Meetings
Transcript: Select text below to play or share a clip
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Welcome back to the Senate Committee on Government Operations Committee meeting on Friday, 01/30/2026. I forgot where I was for a minute. I thought you were gonna say WSYD for a second. Yeah. Yeah. I could've. That's the voice of Vincent Luzzi, by the way. So we're gonna take up just a run through or walk through or maybe a run through of S two ninety five, which is a bill from Senator Vyhovsky on the well, a letter of charge. Called state employee retirement system. So the floor is yours.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Absolutely. Thank you. S two ninety five is a few, I would argue, fairly small changes to the state employees' retirement systems. In that's a good portion of section one is just sort of cleanup language changing, like, language that currently reads shall include to does not include because we've been doing that in a bunch of places instead of saying who we've been does include worth, saying who it does not. And then when you get to page four, line 11, we start talking about group g members. Mhmm. And what this does is now skimming down to page five, line 18, it adds a section here to group g the following employees who are first employed in positions listed in this subdivision f, who are first included in the membership of the system on or before 07/01/2026, who are members of the system as of 06/30/2026 and make an irrevocable election to prospectively join group g on or before 06/30/2027 pursuant to the terms set by the board, and then adds classified employees of the Department of Children and Families, Fire Academy site coordinators within the division of fire safety, assistant state fire marshals within the division of fire safety, force protection officers with the military department, and law enforcement certification and training coordinators within the Vermont Police Academy. So this is adding these folks to that group g election. Mhmm. And then we are gonna talk about accidental and occupationally related disability retirement. And so this would allow people who are permanently disabled on the job before their retirement date to access their full pension. And then there is another section down on the bottom of page nine, beginning line 14, regarding transfer from group f to group g. So allowing, that an individual to opt in to group G within one year of acceptance of the position that would subject the individual to group G, they may actually elect to earn in group F. So again, they're fairly minor changes, little tweaks to who sits in what group, with the exception of the disability aspect. So this would allow anyone who has permanent disabled on the job before their retirement date to access their whole life. And that's it.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Would they still be paying into the pension even though they're permanently disabled?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: They wouldn't because of the That's only one that theoretically could have the biggest fiscal impact. Of course, on all of it, we're gonna need to hear from JFO. But like some of our previous conversations around sort of being disabled on the job, it's gonna be tough to know, you know, and predict how many people this might apply to. Although I suppose we could, JFO, from retrospective, look at how many people would this have applied to over the last ten years.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That's what actuarials, can figure out.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That's it. I've said it's fairly, they're fairly small and minor tweaks and changes to where people sit in the system and how they're able to opt in or out of those places. It adds this disability piece. What needs to It's not particularly simple because the pension language is convoluted and complex, so I think it'll also be really helpful once we get our ingredients to walk us through the words on the page.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So in setting this up, I have no idea, maybe I should, how many groups are there? G. I believe G is the
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: final question. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, seven.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And we have all of those groups, there's no
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I believe that there is at least one group off the top Just for the record, need to give it to mister chairman. Yes, of course. Tom Alsimore, legislative coordinator of PSCA. I believe there are some groups that have essentially no members at this point, but yes, there are subgroups.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That is what I recall, is that there's one maybe two groups that don't have any members in it at this point in time. Any
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: questions for Senator Vyhovsky? Okay, well, that's a real heck of a good job walking through this. Unfortunately, we didn't have the, I think, was Tim Devlin the drafter of this?
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: No, Cameron would. Oh, that's right. The drafter, but I believe he is otherwise occupied So in a house
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: if and when we check this up again, we'll definitely have Cameron in and JFO to kind of flesh this out a little bit. I think I understand the changes that you suggested. And again, based on the previous testimony from the VSEA with regard to the retirement group C law enforcement being able to stay in group C even when they become recruit trainers. If there were a place for it, it would seem like this might be kind of a good place for it. Yeah. I'm not suggesting that you would enthusiastically wanna add that revision, but if if because I don't know what else we have a committee bill, which basically has to do with government accountability and oversight. It really doesn't affect our
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Right. But we can always add things to the things as they come along.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I would certainly agree with your read that this is the most logical place to add that, and I did not include it because I have concerns about it, but that's, think, something we can have discussion
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: In the committee about. But I do agree that logically, this would be the place to put it if we were going to do that.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: That's and the I apologize for being late. I thought you were starting it when I got here. So, anyway, I I apologize. I
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: didn't wait long enough.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: That's I thought
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: we're gonna start.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anyway I said ten minutes, I thought.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I know. And I sorry. I thought it was quarter. Anyway, so the the miscellaneous amendments you already got throughout catch up when at another point that they but they are you guys seem to lead a lot of things. Right. Correct.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anything else for senator Vyhovsky?
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Lots, but maybe not at this time. Right.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. I'm waiting for is that the I'm hoping to get I have not heard back from the house of counterpart, about our first you. Thanks, guys. Have a good day. Morning, sir. Warm weekend. You too. Take care all.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So you're doing the penguin plunge with the lieutenant governor?
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Absolutely not. We're gonna try to move that meeting to 08:30 in the morning Tuesday so it would not interfere with, well, the Democratic caucus for one thing, but there's probably other things going on. When I set it up at noon, I was hoping that our normal committee time now on Tuesdays will commence at 01:15 so that we would have an hour of fifteen minutes. But I didn't realize there was a press conference that you need to be at, and I completely forgotten about the Democratic caucus. As much as possible, I don't want you to fear what other things are going on. I'm hoping Matt, by the time we leave today, we'll have a time. How long does that usually last? The conference committee? Well, never know. I just need to let my chair, all right, because on Tuesday
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, yeah.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: At 08:30 in the morning, you're not having a 09:00. But you may not go that long for the first conference committee.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, no. You might. I mean, yes, everybody's
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: gonna jump in. You're right.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: We have a floor at 9 3rd. So on Tuesdays, I anticipated that there would not be committee conference. Sometimes she okay. Sometimes not. I will look. Alright.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And also just tell her, you have a conference committee.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I won't be there. And how long do they last? I don't know. I don't think we have multiple areas of divergence. I think for the most part, we have two things that we're gonna Well, there's
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: enough. Have a conference committee over. We'll figure it out.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So now if you want, can go over the agenda. We don't need to stay online for that. It's just the planning.
[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, that would be great if we went offline. Bye. Have a great weekend.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Maybe I could turn down. Is there anything else we could hear about? Ready to take up today.
[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But thank you.
[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we will adjourn the weekend and see all of you on