Correct, and they may not be entitled. It's just like you can ask about this someday. Know, someday in the future if your work injury does eventually affect affect your ability to do this very physical job or whatever your job is, you have the right to ask and inquire whether you might be entitled to this benefit down the road, even if you're not entitled to it now. And it all depends on the medical license. Obviously if the person's back at work outside of work, a car accident, something else, the comptur is not going to be on the hook for that. It has to still stem from the original work injury and the natural consequences of that injury. So on to the screening I mentioned that there's kind of this ninety day trigger when somebody's out of work to check-in with the injured worker and what's supposed to happen is the carrier is supposed to identify these people who are out of work ninety days and kind of get them in the process of being right now under the law screen to see if they might be entitled to this benefit and move on in the process. What the real formal first step is actually an entitlement assessment and that is really where they're figuring out vocational rehabilitation counselors, private VR counselors, who work for companies and you know Vermont Workers' Comp rules for VR, those people are making an entitlement assessment determination is this person entitled to be benefits or not. It may be made on very early on in the case at the ninety day mark, rarely. It may be made two years later depending on how catastrophic or where it could be made anywhere along the line. There was an attempt at some point in the last, I don't know, twenty years, I've been practicing twenty years, it was early on in my practice, to try to do this, it was included intentions to have a screening, a pre entitlement assessment stat, and farm that out to the state VR folks who don't do workers' comp VR. Right. They do state VR. And so there was this screening staff sent up to the state VR folks to do this kind of like baby screening and see, can we kind of like help facilitate and expedite the people who really need VR and get them through password? And that's what's happening, supposed to be happening under the law, is it at 90 the carrier is supposed to be uploading medical records through a state secure system through the State of Vermont to State VR folks. The State VR folks are, you know, get assigned I think at random. It might be, I don't want to say filler work, but they have assigned clients in their counties as I understand it. And so when they are able to take on extra work, they're taking on these screenings. And they're basically asking a few questions and doing the screening and deciding should this person get a real entitlement assessment now or do we hold them back and wait longer? Folks, it's not working. It's not working at all. I could bring 20 people in here to tell you it's not working well. It's delayed. The poor folks for state VR, they're well meaning, they're not well trained, they don't do workers comp VR. They don't know what the nuances are for entitlement, so they're not great at screening and it's not their fault. And the solution is not better training for them. They're not the ones who do both rehab for these injured workers. So they're really in my opinion and all the payments attorneys and I'm not sure that there would be a lot of fight, I'm interested to hear what the other stakeholders in this process have to say about it, because to me it's just much more efficient, get rid of this stream with the state VR folks and just put it back to where it was, have the Voc Rehab counselors who do Voc Rehab for injured workers get assigned and do the process as they should and when you say that process that they are reviewing after ninety days what the medical situation is with this person and what that person needs in terms of voc rehab. Right and let me be very clear it would be so great if it's happening after ninety days. It rarely happens and I have examples and I would love if this bill goes on, which I hope it does for you to hear from a voc rehab counselor possibly or two who could come in, she emailed me some examples. If there's like a case with two years the person was out of work and went through screening three times and it did not capture this person when it was obvious they needed to be moved on in the process. The big issue guys is somebody could be entitled to pretty helpful benefits. It's the range of help with a resume, interview skills. Or for somebody with a high wage who's been pretty seriously injured, it could be classes, could be help with an associate's degree, it could be pretty simple. They all work that is done with above grade F counsel. Correct. However, a person could be in terms of really substantial benefits but they don't get wage replacements tied to that time period. They moved independently. So the faster I can identify for my client, this person is likely entitled, I need to get them going on voc rehab while they're still recovering. Because sometimes we do know and the doctors do say, this person's not going back to, you know, this heavy physical work or looking at a sedentary life job. And we know they need computer skills, we know they need sedentary skills, we know they're entitled to books. So this is landings where delaying workers getting back into the workforce? Well, what it is is workers are getting delayed getting back into the workforce for sure. They also can't often use this benefit because when they're finally found entitled, they're off the weekly wage replacement and they've got to go back to work somehow to start paying the bills. The timing's off because it's not tied to them being out of work while they're recovering. So I did a lot of social security disability work. I understand Voc Rehab really well, and I'm really good at trying to get that moving. But a lot of injured workers are not even getting Voc Rehab started in earnest until they're at the end of their recovery. And even then it's a slog and it takes a long time because the process is slow. You guys did a great thing several years ago before I was involved in testimony, tying the end of the wage replacement benefits to the care you're having to show, yep, we've referred him to book rehab. They have to show that now. But I mean, that's the end of the line with their recovery process. That shouldn't be the beginning of somebody getting the conversation about going back to work and, oh, you can't go back to the employer, you need retraining, let's get started on a plan for you. Some plans are quick, they might be a month or two. Somebody might be entitled to an associate's degree that's gonna take two years because they made a $100,000 before and now they are catastrophically injured but they don't want find disability Absolutely, absolutely. So this whole screening thing is getting rid of it being in the state VR folks, this initial kind of, and it was done with good intentions, but taking it out of the state VR folks hands, keeping it within the system of comp. I think there's a lot of improvement that can be made in VR in general, but taking the screening out of it and giving us as claimants attorneys the right to initiate after ninety days if the carrier's dragged its feet and not done it. We already have the right to change counselors. So when they finally do assign somebody, have the right to immediately file the form and choose the counselor anyways. Why not let me file the format for ninety days if the carrier hasn't done it? Let's expedite it. Let's get injured workers these, you know, the crop in the process earlier. So I think Randy has a question.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: I've been just curious. Are there any measurements as to how often this happens and what the economic impact overall is for situations like this?

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: How often it happens that there's a delay? I don't know. I think it's kind of like the penalties where we didn't have a lot of information and now we've got the trying to get the data. I know again for my own, myself, my firm, the folks that I work with, we have informally a lot of information that there's a lot of delay. Mean, there's a lot of delay. I don't have our numbers. So what benefits you with delay? I'm not saying it's even purposeful. Think yeah, it's just the way the system is default. There's a bit of a benefit if I could be wearing my cynical hat. Some of these plans can be expensive and injured workers feel the crunch and they're more likely to be interested in a settlement because they feel the financial These cases don't have to settle guys. These cases remain open and people remain entitled to medical benefits even if they move on to a different job. If the evidence still shows that the original injury is still affecting them, they still might be entitled to some treatment over the years. And so carriers would love to settle these claims, be done with the risk. I'm not against settlement in theory, it depends on the terms, but a lot of injured workers feel the crunch after the recovery. They've been getting two thirds of their wage, there's more of a pressure to settle the claim, especially if, what the heck am I gonna do now? I don't have a plan in place. I haven't done retraining. I'm desperate. I'll take that lump sum they're offering. Yeah, don't want to settle, gee, I really wish now that I know that I was entitled to a CDL or I'll just, you know, CDL is frankly pretty quick compared to some of the other plans I've seen. But this is for everybody. I mean, have clients getting everything from learning to be a phlebotomist to four year degrees. Those are rare, but I've gotten clients four year college degrees because they earn those kind of wages and they were, you know, state of Vermont troopers with a high school degree earning 6 figures who can't be those troopers any longer. So how many workers' comp, how many injured workers' comp times do we have a year? Do we know? I don't know that number. I'm sorry. Do you know anything?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I mean, I heard in the past

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: David Yeah. Here half of me has in

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: the past, I've heard some of the number of things probably was out, like, nine thousand a year, something like that. Now many of these are quick injuries. They didn't come back. Most of them are litigated, but I've heard that number in the past. I could

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: be totally wrong. So I

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: think when hear from workers' comp Yeah. Of Labor, we would wanna know, Rowan, how many are in this class because this sounds like very small the most severely injured who are ninety days out you know who fits into this category There are statistics, sorry to interrupt you, Senator, there are statistics on how many people are found entitled to this benefit and then there's these return to work plans that have to be formally submitted to the Department of Labor and either they're agreed to by the carrier or we ask them to be ordered if they're denied. So there is submissions and some data on that, but that doesn't capture the large number of people who may have been entitled, who frankly were never represented and didn't even realize they were entitled, didn't utilize the system or who were represented and had a great attorney but the timing was totally off because they did not even they didn't have the jumpstart, you know, the timing was off about it. Well, yeah, it it it sounds like this could be a win win for workforce if we can get people into a plan, redeveloping their skills, and and getting back into the right job. And identifying earlier those folks. And the data says that people who are invested in forward thinking about returning to work, so even, I've had clients, we might not know for a year frankly if they're entitled, but if they're kind of touching base every so often with a counselor who's talking to them about what did the doctor say or they must so this thirty day provision would get if we do this change, this, you know, a bare simple grinder here, I'm biker because it's a new world for some of us about women's control. This would get them into a work plan and into a treatment plan faster and get them hopefully ideally back into the workforce in whatever capacity, whether that is their past job or a new career and new job training for a new job. Absolutely. A faster. Absolutely. And absolutely. That's what I'm hearing. Absolutely and let me be clear, the ninety days wouldn't change because that's already the trigger and whether the trigger is that it currently goes to screening with the State VR folks or it goes their screenings done away with and it's ninety days or it goes to the internal folks who do workers' comp here, the private folks, it's still ninety days. It's always kind of been the trigger. By the way, that doesn't even pick up everybody that it should. That's not even a great, the total scree. So what? Just my understanding that there is no work plan to get them back into the workforce or back into the other job that they were doing. That doesn't even begin until through ninety days? Correct. I mean, correct. And oftentimes even if there is the referral at ninety days, which even though by the law it should be, if the referral comes training, it often doesn't. The process of developing a plan, that takes a while. I don't want to make it sound like even if everything's done right, it's going to happen in ninety days, because that's very rare. Once in a while it does, the star is aligned, the VR counselor is really good, the person knows and they know and the medical evidence is there, but it's rare that it would even happen. I mean, I'll be honest, Voc Rehab drags on. It drags on even in the best case scenario, but getting rid of the screen, boy, would help people get started faster. A lot of that has to do with the timing of their out of work and recovering and comp is helping them by paying their wage replacement benefits. When that ends, I would be entitled to a great VR plan, who's paying my rent, my mortgage, my car payment? They're paying for these classes this and that but I can't afford to not be working. So given our time, think we have other questions on this we're going to shift to the the mediator front. If we want to get this bill up to we will hear more from you, from workers comp and from a few voc rehab people. You and David could provide some Sure, a voc rehab counselor and an injured worker maybe who went through that process the frustration because there's some people who are dying to get back to work and they're frustrated by this process. Any questions for Kelly? We'll have Kelly back. I

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: have a process question.

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: Respect for our Oh you're right. But they're seeing Kelly. Aren't they seeing

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Is this Alison if they're seeing that screen?

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: No they're seeing Kelly. They're seeing the screen up in the right corner which has Kelly and you and Tom on one side and Randy and Kesha and me on the other I believe that's correct. I just

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: want to make sure you're getting bad and free.

[Kelly Massicotte, Vermont Association for Justice]: It's that free YouTube life that you're gonna have forever. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. It's great. You. And hi, Jamie. I'm surprised to see you here on this bill.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Judith, would you be kind enough to join us and let's discuss let's just pivot to the other part of this bill, which is the mediator part. And, Judith, I don't know if you Kelly, thank you very much for coming as quickly. Thank you. We really appreciate Are you clear on who all of us are? Do have an introduction? I just David, why don't you start?

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: David Weeks, Robin Kelsey.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Sure. Thank you. I forgot about the media right now. Sure.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: Thank you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: very much.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: My name is Judith Dillon. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Labor Relations Board and the Labor Relations Board is grateful to this committee and the legislature for initiating a solution to the gap created by the loss of a robust FMCS. I would concur with the summary or the history of the FMCS provided by Legis Council for years. Although Just remind everybody what the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: FMCS stands for because some people were

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: still not in Iraq. Absolutely. Federal Mediation Conciliation Service.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Can I also ask for background because I just don't know? Vermont Labor Relations Board? Yep. Is it non profit? Does it work for Board? Sure,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: absolutely. Thank you

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: very much. The Vermont Labor Relations Board is an independent state entity that administers the seven state labor management relations acts. Most of you may be familiar with the state employee labor relations act, the municipal employee labor relations act, the judiciary labor relations act, but there are seven in total that we administer. Most of the ones that do the bulk of our business are the state employee labor relations act and the municipal employee labor relations act. And the municipal act covers municipalities as well as supervisory unions. So we handle elections to unfair labor practices involving towns, villages, school boards, and we also handle state under the state act we handle matters involving UVM, state employees, Vermont State Colleges. So it's a state entity and we have jurisdiction over and administer the state in labor management relations acts. There was reference to the National Labor Relations Act. Before just to finish on the setup

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: because we often in our appointments and we have one appointment floating out we have jurisdiction over approving who is appointed by the governor to the Labor Relations Board Judith works with the Labor Relations Board you have six members and can you just describe that that's unintentionally designed to

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: be balanced. Absolutely. So the board the work of the board and decisions are made by the six member Vermont Labor Relations Board which are citizens of Vermont that come two of them come from a labor background, two come from a management background, and two are neutral, meaning that they don't have any history of affiliation, or leadership with either labor or management. And the board itself is staffed by myself and one clerk

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: so it's

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: a lean mean entity that does a lot of work for workers and financial stability in the state.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And if you kind of give a a notion of the caseload that you have, is it significant? I

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: just finished drafting our annual report so in 2025 we administered 62 cases which is anything from an election petition to an unfair labor practice to a grievance. We didn't have any impasses this year, which is the touching on the subject of of the proposed legislation. But it's it's a lot of work that we handle. The board itself met four times for board meetings. It met 17 times to deliberate, meaning come to a decision on 17 matters. We held hearings during that period of time, and we also held, elections during that period of time. So it's a very, dynamic we don't control the flow of work coming to the Vermont Labor Relations Board. It comes as the employees might have a grievance and it trickles through the internal grievance process of the state or, of UBM or BSC or if there is a unfair labor practice, we don't we have no control over it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we we don't have

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: a slow season or a busy season. So that's generally the work of the board. So what my understanding the purpose of this legislation is to direct address the loss of mediators that provided free and that's significant. They provided free free mediation services to labor and management engaged in contract negotiation impasse. What that means is during the creation of a collective bargaining agreement, which is a contract that dictates the terms and conditions between and the rules of the road between labor and management. While they're negotiating that, they might arrive at a sticking point and they just can't get over that hump. And the neutral mediators that FMCS has provided over the years, number one, they're trusted. They were trusted and respected and both labor and management, my understanding, have respected the work that they do, but they're able to come in and offer an experienced impartial eye in helping the parties get over that home to resolve the disagreement they might have regarding an issue.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And now with the cuts we have fewer and they've been regional in the past? Yeah,

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: based in the Albany area and for decades there was consistency too. There was one mediator that was working for us ten plus years and then our most recent mediator out of the Albany office had been working for, I think it was eight to ten years. But they didn't just provide assistance to labor disputes involving, excuse me, public impasses between labor and management regarding cases or the jurisdiction of the Labor Relations Board, they also involved and got involved with private disputes which are those disputes or those types of relationships governed by the National Labor Relations Act. For example, UVM, UVM hospital, should say, UVM hospital, when they would have a dispute regarding their unionized labor and unionized workers and hospital administration, the FMCS would get involved in those types of disputes. One thing I wanted to mention, there is a kind of a statutory formal process of the evaluation and there's also an informal process. The formal process is the impasse, which is what I've just described. During the course of negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement or a successive bargaining agreement, the parties get stuck on one or more issues, and the mediator helps them get get through that and to get them to a contract where they can agree and hopefully ratify. There's also more of an informal and and for the process for appointing that mediator, the parties, let's say for example Vermont State Colleges, they're trying to negotiate a successor contract between, you know, one unit of their workforce and the administration.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: They get stuck.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: They inform the Vermont Labor Relations Board we've reached an impasse on this issue for the entire thing most of the time it's one or more issues regarding a particular contract. We would like to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the board to appoint a mediator.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: Most of the time because everybody worked with FMCS because it was free when submitting the request for mediation they would identify the mediator that they want the board to appoint and within five days, know within one or two days the board would appoint order the mediator to conduct the mediation. A similar process takes place with the Department of Labor regarding, impasses involving the municipal statute. So if there's an impass regarding the municipal statute, labor and management collectively ask the commissioner of the Department of Labor to appoint a mediator. And my understanding through conversations with union representatives as well as David Weeks who's one of our board members who for years worked for Vermont NEA and had engaged in labor negotiations for decades, well for at least ten years, they would go to the Department of Labor and the Department of Labor would pick the FMCS, the FMCS mediator. Again because they're respected, trusted and most importantly free.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So now with these cuts we're looking at, because our time is up with little child and then we'll come back to this. We're now looking at federal cuts, yet another federal cut which we're being asked to fill with state money, which may be appropriate. But we're as you know, we have a lot of them. We are now instead of using going to a pool of mediators and taking advantage of that. We're now looking at having our own full time mediator who would do private and public sector mediations. Is that correct? I just wanted

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: to The language is public and private. So Yeah. Board If that's what yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. And the question, I guess, I have for you is, in cases of year, do you use a mediator for? I mean, is does this do we can we justify a full time mediator in Vermont when we used to just go and meet as a on an as needed basis, go and ask our mediator from this pool of people in Albany? If if you're including all public and

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: private, absolutely. And you would you would also need more than one in the event of a conflict or in the event that there was more than one negotiation happening at the same time and there was a request for mediation services during the same period of time. So for example, in New York, they have, you know, a panel of mediators. We're not New York. Much more nimble, but they also have contract mediators just for that purpose. If there is a conflict situation or if they need to go beyond that one mediator or within their panel to kind of cover the overflow. If you're just looking at those cases that I've identified, those impasse cases that come to the Vermont Labor Relations Board, I would say no, you know, because traditionally there were four, you know, on average about four of those impasse requests a year to us. That's not counting how many would go to the Department of Labor and that's not counting all that went to, that avail themselves of FMCS through the private in the private sector.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So how many cases a year and then we've just got to pivot to our next decision our 125. I guess my question is how many cases a year do you see this mediator taking on?

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: I think to get that answer you would need to confer with folks from UVM and other private sector folks and the Commissioner of the Department of Labor to get a full picture of that. I began to reach out to people and I didn't get all of the information I was looking for. I do have information about the cost of mediators in other states that I could provide either now or subsequent.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think let's do it subsequently when we take this up and discuss it more fully. Yeah. But I think need to appreciate the problem. Yeah.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: And the problem is Yeah and if I could just add, I think the Legislative Council referenced that FMCS is rebuilding. I'm not sure if that's what I think they, in light of injunctions that have come out, slowly some of the former mediators are returning, but in the twenty sixth budget it's significantly less than prior year and it really only allows for approximately 18 mediators and that the yeah. And and that they're looking to close the agency. That's my understanding of reading from media reports, Bloomberg labor so I think this committee can do its own investigation about that but I would just caution you that golly I don't know that we're on the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: upswing from the impact of the cuts. And even something being modest before.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: And just in issues that the board had regard or questions for you to think about as you're hashing through this is there's reference to that VGS should pay for space. Ultimately if that's the case our budget needs to reflect that because they'll charge us for space. So what the dollar amount that was included would we need to increase and obviously I'd like you know we have an opportunity to flush that out

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: with you. Judith thank you very much. We ourselves this is so grateful we'd be kind enough to get additional witnesses you think are appropriate for this section that would be great Okay. And if there's anybody from the feds that you think we should hear from as well. Okay. You. Yeah. No. Thank you. And you mentioned UBM in the private sector. Maybe we get a blunt person from Yeah.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: I just I'm throwing in a name just because I know he's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Let's if we could do if you could kind of So here. Absolutely. That would be great. Thank you very much. This helps present the challenges we face in both these. Sophie, would you kind of come back? We have Tim, hi. It's good to see you. We're gonna give it to Tim in a in a minute. But first, we're gonna make a decision a decision about work of ours last year, F-one 125, our decertification, judiciary labor bill that we passed last year that was vetoed as you'll recall S-one 125 we're going to review it quickly with Sophie and then we're going to discuss whether we want to take it up again or not.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I would just say beforehand, I don't think it's worth using our precious time on something that the governor has already expressed a veto on, so I don't want to go through the same motions. If there was something to change that we're going to consider on this, then sure, but other than that we are always pressed for time, so I'm less interested in taking something up that's just not going

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: to get across the vision storm.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. I appreciate that and I'm just gonna have somebody just quickly remind us what was in the bell and then let's have our discussion. Thank you for your vote.

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right. Yeah. So s 125 went to quite a metamorphosis. I asked Sierra to provide a document that we had looked at last time which was what the house did you know took the senate bill and then what the house did but in brief what S 125

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: would have done would

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: have allowed judiciary supervisors to organize and bargain collectively. Currently they're

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: excluded from the definition

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of employee under the judiciary employee labor relations act and then the other big piece of F125 was it would have increased the required threshold of showing of employee interest to decertify an incumbent union from 30% to 50% plus one to trigger a secret ballot election and that's under each of Vermont's seven labor relations acts. Right. So it passed the feedback in that form from the house. The senate passed the house version. It went to the governor and again I think you have the governor's We have to be on that as well. Right and I did speak to the secretary of the senate about what happens when it comes back to committee and he advised that the committee can either sort of vote it back out as is, could leave it on the wall but you can't change the bill. If there's things in the bill that you like that would you'd probably need to put this in a different bill unless you were going to move this forward as is to senator Chittenden's appointment.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So thank you. That's very helpful. It is a decision we I think I thought we needed to make together. And so, Kesha, what are your feelings? Twice shy, yes. Well, you know, as

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: someone who advocated for the bill, I would just say I don't think this was necessarily based on the merit of the issue that the governor vetoed the bill and we have a unanimously supported labor organizing amendment to the constitution that will be on the ballot for Vermonters in November. So I appreciate that the committee forwarded this once, and there's a record of us being consistent in supporting the right to organize. I think, I mean, we've now heard that three people would be opposed to moving it forward again, but the record stands in this committee that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That we supported it. You did support it. As did the senate. I mean, it is it's just in the wake of the political realities of our body, and the votes we have to override a veto would be very difficult. So I think it pragmatically, it makes sense for this issue to lie for a month before a a year and be readdressed next by a new by a fresh set of eyes, but I think these are important issues.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: I appreciate you giving it a few minutes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah. Well, we did have time to call precisely, but didn't we have a split vote on this process of of these provisions?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: And then the issue of the judiciary supervisors in which there

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: was opposition, and I

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: I believe I I voted opposed to that. Although I voted for the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: The lawyer bill in its entirety.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. No. And we appreciated that. And so I think given where we are at the moment I think this bill should be this issue should be taken up again in the next biennium and would encourage for all of us who are around next session to readdress it in some capacity and with that I think we say thank you to Sophie. I think we needed to have this conversation. I'm not sure this, I think our labor energies are better spent elsewhere this session unfortunately because I think some of us cared about this bit, so anyway thank you very much Tofi, I think we are done with labor for the moment because we had two economic development, what this is last, who weren't able to join us yesterday and so so the attorney. So Tim, come and join us. David, thank you. JP, thank you. Sophie, thank you. So you'd be in touch with care about initial witnesses, that would be great. That'd be great. Same with Rowan. So

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: it sounds like step up and people leave the room. Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's a mass exodus except for an intern. It is wonderful to have you back in

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: this community. Yes. Wonderful to hear.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And our we are looking forward to hearing how things are. It's been a tough year in some ways for you with our Canadian partners. But if can kind of introduce yourself and give us an update on where things are and what we might be doing to further improve and build bridges with our also valued Canadian partners in the economic development we would have.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Yes, well good morning everybody. So Tim Tierney and I'm the director of business recruitment and international trade in the department of economic development for the agency of commerce and community development. And today I want to actually expand not only on how we're dealing with Canada, but the rest of the So basically I'm just going give you a brief summary of what we're doing internationally and try and all the things that we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: intend What we can continue to do to build business, things that help you with your recruitment efforts. I mean, are the key things we need Yeah. Moving

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Definitely. Well, I mean, obviously, last year, it was about a year ago, right about now, we had a new tariff announcements and obviously we had to react a lot a lot of different ways. I know that even your committees and other folks here had different resolutions and, you know, factors and and a lot of it was us kind of maintaining information and providing information to our businesses and we still have that information on our site because the tariffs are ever changing. So, duties, but, one thing we did have a congressional, designated spending request and that move was moving really well was basically, this is obviously federal congressional it was moving really well until the government shut down. And so I don't know we don't know where that stands, but it was basically that we were even gonna try to provide a cadre of experts that we could provide to small businesses to help navigate tariffs and duties and markets. We'll see where that stands, but we know we try to do that on our own, but this was kind of elevated to a bit. We are still involved with our senator Peter Weltshops. He's still doing roundtables. He's doing another one next week to follow-up with companies that he met with originally. So I'm gonna be on that roundtable, and it's great to hear what's going on and see the impacts. Because a lot of our the impacts are are we don't it's hard to measure because everyone has different varying degrees and it was just an ever changing landscape as you know. So it was I mean, that was the hardest thing for companies and you've heard it before. It was the nothing could be set in stone. It was not knowing. Think that would bother some businesses. But obviously, some businesses have improved their supply chain and looking at how they can do something. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We we know it's continuing to be an ever changing landscape as we see data. Any data? Because yesterday,

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: we we got a fantastic briefing from tourism Or the Canadian expenditures in The US dropping 47% over the period. What are you

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: presenting business data? Well, there there's it it's just traffic data. There's not too much business data. So I wish I had more concrete, and it's so anecdotal from business to business to business. So I I not and then where it lies. And I mean, one thing that we've seen is we have from the steel and metal companies, that's where I get most of the requests about people looking to enter The US. And a lot of those turfs were there before, and I think now they're thinking of it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But they've been attitude.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: They've been attitude and gone down and you're right so it's a whole but I get that's where we get companies that are looking to basically expand here into The US and into Vermont that's where I'm getting most of that inquiry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So it's from going by having it anchored here they avoid the tariffs. Correct.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Right. So sometimes it's warehousing or sometimes it's actually using our contracting companies that maybe produce their product too. That's a good thing too. Mean we look at certain things that are good for Vermont.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. But how many I mean, I think what David what we'd all love is a notion of how many companies a year, what your goals are. I mean, is your goal to recruit? I mean, it's tough because it's a it's a Right. But I mean, you must have goals for recruitment, you must have and you must have some data on companies that actually have now created and anchored a presence here in The United in Vermont. Yeah. And, well,

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I think we and, you know, it's it's not the quickest process moving a company over. So a lot of it is development. I mean, companies I talked to two years ago, they're just getting their real estate through now. They're working all their different applications. They're building their capital in certain ways and figuring out visas. I mean, it takes a while, but we do have okay. Sorry.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: I just wanted to add that some go in number, it's a trend. Whatever you can provide on trends is Yeah. So it's Sure. Well, know what?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: You trend that we're seeing is that there is now I just

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: want to emphasize that because lots of times in these break ins we get numbers, we don't get trends. Trends are

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Well, the one trend we're seeing now is that, you know, still we are the market for the worse. We are and people I think there was a reaction obviously to the dichotomy that happened and now people realize that, you know, they need our market. That's always going to remain that we've seen that more people are actually contacting us now. I mean, we have inquiries in Ennisburg. We have inquiries in Richford. We got people looking at facilities in Saint Johnsbury. I mean, they're always you sound like they're right over the border because I think that's

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: the first place they look.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And from the Quebec side of things, so that's just recent since December we have these three inquiries.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's right.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: So it's a new, so it's opening up again and they're looking to come and invest, think is a key thing. Know what we've done to help, and you might be aware

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of some of these things,

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: it was actually like we want to go up and maintain those relations and the importance of Quebec and Canada relations and how important is to Vermont's culture and economy. So we've made some efforts. We had the boat ride event for Mayagog where we put 30 people on the boat.

[Sophie Sedatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You're meant to be invited.

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: I love that boat.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And that was a great thing. Putting people on. We and actually that helped out tourism a lot. Eastern Township started working with Commissioner Pelham and they worked on this co branding and and you know trying to work because they were affected too, right? So those kind of things, that's a great effort. All we can continue to do is to provide those kind of connections. We're very we're very close to the parliamentary members and the Canadian consulate, course.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Do you have a question?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: I mean I feel like this is a bit self serving though I'd only be taking time away from my family if it was helpful to the relationship. I'll be in Ottawa for Winterlude which is like their landmark event in mid February with my family and I often get just random one off emails if there's someone from Sherbrooke or Quebec City or the Consulate that's Is it helpful if

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: I go through you to say like our Senate Majority Leader will be so

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I think that'd great and I think there's our parliamentary members that are from the Sherbrooke or right across the board and then those things in there understand it or we could definitely make a connection.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: I think they would love never been to Ottawa, so I didn't know So we're

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: talking about Hilton Waterloo. That's interesting. There

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: That's interesting.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's is. It's a Waterloo, sir.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I know. I'm saying, but it's not Hilton Waterloo. That's why I'm just making a joke. So that's that winter is not held in water.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: They It's winter lewd. Oh, winter lewd. I thought it

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: was winter lewd. I'm sorry. Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: No. Winter events. Like Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Like

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And I love that skating on the Exactly.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: It's a ball. It my husband remembers

[Judith Dillon, Executive Director, Vermont Labor Relations Board]: it from his childhood.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: So, anyway, I've never been to Ottawa, and it's, like, if it's helpful to say,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you know That's great.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I think that to continue those connections and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, I don't have any connections.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: But I think Or we can think you'll have you will make connections if we connect.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: If you connect us. Yeah. So I don't know if you care. Like, I I know if I should email you. I'm doing I think that would be

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: great, and I think all of us need to be ambassadors in that regard and then we travel to any country. I mean, we did this when we went to Taiwan. Right. And we went and and met the companies that we

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member; Senate Majority Leader)]: What's your email?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: It's tim dot tyerney, tierney,@vermont.gov. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I didn't have it saved in the mail. Okay. Keep going. Keep going.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: So and, obviously, we maintain a I mean, we made a lot a lot of connections there, and we continue to utilize our in market representative that we have in Canada. And I I don't know you can't see this. I mean, I could have sent this report to you yesterday, but I can do it afterwards. This is just what we did in 2025. And if you see all these people here, these are folks that they contacted. These are all the folks that we actually I met with that they brought to us. And then out of that, these people had a visit. And out of that we received this one company from last year. But that's how it works, that's kind of the pipeline it's going to take, it's it's speed dating with companies so I can send that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to you. And Tim this is as a result of our investment in the Quebec office.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: That is correct. So they what they do is they provide the leads

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: for us. They're out there

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: contacting post representing Vermont in Quebec. They provide the leads. I meet with them and and then we see what their interest rate is. For example, this and then we show them all the different programs that we have. We're introducing them to capital folks, depending on what they're looking for. And a lot of it tends to do with facilities, right? That's the run of it. Does the facility work for them? How quickly can they get in the facility? Are they truly ready? But a lot of times, these people are thinking about it now, but they're really planning for a year and a half, two years out in their company. So it's just an interesting thing staying in touch.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The trend sounds like She was

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: a professor for my daughter this year.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The trend seems to be a sort of a big stall after the initial launch of '25, and then now as things sort of should bring up and settling a bit more interest beginning now, '26, it sounds like we're we're getting a few more, the antennas are going up.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: That is exactly, we're like we're seeing more and it's and then that is the trend. And and again, the trend always was we were we are the market, no matter where we are in the world, right?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So talk about the rest of the world. So I mean, well, one thing is that we can talk about so I'm first I was

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: gonna mention to you that we also internationally, we have the state trade expansion program.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I don't know

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: how you're familiar with that. It's a small business administration grant that we have applied for since 2012 and we've always received it. We applied for the step 13 as we call it, the thirteenth iteration of it and we receive about quarter million dollars a year to help export companies, from all companies export or get into compliance or attend trade shows or find new markets through market research. But that was stalled with the government shutdown. And so we're pretty worried that we're going to receive these funds. We just got worried that that it is alive in the federal government, but we just don't know for sure if there's going to be a whole federal allotment to help all the states out, so that every state gets it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: How many companies in the past, thirteen years in the past, have taken advantage of that?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Oh, a lot. I mean, I mean, last year, we had 42 companies utilize our those products to varying degrees, whether it was helping out with customs compliance or or marketing to some folks attended three trade shows or going to a large trade show in Germany or Dubai. I mean, so that's what we help them with different eligible expenses. So it's a big it's our only money that we have to help out our exporting things of the world. So it's important that that we get this and then hopefully if we don't get it this year, was like, we're just like, we get it next year? I mean, can we for the next July 1 or

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: October 1? It's supposed to be that this federal government would support for it like that.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: You would think. Right? I think I think it was just in the the bureaucracy level. Shut down. And then also I think the fact is who's left there that knows something. We've seen the impact. We work very closely with the US commercial service. And luckily our representative here in Vermont is still with us. She's been at the job for a long time and she's a true partner, but she's been limited on travel. So it's kind of interesting that she can't attend, she can't travel to Burlington or get reimbursed to travel to Burlington kind of thing. So I mean, it's all these little things that are working on, but she's still a strong component. But we've seen up there was 12 people up in Montreal that we used to connect with and there's one person left in Montreal in the US Commercial Service. So those are effects that impact us. US is Commercial under the International Trade Agency and they basically their main task is to help companies that are export ready buying markets around the world. So they tend to be their trade experts, I would say, or export experts. And they just and we're lucky to have Susan Murray who's been here for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a long long time and knows a lot

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: of folks and helps us with a

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: lot of training. Actually I think they help our companies learn how to become better exporters and that's a key

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: for us. And how many, if you were able to give us a notion, many of our companies are, well that's hard to ask how many export but it's a huge number too.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Right and it's all very too right? Yeah. You know we have some very large, mean obviously Beta is a large, gonna be large exporter. We have darn tough actually is a Is a huge exporter. Huge exporter. And and Clark Indiana. And Clark is a stellar star exporter making the cookie cutters and some of the food color dye they do. Interesting enough, it's a really big export to England because they've come up with food dye that matches all the soccer keys in England. So people make cookies of that color and it's taken off like crazy genius.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I made that for art. Yes.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I mean obviously there's a and you know Burton snowboards we have a lot of Orbus, we have a lot of large exporters in this state. And then we have a lot of small exporters, just people sending things to Canada. Right? So so it's interesting. And and it's actually helping them navigate that, and it it is a lot to it. So it implies. And and I think the difference was last year is we never really had to work with importers. We were really focused on exporting and then Yeah. And and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the tariffs kind of split

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: the script a little bit. So and realizing that's where we need that, trying to get some help navigating that. So I'm gonna flip over to the recruitment side beyond Canada. And when this would actually have to do with Canada too, last February we signed a Northeast manufacturing corridor memorandum

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: of agreement

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: with companies and province of Quebec regarding semiconductor manufacturing knowing that they have a very large packaging semiconductor packaging in Bromont Quebec. We're here in Burlington or Essex, and then there's right in Fishkill or Albany, New York is another one. In the world map, we're a quarter, we're on a straight line, we're in the belt of Orion, And we're trying to like grow that and strengthen that to know that we want to become a place where people are looking at semiconductor manufacturing that not only it's really close proximity, but also out of New England is the largest workforce development in that field. So we're trying to become almost a Silicon Valley for semiconductor manufacturing. And with that, it changes where we're looking to go recruit companies, knowing that we are the middleman in this really strong corridor. And so now we're hiring representative to go to Malaysia and Singapore just to find supply chain folks. Those are markets that are very strong and get these supply chain folks that can come here and now they can be in this belt, so to speak, that we're creating here. So we're actually sending someone there early February to go recruit companies, meet with folks, and this is all under the SelectUSA program, which is another US commercial service program that their embassies go recruit in those countries. These companies, so they're doing the work, they're vetting the companies, they're looking at the recruiting and we show up and meet with them. So it could be impossible for us to do that otherwise.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That would be exciting. Exciting. Town valley of the Northeast is, you know, I think of Massachusetts and the Belfi, the Route 28 Belfi being that certainly we could give them the run for their money we would hope. Well Massachusetts is

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: actually providing a lot of that workforce right and so and they'd

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: rather be living in Vermont. I think anything to help what you heard from having two yesterday, is a little discouraging, and anything to affect this 51 out of 51 states or territories in terms of economic momentum, anything that we are doing to build our economic momentum for our businesses and our business.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Yeah and this is one of I think the key factors and that people realize that we need to sell this either I mean pitching this, strengthening it, actually being a strong partner with New York and Quebec and maintaining that. So I see that we we need this is it has to be a focus. It is a focus. I was just in New York City at that's very, very exciting that I think people are knowing and realizing. And people don't realize that Vermont was the first IV in the path here, right? So we have a long history here of semiconductor manufacturing. And then also the UVM with you know GAN technology. I don't I know I can say it. I don't know. But basically it's the you know very cutting edge technology in the semiconductor world and working on that and strengthening that tech hub and growing our workforce and growing our knowledge. It's very important. What are

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we doing to enable that advanced manufacturing for our companies? What are we

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: They are they're working on laboratory advancements, collaboration with universities and other lab techs up in Quebec and in New York. They're trying to collaborate to strengthen this whole quarter, so to speak. And also they're working on having designated programs at UVM that are producing people that are in this field and know that's coming out of college. So I think it's all, know, getting the ball rolling here, right? Another company, so when we go look out at future markets too, we're looking at people that have very similar or the ties to us, Vermont, they understand Vermont, get Vermont, or it's actually going to work for us. So Austria has been a company, a country that we've really been focusing on because we're so similar with our terrain and geography, but our size of our company, I think that takes it we're very closely tied Austria. So we're gonna spend a lot of time with that too. I'll be going to Austria next week on another recruitment trip. We're we're meeting with companies in Vienna and this town of Graz, which is in Mysteria, and we're hoping that we'll get some of good companies out of there. There's so many different sectors that we have time to they basically manufacture all our wood boiler and wood furnace or biomass furnaces here in our state that we use in all our public buildings, And I think a good future would be for them to start producing components here in our state because we are such a big user and a lot of folks that are involved in that sector. So that we're working on that. And there's always tech. Tech is an easy one to sell no matter what. Biotech, Infotech, Meditech, I mean, you name it, we're gonna try to look for tech companies too. Those are easy pullovers. We also another interesting one is Iceland. So we had a woman that moved here from Holland. She was basically created a political party in Iceland, moved here with her husband, lives on Grand Isle,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and her name is Heideh Helgegardotter, and Yes.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And she was so surprised with all the things that we had here in Vermont and what a vibrant tech community and our our entrepreneurship. So did

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: the same program your daughter's in. She was in

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: here before. Correct. And that's kinda how we met Hey, though. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And somehow she was interviewed, I feel like, on Vermont Edition,

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: which is She didn't leave here. She's familiar. Yes. She came in once. Didn't she

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: come in? I think she's in intervened listening for one of our company. Could be.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I think she said she was at the State House too.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: She was. Yeah. We met her. We all met her the other day. I went

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: to Iceland to go meet with Business Iceland, is basically their private public partnership to go increase business in Iceland. And they are it's one the few countries that have less people than Vermont. But Yeah. Talk about that about a country that punches above their weight. Mhmm. And now they understand that not only the importance of tourism, which is new to them, but also the importance of the need to find foreign markets in this really strong. So they will they really like it. And actually we had a webinar yesterday with 16 Icelandic companies and we have another one next week with more companies talking about Vermont as a soft landing place because we're very supportive of The US market. It doesn't matter if you come into The US, but we are a very supportive place for Icelandic companies to land into The US market. So that's what we're really pushing. And a lot of it's because of her too, her connections. I went over there to visit them and she knew every single person on the street. So she's just a great person. But that kind of pie has really made us like, Iceland, who would have thunk it? But it's really paying off and I think that will continue to pay off and it just happens to be the strength of that relationship. And I would say, know, there's obviously there's all kinds of things and we stay involved in so many different ways. I mean, I belong to so many different groups, all councils, state governments that you're aware. I mean, we work with our CSG East on the state with the Eastern Trade Council, which is the 11 Northeast states, and we work a lot trying to work together, but also build up our regional trade with different companies and knowing best practices. We're also on the New England Canada Business Council which does a lot of trying to keep that relationships going. A lot of it is utilities and fuel oil.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's a big component of what they're doing,

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: but that's important to all of us, you know. And yeah. So I mean it's it it takes a lot. It's it's a it's a complex web sometimes, but obviously keeping these things going and keeping us vibrant is is the key here that we need to stay as an international We need to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: stay and grow vibrant. So I guess my ask, alright, is what can we do initially to improve the scenario that was painted yesterday, if I could, terms of our business recruiting new businesses, growing our businesses, that's less you, but I mean recruiting new businesses and really what could we do to really help your work? And you know, you're in the economic development committee, you're where your partner is here, what can we advocate for in your budget, What can we do to in addition to that, what can we do to help recruit more businesses to Vermont?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Well, can tell you that. So the CDP, which is the company that's our in market representative in Canada, that whole contract ends this October. And I would say that and that means we'd have to go put it up to bid again to find another representative. But I think the importance of having a Canada in market representative is crucial, and I believe we do have an ask in for that. To whom? That's a great question. I just know it was in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the So if if we're not advocating for it, and I think in this budget Yes. We have to be able to be clear on why we're advocating for it, what the amount is, and because we would want probably for that.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And is this enough of my I believe it's $1.50 for two years. Is my

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I thought it was 300 for two years.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: But yeah. Okay. We can clarify that. Try not to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: get that figure for us. Correct. Remind us show us that chart again. The 25 to one.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I will yeah. Send I'll send the whole cdap report that they have over the years. And obviously, you know, I think, you know, we still have the rural industrial development program which is out there, which is basically what came out of this committee to help with, about keeping facilities going through our regional development corporations. And I think, you know, there is some funds there left. I think that's always a key factor is sometimes it all comes down to our availability of facilities and lack thereof. You know, do have some

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So is that an issue that we need to be working with our RDCs?

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Well, I think I mean, we're trying to provide new funds and we did provide new funds and it was basically growing 20%. This is my opinion solely that the 20% was kind of the it was hard for them to come up with the 80%. I think it was the we thought it was gonna go right away, but I think it was them being coming up with a

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: It is. How about the shift for facilities? Well,

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Chip, we work for facilities too. Right? So We have this conversation. Very housing. Yeah. Very, housing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You create one for for industry as well.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And and then I know that there's a land bank.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And then and then I know it's that's where you've been housing centric but I mean, when I looked at it, I said, you know, that is a great thing for also these like commercial properties or some of these other things that are out there. And that's it's just another retail, commercial, industrial properties. I mean, a land bank can be used for that as well. I think other states, that's one of the critical things that they do with the land bank as well. Just saying that's another good way to re up facilities. But again, it's a hard one. I mean, as far as that goes. And then obviously, I had an intern do a whole, which I can get to you if you're interested, compiled all the different incentives around our country that other states use. And and diving into that, I mean, obviously, it's gonna take another think of what what and we try to do comparison, like, do we rate rank there. And what

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: do we offer and what that we offer.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: And right. What do offer and what other states offer? Are doing things more efficient or what's, you know, what's working for them is probably the next step on that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But you're learning every time a company says, no. I'm gonna go to Maine instead of, no. I'm gonna go to New York. You're hearing what it is that those states offer that we don't that are answering their need and I think that would be more interesting for us to address rather than all the incentive programs that we obviously don't offer and can't afford to necessarily, but what are the few that we could be reviewing and considering David?

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: And what impediments can be removed? Exactly. Right. So we all agree. Yeah. You know, there

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: any connection between what Kevin Chittenden is doing and that kind of information in terms

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of feeding

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: into his work? I don't know if Kevin has used this work that we did in interim district. It makes sense. I mean, Kevin's doing and what it brings in. But it's just interesting because it's right. Some people said really good ideas that you never thought of and that and that's what we're trying to look. Or like you said, the impediments or, you know, regarding whatever it is. I mean, we're really competing with Upstate New York. Tend to be the place that's gonna actually people are gonna go there. I mean, obviously, they have a larger population to the south of them that can provide more resources. You

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: are sitting next to a bottle of I think that's what I said.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Yes. Well, you know, we but there's some point they're going to, you know, pass them. Yeah. You know, some of these other places because they can mistake and buy them a building. And it's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a little rough. Or give it to them.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Give it to them.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But we have vacant lighted non code compliant buildings that we could improve and give to them as well.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: But but the key factor is the key factor about what I'm saying is our Vermont brand, I think is one of the strongest state brands there are. And that is a selling point that, you know, made New York. Can can I say that? I mean, it just doesn't match with made in Vermont. Right. It's it I mean, we do have that. That is so strong. I think we need to start pressing that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That leads into the industrial world as well. I mean, yes, that's true. So So For other other pieces.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: I mean, like I said, furniture. I mean, you you ain't got it even gloves. I mean Oh, sand. Apparel. Right? So I mean, just the made in Vermont just has a whole different meaning to

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: folks. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you'd be kind enough to, if you'd bring us back sort of some some barriers you think we could be addressing in some of the most creative incentives that we that that would be adorable for us to offer, I think we'd appreciate that. If you were able to do that Sure. In the next week or two, that would be very helpful.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Deep dive. Here we go. Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Unless there are other questions for Tim, I think we're gonna take our break, Mhmm. And we're gonna come back at 10:45 and meet with Joan Goldstein, who's our new head of the Vermont Economic Development Agency I know. Authority.

[Tim Tierney, Director of Business Recruitment and International Trade (VT Dept. of Economic Development)]: Yeah.