 Well good afternoon. Thanks everyone for coming. It's great to be here today to highlight the good work of the state and industry to help reduce injuries and workers' compensation costs in the logging and forestry sectors. Being that our state is 78% forested, this part of the economy is incredibly important to Vermont and has a deep cultural tradition here in our state. It also means our working landscape is a significant economic engine. This is why my administration has focused on addressing marketplace and affordability challenges for our forest economy. While there's a lot more work to do, we made some important progress over the last two and a half years. Working with the legislature, many of them right here behind me, we enacted the right to conduct forestry operations law, as well as sales and use and purchase and use tax exemptions for logging equipment and repair parts, which brought Vermont more in line with our neighboring states and helps keep more money in the pockets of Vermonters. My team will continue to work with the legislature to pass proposals that would reduce the costs and level of difficulty dealing with Act 250 permits for those who process forest products. And when you're looking at affordability for businesses operating in our state, you must look at the costs of workers' compensation. This is insurance that all employers are required to have, and it serves an important purpose, but it's one of the largest costs for many employers, and this has been especially true for loggers. This team behind me, including the Departments of Financial Regulation, Forest Parks and Recreation, and Labor have done incredible work alongside workers and employers throughout Vermont to lower worker compensation rates in recent years. As a result, we've seen rate decreases for three consecutive years. This means Vermont employers, on average, are paying about 20% less in workers comp today than they did in 2016. Adding up to about $40 million in savings for Vermont businesses. That's a big deal, and I want to thank everyone for their efforts and everyone who was involved in the process and for their efforts. A big portion of these decreases has directly impacted the logging sector, which has historically had very high rates. To address this, the Department of Financial Regulation may changes to the workers comp classification for log haulers, which greatly reduced the costs in that field. And last April, DFR separated mechanized logging from non-mechanized logging and created two new classifications to workers comp in that workers comp system, which will help the industry create safer workplaces and reduce costs. The bottom line is this, and what's really important to understand is that these savings are being achieved without sacrificing benefits or safety. And in fact, increased safety plays a key role in saving money. So I'm pleased now to invite Sam Lincoln, who has been integral in our administration, Deputy Commissioner of Forest, Department of Forest Parks and Recreation, to talk a little bit more about what they're working on with the legislature to further reduce injuries in this sector. Sam? Welcome everyone. The Vermont Logger Safety and Workers Compensation Insurance Program has been designed to deliver Vermont's forest economy programmatic solution to directly address the root causes of the high cost of workers compensation insurance, which has been a barrier to employment growth in this sector for decades. Expanding the safety training curriculum available to employers in one of the state's most dangerous occupations, adding onsite loss prevention consultations to verify that safe practices have been implemented, and directly connecting those activities to lower insurance premiums has been what has proven to be sustainable sustainable to reduce injuries and costs in other states and countries. This program will also address the serious issue of insurance avoidance, which limits the size of the insured pool over which the risk can be spread. We have developed guidance specifically for land owners and consulting foresters so they can determine that the logger working in their forest is properly insured or exempted from workers compensation insurance. This will help level the playing field in the forest economy both in state and regionally because there's a great disparity in the cost of doing business between an insured and uninsured logging operation, but that lower cost of doing business can come at the risk of an employee's well-being. Today we welcome instructors from the professional logging contractors of Maine, the Northeast Master Logger Program, and Acadia Insurance that bring experience and insight from a nearby forest economy and large pool of logging contractors that have been able to sustainably lower their injuries and costs significantly over time. We're embarking on a culture shift in Vermont's forest economy where a priority on safety at the job site and having the proper coverage for employees will become normalized. As an update to the typical chainsaw and tree-felling safety training that loggers have experienced, we're modernizing that training for logging professionals in Vermont. And today's focus training is on for mechanized loggers and those who complete their work, most of their work, from inside the cab of a machine such as the one behind me. And they face very different hazards in their predecessors and traditional logging jobs. Next week they'll be learning about methods to successfully rescue injured and trapped loggers without exacerbating their injuries and more about rural first aid care. We're already planning for continuing education in 2020 that will bring an additional focus to the areas that we know are statistically unsafe for loggers and that they may not be aware of. Thank you to Governor Scott for putting an emphasis and a team in place to focus on this long-standing issue. I'm very appreciative of the work of my colleagues, not only at the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation but the Department of Financial Regulation and Labor as well as David Virdsall from the Logger Education to Advanced Professionalism Program for their persistent work in this important area. Commissioner Snyder was unable to join us today but his input and guidance has been essential in the development of this program along the way. I would also like to acknowledge the support of this program by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Vermont Woodlands Association who have been essential partners in messaging the importance of this work to their members. And most of all I'd like to recognize the logging contractors both at today's training and yesterday's training that have all shut down their operations and brought their employees here to learn about these things and they're they're investing in a new culture. So with that I'll turn it over to Deputy Commissioner Kevin Gaff from the Department of Financial Regulation. Thank you Sam. The Department of Financial Regulation as the Chief Insurance Regulator in the state undertook a number of steps prior to where we are here today including a legislative study in the summer of 2017. And from that study we engaged with contract actuary to look at different ways to evaluate the workers comp market in generally and more specifically to the high-risk classes that are being challenged by the cost of workers compensation insurance. And from those studies we came up with some structural changes that were very impactful to the marketplace. One was the log hauler class which is a very small class that was actually having good experience but the way rate making happens in insurance the your rates are based on the size of your class. So we looked at an opportunity to combine with a very similar classification commercial trucking and we were able to save the log haulers 24 percent on their insurance rates. Additionally there was a surcharge applied in the assigned risk market that was intended to be an incentive to improve loss results but it really became a punitive barrier to employers actually growing their business and we eliminated that surcharge and actually saved the marketplace seven percent for those rates. Additionally as the governor mentioned we've seen very positive loss results over the last three years with the rates going down over 20 percent and one of the key drivers behind that is frequency of claims the actual frequencies going down. Oftentimes when the frequency of claims goes down it puts pressure on the average size of the claim but actually that's normalized and actually for the medical losses it's actually gone down slightly in the last three years. So these are positive results that we really see as an opportunity and a virtuous cycle and an opportunity to engage as these logging professionals are doing today in ways to become even more safer because as we take rates down it's going to be more critical to conduct greater and greater safe practices to enhance those results in the future. These individuals will receive a credit through a two-step certification process and so part of that process is just here today doing the in the controlled environment training which is very important it's very important to be competent in your in your profession and this training is going to enhance that but to be proficient we found our research has shown that you really have to conduct on-site observations of in the woods activity for each employer. So the the department is excited to announce a contract awarded to W.J. Cox who is going to do loss prevention services and verification of those practices learned today in the individual employer's work sites. We're very excited that Cox who has 40 years of experience in the forestry industry in loss prevention services is able to serve her monitors and the department will serve as the chief compliance agency to oversee those activities monitor them and also just reassess learnings we're going to we're going to actually get feedback from the forest industry on those best practices and how to best refine those to make sure we have better results in the future and improve rates down the road. Additionally I just like to thank the governor I think that he has promoted interagency and interdepartmental collaboration to deal with complex issues like this and I think the working with labor and forest parks and recreation is a good example of government tackling a complex issue from different disciplinary backgrounds. Thank you governor. And I'll turn it over to the governor. So at this point we'd be happy to take any questions about the topic at this point and then we we can take other questions after. How many logging accidents are there each year? I will ask for a lifeline here. Sorry to ask you a question. Do we have any idea why don't you come on up. Absolutely yeah I don't I don't have the actual number I know the the frequency of claims has gone down about 18% in the last three years but the actual claim count obviously in this industry it's it's more about severity than it is frequency oftentimes like what we're trying to do today is loss prevention and loss avoidance but it's mostly loss mitigation in other words you don't want to you don't want to have the loss in the first place because oftentimes they're severe so it's not usually about the claim count that gives you the indication of success but but also the severity of those losses so some of the training that's happening next week that sam could talk more about is actually the post accident mitigation so how when something bad happens do you mitigate the extent of that injury. It's actually a nationwide phenomena right now that we're in a cycle of low claims activity I I think there's more and more engagement on the part of employers they realize that as these individuals are today to invest in their business and to invest in a culture of safety is going to save them money on their insurance so I think there's that's part of it there's also overall maybe a shift in more mechanized ways of doing things that could mitigate the frequency of losses you talk about the sort of the cost the high cost of this what is the average cost to a logging business to to to be able to pay for a year's worth of so that's a that's not a simple answer question to answer but I can answer it in these terms so insurance costs are based on payroll so it's it's basically a per 100 of payroll so it's a percentage basically so for mechanized loggers that can run anywhere from 15 to 16 percent of payroll and for non-mechanized loggers 36 percent of payroll on some more good news early next year will be that we have seen these trends continue and we're just receive rates for the 2020 rate filing they're not going to be a vetted or official to the end of the year but they are showing continued improvement in those areas so we expect to see those rates go down even more substantially perhaps than in the prior three years it's uh in the in the high hundreds it's there's no particular way that they're all counted at once but we estimate it's in the high hundreds to any as the last the 2013 numbers I think showed a little around a thousand uh people employed in logging in the state roughly give or take that includes arborists and people like that or is it just well that would just be loggers and they have any average cost for per employee for the application of the of the insurance of the uh for somebody gets hurt with what's the average the average claim the average the average claim the average the premium is is that percent of payroll so it's either that 16 or 36 percent of payroll and a year ago it was about 24 I paid 24 percent for trucking and logging and it has gone down some which is a step in the right direction I'd like to reiterate one thing that Sam said is why don't you come on up here the size of the pool is in direct correlation to what we pay for insurance so that if you have about 10 people in the insurer being insured compared to I think they said in Maine it was 1200 it definitely makes a huge difference in what we pay and 25 percent that means that every hundred dollars 25 dollars had to go to workman's calm is anyone allowed to opt out maybe if you're a single person or a family you got to have workman's calm theoretically but that's the biggest problem in this state is very what percentage of the loggers have workman's calm Sam there's uh there's uh the last numbers we have there are about 70 businesses and 70 employers in the state that had workers compensation insurance uh officers of a corporation can exempt themselves uh sole proprietors in Vermont are allowed to exempt themselves from workers compensation insurance that's in any business though in any business in the logings right in the trade so um and so we've developed this guidance that asked landowners essentially to uh ask for a list of when someone's going to log on their land that they ask for a list of who's there and whether they're covered or exempted and we've backed that up with with um what what state law requires i want to emphasize as well when i talked about earlier about mechanized versus non-mechanized mechanized here uh and in the past as some of these folks can attest to it was a different scenario i mean we were doing everything pretty much by hand uh and now we can do a here so but all the rates were pooled together and and that was the part of the problem was you you could do things save for sometimes with a mechanized device but everything was pooled together so the rate was increased correct no that's not exactly correct okay well tell us that so um as of ten years ago when i started my business the the rate for hand filling um for hand felled logging was 33 percent over the next five years the rate jumped to 54 percent so it was 54 cents on the dollar for every every dollar wages you paid but there's always been that separation for at least the last five years of mechanized versus non-mechanized the latest mechanized rate maybe not this last year but 2018 was 23 cents on the dollar for for mechanized and 53 52 53 cents for non-mechanized the highest it's been in the last 10 years has been 54 cents on the dollar for non-mechanized so those are those are the numbers so what is it for non-mechanized now non-mechanized um i i actually dropped my non-mechanized employees um after it was 54 cents on the dollar and i dropped that off of my policy and those people now work in some other industry so yeah but the point is mechanized is mechanized is significantly cheaper for insurance right um non-mechanized was not it wasn't feasible to hire someone an employee as an employee when you have to pay half of their wages to insurance one other point i would like to make is the pool is supposed to be the most expensive place to get insurance but if an insurance company would take you you couldn't get put in the pool and you could be paying 20 percent more through an insurance company and the pool was cheaper i mean you couldn't get in it as long as you was accepted with some other insurance company other questions on topic um i just want to reiterate something so if i heard correctly if you're non-mechanized you're paying more than half 50 cents in a dollar for your could right yeah the non-mechanized rate that was referenced earlier the 54 was that number five years ago and right now we're at 36 and we expect that number to be to have a different first number uh in the 2020 filing so we made significant progress in that area and uh the mechanized always has had a lower because of the nature of that work it has other risks from an insurance standpoint in terms of equipment and other non-workers comp related issues but the trend lines change both as a consequence of regulatory reform and fewer claims and better safe yes absolutely absolutely we're looking at vermont's always going to have a scale question but i think we're looking at a way to recognizing credit employers that have had good experience over long periods of time even though they're small and to give that experience greater weight than we had traditionally in the past yeah obviously and i'm just talking from someone that is seeing this from the same perspective as you i mean i'm not on the inside i don't know all the inner workings of what's what's happening um but it sure seems as though it's becoming uh more politicized on both sides which is unfortunate what i'd like to see uh during this process is first i think i think there is a responsibility of congress to take a vote on this and and let us know what they think and then move forward from there as well i think the the process should be transparent i said that uh in my earlier statement i believe that we should be able to hear what's happening in the hearings uh and and i'm not sure that we're seeing that now and i'm a little confused now because i thought congress was uh on a two week break but i don't know if they're having hearings now or they're not having hearings so from my perspective just more transparency make sure that we hear everything they hear um obviously this whistleblower considerations and and that's not going to be as transparent as and probably shouldn't be but at the same time we just like to hear what's going on so let me see if i understand what you're saying is it fair to say that you're criticizing democrats for not making the process more transparent but i is that is that fair i'm not i'm not i'm not i have a follow-up on that yeah i'm not i'm not criticizing uh democrats for doing this i'm i'm criticizing congress okay and i think that congress should be more transparent that's what we want uh throughout this process none of the republicans in the house are interested in this process well i i don't know i i'm not sure so take a vote um take a vote and see whether we should move forward and i'll put everybody on the spot and let's see where they where they come out and then we'll know for sure right i see and what do you think about the fact that the president has refused to let white house officials testify in any way again more game and ship i just want the facts yeah so you think the president i think everyone should should insist that Pompeo and others testify i think everyone should come forward get the facts on the table and then see where that takes us from there but i think that everyone should should take a vote move forward with this inquiry and then get the facts on the table and you've shared your views with president Trump i have not yet i have not had an opportunity are there any other gfc officials who have expressed some i have not spoken anyone else about this uh yeah well there are some republicans not many like susan collins like mit romney who especially after the china thing which you know he said uh on camera inviting now the second government to get involved um does that change anything for you does not seem as they put it appalling and does this strike you that way well i don't know if it changes anything for me i think i was uh clear in uh believing that we should move forward i think that there should be a vote on the inquiry move forward uh have an investigation to see if if the charges the allegations rise to the level of impeachment and then move from there well do you think they have enough to i have no idea i mean i i i i don't know um again this is a political process it's probably not a legal process more of a political process and uh and i believe that the we as as citizens deserve to hear what's going on and then we might be able to make our own determination but i'm not sure that we're hearing everything that's happening and that's why it's important again to be transparent have a vote move forward with the inquiry if that's what the vote um and it appears that they have enough votes for that move forward with that and then have the inquiry to see if the the charges the allegations rise to that level and then go from there would you rather that we just we have an election in 13 months settle it down i don't think um that that impeachment and i i hope uh that they don't the allegations do not rise to the level of impeachment because i don't believe it's good for the country we uh we have enough polarization as it is right now we have enough disruption in our country and i'd like to focus i'd like for congress to be able to focus on other other things that really matter and not that this doesn't matter but you know we have the the us mca the that the trade agreement that's on the table that should be dealt with i mean this is something that would benefit vermont and benefit most of the country and canada has agreed mexico has agreed we should ratify we should move forward on that we should we should upgrade our our immigration policy you know this is something that that we're all dealing with in some way so let's let's work on that so there are other areas uh as well the need attention and i'm hoping uh that we can move beyond this and then uh and then focus on the uh the issues at hand it seems like isn't it a chicken or egg thing i mean congress it would appear hasn't moved forward on impeachment because they don't feel like they have enough information so where do you oh where do you draw the line do the inquiry uh you know i okay you know i so it seems like they're doing that but people on well i don't know if they are or not right i i i haven't i haven't i don't know if you've seen any of the hearings uh that they've conducted i mean they're they are interviewing witnesses i mean what do you want to see that isn't well have you have you heard what they've said well yeah there have been some public some part of this has to do with the president and he doesn't want people to be in a public hearing and they're trying to negotiate with him to get information well again i i think everyone should be on the record and then we should we should make that determination ourselves right we we should hear what's going on so we can we can come to our own conclusions and they can come to the earth um the ACLU yesterday came out with a big slew of recommendations for reducing the prison population in vermont and two of the ones the things that they want sort of they see is the most reasonable to be taken up in 2020 our parole sort of reform um and looking at bail and the elimination of cash bail um we talked about this a lot in the past is there anything i don't know if you've read that report first of all i just heard uh you know just the surface um i think i heard something about and maybe i'm wrong on this but something about uh reducing the population by about 50 which would be fairly dramatic it's 50 from what it was in 2009 so that was 500 more inmates but um i mean is that something that you want to do do you want to reduce the population if so how well again i i want if we could prevent people from going becoming incarcerated by them behaving better that would be the solution having said that we took a lot of steps when i was in the legislature in 2009 reducing the the population by 500 was dramatic we've we've taken a lot of steps that other states have not so we've done a lot of that work so i'm not sure what and i'm sure we can always improve and more than willing to take a look case by case on on who is incarcerated that shouldn't be uh and and where we go from there but i would say the majority of those incarcerated now are serious offenders felon felons and and i i would be i would be remiss if i didn't say that i'm not sure who uh if if you were if you were to reduce the population who's it going to be what about people who are being detained pre-trial who you know can't afford to make bail or people who are readmitted on a parole violation those are two things they think maybe there could be some consensus on you know not incarcerating for those sorts of violations well certainly can add the conversation but i don't know what it really means the details do matter and and i'm sure that we'll have this conversation in this legislative session and then come to some conclusion but but again from from my standpoint i want to make sure public safety is of utmost concern to me protecting victims protecting the general public and making sure that we don't uh we don't take we don't have a ripple effect and and that we we do this carefully governor we've had several stories one that we published and then one that came from the valley news about the defender general's office and lack of funding for defense attorneys and the number of people who are being detained for a very long time because their cases have not been brought forward is there any feeling from your office that there should be more money put into the defender general's program to alleviate that problem well the defender general obviously uh is is free to to come and make their proposals and and what it would cost i'm not sure uh what uh what the answer is but uh but we'll have that conversation i'm sure when we talk about our budgets in in january so i invite the defender general to come forward and and and talk to us about what his plans are and and what uh what the needs are we had some rather stunning violence in rutherland yesterday morning uh what is your takeaway at this point uh knowing that not all the facts are out but what do you think yeah tragic event obviously for those in rutherland for those family members involved i'm very thankful that no one no one was hurt from the law enforcement perspective and and just i guess it reinforces the fact that it appears that some of this could be drug related we're not sure at this point the investigation is ongoing but but no one's left untouched no matter what family here you belong to and it's something that we still continue to have a lot of work to do in terms of trying to to overcome that even if you're the son of a mayor absolutely coming around monday berlington city councilors approved a proposal that would allow citizens to vote um legislature will be considering peculiar starter change could you just kind of refresh us on where you stand on that idea yeah i mean my thoughts haven't changed since the vote in in uh in berlington um i did read the statement from one there was two two councilors uh that voted against the proposal i tend to agree with both of them that but we need to really really be careful as we move forward with anything like this and for the reasons i stated before whether it's a registry the unintended consequences of having some sort of registry at that point which we fought against over the last two or three years as you might might recall and i've i've heard you know in my years in the legislature there were many business business members who thought they were paying high taxes in the in the community that they were they they had their businesses but they had no vote so where does that lead us then are we going to allow people who have businesses to vote as well because they're impacted as well and i it just hits me uh as being i don't know if it just it just hits me as not being right um that you know we uh there's an obligation as citizens to vote i think we should be focusing on trying to get more people to vote uh that uh that have that privilege and we uh we we uh we're not doing a very good job of that when you see the numbers i have to be honest with you on the local level in particular but but i'm sure this will be taken up by the legislature uh they um they had the proposal from Montpelier now they'll have the proposal from Burlington and we'll see where we go from here but you're a no i i'm yeah i'm not in favor at this point in time my feelings haven't changed the class of 2020 they're uh the first ones um they're going graduating with proficiency based grading they don't get a b c or d they get basically a pass or fail um we're speaking with students and they are applying to schools and they're saying that colleges and universities across the country don't really understand the system so some of these students feel like they're put at a disadvantage what are you hearing from students and teachers well obviously this was passed long before i became governor this was i think as a result of legislation in 2013 so this has been around for a while i've heard controversy as well going to different communities speaking to people lack of understanding about what it means and and and i and there's a lot of confusion surrounding this so i know i know the NEA has some concerns i would say that they they should they should come forward i have conversations with the education committees and the house and the senate and see where we go from here but this is as a result of legislation that was passed a number of years ago and looking at your administration you're really trying to get people to move to the state for families coming here kids are going to be entering the school system they feel like they might be put out of the disadvantage i guess sort of where do we balance that of trying to recruit new families yet there's some ambiguity of how schools interpret these grades yeah obviously there needs to be clarification of what this means and whether whether it's working or not i think at this point in time we could probably uh the the board of education and and the education committees could take a look and see whether this uh this really is suited to vermont and whether had the desired effect that it that it was intended to have and whether we should continue or discontinue this this different type of grading system because i believe education is is key to trying to attract more families to vermont i've talked about a cradle to career type of opportunity education system from from early care and learning through technical training and higher education and trying to lump it all together because if we can become the the number one education system in the country this would this would lead to more people more families moving to vermont who we desperately need governor's the state working on a settlement with the eb-5 investors i i'm not i'm not aware of that that's probably a better question for the ag should the state work on a settlement um well i think i would love to see us come to conclusion on eb-5 as you probably would as well and uh it seems as though with the recent um um court uh determination that we are least narrowing and focusing and getting more towards an end and uh and that would be uh preferable from my standpoint how are we narrowing well i mean i think they eliminated there was a couple of cases that were eliminated at least one in particular um and uh and i think they narrowed down the number of people uh who who could be culpable i think that's narrowing and so i think we're the state itself correct while that's moving on with the court process at this point okay and what does what is the state's total liability i have no idea i i have no idea does the state have as the state self-insured the state is self-insured yes what's the deductible i don't think uh well i think we self-insure so there's probably no deductible no deductible okay oh wait wait we have an expert in the room mr p check mr p check no i think that's right the state is self-insured for most of these um losses that they've experienced you know outside of this context in other contexts as well so does that mean your response the state's responsible for whatever the cost might be well i think that's a long way down the road i mean as the governor said you know the individuals the claims have been narrowed there's still a long legal process ahead even in sort of this initial phase in terms of doing the due diligence and collecting the facts and the information uh well before judge makes another determination potentially uh at a summary judgment phase so there's still a lot of time in this so um you know settlement is you know not something that we're thinking about at this point in terms of uh you know what are our options we need to think about you know what are the pass forward what are the items that we need to get collect to make sure that we have all the information on the table but of course we're also thinking about what's the exposure to the state and trying to limit any exposure to taxpayers i think it's important to note that we've paid out over a hundred million dollars in claims already in context of the eb-5 case those are monies have come from settlements our department has had that mike goldberg has had is paid back vendors and contractors in the northeast kingdom it's paid back uh many many investors including the five investors that are filing the suit against the state so there has been a lot of progress more progress certainly to be made but uh we'll stay tuned isn't 300 million still out so uh i need to do the delta it's 400 million that was invested 100 million paid out so some of that simple math is 300 so there's still obviously the resorts that have to be sold there's still good assets that the receiver has that he's going to liquidate the only people that have an interest in those assets now are the investors due to the payment of the contractors due to the payment of the vendors so that's all good work in terms of cleaning up the mess they're still investors we are working hard to ensure that they get their immigration benefit that was a number one in terms of their priority and then also working closely with the receiver to make sure they get as much of that money back as possible i mean another thing that you have to think about is not just you know the misappropriation but what were the economic realities of the projects themselves so every dollar that was put into that project just from an economic standpoint didn't result in a dollar of value it resulted in something less than that uh so that is going to make it money was stolen no i'm saying separate from that the economic reality that the dollar that was invested you know turned into much less than a dollar of value in terms of the location of the properties how much revenue could be produced from those properties so that's something to think about too in terms of the sale of the properties and how much might be left for investors so what's how is this going to be resolved in terms of the the green cards and permanent residency of the investors since the eb five centers been shut down i mean where do they go from here and what responsibility does the state have to them so we're continuing our focus on that we have options ahead of us in terms of what the state does like so either we can file a motion to reconsider we can bring a case in federal court as well you already did that uh those these actions that we've taken to data within the regional center or sorry within the uscis administrative agency so we haven't filed this federal case we haven't filed a motion to reconsider we filed an appeal within the agency so we have various legal options in front of us i think it's important for us to continue to pursue those you're going to file a federal case we're not saying that we have we have an option for example for motion to reconsider those are options that we're considering now we'll take the one that we think is most advantageous to the investors at the end of the day that's who we're trying to help here and try to make sure they get their immigration benefit so it could be years is what you're saying i think it goes for a federal court process it's already been three years so what are we talking another two yeah again i mean i think we have to do what is best for the investors we have to make sure that that regional center is viable so that they can get their immigration benefit we're not looking to take on new projects as we've said but we think there's an obligation for us to do everything we can to make sure those investors have the best opportunity to get their immigration benefit so say trap brewery or mount snow the investors in those projects couldn't they also choose to sue the state because they don't have their green cards you know there's everyone has options in front of them we're all right now working together on this collaboratively and that's the path that we plan to take on board is all working collaboratively the projects the investors you know we all have the same interests here so we're trying to work collectively to make sure uscis understands the impact that we'll have on on these individuals the potential impact on the projects and that's you know most important to us i can ask you about the housing bond you championed that in your first year i was at a housing event this week large one up in chenna county and the big nonprofit advocate housing developers said you know that money is now entirely committed projects around the state and we are now in the next few months going to go back to where we which is a trickle of affordable housing construction that sounded like an opening for housing bond number two how do you feel about that well first of all i want to make sure that we understand that it may be committed but we haven't seen all the projects come to fruition so some of them are in the early stages and haven't been built yet so we're not at the end of the line in in some respects the secondary i don't mind talking about another bonding opportunity but we do have to to be concerned about our overall debt and what this means the debt affordability committee the treasurer has to be involved and at this point in time i'm not sure that we want any more debt but we can have the conversation at some point but i'm not sure that it's right now so it won't be in your in your 2020 inaugural we'll see we'll see you never know governor are you going to investigate whether any eb-5 records are missing at the agency of digital service um i'm concerned about any records missing and but i'm not quite sure where we go from here to be honest with you if they don't exist i'm not sure where they are computing suggested that an investigation should be conducted are you going to do that um again i haven't consulted with our our cio or an ads on this uh in terms of whether investigation is appropriate and whether we would it would it be helpful but but again i'm more than willing to have the conversation with our whether the secretary of ads on this okay so when are you going to have that conversation probably in the next month or so anything else close to a supreme court justice i just started the process actually um conducted a couple of interviews thus far so got a ways to go a few more to go a few months ago i think you had expressed interest or sent a letter to dhs about a meeting with the feds about prescription drug uh policy and importing did that ever did you ever hear back from them to my knowledge uh we have not received a response on that um hearing some um rumblings of maybe action on the federal level in this regard what what they would accept what they wouldn't but uh but i don't believe we received a response at this point but but i i can check put the ruling there's a ruling coming out and we are sort of uh on hold for that ruling which i think should be coming out soon thank you very much appreciate you thank you