 September 3rd is the Senate government operations and we have with us today David Hurley and Lauren Hibbert and what we've been doing committee is looking at a bill that we could hopefully pass now that would put in place provisions that we might need to have in place should we be hit with this kind of an emergency or another kind of an emergency that really stymies us and have them in place so we don't have to do the same kind of scrambling that we did in March and April so what we've done so far is we've looked at the municipal things we passed and some of the the elections issues and we're going to take more testimony on those and we thought that there my Betsy Ann was kind enough to remind us that there were some things in the medical both in OPR and in the medical board that gave some in certain circumstances gave some I'm not going to go into it I'll let Betsy do it but gave some did some deadline changing and also gave some authority to the directors to make some decisions if they couldn't be made the way they normally are and so this isn't changing anything permanently it's only putting into the statutes in case there's another similar type emergency does that make sense to you we just don't want to come back and well we don't want to be hit in the fall in late November with something that we're totally unprepared to deal with because the deadlines have passed and there's no more declared emergency and now it's a new declared emergency or in January or March so that's what we're trying to do here and so Betsy Ann and Tucker have been working on this bill with us and I'm just going to unless anybody has any questions or other comments or anything on this I'm just going to turn it over to them to do this and I will say committee that I'd sent a note out about the VSEA language that we needed to talk about that so we could contact the Appropriations Committee but I had a call this morning and so it's less urgent than I thought and we can talk about that later but while we have Lauren and David with us let's let's jump there if that's okay okay thank you okay so I'm going to turn it over to Betsy Ann and Tucker to go through the they've gone through the bill that they originally did and then they might have changes and then we want your input and okay I think we have the new draft on the website under today under today's date okay great thank you if it's okay since we have the directors here with us if that's okay we can turn to their parts first sure yes so I sent committee members and director Hibbert and executive director Hurley he this draft language and what I've just done so far is just copied and pasted in regard to their provisions that language that was in Act 91 just so you can see what wasn't enacted and I was envisioning that perhaps the committee can discuss with the directors whether they would like to see these temporary provisions codified in their statutes regulating their professions so I have let's I'm just going to interrupt one second here and I have contacted Ginny Lyons and Beth Festigian a bunch of people to ask if they also have things that came out of their committee that might not be in our and so we want Betsy Ann to contact Jen Carby and see if there are things in there that they might need to put in here also so we're we're looking at Betsy Ann's draft not Tucker Muny one it's the other draft there are two things up there this is pages 13 13 pages yeah Tucker and I ended up splitting just because we were running on different schedules today so thank you Tucker so I just have a separate document now we can put it back into one doc but it was just easier for Tucker and I to address our issue our separate areas in two pieces of our two documents for now but we can always combine them back into two so just a refresher Act 91 was the first COVID Act that the general assembly enacted and in starting in section 14 there were provisions in regard to the regulation of professions and in section 14 there was an actual statutory amendment to OPR's board authority to issue temporary licenses during a declared state of emergency they already had the authority to issue temporary licenses during a declared state of emergency and for OPR there was just language added that a person to also add the authority for a person who is a graduate of an approved education program during a period when licensing exams are not reasonably available could be issued a temporary license and those could be reissued and then similarly in section 15 there was language added to the board of medical practices statutes about being able to issue temporary licenses during a state of declared state of emergency and it looks similar to what OPR's language was that they had but then it went on to provide starting in section 17 some temporary session law provisions that were directed at the circumstances during COVID and that's what appears here starting on page five if you want to go there what's listed now is section 17 online nine in that doc which is just a copy and paste of Act 91 to get the discussion going to see from the directors if they would like to have this or similar provisions put into codified statutory law tailored to any or some certain types of states of emergency so I think section 17 we can have the directors way and further with more details provided that during the COVID state of emergency a health care professional including a mental health professional who holds a license in any other US jurisdiction is deemed to be licensed to provide health care services which includes mental health services to a patient located in Vermont using telehealth or as part of the staff of a licensed facility if certain criteria are met at the top of page six they're licensed in that other US jurisdiction they're not subject to any professional disciplinary proceedings in that other US jurisdiction and they're not barred from practice here in Vermont for reasons of fraud or abuse patient care public safety if they're going to if that health care professional is going to plan to provide health care services here in Vermont they'd have to provide contact information to either the board or OPR as applicable and then it went on to provide that that health care professional would be subject to the imputed jurisdiction of the board of medical practice or OPR as applicable so if um what what we did just for your information on the other provisions that we talked about the municipal and open meeting and that kind of thing is we just removed the as a result of COVID-19 or the declared emergency under COVID-19 and Betsy and then Tucker we're going to make them do some language about it being a public health emergency where because that that would be what you couldn't some things would be public health emergencies there might be other things that are just any kind of an emergency but but in these cases it's probably a public health emergency uh madam chair i think that actually i mean i can foresee an emergency that would not be a public health emergency that would require this kind of extension of public health help you know let's say we had i mean i don't know something that just a physical thing that happened that required extra hands on deck from the medical profession that you know that so a physical disaster that would require more medical attention and more medical help that where this would be quite useful actually yep i think you're right i mean let's say all the water was poisoned somehow you know that you know the the ground water had some huge challenge and and everyone had major intestinal problems that we needed more doctors nurses and PA's how great to be able to take advantage of this in in that kind of a declared emergency yep yeah i think some when i said that some things we talked about requiring some kind of a public health emergency like laws and stuff you might you might want to limit them but something like you just pointed out could certainly happen and and we would it would be good if we could have something like this in place so that we didn't have to scramble around but yeah so Betsy and Tucker David or Lauren do you have any questions up to this point about kind of where we're going and what we're trying to do um no do you want us to to give any comments at this point or sure i just i i think that it's a good idea i think you know there there would need to be because there's so many different kinds of emergencies and this is really um authorizing this you know deemed status is really not with without some dangers for for Vermont too um the i think that we need to figure out a way to to limit it you know so that there's a rational system for identifying when it's when it's time to to do this and maybe allow you know bring in somebody like the um if authorized by the commissioner of health or if authorized by the secretary of human services that this can happen so that you know we don't need for for you all to be in session to get this power but that it's um you know limited in some other way um so that so that it's only used when when appropriate yeah that's a good idea and it might be different for different different um agencies and different boards and um yeah you're right here so Lauren did you have any comments up to this point yeah i mean these provisions at opi we've used um quite a bit i was just um asking staff we've had um 401 um emergency licenses for students who need to take exams for instance that's a permanent fixed statute not something that needs to be added to this bill but just so you know that has meant that those folks can take their exams and start getting into their career and covid hasn't stopped them so i think that's fairly remarkable um and um on our list of registry people who registered with opi are who are licensed in another state um i was just looking that up and we had um we are at um 1,210 people who are working in vermont um with a different license from another state so not a single thing a relatively large do you have a sense lauren of how long they worked i mean of those 1,210 licenses you extended that you were who were able to work here do you have a notion of how long they worked in vermont before they went back to their jurisdiction or or didn't i don't that wasn't um part of our form and we haven't followed back up with them um our plan we have contact information with them and when the authority to work ends we're planning to contact them all that their deemed authority has ended um i do think there's possible um confusion there may be some folks who are doing telehealth who never had to register with our office who might have registered on that form um but i do know that we are answering probably it's calmed down some since um early summer but we're answering upwards of you know six or seven emails a day about telehealth and whether you can do that if you're licensed in another state to a patient here so that has been very heavily utilized um for patients and providers both in vermont and outside of vermont and did you say that those changes were permanent no the okay the only change that i've talked about that's permanent is the ability for us to issue temporary licenses to people who take exams because of an emergency the telehealth provisions and the deemed authority to practice in the state of vermont if you're licensed in another state are not permanent they're not ongoing outside of act 91 um and the extension within act 91 to um march 31st third uh 2021 um which was a prudent choice of date i think when we were um you know in june um but i do think that those provisions will need to be extended um into the summer um and we kept we had discussed both in this committee and and sent that health and welfare that date um of um 3 31 21 because we anticipated that we would be back in a legislative session in january of 2021 and we'd be able to push that date out again um i see this bill as a sort of more of a long-term solution to some of those issues as as opposed to just continually pushing the date out till the next legislative session and then pushing the date out until the next legislative session so i think it's it's proactive and prudent um and i do like the idea that david has about having some um express authority i think um the declaring of an emergency i'm not an expert but i think the declaring of the emergency um my understanding is it must be done by the governor uh the governor has to make that declaration um and a piece of the declaration could include these provisions um that this declaration might trigger these provisions of the law um it could be the commissioner of health the opr wouldn't object if that were true um for the opr professions as well that would be okay um or it could be the secretary of human services but i i see it as very closely tied to that declaration of emergency which is um that the triggering i see this bill as creating springing conditions to a triggering event and the triggering event is that declaration of emergency so i think the governor could trigger them um but it does make sense the deemed authority um to practice in the state without passing through a regulatory body does make those of us who are regulators nervous um it has worked out fine we haven't had any instances of misconduct that i'm aware of by someone who's working here in the state without a Vermont license but it could happen um and does you know i think there should be some scrutiny scrutiny into whether or not that should be allowed from a higher level and us assuming that we can just start doing it so i'm just curious why it isn't and david too wide isn't enough to have their boss i mean the governor is the boss of the commissioner of health and the secretary of the agency human services why isn't it enough to have a gubernatorial declaration of emergency well i i was just trying to make the point that it's not just any emergency so it's it needs to be a separate determination and you know whether that's going to be specifically the governor who if there is another broad-based emergency um you know may be focused on a lot of different things and i just thought of the health commissioner or secretary human services to make that separate decision i obviously you know an emergency is it has to be declared by the governor there's no other official with that authority but then there's you know a second decision of is it an emergency of the that's of a nature that requires what type of an emergency it is right i mean you know if there was an ice storm is is you know or or um you know a big tropical storm often triggers declaration of an emergency but you know would it would it be reason to implement these provisions i think that's a could you um if we put this these in this bill work with betsy to get some language so that around the health issues and i i would say it probably should be that the commissioner of the department of health or if you're talking about health related provisions brian thank you madam chair i want to thank david for and loren too for kind of putting the spotlight on this because i think it is very important um and i'll just use the phrase checks and balances it's not really that exactly but it is a situation where and i think david put it well the governor he or she at that moment would be facing a whole bunch of decisions that needed to be made and so i would look to uh someone else and maybe that person would automatically um seek counsel from you know other agency heads but i think it doesn't hurt to put it in statute and make sure that that there is some sort of communication going back and forth uh and the health commission is fine with me um so thank you both anthony well i agree with that also this might be already understood but when when david mentions like the ice storm or something like that it makes you think about whether the emergency has to be of an extended time frame there's an ice storm might create an emergency which might be gone two days later because things warm up and melt away as opposed to something like covet 19 which is going to stick around for a long time so i wonder whether there's in terms of defining an emergency whether it has to be an emergency of some kind of magnitude or some kind of time frame that would require these things to kick in just a thought and i have no idea really moran i just wanted to say that i really support that statements under polina because as a regulatory entity it actually takes quite a bit of work to stand up these programs to get the for you know it's not um always there so if it's if it's an ice storm and it's two days then the standard temporary licenses that we can use under emergency professions provisions would be work well because they're always there but these extra um sort of scaffolding and support we really built in um march and it did take some time not a huge amount of time but it took some time and then once this um this scenario is gone we'll remove it um i suppose we'll have to consider do we always want it to be back in the background but um i if it's for a longer period of time it makes more sense to have the deemed authority to work here and the authority to tell a health if it's for a couple of days that doesn't make as much sense so maybe that's where the um working with the commissioner of health comes in they can determine that it's going to be everybody in vermont has stomach flu and we need more doctors here and the stomach flu is going to last for two and a half weeks maybe we need some more or maybe we don't if it's going to last for a day maybe we don't need to do this at all so i would think that maybe in consultation with the commissioner of health if that's who is the decision is if that's who it is that that would be worked out i see isabel has joined us you can't stop smiling you're muted allison i'm trying to please brian um uh lauren just said is i think precisely why we're doing this bill lauren uh and i assumed david did too uh put in a lot of work standing up something that uh was a risk that was a response to an emergency that investment of your time it's a good thing to embed that as an opportunity for a future emergency well you know that was a lot of that was that was great work but we need to be able to use that work in the future so i think that's part of why we're doing this is you all invested time responding enabling things for an emergency and let's take the best of that and make that possible for the future without as much work okay do we want to move on with other issues in this thank you all right so the next uh provision regarding opr and border medical practices on page seven in the section 18 this is about retirees being able to come back and practice and the language from act 91 was that during the covid state of emergency a former health care professional who retired not more than three years earlier with the individuals vermont license in good standing can provide health care services to a patient located in vermont using telehealth or as part of staff of a licensed facility after submitting or having submitted on their behalf to either the board or opr is applicable their name and contact info information and where they be practicing and a retiree who does so would be subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of the board or opr is applicable at the top of page eight the other provision regarding retirees is during the covid emergency the board and opr could permit former health care professionals who retired between three and ten years ago with their vermont license and good standing to return to the health care workforce on a temporary basis to provide health care services to patients in vermont and they could issue those two regulatory entities could issue temporary licenses to those individuals at no charge and impose limits on their scope of practice of returning to work as the board or opr deemed appropriate may i just ask david and lauren how many retired doctors or professionals returned do you have numbers on how many came out of retirement to help us um i for us not not a lot i think um you know overall with i have a spreadsheet with emergency licenses and overall we were under 25 total um and but that's that's both um you know other emergency licenses and retiree i would say that probably there were um somewhere around 10 retirees who who took advantage of this um and just just one one thing i want to make sure to comment on is i think um we we need to find some some different wording from retiree because really in professional licensing retirement isn't um you know isn't something that that's like um i don't formally traceable or you know it's um it's really if they've any for anybody who held the license but also i i think was in active practice within maybe the last three years or something like that we just we had one case with somebody who had left active practice a long time ago after some some um disciplinary problems in new york and bought a house in vermont and moved to vermont and um he he was able to get a vermont license um and then he had he had not actively practiced for i think about more than 10 years uh but continued to renew his license and was was able to to keep his license and then only recently had let his license lapse and tried to come back and you know it just it um that case just came to mind in this discussion of um it might be more important to to mention um you know someone whose whose vermont license has lapsed within three years of them leaving active practice or even if they actively practiced in another jurisdiction it would be okay we we need to figure out some way of capturing the the concept of of not not too far out of you know because um you know skills go pretty quickly and even though in an emergency we we want the help um you know you want them to be ready to assist so we've only had two retiree licenses um during covid um on an emergency basis uh i would posit that that's probably because of the state of this emergency and the risk to people who are older um with this particular pandemic um i think the majority of quote unquote retirees um is probably being far more cautious than some of the younger folks um but i agree with david on both um moving away from the word retiree um from my perspective inactive licensee or lapsed license licensee would be um preferable i i prefer inactive but we you know that that would be okay either one would work um and i also um would like a nexus to practice um you know three within the last inactive license um with active practice within the last three years in vermont or another jurisdiction um makes sense to me and how about the uh the disciplinary issue um if so but what if they were active practice and good standing within the last three years um is it still okay if they had you know some sort of condition on their license before then or no i would prefer if they were in good standing just good standing but when they they were no longer practicing they were in good standing for example if they completed their conditions would that count as good standing they had any conditions for under their license it would i agree i think it would be okay and you know we always have um there's the provision that allows us to include limitations and um you know is that the language that we had was was um fairly discretionary but we avoided an argument with the individual by you know the board asked for conditions that um were found unacceptable to the to the applicant and so the the issue went away but so that's always there too committee is this something that you want to pursue oh yeah if it would be helpful i think yeah yeah all right the next one section 19 um this is on page eight this is in regard to people practicing here in vermont without holding a vermont license as authorized during the declared state of emergency is deemed to be in consenting to the authority of the regulatory entities either opr board of medical practice so this seems to be catch all language i'm not as familiar with it but as it says as may be authorized during a declared state of emergency for their them to practice is that just in this bill or perhaps also by governor executive order or how expansive was this authority to practice without a license um i think it was in the it was in the deemed section okay it was going back to that previous section okay yeah in fact i i don't think like you know this didn't come up and we we didn't end up having anybody um come under under a um you know in exchange with with another state but i think we would not want to have it um apply to that you know uh an emac situation um but um i think we bet see we just we need to look at that and make make um make sure that there's not an unintended interaction with with like an emac situation under title 20 okay and that that's can you remind us the what the emac is about the emac is the emergency assistance uh compact okay which has provisions regarding liability okay individuals already and i we we can't mess with that because it's a compact yeah so we would have to make sure we excluded anybody who is under an emac okay but if you're there if the person's um working under at least a temporary license under some temporary license authority then would it be safe to say that then then they are subject to opi or the board's jurisdiction if it's actual temporary license issued by yes they would they would i i think whether it's a temporary whatever kind they would be subject to jurisdiction yeah this was a concern with the with the deemed okay people okay okay so next one is on page nine regarding section 20 this was um the ability of the director of opr and the executive director of the board of medical practice to um authorize acts on behalf of the boards as i understand it underneath opr or board of medical practice have i essentially is is that a summary of like you're able to work or act on behalf of the boards if the board it's not safe for the boards to meet yeah if i can just go back up to the imputed jurisdiction um i really need to retain i think we landed there but i i'm sorry i was a bit distracted um the imputed jurisdiction will remain for folks who do not hold a license in the state of vermont temporary or permanent correct yes okay but i think it would need what i had said to betsey was i think that we need to make sure um that we're we're okay with um that there's no unintended interaction of affecting emack in emack population okay just if folks are doing telehealth for vermonters i want to have jurisdiction over them and i know david would too so betsey you're muted i apologize for taking us thank you thank you i'll just follow up with the two of you and i'm putting further language together um but back to that section 20 language um this is language providing that if the director of opr finds that a regulatory body attached to opr can't reasonably safely and expeditiously convene a quorum to transact business um the director can actually exercise the full powers and authorities of that regulatory body including disciplinary authority and it looks like it's similar uh similar language for the executive director of the board of medical practice and so um i will say for opr we did use this authority on multiple occasions i do think this had a lot of utility particularly in the beginning of our time in co vid um we had a lot of work to do um including we adopted emergency rules for remote hearings disciplinary hearings that took some time we wanted to engage with stakeholders we are doing emergency um we're conducting disciplinary hearings um under those emergency rules now i fully anticipate that in the future we will build our administrative rules so they have um sort of the springing condition of the ability to do remote disciplinary hearings if there's a state of emergency um but i think that authority has been very helpful and i can imagine circumstances um where we will not be able to convene a board but we need to act quickly david have you used it um just one time in a very limited way and that was just to sign and order that i had talked about with my uh board members about and that was just about a uh fairly uh um limited issue with regard to uh pa documentation we we were able we we pretty quickly got together the ability to to meet remotely and so i didn't have to act without the the board um and i think um i would you know it's it's the way it's written and was written and act 91 said if i myself found that the board cannot reasonably safely and expeditiously convene a quorum and i think um i think it would be good to you know limit that to when authorized by some other official again you know whether it's the um the commissioner health or the secretary human services or should be somebody else making that call so i'm thinking that um it in this case it may not be um a health a public health emergency that limits your ability to meet but if if there's a major power outage that where you can't connect remotely um i i don't know i can't i don't know what that might be but but there might be other reasons why um it would limit your ability to meet and um so you would want to have department health and lauren do you feel the same way that you would want some other um authority or do you feel comfortable just doing it i i feel comfortable with the director doing it because i feel comfortable with the scenarios in which i did it but i'm not sure that's the best metric but you know we used it for disciplinary hearings for all sorts of guidance um because we had you know our 48 professions we were helping uh coordinate with accd on closing all those establishments and businesses and opening up all those establishments and businesses and there was a period of time where we were moving very fast um and as quickly as possible and had we needed to convene a board for all of those um discussions even if it was a remote board we would have struggled um so um i don't know whether it will be that same scenario again um and i would agree that it could be a non health emergency where we would need that ability to act um but i would want to be careful that it if we did use the commissioner of health um well and i wasn't saying that commissioner health for necessarily for for um opr i mean you might right use the secretary of state or perhaps the secretary of state would be appropriate there for the opr ability just so that um yeah just to separate that decision from the person who's going to be exercising the authority i think that doesn't make sense david i think i think the secretary of state and um can authorize the director to do that that makes sense that relationship is and should always be a very close one anyway so um i think that would work well good give away too much lauren okay all right the last issue that i have here for the directors is on page 10 section 21 the last section um that uh borrowed from act 91 was allowing opr and the board of medical practice um the executive director actually was the director of opr and commissioner of health to issue emergency regulatory orders um if they find that a professional practice um by a licensee is exploitative deceptive or detrimental to the public um they can issue cease and desist orders and then if the professional act continues um it could subject the person to professional discipline and could also result in the penalties under 3 vsa 127 which are in regard to unauthorized practice comments yeah i think that would be um a good idea to have have in place again you know it's um hard for us to imagine an emergency of a breadth and duration that would call this you know make make this necessary but we can imagine it a lot better now than we could six months ago so exactly yeah they're more getting at you and just unfortunately as we can imagine a lot of things that we didn't imagine six months ago did you use this authority or what were you envisioning using it for and what was the purpose of this so um you're speaking about the authority in section 21 correct yes opr did use this authority um we had um a scenario where there was someone um in retland county advertising MMA fighting um dirt which is mixed martial arts during the time of covid so we wrote a letter um with um the attorney general's office asking them to stop and we actually wrote a couple of letters for people who were not following accd guidance on appropriately closing or operating during this time so it was helpful to us that's great i don't know the number i the MMA one is the one that um jumps out at me the most but um i think i think we did um maybe seven or eight of those letters with the AGO's office so have we've gone through all of the those provisions am i right about that i just lost Betsy Ann where'd she go there she is um am i right that we've gone through all the provisions here yeah so what i would suggest is that we we are as you know in a bit of a time crunch here and we expect to be uh gone done on the 25th so that gives us three weeks which means we have to do something we have to get it to the senate we have to get it to the house they have to do something and i'm trying to work with Sarah Copeland Hansis about keeping in touch so that we know what the issues might be and can work them out but if at all possible i it would be great if we could have this on the floor by next friday is i know that's really pushing it but um um and i'm asking Betsy if that's even possible and um Tucker i'll ask later on also if that's even possible but as much as possible if we can keep that in our heads as a a goal and and we won't get everything in this bill that's clear we're not going to but the more we can get in here around this um the i think the better off we are the less scrambling we'll have to do if it happens again and it probably will so does that Betsy and Tucker David Lauren committee just is that am i being totally unreasonable no i think that's the whole point of this less i think it's great and and then the house can continue to work on it week if we have other thoughts we can feed them to sarah yeah it's not i mean i i i think it's a work in progress until it isn't until it's done yeah so that's a chris um just on timing i think the you know the way i heard what the proton said today on the floor was three weeks from today's the maximum so it could be you know if the budget you know how it is if the budget gets settled doesn't it we could be out of here i don't know three four or five days be prior to that so i'm not seeing that given the work in in the committees that are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this senate economic development is we're going to be using right up to the max given the governor has put most of his crf money and a lot of the budget stuff in economic development i mean i i see us working right up to the last minute and probably on to saturday i mean i'd be amazed i'll be very impressed if we're actually able to finish friday the 25th so betsey and tucker betsey and tucker haven't said anything no i know they're just so they can't they can't exact they're amused by what we think we know by times up tucker and betsey you're done we can't hear anymore from you they're the ones that have to do the work i know well look what they did overnight i mean they're amazing i know but i don't know what how much else they are having to do right now so weigh in and tell me if that's is completely unreasonable please you have to unmute yourself it is not completely unreasonable not not completely unreasonable okay it's just unreasonable not completely reasonable they're being too polite all right so we're going to aim for getting it out of here on thursday and i'll be working with tim and the uh i guess we're gonna have to have permission from the um rules committee to do it so i have told him that we're doing this and i'll keep sending him drafts um and sending um sarah copland hauntz's drafts okay all right so that means that if we can have some resolution of these particular issues david and lauren is and betsey and is it possible to have them by tomorrow or by tuesday at the very latest i could definitely do tuesday i don't know if tomorrow i will definitely be able to get it perfect um i will start working on this language put it into their statutory structures and send to the two directors um to get their feedback and see if they would like any changes so maybe we can say tentatively tomorrow but tuesday might be more realistic and then i'll help whoever i can yeah well i'll get back to betsey as quickly as possible thank you both thank you both and thank you this was very short notice i know and thank you very much no thanks for taking it up i think it's a really important issue and a good way to build for the future which hopefully yeah they even need it we have a senator columnar loves to call it the shelf bill but now it's become more than a shelf bill because it was going to be a bill that we could just pull off the shelf and institute but now we're going to actually put it into the statute and we won't have to even pull it off the shelf right and it makes something positive out of this incredible crisis which is less we've learned some good lessons that we are going to carry forward no and it's carry forward that isn't money it's okay so thank you very much the two of you and i believe we'll be joined by the elections tomorrow awesome do it today yeah thank you for your time and it's great to see you all it's great to see you i'm missing our adventure out west about this time we're going to get back to a normal time um and i look forward to that yes me too all right um do we want to move to the um betsey and did you have more yeah mantrick we just quickly review the rest of this and i can turn it over to tucker okay but if you just want to keep going on page 11 just a reminder there was that a temporary language about electrician and plumber licenses and do anything with that because you listed it kind of as a to be determined yesterday oh yeah and it seemed like a one-off but i didn't know if there needed to be any further um movement on this issue well i haven't yeah allison i think that there's should be some provision um for it licenses which expired during an emergency so once a declared emergency has been declared it could last it could last for a couple weeks it could last for a couple months it could last for a year uh it makes some sense i mean i was dealing today during our hour break between committee and the floor i i had to do something at the bank and they were talking about their license expiring licenses expire and we need to have ways to deal with them during the course of a declared emergency so i think it makes some sense to have a sort of more general language about licenses that expire or or anything that expires during the course of an emergency well i think that um we've dealt with two we've dealt with um licenses or permits that are issued by the state two municipalities right ones that are issued by municipalities two people we haven't dealt with ones that are issued by the state two people and i think that's that's what you're talking about here or to businesses to not to municipalities but to private and i don't know the best way of doing that i was going to um i don't know if we have just a general thing someplace that says that the governor can um can uh how did we put it for um once in our issued two municipalities it just says the governor can um put a stop or can i'm this room has gotten very hot all of a sudden um so we i i don't know if we can do the same kind of thing someplace is just say that the governor in a declared emergency the governor has the ability to um delay the licensing license renewals for um and then they would probably have to be made some of them may be um delayed and some of them they may say we're not going to delay them but that the governor would have the ability to to do that and then we don't have to deal with dmv separately and um fishing the um fire and safety all separately i don't know does that make sense yeah i could do something for all of the licenses issued under the office of governor and then separately it would seem to make sense to have a similar provision for the secretary of state um for the opr licenses and i don't think there's any other of the statewide elected bids that issue licenses i don't think so they all would all be under the governor yeah other than opr so okay we know it's an issue and it could be an issue even actually with a fairly short duration you know if anyway yeah i'll come up with something for that oh there's the director of opr back again did you were you able to hear that a little bit i was afraid i missed something coming off this this zoom and going into the live stream but um we would be supportive of something giving us the power to extend professional licenses i wasn't sure if this was only from uni licenses or not but professional licenses should be included as well yeah oh good sounds good okay okay awesome thank you and then the last item in this draft is in regard to the emergency sheriff funding did you want to maintain some form of this in this bill oh i don't know i i did i did not um i didn't contact them let me contact uh jack anderson is the yes and and um i'll do him and sheriff um i it'll have to be it'll be bill boney act because mark anderson i believe is on act is on active duty right now um or he's someplace doing is he a national guards person yeah oh and he is someplace i don't know if it's training or whatever but he isn't around um and will be until october so it'll be bill boney act okay i'll i'll contact them and ask the two of them if they have any interest in keeping that in there or if that was just a one off and and i think the the the thing about the fire and safety those licenses if we put in this general one then we don't need that one because that one was so specific to mm-hmm yeah exactly yeah okay so do you want to quickly review the elections provisions at the beginning of this draft or do you want to save that for when the elections division is here i think we'll save that because they're coming over tomorrow okay sounds good we can check out what i've done so far i actually did try to incorporate that um or draft it so it would be codified statutory laws so if you did want to review it in advance of tomorrow um i i tried to incorporate your comments to date about when the elections authority applies and what types of states of emergency so is that at the beginning of this yes um yeah you want to just keep moving along we can we can save that for tomorrow if you'd like and then um we can move over to Tucker's draft if you'd like whatever works and did you did you happen to um i didn't look at this whole thing yet but did you happen to get the municipal elections part i did not hear back from all right we didn't hear from vlct that i'm aware of okay um still that australian ballot language would be in there on page four um as i recall from your conversation to allow municipality to move to australian ballot you you talked about having it being during a state of emergency within that municipality specifically um and then i just have some uh comments in there for you to consider about the timing you know of when a municipal a legislative body would be able to um how far in advance could they use this authority to apply australian ballots to future elections but i don't think it's going to capture everything that vlct it sounded like vlct wanted to do for town meeting yeah so let's let's um we'll i'll try and we'll try and get them um tomorrow also sounds good so we can i'm sure i had a question since we're before we go too far on beyond licenses and that was for extension um in granting this power to extend do you want to put an outside limit on that you know i'm just thinking of emergency rules are good for 180 days at which point you either the session we should be back in session again or you can reapply to extend an emergency rule or start all over i think um i'm just wondering if we want to put a limit on how that would be offered i think in the when they did it before when they extended the deadlines they did it it the extension ended 90 days after the end of the declared emergency so it gave them time to catch up but at the end of that 90 days am i right about that i see tucker nodding his head yes that's correct and that time frame was chosen specifically for the municipalities it lined up with how much time they would need to put out notices and warnings for the meetings that they would have to hold to start moving forward with those programs some of those programs specifically their zoning meetings and planning meetings it wasn't the same 90 days true for like dmv for those for getting your registrations and your licenses and stuff i'm not sure about that the section that the committee worked on and that i helped you with dealt with again just the licenses and permits going to municipalities or being issued from municipalities to individuals so in large part the concern was around the planning commissions and planning boards and some of the deadlines that they were running up against during covid where they had to supply plans to the state for approval and then at the local level they were dealing with a kind of backlog of zoning permits that were coming up right okay i do remember that and and i was talking more i was thinking more about back to opr extensions i mean i suppose there'd be some be helpful to have everyone sort of operating on the same schedule if it made would not be great sort of like school school calendar it'd be great if everybody was on the same schedule not necessarily people in different parts of the state have different festivals and different things to celebrate like our school our school vacation coincides with with our winter carnival and if we'd have to change winter carnival if we change the god forbid they have many vacations anyway all right so i will check with susanne young then about the the general to um follow up on chris's comment about in in general if we should have some kind of a deadline and i i for some reason thought that um they all extended for 30 days i mean for 90 days after but i may be completely wrong but so we'll check with that and see so we can get that to yeah but i think it would be great to include this if we can figure it out 90 days it strikes me as is a good number after declared emergency and each department could set their own i mean maybe some could do it faster yeah but that would be an outside yeah all right are we ready to move on to to tucker thank you bet cn all right okay okay so we have your um oh look at isn't this nice okay would you like to start sure so uh as a brief introduction here i put together a few sections um that combine the issues discussed yesterday that you had uh agreed should be made somewhat permanent or at least permanently available in the case of a future emergency most of the language is taken directly from the bills that you had already passed put here with some of the covid specific provisions taken out um there is some new language here that i'm going to highlight and take some time with so that you all can make some important policy decisions about how broad this should be so the first section that we're going to deal with is a potential section that could be added to the open meeting law this is a new section 312 a that would be added to title one and it would deal with meetings of public bodies during a state of emergency to start one of the things that the committee discussed yesterday and agreed on is that there should be a term that encompasses both municipal and statewide public bodies that are affected by a state of emergency so we started by defining an affected public body and the definition here is fairly broad the definition is a public body whose regular meeting location is within an area affected by a hazard so two things to note here first the public bodies that qualify under this their qualification is tied to where they meet so if you are a municipal public body if your municipality is affected by the state of emergency then uh you would qualify as an affected public body there may be some weaknesses there that you might want to explore um so you know for example we talked yesterday about the section that dealt with the department of fish and wildlife and their deer herd management meetings they have five regions where they hold those meetings so you could potentially have an emergency where they have physical meeting locations in one region but electronic and others this term hazard is the next definition this is tied to the definitions in the emergency powers section and i'll see did that just switch over to my browser for you guys you can see the definition or did it not uh i don't think so all right i can't see it it's too tiny it says i'm going to stop and restart the share to see if i can pull you to that page we've got your draft language up on the website too which is easier to see so uh here is the definition of all hazards that's being borrowed it's um any natural disaster health or disease related emergency accident civil insurrection citizens of mass destruction terrorist or criminal incident i would recommend that you review this list and you discussed earlier that there may not be quite this long of a list of emergencies that would qualify for the temporary authority that you're providing um this is the definition i used because it already exists in statute this is a policy choice that you'll have to make whether these meetings should only be allowed to be held electronically with these special powers when there's a public health emergency or when there's a natural disaster but not in the case of a significant event or radiological incident so tucker it um in this case the event and the declaration is determined by the commissioner as opposed to the governor i think that we might want to make sure that this is a governor um declared emergency where do you where do you see oh in the definitions of hazard yeah oh yeah this is declared by the or is um something by the commissioner good you know when we were when we're envisioning disaster you know declared emergencies a radiological one is a good one and janette is most familiar with it because of yankee but wow you know if if for some sad heartbreaking reason that there was a radiological disaster i mean all the things we talked about with opr and medical needs and stuff man we'd need those you know 10 fold yeah because they'd all get contaminated uh well we we want to leave so uh before moving on just from this first subsection with the definitions again to highlight the choices that you may have to make um as i'm preparing this for next tuesday or friday or whenever this is coming up uh first is uh how you want to test whether a public body is affected by this so right now the definition again ties it to a location that's affected by a hazard um i don't know whether there should be a provision in there for the public bodies you know regular meeting being interrupted by the hazard or dislocated from their physical meeting space or whatever the case may be and then the second is um what should qualify as a hazard or emergency here so it it seems to me that your definition of affected public body is fine because whose regular meeting is located if their regular meeting is has to be relocated their regular meeting still was there i i that sounds fine to me i think the hazard we need to look at okay subsection b contains the uh temporary powers that i walked you through yesterday i organized all of the open meeting authority that you granted in the previous covid bills into one subsection here um it not withstands the uh regular open meeting requirements and provides uh the following temporary authorities first that uh the quorum of the public body can attend any of those meetings by electronic means without designating a physical meeting location that was one of the first things that you put together second that uh the members of the public body and their staff will not be required to attend that physical meeting location next and this was in a separate bill from the preceding two provisions um the and affected public body of a municipality so we're dealing specifically with municipalities here can post uh agendas and notices of special meetings in two electronic locations instead of physical locations and finally that in the event of a staffing shortage an affected public body may extend the deadline for the posting of minutes can you just go back to the definition of affected body one second as i was thinking about that i i'm not sure that i would use hazard an area affected by the emergency or the declared emergency because then i don't think we need to if it's a declared it has to be a declared emergency it isn't just a hazard that i mean it has to be a declared emergency i think what do you committee what do you think i like that because that way we don't have to define which hazards we're talking about we don't have to define hazard at all right because it's the whose regular meeting location is within an area affected by the declared emergency if the declared emergency is just in the northeast kingdom then that's where it is if it's statewide every town is affected right yeah okay so the um the state of emergency does still have to be declared for all of these powers to come in and when the governor declares a state of emergency it is in response to a hazard under this section and that's where the um the term hazard came in i can uh maybe work with betsy to try to figure out what the best term would be to make sure that this is whatever comes out of a declaration will apply to um okay affected public body okay thank you uh this is more of the oml language that you all passed during covid so when the affected public body meets electronically they shall use technology that permits attendance of the public whenever feasible allow access to meeting by telephone and finally uh post information on how the public may access meetings electronically and include it in their agenda again this is all language that was in the previous oml covid bills um the legislative bodies of municipalities and school boards shall record their meetings that are held electronically unless there's some unusual circumstance that makes it impossible for them to do so um and finally within this section an affected public body shall continue to post notices and agendas in or near the municipal clerk's office and shall provide a copy of each notice or agenda to the newspapers of general circulation that was language that was in the posting of notices work that you did in your temporary covid authority bills dr can you go back to the end of page one just very quickly about the yeah number four was that in the other bill it was okay then i don't need to go any further thank you okay section y and z we can uh cover together they were part of the same bill we went over it uh yesterday it dealt with the quasi judicial proceedings and specifically appeals to grand list determinations as you may recall there were two levels of it there's the bca level where the bca is holding the hearing and inspecting the property and then there's the department of taxes hearing officer level you pass the bill that contained both of them they affect different sections of statute so i took the authority that you gave them in those two bills and tucked them into their specific areas so first section y deals with uh the section appeals from listers as to the grand list and after a lot of unamended text we get the sections that you passed earlier highlighted hazard again because i was not sure whether it's a term that is going to come up or what is going to trigger this authority but it is the same language where the board can either move forward without conducting the physical inspection or if the property owner wants an inspection to take place and request it they can do so electronically and the same language is applied to the hearing officers inspections in that section so the end here first the repeal in section x y this is the statute that required the segregation of town highway funds from general funds and prevented any commingling so that statute would just be repealed that prohibition on commingling would go away and there's different effective dates that will go into this if and when you move forward with a bill like this and i just put in random dates but it was to highlight that that section on town highway funds would likely have to be delayed until uh the start of the next fiscal year for most municipalities and that would prevent a village from collecting and enforcing for the following fiscal year town or village road taxes that could then be commingled by the superior municipality surrounding them and it would alleviate any of those concerns that were brought up during the session and is it clear that it's this is the state highway funds that come to the town are still kept separate because that was a concern by transportation when those concerns were discussed uh and anthia and i worked on it it was not um it wasn't entirely clear that this specific section 19 vsa 312 dealt at all with the funds that are part of highway grants from the state uh what we found is that this section was dealing very specifically with funds that are raised through a local tax um i can work with anthia and see if there's a way to repeal and maybe amend those other sections to make sure that they can't be commingled with the general funds of the town um if that's helpful well just so that we know because that is a question that's going to come from transportation the remaining sections that we went through yesterday didn't end up here for one of two reasons either they were cured by um a change in the ability of a town to vote by australian ballot for certain issues or could be cured by a change to town meeting requirements um or in the case of the deadlines on licenses renewals municipal plans that there could be more specific fixes than the kind of general language that you passed earlier in the session i didn't get that i thought that there were two sections in there one was about the um municipal um permits that were issued from the town i mean from the state to the town and then from the town to the people right and i thought that um but those aren't in here they're not in here yet i can take those two general sections if that's how the committee wants to move forward uh my notes from yesterday i had written down that you wanted to hear from someone maybe from either the agencies or from vlct about uh what should and should not be included in those extensions because this could arise at a different time of year than it did last time and there might be more specific parts of statute that need to be addressed okay okay thank you okay questions anybody no well well done tucker yeah thank you i think we're going to have a decent bill i do too and it will be the first bill that is in response to what we as far as i know that that is incorporating the lessons we've learned so um tomorrow i'll uh we're going to do elections and then i'll see if we can get vlct to talk about the municipal elections and then these two questions about the the permits and the licensing and also uh susanne young ask her if she has any um from the governor's office about the permits and stuff that are extended to municipalities from the state and and janette you might also ask her uh as we were talking about the license extensions that all the you said all the admin that we would want to have general enough language so that all the licenses that fell under the governor and administration would have some general provision of being extended through okay anything else do we need tomorrow another nice day we should think about that the um emergency thing i'll also ask her about that yeah about um because something has to trigger it has a declared emergency and how do we need to define that further or do we just need to um um i mean when the governor uh declares for example um the damage that was done in chitenden county by the the free the lake by the by the rain and the right well i was thinking about the ice but um by the rain that's a declare it's they're declared a state of emergency right so they can get federal FEMA funds that that may not be the kind of declared emergency that we're I mean it may or it may not but I don't know that we would want to extend all of these things in a case like that where it didn't necessarily impede their ability to do to do business right there's just a lot of damage and we want federal FEMA funds maybe if I could just ask either Betsy Ann or Tucker I'm trying to recall it seems as though there's always reasons listed in the declaration as to why this is being declared and I don't know whether we could work off of those in other words to your point Madam Chair when the declaration was made about the ice storm it's specifically mentioned why the governor was declaring it and where it was in effect and all that sort of stuff I think you can't just say we're under a state of emergency there has to be a reason for it and I don't know whether that might intersect with what we need in terms of allowing specific authority to do x y and z but would we want if so they declared that state of emergency in I don't know if it was all of Chittenden County or along the lake wherever it was would we would that say would this say then that those towns now didn't have to have physical meetings because they are in the affected area um I think that we want to make sure that it's an emergency that somehow impacts the ability to do a business I'm not sure I'm not sure what I'm saying here or I know what you mean well good well you write it down then I'd be a lawyer if I could let's see what do you think this this is in regard to when the governor declares a state of emergency yeah we don't want to we don't want to let town x pretty much do whatever they want just because there's an ice storm which could go away in 24 hours so we have to be careful to make sure that it's a real one that's going to be around for a while and would interrupt normal governmental activity and and wasn't declared a state of emergency in order to qualify for FEMA funds there so that's well the governor has in the emergency management chapter 20 vsa chapter one the governor has the authority to proclaim a state of emergency within the entire state or any portion of it in the event of an all hazards event that causes or may cause substantial damage or injury to persons or property and all hazards event is defined as could be multiple things it's a natural disaster health or disease related emergency accidents of one's erection etc it's what it's what Tucker just showed us isn't it yeah so I wasn't sorry I wasn't uh let's do something else so maybe that is appropriate to leave that on on that is it possible for you to make it a hyperlink I know this is lacy of me but I have no idea how can you make that 20 vsa piece in in your draft a hyperlink so we can click on it and actually review that all hazards definition or is it easy to find I don't find vf the the statutes easy to search I know you guys do I apologize I need to learn how to search them more easily Allison just learned hyperlink yesterday and now she wants to use it as much as possible I don't even ever betray my dear sweet drafting manual by embedding a hyperlink in a draft but I'll do you want better I'll send you well directly thanks okay so that might be that might be because I suppose if the if the governor did declare it under one of those circumstances the governor has to declare it but I was confused there because I thought it said that it was declared by the commissioner of public safety and I now the commissioner of public safety determines whether and then advises the governor something but the governor has to declare it okay all right so that might it might be okay the way you did it yeah the the question that I did a bad job of highlighting is whether that list in that all hazards definition is too general for some of the things you're looking at yeah so some of the open meeting provisions that you brought forward you're bringing forward because you couldn't meet in that physical space right right and I don't know if that entire list you know one of the items in the list is just a significant event and I didn't know whether or an accident for example so if a state of emergency is declared because of some significant accident but the public body can still meet is that a reason to give them the authority to not meet in that space so you may want to review that definition and determine whether there are things that you want to pull out um you know for the or perhaps perhaps in in the not in the definition but in the um in in the different sections it would be and oh if you're talking about open meetings it would be a hazard or a declared emergency that prohibits that because in a in a health emergency we might you know if there's a some kind of a leak or something like that we might want to have those health provisions here so the the the provisions would be tailored to the how their how the response is impacted by the emergency does that make sense that absolutely makes sense and again my apologies I'm coming off the bench from a few weeks of you know rest here but um what what I mentioned was a test what is the test that you should use to determine whether this kicks in yeah the meetings it may just be that you're dislocated from your regular physical meeting location or that you're somehow prohibited from meeting there right I think it would be just prohibited from meeting in person because you could be dislocated because the town hall burned down but you could still meet at the fire station or in our case our fire station caught great but don't forget that with all these things you're still going to need the governor to declare that state of emergency so if the town hall burns down and there's no declared state of emergency then these powers are not available yeah okay but but just to clarify they they they could decide to meet elsewhere right I mean that's within their power to do that right unless it's the a public health emergency like this so that they're prohibited from meeting in person so the provisions would be impacted by how the emergency affects the the activity whether it's um if there's a some kind of a an emergency that knocks out that DMV can't issue and they declare some kind of emergency and the state can't issue permits but people are can still meet then that's a different we need to be able to tie tie the activity to the impact of the emergency on the activity right good all right well so and Betsy Ann um I think Senator Lyons was going to see if you if there were there was anything that Jen that you needed to talk to Jen about and I don't know if that would be you or Tucker is it would it be you Betsy Ann okay yeah thanks I will I'll loop Jen in definitely about um borrowing from the provisions that she drafted for act 91 for OPR and Board of Medical Practice I'll give her a heads up and um that Seneca Vops is pursuing these as statutory provisions um and then I can also just check in with her also if there's other things that we're overlooking okay do any of the other committees have things that need to that we should be incorporating in here egg or natural resources or economic development no I I don't think so Tucker one thing that I'll note is that yesterday you put a bookmark in the moratoria on universal water disconnects oh yeah wastewater disconnects you want to be chair of natural resources to be able to weigh in on that issue does anybody know the chair of natural resources or where we could contact him or her he was in the room at the time but we couldn't see him or hear him I know he he completely just froze and disappeared he's I think he went to the Senate he didn't know we were on zoom and he went to the Senate quarantined in the Senate oh five months because no one else is there so he can do that okay well chair of natural resources you are muted would you like to speak to us chair of natural resources actually I think I can unmute him hang on Mike can you unmute him maybe he doesn't want to know Madam chair we only have the power to ask him to unmute himself he retains the ultimate power of his voice being heard do you have something to say Chris there yeah like I was clicking with my mouse it was not because like I it wasn't doing anything I was just leaving me clicking for nothing um yeah I'm happy to sort of locked out uh at any rate the so I was going to say when you said other areas most of what we did this spring at first when all this stuff got going was check into the basic things like wastewater portable you know town water connections disconnections electric bills gas bills all that kind of stuff and some of the provisions we ended up moving forward were things like we it some of this related to licensing because wastewater treatment facility operators it turns out we're I don't know if all or some were on a spring renewal all of a sudden no one could go do their uh four hours of continuing ed to finish the training to get the renewal or something like that so that's the kind of thing we did for the most part was allow people and then we had to change some we did a little work to make sure that operators who were licensed in one place could without liability pitch in at a neighboring town's facility if people were all out sick at facility one they could come in and help facility two so I'd say the thing that most reminds me of what we've been doing in here was the flexibility around relicensing and that would be covered with your discussion I think Jeanette with the administration of the extension of licenses um there's also you know in terms of laws like there is it's a there's a constitutional right to enforcement discretion uh you can't do it for a whole class of individuals that needs to be done on a case by case basis so there is some flexibility when someone for good reason maybe an emergency is not going to be able to meet a regulation um that the uh a that government can choose not to enforce a law this was part in a way this is how they said um that bottle redemption centers although the law says if you sell you got to redeem for the most part um they said well guess what we're not going to enforce that law for a little while if you don't want to accept bottles back then turned out that was all safe and sanitary to do and they resumed so some of these things are inherent there's inherent flexibility so do you think we need to do anything here or it's going to be taken care of in a general well we should probably just double check it was one there is a little awkwardness some stuff happens through OPR and some stuff happens through ANR like I think it was ANR that did the wastewater treatment facility regulate licensing so just wouldn't want to leave somebody out inadvertently just because we have a sort of split system for regulation okay all right so we'll I'll try and get all these people for some tomorrow on someone Tuesday Tucker Tucker make sure that we touched on the issue that you all had reviewed yesterday which was disconnections from water services currently there's a moratorium on disconnections from water and wastewater services and the questions that you all had were around whether that's something that should be automatically triggered in the future under declared state of emergency maybe some particular declared state of emergency where your water and sewer cannot be shut off if you are incapable of paying your bill during the state of emergency and Chris that was do we want to put that in here or not and we covered so we also covered this and finance was involved as well because they regulate we have this strange split system in the Senate was but I would just say yes so we looked at all the basic services so uh you know drinking water waste wastewater electrical regulated utilities like natural gas these people the people count on they they all were given a moratorium on disconnects and then subsequently you know money has been distributed to the utilities so that those who did not pay bills can be waived I don't know the exact process they're using to waive bills but part of it is as commissioner Tierney said for someone who's financially challenged the last thing you want to do is then start to rack up a bunch of uh oh you know behind payment and start ruining someone's credit history so they're trying to make sure that those who are economically disadvantaged don't become even more disadvantaged by an inability to make timely payments I need to say it now you're muted right okay do we need to put in here that provision that we put in about disconnect from water and sewer or is that going to be assumed or is it something because it is a do we need to put that in here like we did in the bill originally so um you we're talking about inserting this into municipal water and no we're we're not doing a municipal bill here we're doing a comprehensive lessons we learned I mean we're doing OPR and board of medical practice and so this isn't a municipal bill okay I just want to make sure because we end up with more than one system delivering these services um yes I would say this this was a fun to us it was a fundamental thing make sure everyone can keep on having all these basic services okay so this would be the the uh the nexus here would be a disaster that um impacts people's ability to pay their their their bills there it wouldn't be any kind of a disaster it would be a disaster that had that impact right so it's really like an economic disaster right for okay got that Tucker so I'm going to switch a little bit here and then I'm going to get off and let you guys get off and um contact all these people but and if anybody else has anything to add but we talked about the vsea thing and I said that I would tell you what um the I had a conversation today with uh Beth vestigy and I don't think the um I don't think that they the administration is opposed to putting off reopening the negotiations for the contract until um there's some need to like um we we don't know now if we should reopen them or not because next year when we do the budget we may fully fund the pay act and then there is no need to their their concern was around the language the specifics of the language so I think that um we we can work that out and they're working with the house appropriations committee to try and get the language right um the language that vsea gave us said that if they couldn't reopen until the legislature adjourned well it's really until the bill the budget is passed and which they they do coincide but it's assuming that we could pass a budget and then not adjourn for a while if we don't fully fund the pay act they want to be able to reopen the negotiations right away when they know that there isn't sufficient funding in there so that was I just got that so I don't know that there's um we we can have the discussion but about whether we want to just tell the appropriations committee that um we we agree with the concept the wording should be really worked out by appropriations I think Betsy Ann just to give you an update yeah House of Props voted on approving language that just confirmed what the legislative intent was um from their perspective for inclusion in the budget um so you should be seeing that assuming it stays in the bill as currently presented and I think that that's what Beth said is that she would she'd offered to come in and talk to us but she felt that it would be premature until the house actually had some language and it might be language that the administration actually supports so yeah so we can take a deep breath on this yeah I think that there's I understood that the controversy was around whether or not to reopen right now but that I had totally misunderstood that or it had been misrepresented in me anyway so the controversy was about the not the intent but the specific language so I just I just wanted to pass that on to you so that you knew why we weren't necessarily pursuing that and I did send the rest of the budget stuff to to the Appropriations Committee anything else no no