 Good morning everybody. Good morning committee members members of the public. We're going to start this morning revisiting a couple of bills that were introduced last session that were follow-up to good editorial vetoes on minimum wage and paid leave. And as I mentioned to the committee. A minimum wage. I think we all realize that most people would exceed even the $15 that's proposed in this bill. I think it's 24 25 and 24 25. But my hope on this one is just to get the statutory level up at that parallels what the minimum wage is sort of out there in the real world. So when the inflationary figure kicks in each year that that won't be meaningless. And on paid leave those that fell one vote short. It's complex program administratively. It may be hard to reach the finish line in the short session we have left. But I think the need has been really demonstrated by COVID. So some states have done have done paid leave bills. Some have done just sick leave kind of bills for a few days like we have for 5 days in the state of Vermont. And they've expanded that and they some of them have isolated just for COVID. But I'm going to let Damien's Damien has done. Thank I thank Damien a lot for doing the research he has done. It's not exhaustive at this point. But it's enough to get a conversation going I think. So Damien if you can walk us through the minimum wage bill that was put in last year and there may be some dates that need to be tweaked there or amounts. But I think it's pretty straightforward. Great. Is it all right if I share my screen with everyone. Yes. OK. Great. Is it do we also Damien have this posted is it possible for Scott to post it for the public too. I mean for people are it's on our committee page. OK. Great. You go to go to I haven't looked at documents today. Right. Bills and committee is it S 52. It is S 52. I just pulled it up on the screen here. Yep. It's under your name. I got it. OK. So this bill well for the record Damien Leonard Legislative Council this bill picks up next January and continues the increases that have been occurring. So under current law we'd switch over to an inflationary increase next January which is capped at 5%. And it's based on the increase in the consumer price index for Vermont for the 12 months preceding this coming September 1st. So this would replace that for the next couple of years with an increase on January 1 of 2023 to 1335 in 2024 the minimum wage would go to 1415 and then in 2025 it would go to $15 and then it would revert to the 5% CP 5% or CPI whichever is lower increase each January 1st. Damien could you refresh or memory. I'm sorry if I'm putting on the spot here but the history of this issue. I remember a $15 minimum wage bill that I think was vetoed and then even the one that's in law now that goes to 1255. I think that was also vetoed but was overridden. I'm trying to remember if if that is accurate and the one that was vetoed that went to $15. If that if I'm right in those facts and when did it go back to $15 by that particular bill. Let me go back 23. I think the original proposal was $15 by 2023. I think Senator Clarkson is correct. I'm going back. See here but I don't think that 15 now by 2023 ever passed the legislature because the House had objections to that. Yep. So the right which which we work really hard on and then we ended up compromising at the getting us forward to 1250. Right. So what happened here is the the Senate sent a proposal of amendment. So the original bill that passed the Senate on S 23 would have gone to $15 on January 1, 2024. And that's OK. And then the House sent back a proposal of amendment that would have slowed down the increase by allowing for a two and 2.25 times the CPI increase each year until it reached $15 and then reverting to the CPI increase. And I believe at the time before we had the pandemic related inflation that we're dealing with right now, the projection was that that was going to be like 2025 or 2026. I can't remember the specifics on that. And then the House and the Senate compromised at the beginning of 2020 on the current proposal, which goes to 1255 or which went to 1255 this past January 1st. That proposal was vetoed by the governor and it was overridden in the House on a vote of 100 to 49. And it was overridden in the Senate on a vote of 24 to 6 in February of 2020. OK. So the Senate version. So there was only one veto that was overridden. And the Senate version of that bill had been $15 by 20. It would be it would have been two more steps as opposed to the three steps that's in S 52. Yeah, it would have been two more steps and it would have gotten there two years from now. And the I can't remember if the biennium before that we had minimum wage bill that made it to the finish line and was vetoed. And that may be the 2023 proposal that Senator Clarkson is remembering. And I would just have to look back to see if we actually had something that made it across the line that year. That's good. So is there anything else in this bill? What is the inflationary increase in law presently? It's the greater or lesser of something. It's it's the lesser of the CPI or five percent. So the right now with inflation being above five percent, we would be capped at five percent. Most years, it's the CPI because in in general, recently, the CPI has been somewhere between two and a half and three percent, I believe. So most years, that's what the increase is in the minimum wage. The the pandemic has obviously thrown the CPI out of whack with the various costs increasing and and shipping costs and other complications in the supply chain. So like next year, if we don't do anything, the minimum wage would go go to 1255. It would go to 1255 plus five percent, which is roughly 60 cents more. So it would go to 13, 13, 13, 15 or some thereabouts. Yeah, I'm seeing 13, 18, 13, 17. So yeah. Yeah, my goal, which is this bill is a little out of even this draft bill is a little out of date, given where we are into labor market is. Well, that's one thing that I would wonder is whether or not either DOL or the JFO could perhaps tell us what is the for all practical purposes, the prevailing minimum wage today. In other words, what's the distribution of people who are even at the low end of the minimum wage? And I suspect it's not really high, right? But I don't know. Well, they're they're coming in on another bill this morning, but we started to ask them about this last week. But I think for today's purpose, this is just an introduction and I would just say my gut will tells me, but I agree that we need to hear from see if we can get some numbers to back it up is that instead of having this go to fifteen dollars in three years, I would probably my own personal desire would have it either go there in one year or two years and then let the inflation kick in. But it is dependent in significant part of the numbers we hear from Matt Barowitz and others. So unless people have further thoughts, we could go on to paid leave. Sure. And I will I'm going to move very quickly on this bill because it is a fifty seven page bill. OK, can I before we move off this, may I just ask a brief question? I just I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand. I'm sorry. Damien and I suppose we could also do this research. But I'd be just curious, given what's happened to wages across the country. I mean, you know, we're not the only state that's going through this in in as we emerge from the pandemic and have such a severe labor shortage. Would you be kind enough to find out what I mean? Or maybe you already know what other states are doing in regards to the minimum wage, given where we are with the market advancing it so fast. I mean, just like the cost of gas. I mean, last year it was like roughly two fifty at this time. And now it's roughly three fifty. I mean, it's amazing that it's gone up. Everything has gone up so substantially. So I know wages across the country have gone up. Our states responding to that and then doing what we would hope to be doing, setting at least a floor, reestablishing the floor. You know, I I don't know off the top of my head. I I do know that there have been some other minimum wage bills that have passed now since we last looked at this issue or that have taken effect at the very least. But I don't know what the latest update is, because this is just not something that we've focused on in the last couple of years. So I'll update my my chart. Wonderful chart. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I'll I'll update my charts from a couple of years ago. And when we get back to this issue, I'll I'll provide that information that would be great. Because my guess is there's been lots of movement on this across the country. Sure. Yeah, I'll at least give you a sense of where we rank. And I would I would I would guess that maybe people are thinking about it like we have, but legislatures are really slow to move in reaction to this kind of stuff. So I mean, well, I think you'll see some movement like we're suggesting here. I'll bet that there's very little that's actually been enacted yet. So we'll see. So, Damien, I don't really. You said it's a 57 page bill for the purposes of today. I guess I'm more I'm more having interested in having our minds refreshed of the general concepts that were floating around. I know you were really deeply involved in this one in terms of the House and the Senate and the governor and and also if we can touch upon a little bit of the challenges that would be faced in terms of starting up a program like it is. I remember the governor, one thing the governor's plan had. Well, in addition to having the governor behind it, it had the, you know, some simplicity in implementation that he was able to go forward very quickly where the legislative proposals were seem to be more intricate and it's not just the conversation on this to the extent it continues will not just be solely on a paid family leave bill, but paid sick days or something to get wage replacement in people's hands to deal with future COVID kinds of things, which may not necessarily need to be as as broad. So because I think we've seen the COVID, especially now we're seeing a lot of short term needs for time off or paid time off. So anyhow, and you know, if you maybe if you just give us a synopsis of what you remember happening and then maybe talk a little bit about the the research you've done on on some of these prospects. Yeah, the COVID related, it would be great. Yeah, sure. So that that probably makes a lot more sense just in terms of our time. So I think starting with the the bill that passed the the legislature and then was vetoed by the governor, that bill would have created the paid family leave program within the state, but allowed the state to contract for the administration of that program with a private insurance company. So and then the fallback, if the private insurance company, if either there was no insurance company that came forward with a viable proposal or the proposal was more expensive than implementing it through the state, the fallback would have been implementation by the state. The the program had sort of was administered jointly through that private insurance company and then Department of Taxes collecting contributions, Department of Financial Regulation, vetting and monitoring the insurance company and then Department of Labor providing the the rest of the rulemaking and oversight for the process with the day to day administration being provided by the insurance company. The the legislative proposal provided a maximum of 12 weeks of leave with 12 weeks for bonding and a combined total of up to 16 weeks for two parents per child. So in one parent could get up to 12 weeks by themselves. If it was a two parent household, you would have up to 16 weeks total for those two parents. Eight weeks to care for a family member under that bill. Although that was reduced to six weeks. If it was a sibling or a grandparent and then employees could voluntarily enroll in medical leave coverage for themselves, which would provide them with six weeks of leave. So in the context of the current covid situation, you are essentially looking at eight weeks to care for a family member or six weeks to care for yourself. So that would have covered, you know, that the two weeks that people typically mess with covid. What it didn't cover was quarantine, which is something that speaking of other states is something that a number of other states added to their existing paid sick leave laws. If they had them, they added leave for quarantine purposes if there's an infectious disease. The the governor's plan provided for six weeks of leave, if I'm remembering correctly. And it was six weeks for each of the qualifying causes. So bonding your own medical needs, caring for a family member. And then that also added exigencies related to a family member who's in the military. So deployment, if the family member comes back injured, things, things related to that so that you you can also take paid time off from work related to those military needs. And that program was as Senator Brock said, voluntary. So the idea was that the the state employees would all be enrolled in it to provide a core. A core group of people paying premiums into the plan and then other employers could enroll their employees in the plan. And there was also discussion of potentially allowing individuals to enroll in the plan at some point. So that plan there that would have been entirely administered by a private insurance company and the state would have gone through an RFP process with an insurance company every two to four years to basically hire a new insurance company to come in it and or to rehire the existing insurance company, but would have continued to bid it out to ensure that the state was getting the best deal and the best service on that plan. I did ask a question there. My recollection is the governor's plan had the state using general fund dollars to cover the premiums of the workers. And I don't know how much money was was projected for that. But you said something about it's voluntary for the state employees. Why would no sorry, that was a misstatement there. It's the state employees were all automatically enrolled in it. And then it was voluntary for other private employers to join. They provided the 8000 guaranteed sort of foundation. Right. But that was the idea was that the state would guarantee that the employees would be enrolled. It's worth noting that in the interim, the state had negotiated with the VSEA to provide paid family leave. I don't know what the status of that program is. I know that the rollout was delayed because of COVID. And I don't know if that's actually been rolled out at this point, or if that's still in process. I was just about to ask about that. My understanding is that in the contract negotiations, there was an escape clause that if the program didn't go forward, it would translate into an add-on pay increase of a small percentage. And somehow the state employees, I don't know how it came to pass, but somehow the state employees like the pay increase more than the paid leave benefit. And they took that. And now, unless you take it back from them, I don't know where the money would be to pay for the state employees at this point. I think that's the status. They had a backup plan and they took it and paid leave, went by the wayside. Okay. But we obviously confirm that. That's my understanding too. So the difference, the main, it's coming back to me. I mean, under the legislative plans to my chagrin, because I know some states have the employers paying for it, and other states have 50-50 contributions. The bills that passed the legislature had the employees paying the full fee. Of the paid leave insurance. But because it was a universal plan, everybody had contributions deducted from their paycheck. It turns out that it was by all accounts, it was a lot smaller than people would have guessed in the first instance. But the difference and the problem of that, the legislature had with the governor's plan is that while it offered some semblance of paid leave, it required a conscious choice by the individual to join up. And history told us that it was going to become pretty expensive very quickly because so few people would join up. So in some ways we needed the mandate. Of everybody doing it. So it sounds. Why? Senator Brock, you're muted. I'll get your hand up, Senator Brock. Modeling done at that time. And I believe also there was some preliminary. Not our keys, but information from insurance companies that suggested that it was in fact a viable alternative. It's quite a lot of work done. I'm sending a note off to folks. I was dealing with the administration at the time to try to get an update from that end. Good. Well. You're talking about the governor's plans viable to the extent you had the core base of 8,000 people. That's correct. Now that, you know, that changes that could. Clearly. Right. So I guess I just want to ask in a minute. Maybe Damian, you can help us out or maybe we need to. We're going to have to take more testimony, obviously. I just walked away from that experience. In addition to having a lot of scars on my back. With the feeling that the. What was being offered by. The legislature suggested by legislature was. More administratively difficult. A longer roll out time. And the administration's plan seemed to be more. Turnkey and ready to go. Is that the sense. That you had and is it also. Other things you see in the way we set it up that would. Make that true. So I, I think that's a fair. Assessment. The, the reason being is that the. The administration's plan dealt with. Basically finding an existing insurance company that has the infrastructure. And bids on the project. And having them. Administer it with a fairly short lead in process. The legislative plan required. Some administrative stand up from the state. And if you'll remember. Before the, the bill that. This year's or the current biennium's draft is based on that the governor vetoed. The. There was a completely state. Operated option that was proposed. And that had a multi-year rollout because of the, the state needing to stand up the administrative structure. And then the bill that was vetoed. That we were discussing this morning. And the state was still using private insurer for the majority of the administration to help speed up the rollout. But the state has still had some structure. In place, the tax collection with the tax department and so forth. And the reason for that was so that the state had the option of taking over administration. At some point in the future. But I think. Any time we're talking about doing this with the state, there's a, there's the need to build up the administrative structure, because we just don't have it right now. And the other states that have done this. Have opted to go that route. Or at least that I'm, that I'm aware of. But they've all had a lead time of two to three years. As they put together their administrative framework. To collect taxes to collect applications for the benefit. And to administer the benefit. Going forward. So. There, there's definitely a trade off between those options. So. You're, you're right though that the private setup is more turnkey just because those companies. Theoretically at least have the, the administrative framework ready to go or able to stand it up quickly because they can base it on their existing processes. I remember. Could you. Maybe for. Late next week or something. Could you. Pull together some of the. Charts from the past year on the costing out. The program that the legislature passed. And maybe there's stuff as, as Senator Brock has already reached out, but also just. Just the history because I'm wondering. If it's possible to you. Might be possible to use. ARPA dollars. For a portion of this, at least people are taking time off for. COVID. So the, the complication with ARPA dollars is we can't do it for an ongoing benefit. But maybe we can use it to get it set up. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, if you do a short term benefit that's tailored to COVID. Then it's a permissible use. What we can't do is, is a longer term benefit program. That's tailored to sort of broader purposes. But, but I was thinking that maybe my understanding for COVID is. You can use money. You have to obligated by the other 24, but it has to be spent by 26. So for four or five years. We could establish a. And then we could, we could, we could, we could need a program and then maybe turn it over to employee paid. But it has a lot of people who have experienced the benefit. We get some cost projections. And then a transition or ends or transitions. To another funding source. But this could jump, jump, start it. I just don't know how I seem to remember. For some reason. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. 30 million for the, what passed the legislature. The house had a more expensive one because. They wanted to include. Illness of the individual. As well. Right. Well, we did too, ideally. Ideally. But we didn't. So. But anyhow, so if you can get those. Numbers. On to that, Damien, because you had done this work of what we could do to supplement the federal paid the federal family leave program. And this could be, we could maybe use ARPA dollars to do that. As a supplement. And a bridge for that time too. Right. So. There, there is. What other states have done. And so it's important to note that the federal sick leave and paid. Emergency paid leave. Both of those programs have expired. At this point, they expired in September. But what other states have done is they've supplemented their existing. Paid sick time laws. And then in at least one case. They've offered, they've basically used the ARPA dollars to reimburse employers. For the cost of providing the sick leave. So Maryland. Did that to the extent funding was available. And then. Let's see. Massachusetts also set up a fund. To reimburse costs to employers. So that, that's another. And that would be an easy. That would essentially run like a grant program. Like we've already set up for some of the other. Benefits to employees retention bonuses and hazard pay. Where the employers could pay it out and then. Apply to receive a grant to reimburse them. For the costs that they've incurred. So that. That's another possibility, but yes, I can. What I wanted to ask is what you're looking for is the projections on costs from the last. The last paid leave bill that we did then. So just pull up those exhibits and get them out to the committee. Yes. Perfect. Just making sure I was on the. The same page as you. I hope we are always in your boat. As long as we're all paddling in the same direction, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, I, I unmuted before this last part of the conversation, but I think, you know, my two overarching questions coming into today were how do we use the existing paid sick leave infrastructure to help get immediate relief to people. So I think I'm. I'm, I've Damian's been really kind enough to ask NCSL and keep following up on the pros and cons of different state approaches as we're starting to hear. And my other question just being how. As we, as we look to hope that, you know, the build back better bill continues to include paid family leave. And continues to move forward. How much our current best. proposal or most agreed upon proposal could dovetail with that to ensure it's bolstering it may be out a couple weeks to it but those were my 2 questions coming into today and I think we're starting to answer them. They means work really help. Yeah, one thing that's just important to note is right now are sick leave law and our family and medical leave law in the state would cover. The sick leave law would cover regular illness due to COVID-19 or caring for a family member who's sick with COVID-19. The medical leave law which is the longer term job protection, but there's no guaranteed pay covers provides job protection if an employee gets severely ill with COVID-19 or if they need to care for a family member who's severely ill, which is likely not the case because that family member would be hospitalized. What it what those laws don't cover is quarantine and that's something that other states have extended their their sick leave laws to cover. In some cases on just an emergency basis, they provided a public health emergency. You know trigger where if there's a declared public health emergency quarantine can be covered. And then like I mentioned, some of those states that have done that have added grants to employers so it doesn't become an added burden on the employers. Can I make sure I understand that? So I mean, we we definitely have a lot of parents, you know, or guardians who their child may not be hospitalized, hopefully, you know, but they they have no choice but to make sure that they can take care of their their child if the child gets sick and to to be able to or quarantine, right? I mean, they, you know, a lot of times the schools require a quarantine. So we would have to have an emergency order in place in order for them to get access to any emergency funds. So the sick leave can be used right now if the school shuts down because of the public health emergency. So to the extent you have, you know, the it's happened in our school district where some of the schools have shut down because so many teachers and staff are out that they they don't have enough staff for the day or because everyone is a close contact. Particularly with the Rocksbury Village School in our district. It's such a small school that when you have a few cases, so many people are close contacts that they they've just shut down. That would be covered. What's not covered is when people when the school remains open and you need to quarantine unless your employer decides to provide coverage for that, but the law doesn't require employers to do that. So some states have extended the requirement to cover those instances where you're required to quarantine. But the the child care business hasn't shut down. One thing that's that's worth, you know, and this gets more complicated now that we're starting to do tests to stay. And other other things like that. And so and then the the other, you know, the other thing that other states have done where they don't have a paid leave program is they've added, you know, like 10 days of sick leave to their sick leave mandate. And then that gets into the question of, you know, with like I mentioned, a couple of the states have added grants for employers because they they recognize that paying paying to have your staff out for extended periods of time can add a significant cost. And so they've added these grants to help mitigate the cost together with the other funds they're getting out to employers to help address the impacts of the pandemic. So there it's it's a complicated discussion. But there there are. There are a number of different options out there, whether it's providing some sort of paid leave insurance or grants for employers to provide this leave and extending job protection and that sort of thing. So there are a couple of different ways to approach it. Right now, it seems like the states that have tackled this through their paid leave programs have existing paid leave laws that they've expanded on the states that have tackled it through their paid sick days programs include both states that have paid leave laws and states that don't. The states that have paid leave laws are really using the paid sick time as a bridge to get people to pay leave if they're going to be out for a long term with, you know, severe COVID. But otherwise, they're they're recognizing that a lot of times COVID is is not long term enough to qualify you for that. The long term paid sick leave, you know, so New York and California are two states that have a paid leave law where they've they've enhanced their paid sick time to address instances where people are out for five days or six days but not for three or four weeks. So it it gets very complicated as we start to take into the the nuances, but I'm happy to send out the costing information and I can I've shared with at least three members of the the committee here who have asked questions about this and I can share put together a summary that can be posted to the committee's web page of the information I've shared on what other states are doing. No, it's it's been very helpful both with workers, com UI and these paid leave sick day options. Yeah, and CSL has been a huge help in getting this information together. So oh, thank you. One one remaining question I have is we can't be the only state where child cares and early learning centers as a business are really suffering because of what's happening, you know, having to shut down possibly forgoing revenue. Are we, you know, are other states looking at how to help those centers stay open in a float and keep keep paying their staff when they have to deal with so many cycles of shutting down? I imagine that they are, but I I don't know what's being done on that. My colleague Katie MacLenn might know more about that. Mr. Chair, I know we have that done here and he only now has 10 minutes. So our time challenge here is a little bit. Well, yeah, trying to move us along. OK, so Damian, we'll have you back and we'll be in touch in the interim to narrow the issues here. But this does seem there's some interest in trying to do something in response to these short term absences for work just before you leave in 30 seconds. Can you explain what the retention money and the budget adjustment act is? So my understanding about the retention money and it's not a provision I worked on, but my understanding is it's grants provided to various service providers in, I believe, health and childcare. But I may not be accurate on that. But it's it's money provided to service providers similar to the way we did Hazard Pay. Yeah, but the service providers have a little more discretion in how they use that money to retain staff. So it's it's I think up to three thousand dollars per staff person. And it can be used by the providers to provide retention bonuses and other benefits to retain staff during this. The current staffing shortage and struggle. OK, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Damian.