 Good afternoon you are back with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee over the past two days we have been continuing to hear responses from different individuals and organizations about the pension plan design proposal we put on the table as well as the governance proposal that we put on the table. And just to reemphasize that there's nothing about either of those proposals that should be construed as being a bill that we are trying to push through in any sort of direct time period, rather that's those were both intended to be starting places for us to have a discussion. So what I'd like to do right now committee is spend a few minutes, not reacting necessarily to the folks who have commented on the governance or plan design but, but just, I think reviewing what you heard in the two public hearings that we held. I haven't totaled up the number of how many people we heard from but, but I do have the lists over here in front of me I could. I could count it up but what did you hear from members of the public who testified, were there themes that you found to be eliminating were there misconceptions that you felt we, we should identify. So we'd just like to share for the next 20 minutes or so your reactions to the public hearing, Mike Berwicky. Thank you Madam Chair. I heard a lot of compelling testimony, certainly heartfelt. And very compelling in that. I think people were concerned that their futures were were being changed in ways they weren't weren't very happy with. And I heard that really clear. Some of the things that I heard though include, I would suggest. There's a complete lack of confidence in the decisions being made in investments. And that's why I think this governance structure we, we would do well to go forward with. I think we need to do something to restore that confidence even if it means cleaning house completely. Other piece of that that came through is that people really believe that it was legislators time and time again. There was a belief, not based on fact is obviously there are no legislators on that board but somehow or other. There's a belief that has come to be in very intelligent people for the most part. And that it's legislators who are at fault for the decisions of that. And I think that's adding to the lack of confidence that people have in that. I feel we have to address that we have to try and restore confidence in the decisions of the of the board. And I fully endorsed moving forward with with this governance structure changes and an education for the participants in that so they know who, who is that exactly are making the decisions, and not just necessarily so they don't think it's legislators doing that, but who, in fact, are making those decisions on their behalf. One of the pieces that really came through for me and the other pieces I'll conclude with, I've been to a number of hearings and they're usually very emotional and sometimes people aren't as articulate as they might want to be. But again, I think these for the most part were wonderfully are intelligent and articulate people and their testimony reflected that it was very well prepared and well presented. Other thoughts, reactions to what we heard at the public hearings. Mike McCarthy. Thanks Madam Chair. Yeah, I'll echo a lot of what represented more wiki said I mean we clearly people are very frustrated and I, something that I noticed was, there seemed to be a lot more frustration about the potential length of time additional years that that employees would have to work that that seemed to be the biggest consistent point of like this is a non starter. If we need to do something don't do this. Heard that loud and clear in my conversations with individual teachers and state employees from my district over the weekend. What I did hear openness and a lot of the conversation to things like maybe increasing contributions if if we're in this idea of kind of a fair share, and who has paid their fair share is a big theme that we keep hearing. You know I think we've heard a lot of testimony about the difference in the contribution rates across the systems. Issues of equity and fairness within the different pension programs. Those are things that I'd love to continue talking about and exploring and hopefully you know with representatives from the unions. So, I think there was a, there was a conflating of the historic underfunding of the past, you know we've talked about, you know, the, the 10s of millions of dollars during the 80s 90s maybe early 2000s even where the edict payments were made for people and the underfunding and it's really the state, not funding those things and I want to own that to a certain degree, but I also want to contrast that with, you know, last year, the year before that I mean the past decade plus Vermonters, all of us including teachers state workers like we're we all are Vermont and taxpayers. And right now where we've spent, I think if I read everything right over the last five years, we've put a billion dollars into the system, at the same time, when state employees have put about a third of the dollars that the employers have contributed to that five year period and when we look at this year the budget we all just voted on last week, we're looking at putting 300 million plus dollars into the retirement systems, and, and it's you know orders of magnitude more than the normal cost that we would want to pay in a healthy well managed well financed system. And so, you know, the, the voices crying out for manage my funds better so they earn more. I totally hear what represent Rewiki saying I agree with that. I also really want us to, to continue to look at these issues of equity and fairness and the expectations that people have for their benefits and retirement. Thanks Mike. Mark Higley. Thank you. I guess and even last night's meeting up in Newport. The main team that I that resonates with me I guess is folks telling us to slow down the process. I can't tell you how many times I heard that last night as well as the other two nights of testimony. It sounds like they've lost confidence in us as a legislature whether they had that confidence before I'm not sure but they, they definitely are losing it. Now, I don't know if we can regain that, I certainly hope so. And, you know, I think it was interesting course you always look for bits and pieces that might help your initiative or your thoughts but there was a few that said that Jesus they knew that we were going to continue to change the defined benefit plan year after year that they might have considered a DC plan so I don't know if they said that out of frustration or if they were sincere. But again, you know it was it was it was a crack if there was a an opening there to at least discuss it. So, I guess again, the biggest thing was the lack of confidence slow things down. Didn't didn't feel that they had the input or that their, you know union leaders had the input that was needed to get to even this point. Thank you. Thanks, Mark, Tonya Behovsky. Thank you. I really heard a lot of what I hear Mark saying about slowing down in the complete lack of confidence in the process that has brought us to this point and feeling like people's voices just haven't been heard. I think that I really also heard a real request to do our, again, to really slow down and do our due diligence to examine all the, all the possibilities and have all the information before moving forward. And I to really want to rebuild that confidence and really know that we're working in conjunction with people. And just from, I, similarly to what Mark said you know knowing that I to stand in a space of really wanting to make sure that we don't keep tinkering every 10 years and really under the full understand the full scope and build something better and more sustainable. You know that certainly came through to is that frustration that we just keep coming back here and I don't think we can go forward by continuing to do what we've done in the past and saying let's change this and let's change that with really not understanding the full scope of the of what's going on. Thanks Tonya Bob Hooper. Thank you Madam Chair. I didn't have the benefit of hearing representative Marwikis comments because my dog does not agree with your three minutes bio break framework. I think today he said if you want me come get me. I agree on the equity and fairness piece. Quite frankly, you know I've been asking that information from the treasurer's office since before we sat down to talk about this it's been an ongoing thing, continued to ask for the information about who's paying what who's assuming the liability, where it's all coming from. And although I've heard rumblings that it's coming. I'll believe it when I see it. I walked away from the public hearing Monday with a fairly light heart because I thought for Monter's voices were going to be heard when I walked into this committee and walked out the next, the next day I was dismayed as hell. I didn't think that it seemed like for Monter's voices were being heard at all and quite frankly. I'm questioning at this point what involvement the business roundtable has had and why they continue to be back here acting in as advisor to us. When they really don't have anything to do in the process, slowing down. Definitely something that everybody's talking about. The concept of earning more money is a great concept, but quite frankly you heard this morning from one of the most recognized experts in governance that is running around in our country today. He laid out clearly what Beth has laid out several times if you want more earnings you have to have more risk. If you want more risk you're going to lose more. If you want the VPIC coming back to this body, the legislature to say, we need more money because we took more risk and we lost it. That's the other side of the coin you're advocating for. We got an answer to a question this morning that in terms of an evaluation that this individual from RBK did. We are operating under best practice. It said don't know who are running the things happen to be the same people that have the ability to elect the people that are running things we hold an election. Basically every two years for retirement board and every three years for beefing members. Since I don't know and since it was clear through the, the hearings that there are a lot of people who are beneficiaries of the system who don't know can you just run through a little bit about how that works on the state side. All right, let me make one more comment DC plan. I imagine they would have the same comment mark if you changed your contribution match on them in the middle of the process. Governor appoints half the retirement board, the state workers or the teachers or the municipal employees do the other half of their boards. It's done on there's three members plus chair. The state board is a little bit different because we drag Roger in from sort of an unaffiliated retiree organization. Everybody else that comes forward to the retirement board has to be an active employee. They get elected at the annual meeting of the employees Association. That's the forum. But anybody that is a member of the plan has the ability to come forward and put their name in. So, like when the state cop. President said he would like to have a seat on the thing. Plan C resident plan C members have had seats and it has been a Vermont State police officer up until I'd say probably a year ago when the last one resigned so basically all they need to do is come to the meeting to put their put their name in the treasure runs the teachers election because they are so diverse they don't come together. In one meeting it's it's basically school district school district school district so it's basically a ballot process. The individual boards then elect from the membership of the board, they sit in election and move somebody into VPIC and an alternate. So, three VPIC members come forward one from municipal one from teachers one from the state employees with an alternate goes with them. They match the treasurer's office, a couple of members from the governor's office and their alternates. And that's how the quick thumbnail everybody gets to where they are. All right, so if I were a teacher I would keep my eyes open for a communication from the treasurer's office because the treasurer's office conducts that election and if I were a state employee I would go to a meeting. Every state employee and I don't know this 100% but every teacher, there's a notice published that there is going to be an election for retirement board members. Thanks. I think that every teacher gets an actual ballot. But I would have to check with Beth. I think I heard that as well. Tonya so it's like, I mean it's really like everything else that we do. Nobody knows what happens behind the curtain until they're impacted by it and then they want to know what happens behind the curtain. Thank you. I think how had his hand raised before I did. Well, there we go. Ladies before gentlemen. I just had a quick, and it might be a Bob question actually around the VPIC the beamers board also has membership there correct. That's municipal board. Okay, so it's a separate board or they do get a seat at the VPIC table. Thanks for that question that probably deserves a little more repeating. The three boards have jurisdiction over certain things of their own. Everybody gets a seat at VPIC. The three boards also, I mean I brought this up once before they do business like managing in a DC and an alternative DC plan. They manage the applications and processing for disability retirements. They do the composition of the funds for a DC plan they they have a lot of business that as the man talked about this morning is not managing money. They manage administrative stuff so there's a pretty good firewall between those two. Okay, because one of the things that I have heard and I wonder if it makes sense to bring some conversation to this committee is that under the government and this was from someone who's on the municipal in one of the boards and she said that she's reached out to me and really pointed out that under the governance structure on the table the beamers board may have to consider sort of leaving the VPIC so I think that they may be a voice we need to hear. Excellent point I heard that also and that's because the proposed structure. So instead of moving three people forward to the board, or the subboard that makes the investment decisions, there were only two people going forward. So the possibility that one of the groups would have been left out of that process was what is real, and it's, it'll happen because there's only two chairs and three people and from our childhood musical chairs you know what happens with that. There's some additional concerns as well, just with the structure so I just I realized that that's a board that sort of stands to be impacted by this piece of the puzzle that we haven't really heard from. They're the smallest board and they, they're not state so that a bang. I'm Adam chair. So we, we, yes I, I kind of would and I would welcome you to to grab a cup of coffee, but, but I do want to make sure that everybody on the committee has the opportunity before 430. I'm sorry, many of us have to leave for other meetings to share any reflections they have on what they heard in during the public hearings so definitely carry on that conversation another day, how. Thank you, Madam chair. So, I agree with what's been shared. In particular the time issue, which makes me wonder, is there any way that there can be given some time for some components of what needs to be changed. And obviously, we need to be urgent about making changes to stop the bleeding. For me what I, what I didn't hear in the testimonies was the whole notion of oversight. You know, like, had there been oversight real oversight independent oversight would be in this condition today. I don't know. But if we're going to be looking seriously at governance. I think that that should include some form of oversight, so that we can be ready to you know hit the yellow light and make adjustments so we keep keep out of the, the abyss that we're now in. And even wondering if here in state government, you know, with the JFO being an independent nonpartisan body, if that might be a home for a pension system committee that has oversight responsibilities. So, yes, we have to get out of this mess but how do we not fall back into this very stressful complex situation that we're in now. Yeah, let's keep chewing on that question. Peter Anthony. Thank you Madam Chair. I agree with Hal about the seeming lack of that we heard at the hearing seeming lack of accountability oversight and house perfectly right. And it's an easy fix, because we have to insist that the legislature and, and by name government operations and appropriations both receive annual check ins. How's the fun doing is it meeting its goals. What's the actual actual rate of return. You know things like that. What's the funding ratio. I don't know if you folks who served on the committee had ever gotten directly a report stuck under your nose but I think Hal is right I never had a sense, have not had a sense that there was a purpose purposefully designed chain of custody of the how are we doing report, unlike, for instance, from tax and from PVR. There's a, there's a January 15 clockwork is a report that comes out of PVR on all the tax expenditures, etc. And that gets delivered to ways and means no question about. I'm not sure that that's happening in respect to pensions. I would say a lot of things with all due respect to Mike Mariki. I just, I agree that the hearing produced a sentiment of we have no confidence, but at the same time, I think it's already been noted, there was a clear misunderstanding of how the oversight process is peopled by stakeholders union people and not the legislature so the lack of confidence comment, I have a hard time. I guess is the word I'm searching for. So, unlike Mike, Representative Mariki, I really think we do need to tinker. And I say tinker with the VPAC board. The gentleman this morning warned, I'm not sure relying on a gubernatorial appointment process is really good for continuity for length of years of service commitment. Using the word continuity, I agree with him. I think we have to think beyond that. You could tell I was curious to try and prod him about the role of the treasurer in this because she's the common link between the legislature and the boards but that doesn't seem to have worked terrifically well in my opinion, but he didn't bite so I'll let that one go. I definitely think we have to abandon the teachers requirement that they stick around till age 67. I think there's room to maneuver on contributions is room to maneuver on a more surgical approach to colas and average finally years of service I think those are all worthwhile. I want to support the treasure on some of the levers she identified but I'm not sure I'm willing to go as far as she went in articulating hers or indeed our benefit change that yourself and the Vice Chair presented to us last week to chew on. So some things I support in that some things I heard at the hearing that I think are over the top and probably unacceptable and are just inflammatory I guess it's the way to put it. But I'm happy to talk more about that in detail. Whenever you want. Thanks Peter, Sam reflections on. Thank you, public hearing. Yes, thank you madam chair. I guess through the testimony that I have read and what I heard the biggest insult to injury that I have felt from people that are being affected is that they did not have a choice, nor they still have a choice to be in this punching system. They've actually taken out of their check, they don't have no say. And so I, the one of the biggest prize I hear, besides leave us alone is that they want choices, and they want opportunities. And to me, you know, I feel that people should be able to have opportunities and choices. I know, as everyone else has echoed like, you know, it was heartfelt, I, you know, I sincerely realized the severity that we are dealing with that these are people's lives. And to me, again, the age, the age factor going, you know, age factor as Mr Anthony has said that to me it's like a non starter because I think people's bodies know when they're done people's minds know when they are done and working because you need to be able to retire and hopefully live a life after a life that's not acceptable. You signed up for something you know what you're doing and I would hate to see more on job, you know, accidents or incidents because people are, you know, they shouldn't be there. And so I appreciate that this is the starting point and I definitely appreciate the availability for more proposals to be coming forward tomorrow or ideas of where to pull pick and choose from you know. I thank you for this. I'm Madam Chair and Vice Chair. Thank you. Great. Bob last word, since I'm now two minutes late for my 430 meeting. I'll cut to the chase then. I think the treasure puts a good report out every year. God knows where it goes. I know part I know it comes over here. Virtually, I know it goes to the governor's office. I've read them. And I think they're still listed on the website, but that's all I have to say about that. That's all I have to say period. Thank you all for your good work today. We have an interesting morning tomorrow, a little bit of popcorn of many a slew of different ideas that folks have chosen to put on the table in front of us. I'm in response to the ideas that that John and I put forward but others just out of their own experiences and and and sensitivities and sensibilities so look forward to tomorrow's session. I have not factored in a break from your computer tomorrow morning, but I'm hoping that since we scheduled these in 30 minute blocks that we will find one that gets done a little bit before 30 minutes so that we don't end up staring at the screen for three hours straight. Thank you. And I will see you all in the morning.