 I don't think it's a secret to anyone on the committee that this is a priority issue of Main Street Alliance. We, for those of you who aren't that familiar with us, we're a small business public policy organization. We have about 600 members statewide. And this is an issue that we've been working on with our members for a number of years now. We see it not just as a support to the workforce, but really to small business owners in general. We think of it as something that we can do as a state to set us apart from other states because as of right now, there are only six states, well, five states in Washington, D.C. that have programs. We think it could really be a way for us to kind of differentiate ourselves as a state that is family friendly and, you know, passes policies that are supportive of businesses and the workforce in tandem. And so we are in full support of the legislature creating a program. We think that, as everyone knows at this point, that we're a small business state, the majority of businesses have fewer than 20 employees and they employ a significant percentage of workers in the state at roughly 32%. And so when we think about policies like this, it's from our perspective, it's a way to help business owners compete because most of our members, most small business owners that we talk to, they don't provide this benefit, not because they don't believe in it or see that it's a need or that it's essential or important, but because it's just not something that they can afford in their own policy to have someone out for a number of weeks and also in some cases have to pay to replace someone. It can be really financially challenging. So they see this as a way for the state to kind of fill in that gap between what workers need and what business owners can offer. So that's why as an organization, we're fully in support of creating a family and medical insurance program. We also, I just wanna draw your attention to our survey results. We, I think Lindsay or someone has come in before and spoken about our small business survey that we do and I brought a couple reports here if anyone would like one to reference. We, so obviously our members in our leadership is in full support of family leave, but we also have surveyed main street business owners, members and non-members around the state about this issue and we found strong support for it as well. We have the survey. Can I just ask a question? Yes, Senator Clarkson. Ashley, it doesn't, it does say that you surveyed businesses in all 14 counties. Can you give us a notion of how many businesses? Oh yeah, sorry, I didn't include that. It's 781. Wow. And so all counties were represented, although not clearly every county has a different number of businesses and so they weren't necessarily equally equal distribution, but they were all represented. 86% of those surveyed have fewer than 10 employees and the majority surveyed owned retail in the second largest group surveyed were food service and restaurant establishments. And so we found that 63.5% of those surveyed were in support of the state creating a program. And I should also note that the, we asked those who were surveyed whether or not they were a member of MSA and 9.5% were, so this is mainly a non-member survey. Sorry, did that help you get more members? Yes, it does always help to do a survey to get more members. We found also that, so we also not aside from just surveying about whether or not people were supportive of the concept of family leave in general, we also surveyed about how people think it should be funded or how many weeks and things of that nature. And so most of the members who were surveyed expressed a preference for shared funding divided between employers and employees. It was 51% and then only 8% indicated preference for employee-only funding though. I think it's really important to note that 40% of them said they didn't know or chose not to answer, so clearly there was no preference with a significant number of those surveyed. We also asked about the duration of leave. We gave two options for eight or 12 weeks and there was roughly twice as many business owners indicated a preference for 12 weeks than indicated a preference for eight weeks. But fewer respondents expressed a preference than those did not, so there were clearly some questions about this that people didn't really feel they had strong leanings towards either way. But overall we found very strong support amongst the small business community. So I think that since, as you all know, the bill that passed the House changed significantly from the way it was introduced. And I know the committee hasn't really had a lot of time to discuss exactly the direction of where you wanna go, things you wanna change. So I was thinking that it would make the most sense for me to kind of run through different components of the bill and what pieces we were strongly advocating for and why and just kind of giving a sense of what we as an organization and also a member of the Family Medical Leave Coalition would like to see moving forward, recognizing that we obviously, it may not be feasible to restore a lot of the components of the bill. To help us, who are the members of the Coalition to get us a list of them? I can give you, yep, I can give you a list. And also I wanna thank you for this memo because this is exactly while we need to see all the variables in our many in a paid leave. Yes. Of the legislation. I would ask you to span the chart on page four to show where those variables were and as it came out of the general committee or some things you've used and I don't know if there's, were there any changes made by the appropriations committee at all? So I know the change, the only change, the only substantive change from general was the funding change. So. In appropriations. In general. When the bill was from general to the ways and means, they changed the funding to employee only and then the majority of the other changes worked for ways and means. And did, were there any changes in the appropriations? I can't recall any significant changes but I'll go back. It's mostly ways and means. Yeah, it was almost all in the ways and means committee. Actually were you surprised in your survey that only 8% of the businesses indicated the preference for an employee only funding? I wasn't entirely surprised actually because I think that a lot of business owners see this as something that employees should contribute to because it is a direct benefit to them but I think they also feel like it's a support for small business and so it makes sense for it to be shared, I suppose. That's at least been the conversations that I've had with folks but I'm not entirely surprised that people didn't think it should, a significant number didn't think it should be shared. That's a good question. Could you, and maybe, is legislative council here? I'm sure they'd rather go backwards and forwards but could you work with legislative council and it's a good question and I think probably I would imagine that employers, most of them took the position that there should be some contribution from employers because I think in almost virtually all payroll stuff related to work there is some employer contribution and I would like to get sort of a list of all the benefits there and which ones are shared most of them are fully paid by the employer but which ones are shared and if there are some that I don't know too many where we say to the employer you pay everything. We've got this new one that we passed last year where you can do, for people who don't have pensions and retirement plans, you can set money aside on your own but it'd be good to see the kinds of benefits that are fully paid by the employer, fully paid by the employer and the ones that are shared. Thank you. Yeah, that would be a good question. I know, I mean, when businesses offer temporary disability insurance that tends to be a shared cost but yeah, that would be interesting. I'll write this down and make sure to get that information. May I just add, I also think it makes some sense I can see why an employer would want to contribute because even if it isn't equally matched or just in part because employees that are able to have the flexibility to turn to something that is a huge distraction and is a huge challenge in their family life are happier employers, employees and are probably more productive and probably retain for long term. I think that if, and if this is not, this is life enough. I appreciate your question. You can ask all the questions you want. Yeah, and I think. Thanks a lot. You don't know how tough I am when you're out of the room. You're out of the room. And I think too that most of the people that we've talked to have, like I said, wanted to provide some type of benefit but can't, even if you have a minimum wage worker out for 12 weeks, it's just, I think I did the math recently, it's just under $6,000 to have that person out and then if you're gonna replace them with someone else, it's a free tax. Then that can be incredibly costly but if you're paying a small percentage of the insurance fund, it's generally, depending on the business, obviously less expensive and so I think that's where the reasoning behind the support for joint funding came from. So, oh and I also have copies of the survey, which isn't just family, that's multiple issues if anyone would like them. I don't know. I know who you want them to. I'm up here, I have to tell you later about my latest survey. I look forward to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I look forward to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I'll walk through, as I said before, we, before the bill was introduced in the house, we worked with our members and leaders and our board and organizational partners in the Family Lead Coalition and house leaders and house lead sponsors to identify what do we think are the ideal components of a paid family lead program and so those were reflected in the way the bill was introduced. 12 weeks, 100% ledger for this joint funding and I'm trying to think of what the job protection, non-restricted eligibility and allowing self-employed to obtain coverage and so when the bill was diminished in the house, we're trying to kind of regroup and figure out what are your priorities as a committee and what are ours and so I didn't necessarily narrow these down into what are the top three things we would like to change, but I wanted to just walk through and go through our rationale for each and then what we would recommend in an ideal world. So, the number of weeks in the bill as introduced was 12 and as you know, now it's six. We were recommending 12 weeks because research will show that 12 weeks of lead particularly related to bonding with a new child is essential for not only maternal and child health but to make sure that children have proper checkups and vaccinations and routine health care appointments and things and in fact, I thought this was important to note that the experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that infants shouldn't be enrolled in child care until 12 weeks. So, we see this issue as also intersecting with the child care issue that we know not just in this way, but also that child care, it's hard to access for infants and it's more infant care is really expensive. So, for allowing parents to stay home for 12 weeks then we could also potentially have impacts, positive impacts on the child care system. We also current unpaid federal, current state law, the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act, it allows for taking up to 12 weeks unpaid. And so, part of the way that the bill was structured as it was introduced was to really take existing law and create this program that runs concurrently and make it paid and to try to make it simpler and easier and so that was another reason for 12 weeks. And I recognize that the committee moving forward may have to make some decisions about whether or not it makes sense to move the weeks up and so as an organization and part of the Family Leave Coalition, we would love to see 12 weeks, if that all possible. Oh, I don't need to. Sham. I'm just curious, what was the biggest rationale in the house for taking it down to six? So, my perception of from being in the Ways and Means Committee for why nearly all of the changes were made were to just create a smaller, cheaper program. I think it also had to do with the representative Ansel's personal predilection. Yes, thank you. I like the use of predilection. Okay, that answers it. So. Because it came out of House General at 12 weeks. Yeah, it came out of House General with everything intact except for the funding mechanism was changed to employee only and then in Ways and Means there was an amendment. These are amendments. Well, Ways and Means to the future. Yeah, so it was a significant number of things that were changed. Is there testimony from businesses who are concerned on what this will do to the operation? I can look that up. I can say that, I mean, we've brought in a lot of business owners from various parts of the state to testify in support. And I do believe there were a few representatives of business groups and maybe one or two businesses that came in and expressed concerns. But I'll look that up and then get that to you. I see an interplay between our Merchants to your Responder Bill and this bill. I think the emergency. So somebody can leave for one hour versus somebody to leave for 12 weeks? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll have a Merchants to your Responder Bill. You're right. I guess I'll have a call to play. It's all my friends. Yeah, right, exactly. Also, so one of the most significant things that changed in the bill was that the ability to use leave for your own illness or injury was removed, which was a very unanticipated change. And I will say that if the bill passes into law without allowing for care for your own illness or injury, we would be the only state to do that. Most other states, in fact, actually started with state temporary disability insurance programs, which would allow people to take time off for their own illness or injury or to recover from childbirth. And then they just expanded them to include bonding leave for any parent because those programs were so successful. And so we would definitely be an outlier if we were to remove leave for that purpose. Kevin, I asked as the bill left general, you could use a free road on this. So how did that interact with paid sick leave? So I don't think, I mean, they're not necessarily related because paid sick leave is part of an employer's policy and it's just for a couple of days if you're, you know, you have a common culture, something of that nature, but then temporary disability insurance is like, you would be, it's a state administered program. You would apply, you would receive benefits if you're out for, say if I was in a serious car accident and I was in the hospital for six weeks, then I could get a certain number of wage, level of wage replacement during that time. So it's something of that nature. It's worth telling you that when I was up there, I didn't do a leave, so. So. Okay, it's down to the Mighty Three. The dream team. Well, good. Good. So we strongly, yep. Again, I just have to ask, given it's sort of an odd choice to move in, what was the rationale in ways given it had nothing to do with the financing? Right, I mean, I would definitely defer to, I would recommend that talking to the committee to get the exact rationale, but it's, it was potentially related to cutting costs of the program. So who reported it on the floor for Ways and Means? It was representative Till, wasn't it? I think so. Yeah. I'll double check. I believe it was. I'll get you that answer. Seems hard. Yeah, I'm almost certain it was. It's so sad. It's just a straight face to us. I think it, if we're both thinking that, we must really, I think so. He did it with his hand line, his back. Whoa. I think if, if I had to choose one thing that we fix in the bill, it would be to ensure that we have leave for that purpose because we wanna make sure that it's a comprehensive program that's available to everyone during various challenging life events, not just birth of a new child or caring for an aging parent, but also for your own unexpected illness or injury. So, moving on to wage replacement. As the bill was introduced, it was 100% wage replacement. Now it's 80, which we still fully support. This is actually one of the most generous wage replacement levels of other states. And so, we're at 80, and in fact, when we hear, sometimes we hear concerns that these programs are not accessible to low wage workers, but if you look at research from other states, it shows that the main reason, one of the main reasons that low wage workers don't take advantage of this program is because the wage replacement is so low. In some states it's, I think it's New Jersey, I forget which state, but one has like 55% wage replacement, 166. And so, if you're a minimum wage worker, obviously it's gonna be really challenging for you to take 12 weeks off at half of your salary or roughly half of your salary. So, we recommend keeping it as strong as possible, at least 80%. And for the job protection piece, as the bill was introduced, it extended job protection to employees of employers of all sizes. And in ways and means, it was amended to be consistent with current law in that you wouldn't have to hold an employee's job if you have 10 or fewer employees. And so, I think that often times with policies like this, we think that by creating small business exemptions with thresholds that were actually helping small business and our members in particular prefer simple minimum standards as opposed to business exemptions. And so, we would recommend extending job protection to employees of employers of all sizes. And I know the chair had, in his bill, he had recommended a preference in hiring for employers with I think it was four fewer employees so that if you, you don't necessarily have to hold their job. But when you have a first job opening, then you would offer it to that person. And so- Sort of like a right of first- Yeah, essentially. Which I think is a creative solution as well. So can we just cut right? When this left the House General, it had full job protection. No qualifiers for size of business. Full job protection, yes, yeah, to everyone. And current unpaid law has the 10 employee threshold exemption. But this is not unpaid. Right, this is not. And- So- Right, and we wouldn't, we don't as an organization think that. We don't believe in small business carve outs. And so, we would absolutely recommend that the committee extend job protection to all employees. And so for eligibility requirements, this is an important issue for a number of members on the Family and Medical Leave Coalition. The way that the bill was introduced, you would be eligible if you had worked six out of the last 12 months continuously. And then as it passed Ways and Means, it was amended to be 12 out of the last 13 months, which we feel and a lot of members in the Family Leave Coalition feel is too restrictive because there are a lot of people who are working consistently, but they have, you know, maybe they work 11 months out of the year, or maybe I think home care workers are an example of folks with their regular schedules. And so we wanna make sure that people who are consistently working and paying into the program are able to access it. So we would recommend either moving back to the eligibility of having worked six out of the last 12 months or choosing another mechanism such as the one that was recommended in the study committee report of you have earned a certain base wage. Excuse me, why would you advocate something that's below minimum wage for the... Well, so this was just referencing what was in the study committee report at the time, which that was the minimum wage at the time. But obviously these numbers would be different. I was just referencing what was in the report. But some type of hourly requirement, base wage requirement is some other states do that. California has a really low base wage requirement for eligibility, but we just wanna make sure that it's more accessible. And then, okay, I'm wrapping up here. I feel like I'm taking up a lot of your time. So this is what you're doing. I know, I know. I take up our time. I know. We need the details. So the self-employed access, we, nearly every state that has a program allows people who are self-employed to opt in if they choose. This was something that was in the bill as it was introduced, and then it was taken out in ways and means. And we feel very strongly that as the nature of employment continues to shift in Vermont and across the nation, that we should make sure that we have these essential supports. We're consistently talking about independent contractors and not having access to essential employee benefits. And so if we have the opportunity to allow that, then we think we should extend that. And we have a lot of members who are self-employed as well. So I hate to ask the obvious, but it does strike one that if one is self-employed, you can just do this. Right, I think, yeah. Your income is dependent on your own generation. Yes. And so there's, I mean. I think, so what is the thinking behind? What we've heard from some of our self-employed members is that particularly in instances of unexpected illness or injury, should they have to stop working in and bringing in an income, that this may be something that they would want to participate in? So it's basically ensuring themselves for their own. Essentially. Their own injury would be the thing that would be key for them. Yes. If you took that out, it would make sense that you would take out the self-employed. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think I've heard mixed reviews. I can think of a woman who is a new mom who owns her own business and has no employees and feels that this is something that she would want to partake in as a future parent. And so I think it just depends on the person. But most of the people I've heard from have wanted it specifically for medical leave purposes. And I'm happy to get information from other states, too, if you think it would be helpful about how they make manage those. It would be great, because you've said that there are only six other states, that there are seven jurisdictions, DC and six states. And it would be great to see a little chart of what each state does on each of these provisions. Yeah, I did pass around that in this bigger thing. Yes, I think so. Or it's in these, I think you've got one. Oh, here it is. Yeah, that kind of outlines the difference of every other state. So if you could maybe, if we could use it. I also have a chart that George's Manchester prepared. I've got someone up here. Oh, great. So that should be in the festival note. Which we don't have. I don't think. OK, and the chart's been updated, too, with the new Washington state law. It's updated February 18. No, there's a new one that was updated March 20. Oh, great. I'm sure the committee gets later today. I'll send it to Kayla. So does Kayla have the fiscal note from Joyce? Do you have that? OK. It would be great. And if we don't, because I'm not sure I see it here. I just. I brought it off. Yes, we do. We do. We've got the joint fiscal office with them up here. But it's a year old. Oh, OK. Was it in the? Do we have a? Kayla, would you be kind of to ask Joyce if we have an updated fiscal note? Because what we have on this is from April of 17. This was from when it passed Ways and Means. So I don't imagine anything would have changed since then. Updated? The only thing that was updated was the comparison chart made in Washington state passed a new law after we adjourned last year. And then what happened? So March, March of this year that changed from February. So what we noticed going back over it was that some of the boxes hadn't been correctly updated. OK. So the March of 2018 is the model today. Yeah, some of the boxes reflected out of date the old Washington state law, which was never implemented. And, Kayla, if you'd be kind enough to also ask Joyce if there was a fiscal note prepared of the House general version, it would be interesting to compare the two fiscal notes. There's a draft fiscal note. House general would pay a check and send it on. Great, thanks. And I do have one here, if anyone wants to. Yeah, we have the one from April 17. Some Ways and Means. So the last two things I'll note, intermittently, we would strongly recommend that this. It's not specified whether or not this would be permitted. So I would presume that it wouldn't be under the current draft. But this is particularly important for people taking leave for caregiving or for their own illness or injury. If people are splitting up the caregiving responsibilities with an aging parent, with other family members, maybe their shift is on a Friday. And so it makes sense for them to take leave through this program. But they only would need it for a Friday for 12 weeks. And so this is something that is permitted in undercurrent law. And we recommend that it's. It's silent in this bill, though? Yes, it's not specified. How about breaking it up in more traditional ways, like three weeks and three weeks? Is that specifically allowed for the bill? In the current bill, it's not specified. So we can do it. Yeah, yes. So it's silent. But I think the key is flexibility here. Right. Intermittent leave needs to be flexible to maybe be designed between employee and employer. Yeah. I would say that the bill does provide for an intermittent leave. Oh, it doesn't specify? Doesn't specify it. So it could be called out specifically. Good, OK, that's what I was saying. Yeah, it doesn't specify it. You're correct. But the existing law isn't clear on that either. And it's been interpreted to allow for intermittent leave. So for example, if you had chemotherapy and had to take treatment under your medical leave there, you could take two days, and then two days, and then two days for each treatment, something like that. Is that based on federal law interpretation? I'm going to chose a lot of that from the late cases. Yes, there's a federal law guidance and interpretation on that from the FMLA. And then our law generally follows the interpretation there. Great. And then the last piece is the funding mechanism. So as I said before, we were in full support of the bill as it was introduced with joint funding. I'd like to clarify that sometimes I've been hearing that the perception is that because it got changed to employee-only funding, it was because of business opposition, and that's not the case. We brought in a number of business owners in support. We've heard support from businesses across the state. And there was actually very few opposing testimonies in the House. And so it was just a policy decision that was made by the House. And so I like to just stress that we were in support of it. We're also in support of the bill under the current funding mechanism as well. And so we don't necessarily have a recommendation for what you all do, but I just wanted you to have all the information from us when you make a decision. And then I just thought it was important to note that most of our members do not provide this benefit. Some do. And for those that offer 12-week paid parental leave benefit at 100% wage replacement, most of them have said that if this policy or if this program were created in the state that they would, if it were employee-funded, they would pay for that cost. And then if the program is less generous than their original policy, then they would just simply supplement it to make up for the extra number of weeks or wage replacement level. Was there any talk about mandating that? Mandating it in what way? People who provide generous benefits now don't race to the bottom. This is a pretty small program at this point. Right. I fear that you have some employers who say, well, this is an outstate policy. So I could save a lot of money here and just cut this benefit down to this policy if the state legislatures come up with it. Yeah, I haven't heard that because most of the businesses that we work with who do provide it, they're doing it on their own because it's something they can afford and it's something that they believe in. And so if they're already paying the significant costs to offer 12-week benefit, if the state were to create this program and they were to supplement it, it would generally be less expensive than their current policy. And so there's no really incentive for them to erode the benefit that they were voluntarily offering. That's at least been our perspective and our experience with our members. Was there any discussion at all about exempting out businesses that already provide better provisions? I think there wasn't discussion amongst our members. Yeah, I think it's been a question. Well, you can just say you don't have to contribute to this payroll if you provide any better one than leave it to enforcement mechanisms. Yeah, we do that on other things. Yeah, I think that this is a conversation that's come up in other states. And we, and maybe Damian can step into it if he has anything to add, but I've heard that the main reason for not doing that is because it would exempt, you know, for having this statewide insurance pool, the more people that you exempt, the more expensive the cost becomes. And like health insurance. And so it doesn't really necessarily make sense from our perspective to exempt them. Instead, just include them in the program. And then if the program's less generous in their policy, then they can supplement it, which I'm hearing that they would do. The only state that I'm sure allows employers to provide their own is California. I think New Jersey may as well, but we're talking to economies that are significantly different size than Vermont here. And there they have to show that it's substantively equal or better benefits from the employer. And I can put together a briefing for the committee on those provisions, if you'd like. I would like to see that down. And so just to wrap up these, I just want to reiterate that we are in full support of K-family leave. The pieces that I just laid out were just to try to give you a sense of what we as an organization would like to see ideally in an ideal world, be in the program as the policy has passed, recognizing that it's a big challenge because there were significant things carved out in the house and so. But we hope that this was helpful. And if you have any questions that we can help with, I'd be happy to share any information and connect you to anyone. I, for example, I talked to the administrators of the Rhode Island program often about how their program works. And so I'm sure they would be happy to come and testify a few questions for them. So I'd be happy to take any other questions. So I have a question on, and maybe this is an answer in your chart, which is the uptake, the rate of uptake. Because I think all of us are, you know, even for those of us who support it, and I pretty fully support this, having to sponsor it, how much is it actually used? And I would love to hear from employers and employees, but I'm obviously employees, it's a hopefully a good experience. But it would be very interesting to hear from what you're, how it's working for them in a state that has been doing it for some time. So I'd love to know the uptake and the use of it, and it would be great to hear from an employer out of state. Okay, great. And there are some research studies, I'm thinking particularly of California, about just overall employer perceptions of the program, which have been favorable. But I can see, I'll talk to some of our national partners and see if they have connections to businesses. Because the only one that looks like it's been in place for any length of time is California. So it would be great to find an employer in California, where it's now part of the fabric of employment. And a certain thing, it's been regularized. And so it would be really good to hear from a state and an employer in that in California that you, you know, where it's just become normal. Right. And how it's used. So the general committee upstairs took out the joint funding for everybody. Yes. And what you say, you don't think it was in response to the business community? You think it was just... No, I think, I mean, I would again defer to them to explain exactly the rationale behind it. But my perception is that it was a decision made perhaps to, in thinking that it would be more likely to move through the house. But I would defer to the committee to just stay exactly why they made that change. Not that I'm going to hold you to this, but in the house pass version, you've got all these variables. What's your, the two most important to me? So this is such a tough answer. And I was thinking about this last night and how I would answer this question. I think that the, so I'll say that the family leave coalition, we talked about this two weeks ago about if we had to make some decisions about this or that, what would we want? And we decided that we think that having a shorter length of leave, but a more robust benefit would be more important. So six weeks that includes medical leave that has less restrictive eligibility that keeps the wage replacement like it is now would be more important than having a 12 week benefit that doesn't include medical leave that's restrictive. I think that the two biggest things, I think the medical leave is probably the top, the most important thing. And then just, you need for yourself. Yeah, medical leave, yeah, medical leave or temporary disability insurance. Yeah, I think that's probably the most important one. So the, I think the last time people were in North Carolina, the cost of this program dropped precipitously from I guess the general committee's version to the ways it meets me version and the primary driver of that is getting rid of medical leave, right? I believe it was getting rid of medical leave and then dropping the weeks from 12 to six where I believe those were the two main cost factors. I don't know, Damien, if you know that off the top of your head, but then also changing the wage replacement and the eligibility also changed. There were a number of factors that kind of broke that. I can outline those for you too. Allison, I've been told that you have a meeting to 11. Just what I was just telling her. You do. Okay, I have no idea. In the pro temp's office. I understand. Okay, so we'll take a 15 minute break, given that we have three people at this point. Do you have anything else to add? No, nothing else to add, but definitely think of me as a resource if you need information or maybe to connect you to anyone for the committee for the testimony. Track the bill as close as they can stick. I see a big hill and I climb it, you know? So I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in here. And in fact, we concur with a lot of what Main Street Alliance said. I'd like to initially talk about how United States is kind of an outlier in this area. 80% of countries have established family and medical leave programs. Of those countries, only three are unpaid. And that's the United States, Ethiopia and Australia. And, you know, I was, I'm not quite sure why I was there. Yeah. And I know establishing this on the federal level was a goal of the Obama administration, unfortunately not realized. And that kind of, you know, creates a patchwork system among the states of different paid and unpaid family leave programs. But we can look at the states that have these programs already existing and see the results from several years of data. And the number one takeaway was that more workers take time off, including low income parents who otherwise probably wouldn't have dropped out of the workforce altogether. Additionally, when these folks return to the workforce with, you know, that they have paid family leave, they return to workforce and they work more hours and they're gonna get the higher pay additionally. For the businesses, you know, what we found in other states that have done this is that the traditional business community, you know, raises a lot of concerns around these programs. But the final result was kind of much ado about nothing when it comes to the impact on the business bottom line. In fact, they'll see, you know, employees stay longer with the businesses, lower turnover rates, which we know for a business replacing a worker is a very expensive and time consuming. So there are kind of some ancillary impacts on business that you can see as a benefit. But for many of these businesses in the other states that have done this, there is no negative economic impact that we've been able to find. And I wanted to hit upon two suggested changes which Ashley also talked about. Number one, the funding mechanism, you know, as a policy, VBSR supports shared equity for a program like this, we think both the employer and the employee ideally should be paying in. That said, we are comfortable with the house version, but if this is something the committee wants to explore, we'd be happy to be at the table talking about that. Additionally, you know, Ashley talked about the business size in there, the metric. And we also find that the number of employees the company has really doesn't tell you anything about that business. I have, you know, some businesses that have six employees and very high salaries, you know, that could have, that do can't afford a program like this. So we think when it comes to the job security issue that that metric should be dropped. And I know the chair has, I think a different proposal in your own bill, which we would also be comfortable with as well. But I wanted to also briefly speak personally about this issue and how this would impact VBSR. You know, we are a small nonprofit, six full-time employees, a handful of part-timers been around for 28 years. We have a great benefit package. You know, VBSR pays 90% of my health insurance premium. I have more time off when, you know, you folks aren't here, then I know what to do with honestly. And this is something we have struggled with over the past few years, trying to figure out how to implement, you know, as a small employer. And over the past few years, especially as we've grown as an organization, we generally have a younger workforce now than we did maybe 10 years ago. And there was an incident about even a half ago where two of our employees were having their kid, having their first child. And suddenly they were asking about what our pay lead program was. And we didn't really have anything set up. And we've talked to our members, looked at other, other programs and how other members are making it work. And we just can't make the finances work right now as a single non-profit. So this is something we are particularly interested in to create a baseline benefit for, you know, all employers and all employees. So we can begin, you know, taking care of our employees the way we want to. So VBSR doesn't have a pay family benefit, presently? We don't, no. And in fact- We don't even fall under the FNLA law. It doesn't have employees. I think actually we just, was we just hired up and we will now be hitting that benchmark and we're looking at how that changes. In fact, we also hit the benchmark in Vermont's paid sick days law as well. And we'll be implementing that as well. We already had an existing program with paid sick days, but we hit that level of employees, so. Is 10 a magic number with paid sick days too? No. It was five, four, five, three. I thought it was higher than that, so. I have to be. No, it can't be. The infamous camp unit was five, I think. Right, okay. It's all, I better look before I misstate this. This shows you what happens to bills I work on after I stop working on them. I don't think I was here for that. So again, as a, you know, a small employer, this is a benefit our employees are asking for. They need it, and we are currently not in a position to offer something like this, so that's one of the reasons we do support this legislation. So we can, you know, take care of our employees the way we really want to. And make sure that they get the time off that they need, either with a, you know, family member or a child. Just to play devil's eye with you. When the bill came out of the general committee, my understanding was there was no small business exemption. And you were, you would have been covered by the law as it came out of the general. Are you saying you couldn't afford to do it on your own, but you still would have welcomed the law because it's a shared pool in the funds? Is that the distinction you're making? Yes, yeah. As a small employer, we could not do this alone. And that's why we think, you know, there needs to be a law here to enable us and other employers of our size to offer this. So this is a pro-small business. Absolutely, yes. You know, our employers, you know, know when their employees are rested and they know their family's taken care of them. They've had time off. They come to work and they're better workers. They're more productive. They're more invested in the organization. You have other points? That's, that wraps up my testimony. I haven't submitted it yet, but I'll be doing that later this morning, so. Can you talk just a bit about, there's a couple of other things. I was out of the room and I don't know how deep the committee went, but I think the bill that passed the House, even though it's a fairly modest proposal, even compared to other states, I think in terms of the breadth of the coverage, it is probably larger than most other states. We're dealing with brothers and sisters and grandparents and not necessarily the nuclear family. That's my assessment, but I would probably defer to Main Street Alliance on that, since they followed the bill closely in the House. So, I know the bill as is compared to other states is a little more generous and the reimbursement for time off, I believe it's 80% of the current bill and a lot of the states we look at was around 60%. And we think 80% is appropriate. Yeah, 60%, it's really kind of hard to cobble together your lifestyle even for a few weeks. So how do you address, and I should have asked Ashley this, how do you address the fact that poor employment loss, like when you're fired, when you're laid off from work, or when you get injured on a job, doesn't pay nearly as much as this benefit does? Yeah, that's very true. I speak personally of my brother-in-law out of very serious injury at work. He's the sole breadwinner for the family, has a wife and a young child, and he's on Workers' Comp and they're really struggling to make ends meet. They're already struggling, and I think Workers' Comp is around... To search. Yeah, and then he finds out that additionally, because they're losing money on their food stamps as well because of the money he's getting from Workers' Comp. So it's a real struggle for low-income families. So this is a much better benefit. Yes. Could you hypothesize, if that's the right word, why someone is deserving of a higher benefit because of an illness that being laid off from work or being laid off from work or having an injury on a job? That as an organization, that's something we haven't discussed, so I would be speculating right now, but that's something that we should look into, you know? Okay, so to that point, are you able to collect both? Collect both. Workers' Comp and paid family. That's a question we should ask David. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to answer that, I'm sorry. Yes. Well, Workers' Comp now is not... Workers' Comp is an injury to the worker, and the worker's not covered anymore in the howler gas version, so that's probably the point right now, when it came out, I would assume that most laws like this are written that, it's weird, you probably have to go to workers' comp first, and then this second, and then you would be, you should be getting hurt by going to a lesser benefit. Yeah, this disqualifies you from collecting unemployment. It does? Yes, you can't collect unemployment while you're collecting this benefit. Because you could leave your job and still collect this benefit if you meet the eligibility requirements. Or you could have been laid off right before you have the baby, and then still collect these benefits if you meet eligibility, but you can't collect unemployment during that time. I need to double check on the... Is that Workers' Comp? And these are taxable benefits, right? These are taxable benefits. It is a little more complicated than that. They're taxable, depending on how you file your taxes, you may be able to make a deduction for your contributions. Can't you do it? Can't you make this contribution pre-tax? No. This is the... So, wait, hold on. The contribution is deductible. So it's a deductible contribution. The benefit itself is taxable. So the way it works is if you itemize deductions. Which nobody will anymore, but go ahead. Right. So this was... We did this analysis under the old tax law, but if you itemize deductions, you would deduct your contributions. If you don't itemize deductions, the amount over what you contributed is taxed. So if you only collected $100 in benefits but you paid them $200, you wouldn't know taxes. But if you collected $1,000 in benefits and you only paid them $200, then you would owe taxes on the $800. And these are round numbers. Above and beyond what you contributed. Right. How long you'd be taxed. Right. So you're taxed on anything above and beyond what you contributed. And so this is a little bit different than unemployment compensation, even though it's treated for taxing purposes like unemployment compensation, because the employee is making contributions for his own employment, the employer makes all the contributions. So it gets a little bit complicated. So is unemployment benefits taxable right now? Yes. Are workers' comp benefits taxable? No. And that's... What's the difference? I mean, what's... The difference is there's two sections of federal law and then a series of federal IRS opinions that have set out that workers' comp benefits are treated differently than unemployment benefits. I can get back to the committee with the citations to the federal law that separates them out. The, from the IRS's standpoint, benefits the temporary disability insurance benefits that Ashley was talking about that were taken out of this bill. Those are not taxable benefits. The family leave and bonding benefits are taxable benefits. So the IRS has made this distinction that own disability is treated like workers' comp because you are unable to work. Family bonding leave and leave following a birth of a child is treated as if it's unemployment. Family care. Not family care. Family care. So I'm... My 93-year-old is the guy. Right, family care, bonding with a new child or post-birth if you're the mother. That's all treated as if you're just receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Just so the committee's clear, unemployment benefits are taxable by the federal government. And we've had several bills that have not made the distance here to not tax them on the state level. And most states don't tax unemployment bill. Unemployment benefits. Sort of like what we're talking about with Social Security in some ways, accepting out from state taxation unemployment, Social Security benefits. But I'd be interested. I mean, one of the things that I would like to understand a little better is if we could make these benefits non-taxable, it seems to me that certainly if employers were contributing anything, we would make their share a little bit less because we could take the 80% down somewhat and have it made up by them not being taxable. So I'd like to understand more. Right, so to the extent that there, the sort of family care, family bonding benefits, we won't be able to get them out from federal taxation. We could expressly exempt them from state taxation. But I wouldn't want to reduce the 80%. I would rather work closer to the 100% rather than reduce 80% on rather. Yeah, and so. Do we know it? Yeah, it should be noted that with the 80%, that the 80% is not subject to the other payroll taxes, the Social Security and Medicare. So it does become a little bit a larger portion because normally that would come out of the employee's wages. So about 7.6% or something like that comes out of the employee's wages. And so that's not there in this bill. What is there's income tax? So if you took out the state income tax, you'd add a few more percentage points back. There, the alternative is to raise the benefit. And it's just, it depends on whether you want to burden the fund for the program or reduce general fund receipts. Could you just do a graph or a memo of workers' compound employment, these benefits? Right, Joyce. And we put the disability thing back in, how do we all get taxed? If maybe Joyce could go. So tax, I've got a chart showing the taxation breakdown, which I'll give to you. Okay, great. And then I'll ask Joyce about projecting numbers on adding a background. Yes, so while we're on this subject, and I haven't, maybe it's explained in the bill, but as we do this side-by-side substantive changes, as passed, has this funded by a 0.141% payroll paid by default by employees and the employer with an option to contribute? So what is the, to me, that is an option to contribute. You can't quantify that. How are we quantifying that contribution? The employer may cover the employees, the amount of contribution due from the employee. But I can't put more in this system. They can give added benefits on the road, but they can't send more money to the fund, right? Right, yeah, so there's no provision for them to. Could they match and find it, was there no provision? I mean, because to me, it's very hard to do a fiscal note when you, would it be the same amount, or would they match it so it could be more? Yes, so the. Because you have it being met, it's much more generous in the house. You look at the wording, excuse me, in the version that passed from the house, what you have is, it basically says an employer may pay some or all of the employee's contribution on behalf of the employee. Which is now. 0.441. Nine times smaller, roughly, than it was before when it left the house, in general. Right, and that's because the eligibility and benefit amount and covered conditions all changed in house ways and means. But if we take the coverage condition up to including own illness again, we're gonna have to raise the amount. Yes. Got it. Yes, if you include own illness, you'll need to raise the amount. If you. Right. Increase the number of weeks or the eligibility of the employees, you'll have to increase that contribution amount. That's designed to cover. This minimal amount that. Right, those conditions and that specific level of eligibility working 12 out of the last 13 months in Vermont. Okay, so all of those pieces are in interplan, and we can, I guess, chat about that with Joyce, because I'd love to know what it would have to take it up to. Right, so. We'll get to. Maybe I'll catch up with you offline and just get some specific scenarios you'd like modeled just because she's gonna need. Yeah, she's gonna need directions, plus Michael on what we want to see modeled. To do that. So I guess I have one other question that will adjourn on this topic. We'll have some committee discussion on some other stuff. Jess, I wanted to ask you is, can you tell us in terms of your office, you follow this bill in the house I said? Yes. Who's opposing or expressing concerns around a bill because I don't see either chambered in the room and I'm just concerned. I think there was some, might have been some scheduling conflicts. Right, we usually have backup to see didn't take notes or something like that. Yeah, or for the record, Jess has been to another department of labor. I think you should, I think there were scheduling conflicts. I think there have been some staff changes as well. Okay. That's just my assumption. Who, in terms of, I mean it is, I don't feel necessarily it should be my job to solicit testimony that people should be asking us they want to come and testify, but that aside, who do you think we should be hearing from? I mean, word is the governor has big concerns with this bill and I assume that there's people who have expressed concern to the governor. Who should we be hearing from? As far from the administration, I think the Department of Labor can definitely speak to that. No, that's a good question. Who are the advocates? I think we should be hearing from. I would, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, AIB, I think their usual kind of suspects. I think that would be my nation. Department of Labor and ACCD, I would thank would all want to be weighing in on this. So the Department of Labor can definitely, we're obviously into the bills that the creator and the administrator of the program so we can definitely speak to the administration and to the fiscal note that we're working on to create. Well, we're delighted to have you in the room. Thank you. It's the only representative of the administration. Thank you all for coming in. You may be of interest in the next area conversation I want to have. I saw Becca shut not in her head, but I, you know, will include her. But I was thinking that this might be worthy of a public hearing and one of the committee's thoughts on that. Was there any kind of public hearing on this issue in the last year or this year? No. I think it would be great to do a public hearing. I concur. I'd like to see the list of the groups that are supportive because people keep talking about a big audience here. I'd like to get a sense of who's supportive of this. And we just started talking about whether we should set up a side of 90 minutes for two hours for a public hearing maybe next week on this issue. I'm not sure I would be able to commit. You're talking about night. Like five, or we could do. We could work around your schedule. Well, the other thing that we have been asked to think about, caucuses starting next week. So when it gets into multiple evenings, it's very tough. I can't say I don't see anything else on our agenda that would require a public hearing. But this is sort of a, yeah, heard a lot of support and need. We haven't heard of the examples yet from individuals. But it does seem like a sort of a populist grassroot kind of thing that you might learn something. But I would respect your, if you couldn't make it, we would go with four. But if you, that aside, I would. I mean, if you wanted to start at four, I can adjourn at four and be there from, or four to six and that would be fine. I guess I don't know whether or not you could be there, I wanna know your thoughts about the concept. Well, to be honest, I think if you hold a public hearing on this, you're wide appearing from people who are activated specifically to come by the advocacy groups. And they can come in as witnesses in that way. I doubt people would hear an advertised meeting and show up for this topic, I could be wrong. I'm actually also thinking small businesses and coming in and hearing what their concerns are in individual small businesses. Because I'm looking at this bill at this point and I'm not saying we're just going with the house version but it doesn't cost them anything. It doesn't give them any more people any more job security than they had before. I'm struggling to see where the business is. He has problems with this bill. So that's what I mean, I don't think you'd get a spontaneous outpouring of business people or rank and file workers. I think you'd wind up getting people who are lined up to be witnesses for that public hearing. And that is also useful. I just think that it wouldn't differ so much from the testimony we would hear. I have to say I've gotten a couple of irate businesses on minimum wage that have said, you didn't hear from the public. We did, I know we did. I know we did. I'm just having you think about it. Yeah, we think that I don't want to be caught in that situation. I think it would be great to do a public hearing because I thought the public hearing for minimum wage was very illuminating for me, and I think mostly with the youth and actually the unorganized, I didn't feel that it was a heavily organized effort, but I mean, I may be wrong. But I thought it was very compelled by that public hearing. Well, I thought it was useful. However, we didn't really hear from many businesses. Yeah, which was surprising. So, no, I agree with you. I mean, 38 testified and 35 individuals and three businesses all against. And I'd like to see a more balanced approach. If we do a public hearing here, I would want to hear from a lot of small businesses and from individuals, both for people who both had the opportunity. And in committee, I'd like to hear as I said. You can't control that with who we have in here. You can't control it at a public hearing. You can't wind up with another. And I think honestly, you would probably have six to one advocates for the bill at a public hearing. So it sounds like what you're interested in is hearing people who have concerns. I think the better way to address that might be to begin scheduling them, putting out the word scheduling them heavier into our agenda here. Yeah, and this will segue into the next conversation. We've got some real time constraints at this point. Especially some have said that we don't want, I think it was David who said we only have three more weeks and we have 22 bills. It's going to be at this one. If you hear from everybody at committee, you can take quite a lot of time. All right, I'll take that all out under advisement. Let's move on to that list that I sent out. I just want to try to be fair. One of the, what did you say? Copy? I did. I have a copy right here, except it printed very strangely. I think he's interested in wanting to sort of say that people care about what they're copies of. Yeah, that's great. Hold on, I just got to find out just right here. It just misses the people. It printed way too big and I, maybe she has a better copy, but the family is fine, it's just printed. But also, I wouldn't want to do a public hearing until we're sure about what we want in this bill. And I would do a public hearing once we have chosen what we've decided to do. Because- It's definitely a classic chicken egg. Most of the side would be what we want to do before we hear from the people. Oh, I think it's hand and glove. I mean, I'd love to continue hearing from people during the course of our deliberations and committee. But in some ways, it's odd to have a, well, we could ask questions too. But if we wanted to change something that's fundamental in the bill as the, including one's own illness or injury, I, you know, to have them commenting on the bill as passed by the house isn't necessarily what we would want to be passing. So I'd want to have them be commenting on what we wanted to propose. Rather than something we weren't wedded to. Just got an email that Dennis LaValde would like to testify about H-196 and he's standing there. Are you prepared to testify right now? Yeah, I might as well. How did you send him out by standing in the corner? I'm sorry? How did you do that by standing in the corner? No. He wrote K-Log somehow. That's impressive. So while we're getting that printed out, let's hear from Dennis. Welcome, Dennis. Okay, well, thank you, Chair and Committee for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name's Dennis LaValde and I'm with the Vermont AFL-CIO. We wholeheartedly support the bill with the exception of we need to shrink the eligibility from 12, we have to work 12 months out of the 13 to work at least like six months out of the 12 because we have a number of employers that are seasonal employers and this would eliminate them to be eligible. But in the same time, they still have to pay into the program but they wouldn't be able to receive the benefit of the program. So we definitely want to see the eligibility rate. So go back to the House general version. Yes, yes. Could you give me an example of one that works? So you mean that these people could never be eligible because they work like eight months in a year or something? Yes, that's correct. Could you have to work 12 months out of the 13? I have. And I just, I know you wanted to hear some stories and I have a couple of stories, why don't you do it? And one of them is a child birth. Now, being a father, as many of you were, It doesn't go away. Okay, well, after having a child going to work and you think about your child, you can't wait to get home to see a child and so forth and so on. And I can't imagine what it's like for a mother to be able, not to be able to stay home with their child at any length of time because they couldn't afford to stay home. I mean, some of them, if they're able to go back to work in two weeks after child birth, and I think it's critically important that they have time to bond. And I think not only socially but economically, that's the best thing to do. My other story is really quickly, my wife's mother had ALS about two and a half years ago. My wife was working two part-time jobs. She, we were in a position, fortunately, that she was able to quit one of her part-time jobs so that she could be at home and take care of her mother. She was at first, you know, she was there for a couple of hours a day, but as the disease progressed, she needed more care and more care. So eventually she was there pretty much from eight in the morning until almost seven o'clock at night with an hour and a half break so she could do her, because she's a school bus driver, so she could do her busing in the afternoon. And almost every day, her mother would say, I am so glad you're here because, you know, she didn't want to go into a nursing home. And my wife definitely didn't want to put her into a nursing home, not that the nursing homes are, you know, that we need them. But I think it comforted her mother immensely by having her daughter there to be able to take care of her and her father, who was 87 years old at the time, legally blind. And he had, of course, he couldn't be able to, you know, lift her up and, you know, everything else that goes with taking care of an individual, you know, that has ALS and the last couple of months of their stages. So, you know, again, as I'm saying, you know, you are able to get along without, you know, the extra job. And I just think that as many other people would be wonderful if that they would have the same opportunity to be able to take care of a loved one like that. Not only is it gives a piece of mind to the individual that is down the road, it's gonna be passing, but it also gives the family member closure and comfort to be there, not having to worry about, you know, how their parent or their loved one is doing by working on the job and having that in the back of their mind. And I think Senator Bruce mentioned earlier that, you know, not to have them, to not having this way on their mind, you know, they become better workers, well, productive workers when they come back to work. And so anyways, I think that it's extremely important. As you heard from Dan Barlow, you know, there's only three countries out there that doesn't have paid family leave that have, you know, the industrialized world. And I think it's a shame that, you know, we don't have it for our people. And I think it's, you know, a minimal cost. And I'll look at it like an insurance policy. And I think this is something that we definitely need to strive to do. Thank you. Any questions? Yeah, I have a question. How long was your wife attending her mother? How long? Well, she was, well, she started in February and she, you know, she needed some care, but not quite as much. And then of course, as it progressed, I would say when she was there on like full time, it was probably three months. Yeah, when she was there, you know, every, you know, almost all of her entire leave. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we have five minutes. So I think this list is self-explanatory. Tried to be as sensitive to people's needs and the times and stuff. So just throw it out there for discussion. If anybody has any problems, they wanna jump on a bill or get out of a bill. And, you know, this is somewhat unusual to sort of assign leadership of a bill, but I think it makes sense because as opposed to being asked to report a bill and then you weren't paying all that much attention or, you know, it's, it's a good one. I thought it worked before. Yeah. So, and I think that things can change depending upon people's views. So we're not gonna get to everyone, probably either. I have a question about that weatherization program, 831. Yes. Why is that us instead of natural resources? Or finance for that matter. Well, it's a huge economic growth of jobs. I mean, I think you can put up on the seat. I understand that. I understand that. It's not a high product, really. We're not, we're not doing this create jobs. We're doing it for the energy. I think this is like, it doesn't like the thing that, it may be like what they did with the fuel dealers. And we dealt with that last year in the economic development bill. It's a, it's a way to get people employed. If I accelerate a program. I think it's an employment issue. I guess the only thing I would say is might not be a bad idea for you to have me run it by Chris. And see if we're gonna get rid of it. Well, because if he, if he wants it or he's gonna take it in anyway, we might as well just get it to him. But we might actually act faster. Yeah. So much through general housing and military affairs. Okay. And the staff on it goes to Rebecca Wasserman. She's the attorney's staff. Okay, so maybe we could. We'll look into it. Okay. Because we haven't heard about it yet either. I don't even know what it does. So it would be great to hear about it and see if it's appropriate. But my guess is we will act more. I don't think many committees have as many bills as many committees as we do. And that's what I'm saying. If we've got so many, if there's one that Chris wants to take in anyway, we might as well let him do the spade work. Okay. Anything else? Is it okay? General? Yes. No, I think it's good. Can we all know what we're shepherding through? Okay. Good. Thank you very much. We'll check on that. Thanks.