Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yep. Good

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: afternoon, and welcome in to the Seneca meeting on government operations committee meeting of Thursday, 03/12/2026. For consideration today is a bill that was actually introduced last year, s 89, which is an act relating to expanding survivor benefits. And we have with us David Scheer, who's the deputy treasurer. And I knew him, well, a while back when he was engaged in Washington DC with another job that he had. So I don't know how familiar folks are with the bill. We did ask Sophie Sadotti to come in and, refamiliarize us with it. It's a four page bill, as I recall, so it may be unnecessary to do that. People can probably read through as we're walking through the, different sections. But, basically, as I understand the current landscape, right now, firefighters are included in what is a death benefit survivor benefit. And the amount of that is $80,000. So if a fireman or a woman dies in the line of duty, and that is defined in the bill, their survivor, whether that's wife, parent, child, whoever is designated as a survivor, gets that $80,000 payment. It's a one time payment done, and that's it. This bill proposes to add, to be honest, quite a few other folks to it, and that was what we were going to talk about today. So, David, welcome in. It's great to see you again. And if you would let us know to the best of your ability, you know, where the treasurer's office is on that because the payment comes out of the treasurer's office. So welcome. Do you know everybody, by the way? I believe

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: we've seen each other Okay. On previous occasions. That's Yeah. Yes. I think we've more, like, met reality. Yes. Thank you, mister chair. Code record, David Sheriff, deputy creditor. As the committee knows, the certain emergency personnel survivors benefit function does currently live under the treasurer's office, and as the chair laid out, this bill proposes to expand that significantly. At the outset, I do want to say to the committee that we strongly support the concept of creating a robust survivor's benefit for other public servants and serve homeowners every day and risk their health, welfare, and even lives Mhmm. For the greater good. So I wanna be clear on that. We think that this is a very valuable and important proposal of recognizing what people face in service of our fellow citizens. There are obviously some things we need to figure out and make more concrete as we as this bill moves through the process, but we wanna be partners in that in in doing so. The section three of the bill I'll just very briefly, I know the legislative council will probably go in more detail, but just very briefly, as you know, section three of the bill would expand the potential pool of covered individuals to include certified law enforcement officers, DOC facility employees, and those who provide direct security and treatment services to offenders under supervision of the community, certain DCF classified employees, and classified employees as state operated therapeutic community residences or inpatient psychiatric hospital units. So one thing to note is just that we don't know the exact number that that includes yet, so we are hoping to get that information. And I also do apologize, there's a little bit more research I would have done when we were just we did have just got called and assessed by earlier today,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: so I

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: didn't have time to do as much as

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would have. Doctor Vyhovsky?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I just wanted to let you know that I have an a best estimate of the number that that would be, and it's 2,283.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Got it. Okay.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So it is eleven ninety four law enforcement, seven sixty one corrections workers, 193 young service workers, and 135 mental health workers.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Got it. That's all actually thinks all the committee has numbers.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. Thanks, kindly. Yeah. Thanks,

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That's great. Okay. Well, thank you. So now we do know that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I'm very Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Than that.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I think that one thing we would want to develop as this bill moves forward is just an understanding or do the best we could to understand what the impact would be in terms of the claims that would be made. And so that we just wanna do a little bit more of a study probably. And, again, I don't wanna be we wanna be partners in moving this forward, to be clear. This is some work that we can do and that can be done. It's just understanding, like, looking backwards who might have who might to the extent we're able to figure that out, who might be somebody who could make a claim. We look back at what's happened in the recent past. What might we we be looking at moving forward in terms of how many claims might be coming forward, because this is a known population of individuals. We could probably get a reasonable assessment of what that's looking like and then understand what the impacts would be. Question? Senator Cloaks?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So unnumbered, David, we currently cover all professional firefighters, not all volunteer firefighters. Correct. They probably would have a volunteer. So this would add to that. How many professional firefighters do we have at the moment? So what's the population you're covering in?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I don't have that exact number. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: You might have that number.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I may be able to we current law covers all the tiers. That's incredible.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And I may be able to help let me just back up a little bit. This bill sat on the wall all of last session. I, at one time, did not imagine myself championing this bill forward, but I have new information which has allowed me to change my position.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: for David's benefit, and again, I don't mean to jump in front of Senator Vyhovsky, line up to be deaths in the Vermont Department of Corrections. I did a little bit of research earlier today. They're historically rare. Three such deaths have recorded in the department's entire history. None of them in the last ten years. None of them in the last five. Continuing, the Officer Down Memorial page, better known as ODMP, and available reports report that law enforcement last year had zero, from March of of twenty five to '26. Last five years, there was one, and we are going to talk about perhaps renaming the bill with all due respect to members of the VSCA that appear. We don't normally name a bill after a person, so we may have to change that provision. But one law enforcement officer was killed in the line of duty, very personal, although I did not know her well. She was from Rutland. Jessica Ebbinghausen of the Rutland City Police Department was killed in the line of duty in July 2023. In the last ten years, in terms of law enforcement, two law enforcement officers, the aforementioned Jessica Effingham in 2003, and I do remember this as well, Cooper Kyle David Young in 2015, believed he was in a median strip on the interstate and was hit and killed by a cop. Yep. So those are two of the categories. We have DOC and the Vermont Law Enforcement Group. The fire department. In the last one year, no reported line of duty deaths. In the last five years, none. And in the last ten years, none. Now I don't know whether that can can includes volunteers and professional people, fire folks, but it's a zero at any rate what I was able to learn. And finally, the DCF one, and this is the one I think if we take those numbers that, senator Vyhovsky actually, it's not as many. The law enforcement is eleven ninety four, and then the next highest would be DOC, I believe, and then 193 DCF. And so many of us can remember back in the last one year at any rate, none have died in the line of duty. Last five years, none. And in the last ten years, one, and we all are very familiar with Laura Sohovall, who was working for DCF at the time back in 2015 in Barrie and was shot and killed outside the office. So that's my research. I don't know that it it's changed my opinion of where we are with this bill, to be quite honest with you. If we take a look at the last ten years, we're talking about a handful of folks, four or five at the most. And I realize it's $80,000 every time. And I don't know how you would do an actuarial study. I guess that would be for someone later on if we move this bill to do that. In other words, with each increase in the amount of the universe, there's an increased number or at least chance of line of duty deaths. If you only have two people working for you, guess what? It's probably pretty safe to say you're not gonna have a claim, but beyond that. So for what it's worth, those are the numbers I did, and Senator Vyhovsky.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I appreciate you sharing the numbers. You've made top of my point. Because my question, Davis, how would you study how this would have an impact? How would you predict how these people are gonna die in the future? I don't understand how you would do that study.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Well, obviously, future is unknowable, but we do things exactly like Senator Collamore did, which is just look back and see what's happened in the past and make what I admit would be an assumption as to whether that's something over the is is the trailing 10 gonna look is the coming ten years gonna look similar to the trailing ten years? And that's the sort of studies we do for actuarial assessments that we would do for pension assessments and costs and things like that. So it's similar in concept to that. Of course, we don't know for sure. And especially with infrequent events like this, it's hard to have a definitive answer. But I think that, you know, the information that senator Collamore brought forward would be very is very helpful to answer that question as best we could possibly tell.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: No. I appreciate that, and and I appreciate that, you know, actuarial studies are all sort of predictive. I feel like predicting financing markets is a little bit different than predicting catastrophes.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah. So yeah. The the fact that they're so infrequent means that it's a much less you know, the the there's a dearth of data.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's much less So it's not like like, we can look at the market trends and all of that. There's no, like, trend that's like, oh, you know, orders from now there's gonna be a prison riot. Someone's gonna like, we cannot predict that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. It's just with with with very infrequent catastrophic event catastrophic events. Reflects. So thanks, David. I guess my question is, do we know when the $80,000 was set in statute? And the second question is, I believe the fund is now close to empty?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah. So the 80,000 I I I the statute originally originates in 2001. I'm not sure if it's been changed since then. Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: I I'd love to have a check back because inflation, obviously, is going up, and the $80,000 is not what it was in 2001.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That's right. Yeah. And I don't know if that's what adjusted

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So maybe so we could from our our legislative council on this. And she may already know because she's so well prepared. Because I would one thing I would ask is we could revisit that because it I mean, it it wouldn't get a family very far at least now in this day and age. And so that it's was I guess, my. And we these and the other thing I just wanted to check is, Vince, you gave us these numbers. This is a little bit of pared down version that you talked with us about last night. The family service workers just being the frontline people like.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for Dave?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yes? Can you just remind us what feeds the fund? We have

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah, it's just think it's appropriations, but it it has not been a consistent it's sort of an as needed appropriation as I understand it, and we did have to come to the legislature, I think, last year during

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. Because it was so low.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah. Because we had so we had no claims on this at all from 2016 to '24, and then there were four claims December 2024, and that did deplete the funds significantly. So we I believe it was a $220,000

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: appropriation at 2025 during the BAA I have thought that had just been bumped up from 60,000.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: That could be. And that piece, I'm not sure. It was

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 50,000, and I think it was in one of the budget bills. Sorry. Sophie did that. I for the office of legislative council, It was 50,000, and I think it went up, it was before it started, but it may be like two, three years ago.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: If we could just, when you have a moment, to find out when we established it, what was it established at, and when did we bump it up? Because if we hadn't bumped it up since 2001, I definitely wouldn't have thought of it, it sounds like we did.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah, we did. I remember doing it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah, I feel like I remember charging. I bet we did it together.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: One of the provisions in the bill is that the treasurer would have up to a year from the date of receiving the claim to disburse the fund. Whether it would be through BAA or the base bill, be able to come back and ask for an appropriation.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Wonder, and this is not something we have to decide today or and I think we could let our house counterparts, but I wonder if it almost makes more sense to keep a standing amount in that fund so that it can be gaining interest. You know? I

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: have the same thought. It's always nice to think that there's a bucket of money somewhere where if the need arose, you could tap into it without going through a long process. And I don't know whether the big bill would be a place to start this year and put enough for two claims in and then let interest be gained, but leave it there. Don't move it to another pot somewhere else. It's just a suggestion, but Yeah. I have the same

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, I don't imagine I mean, if it's, you know, dollars 160,000 sits there for ten years, it's gonna gain some interest, and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So would that be a special fund? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Priority is a special fund, isn't it? Well, I don't know if Yeah, it looks like

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I don't think I don't believe specials. I'm not actually. Let me let me look it up.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: It's got a name. If it's got a name, it's probably a special fund.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: My understanding for when the treasurer was here a few years ago, might have

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: been when we bumped it up, is that it's not

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: a special fund. It's just an appropriation that we make from the general fund when they When the special need. When they need it. But what I'm suggesting is we make an appropriation and let it sit there and gain interest rather than waiting for them to need it. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Given this budget, we may have to have to for the BAA next year.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions for mister Scherer? Sorry.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Let me just answer that one. Oh, Yeah. Is a special fund.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, thank you.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. I

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: answer right here. So, yes, it is. And I believe that right now there's enough left in it to to pay out two more claims.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh. Oh. Why did we get to it?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Nothing. At the recent rate well, again, as as you pointed out, senator, correctly, it's hard to predict these things. At the recent rate, obviously, we would worry about that with Ford in a couple years, but it may be that

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: we don't get any for a long time.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But it does mean that's Yeah. And we're never effort Yes.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: But it's a small It's very small amount. It's not it's not Sweet. Again, I think just had another single claim

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: for David, I guess I'm confused. You mentioned four claims. I only can account for three.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Our general counsel earlier today told me four. I can check with him to make

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: sure we have that Alright. I I had none in the fire, one in DCF, none in DOC, and two in law enforcement.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Will check that 700 to make sure if you

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: have the right hip investigation. You

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: said you have three, you have four?

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: No, I have three, he has four.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I thought you said okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let me check on that. Yeah.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: This isn't really a question for Dave. It's maybe a question for sort of a rumor or thought more for the room. I would hope that every instance in which an employee that serves the state of Vermont is dying on the job, that we are evaluating why it happened and doing everything we can to prevent it from happening again, recognizing that sometimes these things are unpreventable, but sometimes they are. My understanding from what we heard in testimony about the death of the Rutland police officer is that was violations of policy and poor training. So so I I would hope that that if we're seeing an uptick in deaths of our public servants, that we're looking to see what we as a legislative entity can do about that.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Probably not be in this.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Probably not. That, like I said, it wasn't really much for Dave, but it's

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: sort of

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: more of

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a Okay.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I would say we did spend a lot of time on that last year in relation to safety and security for folks who are in those jobs. And I don't think we made a lot of headway, if I remember correctly, in actually doing anything substantial, but we certainly had bills that we talked about it. And Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: And I'm I'm pretty sure that the state that that that commissioner could tell us what they do because my guess is they do something.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Probably not for local police.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No. But you said for who work the state. Yeah. Well So my guess is the state does Yes. Collect that information, and there's also workers' comp. I mean, there there's Yep.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But this bill also is is is bringing in local police. And so I think that, you know and this is hard for me to say at the moment, but they are providing instances of public service, even though it's not directly to the state, it is.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anything else for David?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: I think the only sorry. Just one other thing. Just wanna make sure, again, not not that this is a great concern to to hold anything up, but just one thing we wanna make sure we're we're we assess as this moves forward is if there are other benefits that are available upon death in the line of duty, we wanna make sure that this doesn't we don't do anything to displace those. And so we and we don't I don't have an answer to that. I don't think it's something that we need to feel like

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: this is something to hold it up.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Mean, it's an income threshold that you

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: can't have? No. Are you referring to the federal benefits?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: Federal benefits or other benefits that may she's coming to them through a state, through insurance, through something like that. There are sometimes we just wanna make sure we're not gonna accidentally Preventing out of that. Yeah. Preventing a payout for any reason. And that may be that there's no issue there at all, so I don't want that to hold this up. Just a note for us as we smooth

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: this along. Just wanna think about that.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: How quickly would you be able to ascertain that?

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: As quickly as possible. I mean,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: transparent, I wanna move this

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: bill today. We

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: there's nothing that should prevent that Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: In terms of our consent.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Great. Those can be addressed in the house.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: We can address them.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Thanks, David. Always At this time of year, we're very grateful to the house our house. We're always very grateful. We are, but particularly this time of year.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Sophie, welcome.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. Sophie Siddani for the Office of Legislative Council. I will admit I've been running from committee to committee today. There's a number of bills that deal with this particular statute, and I don't have all the notes from all those files with me. So but I do recall that the amount was increased from 50,000 to 80,000 not that long ago. There is a federal benefit that's around 461,000, goes up each year, that's available to public officers that die on the line of duty, does cover corrections officers, etcetera. It does not cover, I want to leave frontline folks working for the Department of Children and Families.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: But it covers fire and law enforcement. Right. Right.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. Actually, I think we've kind of walked through the bill, David helped to a great degree. I have two suggestions, and I'm not sure how quickly we could amend this. On page one of the bill is introduced again last year now, 2025 session, under section one short title, this act may be cited as Jessica's Law. I think we're gonna need to strike that, And she'll you'll have to renumber from there on so that what is now section two becomes section one and section one. Certainly, no. You won't understand what I mean.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, depends on how many the how many amendments, because if it's just deleting that, then it would just delete, you just have an instance of amendment. Just say we're deleting sections.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That'd be fine. Then, go ahead, Senator Morley. No, no, go ahead. All right. Just to again clarify and be very specific about who would be able to take advantage of this, on page three, line nine, the suggestion would be with respect to classified family services workers in the family services division of DCF, etcetera, etcetera. It just identifies what and I don't mean to say it this way because it's gonna sound horrible. But if someone's sitting in an office way in the back at a computer and they suffer a heart attack, I don't think that this is what we're envisioning in the bill. If they're interacting with clients and something happens, absolutely. So I don't know whether that language modifies it enough to make that difference or not.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I don't know whether it would I mean, I I heard the word frontline before. Is that something you were

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't know if DCF refers to their folks as frontline.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I believe, and someone of our VSEA colleagues might be able to help us with this because we had a I had a similar question about the actuarial study bill with Cameron yesterday, and we landed on language that captured what we wanted, but now I don't remember what it was.

[Tom Mattimore (VSEA representative)]: If I may, mister chairman. Sure. Or Tom Matamore, BSEA. I believe that the language that senator Vyhovsky is referring to is virtually identical to the language you just read.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay.

[Tom Mattimore (VSEA representative)]: Family service workers Yes. In the division excuse me. In the family services division

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Of the Vermont Department for Children and Family. Yep.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Assume is it okay if

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they're employees rather than workers? To me,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: yes. Yep. That is correct.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's good with each other.

[David Scheer (Deputy State Treasurer)]: It's not

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: a No. No.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a difference.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: It's an

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: important point. Okay. So with respect to classified family services employees in the family services division for the Department of Children and Families. My

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: other suggestion on line 12, with respect to licensed medical employees of state operated therapeutic community residences, etcetera, etcetera, I think, again, that narrows it a little bit further and is what we're really looking to do. Those are the follow-up. The third one. The effective date-

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Needs to

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: be updated because the bill was drafted last year. Yes.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I'm assuming that, and the sponsor of the bill is here, 07/01/2026 would Fine. Be

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Oh, happily, we have no.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So if we could make those changes, and I know Senator Morley had a question. Just on page two. Yes. Line nine, excuse me, what is this?

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Basically, eight cases, including going to and returning from a fire or emergency or participating in a fire or emergency training drill. Would there be a comma there or something? I don't think that's I don't think you need emergency training drill, do you? Or do you?

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would defer. This has gone through editing, and they're very picky about the commas, so I

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: would I don't know what it okay. I don't

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: know what an emergency training drill is.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, they have a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: a school in Pittsburgh. Where they train

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Where they train a

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: lot of it becomes fire. Okay. I was

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: thinking the train back home, but it's actually-

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: No, no, training at the academy and the- Yeah, okay. And that's what you

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: meant? Yeah.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Anything else for attorneys to die?

[Former Senator Vince Illuzzi]: Former Senator Alouzi. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to say that with regard to the second suggestion that you made about Lysp, that deals with the psychiatric hospital. Since yesterday, I've received updated information which suggests that some of the orderlies and others who provide hands on assistance with some of the mental health patients are not licensed. So I would respectfully suggest that you strike the word licensed because we may be limited to just the nurses.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Does that change the number to 135 plus?

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: No. No.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay, I'm fine with that, man.

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

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So at least subdivision E with respect to licensed, no, with respect to medical employees of Correct. Stage operated Classified to keep classified in? Yep. Okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I believe, yes.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Respect to classify medical employees, stage operated therapeutic. With is those

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: this new language? Because e here is classified as Boys with Family Services Division. These are suggestions, Brian, it's given to Senator Collamore is giving to change the language. Oh, okay.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So there are It's

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a different e. It's the e. That age three. Yeah. Page three nine twelve.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: On page three. Oh, yeah. There it is. So

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: there's four changes. One of them is a deletion, which should be. Two or problematic So onerous. Two language changes and then the affected. Would you be able to turn that around in half an hour, forty minutes?

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I may be able to do so. Yes. I'll I'll do my best.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That would be great.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Are you in demand elsewhere this afternoon? No. I just fortunately, you were my my my my last one. Okay. So alright. I will go work on that. I may not get it through editing, but I will do

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: That's okay. I think We don't need anything.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We can vote on it even if it's not edited. Right?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: Yeah. Yes. All we need to do is go through the changes. Okay.

[Senator John Morley III (Clerk)]: Thanks, Sherbro.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you very much for your help. See

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you soon.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And with that in mind, don't we take half hour break? Right. And be back with a vote on this at that time.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: So I'd just like to thank, I know this matters to a lot of people, my head's bleeding, which is too bad. You know, matters a lot terms of parity for mostly for how people felt about their jobs being valued. I think is that fair to say? And parity with other workers who are on the front line. And I think this will matter more in its intent and its stage of purpose than it will in actuality. So hopefully, nobody will have to be able to I just will have to use this. But I would just thank the chair because we always say only a fool doesn't change their mind, but it it's wonderful when people do, and we all need to be open to things changing and new information changing, how we feel about things. I just like to thank you because you've done that on several occasions in this community, and it means a lot to us.

[Sophie Siddani (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Welcome. It's awesome. Yeah, what

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Member)]: we should do. Yeah, no, I agree. But too often are very stuck in that wreck. So that's your big cough.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Well, thank you. So we'll go off for about a half hour, maybe see everybody back about 04:15.