 What we're going to do this morning is we have a bunch of confirmations that will pass out and we'll volunteer who's going to take coup and pretty much upon the drill. Some of them that I've seen that require a report to the full floor will just be in a high position. There has to be a full report. We'll do that then. The Pro Tem for all chairs is starting to lean on us to start getting bills moving. Period is, I don't think we spent a lot of time on education. We've been dealing with bills, but I want to see some bills voted out. And on this agenda, just testing out the waters today, getting temperature issues within various bills. So we're going to spend the morning packing this in members. I said that. I'll text her. That's right here. I'll wait a second. The way she's done it in five minutes. Just look at them to see if there's any. Well that's what I was thinking. Two to five minutes to assign our confirmations here. So go through these. And let's play. Somebody just let's start off. You see somebody you want to do. Let's get rid of those first. I've got a couple. Which one do you run? Alex Farrell, Marie Ardette? Yeah. Great remarks. Two senatorial candidates? Yeah, absolutely. And I noticed there's nobody in this entire pop in Franklin County now. I don't know if that's one round off of that. There's nobody from Wyndham either. Hey, speak to the gov. Speak of the man. Alex. Yes, here's another Alex. It's the same one. I think we all have a copy of it. Got it. All right. So you've got it? Yeah. And you're taking Alex? Randy? Yeah, I'll take Alex. And Marie? And Marie Ardette. May I take the State Workforce Development person? Yeah, what's your name? His name is, he or she is Dale Miller. Does anybody know Dale Miller? Who? In the room? Who said they wanted to work? Oh, he does. A little boundaries. That would be bad. My guess is that it won't be him coming. Who said we were going to do some volunteer work? I don't know. Should I take that? Okay. I couldn't stick to it. Okay. I'll record your position. I'll just take Morgan's left. Yeah, we're getting there. And I'll take Karen Feinberg of the Vermont State Housing Authority. Who? Alison Blackman. She is the most amazing spelling woman yet to see today. Can I trick? Can I not take Karen Feinberg instead of the other Allison? You're making my life complicated. I lived complicated life. Okay. That's what I'm taking. And I'm sticking with it. All right. So, we're going to give... Dale, Allison, and Allison. Karen Sajek and Karen Feinberg to Becca. Okay. Any of these are going to require four words. No. So, now these David Boolanger... I'll do David Boolanger. Which of them do I only have one left? I've got Dale. Oh, you have one? Yes. Yeah. Do I ask here? Because he's coming to the state workforce. Is everybody has Corey Richardson? Yes. Yes, I do. And Margaret Gorge. That's what he's got. I have. He's got Karen. All right. We'll set it. Okay. I've got Allen, Allison, and Dale. We are sticking to the top of the alibis. I got him. Okay. Goodle on. Thank you, folks. Goodle on. Okay. So, let's start with one outstanding issue that we have on minimum wage that has come around the draft. It is on the child care piece. And that's one of the reasons I've been here. If you recall, last year, it was the one benefit issue that was addressed in the bill that passed. And it said that scholarship benefit plus the... Those wages who are trapped in provides would be addressed to the extent of the appropriations committee with funding to do no harm. The money for that is theoretically coming from, I think it was something like 100, very large millions of dollars that it knew reduced benefits paid by the state and increased income taxes This year, it was suggested when Ken Schatz was in here that maybe we didn't need that language to be as specific because there was a proposal from the government of $7 million into child care. And just make sure that in that effort that these two same issues got addressed. So that's my sort of loose explanation of the matter that the two stories from Damien... Good morning, thanks. For the record, Damien Leonard, legislative council. So I put the language suggested by the department for children and families in front of you here. Marcela has done that and I drafted it up for you. To walk you through the changes, they're fairly simple. If we look first on lines 13 and 14. Sorry, I must have this here somewhere. There it is. Oh my God, it's so simple. It's like an easily lost. So I did it as a strike off. The first change is to swap department for children and families, child care, our federal child care and development fund state plan for child care financial assistance programs sliding fee scale in order to. And then the next change here is on line 18. We took out the words remains the same and changed it to would not be lower down. So what it says is that at each new minimum wage level, the benefit percentage would not be lower than the percentage applied under the former minimum wage. And the reason for this is because DCF is a, as I understand it, it's not exact science and this gives them a little bit more flexibility to maybe go slightly higher than the former one that happened to be exactly the same. So this gives us some more flexibility as they're setting those rates and just prevents them from going below the floor. So is the process of getting to this language that you work with DCF on it? Yes, these are all suggestions put forward by DCF and then draft it, put it into our format by me. So I had not changed their language with the exception of correcting a typo that was in the language that was sent over. Wasn't there one other person that was supposed to be working on this in the loop? Debra Wright was also in the loop. So I think she worked with DCF and then they sent over language, which is my understanding of how it worked and they've all been CCed on emails. Does how much flexibility would DCF have from a dollar perspective? I am not sure. So basically I think one thing we want to know is just how potentially deep are we getting into spending and what was cost? So this is to the extent funds are appropriated? Yeah. So that's... Presumably you would appropriate the funds to do what it is that we want to do and what I'm trying to get a sense of is how much is that? Yeah. DCMAJFO can give us a hint. Didn't we have one from last year? Yeah, so we did have some estimates of what the cost would be and I don't know what the most up-to-date estimates are. But with this year we're essentially talking about when the funds are appropriated, typically it's a round number and so you may have a little bit more and so those rates may go up just slightly more than they were before but this prevents them from going up. But right now, at least you might be out. So I wasn't here last year. I don't have a sense of whether we're talking about five dollars or five trillion dollars and I would like to... Yeah. ...an hour or so. I believe last year the amount took close. Close the gap was something like five or nine million dollars, but... No. Was it? No. To close the overall challenge. To close the... So yeah, we should look at last year's numbers. I can forward that. Thank you. We have somebody who knows the answer here. Yeah. My manager, Mr. Chair, Matt Levin, I'm the executive director for my really talented advocacy alliance. The bill last year, Senator Brock, elicits $738,511. Okay. That's a factor of 10. Yes. That's my offer to... I'm supposed to know from going forward. Senator Levin, $738,511. That's a great answer. Although, again, so yes. So Senator Brock, does that answer your question? Yes, it does. I appreciate it. It's just giving me an idea of what kind of range we're talking about. I think the intent of the new language is good. It makes sense to give some flexibility. The way it's written, theoretically, it's pretty wide open. It's no lower than 10 times. It could, but again, it's limited by what you appropriate. That's true. So the appropriation is too many. Not noted for its generosity. Right. Right. Okay. The name of it is 7 to 9. Well, it's the same. I'm going to blame that on half, only half a cup of coffee this morning. Not the same. We got stopped in a while. So, I mean, I'm going to make a radical suggestion. How about we get rid of, to the extent, funds are appropriated? I think we've talked about this before. We have. I think that what happens then, is that the appropriations committee is going to effectuate those words, no matter whether they're not. I think it sends a good message to them that we're deferring to them. A little suck up message to the appropriations committee. It wouldn't be the one that would use them. Politically strategic. So, but my question for you on that is, that we have fallen behind so often on this, that we, I just, I would in some ways like to send a stronger message that we want them to not only be flexible, but to keep up. That's not what this section is. This section is just to hold those people at a minimum wage partners for seeing their benefits go down. Right. But we have to try to solve the project problem here. They are doing that elsewhere in the government for doing that. Isn't that also language that says to the extent appropriated, to the extent funds are appropriated? Doesn't that also give them the flexibility to not, or am I just channeling the HBB? They could effectively leave this language and kill the effectiveness of this thing. I'm not sure I'd go for the bill if they did that. Okay. I mean, because then you're going to have a whole bunch of people who are going backwards. Okay. I don't want people going backwards. I want to make sure we go forward and keep it. Okay. So this isn't the right spot for that. Yeah, the other thing to note about this to the extent funds are appropriated language is it prevents us from statutorily requiring the Department for Children and Families to plunder other sources of funding that it has. So basically take money away from its other programs to do this. Okay. Which was part of that. That's part of why we added it last year because otherwise if the fund is made flat. I have a long spot to answer that question. Sorry. I apologize. Dip someone else. So, I apologize. Okay. The next change was formally the language on line 20 said adjust the market rate used to inform the fee scale. And now it says adjust the child care financial assistance program rate paid to providers on behalf of families. So this way I think is a change primarily for clarity. And that's it. Those are the changes. Okay. That's pretty straightforward and consistent with what we did last year. That's the principle. Okay. Anybody have any further comments on this language or this just summarizing what you say as important but the benefit clip should have needed to be addressed in our charge to the summer study community. I think that the legislative and summer studies committee recommendation to the legislature and to address the benefit cuts biggest item there not bill assistance. Just on the side and not necessarily to do something of this bill and underline that I am not suggesting spending billions of dollars. But it seems to me that at some point we need to grapple with the benefits issue in its entirety. You have time and time again we've heard the adverse effect the benefits group has on getting people to work and getting them in jobs that pay more. It has a discouraging effect on individuals but it also has a very bad effect on businesses to be able to fill the jobs that they have. And really we need to tackle that whole piece and perhaps find a funding source and a way to do it either that or reduce benefits proportionally across the board so that they're even those are almost a few choices. And the last time I think most of the committee probably would not like to do but in terms of big legislation that we need to deal with and big problems we need to solve I think that's one of them. I don't disagree. I think there was we should, David you find that I know house human services a couple of years ago took on the task of benefit cliffs. I'll mention there's some, maybe it's on a shelf somewhere but that might be a good story but it's not really within our job. This committee is doing a few more human services or health development. I'll ask Katie. She knows because she would have worked on that. I was encouraged and I think I said this before Senator Rock and also we had some testimonies at least what we heard people as long as they were and maybe to the extent they weren't even getting anything by an increase in wages that would rather happen being wages rather than being a voucher and not being told how to spend it. Okay so the right view obviously all may have different feelings on the minimum wage in general by statute or what rate. There are four distinct pieces that I'd like to talk about. There are not many votes today. Last year has introduced is only different in a couple of respects. The bill that has introduced that has a majority of Senate sponsors gets us to $15 by 2024. A little faster than it was last time, a year faster in terms of the time period, a year's lapse but it is the same thing. So if in one year the minimum wage is over $0.50 in April or $0.55. They introduced the bill as it was vetoed with a sub-minimum wage and we'll talk about that. So that's a second issue. That's the $3 difference for high school kids during the summer. Issue was as the bill was vetoed, essentially does nothing, study it. It's not a simple issue. There's a lot of different solutions. The COLA, nothing with an edge of $15 that doesn't say anything what happens. And I'm pretty sure in the bill that passed last year that the government reviewer had a study on what the cost of living index if any should exist in between. So it leaves in the CPI increase, which is an existing law. It does, okay. But then it does have a study about whether that should change. Okay. So the fall would be to go to stay in CPI? Right. So there's a report in there that Ledge Council and JFO are supposed to produce on an alternate measure. It's actually the range. Yeah. So you remember there's the CPI, there's the chain CPI, there's, Joyce mentioned a couple other indexes that could be used alternately, which have been proposed in other states, but as yet no states adopted anything about the CPI. And the states vary as to whether it's the CPIU or CPIW, but ultimately that makes a very small difference in their wages. That's it. Let's take on, I guess, I'm going to use my discretion here and make the issue about whether the ending year should be 2024 because Senate had been very reasonable. We got some respect back from elements in the business community that it was a phase in thing over time. And at the same time we got some pressure from some of the advocacy group that it wasn't fast enough. I don't think it was hard for them that we lost a year phase and the governor didn't accept the bill. So I think it should stay at 2024 the difference. The other thing that comes back to this is we're a little bit further behind of other states now jumping in and doing $15 Massachusetts to $50 by 2023. So that's where I am on that issue. What I would expect to hope to do is to take some of these discussions, reduce them to a strike all. I support 2024. I feel that while this gradually is I think a thoughtful graduation and something not dissimilar to increases that have been absorbed before in the workplace. I really feel that while I'm delighted to be doing this at $15 I am afraid that by 2024 $15 will still be significantly below the livable wage in parts of our state and that while this is a step in the right direction I wish actually we were being able to have greater impact on our lowest wage workers in this state because I think... Anyway, you know what I think. I just want to say one other thing that is a lobbyist who I would expect very much said to me last year and took it seriously. We should have probably discussed this bill the entire time as a past just saying $15 in the wage. We've gotten a lot of people concerned about step of dollars tomorrow. We could retitle this. That's I'm just thinking of an ordinary person here that in 2024 just kind of five years going up to $15 in five years it sounds like it's you're saying to go I'm sorry that it's delayed a year by the governor's veto I wish it hadn't been but since it has been may make it more palatable to small businesses. Well, the small businesses in mind of the woods are already absorbing the market challenge and so are already way above the minimum wage. I just think if we're really trying to tackle poverty in any substantial way the sooner that we can graduate and find a path to $15 an hour, the better and I think the compelling evidence is the cost of living in our state. When you look at the cost of housing statistics that we that Earhart has so eloquently presented and all the other advocates that we you know it's just gobsmacking so I think that for our lowest wage workers if we could get there tomorrow I would vote for it but I don't think it's politically and financially sustainable by many people. So I'm willing to do I'd love to do it tomorrow so I think that One thing if this could play out at any time in the next few months if we got a signal from the fifth floor that this would make a difference that might that may change my mind. One of the things that was very interesting to me and I think sort of hits this issue very directly is why Joyce Manchester told us. I don't know if you remember I asked her question with her new numbers I said what you're saying is this bill doesn't do nearly as much as the bill last year did but it's less burdensome on business because of what has transpired in the marketplace in the last year in terms of wages going up so even though it may seem like it may be a year less to get there when she say it's going to affect fewer jobs and have fewer impacts as a result on the business of the bill if it had to affect or at least what we thought we were dealing with last year about how to enter and I certainly in the polls you're going to keep it at 24 and just thinking a lot that businesses are trying to adjust and I appreciate that businesses are already beyond that I too would like to see I don't know if it matters what you're saying but I was just using my fingers to count and I think keeping it at 24 these five 22, 23, 24 the one issue that's not related to the timeline I think keeping it to 2024 is where I come down but the thing that's mostly troubling me and I really don't know how to address it is the medicaid reimbursement that's the thing that's keeping up about the LNA that that is that we can't crack here in this committee and that is the one area even more so than small businesses that's the one area that I feel like of course I support the bill don't get me wrong but if there's something that's troubling me it's that that we don't have a whole lot that we can do about the medicaid reimbursement but I given our demographics that is a increasing sector of employment so I just wanted to put it on the table we haven't talked about it much we had some testimony on that given a lot of thoughts since then so I just wanted to bring it into the discussion because I think we I don't think we spent a lot of time looking at what that's going to mean for that sector so yes we really had one written this on I'm sure you know this is going to be a 4-1 committee vote I'm not enthusiastic about you know I've never been particularly interested in tinkering with the economy in particular because of the concern of unintended consequences I think we know in terms of unintended consequences that there will be some job losses and the question is would a person rather have a job at $12 an hour that have a $15 minimum wage and no job I'm also concerned about the inflationary effect and we know that there isn't a broad inflationary effect across the economy as a whole but I'm concerned about those people who are not earning $15 an hour and those people are not earning anything at all because of their unfixed incomes particularly the senior citizens in the second oldest state in the nation who are not going to get a pay increase but are going to find themselves with a cost increase particularly in a number of the areas where they buy things particularly from small businesses I'm concerned about the effect on small business the individual convenience stores and so on whose payrolls are going to go up and without the easy ability to raise prices sufficiently to get it talking about what those cost increases and the cost impact is going to be and in terms of dealing with poverty raising the minimum wage of my judgment is if that is the best that we can do to attack poverty I don't think we've gone nearly far enough we've not really looked at why does affordable housing cost as much as it does what can we do on the cost side and one of the ways to deal with poverty is to reduce cost or not essentially increase taxes on the poor which is I think one of the things that increasing the minimum wage effectively does but I don't want to waste a lot of committee's time because frankly you guys have your lives made up and no matter what I say or what evidence we produce you're going to vote to increase the minimum wage so my sense is we should just go do it and move on to the next issue I think some of your points are incredibly important I would like us to be but they aren't going to make any difference in the Senate's vote no but it may make difference what we work on next and I think the cost side is right because you're about I mean that is a huge challenge in all of this it is a huge challenge and poverty holistically is eating our shorts and a huge challenge I totally appreciate what you said I totally appreciate your frankness on it and I missed it but I will say one thing is that one of the things that struck me was our state economist when he went through his numbers I think in a slip of the tongue somewhat because he was supposed to be totally neutral and he said well 200 or 900 jobs that may be lost but 90,000 people are going to benefit from this so those are pretty good odds so well it's not what you're saying it's not wrong there are some positives to raising the minimum wage for some people as well as potential loss in hours but it certainly makes my job a lot easier that we're on the same page as to this discussion and how we approach it but I do want to still talk about the other two issues tipped employees which is an important issue and I think I would think if we wanted to do something to change the law right now if tipped employees we'd have to take some more testimony I think we've heard from a few witnesses on either side they're very strong in their positions at the tip minimum wage to stay as far as to get rid of any difference the whole trend seems to be to get rid of the tip minimum wage but people are doing it on phasings they're doing it with incentives and I don't have that decision but I think it's an issue that's worthy of further discussion so one choice would be to set it up to keep the issue alive for a study or a future well as you know I'm a big fan of going to one wage and I think that particularly the issues of an overwhelming layer in tip minimum wage jobs and the amount of sexual harassment that they deal with I wish we had more concrete data on that but I think we all know anecdotally that the tip minimum wage subjects women in particular to work atmosphere and harassment in both forms and if we can get rid of that even in a modest part moving to one wage I would love to do that I'd love to do it and see what the house did with it but I'm open to that conversation but I really hope we can someday move to one wage I'd like to do an ASAP but I would like to see some empirical studies of what's happened when the tip minimum wage has been raised as it has been another jurisdiction of what the effect has been exactly the effect of pricing and the one thing that I would add to the remarks I made a few minutes ago that we don't seem to spend very much time on is when we do things like raising these things where's the money coming from who's paying for those increases what part of the economy is it coming out of and what is the concomitant effect of who pays for it in the end in this case a restaurant diner who presumably is going to be charged at least on the face of it the extra funds that the restaurant owner is going to pay in order to make that difference now that person may be willing to pay that but again looking at what's happened in other jurisdictions that will be a key looking at a truly peer-reviewed empirical study as opposed to a study presented by advocates will give us at least some indication of what the effect will be of the decision that we make so the burden employers the state curse diners right now the burden for a huge percent of this minimum wage lies in the public purse I'd really like to change that whose responsibility is it to pay people a livable wage the employer to pick up what the employer is willing to pay or what the public is willing to pay well again that's why I'd like to see again some empirical evidence such as the kind of thing that we're just talking about I think that what is the effect of making those changes and we will find those things out we have some of that data from around the country because we certainly have other states for moving to that but in that regard to pivot to the chair's suggestion that would certainly justify doing a fuller report before we moved to a one wage I am one voice on this committee of five I just happen to I support one wage as you know anybody else when I go around the room and ask for comments you're not obligated to make comments if you just want to stay silent well you know how I feel so you know it's important for me that there is that we're getting more data on the tip minimum so that we can get in more detail whether it's next year or next biennium but we it is an ongoing concern for me I've got to think timing wise we have the time to do due diligence right now and I'm not a fan of cobbling something together shipping it off the house and putting the burden on them you know I just I don't want to do that there is language in there that says we're going to really get some hard data on this that I'm comfortable that would be more than we did in the veto bill exactly last year we just said nothing exactly we were silent ok more information so let's see sub minimum so the sub minimum was I just put the bill in as veto and the more I've heard about it it seems like the less there's not as many kids as I thought last year the bill even though I put the bill in as it was vetoed the senate version that passed over when we did not have the sub minimum the house but it was so cut to the chase if they want to try to do that again I'm saying let them do it right I definitely definitely support getting rid of the sub minimum wage I think all of the evidence we heard about who's most affected by poverty the age group is 18 to 24 colleges I don't see that there is and the number of young people who are contributing to the families living in poverty I don't think there's any justification for paying young people 18 or older less and Damien you can help us out here there's been some confusion as to what the status of it's not really a sub minimum wage but as what kind of students and when are impacted by our minimum wage applies to them or whether the federal minimum wage applies to them and my understanding is that most businesses is believe that the state minimum wage applies to everybody and the reading from the Department of Labor is that during the school year you say it so I can't speak for businesses in general but testimony we heard last year indicated that there are businesses that thought the state minimum wage applied and there were businesses that thought the federal minimum wage applied here ground and there were some businesses that had contacted the Department of Labor to get clarity about this the Department's position was is that the exemption applies during the school year but not during the summer so during the school year you're subject to the federal minimum wage requirements during the summer you're subject to the state minimum wage requirements and that's because they read the exemptions and everything else in the law to be as protective as possible so that's the statutory construction so the bill does two things one is it takes secondary school students out of the exemptions from the minimum wage which would mean that the state wage applies year round but the second thing it does is it adds that sub minimum wage for them so that would basically mean that those secondary school students would now be subject to a minimum wage at $3 below the minimum wage so you could take out the second part and they'd be subject to the state minimum wage as it goes up or you could leave in the second part and it would be subject to a lower wage and so those are sort of the two options that this bill has in it for dealing with that confusion and that sort of fluctuating wage the other option would be to clarify and this bill was put in last year there was a bill put in to clarify that the federal minimum wage would apply year round so to clarify that that secondary school students for example from the minimum wage during all parts of the regular school year and breaks between school years so your language on page two though says an employer shall not employ a second part that's the second part of the sub minimum wage part and the first part is the first part is on the pages five and six and that is where the unranked got it yeah lines 18 and 19 you see it repeals the exemption for students working during all or any part of the school year well I would strongly support the unified wage for anyone 18 or above or I mean just get rid of it and make it all year round I would support leaving the law as is and figuring out a way interpretation of the department some a lot of the distinction most of the my guess is that I don't want to say there won't be facts but I'm guessing that the work during the school year whereas during the summer we're working full time and work into a full time worker and that's the interpretation of the department is given right now people don't understand that so I'm in favor of not changing the law I'm not putting in the three dollars sub minimum but leaving essentially what the Senate did on a strong vote last year just leaving it alone so still having a differential in the school year still allowing the federal minimum to be paid in the school year and people want to I don't think many people are taking advantage of it but it seems to have been working in all the minimum wage debates I've been involved in I haven't heard the idea of sub minimum I think would be pretty unique in having a sub minimum wage what other states do which I think is even worse is a training wage where they send for the first 60 days and then you can pay a lesser wage than that to be clear during the federal minimum wage period there is a training wage period for workers under the age of it's either 18 or 20 and I'd have to double check what the age is but that's a four dollar and something minimum wage that's a time period it's not age it's not school related no it's not school related for workers under a certain age and you know one of the things that I would feel pretty sure of myself judging by my conversations with Senator Amasa he had no idea that law existed that he could pay his workers less is he going in now? I don't know how to make him start again I doubt he has so the let's not get to yeah that the youth minimum wage is workers under 20 and then it gets any wage above 425 an hour during the first 90 calendar days after they start the job and then after that they're subject to 725 so I have a real problem with that I mean given the cost of education and the cost of university to have 18 and 20 year old in college having to earn possibly 725 an hour I think it's outrageous I mean one of the few things we can do less than 725 yeah during the training period have you ever heard of one portion doing that that you're aware of you're beyond average ooh snap my job is what at this point um no but I if you think about it given how expensive we've made our state colleges I mean we have chosen I mean we can't have it both ways we can't underpay people and charge them so much for college I think that we have to be able to let people earn more when they're 18 and above and I think that I really given all the information we've been given about who's earning that money I think bit cutting off our noses despite our face by limiting what 18 year olds can earn so your position would be to do more than the senate did last year yes now that I know it's 20 I think the 20 is unacceptable the highest possible it's only during the school year that's during the university time to be clear so the federal wage applies to individuals 20 years and younger but our state wage supersedes that so the department has interpreted it to be secondary school so once you're out of high school you're now subject to the state minimum wage year around and that really would need to be clarified that's another question if you leave the language as is the committee want to have the word secondary or secondary school before students because that during the minimum wage study committee was another point of confusion about which wage applies okay can you just state where you are on this issue as you walk out the door on which specific issue on the student wage I don't think we should have a student wage that should be completely aligned with you want to change the system yes one thing on the issue that I've heard that concerns me even though I'm not in support of the bill is the possibly again unintended consequence of having a student who finds it's economically desirable to quit school rather than to earn a sudden minimum wage I don't think that's something that we want to have so in other words a person who's a high school student can be earning $3 less than the state $15 minimum wage under this and if that person quit school he could earn $3 an hour more so you don't want to provide an incentive to that again that would suggest that would not be a great idea to have a two-tiered wage but sadly kids that are doing that don't have skills or expertise but again as we talk about unintended consequences the fact that that person might quit in order to earn the higher wage they might not be able to get the higher wage because one of the things that we have repeatedly heard is that the lowest skill workers and not the workers who are going to probably able to easily migrate to $15 an hour because employers won't pay that except to people who have higher skill levels well it's really hard to keep them in school and giving them all sorts of workforce development training and apprentices internships to keep them in school and I think we need to work hard to keep them in school I don't think this is going to be a big major attraction of leaving okay well that was good discussion we'll take this up probably again on Tuesday I appreciate it we have two more discussions like that to go so we'll let's take a take a break do you want me to draw up sounds good certainly short and she was she gleefully accepted and she happily had written very nice written so I'll take you to my full testimony and I'll just charge you on the higher wage points so my name is Erica Canales I'm a veterinary senator in Lausanne, Vermont I am 41 years old my husband is a native Vermont and we are three of the youngest business owners in the state of Vermont under the age of 45 so I feel like I have I represent a nice perspective on the small business and the demographic that this state is trying to hold on to and so just for today with senator box comments that if I could follow up on them you know we are the obstacles my generation is going through just to think of starting or maintaining to employ our residents is far greater than our predecessors we are already seen with the movement that we're trying to do we are actually trying to be different than previous veterinary owners in the community where they have kept everybody down at part time not giving benefits we have tried to think ahead and do the right thing like you were saying some of your members are already trying to go above 15 or be at 15 but we are already seeing that the entry level positions are being lost because of those increases and I really want to say for example if that $15 minimum including college students I know you have your perspective on this we are going to our experience technicians are at that rate right now and they are the lowest end of the experience technicians so your students that are trying to get into vet school that need that experience we are not going to be able to bring them on in that capacity we have already started seeing that receptionist role in order to provide full time benefits for those technicians at the full time level we are actually the technicians are being the receptionist now and so their entry level as a receptionist is being decreased we are also seeing we all know the workforce in this state we are having such a hard time getting people here to live here I myself I live above my practice because I can't afford it most of my employees are 40 hours plus so that's 5 hours over time a week I'm looking at an additional $12,000 to $18,000 per person at the end of the year and if I'm an employer of 10 employees that multiplied I don't know how I'm going to be sustainable or solvent in 15 to 20 years when it's time I have 10 right now that includes myself and do you mind me asking the range of what their pay per hour yeah I'd love to because the veterinary profession is kind of wonky in the century entry level once yeah absolutely so you're vet assistants and we actually probably again like I said we pay better than most and it depends on the community that you're in as well your vet assistants which are sort of your lower end the job training to be able to move up the ladder they're at anywhere between for us we started the minimum wage for the 10 to 78 and they usually go up to about 12 11 to 12 the your the technicians that do not have an associate's degree from like VTC or something like that they're about 11 to 13 your 13 to 15 are ones that actually might have a two years associate's degree or they have a fair amount of job experience because Vermont doesn't recognize the certification of a technician even though we have the degrees here in the state of Vermont your two plus the tech with associate degree plus 13 to 15 your 15 to 17 are your two plus years experience technicians and then when you start to get to their upper levels they usually have five plus years they've been in practice, they've been loyal they've stuck around and they can really produce and do the higher level things like surgery and whatnot and the cost and what level would it be and it was like wanting to go to veterinary school where would they end up? So right now I have three students from UVM that we try to be a teaching hospital and right now I've got I have two of them at 11 and one of them at 13 because she had actually started much more. And what's their cost of veterinary school? Graduate school? Class? To say I'm still we have about $300,000 for the student votes from my husband So there's our challenge? No and I understand that but so to get in the door to get the experience at the same time I'm trying not to charge my clients a ridiculous service fee to be able to recruit that cost because we are getting compounded with other 6 to 8% from the pharmaceutical companies we've got the now this proposal for the family insurance leave that we need to be adding on as well we've also that was proposed to be paid for by the employees and the businesses is what I'm not and that may change and while bill number at this at this juncture we've already been dealing with the tax department for 2 to 3 years on them trying to remove our exemptions as a medical use field so that means that there's going to be a pet tax on both the public so that those costs go up for both the public but also for us and that I can tell you from my doing the math we're looking at a starter practice it's going to be an additional $20,000 I appreciate I'm just trying to say that there's these unintended consequences and there's they're also not only unattended they haven't yet you're talking about your fears down the road I saw the tax department shaking their head that there is no tax so and the time period to address us is very brief so I guess what I'm just asking is I wanted to send Senator Brock's comments on the fact that at the same time that we're proposing all this stuff it would be we're doing an amazing job with trying to create workforce training entrepreneurship bringing in these remote workers giving them rebates the only place that we're not seeing it is with the small businesses and I just wanted this moving forward if there's a place to put some sort of initiatives and rebates in for those of us that are already trying to do it right trying to sustain that be solvent that was just just one question and that question is in the event that there were $15 minimum wage how would it affect your business today assuming that none of these other changes occurred well how would it affect your business and what would you do? I would be concerned at again specifically spoke to that you're looking at at least a $13,000 increase for her employee that of my experience technicians so you multiply that by 5 for me personally how would you get that back? I have to one increase my inventory I have to increase my service fees I would not be able to provide the level of benefits that I'm trying to do for because I own one direction and if I have to try to balance it between not pricing myself out of the ballpark so that employees can take care of their pets and have my employees be able to survive I'm in quandary I used to represent the veterinary association do they have a position of minimum wage for that chance? No so I will say this in my own profession veterinarians are much more focused on the medicine than the business aspect and that's why I'm here today as the practice manager of my practice you don't see any wealthy veterinarians that was my point of saying that we're I'm one of three businesses a veterinary business data mob that are under 45 there are not many we're one of the few and we'd like to see one but it's hard with the traction that we're going in thank you thank you for coming down so we're going to move on to housing proposals and with there's two things that we've spent a lot of time already going through elements of probably most of the elements of what might be an honor of this housing though but we haven't talked about how we're going to pay for we use our housing related that I was hoping to suggest to the committee that we might want to add on to this bill as a source of revenue is the has to do with the bill at Senator Rock and I put in that closes a loophole in the property transfer somebody here who looks Peter Griffin is here to explain that to us he's already explained it to finance so it's going to be a repeat of three of us but then we're going to get into the numbers from Joint Fiscal as to how much that raise the second one is full by the governor it's closing a loophole on short-term rentals that are not Airbnb's because Airbnb has their own contract with the state to turn over older and also there's a practice out there that is very costly to the state whereby online companies like Expedia the classic example is I'll say the rooms I think the governor has suggested both of those and we have Joint Fiscal here to explain the numbers I think in total that my hope with palace where the pitfalls are doing this again most of what I was saying it did better than we even expected it always does in terms of demand so with that let's have Peter Griffin come up please the sense of what kind of legislative council if I have one sheet hand out I'm going to pass around I'm going to talk a little about that 67 an act related to the property transfer tax when it talks a little bit about there we go for those of you who are also in finance this may seem familiar you're still with us So what you have here is, instead of going through the language of the bill, it just delays out what current law is on the property transfer tax and what the proposal does. Vermont has a tax on the transfer of real property in the state. It's paid by the buyer. In the middle of the page here you see I stole from the tax department website. It runs through what the rates of the tax are and the different levels of property and value to which it applies. Built into the property transfer tax now it's also clean water surcharge as well. The chart there is more just for your background education. It's not so much directly related to the proposal you have before you. The key thing to understand about the way the property transfer tax works now is that it applies to the transfer property by deed. And that means that when real property is purchased somebody goes down to the clerk's office and records that on the deed and that is when the property transfer tax is paid and returned as filed. What can happen now under current law is that you can have a legal entity such as an LLC or a corporation or a partnership that holds title to the real property in the name of the entity. And so that when that entity is sold through a transfer of stock or somehow interested in the entity, nobody goes down and transfers the deed as well. The deed is still held by that legal entity so in which case the property transfer tax is not triggered. What the proposal would do is basically change a couple of different definitions in current law and it would apply the property transfer tax to the transfer of a controlling interest in one of these legal entities that held real property in the state of Vermont. And then the way the tax would be applied is that it would be applied to the value of the property in that legal entity prorated for the percentage that is transferred. So maybe I'll stop right there. That was kind of a quick race through. But basically the idea is that instead of having to go down in a transfer by deed and just trying to capture transfers that happen when a business or legal entity is bought or sold. So it captures a larger pool. It's fishing. It's trying to capture a larger universe. Yeah and so if you think of the property transfer tax as a tax on physical property that is bottom sold in the state, the way it is structured now there is a group of transfers that is not being captured. Right. That are owned entities but not necessarily physical. Yeah. So if I have an LLC and I have 100% ownership of that and it owns one piece of property and the LLC holds the deed. Right now I can sell that entire LLC to you for $100. And you have the beneficial ownership. You control the property because you own the LLC which owns the property. But nobody goes down and does anything with the deed. Right. It's all done through the LLC and the transfer. So right now that sort of transfer in the state is not being picked up. What if the LLC is being sold has no real properties? Then the property transfer tax doesn't apply. Okay. So this still isn't going, the universe isn't as broad as I thought.