Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Rutland. Welcome back to the Senate Government Operations Committee meeting of Wednesday, 01/14/2026. So we got a better than hour presentation from the Department of Public Safety, which I appreciate. I thought that was very well done. And we walked through Senator Watson's bill, S-one 164, and we are now going to take a look at S-two 29, which is Senator Vyhovsky's bill, minus legislative counsel who are tied up with all a bunch of other stuff today. I'll just turn it over to Senator

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Vyhovsky for a walkthrough.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Sounds good. I will do my best to run through what the bill does as well as speak to why it does it. I will start. I'm not gonna rehash s 39 as the previous witnesses did that, But I I too would have spoken to plenty of people who find both the lack of access to benefits and and the low pay to be real barriers to serving. It's certainly been an assessment I've had to make each year. I take a major pay cut as a social worker to be here. And so I came at this from another angle. What this bill does immediately or immediate not immediately, but beginning, the 01/01/2027 is exactly what was in s one sixty four. If you look at the last two and a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: half pages of this bill, it's exactly the same.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: What this bill also does is it establishes a legislative compensation commission. And so that would take the decision of legislative pay out of the henums of the legislature. We would no longer be responsible for setting our own pay. There are, I believe, 22 other states that do this this way. And the legislative commission, as it is proposed in this bill, most similarly follows the commission in the state of Kansas. So this would create the Legislative Compensation Commission. The commission would so nobody who is a current member of the General Assembly or a current employee of the General Assembly or registered lobbyist could serve on the commission. Smart. The commission shall be composed of of the following members, three individuals, not all from the same party, and one of whom is a former member of the general assembly appointed by the speaker, and three individuals, not all of the same party, one of whom is a former member of the general assembly appointed by the committee on committees, so that's sort of house and senate representation. One individual appointed by the governor in the governor's sole discretion. And the members of the commission shall be appointed on or before February 1 of the first year of the Biden Hill. So anything that comes out of the commission would not apply to the sitting legislature, but the next legislature. The term of the appointment of each commission member shall be two years and vacancies shall be billed in the manner as So if someone were to resign that was appointed by the House, the House would appoint that re yes. I hear you. The speaker shall select the first chair of commission, and the committee on committees shall select the vice chair. Going forward, it will alternate whether it's a senate appointee or a house appointee who's chair or vice chair. The first meeting shall be held on October 31 of the first year of biennium. Commission shall elect our clerk. A lot of this is sort of boilerplate language for for its end commissions. A majority of the members of the commission shall constitute a court. Any action can be taken by the commission shall be done by the majority vote. The commission shall have administrative and technical assistance of the legislative office of human resources and the joint fiscal office. And the reason those were selected is what we heard a lot during, S 39 was that any changes that we would make in these areas would impact those offices. And so we made the decision, plus the human resources people are great. People to talk to about benefits and joint fiscal are great people to talk about money. And then the duties and recommendations. So in the first year that the Compensation Commission exists, there's a much longer list of things that it is supposed to look at than the subsequent years. So in the first year, I've asked them to look at compensation benefits, staffing, administrative support, the length of the legislative setting, the current composition of benefits offered to members, including whether the salaries and benefits are sufficient, how they might be increased, the impact of current salaries and benefits on recruitment and retention of members from diverse backgrounds, whether members should be offered benefits in addition to participating in the state employee's health plan, such as reimbursement of child and dependent care, elder care expenses, retirement, whether members should have the option to receive prorated salaries throughout calendar year instead of receiving their full so it really looks at the whole broad spectrum of benefits and salary and how that would best be put forward, whether there should be supplemental compensation for members who hold leadership positions, such as the speaker of the house, the pro tem, caucus leaders, committee chairs, what the structure or how the structure of our benefits and compensation compare to other state legislatures, and how the salaries and benefits and compensation compare to the mean and median compensation and benefits of general Vermont residents. And whether there's any changes to the general staffing meeting, whether there needs to be an increase in the number of legislative staff offices, whether there needs to be caucus staff or personal legislative staff. And this is a question, not a requirement. These are all questions to the TAP course in the first year, including increases, whether there should be increases to administrative support. And then after the first year, the commission shall shall report, bienniality, a written recommendation that establishes the rate of compensation and expense reimbursement for the members of the general assembly, potentially for if if the first commission decides that leadership should get more, they would establish those rates as well. And the commission's recommendation shall be delivered to the general assembly on or December 15 of the first year of each biennium. And they will go into effect unless the legislature votes to decline them. This is and then

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Or even the pay act, we'd have to be too oh, no. I mean

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: part of the reason and I think part of the reason we really struggled with S39 is that it is very difficult to be in a public position where you're being asked to set your own pay. Mhmm.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. I I I think that every public corporation does that. I mean, so many other institutions do that too much difficulty. It is puzzling to me why we have so much difficulty with this. It's we're all proud of our work and proud of what we do. It it is spent to save money, so it is it'll be, I think, hard to not have any vote on it.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We can vote on it if we're voting to reject the recommendation. But if we did vote to reject them, it would go back to the commission to propose an alternative. And if we voted to reject the alternative, it would stay what it was the year before.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That's something we can vote to affirm, which would be nice. I think

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: that's harder to judge harder. Yeah. We did

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: didn't have any questions.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And then that put us through the first seven plus pages of the bill. Got it. And so that is it not it does not change our pay. It does not change any of those measures. It gives that through an outside commission to do the first year, they do the big study, like what we still ask the committee to do in '39, but that's only the first year after. And we gave them extra meetings in the first year to do that. And afterwards, they simply do the yearly. It's a great idea. I don't know why we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: can actually explore this option.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I thought was late in

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the game. Yeah. You know, if 22 other states do it, it just makes so much sense to take it out of this much more politicized.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And then when you get to the bottom of page seven going on to page eight, this begins section three, which is s one sixty four. It's exactly the same.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And that goes into effect in January. Yes, 01/01/2027.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Whereas this board would meet before that, be able to give recommendations for 12/14/2026.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So the rest of it goes into effect July? Well, I have the effective dates.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, yes. So all of the the Act shall take effect on 07/01/2026, but in the health insurance portion, there's this thing saying that this is more because we're already in the 2026 health insurance year. But that's what the bill does sort of line by line, who the commission is made up of and what they're tasked to do in year one and then ongoing.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator White.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Thank you, chair Collamore, thank you, senator. I obviously co sponsored this bill. I would vote for it today and pass it out as committee if I had a magic wand. The one question I had, and I'm trying to find the page. Okay. So on page two related to who the commission is composed of Mhmm. I just wanted to flag I do think it would be important in addition to having individuals who are not current members of the general assembly. I actually do think it's important we call people who have a financial like, I wanna say, like, the partner or, like, the five you know, like, if you're married, it's kinda like the same group of people where who we have to list on our financial disclosure form. I think that's really helpful. Yeah. So that's the only other so I I don't know how you would phrase that because it isn't always a spouse.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So some of the Maybe. I I went through, and I'm happy to share with the committee or even put it on the committee page if we want. I asked NCSL to give me a rundown and a list of all of the different states that have commissions and what their commissions looked like and what they were made of. And I read that and studied that and landed on Kansas. Yeah, it's great. But some of them did have an explicit prohibition on, you know, the domestic partner of, and I'm really open to adding that and I think that that makes sense. Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Clarkson?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: How many people altogether? Seven. Seven. Seven. And That's one

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: of the differences from Kansas because their committee, believe, was 11.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. No. No. I think it's anything under eleven's. I mean, or 11. He's our head of HR.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But legislative HR is one of the support providers to the company. Along

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: with JFO and No.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So it's let me get back to it. It's JFO and legislative so the technical assistance will be provided by legislative office of human resources and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the Joint Fiscal Office. And we might wanna add lunch council to those plans.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't think we can because there's no legislators on the commission.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Oh, okay. I I agree.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That was the rule that for legislative council to provide support to an commission, it absolutely is. 51% legislators. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Otherwise we can't get the council support.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But HR is represented just not as a committee member.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So I think this is a great idea. I think that it really takes it out of our hands and makes it less sticky and makes it more objective, which is great.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: And I would just say it doesn't mean we would get and, like, let's say the commission was created. They came up with it. They might say this is exactly the way it should be. There's no predetermined outcome. I just think the likelihood that seven people look at our situation and don't come back with a change would be surprising.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Sounds surprising. But it could have been

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: But it's very and I I think I really that's the thing I most appreciate about your bills. I think what was so difficult about s 39 was the point of us making a decision about our own pay and and people feeling that we were just giving ourselves a pay raise. And I I also appreciate that this wouldn't like, voting on this, you I would have to be reelected in the meantime to even be a possible beneficiary of this.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Just depending on what the what the commission put forward in December.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, with the health care at the very least. Yes. I would have to we'd all have to at least be reelected.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: To get access to the health care. That is correct.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. That's the difference between a one year doing it in the second And year

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: the other thing I wanted to bring up to your question of Senator Watson, so yes, in F-thirty nine, the largest line item was the health care, but the JFO estimate for what that line item was two years ago was $1,689,000 which frankly, in the scheme of a $7,000,000,000 budget, is not that much.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thank you for that.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: $9,000,000,000 budget. So it was just shy of 1,700,000,000.0. And that was the sort of if, if you remember from the conversation with J. M. Bowe around the healthcare benefits, there was a spectrum. Because if every single person takes the healthcare, that's gonna be more expensive than if 50% take the healthcare, that's just gonna be more expensive than if nobody takes it. And they pick that number as the sort of high lose. Oh, yes. It actually could come under, come under quite under that because there are people in the building who might have the health care through a spouse or health care Medicare. Medicare. And then they would have access to the Medicare supplement plan that the state the retired state employees get, but that's a significantly less expensive plan to administer than the full state plan. But the estimate the JFO chose was the high middle, not the highest, but not even on the low end. So it could be much, much less than that.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: If I remember correctly, that was even high based on the veteran status of Correct. The vet That if you had Yeah. The number of people who are veterans who qualify already made it, it would be unlikely to do. Right.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Like but I think it's always safer to choose some to to pick a number that's above what you expect to come in than to pick something because it sounds good and then discover a budget adjustment that you owe a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: million dollars. Well, I want and I wanna hear from Brian and John because they have been silent. One of the, the last time we raised our pay significant was in the pay act, which you and I voted on, if two years ago.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We didn't raise our pay significantly. Yes, did.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: We had a major significant reset of our pay.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That was twenty years ago. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No, it was two years ago. It was always, excuse me. We couldn't check. We had a major, we had a fairly major bump in our bed, which was great, which was sort of, that was the last time that we had any and it may have been three years ago. Yeah. I I can tell

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: you when I'm getting paid,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: and it is not a major bump. We did. We got up we got a significant

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Did we three get the same 6.2 raise that every other state employee got, including the governor? I think we did. We did. Do you remember this? But the last time we level set legislative pay and put it on track to be something fair, it

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: was over twenty years ago. Nope. Yes. This was it's a fact. So let's just find that. But the point is it was done and it came to the committee in the pay act done by whoever creates the pay act. And we just passed. We did we did almost no discussion of it. But it in create you know, I remember we had a long discussion about it because it includes everybody. And so anyway, that was the last time that I would as a result, there was almost no discussion about it. There was total trust in the process. And I would think this would only be valuable if we had total trust in this process, and I would have trust in this process. But I would like to hear from Brian and John, because I know Brian voted against S-thirty nine. John Morley or so what are you doing last thing?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I got more recent estimates.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, great.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: What I heard was 2 to 5,000,000.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: For health care?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: To introduce that. And I guess part of my question is, because of the cyclic nature of our business, it introduces more instability, if you will, in my view. In other words, if you get hired by a company and you take out insurance with them, you could quit tomorrow. And but for the most part, people stick around for a little bit of time until they're because you don't get immediately insured. There's a period of time where you gotta wait to get insured, I believe. It's not always true. No? I'm just saying every two years we get elected or not again. So if I were in it and I had paid in for, let's say, a year and a half, by the time that the insurance kicks in, maybe it's a year and a half worth of premiums and co pays, and then I don't get anything. That might make me think one way or another. Now for those of us and, I mean, I've been very fortunate. I've been here for years. So by this time, I would feel like I paid in enough to take some of it out if I got sick. But it will cause a hole in budget. It may be insignificant in some people's view, but it's still, and again, we should have JFO come in and firm up that estimate, but that's what I was told. The compensation is even harder to, because the commission hasn't existed yet, they could come back with a potential 20% raise or 25% raise of 180 members. And we have to figure a way to make that happen if that were Or we, as you said, reject their proposal and it comes back to where it is now. So those are some of the immediate sort of questions I had.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Let's get your ass going.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. And I'm not a big insurance nerd. I have no idea how this would work. It seems like it would be a challenge to administer it. Because not what if not not what if four people decided to do it? It's a lot different than if 180 people decided

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: to do it.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, the system already exists for the state employees. We'd just be jumping into it.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Who should we ask to come? I'd love HR. Yes. Mr. Chair, I'm wondering- HR. Yeah. I'm wondering if maybe we could take a day of testimony on it because it's true. I don't know how it would be administered, but I do think of the Vermont State Health the reason this bill is compelling to me and the same with Senator Watson's is I lose out on access to my health insurance through my company because of the time taken off during the legislative session. I'm not eligible. So I do think there are folks who just lose their health insurance because they can't work their full time job just based on the hours here. So I would like to understand, like, what makes what type of health insurance are you getting? Because I can I can get it through other ways? You know, I could go on the exchange. Luckily, my husband has health insurance, so I get that. So what I don't understand I think it would still be a discussion amongst different family members in different houses of the legislature because I don't actually know how robust the benefit would be. And if you'd be eligible for it, you would only be eligible, I assume, for the state health employee's plan if you couldn't get health insurance through your other job. Like, if

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I was a, so if I, oh okay, you can choose what health insurance you want from looking at. Oh, okay.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well then I would ask, yeah, how would that work?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, no longer have to work seven days a week to maintain enough hours.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah, that's my good idea.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: When you go back to your other job, you take if this were to go, would you sort of get double insurance?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Well, it well, that's kind of my question. Is well, I'm not eligible for health insurance because I just I don't work at the middle. Oh, okay. Because of the four because of the minimum four months being off, I'm not considered a full time employee. Even though I work full time, the other part of the year, and I work during the session, I'm a part time employee during the So that moves me away from being eligible for the full time benefit.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And obviously we would be required to keep AA in even if we weren't in session on getting compensated.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah, that's kind of the, yeah. So I guess, if we could have any witnesses who-

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, HR enjoyed fiscal for sure. And then we gotta decide whether we take one bill up, both bills.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And could we just hear from John? Sure. Well, I

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: wanted to answer Senator Weiss. If you recall from S-thirty nine, part of the reason we established the one fifth off session pay is not only because we do, in fact most of us do, in fact, do legislative work in the opposition. It was to account for this issue where we would be required to pay it. So it basically meant they could pull the direct deposit out throughout the year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So what teachers a lot of teachers do.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That's so easy. And that's one of the questions in the legislative working group too is, like, should legislators do a pro rate they're paid throughout the whole year? So they're getting a regular paycheck all year, and teachers do do that. They take less each paycheck. So they get the same amount at the end of the year, but instead of only getting paid for nine months, they take less each paycheck to get paychecks.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I mean, they have that option.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes. And that's one of the questions posed to the original commission, is if we should be allowed to do that. So

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: I sit on the healthcare committee and deal with all these things, and you hear about all the folks who don't have healthcare, or are in this case, I'm sure in the legislature case, are either uninsured or underinsured. They have a lot more underinsured. Trying to wrap my brain around that and you guys are giving me a whole lot more to think about here. I think another issue that you'll find is can I use you as an exam?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Go ahead.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Senator White says she's getting health care somewhere right now or whatever. Now she has choice.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: It

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: happens lots of times in businesses anyways. They'll say, Hey, I'll pay you an additional 3 if thousand you don't come out of my insurance policy. Hence, you're gonna go onto this, I'm just gonna miss so many different things going on here that I'm really having a hard time getting my brain around, and for me in my district, I remember you folks brought this up, a lot of it was just razzing, just picking some senators and legislators, but some of was, and I and my father, that was interesting. How come we don't hardly make any money, we're on Medicaid or whatever, you guys can go down there and get

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: healthcare? Well, get them through Medicaid.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Agree with you. Hear that some Senator Clarkson. I'm not saying that we shouldn't debate it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: The same thing pays for bloody health care.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: I'm not that insane. And so just think you're gonna run into there's so many questions that this commission is gonna bring up and all kinds of different types of I mean, I I was retirement in there as well?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Something for them to consider. It's not it's not again, this commission could come back to us 12/14/2026 and say everything's fine. Don't think anything.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yep. And so

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I would be shocked by that, but they could.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: So you'd be it'd be part of the the retirement system, the state employees?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: If the commissions recommended The only thing that this bill gives us is access to the healthcare plan. The rest of it is up to the commission to determine

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: the health care plan. I think we've

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: gotta skip this. Well,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: more to go.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Let me get some staff here.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. So can happened last Was it last year you're before?

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: The last session S 39. S 30 the process of it, it passed out of this committee. It passed out of approves, passed on the senate floor, went to the house, passed on the house side slightly differently, came back to the senate. We we concurred. We did And then went to the governor. He vetoed it.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: They were one And we

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: got one bookshelf. Oh, really? Yeah. So that was a pretty heartbreaking thing.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I still think if I had 24, would have flipped it.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: It was a very disappointing and I will say I think I, well, you weren't on the committee at the time, but I felt very personally attacked on on multiple fronts. So it isn't like, I do just wanna be clear. Like, it's an issue that people take very seriously when you tell them that you would like to raise your potential salary, if that's the way it's framed up. And there we were going from, like, 14,000 to 28,000. So that made the concept of us doubling our pay playable in the media. And I think the concept of you seeing your legislator doubling their pay when you assume they make like 60,000, $80,000 a year, I think that's a hard pill to swallow. So there was also, I think, not a lot of clarity on what are they actually getting paid now and what are the benefits. So then the idea that we were getting more just really stuck in the crop a lot of people, and I respect that. I totally respect that.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I do think there was some disingenuous Yeah. Like, we make $14,000 a year.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah. Is that from the? Or

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't really know. I think it's not a name names on the record.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: We'll find that stuff

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: with these reports. It was a tough it was a really tough conversation. And and as someone who is not wealthy and works as a social worker, the hoops that I have to jump through to be here and the sacrifices that I have to make, I don't think a lot of people would choose to make, and thus we have a legislative body that's not actually representative of the population and experience of Vermont, because most of the people who have Medicaid or are living on a fixed income simply cannot afford to be here.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: Yeah. We were this was post that big exodus of people as well. We had, like, post COVID, a a bunch of people that were

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: working new senators in the senate.

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: It was a huge turnover of people for many, many reasons, but a big reason people said that they left was I can't afford to do this anymore. That was like the number one answer was I just can't afford to do it anymore. Yeah.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So I think it's an important

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: topic. Okay. Well, it takes more testimony. Sophie, I'm sorry we did walk through your bill.

[Sophie (Legislative Counsel)]: I did my best.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: You did a great

[Senator Rebecca "Becca" White (Member)]: job. Members.

[Sophie (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, was in on the house floor, I was gonna get here as soon as I could. Yep.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, you're off the hook.

[Sophie (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Thank you. I will watch the testimony.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anything else, committee? Okay. We'll call it a day and see all of you tomorrow.