 Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. And good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning. All right. We have a full agenda today. And we're gonna start with a couple sets of minutes. Commissioner Hill. Yes, Madam Chair, I moved that the commission approved the minutes from the December 22nd, 2022 and January 3rd, 2023 public meetings that are included in the commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Any comments, edits that were extensive? All right, Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. All right. Administrative update, Karen, I know we have something from Burke. Do you have other updates for us? Yes, nothing in particular. So I'll turn it over to the Chief of the Gaming Agents Division, Burke Kane. They have a presentation for you this morning. Thanks, Karen. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, commissioners. Today I'm gonna give you an update on some of the happenings at the casino. And then we're gonna discuss with you some of the evolution of slot machines with regard to slot denomination, multi-denomination, lines of play, and credits per line. So let's start with PPC. Partial sports book was still under construction. PPC is working on presenting the new gaming area to the commission. I think the target date is still roughly September 1. PPC is currently posting for positions in the restaurant of the sports lounge. Live music continues every Friday and Saturday night, 8 p.m. to midnight. Next Saturday, July 8th, a Beatles tribute band, The Return, will be playing at the Revolution Lounge. This weekend's promotion is summer Saturdays, five to nine, 25 pen play loyalty members will randomly be selected every 15 minutes to win $50 in pen slot play. MGM. Early in June, MGM opened the 15th poker table within the poker lounge. And in July, they'll be running a very popular Christmas in July promotion. Between June 8th and June 11th, MGM hosted a variety of entertainment including comedians Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, psychic Mac Frazier, Free Music Friday, concerts and music sensation Bruno Mars was at the convention center. Not to mention that the city also hosted an Ironman competition, which all led to approximately 50,000 visitors through MGM in four days has been reported to me. Lastly, MGM will be hosting their annual Fourth of July viewing party on the eighth floor of the garage. The local nonprofit Spirit of Springfield organizes a fireworks spectacular from the Memorial Bridge. Encore, they will be continuing their numerous promotions for grand prizes, prize money, free slot play through July. Some upcoming events for them, Pine Street and kitchen prep. Volunteers are helping to prepare meals and Boston for those who are battling homelessness. Also, they have a greater Boston food bank volunteer program, volunteers sort and package food for distribution to hungry families across Eastern Massachusetts. Okay, the slot machine presentation unless there's any questions on the updates at the casinos. All set. Okay, before we go through the PowerPoint, this starts on page 24 of your package. I could give you a little backdrop on how slot machines have progressed. I think we all remember 20, 25 years ago when we played with actual coins, nickels, quarters. A player would drop a nickel into a slot machine and you could play up to five coins, you pull the candle and if you won cherries or bars, the coins would immediately drop right into your trade. But with the creation of slot machines, displaying credits and becoming more computerized, having no coins, but actually tickets and tickets out, the slot machines have progressed to multi-denominational, multi-line and multi-credits. So we can begin the PowerPoint. Would you like me to share? Are you gonna go by the... Commissioner, do you wanna share or do you have it? Your choice, Mark. Okay, well... Well, it's always nice to share, Madam Chair. Okay, thanks, Commissioner Hill. Am I sharing the right screen? I think so. I don't quite see it yet, but it could be me. Commissioners, Commissioner Bryan, can you see it? Nope, not yet, or? It says that it's sharing, but I don't see it. It says it has started screen sharing. Sorry, I think that's what somebody else just said. I would stop sharing and then try again, Burke, there. They're seeing, it looks like it's trying to, but the connection's just not going. Is he frozen now? I think so. I was just gonna say that. I can unshare his screen and maybe that'll jar him back to normal. May I suggest we look at our packet and... If you spack, is he frozen still? Hey, Burke, can you hear us? I can hear you. I can't see my computer, literally. I just got the new computer yesterday and I'm using, he said, don't use it, use the old one. So, Burke, we have the presentation in front of us. If you want, you're frozen in a nice fashion, just so you know, if you wanna just go ahead and give your verbal presentation, maybe you'll unbreeze along the way. I also have, I have the packet here if you'd like me to try and share my screen, if that's helpful. Whatever works. Burke, do you want me to do that? No, please, you can't hear him. No, that's not helpful. Burke, are you able to present or are you offline altogether? I think. Looks like he's frozen. Really frozen now. Yeah, all right. He had told me he was nervous about this presentation. I didn't know I was how nervous. He shouldn't be, he does such a great job. Yeah, I was only kidding. Good. All right. I think he's popping back on. That's right. You can all curse me later. There we are. I literally did this with Andrew and Dave Diorio 10 minutes before. So this is a lot of fun for me right now. Well, no, you know what, Burke? Right when I turned on right at nine, told me to restart. So, oh, so technology and these meetings, don't worry about it. Don't worry at all. But do you think he should share? Do you think we should look at our own right now? Would someone else share? Do they have, well, they don't have the packet. Okay. That might be good. That might be a stressor on your system. I can share. Thanks, Grace. Excellent. Thank you. Well, I apologize again for that. No apologies. Let me know if you're seeing it. Yep. I think everyone recognizes this first slide. This is just an update of where we are in June of 23. You can see the slot machines across the top at the three properties, table games, poker games, stadium and kiosk. I mean, go to the next slide. Can you see the next slide? Yes. Yep. I think we see it yet. Yeah. I don't know if you're in present mode, Grace. I'm still seeing just the number of games slide from the internal deal. We have it now. There we go. And this second slide might look familiar also. It was the pre-COVID numbers reopening and then presently where we are today. We can go to the next slide. OK, here's a breakdown of the slot denominations roughly by Casino. This is ever-changing. The floors are always changing, upgrading the machines. The Encore first column is a little bit different from MGM and Springfield, MGM, Springfield and Plain Ridge Park. Looking at Encore, you can see that they break down their penny games. There's 1,099, and they break down multi-denominant national machines. 25 cents are under. They have 744. Then if you look at quarter games, 50 cent games, dollar games, each of the casinos are representing what they have. The difference in the MGM and Plain Ridge columns are that they default their multi-denominational games. You see the column multi-denominational 25 and under. They have zero. They default their numbers to penny games. The next slide might help us understand what that is. So if we look at Encore, you see 43% of their games are penny games, and 32% of them are multi-denominational 25 cents and under. So that's roughly 75%. So now if we look at the MGM and Plain Ridge columns, you'll see 78, 4, and 1 is roughly 82%. And Plain Ridge is 71 and 5, which is roughly 75%. So you can see that 75, 81, and 75 across the board percentage is what the casinos have as 25 or under slot machines, either predominantly penny games or a share of them as multi-denominational. And you can see the percentage then of 25 cent, 50 cent, 101 dollar games that are pure, that denomination only. OK, we can go to the next slide. So as I was mentioning a while back, you would walk up to a slot machine. It would be a 25 cent game. You could put in one to five coins, and you would play. Now with the advent of the new technology, several, these are could be hundreds of different themes now where you walk up. This is only an example. You can walk up, and the first thing you're going to see is what denomination do I want to play. You can choose one cent, five cent, up to $2. And you insert your money, and after you've selected that denomination, the appropriate amount of credits will come up. So if I put in $20 and make it a one cent game, I can still play that game as a 25 cent game. In essence, I can play 25 cents per line for five lines. It's the same as back a long time ago, where I would drop in five quarters. I'm simply this time making 25 credits for the five lines, but it's only a penny game. We can go to the next slide. This is an example of how many lines now you can play on a slot machine. It used to be a slot machine had one center line, right? Drop a coin in, pull the handle, and it was that center pay line. As you can see here, the new technology has allowed slot machines to go to, on this example, 50 different lines that you can play on a slot machine. Number one is straight across the top. Number two, it drops down one unit in the center, and so forth, and so on. So once again, if I walked up to a penny game and put my money in there, I could play 50 lines for one penny, 50 cents, and I would have 50 lines in operation when I activated the machine. Next slide, please. This is just another example of how the lines would plays that could be on a slot machine. The first graph box on the left, that's the one to five. That's the old traditional center line. Second line was up above it. Third line was horizontal below it. Then it came down as a fourth line, and then it went up as the X for the fifth line. Now it's showing you lines six through nine, and so forth and so forth, on up to 22 through 27 lines on this particular type of slot machine. So we can go to the next one, I think. Now we have multi-denominational. We have multi-lines. So what else can you do? Now you can play multi-credits per line. So you can activate a penny machine. You can play 10 lines, and you could play 150 pennies per line, which would be $15. So you can see the best technology has allowed a simple 5-cent game, 25-cent game, to evolve to where a lot of them default to 1-cent because you can make a 1-cent machine into anything you want. You can make it a 25-cent game by choosing how many lines you want and how many credits per line. I think that might be the last slide. So we have a breakdown of, thank you, Grace, we have a breakdown of roughly what the floor is, and it's as it was. Traditionally, a long time ago, Bruce would remember on our casino floor, we would have 5 to 8 or 5 to 10% 5-cent games. And then we would have 40 to 60% as quarter games. Once again, that's getting real close to that 75% as I showed you before. But that's when we had actual coins. So the evolution of slots with multi-denominational, multi-line, and multi-credits per line gives the patron the opportunity to basically customize the slot machine any way they want. So if someone ever says to you, hey, there's not a lot of 25-cent games in the casino, I think the technology has changed to where there are some pure 25-cent games left, but a lot of them just give you the opportunity to make it a 25-cent game if you like. 30-cent game, 40-cent game, whatever you want to do per line. I hope that's hard to explain at times, but I hope that might clarify a little bit of how this has evolved. Is there any questions about that? Mr. Rahel, I think that you had asked for sort of an update on this. Any questions? No, that was very clear and helpful, Burke. Thank you. Thanks. Excellent. And great to have the update on the numbers too, Burke. Thank you so much. Oh, it's for that technical glitch. I'm sorry about that. That's nothing. All right. Also then, commissioners, thank you so much, Burke. And Karen, are you all set? Yes, I am. Thank you. OK, then we're turning on to item 4a on the agenda. Good morning, Dr. Lightbaum. Good morning. So our first item on the agenda today is recognition of the Jockey Guild as the representative of the Jockeys in Massachusetts. This is something they've been doing for years. In 2021, the commission reviewed the program in light of the fact that there had not been racing in 2020. This payment is retroactive, basically, for this, for right now, even though we're in 2023, we're approving money for 2022. So at that time, the commission reviewed the statute and decided that they could still recognize the Jockey Guild as a group, even without racing. We still do have money coming in from Suffolk Downs with the simulcasting and account wagering. And there is enough money to cover the $65,000. In 2021, Attorney Mindy Coleman for the Jockey Guild and I reviewed the qualifications and decided that there really wasn't a way to still pay out money for active Jockeys because there just aren't any active Jockeys that are in Massachusetts. Obviously, there still are retired Jockeys and there still are Jockeys with disabilities. So we came up with those qualifications in 2021. And then this is what we used again last year. And we haven't changed those. We've both looked at those qualifications and decided that they're still pertinent today. And I'm just asking that the commission once again approve the Jockey Guild as a group and let them distribute the money. Attorney Mindy Coleman is on, if you would like to hear from her. And in her memo, she says there's about 15 Jockeys that would be eligible. So they get each get a little bit over $4,000. And I forgot to mention the documents for this item start on page 32. Thanks. Questions for Dr. Leibandling? Good morning, Attorney Coleman. Thank you for hearing today. This is a process that we did look at a couple of years ago. And I also know, I believe, Todd and Dr. Leibandling that you're working on maybe creating some efficiencies going forward on these types of matters. Whether or not the commission always has to act on it. But today, it's in front of us commissioners. Do you have any questions? So 15 Jockeys, right? Attorney Coleman, up to you. Yes, Madam Chairman, there are 15 Jockeys, 11 who are retired and four who are permanently disabled as a result of injuries sustained in Massachusetts. This number has decreased from last year. And that is because two individuals that had advised us they had retired have actually resumed riding a road more than 50 races last year. Oh, I misread the thank you for that clarification. I did misread that. I thought just the opposite had increased. Thanks. And so that guides up to about 4,000, no active Jockeys. OK, commissioners, if you have no questions, I do know that Dr. Leibandling, Attorney Coleman, would like to vote. Madam motion. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the Jockey Guild as the organization that represents the majority of Jockeys for the purposes of MGL Chapter 128A, Section 5H4. Second? Michelle Bryan, thank you. Any questions or edits? I know we keep those disabled Jockeys in mind. Chair O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes, 5-0. Thank you so much, and it's nice to see you again. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. OK. Moving on to 4B. Dr. Leibandling. And so our next item is the escrowing of the Resource Development Fund monies that would go to Thoreau-Bred Purses. This is a request by the New England HBPA. It's the documents for this start on page 36. Just to be, I'm going to make a few points to start, and then I'm going to turn it over to Judith Young, our associate general counsel, who has done a great job and a lot of work on this item. As the commission's aware, the Resource Development Fund divides up money going to the two different breeds and then into different buckets of purse money, money towards the breeders, and then health and welfare. The course racing committee, which is a separate group from the commission, the commission does have a member on that committee, is the committee tasked with deciding how that money is divided. Originally, when this program first started, it was shifted towards the Thoreau-Breds. And so early on in the program, a lot of money accumulated into the Thoreau-Bred purse and money. Since that time, the committee has looked at the formula numerous times, and each time gradually shifted the percentages so that more of it goes to the standard breed. So the money right now isn't accumulating as fast as it once did. But there is about $22 million in that account that would have gone to Thoreau-Bred purses. Let's see what else. I think now I'll introduce who we do have here today. Judith Young, our associate general counsel. Derek Lennon, our chief financial and accounting officer, is also on and has helped us on this issue. And then Paul Ambrolo from the executive director of the HPPA is on the line, and Kevin McCarthy and Matthew Clark, who are board members of the HPPA. Is that I just am checking it's not me, correct? No, it's not. I'm wondering, maybe we should have held off on computer updates by 24 hours. Yeah, she just disappeared altogether. Oh, now she's back, but no picture. Don't come back. On that issue, Ms. Sherpa, I actually just, and Madam Chair, I actually just got a, my computer is not going to allow me to not update, so we may have to take a break soon and let me switch to another device. Yeah, I'm hoping mine doesn't do the same thing, Commissioner. Madam Chair, I'm getting a message from Alex to just have Judy go along and proceed. She can, I think she can hear, and so she knows what's going on. She indicated to me earlier it was a little audio issue. Can I interrupt one thing before we turn to Judy? Karen, is there any way you can check in with IT to see if they can stop the restarts? I think that they may be able to do that. I just don't remember. I had it happen during one meeting. I'll go check. Okay, thanks so much, Karen. All right, Judy, good morning. How we doing, everybody? Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, commissioners. So yes, Alex gave a pretty great overview of what we're here to discuss today. We received earlier this fall a request from the New England Horsemen's Benevolent Protective Association, NEHBPA, as I try to refer to them, for the process of S-growing funds. So I've got a PowerPoint here that I'm going to attempt to share. If we run into any sort of technical difficulties, I'll back out of it and one of the members of the legal division will share it and I'll just talk through it, but I've got high hopes, so let's see what happens. Someone just let me know if they're able to see and we can go ahead and get started. It looks good to me. All right, let's do it. So again, discussing the Resource Development Fund and S-growing of accounts, it's worthy of noting that the active S-growing accounts is not necessarily mentioned in statute or contemplated for that matter. It is something that is only discussed in our regulations. So we thought we would have a thorough discussion of how the process is done. I will walk you through the regulations. We'll discuss the request and we'll answer any questions. So as a brief roadmap, we'll give an overview of what the Resource Development Fund does and its distributions as Dr. Lightbound kind of already provided. We'll discuss the request from the NEHBPA. I'll give you a rundown of how S-growing of funds works. We'll discuss some considerations and things that we found in our research and discussions with the Treasurer's Office and the Comptroller's. CFAO Lennon is here as well if you have any more technical questions about that sort of thing. And then I'll turn it over to the representatives of the NEHBPA to answer any certain questions that you have about their requests to give remarks. And then we can kind of close with a more fulsome discussion and any sort of questions that you have from commissioners. But that said, please jump in at any time. If you do have questions, I'm screen sharing so I can't see you, but by all means just feel free to jump in and interrupt me if necessary. All right. So first getting started with the Racehorse Development Fund. As many of you know, the Racehorse Development Fund is discussed in 23K, section 60, as well as 205-CMR-149. That regulation is just titled the Racehorse Development Fund. The Racehorse Development Fund is primarily intended to support the racing industries. And it was created in the inception of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in the acts of 2011, chapter 194. It's predominantly funded by gross gaming revenue. So of the 25% of gross gaming revenue that is received or collected from CAT-1 gaming establishments, 2.5% of that is deposited into the Racehorse Development Fund. And then of the 49% of gross gaming revenue kind of collected, excuse me, from CAT-2 slot parlors, 18% of that is deposited into the Racehorse Development Funds. So the distributions, as Dr. Lightbrown talked about previously, were set by the legislature within 23K. 80% is allocated to go towards purses and interest-bearing accounts. 16% is set aside for the breeding efforts of horses in the Commonwealth. And then that final 4% is for the health and pension benefits of jockeys, trainers and drivers. So all in total, adding up to that 100%. With the end of live thoroughbred racing in 2019, revenue allocated towards thoroughbred purses has continued to grow while the distributions and spending on these purses has ceased. Gaming revenue continues to increase in the wake of the pandemic. And so as a result, the funds deposited in the Racehorse Development Fund continue to grow. So in the last year between July 2022 and May 2023, roughly $1.16 million of purse money has come in and remains within the Racehorse Development Fund. So to kind of combat this income of money and not necessarily doing anything with it, in 2021, the commission and the horse racing committee voted to shift and reallocate a greater portion of Racehorse Development Funds towards standard bred racing, also known as harness racing, and reallocated the disbursement of the Racehorse Development Fund accordingly. So 92% of that 80% distribution would now be allocated towards standard bred racing. 75% of the 16% allocation for horse breeding efforts would go towards standard bred racing. And finally, 50% of the 4% held in pension benefits would go towards standard bred racing. So that's not to say that the overall distributions within 149 and 23K changed. However, the allocation of that money was updated. So 92% going one way, 8% to thoroughbreds, 75% to standard breds, 25% to thoroughbreds, and finally a 50-50 split of the health and pension benefits. Any questions on that before we keep going commissioners? Julie, I have a question. Yes. Excuse me, the 92, 75 and 50% are an increase from what? That's an excellent question. I did have that number off the top of my head, but I am reluctant to kind of say it. I think it was a 65, 35, 25, but I could be incorrect. I can try to get that figure for you later on in the presentation, if you like. We can get those figures to you, commissioners Skinner. We keep track of all of the different splits and how they were broken up and the dates that they were broken up by the Racehorse Committee. And that's tracked on our website. We report that monthly. Okay, thank you so much, Chief Renner. Okay, any additional questions commissioners? Okay, let's keep going. So that brings us to why we're here today. We received a request from the New England horsemen, I'm sorry, New England horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, NEHBPA, a little easier on the tongue, an organization that's aimed at promoting and protecting the throwback racing industry and the interests of those involved. The NEHBPA submitted a request earlier this fall and again, more recently in June, asking the commission to utilize the procedures within 149 to safeguard those purse funds that were allocated to throwback racing and are currently not being utilized for purse funds, predominantly to establish an escrow account for future use. And within both letters, they highlighted the protective need to safeguard this money in case it was just commonwealth or the legislature attempted to reallocate it or redistribute it accordingly. So getting into this request or getting into the process of escrowing funds, as I said, it's a familiar concept. It's been discussed by the commission and previous iterations and in different years along with other requests for distributions from the fund that the commission has considered, but it's never necessarily been done or fully complimented, contemplated, excuse me. One additional thing of note is that 23K does not necessarily have any reference to escrowing funds. It's mentioned here in the regulation, but not necessarily anywhere else. So with that, I'm gonna walk you through the relevant portions of the reg, we'll get into it and we can have some different conversations and considerations about that. But starting first at the top, within 205CMR 149.01, I've pulled some of the relevant definitions for our discussion today. First starting with the fact of a discussion of a harness racing association and it kind of back sights to 205CMR section 3.02 and a horse racing association, which utilizes the definition of association defined in 205CMR section 4 or excuse me, chapter 4. All of those highlight that an association is any person or persons associations or corporations licensed by the commission to conduct harness or horse racing within the Commonwealth for any stake, purse or reward. Next we have what is called a horseman's organization and this is the organization that represents the horse owners and trainers meeting. So we do acknowledge that we've received this request not from an association as is defined in 205CMR 3.02 or 205CMR 4.02. However, we do want to go through how this process works and have a discussion and allow the NEHBPA to offer remarks and explain their request to you also. So next moving into 149.02, which describes the distributions from the race horse development fund and not yet an escrow account, but it kind of reiterates what we discussed in previous slides about distributions. So the commission has the authority to make distributions between horse, also known as Thoroughbred and harness racing associations from the race horse development fund based on recommendations of the horse racing committee. So again, those allocations that we discussed is that harness racing receiving 92, 75, and 50% of those distributions with Thoroughbreds receiving 8, 25, and 50% respectively. Subsection two points out that associations will distribute the funds in accordance with compliance of 23K section 60 and the later portion of the reg 205CMR 149.04. So again, that is those distributions of 80, 16, and 4%. So this specific section of the regulation kind of sets out the duties that an association would have and also what the commission would have. And lastly, this regulation points out that to be eligible for funds, associations have to comply with the relevant safety standards adopted by the commission. Okay, there's a lot of text on this screen but bear with me, we can also jump out and look at the regulation but moving next into how funds are first considered by the commission and placed into escrow, there does need to be some kind of triggering event in which case the association in 149.03 subsection one provides the commission with notice of intent to do one of the following things, either discontinuing races for the remainder of their meeting, either permanently discontinuing races altogether and outright. They intend to close the track that they utilize for racing, fully relinquishing their license, giving notice to the commission that they don't intend to apply for a renewal of a license in the following year or lastly, transferring and less commonly, transferring a race track to another entity. So these things are kind of triggering events that would ultimately allow the commission upon notice or when they learn of the event that's described in 149.03. I'm looking at that little brown square. The commission can do may do one or more of the following things. So first 149.03 to a lays out a great myriad of things that a commission can do once it conducts or decides to hold a hearing to determine. So at first can decide whether the money from the racehorse development fund that was going to be received by an association to be placed in an escrow account. Next, it can decide whether or not it wants to transfer the money from the fund to a different association. That's not necessarily applicable to what we're discussing here as there is no other thoroughbred association currently in existence that could receive that money. So number two, isn't necessarily or directly relevant to our discussion today. Next item three, the commission can decide whether or not to transfer an association's license to another association. Again, not necessarily relevant to our discussion today as there isn't another association ready to receive a license or over the licensure of awarding a license to a racing meeting recipient is something that the commission contemplates elsewhere and goes through another process to do. So that brings us to item four in which case the commission can decide to take any sort of other action within its authority to protect either the interests of the Commonwealth, harness racing and horsemen or lastly the intended beneficiaries of the racehorse development fund. So I'd say items number four, given its broad discretion also paired with the broad discretion and authority of the commission and items number one in that list are likely going to inform our discussion today in which case the commission can decide whether money should be placed into an escrow account for future use or to kind of take other action within its authority to discuss. One thing before moving off of the slide, I would say that the commission has great discretion in this case. It does not have to do anything. I would point out the May underlined within 149.03 and on my slide. But the commission can also in 149.03 to be decide to simply allow this racing association that's given notice of intent to discontinue the opportunity to kind of conduct a winding up in which case this association would pay any sort of required fees, excuse me, breaks, taxes, outstanding funds owed to the commission back and then just kind of cease to exist or cease to kind of continue practicing. Any questions commissioners on 149.03 as it exists and we move into 149.04? I'm happy to stop sharing and pull up the regulation if you want to get like a deeper look. I'll set two weeks ago. Okay, thank you. Fantastic, okay. So moving next into 149.04, this portion of the regulation, and I guess again I should probably say the regulations are included in your packet starting on page 39. So this portion of the regulation contemplates once a commission has decided within one of the incidents we're triggering considerations of 149.03 to A that monies should be placed into an escrow account. So I'd like to kind of carve out the fact that you can't just kind of jump into 149.04 without first contemplating those things that are discussed in 149.03 to A. However, there is kind of some discussion for how this regulation was promulgated and written and I'm happy to kind of get into that a bit more. But walking you through these paragraphs and subsections, the first one of course deciding that if the commission decides that monies should be placed into an escrow account, the commission will establish an escrow account to hold the funds and any such interest and distribution in accordance with 23K section 60. And of course, the recommendations of the Force Racing Committee and this regulation. Next, moving down, subsection two discusses that the commission can establish or excuse me, shall establish separate race horse development fund escrow accounts for the association that is determined it's necessary. In which case there's no commingling of funds for funds determined to be allocated to a standard bread racing association, excuse me, and in a thorough bread racing association they're kept separate. Subsection three is kind of one of the most important portions of this regulation I'd say in of this section. It details the requirements for how long funds can be placed in escrow and what can be certainly done with them. So it's important to note that funds placed in escrow cannot necessarily remain there forever and grow interest. Funds can only remain in escrow for three years from the date of the determination. And after those three years, the funds must be redistributed by the commission and in accordance with the horse racing commission. Excuse me, yeah, horse racing committee. Next we jump into distributions. This is a large portion of the regulation that I tried to easily paraphrase here for discussion. But this kind of just echoes the same distribution models for the race horse development fund that we previously discussed on earlier slides. One thing of note I would say is that 149.04B does again allow the commission discretion to distribute less than the entire amount of funds within the race horse development fund or an escrow account. And it also allows the commission to make payment of those funds to future years or to future associations. Any questions about this sort of slide before we move on, commissioners? Hi, Judy. It's Eileen. Hey, how are you? I'm great. When it comes to bullet one, when you talk about any monies in the escrow account and any interest would remain in there, do you know or maybe Derek answers this question because I have a big memory about basically interest not necessarily staying in the escrow account, regardless of whether we escrow or not. I don't know if you understand my question. Basically it's creating an escrow account in any way changing how the interest in yours over the course of the account. I think I understand your question, but let me, oh Derek, do you want to go ahead before I jump in? Yeah, so the basic answer to that is yes because the statute requires that the licensees hold these purse monies into an interest bearing account. The race horse development fund when it was created in statute does not allow us to keep any of the interest. So having it sitting in the race horse development fund does not accrue any interest, which is one of the issues that came up beforehand when this request came to us, I think it was in 2013 or 14. And we did check with the Comptrolls back then to see if we could turn this into an interest to bearing account so that we wouldn't have to escrow money and they said no, statutorily you'd need to change for it to allow it to start increasing because it's not directing the commission to accrue interest, it's directing the purse holder account to have it in an account that bears interest. Does that make sense? It sort of, but you're going to have to help me in terms of the real impact in terms of the... So the real impact... So that currently stands the interest in yours to ultimately? To the Commonwealth. So the Commonwealth holds all that money with all of our trust funds. They keep all the interest on it. And if we put it into an interest of escrow account based on what the statute's asking for, then that escrow account would bear the interest. And would stay in that escrow account as opposed to ignoring to the general fund? Correct. Okay, thank you. Can I interject and elaborate on that if I may, or is it too soon? Chairman Sternbiller. Just real quick and that's one of the right requests is that, for example, if we did escrow that 22 million as designed in an interest bearing account, let's say at 4%, we're talking about $800,000 in interest that would stay in that fund to be used for purses. That could fund a couple of days of racing for the horsemen. That's why it's important that that helps. Thank you. Thank you. Questions, a follow-up question? Commissioner O'Brien? No, no, that answered it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'll keep moving if anybody... Oh, Commissioner Scanner. I can see that you've come off mute. Thank you. So Commissioner O'Brien asked a really good substantive question. And because I want to be able to follow along, I just need some help on the threshold question of, I guess, whether any HBPA meets the definition of an association that is eligible to make a request for escrow. Did I hear that correctly? That that's still a question and that we expect the organization to speak to that later in the presentation? From my understanding, yes. But just going back to the definitions a bit, those are set within the regulations in two places. And so to qualify as a horse racing association, excuse me, or a harness racing association, you have been licensed to conduct a horse racing meeting by the commission. So I would state, and then again, this is just my own opinion, that it's much more likely that the any HBPA would fall into the definition of a horseman's organization. However, I will note in reading and rereading and preparing for this presentation of this regulation, it's not as if one entity can make the request. It's more so that a certain circumstance has occurred and it's the association that's provided notice, or it's the commission that has learned that an association has ultimately done one of those, I think five things within 149.032A, or XPS2A, that they intend to discontinue racing in some capacity that kind of triggers this consideration for the commission. So it's ultimately the commission doing the determination. However, I think when this regulation was promulgated, and again, I would note that none of us currently in the legal department were here when this regulation was authored. So we do not have to benefit the historical understanding of those sort of discussions. But just from my understanding of the regulation, it's not necessarily who has standing to make the request, but more so the question of how the commission has received notice to make these sort of determinations. Commissioner. Okay, I think I'm beginning to understand it a little better. And so looking forward to NHBPA's response in due time. All right. So with that, we will keep going. We're still within 149.04 commissioners. I think we just wrapped up discussion of the requirements within 149.04 subsection three, in which case, after those three years, any monies remaining in the escrow account need to be transferred or distributed by the commission in accordance with the recommendations of the court's precinct committee. Next, moving back into subsection four, which discusses distribution. And again, it echoes the same models of the resource development fund, but as previously discussed, it does allow the commission in its sole discretion that if ultimately it decides that such distribution is beneficial or if a lesser amount from the escrow account requested is fine to make, it does allow the commission to certainly make that decision to give less. Any questions on that commissioners before we continue? And to the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. I think I've gone one slide too far. I'm not sure why they're out of order, but bear with me. So next we have paragraphs five through seven in 145.04, the detailed distributions from escrow racing accounts. I feel like right now, and currently, given the request from the NEHBA, these five, six, and seven are somewhat relevant to our discussion. So I'll walk through them a bit slower. So with paragraphs five and six, essentially setting out the different treatments for standard bread and harness racing associations, but I've kind of amalgamated them into one bullet point on the slide, but ultimately kind of contemplating what could happen in the future. So if the commission awards a license to a harness racing association after placing funds in the escrow account pursuant to what we discussed in 149.03, subsection two, A1. Ultimately, the commission could take those escrow funds and transfer them to the newly awarded harness racing association or a thoroughbred racing association. So not to speak on behalf of the NEHBPA, but I do think they intend to kind of make that point later on in their remarks. And then lastly, within subsection seven or paragraph seven, the commission upon the recommendation of the horse racing committee may transfer all or a portion of the funds held in the race horse development escrow fund to any one or more harness racing associations or horse racing associations for distribution. So ultimately, again, going back to that requirement in number three or subsection three, it allows the commission, again, that discretion to move money placed in the escrow account to another association. So with that, I will kind of pause my portion for now of the presentation and allow representatives from the NEHBPA to offer some remarks. And then I'll kind of pick it back up and we can discuss some of the additional considerations that myself, CFAO Lennon and Director Lightbaum had kind of figured out and learned as we researched this process. So I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing and turn it over to the NEHBPA. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. My name is Paul Ambralo. I think most of you know me, those that don't. I'm the executive director for the, and I will say the NEHBPA. We are the oldest horsemen's affiliate in the country with over 30,000 members nationally. And on the call today also with me is, as you mentioned, Matthew Clark and Kevin McCarthy both serve on the board. I think you have to take, you know, taking the time out today to listen to us and take our notes that we have sent to you. I think it's important after seeing some of that slide presentation, first and foremost, to understand that that split that was established. Myself, I did serve on the HRC with Mr. Goldberg who represented the standard birds at the time. And we did fail with the lack of spacing and someone going mute if they're not on mute, sorry. We did in fact work. It's all a blur close with COVID. Worked on trying to negotiate in fairness because we weren't racing on those individual splits you saw presented earlier. So we felt in trying to run numbers that the standard birds deserve rightfully so the 92% while we retained the 8%. The health and welfare we felt was equally and should always be equally at 50-50. And the thoroughbred industry, which we are still working on incentives, which I also serve on that board to revitalize the breeding industry without racing is at the 75-25. But the main crutch to all this and why we're asking for this is that receiving today the 8% of the fund that comes in roughly is about $100,000 a month. That would not be enough that if there was no funding available for us. So if there was that money grab 100,000 a month would not allow any investor of the horsemen to be able even to race a abbreviated weak enemy to offer purses for the horsemen to come in and race. So with that said, and you did go over it, thank you very much a lot of that language. I feel the language has been when it was initially written. It's in for interpretation. We always use the word broad authority. I think its intent was to include language to support or didn't include language to support our current state of racing. I feel I hope we have the commission has the authority to do what's right for the best for the horsemen in the industry and the horse itself. So as you showed earlier, and this is I guess the gray area I always look at under 205CMR3, harness racing or horse racing association shall provide the commission the 30 days notice. And the two factors are right. Horse races for the remaining harness racing meet discontinue, or we permanently discontinue harness racing altogether, right? Well, we know that's happened. And then upon receipt, as you mentioned again, it's interpretation of the intent or upon learning that harness racing association or horse racing association failed to timely notify the commission of that at any event, any event described in A through F, which again, there is no racing. The commission may take one or more of the following actions. So while, you know, and we do support obviously Suffolk Downs is racing today. You know, I mean, sorry, simulcasting today with no racing and we support that. Our challenges and question is just that while Suffolk Downs continues to simulcast without racing and as far as who is or has the authorization between, you know, the horsemen or the licensee, we know for a fact that there is no racing whatsoever and failure commission can by that act upon an escrow to funding. And more importantly, we need to secure that funding. Obviously for that, those purses to be available. So that not if, but when we do race, I believe executive director Wells has been made aware that there is another potential investor on the horizon. We hope to hear some information shortly. And we also need to protect those those fundings for an investor because that's the way the law was written in the attempt of it was with the gaming money coming in. We were instrumental of horsemen in that 2011 gaming act to protect the industry so that we receive proceeds from that, obviously to fund the purses for the races that licensee very difficult to run a racetrack could not afford. So it's why we're trying to make, I guess, our case, our argument of how important it is to secure it. And at the same time, when I always would read under 23 case section 60, and we talked about interest, you know, the first paragraph says 80% of the funds approved by the commission shall be deposited weekly into a separate separate interest bearing account to be established for the benefit of the horsemen. So we've challenged this for for many, many years. And of course, when racing ended in 19 and COVID hit, we kind of took a backseat. We have sent many letters and requests to the commission, but felt now is the time for us to come back, revisit it, hopefully with a racetrack on the horizon, and, you know, the commission will take into consideration and possibly pursue, you know, doing what's right and escalating that funding, funding, which again, if it wasn't an interest bearing account over the last five or six, seven years, they'd probably, I estimate, five or $6 million to the question earlier asked, that would also be compounded, you know, and co-mingled into that purse fund. So, you know, I mean, I think that makes the case of why we're looking for for the commission to consider it, by rescuing it. For us, we feel you protect the future of the farms, the breeders, a racetrack investor that our industry supports, as we know, hundreds to thousands of jobs. So I won't keep it. I know you have a lot to go. I'll pass it off to Matthew Clark then Kevin, but in closing, I hope the commission will take into consideration us approving to escrow it. If this is too important, I'm more than happy if I think it feels it needs further discussion to come in face-to-face and meet with the commissioners and staff to talk about this further. Thank you for your time. Matt, do you want to just? Good morning. There you go. Yes, good morning, Madam Chairman, Commissioners. Thank you so much time for giving us the time to discuss this important matter today. I think in many ways we've been described as being hopelessly optimistic. However, I would say that we are hopefully optimistic. One of the problems that we've had in the last few years is not a shortage of investors and not a shortage of locations in which to build a new racetrack in Massachusetts. The problem has been that we've been rebuffed in, I think, now nine different towns and cities throughout the Commonwealth who love the idea of a racetrack but not in their backyard. So it's not that we have a lack of interest. It's not that the industry doesn't regard the Commonwealth as a very lucrative and important source of gaming revenue for the industry. It's simply a fact that we've had very great difficulty in establishing those locations. Now, I would say that as Paul very succinctly explained, without having that all of money in the purse account, it makes it severely less attractive to an investor to go forward. And we are going to keep going until hopefully we find a location that will embrace the idea of having a racetrack in their community and the benefits it would bring in terms of jobs and agricultural support. But it's very, very important that we have that money safely looked after by the Gaming Commission. I did note Council's point that we needed a triggering event and I think that triggering event really came in 2019 because although we didn't have an extended thoroughbred racing meet after 2014, we did draw down on that purse account in 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 when we ran some abbreviated meets at Suffolk Downs pending their breaking of ground for the new projects there. I think when that happened that could be well defined as the triggering event but I hope the commission will look upon this favorably and just give some security to any potential investors that are going to be relying on that funding if and when we find a location for a new track. So that's it for me. Thank you very much for your time. If you have any questions I'll be very pleased to answer them. Commissioner's questions then I think we have Mr. McCartney correct you. Good morning. Good morning Madam Chairman, fellow commissioners Dr. Lightbound and Ms. Young and other participants in the call. I just wanted to key on the intended beneficiary of the Resource Development Fund. We're not trying to change that. We just know that we've dealt with multiple investors that were considered building a racetrack which is a sizable investment but without having that money escrow in a purse account to attract, multiply and solidify an investor it's going to be real difficult. I think almost impossible to get anybody to come build a racetrack if that money isn't in a protected account. We don't want to change how it's distributed. We don't want to change how it's the intended beneficiary but we want to use it to help the Commonwealth attract an investor. I could go into detail about the benefits to the Commonwealth of having a racetrack. First thing that comes to mind is Maryland. Maryland is very similar in Massachusetts and socioeconomics but they have a 2.4 billion dollar horse industry and when we were racing in Boston I built my life about becoming a horse trainer and then I had some small success and then when the track closed I was unable to relocate because one of my sons was battling cancer so he's fine now thank God but I didn't want to leave the hospitals we have here in Boston so here I am a kid that grew up in the housing projects in Boston became a horse trainer and then couldn't leave the state and follow my in a sense dream but the main thing horse racing is about hard work, persistence and patience and a lot of us experience that because it's it's somewhat it's required in the sport but I really want to key in that the intended beneficiary of the resource development fund is not being utilized right now by not as growing in my opinion and from people I've talked to it is in a sense scaring away future investors and we've talked to a few of them I personally have talked to some investors that are a wishy-washy about building a facility when the money that would satisfy purses is not certain to be there so not only the other thing I want to talk about just briefly is the fan base in Massachusetts for horse racing Saratoga for example they've gone seven years except for 2020 during the COVID they've went seven years with over a million in attendance paid attendance that averages about 29 26 to 27,000 people a day and if any have been there one of the things you're to experience a lot of Massachusetts plates so there's a fan base we just got to solidify an investor but it'd be difficult to do that and utilize it for the intended beneficiary without that money being escrow I thank you very much for your time specifically Ms. Young you're very informative yes Ken can I before we go into questions there was two things I meant to bring up as well I forgot is that okay sure thank you yeah so just real quick I think with the the 22 million in that rest racehorse development fund I think we have been fortunate enough because the state does have a surplus that there has been no money grab we've seen amendments to bills with individuals trying to go after it and I think with obviously having a team of lobbyists on staff for us to try to protect it that's always why we've been concerned but not as concerned but it's one of our concerns that that money is kind of the dangling carrot as we call it that could be scooped up you know taken away it isn't there obviously for the future use of a thoroughbred race track investor and then the other important piece was just that it goes back to and it's something again we've talked about even 128 A and C being antiquated and I've been trying to work even with the commission I know it one year we had 128 D I've been trying to work with Rep Chan who is one of the more subject matter experts on on that antiquated amended language notwithstanding as they put it in so many legal terms that I read it and read it and read it and still don't understand it it goes back to that gray area about the horse racing association that comes up so I think we might have to in the future consider again like is Suffolk Downs a racing licensee or their simulcast licensee and that's something I think not today but again we should have continued discussions but it kind of relates to this topic is Suffolk Downs can continue as a simulcast licensee but the criteria that was established which I believe again was to protect the horsemen says if there's no racing or you're notified or not properly notified that's why that money should be escrow and I think we have that gray area of that interpretation and maybe who's who and who represents what and why I think there should be or hopefully there could be some middle ground we could all agree on a work together that says Suffolk Downs can continue like the Rainham folks to simulcast and taking the signals but if we're going to have an investor come in and spend millions of dollars to build a racetrack then I think then that's why we're requesting that that money be escrow thank you for that sorry Judy thank you so just an addition or a couple more points of consideration for the commission before we kind of open up into a broader discussion for Q&A if commissioners have any questions is that after we receive this request from the NEHBPA both in the fall and again more recently in June myself CFA London and Dr. Lightbound began to kind of review these regulations and then also kind of think of the bigger picture in terms of how the commission as an independent agency would take this on would kind of review escrowing funds so we were able to kind of conduct some informal meetings with members and counsel from the treasurer's office from the comptroller's office as CFA London previously stated and also kind of reviewed some of our relevant statutes so it does appear that the commission would not necessarily be able to undergo the escrowing of funds independently not to say that the regulation is incorrect more so that it does appear with certain statutes in mind that the treasurer in effect shall manage all cash funds as to investments or funds under the control of a state agency so for example if the commission was to go ahead and place funds into escrow I think it would ultimately be within the purview and the advice of consent of the treasurer's office to allow us to do that so it doesn't necessarily appear that this is something that the commission would be able to instantaneously do without further discussion and I think some some more internal work to be done Derek do you want to add anything on to that or have I submitted that okay you've summed it up perfectly and we just received a memo on the 27th from the state treasurer's office regarding setting up an establishing of accounts and if they're not our typical banking types of situations so a sweep account a lock box or a depository then there could actually be costs associated with maintaining those counts and we would we would definitely need to work with the treasurer's office and if you'd like I can share that memo on the screen now but it is it's you know let me share right now and as you can see this came from the treasurer's office first deputy treasurer on June 27th and what Judy was talking to is right here we are a commission that falls under chapter 29 section 57 of 23k sets us up as a state finance as a state agency for state finance law purposes this goes right into how they shall manage all of the accounts and they have to combat the treasurer's office shall set them all up and agencies need to work with going further down agencies need to work with the treasurer's office to establish any account even a basic depository and going further down anything that outside of their basic things would actually cost us so we'd have to do an ISA with the treasury to reimburse them for these for these accounts so everything that we talked about earlier was just confirmed in a memo that the treasurer's office has not historically sent out so this is something this came as part of their year-end procedures because we work as the Commonwealth works on a modified cash basis of accounting so they tell us when we have to have everything into the bank to push it back and credit it to years and this is actually a new memo that came out this year as well as they even sent the forms that we have to send up to ask for a new bank account so it's not even before like we used to call up the CFO of the treasurer's office and I hey we're looking at banking we'd like to go with this bank because it's on your list of approved banks and it's close to this location now we actually have to send up a form send that through all their processes so the it's not an easy thing that I think that we can just decide to do we can make a policy discussion and so we'd like to do this then we have to go to our partners and say here's the rationale and I think there's good rationale for it if the commission decided to do to do that it's just we can't make any promises that it absolutely will happen so I'll stop sharing now Derek can I ask you in part of those conversations would they give you a sense of cost like a percentage or a flat like is there some sense of what they mean by cost to the agency under an ISA? So with any bank account there's a certain amount to maintain it especially if you're not writing checks out of it right they love to see direct deposits and then checks coming out of it because that's where they get their volume whichever bank the treasury would decide to do this with would be the cost and this is almost like investing so they would take a look at what's the best institute that they have to do this they would want to take a look at the terms of who's the who can sign off on any withdrawals from this so we'd have to come up with all those things that are typical with an escrow account send it over to them and then they would put it out to bid for all of their approved banks and see what the best one is with the best rates and then we'd pay that so no they didn't give us an idea of what it would cost and is there a treasury cost on top of that in terms of administrative costs on their end or is it purely the banking costs purely the banking costs purely banking costs okay thanks thank you Derek commissioners other questions Judy I'm sorry were you going to continue oh no I was just thanking Derek for showing or for screen sharing that memo I'm I'm all set this concludes my presentation commissioners if you have any additional questions for myself Dr. Lightbound or CFA Lenin we are here now I do recognize I've been prattling on for a little while can I can I just interrupt an interject sorry one more time sorry and I do have a question too okay go ahead Mr. Unbrella well doesn't this really go back and this was probably before my time and I don't have the details but again if we want to follow 23k it clearly states that 80% of the funds should be deposited directly into an interest bearing account so I don't know why or how that never happened whether it was the festival racing itself or the management between the money going into Suffolk Downs account and not in the defined horseman's account I think that's really one of the main questions and I'm hoping that if if the commission has grown 22 million dollars there'd be no fees associated with that kind of money going into an escrow account but that's that's for another subject so I'm Derek I'm a little bit confused because I thought I heard Judy say that 23k does not give us any direction it's all through the reg did I just understand that so that's correct Madam Chair so 23k does and section it's section 60c of 23k lays out those distributions that I spoke about previously the 80 the 16 and the 4% from the resource development fund but then escrowing itself and the process of power funds are moved from the RHDF into an escrow account is not contemplated in statute and so that's just purely in the regulation and so what 149.044a one through I think four does is it lays out the distribution of of funds from an escrow racing account but it also kind of mirrors that those distributions from excuse me from the resource development fund itself so it's almost this dual discussion and dual treatment of funds but I think what you're getting at and it's something I noticed as well is that this regulation kind of in so doing mentioning these two different accounts in the same sentence has created or mentioned something that isn't necessarily contemplated so these these interest-bearing accounts that Derek was discussing previously so we definitely do have a little bit more research to do on this issue but I'm happy to follow up with commissioners as we keep going I see Dr. Leipman also has our hand raised so 23k and the resource development fund does talk about it going into an interest-bearing account and that's basically the purse account at the racetrack so for instance at Lane Ridge we automatically Derek's team comes up with the amounts after we get the gross gaming revenue and they calculate what goes to the different pots and so for the five different areas of the health and welfare benefits the purse money and the breeders and then you do it for the two breeds so there's actually six pots five of those pots are going out every week basically from the commission to the people who receive those and the purse money that goes to Plain Ridge for the standard breads goes into their purse accounts an interest-bearing account and when Steve O'Toole does his tie out with Chad Bork and I on the purse review he'll see that money interest in there as part of the purse money with Suffolk Downs where they were not running a full meet and so they were not going to be able to use all of the purse money that they would have received from the resource development fund several times that came in front of the commission typically in a request from Chip Tuttle and Suffolk Downs and in conjunction with the HBPA they requested and they felt that the commission should put all of the money into the purse account and the commission had several different meetings over several different years and declined to and instead what we would do was when they're they had their festival weekend Mr. Tuttle would let me know approximately how much money in purses they were planning on giving out and we would get that money to them so they could give their purses out but we would not give them the entire amount of the money that was in the fund and that money right now is not that is not very interest correct is not it's it is not and it's not sitting with the association would be Suffolk Downs if they were running a full meet and it is not sitting with Suffolk Downs and it never it didn't sit with them the money that sat with them was just the money they were going to be using for those festival days and I heard and I'm sorry it might have been the gentleman Matt I didn't catch his last name I apologize I'll need that from notes perhaps he said it that his view is that it's in order for it to be safely booked it needs to be an escrow what is the risk I understand that there's not bearing interest what is the risk of other than you know that it not be a non-interest bearing account what risk is there why would he use the word safe I'm not sure if Derek may be able to answer that better than I I'm not sure if it being an escrow really protects it anymore or not if the and Derek may be able to speak to if the legislature decided that they did want that money to go somewhere else would they be able to legislate that any money in escrow from the racehorse development fund going to some other area that's exactly my question is it in order to avoid a legislative sweep Derek so that that's obviously part of the concern I think you heard the the enforcement association representatives say that that's part and we have seen many amendments annually we have to submit to both a and f and ways and means the balances and all of our trust funds as well as whether they're still active or not and this is one of the accounts where we constantly say these monies are active they are for the benefit of these individuals per the statute it would take a statutory change opening up 23k basically the scoop any of this money so we have successfully advocated on behalf of the horsemen's associations year after year whenever the amendments come up and whenever this exercise comes up you know the community mitigation fund is another one that we're constantly defending the greyhound stabilization fund is another one that we're constantly defending where there are balances sitting there that the that the people who deposit it or who it should have gone to were saying you know you you have to kind of pay attention to this before you even contemplate taking it so it's not a unique situation that this trust fund is facing but that into anti a question yes we we could be required because as that as that memo from the treasurer's office says they have to account for all money whether it's invested whether it's in a escrow account and that may be something that would be required to put on the escrow terms we'd have to walk through that with the treasure if the legislature wanted to scoop this is this something that we would have to put as a payment option because usually with escrow accounts it takes numerous people to sign off and where it could go to so you know that the only thing it's doing is requiring the statutory it would require the statutory change which we say you need any time you're thinking about scooping this account anyways so and then and then I'll turn to Mr. McCarthy unless my fellow commissioners have a question so then the is that the only risk is the scooping legislative scooping that you can think of Derek I just wanted to make sure that those funds are safe and secure that is the only risk I can think of we are tracking it on a monthly basis on our website to show the balance that's growing to show the deposits that are growing to show the payments to each group to show that what should have been paid out to the standard and the thoroughbred purse account actually doesn't get paid out so we show here's what should have been paid out here's what wasn't here's what wasn't here's the difference and there's always a zero in that column since I think 2019 of what should have been paid out to the thoroughbred purses and then one last question I just took coffee I heard and I forget if it was Mr maybe it was Mr umbrella forgive me if I'm attributing it to the wrong person but that's okay had had interest been assigned it would have been a certain amount would have accumulated did I also hear that it can only be an escort for three years and then what happens so that's per regulation and Judy can talk deeper to this because you know that very well but it basically says you have to then take it back out and distribute it based on how the racing horse committee has determined those percentages should be distributed so if we still don't have a race see or a licensee it would just go back into well under our current process it would just go back into the race horse development fund we keep tracking the balance there unless the commission determined that it should go to one of the horseman's associations which I would not get into the determination or the legal analysis that has gone into that in the past because it's well above my thought process or could it go back to another escrow but then we'd have to go through the permissions for the treasurer again that's a three year all right commissioners do you have any questions before we turn to Mr. McCarthy can I bring up one other question sorry Mr. McCarthy had his hand up first Mr. come on go ahead I'll let him go this time thank you go ahead thank you ma'am chair the only thing I just want to reiterate one more time is you know the investors are aware that that five out of the six designations for the money are going where they're supposed to and we're not trying to change the intended beneficiary only use it for price accounts you know that that the money has directed and we're not trying to change the distribution what we're trying to do is strengthen the chances of us getting either multiple investors or solidify an investor to build a race track we're not I just think it's it's it's pretty for a lack of legal term it's pretty wishy-washy what's happening with the money and so that that's all I I wanted to add thank you for acknowledging I think we think wishy-washy is pretty accurate terminology all right Mr. Umbrella yeah sorry I guess the and it's really the million dollar question is and it was an assumption is that while that money is sitting in that racehorse development fund and as we call it can be a money grab our assumption is is that if that's escrowed that money and I'm assuming is and would be under the oversight of the commission and in a I guess is it still a stated account or commissions account however that's defined would be protected I mean that's really the difference and why we're pushing for that right that it it can't be or as we keep saying that money grab the day dangling carrot those amendments come in that people always continue to go after it and I can share it was in Pennsylvania I believe they did something similar where the money was airmarked the state did come in to that fund take some funding that was needed because they didn't have a surplus like the state of Massachusetts however the caveat was is that the state would pay back that account over time so that the money still was guaranteed to the horsemen so I think it's important understand that as well because technically if that 22 million sit in there and let's say 10 million is taken we don't ever get that 10 million dollars back for future races and future purses and the other thing to remember you know by escrowing it that if nothing does transpire in the next three years you also are protecting I'm sure they're going to love that I'm saying this as the language says is that money could be transferred over to the standard breads and have their industry continue so technically we're helping the standard breads as well with this so it's you know it's why we're kind of seeing it as it being important to kind of just protect it obviously and again it's for the future purses of the future of racing thank you all again I'll stop talking thank you commissioners I know that Judy has indicated that there's still some internal work to do on this matter so where are we we have today is a chance to get a lot of questions answered I'm wondering if there are any other stakeholders that we haven't heard from that we need that you would like to hear from Judy or maybe you're reaching out to everybody anyway thank you for reaching out to the treasurer's office the comptroller's office all really helpful thank you Petter yeah I I give a lot of credit to CFA Lennon and director life out on this one this was a team effort you know kind of reviewing the regs was my my first indication but then realizing you know with the advice and experience of Derek that we probably need to think big picture on this one so I would say yes personally I think it's a bit too early for consideration by the commission I do think that we have given the issuance of that memo that Derek shared for you all a little bit more research to do on our end in consideration but I'm happy to return later with some follow-ups and some updates for the commissioners as well Judy and Derek can I ask a question also in terms of this money's right now that we're holding they're not occurring interest is that correct yeah so the other thing I would be curious they're accruing interest just not to our benefit so they are okay that was my question is it thing if they're not at a minimum it seems to me they should be accruing interest so that answers that question okay I had a concern that we were having these sit and not a newer any interest to the benefit that the taxpayers are counting well but it sounds like that's happening it's just the current structure has those go back to the general fund that's correct great thank you I guess I have one follow-up question if and maybe this one you can't answer this might be for benefit of further research if we were to move it into an escrow as requested by the association to the legislature override that so the legislature could always come in and scoop it even an escrow yeah because that's still the funds of Commonwealth right so it's the same as it's the same as an investment who would have to let them know here are the problems with it I mean they'd probably see be some sort of fine for breaking the terms of the escrow account so there may be a penalty to some of it but they they absolutely could come in and scoop it all they'd have to do is change the statute and say now this the balance is coming here it's no longer for the benefit of purses but if I made that would require statute change correct yeah because I know that's what I thought yeah okay not just they can scoop it correct okay because we don't we have wait we have the House and Senate support today so I was just curious I just want to make sure yeah I just want to make sure I was clear on that I wanted to make sure that expectations were correct so thanks for that it's a good follow-up question Mr. Unvello no thank you yeah and and of course none of their questions in any way imply anything with respect to legislative intent I know that but of course racing has been a long has a long-storied history in Massachusetts with a lot of legislative support and I'm sorry because I thought I was done but I have to because it was another misnomer so that account is because I was told I thought multiple times that it was not in an interest bearing account sitting there so that's not true is that what I heard it is collecting interest but going back to the state so you have to so that is remember the state works on fund accounting so the majority of our money sits in one depository a big Santander Dander Santander account for the whole Commonwealth all hundred and some odd agencies and then they give it back to separate funds and depending on what that what that major bank account earns is interest your piece of that unallocated balance or that your piece of what's sitting in there in the daily earnings you get on that interest would come back to your trust fund since legislatively we don't have language that allows us to keep that interest the Commonwealth keeps that interest and it stays with the general fund yeah okay because in the past I think I was misinformed doesn't matter by who that it was standalone in its own non-interest bearing account so as far as fund accounting goes yeah right but as far as banking you know true banking goes right it's an interest sharing account and then technically couldn't that interest just pay for the fees if it wasn't an escrow account not to split it to split it here absolutely could and that's something we'd try to work through with the treasure to make sure that we didn't have to pay for but you wouldn't be able to keep all of the money that would be being generated there yep no so those are all the terms we'd have to work through if the commission to decided to do this because you would whoever the commission determines is you know the owner of that would have to be part of the escrow as well every time we want to make a payment into that account we'd have to have the terms onto the escrow that allows us to do that every time the if there's a fee associated with it and we didn't do an ISA we'd have to have the terms of the escrow to allow that to happen so these are all the things that if the commission decided to go down this this path we'd have to work out with the treasure and whoever they determined is our partner in that escrowing then obviously if there's conversations future conversations needed or with the treasurer's department if obviously the commission needs the horseman's input support or what not I'm hoping obviously we would have continued conversations and you'd reach out to us appropriately thank you all right now I promise I'm done no more comments well it's very helpful to get all the information where we're here it's good to get it it's it's a lot it was it was a long time coming and I thank you all for at least hearing listening to us today and truly appreciate it thank you Mr. Unbrano okay commissioners are we ready to then move on and allow Judy and Derek and Alex to continue their work with the input from all critical stakeholders including the association anything we want further from them before we turn to the next item okay thank you excellent job thank you for making sure thanks commissioners thanks everyone great job everyone clear presentation thank you so much very very informative thank you thank you very much thank you okay then we're moving Dr. Light found two items for CND good morning chair morning madam chair and commissioners so as in your packet item CND is going to be for local aid aid again is payable to each city in town where racing activities are conducted the amount of aid is determined at a rate of 0.35 percent of the handle from the quarter that ended six months prior to the payable date today we're going to be doing the Q3 and Q4 for FY23 local aid payments so with that the first payment which is the quarter ending on March 31st using handles from July, August and September of last year the city of Boston is to receive $149,274.48 the town of Plainville $42,297.99 the town of Rainham $18,483.69 and the city of Revere receiving $74,659.64 I did provide a breakdown of each of the payments and this also does ask for a vote from the commission pause there if any questions clear memorandum any questions should we move separately Richard Hill you're nodding your head I was going to do the first Q the FY quarter three Madam Chair I would move that the commission authorized FY23 quarter three local aid payments to the city of Boston in the amount of $149,274.48 to the town of Plainville in the amount of $42,297.99 and to the town of Rainham in the amount of $18,483.69 and to the city of Revere in the amount of $74,659.64 Second Sorry I just got a notice from someone looking for something and hoping I'm not untimely caring so my apologies Dr. Lightbound thank you Trisha O'Brien Hi Trisha Hill Hi Mr. Skinner Trisha Maynard and I vote yes 5-0 thank you chat for that the next the next one please sure so the Q4 FY23 payment is quarter ending on June 30th which using handles from October November and December of last year the city of Boston is to receive $100,380.05 the town of Plainville $29,051.93 town of Rainham $16,482.33 and the city of Revere receiving $50,205.09 for a total amount of $196,119.40 again the breakdowns are included in your packet and this also will require asked for your vote I have a motion I move that the commission authorize the FY23 Q4 local aid payments to the city of Boston in the amount of $100,380.05 to the town of Plainville in the amount of $29,051.92 to the town of Rainham in the amount of $16,482.33 and to the city of Revere in the amount of $50,205.09 second any questions, edits? okay Commissioner O'Brien aye Commissioner Hill aye to Mr. Skinner aye Commissioner Maynard and aye vote yes excellent work any further anything further for you Chad and then I'll turn back to Dr. Lightbaugh I am that ends what I have for you guys okay thank you good to see you nice to see you good seeing you thank you Director Lightbaugh anything I just wanted to say thank you very much to Derek Lennon and Judith Young for their work on the escrow of the Racehorse Development Fund it's a has a lot of different angles to it and I really appreciate their hard work on it that's all the racing items for today okay I need thank you so much before we turn to the next item I am I just need to check one tech thing so I need just a two second break thanks so much Madam Chair yeah can I request a five-minute break sure thank you and I appreciate that thank you and then we're going to returning to item number five on our agenda I need to apparently get some some electricity to my computer for us thank you okay Dave I think they're all set also hoping that this outlet has a little bit more electricity running through it so we are back convening today's meeting which is meeting public meeting 462 of Massachusetts gaming commission we are holding this meeting won't maybe took a short break so I'll do a little call commissioner I'm buying good morning again I am here thank you good morning again commissioner Hill here so I'm commissioner Skinner good morning good morning and good morning commissioner Maynard good morning all right we'll get started we are turning to item number five after our racing update now we're turning to research and responsible gaming the morning director Vanda Linden good morning madam chair good morning commissioners we have a few things there for you today we're going to kick it off or start with long ban just done some excellent work pulling together a report outlining some numbers and characteristics of our enrollees and the voluntary self exclusion program long will then turn it over for a game since quarterly update and then we have a research item for you as well Dr. Bonnie Andrews will will introduce our presenters who will talk about using perspectives of Springfield Hispanic residents towards EMGM casino and this is this is our latest community based participatory research study before I turn it over too long though just quickly I wanted to to highlight the new and improved game sense website game sense ma dot com earlier this year we began working with a firm ASG a communication and marketing firm in the very first project we wanted them to do for us was updating the game sense website recognizing that sports wagering is here and that that was a top priority for us if you don't mind I'll just share my screen and again this will just take take one minute so as you can see this is the home page of the of the new and revised website our old website highlighted a character named Chip who was not who was supposed to represent the game sense advisor but was definitely now game sense advisor the game sense advisors are the heart he's all of our of the game sense program and this represents who they are including just the incredible wealth of information the diversity of the team in the passion that they have for the program so you can see this is Amy Aisha Ray and Lynn there's much more information about each of the the game sense advisors we will have photos of each of the game sense advisors but even clicking through for example Amy talks about their favorite parts of working at the at the mass console and gaming and health as a game sense advisor as well as their their favorite game sense and see that we added information about sports wagering if you it's very top of the list under know the game and like anything that we do related to any type of gambling we want to talk to people about rules of the game how to play but embedded in every single thing that we do is information about responsible gaming and providing responsible gaming tips we also wanted to really highlight the availability of live chat which connects individuals to a game sense advisor at any time 24 seven the voluntary self exclusion since remote enrollment and the voluntary self exclusion has become such as as as you'll see from long the fastest growing type of enrollment we wanted to make that quicker quicker and easier to connect with a game sense advisor in order to enroll in the program and especially with sports wagering we also added a Google Translate feature and so you'll see up here under languages that we have Arabic Chinese simple and traditional Haitian Japanese Khmer Portuguese Spanish Korean and Vietnamese translation for the website that is is available so that's it I think it's I love it I think kudos to ASG who who helped lead this but we also involved our game sense team we involved Bill Sherwood from the mass council and then of course Long and I were involved with with this every step of the way so that's it and there are no questions I will turn it over to Long Ban Mark thanks for that update questions for director Vandal and and on that new development that's it asked him to just bring us up to date real quick okay morning Long morning chair good morning commissioners so I'm going to share my screen I'm going to share the sorry good morning chair good morning commissioner so today I might be going to present the the BSC the voluntary self-exclusion update so the expended gaming act includes a number of key mandates to ensure the successful implementation of expended gaming including the prevention of and mitigation of social impacts and costs one such mandates is establishment of a list of self-excluded persons from game gaming establishments chapter 23k section 45f directs the commission to develop procedures for placement removal and transmittal of the self-excluded persons list to gaming establishments to fulfill this mandate the commission adapted voluntary self-exclusion or the BSC program where a person may request to be placed on the list by completing an enrollment agreement acknowledging the person as a problem gambler the BSC program commenced in June 2015 over the past eight years the program has evolved from the entirely paper-based enrollment system to a system enabling digital enrollment the system has also evolved to include the option to for patrons to enroll remotely as well as in person the transition included the developing development of a BSC app where gaming establishment connects access to self-excluded persons list in real-time and through a secure process today we present an update of the BSC program throughout the past eight years so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to give an overview of the past eight years from June 2015 to May 2023 so here's the BSC enrollment and read statements looking at that duration for eight years and you know I did put some key dates just to sort of give a reference so if you look at in August 24, 2018 at GM... Long, I'm not sure if you're moving through the slides or at least it hasn't appeared that way Oh, sorry Has it updated? Okay, it's because there's two different screens I'm looking at so let me this is simple thank you Mark so this slide here it really shows the enrollment and the read statements and so the dark blue line it's focusing on the gaming enrollments and so I separated and there's a black line towards the end that's for sports wagering because we introduced sports wagering in 2023 but here you can sort of see the enrollments and the read statements and there is a spike and I will get more into it but I sort of just want to highlight and then there's a dip back in March 14, 2020 that's when the COVID shutter so we did see a drop and then slowly when it reopened we saw a surge or up to the level and one thing to note so the total active BSE enrollments is 1,430 and so I sort of broke it down to the gaming and sports wagering so the gaming enrollments at 1328 and the total sports weight wagering enrollments is 102 total read statements is 493 and so these numbers I'm going to sort of explain and sort of use it as a reference points when I do the other presentation so as I mentioned about sports wagering sports wagering was introduced 2023 and so we took the first enrollments on January 27 for the VSC for sports wagering and as we have two different lists one for the gaming and one for sports wagering but we combined a process for folks who are interested in VSC for both gaming and sports wagering so here we broke it down so in the first column you see the sports gaming and sports wagering VSC there were 92 patrons who were enrolled in both the gaming and sports wagering and there were 10 who just enrolled in the sports wagering and the question that came up a lot when presented the first number were that the folks who did sports wagering only how many of those previously had enrolled in gaming so the second the bar graph or the pie graph next to it shows that the breakdown so three out of the 10 were previously enrolled in the gaming VSC so we had seven who were specifically just gaming had never enrolled in gaming and so then because there's some duplication the total number that I had before is 1430 you'd have to subtract the duplication and so the total unique enrollments were 1335 so accounting for folks who would enroll in both we did not want to double count them but for this purposes for this exercise I actually looked at the whole enrollment and sort of see the terms and sort of break down of what we were seeing of the enrollment so the first stuff the first item we wanted to look at is the VSC enrollment terms so here's looking at all the folks who VSC at 1430 sort of break down of what people chose to VSC one note or a couple of notes to lifetime our requirement was that before you can do a lifetime you would have to previously enrolled in a shorter duration so the lifetime required someone to enroll either six months one year three year five year and the other note that I went to note also six months when we initially launched VSC we offered six months but due to the the low enrollment we sort of ceased the six months option and that ended on March 2020 so we discontinued the six month option so the number to six months hopefully in the next iteration you will see less and less of that because patrons had an option of one year three year five year or lifetime after they completed the short duration and then so the one item that we also wanted to look at is for those who did reinstate what terms did they complete and here we saw overwhelmingly about 75% of the folks completed a one year term before reinstating and the total reinstatement patrons were 493 so the next item we wanted to look at is gender composition looking at who are enrolling and who are reinstating would surprise us from this data where that most mostly male were enrolling into the VSC but a good chunk of a fairly even amount of male and female are reinstating and so that's something that we're sort of surprised by we were expecting the ratio for the enrollment and the reinstatement should be equal but this is showing us it's not the case the item the next item we looked at is the racial makeup so who are these folks who are enrolling into the VSC while the majority of the folks are white we were happy to see that there are other ethnic groups that are also VSC African-American 10% were enrolling Asian-American about 17% so it's kind of nice to see that there were some other ethnic groups so the next item we want to look again those who did enroll what are the makeup of those who reinstated again majority are white however we do see a representation from other groups as well and then the other last piece that we wanted to look at that you know sort of what looked at first was more of the age of enrollments so here's a side by side looking at the age of those who enrolled and those reinstated and it's a good good majority of the folks in the VSC range from 25 the age of 25 to 55 we do have folks 65 and over and folks 24 and younger 21 to 24 but a majority of the folks who are VSC and reinstating are from 25 to 64 and then before I go on I sort of want to talk about so in 2022 we introduced the VSC app so with the introduction of the VSC app we were able to expand our abilities to understand the locations of the VSC enrollments and patrons who sought follow-ups so the next slide I want to show is the VSC location so if those who are enrolling wherever they were enrolling in and so here we started with January 2022 that was when we introduced the VSC app so we were able to extract and one key date we wanted to put there was January 31st 2022 that was when sports wagering launched and you can see that you know the spike and the remote took off and we were sort of exploring more of what we were seeing and what we sort of surprised by so here's the the VSC requesting follow-ups so here's the breakdown of folks as part of the VSC we do offer folks who would like to speak to someone with the experience so Jody Nellie from the Council of Gambling and Health will reach out to folks who have requests to follow-up so here's the breakdown of folks who request a follow-up and we do see that there's a spike also around March and again we will drill down looking at what's what's going on in March and why do we see a spike and then here we looked at those who did ask for a follow-up where were there where were the enrollment completed and 83 or 36 percent completed remotely and again I think there's a lot of sort of questions that we had why there's a spike now I'm going to look at sort of the difference between sports wagering gaming and those who VSC for both gaming and sports wagering so it's just sort of breaking down and sort of looking at it and so this set of data we're looking from January 2023 to present so the first item we looked at is the enrollment location and again the breakdown the total number so there are a total of 132 for the gaming VSC 92 from gaming and sports wagering and 10 just sports wagering and then we can see that with the gaming it was pretty evenly split so there were remote but there were also going to the casinos however when you start looking at the gaming sports wagering and just sports wagering you see that remote was more of the the majority of where the VSC was being completed and then we wanted to look at the gender so for those folks who are VSCing in the different different options where were the makeup so we do see that males are mostly VSCing however with the gaming it's a closer split while the sport a gaming sports wagering and sports wagering were mostly who were completing the VSC and so we wanted to compare racially what are the demographics of folks who are completing the VSC sports wagering not surprisingly 100% were white but when you look at you know gaming and gaming and sports wagering we saw a little more diverse while white is majority there were other ethnic groups who were completing the VSC the age so now we want to compare the age and we see that the gaming again the majority is about 25 to 55 and gaming and sports kind of mirror that but sports wagering a good chunk of the folks are between the 35 to 44 age range so it's a younger demographic because if you look at the majority it's about 25 to 44 versus you know the other two categories 25 to 64 and the next one we wanted to look at the enrollment follow-up so there's one thing I do want to highlight if you look at the game initially those the game folks who VSC for the gaming sort of declined the follow-up but right around March we saw that the increase that actually changed it flipped and so it's kind of interesting to see sort of what changed from folks who declined a follow-up at the gaming and then in March we saw the spike and continue more folks are requesting follow-up in the gaming sports wagering and gaming sports wagering it's too early to sort of see so our guess is more of was there more excitement or more concerns that people had because of sports wagering coming alive people sort of sought more support but I think that's something to look at and sort of compare to see if the trend continues or if it goes stabilized and equals out but that's something sort of just to highlight that we did see a proliferation of folks who are enrolling in game requesting a follow-up and again we wanted to see those who are requesting follow-up where were they enrolled in and you see that you know again sports wagering majority of them are remote and gaming and sports wagering we saw a good chunk from remote and EVH but with the gaming it was pretty split and so you know we're excited because this is the first time looking at the data at the VSE and you know there's a lot of questions and I think you know like I mentioned there's a lot of things we want to look at with the first five months into you know sports wagering we want to sort of see the baseline and sort of compare and get an understanding of the patrons who are at VSE and one special you know thanks you know or I want to acknowledge the collaboration between our department and our IT so you know chief information officer Katrina group Gomes and her team we're instrumental in developing and to can you continual enhancement of the VSE app for us to pull the data and to get more information about the patrons who are at and rolling into the VSE any questions commissioners questions from Lauren this is really good data Michelle Bryan you may need yeah I thank you very much long it's what's it's not a question more is a comment that it's it's interesting for us to be able to take this data that backs up some of sort of the projected gender and age breakdowns that we've been getting heading into sports wagering and I'm not surprised but I'm glad that we actually have some hard data on the ground where we're packing up what they were saying and we're probably going to see so and the online response is fabulous I think that's fantastic that you guys really got that up and running thank you sure Brian most definitely and we're excited to see that as well because reverse it's looking at the literature and the literature suggests that there were more younger white men in sports wagering and here it's sort of mimic or mirror stat but I always think it's interesting when we say younger what do we mean here we actually have a good sense of what younger in Massachusetts mean Mr. is any other questions for mom okay thank you excellent report and a great baseline we'll look forward to the updates thank you chair so you know now I have the pleasure to introduce the game sense the FY 2023 third quarter report so again the expended gaming act includes a number of key mandates to ensure the successful implementation of the expended gaming including the prevention of and mitigation of social impact of cost and impacts and costs chapter 23 K section 21 16 requires casino operators to provide and on-site space for independent substance abuse and also gambling and mental health counseling service and establish a program to train gaming employees in the identification of an intervention with customers exhibiting from gambling behavior to build this mandate the commission adopted game sense an innovative response responsible gaming program that equips casino patrons who chose to gamble with information and tools to adopt to positive play behaviors and offers resources to individuals in distress from gambling related harm the commission has a contract with the Massachusetts council on gaming and health mgma g m a c g h to operate the gaming game sense information centers located on site at Massachusetts casinos and staff 16 to 24 hours daily by training game sense advisors today Chelsea Turner chief operations officer and Odessa Dorica chief programs officer of Massachusetts council on gaming and health will share with you the game sense activities and highlights from the third quarter of this year Chelsea good afternoon everybody if it's okay I'm just gonna share my screen and can everybody see that perfect we can good morning Chelsea good morning thank you for having us today hopefully the rain goes away soon and summer finally arrives anyhow excited to be here talk to you about what we've been up to this is just a cover slide this is Mark Leandro he's one of our game sense advisors at plain ridge park casino and he is definitely an expert on sports betting and I'm going to talk about highlight him a little bit later in the presentation today some of the things we want to talk about are just briefly touch on the interaction numbers how we're doing there talk to you about play my way especially since it's was rolled out at ebh in september and at mgm in the end of march of fiscal year 22 talk to you about sports betting what that's been like how our interactions have been going both on the floor at the brick and mortar casinos and also via mobile talk about some of our magic moments we haven't done magic moments in a while and I thought it would be nice to bring some of that back in these are really highlights of interactions the more quality interactions that we're having so specifically call out a few of the gsa's that have done those Odessa is going to talk to you about telephone recovery support which long alluded to earlier in his vsc presentation we'll talk to you about some of the capacity building within our own staff Odessa will focus on that of course the game sense excellence awards are always a highlight so we'll give you guys the winners of the third quarter the community event that was really cool that we were able to participate in with ppc talk to you about some staffing changes and enhancements at the council and for our game sense team and a little bit about what's on the horizon so first if you look at this slide it's and I apologize that the numbers are really small but what you're looking at are all of our different types of interactions including bsc's and rein statements which long touched on and I'll only briefly talk about those after I go through each of the properties but when I look at these interactions what you're looking at right now you can see fiscal year 21 simple interaction says 81 thousand then 2292 thousand 2369 thousand so at first glance you might think oh we're way way down that's not great that's a red flag hence the red but for me that's not really a concerning number because what simple interactions are are when somebody walks by the center and they ask where's the ATM machine where's the you know where's the cage how do I get can I get directions somewhere so they're really basic interactions we track them because they're important because we want them to lead to more substantive interactions but they're not the ones that are the needy and substantive interactions similarly casino related interactions are if you drop down to the sort of the fourth row casino related interactions are when folks are coming up to the game sense advisors and asking them questions about a particular promotion or event that might be happening at the casino so we track them again they're important because we know oftentimes it takes 1213 1520 touches until somebody that needs help actually feels comfortable asking for it but that's not where we focus our energy we focus our energy and the numbers in the middle the demonstrations and exchanges and those numbers are excellent so demonstrations are when we use something like a brochure some type of tool to explain something to a game sense advisor these are quality interactions and exchanges are similar they tend to happen more on the floor we might be going to a slot machine that's not being used or a table game that's not being used to explain how the house edge is built in or something like that but those are the media interactions and when you look at those numbers our totals for just through the end of May in comparison to last year are way way up so that's fantastic news similarly if you go to MGM you're going to see see similar results their numbers are a little bit down on demonstrations compared to last year again we still have one whole more month to even catch up to FY 22 but their numbers for exchanges are way way up so when you combine the two we're well ahead of where we were last year and lastly when you go to PPC again you're going to see a similar situation to MGM I have no doubt that by the end of June our numbers will be up year over year in those quality interactions which is where what we really want to see I thought long did an awesome job of going through the VSE data and giving you some specific information about that I just wanted to add that as of the end of May so we still have one month we were up year over year across all properties on VSEs by three so we'll probably end the year at about I'm guessing somewhere around 50 to 60 VSE more VSEs this year than last year and as long alluded to the remote option is huge 38 more remote option people opted for to do their VSEs via remote this year than last year and we still have another month worth of data we also had 16 more people do their VSEs during the overnight shift and then what was is a really pretty staggering because statistic to me is 66 more people connected to connected to us which led to a VSE via live chat so that's really really impressive I think and it's a I think a testament to our team for developing the remote option and also getting ahead on live chat way before sports betting was even launched in regards to play my way you know play my way had launched at PPC years ago that was sort of the flagship casino for play my way as I hope most of you know it's a voluntary budgeting tool that is embedded in all of the slot machines as well as electronic table games at PPC we've had over 30,000 people sign up since it launched and as I alluded to earlier at EPH we just launched this September and MGM the previous March so what we're seeing here when we launch play my way out of casino we see a spike initially that's probably similar to when you launch a game or a new product any new product right you're going to see a spike in the beginning and then it sort of trails down and then settles in so right now at EPH we're seeing about 390 new folks sign up for play my way each month at MGM it's at about 310 per month and at PPC it's at about 110 per month which makes sense for fiscal year 24 I think we're going to try some more internal and external marketing campaigns to see if we can boost this especially at EPH and MGM where they haven't had this tool as long I think we can maybe get some be nice to see if we can get some see some spikes in these numbers if in fact we do do do marketing campaigns around them and I'm optimistic that that would happen we definitely feel like it remains a very valuable tool it's something that folks that go from one casino to another ask for if they've already had it at one casino and it's very similar to what what betters may see on a mobile app as well so there's a lot of correlation between play my way and the limit setting tools in the mobile environment sports betting we have done tons and tons of training and preparation on sports training internal we've done self trainings where some folks who have sports betting expertise have led trainings for our staff we've watched videos we've attended webinars basically anything we can could have done ahead of time and still are continuing to learn about sports betting we're trying to take advantage of in addition we've done some external sports betting training so I just wanted to give a huge shout out to win bet bet mgm bet fanatics barstool fan dual draft kings and seizures who are all kind enough to put together a training for our mass council team they spent time talking about the different types of bets and the terminology which bets are safer which ones are riskier what's the user's perspective like as they go through the app what are they going to see so that if somebody is in the casino and they're looking at their sports betting mobile app we're familiar with it or if they're on the phone with us or on live chat with us we can visualize what they're seeing talked about of course their play management tools in each operator talked a little bit about how they're unique because while they are the same in many many ways there are also differences we have found that this information has been incredibly incredibly useful to us and we're very grateful for the time that they spent with us we're also hoping to set something up with better we've just been trying to spread them out and we've also offered to do some archery training for them if they wanted to during our gem and some of them have indicated that they're going to take us up on that inside the casinos what are some of the things that we're seeing we're finding that sports betters are more similar to poker and paramutual players than casino players what that means is they consider themselves more informed and more skilled more strategic and in order for us to talk to them we know that we need to meet them where they're at so by us becoming experts on sports betting it helps to to I guess establish a nice rapport with them out of the gate versus if we just went up to them and and approach them in the same that we might that was somebody that was playing slots it's completely different so you need to speak their language and meet them where they're at and I think we've been successful in doing that the referee shirt says we've talked about in the past we're a huge hit we continue to wear those pretty often our staff likes them as well and we've developed many many materials in regards to sports betting including activities etc now I want to spend a little bit of time talking about a few magic moments so I'm not going to give you eight I'm going to cut that in half but I wanted to highlight some of our game sense advisors and the great work they're doing so these magic moments are really sort of key interactions that our staff has they they report magic moments monthly and we include those in our in our written reports but I wanted to provide you with just a few highlights today so I'm going to begin with Mark the gentleman that was on the front cover slide today Mark in May took a phone call from a young patron who was in a lot of distress about sports betting the gentleman told him he was on a really bad losing streak and he wanted to know how he could take a break from the apps Mark explained the VSC process that game sense could provide but the gentleman really didn't feel like he was ready for that so and then the patron told him he actually just three different apps so Mark explained that there's the time out feature on each of the apps and then he walked the patron over the phone through how to basically do a timeout on each of these apps the patron said that he put in a six month timeout period for on each app and he obviously thank Mark for his patience and helping him out with the time he needed in April Amy had a really long phone conversation over our game line with a patron that had removed herself from the VSC list in October she was super distraught and wanted to be placed back on the list they talked for a long time and ended up completing a remote VSC to place her back on the list she was also hooked up with a Amy also hooked her up with a list of GA meetings and they spoke about possibly getting her a counselor from Gandera in Springfield which is a local public health agency I love this one because I think that this shows how we we establish relationships and then people feel back actually feel comfortable actually calling us back and saying that they still need help and how can we help them obviously we're not clinicians but we are oftentimes the liaison between the person in distress and the clinician and that was the case and I loved the magic moment about Mark because this is something we're seeing with sort of the younger generation of sports betters and also the challenges of sports betters who are gambling on more than one app so just two more at E.B.H. in April Winnie, one of our GSAs was walking the casino floor and she stopped by a gentleman who had previously talked to her he asked her what at that time the previous time that they had met he asked her what 421 had meant and she explained what the lower risk gambling guidelines were he wanted to let her know that he was so grateful that he took that she had taken the time to talk to her about the lower risk gambling guidelines and it's something that he continues to use when he returns to the casino and that it's important to him for him to remember sort of the game sense tips and how to keep his gambling in line this is just a common interaction that we have but it showcases one you know the usefulness of the 421 on the back of the referee shirts and the fact that again people continue to come back to game sense advisors once they learn about game sense and maybe have a little bit of fun as they learn about the games and the last magic moment I'll talk about is with our GSA Josh at EPH just this past month he was walking on the floor and a fellow approached him to ask him how the games work and this person was with a large group of folks so Josh spent about a half an hour talking to them about different games and you know how the house edge is built in and basically they were just all really grateful and said that you know they appreciated the opportunity to learn more about games and the tips before they started to play one of the things that we know from the positive play research is that gambling literacy is a little bit lower in Massachusetts than another jurisdiction so the more that we can have folks understand what they're doing before they actually start spending money the better decisions that are hopefully likely to make at this point I'm going to turn it over to Dessa to talk a little to you more a little bit about telephone recovery support urge surfing and the excellence awards Odessa Dwaraka chief chief program officer I'll let Chelsea pull up the slide so we took a graphic actually that we'd created for my presentation at the University of Nevada Las Vegas they had an international conference on gambling and risk-taking and I was able to present on some of the initiatives that recovery so this was I would really very much call it a pilot project telephone recovery support so telephone recovery support has historically been used in the substance use disorder substance misuse so we're having connectivity issues with those it's a low barrier way of offering people support offer oh no yeah I uh Commissioner O'Brien it's not you but now you've frozen or have I oh I don't know maybe I just have to move I can't even tell if I I haven't frozen apparently I don't think am I frozen you have not frozen Madam Chair and Commissioner O'Brien may have though yes I believe she has and then Odessa is breaking up so we're having definite connectivity issue we can hear you Eileen but you have your picture has froze yeah we gotta do that Odessa you want to try again yeah sure maybe I'll turn off my video to see if that helps I don't know okay why don't we try that it's nice to see your face but we'll try that thank you so much and the connectivity issues are on if you take your video off let's see able to hear me we can can you hear me oh yeah goodness okay just let me know if you can't hear me because I don't know when to stop because on my end it feels like it's working telephone recovery support tradition so Odessa we we aren't hearing you I don't thank commissioners so I think but we do still see your video I have wondered if you wanted to take your video off how is this is this helpful at all yes let's try this okay okay Mark I don't know how to help I don't know what what it is here okay so we wanted Chelsea do you can you guys hear me yeah we had no connection issues with you so Odessa I don't know it seems like maybe we need to turn it over to Chelsea or we okay kind of so I'll try my best to talk that this is definitely Odessa's realm but the I know that she presented this poster at UNLV at the UNLV conference this is you know we do a lot with telephone recovery support as long said you know it's important for us to provide this peer support service we are finding that people are taking advantage of it one of the things that we're looking to possibly implement in the future is asking folks who reinstate if they want to also do TRS so stay tuned on that more to come another thing I know that Odessa was going to talk about is there's something sort of new in the industry in the field called urge surfing and urge surfing is basically the data shows that most people who have a craving it can be about food you know ice cream maybe you're an ice cream lover or it can be about gambling right and that most of these urges don't last that long so if you can just get through the urge and this sort of speaks to like GA and stuff like that where you call somebody for support if you can get through the urge then you'll then you'll be able to sort of move on so you know we've kind of been thinking about how to integrate this into a game sense for quite some time we're not at a point where it's something where we have the resources to really do necessarily like over the phone all the time but we do have an automated number now where you can call when you call our game line if you want to listen to a recording for urge surfing you can listen to the recording and it is available on our website so we're going to track this see if it's useful see if it's not but if you don't try new things you don't ever know if they're going to work so more to come on that Chelsea, thank you for that Tom those are communication directors suggested to Odessa to call in so if you want to see if she can speak now Odessa do you want to try to call in? Maybe she hasn't called in yet okay all right I can keep going so this is basically the second part of her poster and if she wants to circle back and fill in more on TRS or urge surfing then that's great so one of the things we talked to you guys I think about in the past is mental health first aid we have two of our folks who are now trained to train people in mental health first aid which is fantastic our entire staff has been trained and we are in the process of talking with other folks outside of the council in terms of getting trained including the gaming commission and hoping to do some training for interested folks at the gaming commission come this fall as well as other sort of entities like other councils and other states etc and then most recently we had Mark again from the first slide be trained in QPR which is a suicide prevention training this is a little bit of a shorter training the mental health first aid is a full day training it requires some pre and post work versus the suicide prevention training is about two to three hours is my understanding he was literally just trained to become a trainer in this a couple weeks ago through DPH so that was a nice thing that they offered he applied and was accepted to be trained to be a trainer so we're looking forward to him training our staff on that and that's also something we can offer to other folks who are interested whether it's security staff or frontline staff at the casinos or community groups etc so just building our own capacity and our own skill sets game sense excellence awards Odessa are you on I am here all right excellence awards you're up okay if you can hear me that's amazing I'll start with EVH okay wonderful oh gosh so Kevin he's the training facilitator there and we just really appreciate him because he's really integral Odessa we've lost you again new hires at EVH up and running spreading the word on game sense I'm so sorry I don't know what's going on can you just call in with your phone yeah let me try I was trying to do that before let me try again okay I'm gonna skip over excellence awards because otherwise I have to look at my notes and I don't have the notes on every individual person for the excellence award so hopefully we can get Odessa back or I can take this down and then I can talk about the excellence awards so I'm gonna skip over that for now and I'm gonna talk about an event that we participated in at Plain Ridge Park Casino called Rolling Thunder this was a lot of fun it's an event that honors prisoners of wars and folks that are missing in action I believe this is the 10th year in a row that PPC sponsored this event and we actually had two of our game sense advisors ride in the event which was pretty cool so the picture on the right is our of Ray Fluet our director of play our health and Ronnie Shumway who is a game sense advisor at Plain Ridge Park on the motorcycle that they they rode in from Plain Ridge Park to Battleship Cove and in supportive veterans essentially it was really fun for them to do of course they wore helmets they just said they wouldn't look it on the picture and then on the left you see we had a table out at PPC for the day we had fun that this dog picked up one of our game sense swag items and we just thought it was a cute picture but a great way for us to collaborate with PPC be part of the community and also do outreach to a community that we know is more of a vulnerable population being veterans personnel so we've had some staff turnover at the council since we spoke and I'm going to talk just a little bit about Daniel who is one of our newest game sense advisor he comes to us from Kazakhstan he's fluent in Russian as well as one of his native local languages he has an MBA in finance and he has run sports books he is a big very much value added to our game sense team he's at E.B.H. and has hit the ground running from day one he has really been a wonderful addition to our team in addition we're making some a few changes in terms of our the structure of when our managers our game sense managers work at each of the properties so what we're doing is we used to have our managers work you know mostly nine to five and that was so that we could meet together etc and while that was great we want to be more we want to be there for the we want our managers to be there more for the game sense advisors and so what we're doing is we're shifting the hours that the game sense managers work so that we have one game sense manager who's working seven to three one that works more nine to five another one that will work 12 to 8 and another one that will work 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. and by doing this we get to a place where we're almost almost always have a game sense manager on of course you know Ray and myself and Marlene are always available to answer questions if need be but this is just going to reinforce things so that somebody is always there if somebody needs a quick answer or has a quick question additionally we I'm not going to talk about the new staff that we're hiring yet because they while we've made offers and they've accepted they still have to go through the gaming commission licensing process but I can tell you that we're super excited about the staff both in terms of the diversity of who they are the languages that they speak the gaming experience that they have and I really think this is going to help to fortify our team particularly our overnight shift so we're excited about these changes and hopefully it's going to help us to meet the needs of all the folks both at the casinos and in the mobile environment Chelsea I moved and I'm wondering if my internet connection is better here I can hear I can hear you better okay let me just do you want me to add a little more to the voluntary self-exclusion TRS or should I just jump straight to the staff awards sure why don't you talk a little bit about TRS and staff awards and then we can wrap it up with what's on the horizon okay great sorry about that everyone not sure what happened so this presenting on TRS was really exciting because nobody else in the United States that we could find is doing telephone recovery support for gambling actually I couldn't find it being done anywhere in the world at least with the Google search but we said you know there's so many it's been shown to be so effective with folks in early recovery from other types of addiction let's try it for gambling and the way it works how we get most of our referrals for telephone recovery support is when somebody does a voluntary self-exclusion we offer them a follow-up and if they do accept a follow-up they've been getting a call or email depending on their preference from Jodi Neely our director of recovery and when she contacts them this is something else that she offers them it's basically a weekly phone call it can go for about 10 weeks where she's checking in she's offering resources did you go to the meeting how did it go helping them problem solve it can be about a 10 to 15 minute check-in sometimes it's less sometimes people need a little more sometimes folks say actually will you just send me a text to check in with me and at the end of the time you know the hope is that just somebody feels like there's somebody who's been there who's following up with them that's staying in touch with them and we know that this intervention is most effective for people who aren't necessarily ready to go into treatment or be working with a clinician Chelsea can you go to the next slide you know we're calling this a pilot and so we sent out a survey link so it's a just a quick question three question survey to folks who had engaged in telephone recovery support and we got about 21 back even though we had a much higher number of folks who did engage in telephone recovery support but sometimes it's hard to get people to respond back from an email particularly if they'd finished it sometime before so this was anonymous and we just asked three simple questions did you find the calls helpful how much did it help you reduce problematic gambling behaviors and would you recommend this to a friend that was struggling with problem gambling and so every 100% of folks found it helpful and would recommend it to a friend and the range of how helpful it was from a little to somewhat to very much ranged as well with most folks being in the very much category so this is something that we are looking to keep going and expand because right now Jody's pretty much at capacity with this kind of telephone recovery support we're getting more voluntary self-exclusions and so we we'll see this coming fiscal year that we will be hiring some additional hours of peer support that we will also be able to offer people this telephone recovery support on nights and weekends which currently we're not able to offer so we we're looking forward to continuing that and expanding that and where urge surfing fits in with this just really this mindfulness meditation to help you get through your craving you know this is also very evidence based and we were trying to figure out a way to do it that wasn't going to take already limited staff time and we've been thinking thinking thinking and so we decided that for now what we're going to do and it's going to launch within the next week or so that on the gam line somebody will I think it's number three there'll be offered a mindfulness meditation to help them reduce their cravings to gamble and they'll just listen to this five minute mindfulness meditation that we call urge surfing for gambling and at the end they'll be asked to take a brief survey a two-question survey about if it helped them and how much both reduce the urge to gamble and also if it helped them make a better choice in that moment so it'll be really interesting to see what comes out of that and it's again just looking to what can we add for these recovery supports for folks I'm going to jump ahead now to the awards so first EVH we have Kevin and he's just been awesome because he helps the new hires get acquainted with game sense and lets them know how to interact with game sense as a resource for both themselves and patrons at the casino we have Ashley who was super helpful during PGAN we have Tan the security guy he's always just hooking up guests with game sense he's located near the game sense area and he's just always known for like bringing folks over when they need a little extra support so thanks to all of of those people at Encore and now MGM we have pictures for these folks we have Mei Lu she was really helpful with a particular challenging case around a voluntary self exclusion that we wanted to give her a shout out for we have Demetria really brought forth patron who was having struggles with the gambling and also was following up with that patron through game sense and finally Olmar he's known for being one the friendliest people on the property and he's just very dedicated to patron safety and gambling safety and it's always up on the latest game sense activities that are going on and finally at PPC we've got Ryan he's really helped our game sense team get up to speed on sports wagering at Plain Ridge Park we have Molly always empathetic helpful again really proactive about getting guests to game sense and connecting them with game sense advisors when they need some extra help and finally Ann she was working with a patron from out of state who self excluded but was having a hard time getting her win loss statement and so she worked with game sense to make that happen for the patron lastly just a few things that are around the corner Mark already talked about the MGC game sense website which we think looks fantastic and really has a nice clean almost like an apple I think of as like an apple feel clean simple look we are in the third really the third almost final phase of the game sense third party evaluation I know Mark and lung and Bonnie at some point will be reporting to you on that but still working on the game sense advisors are trying to get folks to do patron surveys and working on that diligently we are building on also not coincidentally building a new mass council on gaming and health website so we look forward to sharing that with you at some point in July we're going to be doing four outreach presentations to senior centers in the Plain Ridge Park area super excited about that Amy and Aisha will lead those efforts from MGM and then also end of July is the NCPG conference in Washington DC and a few of us will be going to that and hopefully learning some new things and taking some things back with us about how to enhance what we're doing here in Massachusetts and then lastly it's never too early to start thinking about responsible gambling education month which is in September I think it's fair to say that sports betting will be a focus of that but also play my way more to come and that's all we have for today thank you so much and Odessa and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have and I'll stop sharing my screen thank you Chelsea sorry about the technical difficulties and thank you for being patient with us we we never mind them we're very lucky that we can meet for this flexibility of the virtual platform and it comes with the territory okay I'm going to show you questions excellent excellent report no questions I just had one actually thank you so you mentioned the gambling literacy in Massachusetts is lower than another jurisdiction does that hold true for sports where you're hearing as well or unclear I could probably better I should probably defer to Mark on that question but it's and I'm not sure if we actually I can't remember if we sports betting hadn't launched when we did the research on it to be fair so the they might have included sports betting but it hadn't been live or legal yet so I don't think it would be fair to assess but Mark if you want to correct me or right so we hadn't launched sports by during yet it was the positive play study was done and in 2020 and 2022 gambling literacy doesn't necessarily break it out by gambling type but just overall gambling literacy how people understand the games the odds that that sort of thing so we we don't break it out but massive it was notable to me that gambling literacy and recommitment were the weaker areas and in Massachusetts which is sort of a a guidepost for us to to move towards yeah I'd be curious to know the sports where I know because there's a lot of descriptions of Massachusetts being a more sophisticated market so I don't know if that holds true or whether maybe we think we're more sophisticated than we are but thanks of course other questions other questions commissions very exciting work that's going on with respect to the telephone discovery work look forward to hearing more on that madam chair the telephone recovery support is something I think is a really important service that it started because we recognize that voluntary self-exclusion is an evidence-based practice that helps people reduce their gambling and and overall well-being in the in the evaluation we did that program as well as other evaluations outside of Massachusetts but what what's missing there is that connection of being able to get somebody from voluntary self-exclusion to that next step in their and their recovery journey and you know so this is really intended to to kind of provide them an at the spot of enrollment sort of a soft touch to get them connected to other services or take another step continue to look at their their gambling behavior and I'm really really excited to see that the numbers that are taking advantage of that are going up chair can I just intervene also I agree with mark and as Adessa alluded to we're exploring not extending the telephonic to cyber to digital so we're exploring texting and also sort of having a drop in virtual space for folks because we do understand technology change as sports wagering comes live we do want to sort of explore different technological advances to sort of provide that to folks right right well we'll look forward to it and you're getting metrics so there'll be something to study mom is there anything you want to conclude with no but I think you know commissioner brian asked a really good question and that's something that you know we're excited working with our IT department sort of looking at different ways understanding better those who are via seeing especially the gaming what sort of games they're engaged in and so we have a better understanding who are these folks and you know what information or what sort of intervention what sort of messaging that would be effective to outreach to them but it is exciting and you know the council we're collaborating with them it's great to understand you know where we're at and where we want to go in our directions excellent yeah so yes commissioner I'd just like to add my thanks to the council for Chelsea and Odessa for an excellent presentation and I want to take the opportunity to give an extra special hello to Odessa I think I shared previously that Odessa and I are former colleagues so really good to see your face we don't see you nearly as as much as we see your colleagues at the council but it you know it's a real treat at least for me when you do make an appearance thank you anything else okay well thank you so much and good luck on your continued work we'll see you in another quarter and thank you all for your time yeah thank you and now we're going to turn to back to Mark and I think Dr. Andrews and thank you Monk so much I'm just going to turn right over to Dr. Andrews thank you so much and thank you madam chair and commissioners I'm incredibly excited to be introducing this presentation for you today as you know the expanded gaming act established in the annual research agenda to understand the social and economic effects and mitigate the negative consequences of casino gambling in massachusetts to fulfill this statutory mandate the commission adopted a strategic research plan that outlines research in seven key focus areas including community engaged research in community engaged research the specific research topic or question is developed by the community through a community driven process the commission funded neighbor to neighbor a community action organization based in massachusetts that focuses on issues of social justice such as housing voting rights and employment in partnership with jsi research and training to conduct a study on the effects of the presence of a casino on housing related issues primarily among Hispanic residents in springfield there's been relatively little attention in research literature on the impact of casino on housing related issues neighbor to neighbor aims to add to the development and implementation of housing related policies that are informed by the lived experience of vulnerable communities this study engaged the community in the research process through a community research team consisting of local residents staff from neighbor to neighbor and technical assistance providers from jsi this approach allowed for the inclusion of the lived experience of community members in the research process and helped to ensure that the findings are relevant and applicable to the local context here today to present the findings of this study views and perspectives of springfield Hispanic residents towards the mgm casino their homes community and neighborhoods are zoomily Rivera principal investigator from neighbor to neighbor and dr ridolfo vega from jsi so i'll turn it over to the two of them and we're excited to have them here with us today hi hi everyone nice to see you all again thank you to the gaming commissioners and especially to like our community research team our springfield community it's been a long journey so we're excited to to be back here especially to our reviewers too that was that was a big one today so we're going to be reporting on our process and our findings um are we managing our slides or is managed on your end you should be able to share the slides there's a share screen button at the bottom or i can share the slides for you of course of course i can surma you want me to look to do it yeah okay okay and now yeah so this is just our introduction of slide my i'm zuma li revero again was the principal investigator i'm also an organizer with neighbor to neighbor we we are an action fund per se but we are this is part of our education fund where we literally go out to our communities and get their perspectives understanding and really try to give a true story and statement of what people's experiences are at that moment I also want to give a shout out to my compañero here Rudy Dr Rudy vega um so only our consultant with our with the john snow institute um can we switch slides oh i'm sorry i am the one doing this yeah all right so i have most of my lit on um some of my report backs on these slides and so the goal of this this study was really to it's examining the impacts of housing related issues in here in springfield with a focus on the latino Hispanic community the team which is the SRT which is the community research team was compressed of 11 community members some neighbor neighbor staff and the jsi assistance with their technical and research strategies for consulting us the study was conducted in four different phases it was a discovery phase the community engagement the data collection analysis and the decimation of the project and so in the discovery phase of our study which included some contractual agreements where we kicked off a meeting there was like the program staffing process of it the the education portion of it you know making sure that the IRBs were approved and the stakeholders we were you know to identify them and then the research protocols and technical assistance that planned that helped us plan this data analysis and develop in its phase itself i'm going to turn it over to Rudy to speak a little bit about our community engagement phase during the community engagement phase the work was done for to get the buy-in from the community and engage them train them elicit their questions where we train them on basic research methodologies we train them on structural racism we we train them on problem gambling and the next one after that was the data collection piece and the recollection we collected two hundred and ninety surveys we interview sixty three people we analyze your graphical information systems data on all of the gun shootings that happened between 2010 and 2020 there was a supplementary study and we also collect basic data on race language zip codes during the dissemination phase and so Mali you were the one that put this presentation together with the fair that you did that's in the summer presenting this to the community we presented this a number of times to the community and we collected recommendation for addressing related issues we want to go to the the typical participant you're right now we are going to go into the survey the survey finding these are the quantitative findings and soon we're going to tell us who was the typical the typical respondent yeah thanks Rudi so the typical participant here and us as a grassroots organization we you know we ask folks to participate there is a process but overall our participants were Spanish-speaking Hispanics born in Puerto Rico from the ages of which averaged an age of 46.2 I don't know how to how that number came about because it's just data analysis but they were living in rental apartments in the 01105 area and then sorry and can you go to the next five please no okay our community members if there is a third person asking something no okay so yes go ahead I'm sorry so our community members living in 01105 thought that social problems got better while those living in 01104 thought that the problems got worse and soon my goal and by problem this is what we mean and let's stay here for let's stay here for a while this is what we ask respondents before the casino open in your opinion was prostitution drug selling drug use fighting HIV using weapons through and see was that a big problem smart problem or not a problem okay then we ask after 2018 when the casino open was prostitution was a big problem a small problem or no problem there are three options here and we did the conversion statistical if it was a big problem before and not a problem after that means the things got better if it was a small problem before and a big problem after that means the things got worse and of course not a problem before not a problem after then that means that things stay stay the same I want to I want you guys to look at I want you to commissioners and participants I want you to look at what we are doing here okay no no no no no that that's the that's the one let me go back for one second I want to so the zip codes are next to the zip codes are next to to each other those those two zip codes are place next to next to each other all three and all five and there are no hardly any any differences between between the two there are no no difference between the two so Sumali are we what slides are we watching now yeah we can go to um slide 11 and this is that's the birthplace I mean did you see so you can see my slides yeah we can okay okay okay go go go ahead yeah we have to switch to slide 11 okay okay here you go I don't know I we it hasn't updated on my screen I don't know one about anyone else maybe okay let me let me let me let me do it let me do it let me do it again okay okay can you see it now I can yep okay okay so we when we were doing our research we realized that the birthplace it really didn't have a significant association with the perception of the social problems on there that is whether you were born in Puerto Rico or whether you were born in the United States there was no difference in perceptions that things got better or that things got worse and another thing that we should say is that the people that we asked that questions were people that have lived there at least four years before the casino opened you know so we took that consideration into account next and this is regarding home ownership people that own people that home owners people that own homes they thought that the problems got better that the things the situation got better after the arrival of the casinos while the renters they tend to see the things stay about the same so the researchers found we also asked questions about safety quality of life and rental affordability and those were significantly related to improve social conditions let me translate that that means that people who tend to say yeah I feel safe here I feel very safe here people who say that my quality of life is good yes I can afford the rent they are the same people who say that social conditions changed that things in the casino got better okay so yeah this is about the interviews yeah so some of the conclusions or some of the feedback that we got from the interviews like Rudy said this the 60 interviews they they revealed like a broad category of like perceptions of like how they view the casino which highlighted both positive and negative aspects of the casino's presence and so some positive aspects was the job creation the entertainment the improvement on the aesthetics on how it looked in the neighborhood while the negative aspects including like the crime shifts and the concerns about being criminalized and so like the so the casino perspectives perceptions and I'm going to reach a quote here they were you know they again they they're appreciative of the job opportunities that were created and the vast improvements again on the aesthetics of the neighborhood and one of the quotes were impacted it's impacted like I said before by providing jobs stable income providing the family with you know able to pay the bills they said you know if there were to build it somewhere else they could have built the in lower income how they could have built lower income housing and persuaded their workers that that to work for them while they provide you know while they were able to live in the affordable housing that could have been provided for them can you go to the next one the one negative aspect of it a quote was where they attributed to the casino was the high the rent increase and housing prices also the higher police presence that might lead to the criminalization and they pointed out that police tend to prioritize responses to incidents in the casino over what occurs in their community okay and this is about gentrification yeah so that was another concern of our our community members about the gentrification one quote was a quote was well because in my in my mind there's displaced they're displacing everyone and everyone has nowhere to go now because it's going up in prices and that can't be good for the market right very negatively the casino has caused a lot of gentrification in springfield in the downtown area because it's it's right downtown on main street so yeah cool no you go ahead no no so these are two two important findings right the concerns about gentrifications and and the issue that residents seen more police presence that doesn't necessarily translate into a sense of safety you know that doesn't necessarily translate into a sense of safety and you can yeah you can see this here this room again yeah so while some residents feel more secure due to the increase in foot traffic and the police presence and others still remain very concerned about the potential crime in the area and the influx of outsiders due to the neighborhood right in the downtown area the aesthetics are you know phenomenal they're lit up but you go down the street and they're really concerned about you know some of the crimes being like pushed pushed pushed up the street another you can go so another like perception that we had was that some interviewees said that having the police presence around them doesn't necessarily make them feel safe although that's like the idea that we that's you know given that more police more protection but there's a huge disconnect with the community and law enforcement and having them around doesn't make them necessarily feel safe in the area one of the quotes that we had is that so it's interesting because we're supposed to feel safer because of the casino but like more cops but we but you don't feel safer the fact is we have more we have more just because we have more doesn't make you feel safer which has been a narrative for the Latino community for a long time and you know many participants they and knowledge that crime existed before the casino opened these residents they were talking about the life circumstances they were not making attributions to the casino they are talking about how they feel you can see the dialectic the paradox between these between people say I don't feel safe with all of these outsiders coming in people that I don't even know and others say I feel afraid to so many police in here so this this you know these two that at least two things contradicting contradicting each this is what one of the providers one of the respondents tell you I wanted to tell you the truth the 31 years that I have been living here and in this area is one of the poorest I live in the historic area which is just a little bit but around where I live which is union and school I haven't seen a big change in terms of crime they have always been prostitutes on the corner for the 31 years that I've been there they have always been drug dealings and the police have the time to clean up all of all of that and there is time when you have to fight with the police so that they can come back to to to clean up some people say crime has increased others say they can decrease and other people say it has moved to other places okay when mark commission I'm not Mark I'm not Mark when the Massachusetts gaming commission commission the study on crime and the Springfield casino they concluded that there was no really noticeable changes like increases in crime around the area but what we did and and we examine the same data said that was presented to the commission like a couple of years ago and what we found was yes no significant increase however it has shifted it has shifted to other places stay the same the crime has shifted there is another deep we did the study and and we think that that's the main that's the gist of the of the study that yes crime has not increased for in the last 10 years before they be comparing the before and after the casino open crime has shifted we didn't present the study today because that's like we don't have the time to present that entire study yeah it says that that the resource shows that that is confirmed that it has shifted also just listening take a look at the what we've been listening from the community they are telling us these folks that have a sense of belonging that they're satisfied with the quality of life those are the ones that say what things conditions here are are are improving conditions here are really improving we do know that a strong sense of community and belonging and their sentiments of sentiment of social and inclusion social and emotional support I'll let you Sumali these recommendations yeah thank you yeah so some of our recommendations which also came from our subjects or our community were you know that politicians and stakeholders should consider investing resources that enhance social the social circumstances in the location locations that were that located some of these conditions that deteriorated since the casino opened such as in the 01103 area code the study collected information about participants like you know the age ethnicity again the birthplace race a number of years living in Springfield zip code among other things but based on our results we suggest that money should be put into resources to help build the community such as education some more leisure and public safety can go to the next slide please yes so followings are some examples of educational and communal spaces that benefit the community the community centers are a place where people can go gather for social educational recreational activities they can offer various programming and servicing such as after-school programs sports weeks fitness classes etc around job training and something closer to their neighborhood versus like a south end community center where they have to go a little further out they would like something in the neighborhood for the neighborhood again libraries are important for educational resources that provide access to like books technology education programs that they don't currently have and the other recommendation is examples the communal spaces which are the park and rec spaces that provide physical activity socialization relaxing opportunities youth programs are huge asked in that neighborhood after that offer opportunities for young people to develop in their skills explore interests and connect with their peers adult education programs that offer lifelong learning skills ESL classes that were provided at some point from other institutions but no longer really available like that and they can also include classes topics such as like computer skills you know language justice which is huge and financial literacy and that would be the end of our recommendations right now I can say that I can say that from my experience that the community research group they were educated like Rudy said on the systems right and how systems work and they pretty much govern our lives because these in grassroots organizing um we have to take into consideration the lived experience and the story that they're saying I can say like from my experience that some of these folks these folks these folks told their true experience but may not understand the systemic like the systemic part of the systemic portion of the education so they may not they may although some homeowners may see it as positive because it's the aesthetics are great and lit up they're not really seeing the impacts of like how when the casino came the increase in their taxes because of property values was really tied into the you know the the like the upbringing or the how should I say it the the investment into the neighborhood made it so that their property values go up so although the aesthetics look great I don't know if they're tying the property values or their taxes you know because of the upgrade to the community and in the other part where those that say it got worse are experiencing at that I think they're they're hate to say it but almost accustomed to living in these poor conditions right and I and not that they should they feel or they're stating that they should have better living conditions but it when they say it hasn't gotten better that I mean that it hasn't changed but doesn't necessarily mean that it's gotten better it's it's actually everyday experience for them to live under these conditions where when we did ask what can be what can you have to help your neighborhood considering that gun violence is a real thing and that we're constantly trying to figure out how we're going to combat that crime is constantly happening and so these recommendations came at like you know community resources where you know crisis center you know the after-school program the safe place for these folks to come to to be able to to you know just not feel like they're surviving on their own right that there this is some places that they can come to to I would say maybe enhance or better their situation so that you know they can make the most informed decisions for their for themselves so and my commissioner we would like to thank you for your time commissioner Skinner I want to say that we are also in the Odessa bandwagon we like Odessa a lot and the work that that she does and we now will open the floor for questions missioners questions thank you Dr. Vega Ms. Rivera excellent we've been looking forward to this report thank you missioners Michelle Bryan so I was trying to just translate the zip codes to the actual city and so I just googled while we were sitting here and I just want to make sure I had it right that the the 0-1-1-0-5 is the area that encompasses the casino itself and that the 0-1-1-0-3 is heading for the central center and beyond is that the fair description of the code areas you sorry the I don't know if it's my zoom but I you know it was commissioner Bryan you just there's always did it follow I had to go to data because the wi-fi was is kluji I think your your question is generally what areas do the two zip codes comprise? right right what generally described each of the zip codes the one that thought on the other way Dr. Vega okay can you see can you see my screen we can we can look where the end this is zip code 0-1-1-0-3 only like 2,000 people this is zip code 0-1-1-0-5 12,000 people when you if you google compare zip code 0-1-1-0-5 0-1-1-1-0-3 the demographic just about the same 1-0-3 similarly it's like it shows to be like 47% Latino 0-5 it's like 78% Latino but income housing it just those issues are about the same look where the casino is located the casino strutters the line between 0-3 and and 0-5 and summa you you have some things to say about those two neighborhoods say you know more than any of us about those two neighborhoods yeah so 0-1-1-0-5 tends to be more homeowners we we canvassed up and and receive and receive feedback from those more headed toward the state forest park area but where the casino is which is the 0-1-1-0-3 5 like borderline we still have like what we we still have why don't I just like that's the area that seems to be getting worse and it's not right where the casino is on main street it's a couple of blocks up like the high union street area where it's just it just continues to get worse the train station towards the union station no not the train station toward if you pass by state street high street it's in the 0-1-1-0-5 I wish I could just like have a cursor to point out but you know the high street area which is very high crime prostitution a lot of just a lot of criminal activity happening there and we've been trying to remedy like what is what is like you know I don't know if police presence is is is needed sometimes they sweep the streets and sometimes we have to like ask for them to come you know and be there but it doesn't make the community safe so we're still trying to figure out what's the real remedy continuous work but even though the people from 0-1-1-0-5 are saying you know yes it's gotten better the some of the shift that used to be on main street growing up as particularly for me right has shifted up more toward that high street high street school street area which I believe straddles between 0-1-1-0-3 and 0-1-1-0-5 thank you other questions so one of the group follow-up saying I don't think you can delve into this in any depth but Mark Ford and Dr. Andrews director Vandalan they this report comes with a set of recommendations so I guess I'd love to see some recommendations might be outside of our control but we have the ability to pass on these reports and live their recommendations and highlight some of the recommendations to other stakeholders and then there might be some recommendations where we could act so I guess maybe the follow-up for you Dr. Andrews and director Vandalan and this is just that right to keep this research alive and sort of thank you Madam Chair certainly this is this is a key stakeholder group the report earlier this week was shared with the Springfield Health Department including the director Colton Harris and the Teresa remember Teresa's last name but anyway Teresa's last name yes thank you we've also shared it with MGM Springfield who is also a key stakeholder in this and understanding its role as a community member and community member in these two zip codes and then certainly above and beyond we can continue to kind of carry this forward this might be a great report to share with the the legislature you know to send out to those who are interested not particularly if you have some legislatures who have expressed interest in the Springfield area so if we could follow up with that maybe Grace and Karen can I see Karen I don't see Grace and looking but Karen may have other ideas too for stakeholders we'll leave it at that Commissioner is there any others? And I just want to add if I can add one more thing that these were interviews that took about like maybe 30 minutes right and so these are giving broad overarching kind of experience of like what the participants understand the world around them as is right and so there is opportunity to go a little deeper with them in the sense of education around their lived experience and the systems that they live under and I I believe that if we do happen to continue in the future that one of our learning curves from here is that we have to go a little deeper in the relationship that will be part of it so that we can understand what is their understanding of like their lived experience and what is actual but again with our participants you know just giving interview these were not like deeply rooted understandings these were well they were deeply rooted understandings but I think there's an opportunity to go a little like more in depth without the what's your future participants with relation relational organizing and Zoma if I can and just add to that that's the beauty of this research agenda and our research mandate is that we embarked on this community-based participatory research because other research methodologies wasn't really tapping into perhaps what that human condition is that human experience and largely people who may be disproportionately affected by by gambling or by the presence of a casino so I think this report really did a fantastic job of highlighting the experience of those community members but it's triangulated with late in the summer we have a casino jobs impact report that will come out that we'll talk about you talked about casino jobs and that they're but let's talk about what kind of casino jobs there are and how what kind of impact that's having we have another Springfield public safety report and you talked about how perhaps the data analysis from the previous report wasn't necessarily representative of crime shifts that you observed in the community so we have another public safety report that is going to come up sometime this summer and then we're embarking and the commissioners you approved a study examining the impact of casinos on human trafficking across across the state it's this idea that we have this fantastic research agenda that allows us to take a look at any of these specific issues from a variety of different perspectives in order to have a a clearer more robust picture of what's of what's happening exciting yeah excellent okay commissioners any other the good questions Dr. Vegas always great to see you Mr. Fair thank you and I do feel that with the potential of a continuity I'm sure that there's further opportunities for building trust and in the depth in the of the intake that you're you're seeking leave that to Director Vandalinen and Dr. Andrews as to next projects thank you thank you so thank you for having us nice to see you all later thank you very much okay coming to our agenda commissioners we have next that completes our research and responsible gaming we have Christo Bushman who's going to give us an update on the lottery for the sports wagering division and I'm at a conference here and I just want to note that I was approached by a few people and they are so appreciative of the sports wagering division Bruce and Stirls and Christo's work so I just want to say it's so nice to to meet perfect strangers and have them rave about our team and know that all commissioners and I are very very proud of that so thank you thanks Christo Madam Chair I wonder if this is a time to break to grab something to eat I know I need it I don't know about anyone else 15 minutes will do it for me if that suffices for others I appreciate if it could be 15 minutes only because I would like to get to the conference so I this 15 minutes work for you folks I know Jordan looks like Commissioner you're in the office that's harder for you you need a half an hour no I'm buying with 15 minutes actually we could do 20 I'm gonna need about 20 we can't hear you we can't hear you Eileen Eileen you're maybe um you can work on as you're you're not coming through in your connectivity that sounds like she's asked for 20 minutes I heard 20 minutes I'm just thinking if she can get her all right so we'll reconvene at 110 that works everybody thanks thank you everyone and just like Karen for your team I hear sorry for your team you know everybody stays on during these meetings that is not a requirement of the commissioners for sure I assume that they're just not really tuning in but if they want to turn off completely they can okay because we can always call them but I'm noticing you know today it's a very lengthy meeting and everybody is hanging in there but that's not my requirement that's for sure and I don't think it's probably a requirement of any commissioner so thanks okay thank you so much how's everybody doing then we're back we are back right Dave if you could take down the screen that would be great okay so this is a convening of the Massachusetts Game Commission we met we've been meeting since nine this morning holding it remotely so we'll do a roll call Michelle O'Brien Michelle O'Brien are you here I don't think she's here I can hear you Kathy hold on thanks Commissioner Hill are you here I'm here Michelle Skinner are you here no can you hear us Eileen on the meeting it's Karen because Kathy was trying to Commissioner Skinner good afternoon good afternoon Commissioner Maynard good afternoon good afternoon can you Eileen should try it now she switched devices okay I can hear you there you I can hear you can you hear us hold on a second Sturl is suggesting the chat which I appreciate but we do have to kind of have a regular record of this so and Commissioner O'Brien needs to be able to precipitate how's that I mean still no go you didn't so Dave Susa says if she can't hear us it's probably a speaker input snack which she can access in the bottom left corner where the mute function is so does she need to go to that carrot are you going to call her Karen yeah let me thanks please this is I think the the our most difficulties in terms of tech our meeting Commissioner Maynard you didn't end up having to restart huh no I did I switched to my iPad long enough to restart the computer then the computer restarted and I switched it back out of the iPad she didn't pick up so I'm not sure if she's on the phone someone else or oh I think she's calling in that may just resolve everything oh gotcha okay okay so can you hear me now on the phone there we go yeah okay yeah I don't know I literally have a screen, a computer, an iPad, and a phone so we'll have to use four devices today and internet connection so there we go all right Commissioner Maynard are you here I'm not here I'm actually not here believe it or not after all that on every platform right you're not here any platform yeah all right so we're going to get we're going to get started we're just back on the public meeting number 462 I'm returning to our sports weight ring division and Director Bann I mentioned that I'm at a conference and there are nice compliments headed your way and your team Sterl and Crystal so yes today we have a crystal mutual reporting on the sports weight ring licensees and working with the lottery division Crystal thanks first so my remarks today are actually really brief lucky you in your packets I did provide a summary document of the responses we received regarding the communications with the lottery from our operators at this point almost all of our operators have had introductory meetings with the lottery and I've had a few brief conversations with no longer in term Executive Director Mark William Bracken who has stated that he's glad for the outreach at this point and is in the process of evaluating the conversations and proposals he's heard to determine what's best for the lottery myself and the sports weight ring division will follow up to see if there's any work MGC can do on our end to assist or facilitate but that's my comments at this point and just a quick side note that we have asked all operators to include a brief summary update on their work or conversations with the lottery in their quarterly reports going. Any questions? Any feedback? Good memo. Any questions? Just appreciate the work. Okay. Crystal, we thank you. We thank you for the Commissioner Hill. Yeah. Yep, the only thing I would say is thank you for staying on top of this. This was something that we all cared about during the process of the applications and we want to ensure that the promises that were made to us are kept. So thank you for staying on top of it and then the memo was excellent as was the presentation. Thank you. Well, and just to echo Commissioner Hill, thanks for your work on this Crystal. I just said I want to make note of a comment by one of our operators relative to a regulation that they may have been expecting the Commission to promulgate relative to mitigation and just asking legal to take a look at that. I don't remember the discussion. Apparently it was on January 19th but just make sure just if you could legal and I guess Bruce and Crystal and Sterl take a look at that to see if there's anything that the Commission needs to do in order to I don't know put some teeth behind the application requirements and that will enable us to continue to ensure that the operators are meeting those obligations around lottery mitigation. Thank you. Okay, anything else? All right. Thanks, Crystal. Appreciate it very much. Now we're moving to Chief Lennon and Commissioner Skinner as treasurer and team. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to kick it right off to Derek Chief Lennon who needs no introduction. The only thing I'll say beyond that is directly to Derek and his team. Thank you all so very much and the staff as well for putting together such a competent budget for FY24. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm joined by John Scully and I'm pretty sure Doug O'Donnell is on the phone for any questions regarding revenue. He had an emergency that he's trying to deal with but he did say he would be on the phone if there were any questions. We're here to review staff's budget recommendations for fiscal year 2024. The budget documents begin on page 184 of the public meeting packet. The MGC went through its annual process for developing a budget and then on June 1st presented those recommendations to the commission for consideration. In addition to the details of increases, decreases, expansion that we recommended, we also in that public meeting discussed and adding an additional FT for the executive director as well as adding 750,000 to the sports wager and control fund to alleviate the timing of expansion or additional contract of assistance needed. And then we'd come back and updated each quarterly budget meeting on those. We posted the budget with those two additions for public comment for two weeks and we did not receive any public comments. We reached out to a few people who had thought about providing them and said they might to verify that we didn't miss anything and we were confirmed. No, they did not want to provide any public comment at this time. As a result of the aforementioned, we're recommending an operational budget of 55.79 million that funds approximately 134 FT's and six contract employees. The MGC's FY24 budget of 55.79 million represents a $6.4 million increase or about 12.86 percent over the currently approved FY23 budget and is funded from the Gaming Control Fund, Racing Oversight Development Fund, the Community Mitigation Fund, the Sports Wager and Control Fund and the Public Health Trust Fund. We went into the details of all this information in the packet on June 1st. So in today's presentation, we'll give a high-level overview just as a reminder of the budget as well as the changes and how they, of where they were added from the June 1st meeting. This budget does include a revised cost allocation method for charging the costs of staff that work across programs and racing, gaming, indoor sports wagering. And we also shifted 28.5 percent of the lease and shared IT costs from the Gaming Control Fund to the Sports Wager and Control Fund. The tables on page three of the memorandum illustrates the changes in FTEs as well as how the cost allocation adjustments distribute FTEs across each line item within the Commission's budget. We're recommending an FY24 budget of $37.46 million for the Gaming Control Fund. It's a 4.15 percent increase over the currently approved FY23 budget. Just a reminder, this item funds both our regulatory costs as well as statutorily required costs. 65 percent of the cost for the new position for the Executive Director's Office is included in here and increased that budget. The Racing Development and Oversight Trust Fund is decreasing by 5.6 percent in FY24 from the currently approved FY23 levels. That can be seen on page seven of the memo or page 190 of the packet. Decrease is coming just as a reminder for this one, the decrease is coming from the revised cost allocation implementation and the shared costs are going from 10 percent in previous years down to 6.5 percent in this most recent cost allocation plan. Following suit, 6.5 percent of the new Executive Director's Position, the new position for the Executive Director's Office is included in this funding as well. Community Mitigation Fund is staying consistent to where we were before at the June 1st meeting at $385,000 and that represents a 10 percent increase from FY23 funding levels. Staff is recommending an FY24 budget of $9.12 million for the sports wagering control fund. This is a 92 percent increase from where it's approved this year. This increase includes the additional $750,000 as discussed on June 1st and shows up in the table in the memo on page 8 under Object Class 00. This item also funds 28.5 percent of the new position for the Executive Director's Office. So now that position is funded out of the gaming control fund racing and the sports wagering control fund and then the $750,000 addition is also funded under the sports wagering control fund. Finally, we're recommending a $5.9 million budget for the Public Health Trust Fund and this is a 12 percent increase and that did not change from our June 1st meeting. Moving on to the assessments, this is a big area where the memo did change. The budget requires assessments on gaming licensees for the gaming control fund as well as $5 million for the Public Health Trust Fund. On June 1st, we were unable to provide assessment amounts in apportionment for the gaming control fund and the Public Health Trust Fund as we did not have estimated gaming positions and slot machine counts from all of the licensees. Since that meeting, Doug has received those estimates and the difference between our gaming control fund budget and revenue estimates amounts to approximately $33.65 million which will be assessed upon our gaming licensees as shown on page 10 and required by both Chapter 23K and our regulations. The same proportion, yes? Oh, my apologies. That's all right. I'm reading my notes so if I hear anything, I jump over. The same proportion of gaming positions will be utilized to divvy up the $5 million Public Health Trust Fund assessment on gaming licensees. That's shown on page 10 of the memorandum as well. The budget requires two additional assessments on sports wagering licensees, one for the sports wagering control fund and another $1 million assessment for the Public Health Trust Fund. In the meeting on June 1st, we were unable to provide the apportionment of these assessments as we recommended using the actual adjusted gross sports wagering receipt figures of licensees from implementation to the end of May 2023. We didn't post those until June 15th on our website. Since we've posted those, we can now say that the assessment we are recommending is $8.16 million for the sports wagering control fund and it's to be divided across the 13 sports wagering licensees shown on page 11 of the memorandum. One of the things we did say is this would get us started and then on our first quarterly update, we would come back and provide an assessment of based on what they actually brought in through June 30th of this year as the statute contemplates in our regulation contemplates. We also brought up in that meeting that we would take a look at the we had two licensees that were not going to have any adjusted gross sports wagering receipts by the end of May and we would give them an assessment which is the same as the lowest licensee for adjusted gross sports wagering receipts which I think was 0.25 percent 0.25 of a percent or 25 basis points and those that 0.5 percent was taken away from I think that's dug on the in the car so he may be chiming in to correct me on anything. That's me directly you're correct. Yes that 0.5 percent from those two were taking away from the highest garner which would be DraftKings in conclusion and then finally the million dollar assessment on sports wagering licensees to be deposited in the public health trust fund is shown on page 12 and it uses those same adjusted gross sports wagering receipts except we back out the brick and mortar or the three licensees who have in person sports books because the statute said that that million dollars is spread across everyone except people who have casino licenses in conclusion we're proposing an FY 24 budget control fund FY 24 gaming control fund budget of 37.46 million a research and responsible gaming budget funded from the public health trust fund of 5.9 million the community mitigation fund administration and oversight budget of 385,000 a sports wagering control fund budget of 9.12 million and a racing and oversight development fund budget of 2.93 million we're open to any conversation at this point and additional consideration and I think we I apologize it's shorter I just didn't want to get into all the same details we went over on June 1st but we're here to answer any questions or refresh any memories deck I have one quick question I remember the issue around the assessments on the three you know the two that haven't started generating revenue yet but I missed the impact on draftings that last line that you said please so we had so we had to take that away from someone otherwise we'd have 100.5% so we just reduced it from the heaviest one okay offset that all right thanks okay commissioners questions okay I thought commissioner bryan was leaning in commissioner hill are you all my all my questions were answered on June 1st so appreciate the second go around and I'm happy to report that there were no public comments and that our operators seem to be okay with what's being proposed okay commissioner skinner are you ready to move I most certainly am I move that the commission approved the FY 24 budget that's included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today second okay any further questions or edits as to the motion all right commissioner bryan and she for the record I saw her say I but our vocals aren't working commissioner hill I commissioner skinner I commissioner Maynard all right my vote yes so with commissioner bryan's okay the thumbs up she's trying to get her phone back but she's gives us a thumbs up on this vote so five zero for the budget excellent work to Derek and company John it's nice to see you thank you so much and I know people and it's always important for you and you're so proud of your team if you want to give them full credit right now go ahead and list away thank you John Doug Noel Cherise Jay Jacqueline Sarah it's just you know it's a great team Nikesha coming in and helping out Karen this is our last budget and it's kind of sad but you know into all of the directors I mean this is where it all starts right they give us the information we get to come up here and present it and to the commission for being so thoughtful on these areas and working with us on some of these challenges because none of it's easy you know we'd love to be able to give the perfect assessments at the beginning but you work with the framework that you have and we appreciate the commission working with all of us on that so thank you excellent all right but thank you well I forgot Jay Lee too because he's on vacation I apologize Jay Lee never want to leave him out thank you appreciate it okay then we're moving on to legal and our we've got a couple of regs to consider today and I think Commissioner O'Brien do you want to just test right now again can you hear me now we can okay so I went back to the original iPad on wi-fi so we're we're going back to the beginning well hopefully this works for the remainder of the meeting okay great thank you all right so now I'm turning to Carrie good afternoon yes good afternoon madam chair and commissioners so we have two regulations for you today for discussion we will start with 205 CMR 255 the play management regulation it begins on page 258 of your packet this regulation just to remind you is currently in effect by emergency it's been working its way through the promulgation process and we did receive some comments during the comment period and have made some adjustments to the draft regulation in response to those comments so I'm going to turn it right over to Annie Lee from Anderson and Krieger to walk us through those comments and those changes thank you Carrie and good afternoon commissioners and madam chair as Carrie said the play management regulation as you'll see on the cover memo on page 257 of your packet just briefly lays out the history of the play management regulation as you'll recall this regulation came before the commission on January 20th 2023 during that meeting the commission discuss some components of the technological feasibility of what was initially proposed including having play management options available on kiosk as well as things like a net loss and so after discussion from the commission and also with input from gli we revised that regulation to address some of the concerns raised including inclusion of the kiosk and the complexities of some of the specific play management options that were first included and the regulation was brought back to the commission on May 4th when the commission voted to promulgate this regulation by emergency in the interim between January and May the commission received a number of comments about the technological capabilities again what was it seemed that comments were largely addressed on sort of the feasibility of having play management options on kiosk which had already been addressed during the commission's January 20th meeting these comments start on page 261 of your packet and are in reverse chronological order so the comments that were received originally in January are going to be at the end of your comments between May to today there were some follow-up comments continuing to raise concerns about sort of the technological aspects of what was included in the regulations specifically the commission's requirement that operators remind patrons on a monthly basis to enroll in play management if they haven't already there were also a number of comments received on the requirement to conspicuously display a notification to patrons when they're first accessing a platform that play management is available those comments were largely those comments said that those aspects weren't infeasible but required a little bit more time for build-out and also testing and so those operators I believe six of them submitted requests for waivers from those specific parts of the regulation and the commission approved all waivers on May 23rd so for the large part those comments have all been addressed the comments that we also received prior to today's meeting specifically on June 20th the close of the comment period also raised some questions about whether or not operators could impose additional or perhaps more restrictive play management options and what the commission currently contemplates so for example one operator raised that when they loosen restrictions so that is to say when a player sort of raises their budget and say they have a daily budget rather than what the commission is currently included in its regulation which is that loosening will take place the next business day this operator said our practice is to allow that loosening 72 hours rather than 24 hours so a longer period before it takes effect and so to clarify this we included some red line which is on page 260 of your packet to clarify that if operators want to impose in addition to new limitations they want to do something that's slightly different to what's already required so that is to say if they want to tinker around the edges there is the ability to do that if they submit that request to the commission and the commission grants approval of it and so this is the only sort of change to the regulation that we are recommending following from the version that was approved on in May happy to answer any questions and just to add one thing there so the version of the regulation that's currently in effect that emergency expires on August 9th so we recognize that should you accept these changes today and vote on this version of the reg with the red lining in 255.06 that operators might need some time to get those written requests in so it would allow them time this final version we would file on July 21st and it would ultimately go into effect on August 4th so we could work with the sports wagering division to allow the operators time to get those written requests in Questions and they and this would have to come in front of the commission rather than the sports wagering division that's the way we've written it but that's certainly you know if the commission would prefer to to delegate delegate those approvals to the sports wagering division we could certainly adjust the language commissioners I guess the only question I have about the language is is I'm assuming this was written to say you can be more restrictive if you want to be or is this also offering them to be less restrictive because I wouldn't want to change the language that allows them to ask for less restrictive than what we set out the intent is for more restrictive we're not suggesting that the operators can lower the floor on play management options but rather if they want to impose something that's more restrictive than what's currently in the regulations such as a default deposit limit for players under 25 or again a longer period before a loosened sort of budget takes effect then that's that's how they would utilize or that's how they would seek permission from the commission to implement that play management option so the only thing I'm wondering is should we just have a short phrase that makes that very clear that what you can what you can request in 255.06 shall in no event loosen the limitations otherwise set forth in 255 loosen left lesson I don't know what term you want to use but yeah less restrictive I think is the phrase yeah yes we can wondering if we need that phrase we can certainly include that for just clarification purposes at the end of 255.06 to say nothing in this section shall be construed to permit a less restrictive limitation right so if we include that commissioners would be would this be a place where we can have the sports flagering division not have to come back in front of us trying to create some efficiencies here Karen you want to weigh in there yes I mean I think you know the chair and I've had talks about this and we're actually talking about this quite recently that you know we've got a lot going on at the agency so creating some efficiencies and allowing staff to be able to make some decisions as appropriate may help because our mission has expanded greatly with the introduction of sports wagering so you could either have the sports wagering division or it could be an or so the commission without having to change the regulation could allow at some point the division to handle it and then they would of course consult with Dr. Vandalin correct missioners Mission Hill I have no problem having the sports division take the sports wagering division take care of this issue and not have it come to us however if we could have language in there that allows it to come to us should there be a need I'd feel comfortable with that as well but I have no problem delegating this to the sports wagering division my feeling on that I mean I I think some combination of the sports wagering division and our responsible gaming team makes sense I wonder if we should have it in the reverse though that we should delegate the authority because it centers around play management which is a responsible gaming tool that Mark Vandalin did and his team should perhaps take the lead on that with consultation with our sports wagering division Karen I think it probably is helpful for you to think about that it's a sports wagering matter and I know you're integrating everything from different sides what do you think yeah I mean I I'm certainly open to however you'd like to do it I think that the thinking on just the big picture model of the sports wagering division was that we have these new operators and that division is going to have to interact and be working with all the other divisions in the office legal finance responsible gaming all of that so I think the model is that there would be collaboration and cooperation so you could do it either way I just think the model may have envisioned more of the decision making at that one central hub because that's going to be the person that has those relationships and contacts with all the operators on a daily basis but you can do it and the request would go in that way too right I express so yeah what do you think commissure skinner that makes sense the only thing I would then maybe insist upon is to have more of an active role by responsible gaming so rather than a consult you know require some form of approval right some form of sign off in that rather than just you know because there could very well the opinions of each division could differ so I would want to make sure that we are you know I understand that this is is a request that will come from a sports wagering operator but I would like to lean a bit heavier on the responsible gaming side of the review here if possible so could we add in to the reg if approved by sports wagering and responsible gaming divisions and then it makes clear they're both supposed to say yay to it that works for me and I you know Chief Angeline and I don't want to you know speak for you and in your team but does that does that sound something like something that you would a responsibility that you would readily accept I think I know the answer I'll let you speak for yourself thank you commissioner skinner yeah I I think that makes sense I since play management truly is a responsible gaming tool I appreciate having some authority in that area the sports wagering division is also very important and we kind of track it I believe from when the request comes in if it's approved the process of seeing it implemented so that makes sense to me too does that sound any and carry in terms of language I I'm hearing a few things I think commissioner hill wanted to reserve the option for the commission to weigh in on these matters but that's the sports wagering division coupled with in this case research responsible gaming's approval to be able to go forward on these matters I just want to clarify is the suggestion that in order to submit a request for an additional or different limitation the sports wagering after would have to first obtain approval from the sports wagering divisions and the responsible gaming division prior to any actual submission no that's not I'm seeing shaking no I I guess I thought we were talking about sort of delegating the approval I see I see to those two agencies in the first instance I mean those two divisions rather than having it come before the body of five that's how I thought this conversation was going but yeah I think what I'm hearing is I think what I'm hearing is essentially the language that says the sports wagering operators shall submit a written request to the commission etc etc would be adjusted to be submitted to the sports wagering division and then the approval process a bit further in the paragraph would go through both the sports wagering division and the responsible gaming division right but the other leaders held me to caveat that says this does not in any way restrict the commission's ability to to review I mean I don't know commissioner Hill's looking for that language to just ensuring that if it needs to come to us there's language to do that well and if you put the opera go ahead commissioner sorry sorry mom Jared if you put two different divisions with an option of veto power over each other eventually it may have to go to a commission to sort this out so I think it's even more important with that caveat yeah and and for the operators they that's inside baseball they just need to know that they submit it to the the sports wagering my my sense on this quite frankly is that the sports wagering division is going to be working very very closely with director vandalin and there is not going to be very much of a difference in the opinion what I'm guessing I was just going to add that we've worked very closely with them all along on all the issues and I don't foresee us not continuing that that's right and and I think that's how karen has envisioned the sports wagering division is to have your center but then all the different divisions are integrated pulling into your decision making so good thanks so does that work for everyone harry what will you need for a motion on this would would we be able to just say something reflecting the today's discussion or yep I think rather than as included well you could say as included in the packet and as further edited for today's discussion among the commission and then we can make those changes before we move any other questions for during the year turning to recent okay do I have a motion I'm happy to make a motion before I do that I want to say kudos to you madam chair for opening the door to this delegation of authority discussion and I really do hope that we are able to continue that discussion across the board and perhaps other areas within within the within the agency well it's really important when we think about delegation of authority there's there's customary matters that come before us there's matters that and that's because of custom perhaps then there's also policy decisions commissioner Skinner that we have that we need to weigh in then there's regulatory matters that we weigh in on and if it's creates an inefficiency that we're supposed to be weighing in then we should mix the regulation then there are statutory matters and those are to delegate statutory authority is problematic legally so we really have that those sphere of sort of influences in the policy probably lies with us unless we figure out we don't care about it so much regulatory we can reexamine any regulation always and today we've created an efficiency but we've preserved an option for the commissioner so all right thanks that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement in the draft of two five cmr 255 has included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the common law to finalize the regulation promulgation process second thank you thank you any further questions or ads okay Michelle brian hi misha hill hi misha skinner hi misha maynor hi and i vote yes five zero thank you thank you very much thanks gary so the second regulation that we have for you today for discussion is 205 cmr 256.05 this is a section of the advertising regulation that came before you initially well it's come before you several times but this section in particular that's in the packet today came before you on May 16th and at that time you asked us to see comment from operators or other interested parties so in the packet you do have the comments that we've received to date as well as the version of the regulation that you discussed on the 16th so that's why that that red line of the regulation is in the packet that's the version that we received comments on so Meena Macarius from A&K is going to walk us through the comments we received but I do just sort of want to set the stage for kind of where we are on this regulation today this is not in process at all so we're not really we're not under any sort of time constraints for filing or anything on this regulation so there are a few options depending on how your conversation goes today you could certainly vote on a version of the regulation to be filed and we could we could do that either by emergency or the standard promulgation process you could ask for additional modifications to the regulation and we could return at a future meeting with those modifications that would just require an extension of the waiver that's currently in place that waiver is in place through tomorrow and then of course you also could review the comments discuss the comments and decide to come back for more discussion at a future date which of course would also require an extension of the waiver so with that I will turn it over to Meena Meena I good afternoon everyone so we are returning to 256.05 as Kerry mentioned the reg itself as presented to you last time with the red line being the potential addition from what's enforced today subject to the waiver of course is at page 279 of your packet there is a brief memorandum from two pages 277 to 278 that explain the comments received we received comments from essentially a set of four five comments excuse me that came in afterwards during this process the first was from team owners this is an issue just that has to do with the placing of logos primarily on fixed signage where they they might be visible for by folks who are under age and so not surprisingly the owners of the TD garden and Fenway park that the teams have have sought to add in I will note that on rereading some of the comments in preparation for today is noted that the comments from the sports teams were negative overall on wanting to see the change they would prefer that the reference to branding be removed they would actually ask that I think I this is my drafting but I may have misstated that they are applying it to all fixed signage what their point was actually that they don't see a reason to distinguish between branding in general so they would actually apply if if there was a 21 plus they might apply to all presentations of nearly a logo or trademark which I in prior conversations with the commission I know there were desire to maybe make a distinction between things like clothing items or other places where trademarks and logos show up on the road without without the actual from from fixed signage to other then we also got comments from four of the operators fanatics and draft kings both simply proposed removing the word branding I think that was the initial proposal that came before you couple of months ago now on this issue to to to address that PSI also argued generally for removing the word branding but suggested that if it if it was going to be left and they just wanted clarification that this only applied to logos or trademarks quote related to sports wagering so that there is some distinction if an entity that might otherwise have its its logos up there but they're not the same logos they use in connection with their sports wagering line of business that they they would not need a 21 plus qualifier when that suggested that if the language discussed on May 16 were adopted the requirement to include a notice sports wagering may only be conducted by persons 20 line or over be limited to audiences where 25% or more the audience has anticipated to be under 21 as I think we've previously noted that would actually end up being less restrictive than you have now because where there's more than 25% of the audience is under 21 the branding shouldn't appear at all or should be covered up so we wouldn't necessarily at least we wouldn't recommend going to that approach I think that opens up other provisions so returning to the conversation I think where we left this was seeking feedback the feedback we got suggests a general desire to not include the additional red line language here but rather to remove the word branding in 2506051 but to the extent that this language be included that there be some further clarification that this only relates to sports wagering and then there's of course a request by the team owners of whether this should apply to all branding as opposed to just branding on signage which I know was a distinction discussed at some some length before so that's where we are I think we're seeking further guidance from the commission on on how you would like to proceed issues for sure Brian sure I was sort of the most vocal requester in terms of studying this a little bit more and I would propose adding me related to sports way during language and then also further clarifying that something as simple as 21 plus would satisfy this requirement that's the language I'm looking for on 256.05 I did also want to point out the sports team submission in their comments erroneously implied you could be 18 to play DFS in Massachusetts and there would be some sort of conflict if you know sports way during were put into this that doesn't exist it's 21 for both and so we don't need to worry about there being a disconnect between that but that's that's what I would be looking for is the related to sports way during language to make it clear that's what it is and then parenthetically adding or by sentence saying you know the putting 21 plus and it would satisfy this requirement but it wouldn't restrict them to that just make it clear that's all that's required can I ask for a clarification about the sports way during language what does that mean for our temporary licensees and our licensees madam chair I think your question is if we added that what what if you're asking for the specifics I couldn't go entity by entity for for a logo but I could tell you what choice it would give is is a way they could use different branding for sports way during versus not but so if let's take an example of fanatics because that's a clear one fanatics is very diverse right it sells t-shirts sells hats it also is a sports way during operator are we saying that they are exempt this if we were to add the qualifying language because no would it mean that they have to have a different logo for sports way during is that what you're saying correct it would give them the choice to either put a 21 plus messaging on there or choose to go on every logo okay if they were choosing to to keep a unified logo to create well it wouldn't be it doesn't become unified anymore you know in terms so Mr Hill or Commissioner Skinner or Commissioner Maynard so I have a an example while we're you're thinking I thought about this last night when I read the comments and you know the teams commented that I think really out of equity they would think that should apply to all logos it is going to apply to fix signage I think that's probably impractical but let's assume this I am I have a fanatics hat on and I'm sitting for the entire game at Benway in a crowd of kids I don't have but let's pretend fanatics doesn't have any big signage which of course their comments indicate very much differently so that fanatics have to have a plus 21 are we making a distinction that's not very impactful Commissioner O'Brien so really I mean really are we so should be blunt Madam Chair I have a huge issue with them combining their logo and branding in this context because the same reason that you're talking about it well then I have to separate and I actually think that they should be separating for the for that very reason but the example that you just gave if an individual walks in with a tire it's very different than one of our licensees choosing to pay to put signage up in a fixed location people can't get away from I don't see any I think it's very easy to draw the distinction in that regard okay that's helpful that's helpful for me to know that's a good example that's a good response that's really helpful and and so for the those who have commented of course we we are imposing quite a new requirement our licensees perhaps right just checking in on that question of impact I think I would want to see you know evidence of the exact impact this will have assuming that it won't deter underage sports wagering I know it's a lofty sort of goal I think that it's a good idea to include the you know to I think the requirement itself is a good idea I like it even more if we're adding the suggested language related to sports wagering but I don't you know want us to lose side of the fact of the excuse me lose side of the importance of because backing up these proposals wherever possible with some real evidence that the impact is greater than you know the the burden if you will or the the challenge that operators may have in implementing these requirements thank you thank you Commissioner Maynard Commissioner Hill this is one of those things Commissioner Skinner I would like to delegate right now I appreciate that Commissioner Maynard but nevertheless I was walking by a trash can yesterday and it had a company a CCC company regulated company pictured and I did notice the 21 must be 21 language at the end of it and it's it's pretty fixed it's on it's on a trash can can I interrupt was that an ad though I it was a logo so it was it was on an ad the ad was larger than just the logo to answer your question I think I think Commissioner O'Brien I last time we had this conversation I think we're in agreement that there's not much but distinction between a logo and an ad if the logo was being put in a place to draw my business right and so this one's tough because I don't want to put a burden I don't want to put an undue burden on on any of these companies that are just getting started here at the same time I see a lot of benefit in in fixed signage including a 21 plus language and how do you feel about the sports betting so they would have to change their logo sports betting the way I heard Venus say is they don't necessarily have to change the logo it would depend on where they were putting what is that what I heard Mina yes yeah so to use the example you know of fanatics who I I will just for the this purpose say that I understand has one logo it's I think what I believe sort of a flag-looking banner they have a choice if this were added they could when they are placing that logo since they use it for both their clothing line and their sports wagering line if they were to put it on fixed signage they could add a 21 plus disclaimer just as the companies that don't have any other line of business would do or they could choose to develop two logos you know it's not my my industry but I could you know could be fanatics SB whatever it is that is the logo that they use for sports wagering and that would be distinguishable and would be the one that's related to sports wagering and therefore when they use their clothing related logo they could do it that way I think PSI made that comment I believe PSI does have slight distinctions in the logos they use between their various lines of business from just from my own memory of it so it they would have the choice of what to do with their logo of course Commissioner Hill Commissioner Bryan Commissioner Skinner we can go around again well Madam Chair I guess maybe I'm a little naive in the sense that if I see a logo put up somewhere where there's going to be people under 21 where I think I'm naive is I think that anybody that will see that logo knows that if you're going to go and do sports wagering that you have to be 21 and older so I'm not sure that they need to put plus 21 I think our issue it's when I go to the Boston Garden so maybe I'm maybe I'm confusing the two but if I go to the Boston Gardens and during the game I see one of our operators putting up their logo and it goes around the stadium for about a minute or two I see the company but I know for a fact that you have to be 21 or older to do sports wagering so I'm trying to see what we're trying to what we're trying to address here and I guess I'm a little confused because again maybe because we're involved in this and we have been for the last year that I think it's common sense that you're got to be 21 or older when you see one of these logos put up somewhere that's that's where I'm having an issue but we already require that it be there for advertising and so that same logic would mean why are we requiring it on advertising and what I find curious is even some of the sports teams that put comments into us have had the ages wrong and so I think that if you're not 21 you may not know for sure how old you have to be and so I that's one of the reasons I want it there particularly when you have some jurisdictions that maybe you could be 18 to be able to do some of this I have a deeper concern too in terms of I I think branding is advertising and marketing myself and so we're pretty clear we want the 21 plus on the advertising and so for me I don't see a distinction and I think if you want to meld your branding where some of your business is 21 plus and some isn't I think you need to redo you know your branding accordingly I think PSI indicated as much that I think some of these companies realize that and for the fanatics example it may be that you know they've reached the point where they're going to have to do it now that they're trying to do multiple facets some of which are regulated and age restricted so to be clear Madam Chair if I may as I'm reading the proposal 205 CMR 256 05 in the first section number one under the advertising to youth what you would propose is that after the word we would have the first paragraph and after the word participate the red line would disappear is that accurate is that what you'd like to see me no Mr. O'Brien Mr. O'Brien wants the red line Mr. O'Brien the red line isn't quite what you want apparently because now you want to well no I think the and Nina correct me I think I spoke with you about this briefly about the language that's in here because we didn't have any language based on the comments I think the two suggestions that were given that I actually was fine with or me and maybe you can help me out if there were two or two PSI proposed that seemed to clarify for me one of which was the 21 plus would satisfy the requirements the other one had to do with making sure that it was restricted to support to return activity so based on PSI's requirements of or excuse me comments um commissioner hill to answer your question I think what commissioner O'Brien would would say is would work here would be the language as it appears including the red line and adding so where it starts provided that branding consists consisting only of a display on of a I should say of an operator excuse me logo or trademark the next before it says shall would say related to sports wagering shall not be required to comply with this provision unless there's intended to be displayed and then the rest would read as is I think the second suggestion which came up from a conversation I this did not come up clearly in the comments but they'd come up a prior commission meeting is whether or not to explain what exactly the language would look like and that could be something as simple as an addition as saying for instance and this is just something I had drafted in case we needed it in such cases compliance may be achieved by including with such logo or trademark the phrase you know quote must be 21 plus sign or must be 21 older or such other messaging approved in writing by the commission so you could give a few examples of how to comply to try to avoid too much language on there but that's I think that's a second point that the first point on the religious sports wagering is just that simple addition trademark and shall I mean I think the only other question I think is right now branding is in this language right I think the intent really in revising it would be you'd strike the first branding reference so if they advertising marketing and other promotional materials air display disseminated or distributed distributed buyer on behalf of sports wagering operators shall state they must be 21 years of age or older participate provided that branding consisting only of that shall comply with these provisions unless it is intended to if it is intended to be there needs to be some we have a couple double negatives in here that I think we need to get rid of to make sure that what we're saying is in general branding on t-shirts and letterheads and that sort of thing is not required have the 21 plus we're talking about this fixed signage right this so it would I think we're talking yeah I think I think we're saying the same things in different ways but you can probably say cleaner than me yes so I think if you were Mr. Byron I'm not sure if you're trying to describe is the proposal that you're you would like to see versus the proposal that some of the operators have had asked for were had initially been proposed just to remove branding okay and I think actually based on the conversation what I think the real distinction is is whether or not looking at this red line language the phrase that starts with unless it is or intended to be displayed on signage is included or not because you probably want to keep branding consisting only of a display on operators logo or trademark even if got it and saying unless it is exactly for sports wagering and got it okay yep that's that's fine I'm not following this so you're going to have to help me out so sure so I think if I could let's assume for a second because I just from listening that there is a at least a desire to add related to sports wagering so I'm going to that no that's that would be I think we've got at least one person who's saying that maybe Commissioner Maynard to add what's betting I'll give my position I thought it was I'll give my position I think the word branding should come out and I'll be clear because I think it's too much to ask of our operators to right now comply with this across the industry without some kind of evidence as Commissioner Skinner alluded to evidence that it will be impactful to Commissioner Hill's point you know I think we're activating what is a passive branding device a logo you know logo is yes it is going to put in mind the companies what many of these companies are multi-dimensional and by adding this language and making them jump through hoops to now create a new logo is is really we're really stepping outside what are all of our peers do across the country when I'd like I'd like to get more information from our peers our other regulators to think how they feel I just think you know we're going to it's going to require draft kings immediately to change their signage to out their company I just wonder this is something that we're doing just sort of nature fashion it's absolutely not nature well no for you I've been thinking about this for quite some time well Commissioner O'Brien actually we did adopt a regulation that did exclude branding no we did not when it came back to and I will tell you specifically I would not have voted eye on that motion had it stricken branding from this section we never voted to strike branding that's what we're had this conversation we're having now is because we did not vote to do that and this is this is where I'm sitting there so I take Umbridge at the succession that I'm doing that I'm thinking about it and I agree with I agree your position is really really clear and I'm just really clarifying my position and and and I'll just stand on my position and the other commissioners can vote as they wish but I didn't want Mina to assume that there's that at least for me right now one one I don't know what the other three stand if we put sports betting in because that does now to guess that they have to go out and hire their marketing people to start doing a new logo for sports betting in order to do Massachusetts not the whole nation let's be clear it'll just be a logo from Massachusetts their implications for these companies are enormous these are fixed going to be changing their logo places in Massachusetts Madam Chair I don't think it's an onerous request and I thought it was a three to two to be honest with you no no I haven't heard yet let's go around and find out I have no no I haven't heard yet so um I didn't hear clearly three to two but I may have missed her so let's I'll go back Commissioner Skinner and Commissioner Mayor and Commissioner Hill so I when I spoke earlier about my agreement with this language I understood that it the first word branding in this paragraph would come out and that you're you're shaking your head that that's my I'm speaking on my own behalf Madam Chair oh no no I I didn't understand that branding would come out that's I'm sorry that's what I understand and that I'm speaking to my understanding I understood that branding would come out it was raised by Commissioner O'Brien and then the latter portion and and I know there was a session between Commissioner O'Brien and Attorney McCarrius that kind of clarified how we were viewing this paragraph and maybe I just don't understand that at this point but I would also like to see the first word branding in that paragraph paragraph be removed and just have the latter portion of the paragraph speak to branding on a fixed structure branding that is related to sports wagering so does that include sports wagering so I guess I'm asking that question because it would be any brand it would be branding wherever there's a fixed structure a signage wherever there's signage well but does that does that include let's say a fanatics fanatic signage or fanatics logo that is in a ballpark and at their retail stores and that kind of right wherever they have fixed signage so what I don't know the sports wagering connection I understand that they're an operator but relative to that particular advertisement how do we connect that to sports wagering so if that can mean it just someone has to help me there so you know the proposed language logos or trademarks related to sports wagering or I'm taking that from yeah related to sports wagering would that include the fanatics logo Madam chair if I may can I answer that and then maybe suggest a potential way to try to move forward on this because I think we're talking about different mutations yeah and so I'd rather see if we can figure out what the desire of the commission is and then we can adjust the language accordingly Commissioner Skinner to answer that question yes if an operator chooses to use the same logo for their sports wagering line of business as others I'll stay away from operator for a second to go something more universal if Nike were in a sports wagering business and they and that was a licensed operator the swoosh would be a sports wagering logo if that was the only logo they used if they designed as they do for instance for their Jordan brand a separate logo that was only for their sports wagering division and they had the swoosh remain for shoes and everything else that swoosh would not be related to sports wagering the swoosh with the sports wagering embellishment on it would be and so I think to the commissioner Maynard asked this question earlier essentially what it does obligate the operator to do is make a decision within Massachusetts for fixed signage would they rather maintain one logo but add to it 21 plus everywhere it appears on fixed signage or would they rather task their creative team to generate a second logo the same or different that is related only to their sports wagering line of business that that and that and so the question for the commission is whether you want to ask operators to make that choice not forcing them to make the choice but whether you want them to make that choice commissioner Skinner so from my perspective I wondered if we were just getting a little bit quickly over our skis by asking them to make that decision now without further information I thought that's what you when I that's why I mentioned the input you know or the impact like because it would require the licensees here in Massachusetts to make that decision either or that the two that commissioner Maynard and Mina just pointed out I mean immediately we'd give them a waiver Commissioner O'Brien would point out I'm sure I'm not sure what that timing would be but it would be a waiver and it just seems to be if it's going to be a decision that they do for national purpose you know international purposes that might make sense down the road I just wondered if it was something that we would be imposing on them and in kind of a tough fashion but I get the idea of the that they may want to brand different they may want to right down the road yeah I mean are we literally talking about only fanatics no no no all of them is that's why I said all licensees right well like but MGM is that and we're not talking about all gaming so but MGM has its own WinBed has it's like the only one at this point who'd really have the conundrum of coming up with another logo is fanatics I don't know if that's true I can say that Madam chair if I may I would say that there's another licensee who has figured this out right they have stuff on you know it's barstool right they have the barstool sitting on the hats and they have them on the electrolyte Gatorade type drink they have it everywhere but it says barstool sports book with the same little yep nice logo next to it so I mean I think the parade of Orbles that you're worried about Madam chair would you actually look at just thick signage that we're basically talking about really getting some ballparks and some places where there could be some young folks there I think it's winnowed down so much that it's I wonder if we're actually creating a problem for us in trying to to do this and I think where my struggle is and I can't speak for commissioner's gonna is you know I think if it's narrow I'm okay with it I think if it says broad as you are saying then I I have some reservations but I I've never thought it was that broad what do you mean broad I I think that the hat with the barstool on it can continue to exist I didn't know I gave that and commissioner Brian came back I'm saying in terms of all the signage across you know wherever they use their their logos I think I'm gonna stand my decision I think Mr. O'Brien I find it interesting that you know and I don't want to open up a can of worms but you know that signage has been out there with the casinos for long time we don't have a statutory instruction specifically to address advertising the way we do under 23n and so I don't have a problem at all with us going back under 23k but right now what's in front of us is 23n I would also say correct it to 23n I'm sorry go ahead sorry sorry Commissioner O'Brien I also say there's a difference in that you do have a checkpoint at a physical you know brick location brick and mortar these category threes at least they're on a phone and so there is a distinction we have very very strong verifications I want to be careful not to go down that that whole our verification processes that we expect of our licensees is very very strong to know your customer to make sure you're just want to be careful not to go down that road right now we're just talking about branding and logos and the idea of if there's a logo right now if there's a you know consensus we can move on this but we'll need to figure out what we give our licensees time in terms of fixing their their signage pressures you want to somebody want to move on this so so I'm not going to be no okay yeah if you have more questions good you know well the first question is is there a third commissioner that wants to join Mr. Maynard and me in delegating the authority to make this decision so I think you know to Commissioner Maynard's point about this being potentially being too broad I think that if we are talking about imposing this requirement to to an operator to include this 21 plus language anywhere and everywhere their logo appears I wouldn't I would not be comfortable imposing that such that they you know we would potentially interfere with their you know business decisions and you know where they're required to or have to think about creating a new logo and the like so I mean I think if we can if there's a way and I think Commissioner Maynard alluded to this to limit this requirement to you know sort of the places that we are really focused on like that I think Commissioner O'Brien's focused on and I don't want to speak for her but the ball parks the stadiums and venues like that I think I could get comfortable making a decision on this today but beyond that I really would like us to spend some time to invite you know yes again comment on you know if we are talking about imposing this in the broader sense what the evidence is that we will that that it makes a difference right I mean if if it's if it's impactful if you know it's been shown that the rate of underage sports wagering you know has decreased in jurisdictions where you know this is a requirement and I mean there might not be another jurisdiction that requires this but I really want to base my decision on some concrete evidence that you know we're going in the right direction so what we could do is because one of the reasons that I called the attorney Macarius leading up to the meeting was I there was no other it's actually coming up blue for what it's worth in my packet but the red lining I was expecting there to be a third color with the language that talked that they sort of put forth some of the stuff I put forth at the last meeting and so I think for the sake of getting to the commission's business today what might be helpful is and the commissioner skinners looking for specific feedback from licensees put the actual language out there that you know I would certainly be proposing which is I think Mina you talked about inserting the language unless it is or is intended to be related to sports wagering and then close with you know and you know 21 plus you know would be sufficient if that language can then be commented on and we give a short waiver to come back and really just put this event one way or the other but you're you've got a painful face I do commissioner Brian and I um I you know you could all chastise me if I'm if I'm overstepping here but I I would just urge that I think at this point you've had many hours of conversation on this and I just think it would be helpful to understand I mean I think I think the operators were clear on what they were commenting on and what they'd like to see I think the embellishment that I suggested that's not involved here is a fairly limited one about what if you were if you were requiring this on fixed signage what would be sufficient I think that that's sort of round piece but that's that's a lot of flexibility I wouldn't and so I just want to be careful about as you know that you have a lot on your plates and every you know having to restart the conversation again in a month that sort of remind ourselves where we are what I might suggest if it's okay with you Madam Chair is it would be useful to just sort of take the factual scenario first and then we can go back to the language and see if it does what folks wanted to the language with the with the red lining or blue lining now would cover a would only require let me just say that would only require a logo or trademark shown on fifth signage in a place where it could be seen by 21 year olds under 21 year olds so not within a sports book not within a a bar or other places where where folks who are underage should not be if it requires ID to include a message that it is that operated patrons must be 21 years or older to participate it is only for fixed signage this blue language would not cover the hats etc that would still be exempt from this requirement we're only talking about logos or trademarks so that if I think if we could just at least see if that is you know if I guess I want to make sure everybody understands that that does not mean and I actually wonder if it's really an arbitrary line I'm just throwing out the word arbitrary on purpose but it doesn't just mean venues sports venues we we we will be imposing this requirement on businesses signage at their retail and I hear Commissioner Maynard address psi I I can't speak for them I can only I can only think about fanatic signage and draft king signage but I'm sure there's other licenses that may have signage that involves a logo in in Massachusetts I guess I don't see necessarily these the sports and you haven't referred to sports betting option of changing their logo I I don't see that as practical because I if it's only from Massachusetts so you know we'd be imposing it from Massachusetts if that's something they choose to do as part of their business model I get that but so and I also don't even know what that means because it means it has to be some kind of intent right you don't have to add 21 plus because you're using your other I don't know what that really means or you do have to add 21 plus I don't know but right now it would not just be and we focused on Fenway Park we focused on that last time you know you've got the alcohol brands the alcohol brands we've got a couple of sports betting logos and then lots of other logos of other types of of you know sales items I don't know if there's any pharmacy I don't know but I do know there's alcohol I don't know if there's any I don't think there's any cannabis so we've got sports venues like stadiums and ballparks billboards right billboards don't typically just have the logo because it's an advertisement yeah typically I don't what are the other fixed structures that we're contemplating here could we could we try to answer that I have a direct question would it affect a company's headquarters yes right if you know it would have to say yeah so sorry I mean yes if it's viewable you know from a public area that's right that's right right outside of public area right yeah and I I have to say that that goes too far for me I don't know if there are any other like scenarios that's that's just where I am at this point maybe the same way yeah but I'm okay all right I started I didn't start with that on purpose everyone but that is where I just think it's too it's just too much right so then the question is do you say like Commissioner Skinner said you pick broader stadiums and do you just say either venues greater than a certain size or you just say you know yeah any public venue greater than you know a certain size or any public venue Commissioner Bryan I want to give you a win so bad here but I'm just it's not a win it's just to me I think it's a conceptual thing you seem to separate call you seem to see the dividing line between advertising marketing and branding is called action I don't buy that right because I think it's definitely what your psychologically trying to do is get brand loyalty and they're trying to get you to buy their product I do not see the distinction and so for me I wouldn't carry over the 21 plus requirement to branding now would there be just like there would be for advertising or signs inside their office space could you say you're advertising with things inside there yes but practically speaking they're inside their private office space there's people that's different to me so I don't draw the distinction there and I don't really have is I don't have the issue it is curious to me that you're talking about a couple operators here I also don't have the problem being at the forefront of this that if we're the ones that start this conversation and then they have to go and others follow so be it so I'm not as troubled by that particularly where we have the ability to grant a waiver and they can certainly come in and say look this is the real challenges with this that's where I'm coming Commissioner O'Brien I absolutely always appreciate you and all the commissioners wanting to be on the forefront so I get that that's why we're all struggling with it it's just I think from the start I felt it's just it's just you know a logo I feel is different from affirmative advertising and then I see almost an activation by messing with the logo that's just maybe me personally and then when it gets into signage and and you know what I I take very seriously that we have to treat all the licensees the same just because they're not all in the same position today doesn't mean they might not be in the same position come on right they might they might choose to to to have a diversification right so I just look at as the policy that extends this is what we are setting for massachusetts and expectations that we have a license sports wagering licensees and I think I do appreciate everyone who's given input and comments on this Mr. Hill what are you thinking at a point now where I just I've always tried to come up with some type of a compromise I just don't know that this is going to happen with this particular issue and I'm I'm just not ready to to move or accept adding 21 and over to all logos at this point I just I'm not I'm sorry to say that because I try to always think of everybody else's comments and they've all been excellent but I just I'm not there yet can I just be clear I think everyone's heart is in the right place and I know and our priorities and our values are absolutely aligned all together with you Commissioner O'Brien I think for me it's a practicality issue and where as a regulator I personally try and working on striking that balance right now that's fair but it's from my my lens and so I'm aligned with Commissioner Hill Commissioner O'Brien would you be willing to and I think I heard that's how you're going would you be willing to to to make it specific to science and venues because I think that's something I could I could really get behind and yeah I mean that's my biggest concern is where people under 21 are brought there particularly even under 18 and you're talking about branding and marketing and brand loyalty that's happening almost subliminally in those circumstances I think I would I would be there myself but again the reason I asked the building question is there's one particular but let's say another one you know another operator put an outpost here or what have you right but if it was to venues I can get behind that maybe we can put this to bed on a vote I'd be honest Madam Chair I don't think I heard Commissioner Maynard what you proposed you in my computer you kind of went in and out when you suggested something I'm basically asking Commissioner O'Brien if we could it looks like this was narrowly tailored the language I will say but if she would tailor it a little more with the scalp and I think she said yes and I can get behind that and now I'm just I can go with the suggestion venues big signage in venues what venues in public venues anywhere where you gather people Commissioner Hill so I'm not sure how nations how that would change my mind if I'm I'm against it may not it may not change your mind at all but that is the scenario I am most concerned by I understood but it may not I mean invite I might be standing alone on this which is fine I know I think or two of us yeah I'm staring at Commissioner Skinner's box right now yeah I'm interested in seeing the language um you know that's what I was I'm comfortable I think with limiting this requirement I think I stated it earlier to sports venues if that's what the suggestion is but it would be good to know which I heard venues now I'm hearing sports venues I'm I referenced sports venues earlier Commissioner Maynard maybe and Commissioner Brian maybe thinking of something entirely different for thank you so I think Mina I think we're all wondering if there is some sort of verbiage that's a term of art that talks about I mean you could say sports stadiums greater than a certain amount you could say sports stadiums then is there some language that captures that intent well I if we're talking about sports venues I think the easiest way to reference I'm just looking up the rest of 256 because recall that it also includes provisions regarding the interference with gameplay that was one of the things that was required by the statute and that you you have some regulation on so I'm just looking for how we use that language give me just one second we I think I think we use the word sports venue in one other place so that's you know you could place a fixed structure in or at a sports venue for the word location in that second to last line and you would you would be there if we're limiting to sports venues so instead of location it's in a sporting venue as we've used it otherwise in the right yeah I mean I would be satisfied with that I am too I'd also like to entertain a brief waiver that's still on the table for this yeah definitely so I I can make a motion but I don't know Madam Chair you or Commissioner Hill have are ready for motions or want further comment sporting venue a defined term it is not we do use it with respect to collegiate or high school sports venue the other language I was looking for and this is I'm sorry I could find it earlier we use gameplay area at a sporting event when we are discussing disruptions to viewers in the same but we don't have to worry about college and universities because they can't any business correct so that's taken care of so are we speaking about sporting venues are we talking about guess what we're saying is that those owners of those sporting venues cannot sell that ad space for a logo to these particular unless unless they put 21 plus unless they add right correct yes okay which if it's an ad they have to have it anyway it's just only the ad looks like just a logo or a brand well um the language wouldn't be responsible game in our language though correct Michelle Brian nope that's not what's not being required no okay do you have any further questions Commissioner Hill no not at this time mad madham chair I believe you have a another item between this and when I am next scheduled to speak to you which is one item away if it's helpful why don't I carry and I put together just a a word document with justice provision on it showing the final language and I can add in if it's so that you can I don't think you need to I think we've got it I think we've got it sounds like there's yeah I think we've got it it's going to be limited and in terms of the I may have you go first because I think okay that's that's fine as well so that that's completely fine just wanted to make sure if you want to that display Nina could you however just read out the language as as you are adjusting it here okay so it's a 256051 would read advertising marketing branding and other promotional materials published air display disseminated or distributed by or on behalf of any sportsways your operator shall state that patrons must be 21 years of age or older to participate provided that branding consisting only of a display of an operator's logo or trademark shall not be required to comply with this provision unless it is or is intended to be displayed on signage or a fixed structure in a sports sporting venue where it is likely to be viewed by persons under 21 years of age and what about the related to sportsway during language I didn't want to be presumptuous but if we want it is there a consensus or or or a desire to add that in that provides further options frankly to operators not last because they could choose to distinguish or there so would narrow it actually a little bit further I'd like to see it added in and I think at least earlier there was a consensus I think that's fine putting on them so I just just reading the part in blue I won't read the beginning again I would say provided that branding consisting only of a display of an operator's logo or trademark related to sportsway during shall not be required to comply with this provision unless it is or is intended to be displayed on signage or a fixed structure in a sports venue where it is likely to be viewed by persons under 21 years of age I can make a motion if we're at that point may make a motion I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement in the draft of 205 of CMR 256.05 as included in the commissioner's packet and is further discussed here today specifically adding the words related to sportsway during and sporting venue as discussed by turning the curious I further move the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter and to begin the regulation promulgation process I further move the staff be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process second okay commissioner brian hi mr hill hey commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard hi I vote no so three two and uh did we include the amount of weight for doing a different motion so it's a different motion so I don't know how much time the consensus is to give a waiver as the regulation or the peace changes go into effect immediately carry is that correct they would go into effect upon filing which I could do tomorrow but I think that the more immediate issue is that the existing waiver expires tomorrow so either way you would need a waiver that would pick up after that one so most of this work would have been subject to some kind of a um contract between the venue and the the light one of our licensees so they'll need to take time to go in and work with the venue to to change that and then I was inclined to say 60 but I don't know if 60 days I don't know if that's where everyone else's mind was or whether it should be 90 given what you said madam chair I don't know enough about the business you could always if I'm 90 it would be fine 90 Mr. Hill 90 fine yeah Mr. Skinner are you okay with 90 all right if it's not enough time they could come back and we'll explain the later right I moved in in accordance with 205 CMR 202.033 with the commission issue a waiver through 90 days of starting tomorrow to all licensed force waging operators from the requirement outlining 205 CMR 256.051 and that the edits that were made today in the previous vote as granting the waiver meets the requirements specified in 205 CMR 102.034 and is consistent with the purposes of general as chapter 23 in I think any comments or edits Michelle Bryan aye Michelle Hill aye Michelle Skinner aye Michelle Maynard I vote yes five zero okay Mina we have you and I thought it makes sense to make sure I am not going to get conference today Commissioner O'Brien if we could just turn to Mina my suggestion for number 11 is that we've had a chance to see the job description that we actually take some more time I need it to think about it I don't know but that's on the respect to number 11 I think number 10 Mina was going to offer some insights as to from a legal perspective on permanent search and then we go to the succession document although I think that because that does require a little bit of discussion I think so if we could just hear from Mina first Commissioner O'Brien is that all right that's fine okay great thanks Mina thank you Madam Chair and thank you Commissioner O'Brien for willing us to change the order around a little bit so I think knowing that you will be taking further time at another point it sounds like Madam Chair on the job description this this well that's me asking so I'll leave that to others fair enough the reason I mentioned is that these are these are related issues and there is are there a couple of issues to think about at some point and they may be you know intertwined in some ways I think and I apologize in advance if some of this is maybe a little bit redundant with things you've heard from my colleague Dave Mackie in the past but thinking about the selection process for the permanent executive director what some of the legal requirements and options are the as I believe was discussed last time and as as you may be aware under the open meeting law there are a couple of restrictions on when the the commission can go into executive session if it needs to to review applicants for a position in light of that there are some there is a carve out for screening committees under the open meeting to allow public bodies especially when searching for roles that are directly appointed by that public body such as executive director to be able to attract candidates of high quality maintain confidentiality as needed and these are all options and so there are sort of pros and cons to way of how you go about designing a process that gives you the best the best pool of candidates possible we've gone through this with other boards and committees that admittedly more so more often than not on the local level but it's a very similar process and often for similar positions and there's a couple of sort of frequently asked questions that were figured we would try to address upfront so first there is an option under the open meeting law to for one for one commissioner to essentially do all the preliminary screening on their own or for a staff member do all preliminary screening on their own that would not implicate the open meeting law at all because you wouldn't have a body meeting ready to liberation of course that creates the the big disadvantage to that commissioner of all the work and the inability to talk to anybody else including any other commissioner about what they're seeing so that is typically not what we advise instead there's sort of a second approach is for and sort of the other end of the spectrum is for all applicants to be vetted by all all of the commission what that implies unfortunately is one you would be unless you're having a staff member or an outside search firm sort of make initial determinations to winnow the pile to a smaller amount you would end up having to discuss every application publicly because you wouldn't have you wouldn't be under the screening exemption so that is sort of the other end of the spectrum it is sometimes something that is used when there is a clear set of a couple of candidates and there's no no worries about confidentiality and you're sort of kind of skipped to that step already the in between step that has a lot of variety and how exactly it's carried out would be a screening committee a screening committee cannot include a quorum or more of the commission so it can't be any more than two commissioners however I would note that a screening committee does not have to include any commissioners or or two it could include one and it does not have to consist entirely of commissioners a lot of screening committees just as the one you're using for the interim position in a lot of public bodies will include other folks who might have particular knowledge on the position at issue a particular amount of experience sometimes this may be less relevant for a state commission but on the local level they'll sometimes include citizen volunteers etc who might have time and availability to help with that process what the screening committee is designed to do is to serve as exactly that it is to bring in the applications and resumes that are collected for a particular position and to vet them to determine a couple of things one is is whether the pool of candidates is adequate or whether reporting usually reporting back to the full body that there may be more more need for outreach or perhaps that's working with a search firm to ask for further outreach and further searching it is to review the applications to try to color down to a more manageable number and then it is to recommend applicants and that is the language within the the open meeting law multiple applicants for public interview by the full body that's also making a point that is there's a decent amount actually of open meeting law decisional guidance on the process on what works and what doesn't in terms of the open meeting law our suggestion is often to be mindful of the formalities of the screening committee versus the full commission sometimes actually having non non-members of the public body can be helpful because it avoids inadvertently having a deliberation with the ultimate decision makers if particular tasks need to be carried out that are maybe more administrative more ministerial such as going through resumes reviewing some minimum qualifications scheduling interviews etc talking to applicants those bodies would need to to maintain minutes they would you know be acting as you do when you go into executive session when they go into executive session opening in regular session so that's sort of the general lay of the land the question one of the biggest questions I think it's important for the commission to consider is the and where we've seen the most successful of these screening committees is to give the screening committee if you are to establish one a clear charge of what their task will be and will not be what I mean by that is one if if they are being asked to hire a particular job having that job description discussed and said in advance which it looks like you're you know that's what your plan is is a good idea and also having an understanding of when they should be checking back in with the with the body and what the expectations are while they are required to bring back multiple applicants or can sometimes be different preferences for just what that means at what stage of sort of winnowing as I keep saying well I'll do apologies to potential future applicants but that winnowing do they do you want them to come back is it when it's down to you know the a top two or three or is it a sort of larger pool that would be interviewed at least the desire and sometimes that desire may not match the applicant pool so you have to readjust but it does help to have that set as much as possible and upfront I think that's you know as probably as far as we can really go in terms of the legal requirements I'm happy to take questions but I think a lot of this will play out as you start working through it I should note that very often screening committees operate with a contracted or delegated search firm or search person in an HR capacity or something of that nature so that you are not sort of starting usually not starting fresh you're starting without even having a way to get applications and a lot of search committees out there do specialize in working with with public entities or have at least some experience working with public entities as a way to understand that the last thing I'll say is whatever process you decide it's my recommendation that it be clear not just for your amongst yourselves and the public but anticipating that folks might apply to this position could be again I know this is up to you out of state or at least not as familiar with the agency with the commission itself they you want to make sure that they understand the process and what submitting an application will meet in terms of who's who's going to be reviewing in the first instance what and what the timeline might look like and of course the potential that at the end of that process if they're continue to be in the process and selected that they're they may need to publicly interview for the position and that the converse is true that if they're not selected that they should have some expectation that resumes job applications and their names would not be become public record those maintain confidentiality and the commission should make sure to do that as well go for it commissioners questions from Mina and any suggestions on first steps Michelle Bryan now I my suggestions on next steps obviously some of it goes obviously to the agenda I don't intend to finalizing not only the ED job description but also we need to talk about whether there's going to be a deputy because to me that rolls into what that job description would be that would then form the basis of how we want to search for the next ED and I believe the last time we came up with this we started the process with an outside agency I can imagine that would probably be where we're going but obviously I think the five of us should discuss do we do we want to do that how do we want to select that agency and how do we don't want to select the one or two commissioners who would then be involved going forward with that agency so that would be my suggestions and then moving quickly on I know I've talked to Karen briefly about her thoughts on the job description I have some as well in terms of updates and different things to keep in mind but those are my thoughts on the next steps I thought about the second position the deputy particularly today when Derek reminded us that we moved the funding so that's that was on my mind as well commissioner commissioner hill are you leaning in so Nina can I ask with what a search from help us also on the job description development and maybe we save job descriptions they certainly can I think as with any outside body if you're involved in them you're going to have to provide the clarity of what you're looking for you know some of them will have experience of doing similar things I guess this is just from from our experience and being in some of these processes you want to be as specific as possible with us with the job description and I think ideally pointing to reference materials if possible what kinds of things the executive director might get involved in or might be asked to do because left to their own devices is not that you know they're they're professionals but they're sort of also marketing a job in a sense as a search firm you want to make sure that the people they're looking to attract or the people you're looking the kinds of people looking to hire and understand what they're getting getting into right what they're trying what they're being asked to do if they get the job and sometimes there's been some disconnect that we've seen where the the search firm has itself has not fully understood so the short the short answer I'm sorry for the longer answer is yes does not entirely you know save that work but it can be helpful to have them on board early so they can understand what you're looking for as you're craving it as well ideas commissioners thoughts concerns any part of the discussion relative to the ed's role and you know any revisions to the job description creation of the deputy director's role in the creation of that job description should also include a review of commissioner roles and responsibilities and specifically building off of the delegation of authority discussion we had earlier and creating efficiencies I do think it's a good opportunity to assess and evaluate you know what's working now and what can be improved overall to I guess you know get to a place where the agency is high functioning and we are utilizing the talent that we have before us and you know allowing at the end of the day those individuals to be empowered to make decisions on behalf of the agency without a need to come before the commission so frequently and on so so frequently so many different matters so I mean I just I'm putting that out there I want to take advantage of the opportunity and I hope the time that we have now to engage in sort of a larger discussion around just tidying up some things in the way we do our work in the way the executive director does his or her job and in the way that the divisions do their work other ideas suggestions comments come I'm digesting all this madam chair but I guess one of my big questions mean I I think I've heard the subcommittee that can be set up how is all five of us can be involved in this process is something that I want to hear about sure and so this this is a tricky part under the open meeting law of exactly how to continue to keep the entire public body involved because one of the limitations you have is you won't be able to discuss an executive session particular candidates until until one final one is selected that you're negotiating so things that we've seen that work on that front Commissioner Hill include having a process upfront for instance about how that the subcommittee set up and it's charged that's sort of one of the ways that input kind of into the model could could work upfront throughout the process you might have and this is envisioning a significantly longer process than usually would be for an interim you might have check-ins with the from the subcommittee or the screening committee that's pretty typical what they have to be careful about is to give sort of information about where they are in the process and and what they're seeing for instance it's okay to say we're seeing a strong pool of candidates or we think we ought to be distributing a little bit more in industry journals or something right you might have things like that being said and to explain how how the next steps are likely to unfold in the timeline without discussing particular applicants at the at that point it's also appropriate throughout the process for instance if there is feedback coming back through the search firm for instance that one of the questions are getting from potential applicants I'm not suggesting this is I'm just using this as an example but that the that many of the applicants they've reached out to expressed concern that the pay range was too low to sort of say that that is becoming a barrier whether the commission wants to reconsider that before continuing on the process that may be something that comes up you would you would want to be careful and this is where the search committee working with with the search firm and and counsel frankly have to be careful to make sure that what's being conveyed isn't sort of pre-negotiation with a particular person if you're screening multiple people but there are opportunities to sort of adjust how it's going without knowing without sort of interfering with the quality of the search process so if I'm not part of the search committee I will not know who has applied I will not have an understanding from the search firm who has applied I will have to take the word of the two that are on that committee but my fellow commissioners that these are the finalists that we're presenting to you is that an accurate statement correct yeah and that's why they're the alternatives really are it's why I stress two points earlier that you know if you expect a very limited number of applications there is a potential to vet all of them publicly but then they the applicants would have to know they're all all their names might be out there the flip side of that or the sort of intermediate step is trying to have a larger group of finalists and that is really where some of this can be difficult because you do have you know you sort of won't necessarily know who else might have applied but didn't make it through to the final steps so I'm very uncomfortable with that process Can I just into being Commissioner Hill I appreciate this comfort and just to clarify the way to do all five is to have the applicants be vetted fully I do want to point out that should we go with a screening committee I will take myself out so it will be among four to decide you know which two or one so for the permanent search if you go with a screening committee I I will step away from that but otherwise for all five of us to participate it would be have to be an open screening process and an open interview process you know there's an option of not dreaming like we stream everything but that would be a change in our transparency and we probably want to do it in public so that anybody could come and listen you know that that would be an option I've heard from other commissions but for the screening it would be among the four of you to decide to I'm just going to share with you one thought and it's not going to be a very nice thought so understand that as I'm telling you my view on this I am not a big fan of search firms I have seen many search firms work with different departments locally and I have seen names come before boards of selectmen and others that would make you shake your head sometimes so I don't have a lot of confidence in search firms because I have seen so many times search firms put names before a board of selectmen that just were not good fits for the towns had histories of their own that if you had just googled you would have seen the search that they should have seen but for whatever reason didn't come up with and I'm just putting that out there as one individual and I'm really really uncomfortable not being part of a process possibly not being part of a process I said to you about a week ago that I had hoped that all five of us would be able to work together in picking our next executive director I still feel that way I of course will go whatever the majority the board wants to do but I want to share that with you because my experience with search firms has not been great thank you we wouldn't have to take that approach right Nina we could use internal HR help right yeah correct I want to be clear if in case I wasn't earlier on that Commissioner Hill that the search firm piece is is not certainly not a legal requirement and not necessarily I'll just be completely kidding myself not necessarily a recommendation for myself either for those reasons if you are going to have a search firm it's why I would advocate working very closely with with them and making sure that they fully understand what you're looking for and what messaging they're putting out there because I have seen some of the same things Commissioner Hills alluding to where the folks might have been a good fit elsewhere but not necessarily a good fit for where they were searching for so I definitely respect that opinion the part that is legally that is also legally required is that the final decision does have to be made by the five of you as a group subject to whatever recusals might need to happen if somebody knows some you know if it's a exact director is known somebody but that it's really that getting from the full pool of potential applicants to the final to the group of finalists that where you can use a screening committee if you so desire and how again how large of a group of finalists you ask to see I think is one way to sometimes mitigate the loss of transparency that happens in the interim so next steps or other ideas Commissioner Brown I mean we need to finalize the job description we need to come to a consensus on that I think we should have a ballpark understanding of what we think the deputy or assistant executive director is going to be because ultimately whoever the ED is is going to be the one hiring that person I mean obviously we're not going to want to bring that person in until we bring in an ED so I think first order business is making sure you know talking to Karen talking staff about what we need is an ED what's the job description and us going to a consensus on that and then process Christopher Hight we never actually used the search term in my tenure because we we're going to go down that road and then ultimately Karen did such a fantastic job we never went down there and we we elected as a body to go take her from interim to full-time so I can't speak to your experiences I'd love to talk to you about it I can't say I'm shocked to hear you say that I mean I can think of other circumstances where people said something similar so I really would want to know more because that's one of the options on the table I think we all want to talk about it so if I could just ask madam chair what would be the timeline to get the information on the job description when we need to start this as an open meeting law issue we have the job description we can decide two people right now to to work on that or we could come back with our edits ourselves and and discuss them the next meeting I think we have a meeting on the 11th and a meeting on the 12th and that's on how you want to do this I think all five of us should be involved in that so I mean I think we either repair off in two by two to talk to Karen or we go on our own but I think the next discussion really should be amongst the five of us and how we want that to read that's my thoughts yeah we do a lot of wordsmithing on a whole lot of stuff so this would be really easy so I guess we have to look at the agendas for the 11th and the 12th and see where we can slot it in right Mr. Skinner Mr. Hill Mr. Maynard I'm okay with the suggestion made by Commissioner O'Brien so there's five of us so how are you going to do the two by twos I think the other suggestion Commissioner O'Brien made was just to you know make our own suggestions and then circulate them in a public meeting or discuss them yeah so she has suggested two by twos with Karen it might be if it turns out that way the two of us reach her at the same time then those would be the two for that purpose I want to make sure no one cares about which two and which two okay and everybody comes back Grace what do you think for the 11th or the 12th yeah the 12th is regulatory only is that right the 12th is really only for regulations it's a very short meeting given other commission business that day so we will meet selfishly on the 11th so for the 11th that worked or should we do the 12th should we add I remember what's on I would say the 12th selfishly just because I'm on vacation next week so if we have the meeting on the 11th that only gives me tomorrow in the 10th outside of that although probably I've probably have to call you Karen before that obviously given your departure date but I don't know if we can put it on after the regulations on the 12th I'm happy to guess whether it's the 11th or the 12th I know Karen is working on a transition document I would hope that we would have the benefit of reviewing that before the meeting to discuss the job description Karen yeah I am working on that my my goal was to have something done by the by sometime next week don't mean to put you on the spot or add any pressure oh it's fine kind of a stretch but it's a normal protocol the transition so commissioners are you comfortable with it being on the 12th is there a deadline for certain scheduling issues on race is that what I heard for the 12th because some people have all right so for re-invented study meeting that day as well as an all staff event schedule oh yeah that's our our all day our barbecue and then Karen's send-off day yeah I think Commissioner O'Brien could we try to squeeze this in on the 11th given that we can yeah we can put it on for the 11th then if we're not done we'll roll it over to finish it on the 12th but we can try for the 11th because the 11th is more of a regular meeting I'm trying to make the 12th a little bit special raised how late would the 11th be then um I'm still receiving agenda items for that so I'll have to go back and time it out but we should be fine to add it on for our meeting we're receiving agenda items like some yeah so team members are asking to be in front of the meeting right yeah it's for the most part they they have been discussed in a gender setting we're just finalizing what those said thanks so we'll see if all those things have to go in front of the commission that day and we'll prioritize this how's that sound I'm good okay Karen you can help me with that for the 11th and then the 12th will be just as we plan for regs only yeah absolutely and then that nice barbecue okay thanks commissure brian okay anything else the only thing this is more a commissioner update but before Mina disappears on us the I watched the streaming of the the screening committee on Monday and commissioner Skinner had asked some questions about the process and sort of how things had unfolded I had the same questions myself and I had asked Mina if if the information is anonymized whether that's something that I might be able any other commissioners might be able to get and he indicated that that would in fact be appropriate so I wanted to voice that request publicly that the answers to commissioner Skinner's to the extent they're anonymized and appropriate to give to the other three of us that that be done I'm not I mean I'm not following so I wasn't part of the conversation that I don't know if the other commissioners need to be commissioner brian I'm not are you suggesting this is when I as commissioners get questions about how certain people were approached how did they indicate preference for the interim position that sort of thing and I whether it was discussed in executive session or not I don't know obviously I only saw the public part of it and I had called you earlier to ask how much of that if any of it would be accessible to the other three of us obviously understanding it would need to be anonymized we're not allowed to see obviously who the people are etc that would sort of run afoul the whole purpose of the screening committee correct yes no so I I think madam chair I think what commissioner brian if I if I can tell me if I'm not stating this correctly was referring to our commissioner Skinner's questions during the screening committee correct in session about the process to identify the pool of candidates for the interim not specifically who was identified or or how they're reached and I and and the reason commissioner brian reached out was to seek advice on whether that's an appropriate topic for a public session my answer is you know that at that level of detail yes however it obviously would depend on whether it's also properly noticed for a particular meeting so it may not be I don't think you were asking for answers today if I'm listening to take it correct so am I being asked to answer something right now no that's exactly what you're not being asked to do I put out there the fact of wanting the information so that we could then make sure that the other three of us can get it but obviously you're not going to be in a position to give it today it would have to be given in a manner also that's anonymized so Nina am I being asked to say what I did without giving any names right now I don't think you're being asked right now but I is it when would I be answering it because there's no mystery there's no mystery I mean if you feel it's appropriate right now madam chair with it within this agenda item I think you could do it right now so yeah if you close in commissioner update I don't know is that appropriate do I need to mark it up for another time I think it's if if it's at the since we do have marked up the ED process and this came up as a commissioner update as well I think it is okay to to do that now but I defer to you whether you'd rather mark it up at a later time but I didn't want to put you on the spot which was part of my answer before well thank you I appreciate no one wants to be put on the spot but I don't feel that way so thank you to be clear I did not formalize a process I did what I did when the last executive director gave notice I did something that any commissioner could have done I did do it as in my role as I perceive my role as chair in my responsibilities by statute but I also wouldn't have been surprised and I think probably some of you did do some of this but I I I asked each of Karen's reports and the director of IEB to meet with me for half hours Grace joined me so that I would make sure I was hearing everything accurately and I had a nice conversation with each of them about what they loved about Karen's leadership and her style I asked about things that they might want to change within the organization or or rates that they would think now with the expansion of our obligations something different then I asked each if they would be interested in either the serving as an interim or permanent and I was it was a nice conversation it was a very nice conversation and from that I learned that we did have individual school were willing to step up of that position and for the interim is that fair Mina absolutely from my perspective yeah I think that's that's at the right level of detail but I did not know it to be a particular process I did learn that I needed to seek guidance from lawyers and I sought that guidance from A&K and I took that guidance word for word from as soon as I understood the intricacies of the open medium law process for this selection process and I I find very seriously did my best as my mom would say did my best so I would ask is another as part of this process I think another thing we need to add to our list is as we're going to jump the succession plan for the treasurer and the secretary that we add discussion about succession plans for interim ED and that sort of thing because I do think going forward if we all five have a clearer sense of how that's going to work how interest in a position is going to be conveyed that sort of thing that should be added to our list of things to do as we look for the next ED and going forward kind of in line Commissioner Skinner what you're talking about in terms of housekeeping Yeah and to that point I mean one of my questions to the legal council Attorney McCarious is there's this idea of the presumptive nominee for that interim role and I do understand the difference between you know I do understand that there's not a legal basis for the presumption as Attorney McCarious described or answered but I do think in terms of the current roles the I think the expectation certainly my expectation and I think the qualifications now in terms of who is best qualified to serve in that interim role I think like others on this commission I would have liked to have that discussion and to be able to make have a discussion make an appointment outright rather than engage in the screening process that being said again the screening committee is underway and we are proceeding with that I made these comments at Monday's meeting I think the decision certainly could have been more straightforward in getting to an interim ED without the you know the added layer of screening right and the time it takes to do that when we're essentially working on a July 14 deadline so to your point I do I think it is a good idea to roll that discussion as to how this commission will appoint future interim executive directors as part of the ongoing discussion relative to roles and responsibilities and things that we can improve on commissioners commissioner Maynard commissioner Hill anything else thinking commissioner Maynard or are you saying no I try not to think too hard it makes my head hurt no I'm sitting here thinking that I agree that there should be a succession plan going forward but otherwise I'm fine with where we are commissioner Hill I'll set I'll set good while I stand by my decision and I know that we will have very very lucky to have individuals in this organization who are willing to assume the responsibilities of interim and I know that Karen just been able to demonstrate great leadership and it's inspired that so thank you Mina I'll set yes for my perspective thank you okay and now there's a succession of officers document that commissioner O'Brien you draft it I know that commissioner Maynard reviewed it there are options within this document for the election of treasurer and secretary you want to go forward with it sure so version one I believe there was a sort of an agnostic response for the most part to which version although I think commissioner Hill did voice a preference for the first version that's in this draft which is somewhat consistent with how other organizations do it where everyone sort of cycles through and out as opposed to taking two and two and swapping in and out which is what version two essentially would do with the four of us so it's really up for a wordsmithing if anyone has you know things they want to bring up and a determination on do we want version one where everyone cycles in and out or do we want to do to swapping in and out alternating years that's really what's before us today well I want to be clear on the record that I would have thought it would be okay for people to serve a second term but if we are going to want to switch out then I'm fine with either version still a fan favorite of the first this might I have a question this might have been answered I tend to jot down questions as I'm reading but some oftentimes learn the answer further down in the document but if there are two commissioners I guess that meet the presumptive nominee criteria how how is it decided who takes which role so you have two commissioners who have just come off treasurer and secretary and then you have the two who didn't serve in an officer capacity stepping in as treasurer secretary what determines which commissioner gets which office it would be either in the first instance you take whatever office you have yet to hold or which other one you are temporarily furthest from so if you most recently served as secretary you would then go into treasurer or vice versa the idea being it then spreads out everyone's service and the office of positions as evenly we can try to get it what if both commissioners have served haven't served in either role ever then what decides it would probably be based on whoever was first to arrive in the commission in that event and most in all likelihood something like in the seniority preference that's how most most agents user organizations would handle it yes okay and then the other question I have so I think I we don't need to go backwards but I that's in both scenarios version one in version version two I'm not a fan of a certain seniority of commissioners a certain seniority if you will but I understand it's I guess it's a neutral enough way to make the decision without having to choose preferences the other question I had is is there the ability I'm starting there must be the ability for either commissioner to decline in office there's nothing in this that would prohibit anyone from declining that would be an individual commissioner choice this is just the presumption for nominees so if someone's nominated and they choose not to accept that would be up to that particular commissioner we don't this doesn't deal with that it only deals with who the presumptive nominee would be for discussion let's hope we don't have four declines that would be problematic four declines would be problematic that's the presumptive process but then if we if for whatever reason you know the presumptive nominee declines then we would exercise I suppose just the traditional nomination go to the next in line right who was furthest from that seat right just wrote it's a rotation right commissioner brand yeah yeah and I think and this is commission remainders add to this when I asked him to look at it was he foresaw that idea that you might have to deviate from this depending on when people were coming in or whatever was going on so that those would ideally be temporary and you would try to get back onto the regular cycle as quickly as you could but acknowledging you might have to deviate from this on occasion I was thinking of the days when the commission had three people right do you say that again please I was thinking of the days when the commission had three people right so there was no declining in that circumstance you had no choice I'm not wedded to either version either way I get a break this cycle I mean it sounds like we have one preference for version one I'm fine with version one I don't know if commissioner maynard I don't know if you have a preference version one or two out of version one so unless there's further discussion I'm happy to move if we're ready for it and this is for adoption of the document and then the vote will be and then the vote is yeah the next meeting because we've set July 15th is our ideal recurring vote or turnover time so I move that the commission approved the procedures for presumptive nominations and rotations of commissioner officer positions and specifically adopted in the version one language as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today any further discussion commissioner bryan aye commissioner hill aye commissioner skinner aye commissioner maynard and I vote yes great any other business I'm gonna go learn something the last couple of hours of the conference everybody have a good day move to adjourn madam chair oh you can be me to it second okay commissioner bryan aye commissioner hill aye commissioner skinner aye commissioner maynard aye I vote yes thanks everyone