 Good morning. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. It is Thursday morning and we have we have dedicated the next three hours or so to hearing other folks put ideas on the table. We we aim to be good listeners and ask clarifying questions of the different folks who are bringing ideas in front of us. And also, we'll ask folks to please stick to the principle of presenting their own idea as opposed to spending time remarking on other ideas that have gone on the table. And so we are going to hear a broad range of ideas from a broad variety of folks from inside the legislature, as well as some folks from outside the legislature. So our first presentation this morning is Representative Beck from St. John'sbury and I believe you're going to be talking about your H 119 are you also talking about the short form bill that you are still having the works. I can speak to both but I'll start with 119. All right, you've got the floor and please leave about 10 minutes for questions if you can. How much, how much time do you want to spend on this total 30 minutes total. Okay. All right. I'll be, I'll be quicker than 20 minutes. Excellent. Okay, so how still 119 is a bill to address the, the same problem that this committee is trying to address which is the unfounded liability and the ADEC payments that continue to increase. So we'll get into the bill real quick and then get to a little bit of the why, and then we'll get into questions. So, section one of the bill requires the, that the existing teacher retirement system and state employee retirement system, the close to any active members that are invested by July 1 2023, and that the treasurer recommend a plan for new employees no later than December 15 of 2021. Now, with some constraints on that new system, specifically, that the new system have a separate accounting from the legacy systems which systems that we're currently in right now, that they utilize the same board of trustees that the existing legacy systems use as a recommendation for a schedule of payment through 2050 to continue to address the unfunded liability. And that, that the new system that the treasurer recommends that it not be funded by the general fund, including the OPEB side so that would have to be funded by the employees and employers not the, not the general fund, which was how the legacy systems were supposed to work, but that's not where we ended up. And that would all be effective on July 1 2021. Okay, so the, the, the why here. Well, let me just stop right there are there any questions about the bill itself from anybody. Anyone have any clarifying questions understand the objective as laid out. Okay, I'll keep going. Scott, it takes too long on these things to get your hand up. Are you anticipating any interference with your second suggestion of a system and the elective defined contribution systems that are available now to the state. I don't, I don't in this language here I don't predispose the, the treasurer to, you know, I know there's, there's defined benefit systems they're defined contribution systems there are hybrid systems out there that people are using I don't, I don't predispose that conversation at all. She treasure be free to recommend whatever. I suspect you'd have a conversation with the employee employees to see what you know what their thoughts were and the heads of the different the SEA and the NEA but I don't predispose that that conversation or that outcome. And I asked the question because and I don't know the answer to this but I impression that certain defined contribution systems would not be allowable a certain other defined conferences. Safe positions were were in existence and that's just that nexus between the two that I don't know about that I thought maybe you might have. Now, like I said that would be for the treasure to discover through a thoughtful fact finding process and listening to all the parties that are involved. Yep. Okay. McCarthy. Thanks for bringing this to us representative back. My question has to do with the number four so if if we say that all the existing unfunded liabilities which has been sort of the focus of our conversation here is what to do about that. Those looming benefits costs. Do you do you have a sense of what that schedule might look like you know this year the amount that the state taxpayers that we all as Vermonters are going to put into the system is topping the $300 million across the Yeah, that's a good question it's kind of getting into the wire so let me just let me just go there. Basically, you know, I think this committee knows is that, you know, the real problem here that we're, we're facing is that the a deck, the general fund, the general fund portion of the a deck. And it keeps going up even faster than that and it's just, it's just, it's just killing the general fund, and it's taken away a lot of resources from other things that we could be doing to solve what is really our number one problem which is our demographics problem. So, to answer your question, representative McCarthy. If you close the system to new employees. Effectively what happens is, is that at the end of this plan. You don't have to have this huge enormous pot of money to finance the future, because the future is they're all out of the system way down the road. Okay, so what that allows you to do is it allows you to use the fund itself which is over $2 billion. To help you keep those general fund payments down over time and possibly even spread them out over time, and still meet all of the, the still being able to provide all the benefits that the employees were produced. Okay, so to directly circle back to your question. Yes, it is my it is my belief that if you if you had an actuary. Look at this and said, at the end if you know it at the end you want to be at zero, right when the last retiree, you know passes. None should be zero, because there's nobody else to, to, to support here. And if you can work that through and not be forced to have this enormous pot of money at the end. Then you can bring down those, those general fund contributions, and you can free up, you can free up that money. Now what would that look like. I don't know an actuary would actually have to do that work. You know you could say, hey it's what we paid today is flat for this many years, or you could say, you know for the next until 2038 we don't have to grow it at 3% we could grow it at, you know, 1% or maybe less, but but an actuary would actually have to figure out what that new cost schedule would be. And then you'd compare it to the existing but I am confident that it would be a, it would be a far more generous repayment schedule than what we're looking at right now because there is no requirement required there would be no requirement to have that enormous pot of money at the end. So I'm going to go to Tom Hooper and then we should give Scott a chance to get back to sharing any thoughts that he clarifying question Scott I don't have it in front of me I'm trying to bring it up but you mentioned $2 million, which is not the total fund that VPIC is managing are you proposing this only for the state employee group. No, I, I'm proposing it for both that was just an example that I, I think this, I think the state employee fund is about the same amount of money though. So, I mean I really kind of got at the why they're responding to Representative McCarthy but basically, you know, I mean I think it's just at this point in time, you know, we are struggling mightily with this general fund contribution to the ADAC, you know, for the purpose of building up this fund to, you know, $5.7 billion. And if we can reduce that payment and not be required in the end to have that $5.7 billion in bank we can use that, that existing fund balance to pay benefits and if everybody gets paid the, the benefits that they were promised. So I look at it as it's less of a burden on the general fund. Everybody gets the benefits they were promised. You know I think that the current the, the contribution rates do need to probably go up by about a half a percent to reflect the most recent experience study and a correct normal cost. You know, and you may want to increase, you know, outside of this bill but maybe increase it by some other marginal amount of, you know, a quarter or something to reflect what the percent of the normal cost that the employees haven't paid because we haven't adjusted the contribution rates but I think you're talking about relatively small amounts. And then for the new employees, put together a fund, you know, a plan, the treasurer that is, you know, really, you know, guaranteed that the normal cost will be collected. It will be the correct normal cost and that there are mechanisms in there to adjust for demographic trends and shortfalls and investment. You had one piece in the other bill I thought was a good one that, you know, there's a mechanism in there to recover. And then we, you know, we could tell the radio agencies we could say listen, our new employee fund has no unfunded liability. Our legacy funds are expiring and this is our strategy to, you know, to fully fund them, make sure everybody gets their benefits, but the unfunded liability is not really the issue anymore. The issue is, is we just have to pay the correct amount of money in to make sure that everybody gets their benefits. And when that last person is done, that the fund is at zero. So that's basically the, the why Peter Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair Scott nice to see you thanks for bringing this forward and see if I have two questions one, the projected termination date of 2050 that's that's sort of a back of the envelope. When you think this will all be unwound right I mean, no it's actually, it's actually not. Oh, okay. You know that's a number that that's a number that actually would actually, you know, make some recommendations of what actually made sense and date. But that number where it was chosen was because it was an estimate of that's when probably the last vested employee in the system right now will likely retire somewhere around that date. Okay, you said you said retire but as you probably know, a lot of these are our life lifespan determined so anyway I don't want to belabor that. Yeah, I understand that that's, that's a difficult target target to me. What I really want to go on to is, while you're saying that there's no presupposition about where the new plan would land in terms of the choices. There's really a deference of delegation to the treasure to make a recommendation. I'm a little puzzled because if there's no corpus there's no trust is no fun. You either start out bonding to create a fund or you're on pay go. And it seems to me that does presuppose what the treasure could bring forward could you, could you sort of work me a little bit on that because starting with no money means your pay go or you're somewhere else. Well I think you know, you know I've obviously I have never started a defined benefit plan or a defined contribution plan from scratch. When people enter into a, you know these would be non vested employees only that would be going into this plan. So, obviously in the first I mean there'd be no. I mean you're not going to, they're not going to be in retirement benefits paid out for a while. You know you have those those beginning years to, you know bring those normal costs and build that fund up in anticipation that you could support the retirees whether it's I don't know. 1020 30 years you know when they first start retiring the first groups, you would build up that that fund, I mean, the normal costs would have to be correct. You know you the normal cost has to be correct. I can guess this that you may know judges may begin drawing in a very few years, just because of the way the plan currently is state police mandatory retired 55 they may only have in 12 years. So it's, it's a, it's a, it's a mishmash of how long you have or how far in advance you have to start putting in. And I don't expect you to have thought that out I'm just saying, starting a fund is not as simple as saying oh I got 20 years to build up a trust. I'm not sure that's so but thank you. No, you're right I mean it would certainly I mean, you don't want me building a new fund. I don't have the, I don't have the knowledge to do that. I mean it would have to be done prior professionals actuaries, you know, there with me I'm sure that you don't do it in an afternoon. It's, it would have to be done thoughtfully. Anything else you want to. So I mean, just that I really think that you know the problem here is the increasing general fund contribution to the a deck. And that's the, that's the thing that's killing us and it's, it's preventing general from dollars from going to a really most important problem which is solving our demographics. And if we can find a way to slow that growth in the a deck down or flatline it or do whatever we can do, and still give our, our employees that are invested, the benefits that they were promised. And we've, you know, we've remained true to those, to those employees that were in the system. And, you know, we can, we can solve that growing a deck problem that's that's really, really hurt us, and hold on the state back. Rob, the player. Good morning, madam chair good morning Scott. Morning, Rob. I understand the why I'm still trying to understand the how I get the concept behind this but the, as you had so appropriately termed it, the legacy system. How do we go through and address the projected a deck payments and costs for those that are in the legacy system up to, you know, say if you if your 2030 date is correct we're still going to deal with that ongoing thing for another 29 years. So how would we address the, the ongoing but more current expenses that are associated with that and and funding. Well I think the, you know the funding, you have your normal cost. And we know what that is based on the experience study, we know what the normal cost is. We know what the, we know what the fund balance is, you know it's a little over $2 billion right now. And we, we have an idea of the expected payout of benefits over time. And then what what an act where you do is they would look at that and they would say okay you've, you've got this much money. You've got this this is the payment schedule of the active employees. This is the benefit schedule of the retired members and the active members. Okay, and you want to be at $0 by the end. Okay, so what, what does the state what does the, you know, what does the ADEC need to be for the next, whatever, you know, 2025 30 whatever they recommend, what is the ADEC need to be. And then you, you know from the ADEC you subtract the normal cost, and that tells you what the general fund contributions going to need to be, but in an actuary would have to do that work. And I do that that actual number that is to be repaid annually and the schedule over time for that payment to occur. Okay, all right. Yeah, because I think this is more of a comment act is if I heard one of the presenters yesterday correctly I believe the teacher's fund is bleeding principal at about 13 million a month right now. And obviously, this is a situation that needs to be addressed much sooner than later but thank you. Yeah, you know I do know the teacher's fun a little bit I think their benefits. Let's see, I've got that actually I've got that right in front of me here. The teachers benefits in 2020 were $201 million. The employee contributions were 127 employer contributions were 127 member contributions were 166. So that's a difference of 35 million. Okay, so where would that $35 million come from it would have to come from the fund itself. But of course that fund is growing so the question would be whether the growth was greater than $35 million. It is, I don't know what the growth of the fund was last year, but it is, it is possible that the growth of the fund was less than the fund that can happen any year if you know if you have the fun has a bad year but of course over time, you have good years and you have bad years so I wouldn't say that's outside the realm of possibility. It could be true. I mean, it wouldn't be true if the fun was what it should be. But the fun isn't what it should be unfortunately. I thought if I may interject I asked Mr galanka specifically that question, and he says no no no, we're not eating up the principle. Okay. Yeah, I mean 3035 million dollars on a $2 billion fund is only 1.75%. You know only you had 1.75% growth you would cover that 35 million. But the last year the market was really good. I would hope they made at least 1.75%, but I don't know for sure. Bob Hooper. Thank you Madam chair, as usual, the senior member from Barry asked a question that confused me. I see you've had that same experience. My impression is that, you know, your, your plan is that eventually the fund will go to zero balance. Yeah, at this point in time. Again, my impression is that the actual snapshot of the projected liabilities unfunded and funded based upon the composition of the workforce on the day the snapshot was taken. My impression is that at the end of the career of those people that are in that particular snapshot. There's an unfunded liability exists. So, when you're talking about freeing up general fund. You're still going to have to be dealing with the unfunded liability that exists from the legacy fund. So you're projecting out from the date of hire. When every the new plan starts everybody that is in the system before that which will be somebody that has probably a rule of 87 or rule of 90 career. Plus their normal retirement life and it's if it's a healthy woman, we can probably assume that's another 35 years. That's a long time that we're going to still be. We're going to be saying to the general fund, give me, give me, give me. So I assume in the assumption that we're talking a long time before this is freed up because, as people continue to not pay into the legacy, the unfunded liability quote unquote is going to rely upon stock market gains and state and the third leg of that stool which is in ongoing employee contributions is going to disappear. So quite frankly, we're, we're placing the legacy fund, and it's unfunded liability in a worse position over time, just because of the snapshot of people that are moving forward. Yeah I mean, well, you're absolutely correct I mean that the, you know, if you're not letting any new people into the legacy system. Then the, the, the current amount is going to decrease over time because you have fewer people in there, and that yeah that that's that's absolutely true. So, you know that's where the actuary will say, hey, you know, this is, this is going to be a decreasing revenue contributions is going to decrease at this rate. And they're going to, yeah, they're going to have to factor that into their recommended edict schedule. But it's a, it's an x rated curve for graph because as employee contributions go down, as current snapshot goes out of the workforce and becomes retired and starts drawing more. It's going to fall more obligation upon the state to make up for what they used to be paying in, nobody's there to replace them to pay. So that that looks to me like it's going to be a curve that has a pretty strong tail at the end of it. Well, only if only if the adic is wrong. I mean that's I mean that the adic is should account for all of that. You know, they know what the, they know what the benefit schedule of payment is. They know what the contribution schedule of payment is. They know what the fund is they know what the funds supposed to get. I mean, yeah, they'll, they will absolutely say, you know, hey, when, when the, when the last person in the workforce retires, and there's no more employee contributions. And this is what the fund will need to be to make sure everybody gets taken care of it. Yeah, they'll absolutely crank that in. And does it force the adic to be higher than it otherwise normally would have been. Of course. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, there's no, there's no free lunches here. Yeah, yeah. I think the point that I'm trying to get to is in the, there will be a steep drop off in general fund availability for a while and then at the end it'll probably go back up again but it's a long horizon. Yeah, it depends on depends on what the actually mean. I guess I'd be actually could recommend a growing payment or a decreasing payment or a flat payment. They could adjust that by a number of years you know I mean that's real. That's real high level work that a true actuary would would have to do. Absolutely. Not your TI 12. Thank you. No. Interesting proposal. And we've got three minutes and so I'm going to go first to John Ganon because Peter you've had one question already so give John his first and if we have time we'll get to yours next go ahead John. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Scott for coming in today and testifying and bringing a new idea to us. We're at the end of page two and the beginning of page three where you say the state employees retirement the new the employee contribution shall not be funded by the general fund. And then you say the new systems the cost of other pension benefits shall not be funded by the general fund. Yep. So if they're not being funded by the general fund where's the money coming from the employees and employers. The employer so okay on the state side the employer is the state. Right they have special funds in it. Yep. Yep. In the case the teacher retirement system that's the education fund. You make the employers cost and then in the on the for the state employees there's a special fund that that makes that payment for the state employees. But yeah what I'm talking about is the general fund you know not basically from the get go there's not you know we're going to set this up so there is no unfunded liability that the general fund has to pay for. But absolutely there will be you know that I would have on the state employees side there will be an fund that that pays that portion of normal cost. Yep. No it's it's not it's not just on the employee. Okay but so that money would have where would that money come from if it can't come from the general fund on the state employee side. Well they have a special they have a special fund that makes that payment. But it's not general fund it's a special but it's public dollars. If that's actually getting that yeah it's absolutely public dollars but it's not it's not out of the general fund it's out of a special fund for the purpose of making that employer portion of the state employee normal cost. But we would need to appropriate that money from somewhere. Of course. Okay thank you. Yeah it's not free. I mean, if we said the state will not pay any amount at all, then then then it would all fall to the employee. That's not what I'm suggesting here. Thank you so much representative back for for coming in and starting us off this morning. A welcome folks who have lingering questions to to contact representative back via email or give him a phone call later in the day. Okay, thank you I appreciate it. All right, so I am now inviting in our 930. Thank you madam chair this is quickly this is one of those rare occasions where I am hopefully very wrong. But the junior member from the city that I swear I heard Eric Henry say yesterday that the teachers fund is bleeding 1316 million dollars a month. Did I did I not hear that. I book I recall hearing that. Okay, but I was slightly confused by his answer when I asked to follow up to that so that might be something worth. Mike McCarthy, do you have a recollection. Yeah, I don't know if. So, to, I think, representative Leclerc is talking about the principal. Pay paying out from the earnings of the fund and that might be where the distinction lies but we should go back and get clarity on that. Okay, sorry, thank you. So, next up we have Amy town she is the president of the Vermont State Employees Association, and they have been hard at work. Putting together a potential proposal here and so welcome Amy and please share your thoughts with us. Are you with us, Amy. I'm sorry about having some zoom issues. It's been the morning. That's for sure. Good morning, Madam chair and members of the committee my name for the record is Amy town and I am the president of the VCA as well as a 21 year state employee. The last of the last 16 years I have spent serving my community as a worker for economic services in my community based. I have been establishing benefits for managers most vulnerable sorry I'm very nervous. This is VCA's biggest fight in our 75 year history so I will try not to get emotional and stick to the script I've drafted probably 11 different versions of this testimony I'm about to give. No pressure, right. Today I'm here to present a proposal on behalf of our over 6000 members in response to the proposal shared at House government operations last week for the chair by the chair and vice chair. I would like to remind this committee and those who are watching today that while our pension system is underfunded. We are nowhere near insolvency, we have over 5 going in with a be an assets the sky is not falling we have time to slow down this process and be thoughtful and how we act. And I would also like to remind this committee and those who are watching today that I'm here to present a proposal on behalf of our over 6000 members in response to which the VCA is choosing to respond today is aimed at eliminating 225 million additional unfunded liability that resulted in a change in assumptions. And I would like to remind this committee and those who are watching today that I'm here to present a proposal on behalf of our over 6000 members in response to unfunded liability for visas by 2038, just as we had a vision and agreed to back in 2010. We are participating in zoom meetings at lunch evenings and weekends, as well as surveys over the course of the last few weeks. Our board voted unanimously to reject the framework currently being discussed in this committee, and instead crafted a proposal that recognizes the importance of maintaining our benefit levels and honors the work of our state employees. Put it up sorry. I did submit the proposal to the committee so you should have that. Sorry to interrupt me to send this to our committee assistant. So I can, I can certainly do that again. Our VCA proposal, the first bullet on it is any final proposals put forth will not negatively impact current retirees or active employees who are within 10 years of current normal at retirement eligibility and inactive vested members application of one time monies towards the unfunded liability we are seeking for the long time monies in the amount of 225 million which is that increase in unfunded liability we saw over the last year due to that change of that assumption change. We are seeking to designate a revenue source that would bring in an annual contribution of 50 million. We are doing that recognizing the impact on the general fund. We recognize the strain and we are committed to maintaining our benefit levels and would like would would agree to a contribution increase of 0.35 across all groups. We are seeking to create group G, otherwise known as H 305, which would move corrections employees who supervise offenders or work in the facility. We are not veterans home workers, the PCH MTCR, or any other successor psychiatric facility, as well as the training personnel of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council into this plan that would offer retirement at 55 or early retirement at 50. The contribution rate and benefits would be the same as group C. This plan honors and recognizes the work of some of our highest stressed employees, it would work as a routine retention tool as well as a recruitment tool and as modeled after retirement systems that we are seeing across New England for this specific work group. Group F, we are seeking to incentivize current members eligible for retirement to continue working past their 30 years by increasing their AFC and additional 1% each year. We are offering a similar incentive for a group C members by incentivizing those members eligible for early retirement at age 50 to continue working with a 1% increase to their AFC up to their mandatory retirement at 55. We are looking to pass language that would codify the Burlington firefighters decision into statute, which is language that would solidify that pensions are seen or viewed as a contract. We would like to further investigate and study prior investment performance to codify best practices moving forward through an audit and evaluation conducting an independent evaluation of our pension systems performance using expert analysis contracted through the auditor's office. The evaluation will identify reasons for the funds performance and inter independently ascertain and certify the performance valuation and fees of alternative investment managers like private equity real estate hedge funds and commodities going back to 2011. And we want to identify and we want to identify alternate and potential investment strategies to improve and stabilize performance. We are committed to having the strongest pension system possible. And we believe that we need to look back and see what has gone wrong in order to develop those best practices. And we also finally, we also want to look at governance that governance best practices, those shall be defined as the recommendation of the study initiated by VPIC independence of members to the system on VPIC shall be a priority with no In conclusion, I hope that as this proposal will be considered by this committee, a good faith is our attempt to advance the pension discussion forward. As with this proposal put forward by the chair and vice chair, these are complex issues which, in our opinion, do not lend themselves well to being decided in a span of a few weeks. It is our hope that today, we are starting a dialogue with the General Assembly and your committee specifically that will continue through the summer and fall. The SEA has repeatedly said that we believe that any benefit or governance changes shall be decided over a summer study composed equally of legislators, perhaps members of this committee, and your counterparts in the Senate, as well as union members who can give this discussion the focused attention that it deserves. And if I did an attempt to give you all a picture of what the discussion thus far has been like for our members, my fellow state employees and I are exhausted, we have carried the burden of this pandemic on our backs. Every press conference that the governor has he's getting accolades, but what you don't see are the people standing behind him. The state workforce has lifted him up this entire time it is the work of the folks in the field. It is the work of the folks at their kitchen tables with their kids screaming that has continued to keep the state running. We are asking you to just take a breath. The advantage of the one time monies look at revenue source and give us a chance to do the work that we need so we can secure pension system that's viable for my children and their children. Thank you for your time. And I'm hopeful that we can find a solution together. Thank you so much, Amy. That I very much appreciate the hard work that that you and your board have put into bringing this idea to put on the table and the set of ideas and would welcome committee members to ask questions so go ahead Mike for wiki. Thank you for taking the time and I understand this can be really nerve wracking, and I think you did great. So thanks for your work there. As a state employee and someone in the union, I've been puzzled, and hope you can help me figure this out. We took a lot of testimony over the last few days and one of the things that came up again, and again, and again was membership testifying that bad investment decisions by legislators have been detrimental to the fund. Now, as I understand it, there are no legislators on the board pension boards that make that make up these decisions. I'm trying to get a sense from you is what we need to do to educate them as to who exactly is on the board, and who's making those decisions. I think it's a really great question and I'll do my best to answer it while I am certainly not someone I would consider to be a pension guru, I've become some somewhat knowledgeable in our systems and committees and the makeup and all that stuff crash course right under pressure. I think, I think that it is. I'm trying to think of how I want to say this. I think our members are very aware of the makeup of the boards and the governance of the boards. Maybe they weren't before but this issue certainly has brought things to light. We have union union representatives on these boards we have one member on VPIC and we have an alternate. We have two, three members and an alternate that serve on the beasters committee. We also recognize that the committee involves a number of other people. We have membership on these boards of people who have skin in the game, and I can't speak to the level of expertise but I know that these people that sit on these boards take their position very seriously. I'd like to see a review and I think our members would like to see a review or an accountability of the decisions that were made as far as investments were dedicated that process you see that as part of our proposal. Hindsight is 2020 we need to focus on moving forward so we don't repeat those mistakes. I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I do want to I do want to just add the caveat that make no mistake about it our members are watching. They're activated they're activated and they're looking to create the strongest pension system possible and I think that we can continue this discussion and come to to find out what that looks like. Peter Anthony. Thank you Amy for thank you madam chair. Thank you Amy for coming in and and how shall I say widening the discussion about where the parameters are and where you think we ought to go I let me reduce my question to do one particular question you made, and it did come up obviously in the set of hearings, and that was the plea by many members, both on the teacher side and the state employees side to not to disturb their retirement plan. I'm hearing you say, and what they said was what what the chair and vice chair put on the table. What I was thinking, maybe a little longer you put on the table, not to disturb folks who are closer than 10 years to their normal retirement under the current plans. I thank you for that because it answers a question. I've been repeatedly having what's reasonable in this, if we had to change some of the parameters. I appreciate that. I don't think it's any easier. If you if you started from ground from a blank slate and tried to create a new benefit retirement benefit, then slowly moving in a particular direction with the current system, both on the right hand side on the benefit side. So I thank you for indicating where you think some of the parameters could be reasonably moved and I appreciate that. I'm sorry there wasn't a question in there I just, I just wanted to zero in on the on the what's the planning retirement horizon because that's very important it's very emotional, and for practical reasons. The actuary folks really look at that because it really defines what the payout horizon looks like. So thank you. Thank you. And I just do want to comment to that even though it wasn't necessarily a question. I, I feel the need to point out to you as a committee that my board of trustees is extremely eclectic we are 18 members strong and we have a very diverse scope or thought from each of those members the position that I presented today the proposal that I presented today was not unanimous. Our board itself is divided on this issue. And the parameters that I, I explained this morning as bullet number one the tenure that piece was not unanimous. So, our membership sees this whole issue as far as far as pension reform as divisive. And so our board was really trying to come up with a proposal that would honor the work of same employees but that number one that caveat was incredibly divisive and hard to come to. Any time you have. Thanks Amy for being here I have a couple of questions and one of them does kind of come down to that point. So I know you're asking for a summer working group to really dig into this issue and my and I would assume that all of the proposed changes would sort of be things to investigate and not like let's do that and then have a summer working group correct. That's one of the things that we didn't really discuss as far as timeline but certainly the priority is to slow the process down. We, we looked at the application of one times, one time money as something that needed to be done immediately we want to capture that before someone else does. We recognize the important to expedite that piece. We also saw the revenues, we thought that the revenue source or appealing to you. To add the revenue piece as something moving forward was incredibly important, recognizing the strain on the general fund to make the payments we hear that constantly the conversation that legislators are saying the strain on the strain the strain the strain. So alleviate the strain on the general fund and create a revenue source. We, we loved going Senator Hooker's proposal regarding taxing the rich we certainly understand there might not be an appetite but we're not married to that we are, we are open to any designation of a revenue source. The employee contribution, we are dedicated to this process. We recognize in order to maintain the benefit levels that we need to show movement and so that employee contribution, albeit small point three five that will impact some of our lower wage workers in a very significant way. So we felt that that was something that we needed to bring to your attention as something that could potentially be immediate. And then the rest of the pieces were something that we could maybe slow down and investigate a little bit more, but incentivizing our workforce to stay longer by increasing their ASC one percentage year is something important because right now, I'm not sure that this understands or that legislators understand right now, our members are panicking they are making life decisions based on a framework. Right, this isn't even a bill yet people are losing their minds, I cannot bold highlight underline accentuate this fact to you enough. I spoke with a worker yesterday who works in the medical examiner's office and she spoke to the fact that they have three staff in them to recruit for that position. There's only 500 it's a special in the country it's a specialized field, and that people in that department there's only three are talking about retirement, and how the wage in the state of Vermont isn't even competitive in the country. We are losing people not just at the bottom we are losing people at the top you're losing that knowledge. So, our, our proposal sorry tongue tied and emotional, our proposal honors the work of our longevity workers. The ASC increase is something that's important, and it saves money because the longer you stay with the state, the more you're contributing to the system and you're not drawing off it so let's incentivize not scare our workers are most seasoned workers to stay. Yeah, thank you for that I just trying to kind of understand your your time frame there the other question that I had for you as I know you pointed to the summer task force being evenly split between workers and legislators I'm wondering if you have and maybe you don't but had a more drilled down idea of who you who specifically you might want to see on that task force. I think, ultimately, the split is the most important, but the belief or the thought behind it was, we would like legislators right and and the union members to be able to sit down and really flesh through the details and come to not just an agreement but an understanding and I think it's an opportunity to continue that dialogue and a really respectful way. So both sides really understand where each are coming from. It's great to be able to testify in committee and be able to talk to you, but this is not the same as developing a rapport over a number of weeks and months and really getting to understand the issue from both perspectives. So for us, the makeup of the committee 5050 is more important than me telling you I think it should be this person this person this person. Awesome that's really helpful for me and I just I want to sort of clarify. Because I realized that what I asked was specific people but I sort of what I was really looking for is are you hoping to kind of work for together with the teachers union and the employees union and the municipal unions and like the representatives from across the border are you really looking to drill down on a VSE a specific plan what is who sort of broadly like. So I can answer that question. For us treasure pierces recommendations were really clear we understood that her recommendations were circled around a target of meeting 225 million and savings, the proposal or framework whatever we're calling it. And as currently being being discussed in House government operations. I'm not sure what that target is I'm not sure if it's reform. I'm not sure if it's 225 million and savings. So I think in order to be able to have these conversations and determine the work groups around it we really need to figure out. What is the target. Is it being reformed to our systems are we seeking savings, and if there's commonalities absolutely bring the bring the stakeholders to the table bring the municipal workers and the teachers right but if it's not if it's something specific to the focus work should be research members as well as legislators. Awesome thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you madam chair. Good morning Amy thank you for being here it's a pleasure to meet you even from afar. I'm interested in that a couple of, and I'm not sure how to frame it the proposals or discussion points that you brought up today. Have you been able to quantify what how those would affect the different pensions as far as ongoing potential liability current costs. We don't have access to an actuary. And it's hard to believe right we don't all have access to these professional number crunchers. And I'm not sure you would want me to come up with the numbers I could barely budget my checkbook, but there was a little bit of work and discussion very early on in this process with the treasurer. We started speaking or having dialogues with the treasurer on the pension issue just after November, and we had looked at running a very, a various number of scenarios that incentivize as well as try to find savings so this was part of our initial discussion, as far as incentivizing group C and group F to stay longer the increase in the AFC, the work around group G. That has been one of our legislative priorities within the SCA for a number of years. Initially when we had looked to try to cost it out it looked like it could be potentially cost neutral. I can't quantify that. But the savings from group G moving those folks those high risk folks into group G would impact recruitment attention so we believe that some of the savings would come from those costs, as well as their increased contribution so I'm sorry I don't have a more formal number for you. Maybe someday we'll have actuaries but not today. Thank you. Mike McCarthy. Hi Amy I really appreciate you bringing a proposal to us I mean I came before your members at a dinner back in January. You know the unfunded liabilities are scary. What a lot of your members are doing with the work right now and serving for monitors is also really challenging in this time so I really appreciate your willingness to come and put some things on the table that's amazing. It's been, it's been a lot of time of us talking about one proposal and not having the feedback from you all. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the $225 million bullet point. We've been talking a lot about what the states what monitors are going to put into the pension systems this year. You know that increase across the visas and visa system is about three is over three. It's over 100 million. It's over 300 million dollars over last year it's over 300 million dollars total. Plus we've put another 150 million dollars of, you know, sort of freed up money, new revenue for a total, you know, state across the two systems of employer contribution this year of over 450 million dollars if everything went through. So I'm wondering where that 225 million dollars, you know, in your proposal. Does that include the additional money that is in sort of the budget this year that additional 100 million ish does is it just into the visa system so if you could tell me a little bit about what that money is as a bullet point because it just says one time thanks. Yes, sure. Thank you. So we saw the, the application of one time monies and the amount of 225 because that's what we as visa experience and unfunded liability growth over the last year. And we are under, we are under the understanding that that 225 million increase to our unfunded liability was cause for a number of things but the majority of it I believe was like 183 of it. Million was caused by that change of the rate of the change of the rate of return, as well as the change in the assumption. So as workers, we are pretty upset to think that that would be looked at as our responsibility to to pay. So we were seeking one time monies. I know 225 million dollars seems like a lot of money, it is a lot of money, but when you look at the fact that we have over $5 billion in assets almost 6 billion in assets. That's really just a chip off the block. We were hoping or seeking that that would be applied or found to be applied to our unfunded liability for the visa system. So I think that was the one time monies coming from federal relief to states and I recognize that there cannot be any direct application of that money to our pension system. But we were also thinking there's other ways to get creative with one time monies whether it's law settlements through the state's attorney's office or one time monies through other different funding funding rewards that are coming through to the states sales of real money. So we are looking to you to be creative to try to find solutions to achieve that 225 million that we saw literally overnight after a rate of great change in assumptions. And that is in addition to the monies that you're putting in, and we recognized that there is strain, right, we recognize and are grateful that the payment was put into the budget, but you know now's the time. It's, there's a lot of money coming into the state, and if pensions are the issue, then we need to take care of it this time take advantage of this time. I've used this reference before I was a firefighter I know you can't tell but for 10 years I was a level one firefighter in Morrisville, and when you pull up on scene, and there's a raging house fire. Do you apply the water on the raging house fire, or do you say hey look, there's a flower let's put the water on the flower, new programs are great, but when there's one time monies available, you put out the raging house fire, you don't take the time to plan a flower. You can do that when you free up the general funds. Next year that was applied to take care of the unfundal liability. That's what I wanted to make but now I'm thinking about being on the fire department so sorry, I would be. I'm losing my mind a little sorry. Thank you Amy for for coming this morning and sharing and also giving time for committee questions. It is 10 o'clock so we do need to shift gears to the next idea that's being put on the table but I again I will welcome members to reach out to me if they have questions, and certainly this will. This will be the start of a conversation not the end so thank you for being here today. Thank you. All right, so committee. Next up on the morning's agenda is a familiar face to many of us, someone who who sat in these chairs served in this body in the past. Welcome Cynthia Browning, and if you have a presentation to share with us that would be fabulous I know that many folks have seen the written testimony that you have already submitted but if you have something new please. Please do tell us and leave time for some questions. So welcome Cynthia. Thank you so much. Good morning. Yes, I did submit testimony. I know that you may not all have had a chance to read it. I will review some of the points, relatively briefly, and then I will try to make a few more additional points. I did listen to the testimony on Monday from state employees and teachers, and the distress, the heartfelt concerns and anxiety is very, very clear. I would put it to you that it is because of such concerns that this committee needs to continue to work on this topic. I believe that the treasure is correct that the current structure of the retirement systems is not sustainable. And the idea that it's what's laid out now is going to happen is really a kind of an optical illusion. It would be better for state employees and teachers to have reduced retirement that are reliable and have an illusion. I know this is not fair. There's nothing about this situation that is particularly fair. In order to make this program work, I think we have to face reality. We all have to accept our responsibilities, even as we assert our rights, and we have to allocate state resources using those principles. These retirement systems are shared obligations. Yes, they are defined benefits which puts the risk and the cost of unexpected developments on the state. However, it is clear that the expected costs were greatly underestimated, and the costs that are currently foreseen are just not going to work for the state. I think it's really important for people to understand that since 2008, the state has been putting in full required contribution, and in many cases, more than the full required contributions. And yet now we are further behind in terms of funding these systems, and we were when we started out. Even if we made no changes in the systems and somehow managed to fund them as they are in the new evaluation, this kind of reevaluation could happen again. And it's just not going to work. Since when I served in the legislature, I began in 2007. So right about the time that the first big reevaluation happened. I have seen more and more of the face budget go to these systems. The spending for these systems has crowded out spending on school construction with the result that we have a backlog on affordable housing with result that we have a crisis. It has crowded out spending on broadband with result that we have grave inequities there. So it's been very, very difficult state has a profound obligation to do funding systems, but it's not the only obligation that the state has. And it has to balance this obligation with other really profound and grave obligations as well. I also think it's important for the beneficiaries to understand that if the state is not able to support reminders and invest in projects that will fuel economic development, the tax revenue to fund these systems will not be there. Contracts are renegotiated all the time. In particular, with private private systems, when you have a bankruptcy or municipal bankruptcy, the pensions get renegotiated. I think it's really important to renegotiate the system before we get to that point. I believe states go bankrupt. So that's not the issue. At some point, it's just not going to be politically possible to fund the systems as they are. I see this as new to three things. One is the underfunding of the contributions by the state back in the 90s, which everyone is aware of. It is worth pointing out that at that time, the funded ratios were high. In other words, it looked like there was going to be enough money. I can't pretend to go back and understand why they did that, but it's worth knowing that. We now know that both funded ratios were based on assumptions of returns on the invested funds did not materialize. The other factor is, of course, higher compensation at retirement and greater longevity of beneficiaries, both of which are really, really good things. But you can see how that's going to greatly increase the cost. And even if we had made the full contributions earlier, we still might not have the cost. The rate of return is really important because usually about two thirds of every dollar in pension benefits is supposed to be from returns on invested funds. The fact that that was low for so long is really important. And then the rate of return, the demographic characteristics and the state's underfunding. But again, since 2008, we have fully funded and more and we are further behind. We can't keep doing this. And I'll just point out to one thing, a couple of things that the retirement costs that are put in the Education Fund, the retirement costs of current teachers went up by five times between last year and this year. So it went from 7 million to 37 million. That's about four cents on property tax rates. It's being absorbed this year because of the curious combinations of federal funds and changes in costs. Will it be able to be absorbed in future years? Will it go up by 400% in future years? I just really think that what beneficiaries may find is that the cost of the retirement may start to press on the cost of their compensation. I think they really have a balancing act here. So history is important because it informs the present and the future. I think that some version of the changes that the committee has proposed or that the treasure has proposed need to be put in place. Try to keep the state's obligations about where they are now. I think one of the things that I would ask the committee to explore is whether there are ways to put in place kind of insurance provisions, provisions that would allow for flexibility in the future and make it easier to come to an agreement now. I would give the treasure credit for some version of this idea. Three of her report. She talked about something along these lines, but she talked about if things go better than we expect that the benefits would be shared between the beneficiaries and the state. So the state would contribute less and the beneficiaries would contribute less. I would like to say that suppose we had a situation where the funding ratios started to look really good for a period of time. And I would say maybe some of the reductions in benefits or increases and contributions could be partly reversed, but the state's contribution would stay the same. So I think putting in place a provision that half of any budget surplus, whether it was a plan budget surplus or surplus at the end of the fiscal year has to go to the system. We've been kind of doing that anyway, but we need to put that into the into the statute, I think. But the other thing that needs to be in there. We have another reevaluation that explodes these costs again. We have to renegotiate again. And I would be making the, the allocation of additional funds, the $150 million that I believe that care had referred to the other day, I would make the allocation of those funds to pay down the unfunded liability. The liability is conditional on agreeing to some version of these age reform. So, so I think that the, the, you know, I don't have insight to offer about the details of their forms, you know, the questions of the years, the retirement, the best games, the pola. That's very complicated to figure out how much are you saving? And is it really, you know, is it really going to work? I think that if we could provide some kind of insurance provisions that would help to reconcile beneficiaries to the current changes, because they would know that if things got better, they would get some of it back. I think that's a promising idea. And I would encourage you to speak to the treasurer about exactly what she meant when she said that in the report, because she might have some ideas about how that might be structured. So, one of the, one of the characteristics of representative democracy is that there's a tendency to always want to spend more on programs and to always want to cut taxes. There's great reluctance about cutting spending. There's great reluctance about raising taxes. And this means that when you put in place a new system that you want to fund, there's a kind of a tendency to lobel how much it's going to cost. And this doesn't have to be a nefarious thing. The people that put in the high interest returns to be expected earlier weren't necessarily acting with ill intent. But in my mind, when you're agreeing to obligation, you have to lean against that. You have to really be conservative in the assumption. And this framework is a lesson in why you should do that, because otherwise things are going to cost way more than you thought, and it's going to create problems for everybody. I also want to point out one thing that's mentioned in my testimony that I think is important because it kind of highlights that there's like this. This is a political process, as all of you know. My understanding that it is that in 2000 and 2002. The teachers retirement system was made more generous in terms of the vesting period and in terms of state share of the health benefits, without any increase in contributions. And at this time, the funded ratios were pretty high, despite the fact that the state hadn't made the required full required contribution. And one of the mech, one of the dynamics you can see is when funded ratio ratios are high, beneficiaries put for greater benefit. And, and, and that's the dynamic that's happening here. This is a risky system. It's kind of as if we've lost that tier. I do think it's important to realize that we have been through 15 years of really unprecedented economic time. I have never seen a time when interest rates were this low for so long interest rates on conservative investments like bonds have never seen this tells us that unprecedented things can happen. It never occurred to me we have a pandemic recession unprecedented. It's happened 2008 2009, the worst recession since the Great Depression and that was when the interest rate turned low. So, there are forces at work that are beyond our control, and that will continue to be true. I would urge the state and the beneficiaries to try to make changes in the system, change the things we can control. And then if the future is better than we think now, find a way, improve the situation of the beneficiaries. Don't just put it off. I understand the call for more study and more study can be a good thing. But from my study of this issue, and I've been looking at it since 2007. It's not going to change the essential dynamics. There's not going to be money coming out of thin air. We need to be realistic now and create something that's more reliable, more affordable for the state and more reliable for the beneficiaries. And then if we can put in place those insurance provisions. If things are better in the future. The state can give back. I know that the question of more revenue is discussed. And I understand that. But I think that any call for additional revenue would have more resonance and more support if the beneficiaries were also contributing. Yes, I know they already contributed in 2008. But remember, the state has greatly increased this contribution. And that means all taxpayers. I don't know the details of the proposals that are being made. But I think we need to be careful about going to more revenue. If we're taxing people who are very mobile, because we could end up just losing revenue overall. So, I really think this is a shared obligation. I think the burden is on the state. I think the state has been doing its best to live up to the burden. And yet we are now further behind. This is not where we would choose to be. But I'll come back to what I said at the beginning. It's the very intensity of the distress that you heard. That's the reason why I would, I would implore you to keep working on this. I would implore you to see if there's a way to create a package of changes that's flexible enough. So that people can still live within it. If you can create insurance provisions that can protect the beneficiaries and the state in case of further changes. I think if you don't do that, I think that this system will crash and burn at some point in the future. And that is not something that the beneficiaries deserve, nor do the people of the state. So, I think that I will stop there. And I would be happy to answer questions about anything in my testimony today or in the piece that I gave out. But I would just again mention the idea of balancing conflicting obligations. Both sides are right. To assert their right to make the state to make changes and the beneficiaries to say, wait a minute, we deserve what we were promised. But beneficiaries can't deny that if the money isn't there, they're not going to have what they had in the original contract. And the state can't deny that the beneficiaries should be protected as much as we can. So as everybody asserts their right, they also have to fulfill their responsibilities and face reality and allocate resources based on reality, not on what we wish were true. Thank you very much. Thank you for being with us this morning Cynthia committee members any questions about what you've just heard. Peter Anthony. Thank you, Madam chair. Dr Browning. Could you give us a clue question that has come up in my mind several times, because of the financial unfunded liability the suggestion is that we Wall Street may in fact, take a different view of our issues of new debt bonds etc from the bond bank. Do you have an idea if we face some kind of downgrade, whether it's from triple a to double a or a neutral to a minus. How many basis points are we talking about increased in our borrow rate. Well, if that should happen, say in May or June, you have an idea. Thank you. Thank you representative Anthony. I can't give you a figure about that. I do know that some of my reviews of the capital debt affordability advisory committee report, affordability advisory committee report. I think that is something that all the bond rating agencies are looking at. And I think they're one of them already downgraded us a little bit, and they may downgrade us again. I am not somebody that worships at the feet of these Wall Street agencies I would just remind everybody. The crisis coming and rated many of those instruments very highly so they're not, they're not wizards but they have a lot of power right now interest rates are very low. Even if they downgraded us, I would imagine we could still borrow at a reasonable interest rate. It doesn't mean it isn't something to bear in mind. It is, because one of the problems here is that the implemented liabilities of the pension are, you know, billions of dollars. Our whole outstanding state bond that is like 600 million. The pension obligations completely dwarf our outstanding bond. That's why it's such a factor for the rating agencies in terms of whether we can meet our obligations, whether we're going to be unable to make payments and such. One of the things that's interesting to me is that when I joined the legislature in 2007 that was when the moratorium on state funded school construction happened. That was when the reevaluation of the pension system was going on. And since that time, capital bill went up during Irene, after Tropical Storm Irene, it's been going down. We're borrowing less and less unfunded liabilities are crowding out investments that need to be made for tomorrow. So I don't have an answer for you as to the basis point. I'm sure they will take it into account, and I'm sure if we don't do something, they will downgrade it. That means that future borrowing will be more expensive than that service will be higher in the budget. So that is to me, the real reason for dealing with this issue is to better secure the retirement and to be sure that the state is able to fund all of its obligation, not just this one. Any other questions from committee members. Thank you so much Cynthia for the time and thought that you have put into this and for coming to share those thoughts with us this morning I would welcome committee members to follow up via email. If you have any other thoughts that you'd like to bounce back and forth with Cynthia and Cynthia have a wonderful day. Thank you very much. And I would urge you to check with the treasure about the idea of this. This idea of an insurance provisions of some kind because she may have something. She may have something good in mind. I would encourage you to follow up on that. Thank you very much. Yeah, good item to flag. Committee members, we're going to take a five minute break and so I would welcome you to mute and turn your camera off and we will be back.