 I just want to start by confirming we have our quorum, Commissioner Cameron. President, good morning. Commissioner Brian, good morning. Good morning. I'm here. Thank you, Commissioner Zuniga. Good morning. Thank you. And I just got a text that Karen is having some difficulties, but I instructed her how to sign in. Okay. Let me just see if I. What I'll ask is I'll ask Jamie to walk her through it. Please request. Oh, I don't, I'm not in charge of recording today. Actually appreciating that. Thank you, Sarah. I'll just see if Jamie can help Karen. Chair, this is Loretta. Good morning. Mm hmm. I think she'd need the call in information. Oh, you know what it is. It's because she doesn't have a computer today. Sorry. And I don't think the invite had the call in information. Yeah, trap that down and forward it to Karen. Okay. Sure. We'll hold for that. You have the number Loretta. I don't, but I would be 646. Yeah. 71646741. 5293. Okay. The same. That's correct. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And we'll just, we'll get started, but we'll hold a bit for Karen. Just in terms of logistics, we've established our quorum. And a reminder. Obviously today we are holding this meeting. We're holding this meeting. We're holding this meeting. We're holding this meeting. We're holding this meeting. We're holding this meeting. I permitted to do that. Because governor Baker did issue some relief from the open meeting law during this. His declaration of state of emergency. During the coronavirus. So we appreciate again, everyone's patience today. I think what we'll do is I call this meeting today. And we're going to hold this meeting. This is the 8th meeting of the Massachusetts gaming commission. On Thursday, June 18th at 10 a.m. What I will do is we'll go to the minutes first before Karen. Joins us. I do understand that today we have had a very busy week in multiple meetings. The agenda does include. A minute for the 11th. We're not ready to, to, uh, We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. We're not ready to go. June 4th commissioner Stevens, please. Thank you, madam chair. Yeah. The June 11th meeting was pretty extensive. So Shah is doing a great job still pulling those together. But in your packet, you had the meeting minutes for the June 4th meeting. And I would move their approval subject to any changes for typographical errors or any other non-material matters. Okay. So that would be a very minor point just because it could be interpreted substantively incorrectly on 1024. The reference. Culture council, like the, maybe the council, the attorney for the council, but it really is a cultural council, which is the last two words in that section. So if you could just repeat that, that would be great. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just going to second. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Further comments, edits. All right. Commissioner Cameron. Hi. Commissioner Brian. Hi. Commissioner Zunica. Hi. Commissioner Stevens. Hi. And I go, yes. Five zero. Thank you so much. Karen, are you able to join us yet? Can you hear me? All right. Oh, and I can see you. Thank you. You appear to be in a different spot. I am my computer spitting redone. So I'm down in the kitchen. I'm my home. Okay, great. Well, thank you. We are now just moving on to item number three on the agenda, your administrative update. Thank you. Okay. So I actually, I'm going to turn this over to Alex light found for that. First item regarding the. The legislative update. I see Alex. Good morning, Alex. Good morning. As everyone's probably aware, the racing statutes expire. July 1st. They were renewed until July 1st. So. The, I think in the past, we've sent a letter. Just to gently remind everybody that it's expiring. It's not expiring. Obviously the legislature has been very busy under these. Circumstances with the COVID and all our various stakeholders have. Are all aware of this. Expiration and are also taking steps. To. Make sure it's not lost in the shuffle. Okay. Great. June 30th. Correct. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And on the, uh, the simulcast upgrade. I know we have guests today. Yes. The commission has plans from Suffolk and from Rainham. For reopening their simulcast facilities. Both of these venues have plenty of space for social distancing. And, um, Chip Tuttle is here for Suffolk. If the commissioners want to. I'll let you know when we get there. I'll let you know when we get there. I'm going to run to Rainham. Good morning, Mr. Tuttle. Good morning, madam chair. Good morning commissioners. Uh, nice to see everybody. Yeah. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Tuttle. Um, You know, I, I see that you pretty much. Obviously you're following state guidelines here with your plan. And I think that there's been a lot of, I don't know, A lot of, uh, I think there's been a lot of, um, A lot of difficulty or any other challenges that. You may want to talk to us about with your opening. Um, thank you, commissioner Cameron. Uh, I don't really think there are any unique challenges. Um, You know, most of the challenge is involved around social distancing and, and, uh, money handling. Um, those sorts of protocols. capacity for the venue is 38,000 people. So that crowd hasn't been there since Seabiscuit, but so it does give us a lot of flexibility on social distancing protocols, though we are proposing in our plan to you to limit operations to the first floor of the clubhouse at the outset and to limit attendance to no more than 250 people in an indoor and outdoor space that can hold probably in the low thousands of people. So we're following all of the state guidelines and we're also in contact with the city of Boston about Boston Department of Health guidelines and some of those specifically as we talk about reopening our restaurant facility as we move forward. And you mentioned signage as a way of really informing people. Will you have others there, staff members who will be reminding folks to follow the guidelines or just making sure that they're being followed in some manner? Yes, so we've already started reconfiguring the first floor and we are going to have people enter where they have to come through turnstiles. We have turnstiles still from when we charged for admission. We haven't charged for admission in several years but we kept the turnstiles for special events. So people will come through the turnstiles where they will be greeted by some of our union employees who will remind them of the social distancing protocols will have hand sanitizer and masks available at those entrance areas for people who forget to wear a mask who would like one. And we also because of the reduced operational capacity with only opening the first floor we are taking some of the paramutual clerks those employees and sort of having them work in a customer service social distancing reminder capacity on the floor. So in addition to our security team which will be the same as if we were open on all three floors we'll have some other folks walking around just reminding people to observe the protocols. Great, thank you. Mr. Tell, on your document you do say encourage the wearing of a mask and encourage social distancing. I'm not sure how my fellow commissioners if they saw that as well, Commissioner O'Brien or Stevens or Zinniga. I think I wonder if the word require should be substituted in order to comply fully with the expectations of the governor's office. I was going to ask the same question. Oh, okay, Commissioner O'Brien. I should have asked a lot of you. It'd be great for us to be consistent across all our licensed properties. I didn't think we were required. We're happy to make that require only noting that I believe we have, we're not able to require mask wearing of people who have a medical issue or some sort of issue that prevents them from wearing a mask safely. I'm happy to double back with our council and others on that, but we certainly wanna comply and be consistent with whatever guidelines you're setting for other facilities. I think it's actually that's set by the state right now by the governor's office. And I believe Mayor Walsh too, so masks are required and particularly you're still considered inside. So that would be, but I think you can have your attorney do just a footnote or an asterisk. Of course, there would be proper exceptions for medical conditions. Okay. Commissioner Zinniga or Commissioner O'Brien? I'm having a little trouble. I can't see if anyone's leaning in. Yeah. Commissioner O'Brien, do you have a question? No, you asked it actually. That was the question that I had. It seemed like encourage according to the current rules and should be required. In both cases. So under, it's under the screening entrance screening and then under social distancing. Yes. Right, Commissioner O'Brien? Yes. Okay, great. Commissioner Stevens, I think you were asking. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. And I had the question about the mask too. My other question is Mr. O'Tuttle, is there adequate protection that the paramutual clerk windows for folks, your employees to be protected as well. I'm assuming they're wearing masks, but I don't know if they're plexiglass or anything else that you have available. Yes, commissioner. We have installed plexiglass on the paramutual windows on the first floor of the clubhouse. And we have, we are spacing the manned windows every three to ensure that there's at least six feet, actually more closer to eight in our case of social distancing between the windows. So plexiglass with an opening that will allow the transaction of cash and tickets, but also will protect people from any airborne, further protect from airborne, I guess, issues, right? Got it. Okay, thank you for doing that. I had a couple of questions, Chair. I appreciate the notion of the 38,000 feet, but I think the documents, the square feet rather, it's a very large operation, most of which has been unoccupied for a while. I think the metric as you correctly point out in the document is the 50% occupancy, which is something that I think we discussed last time when we were yesterday, when we were talking about casinos. And the clubhouse, first floor, the occupancy, it appears that the maximum occupancy is 600, or is that the 50% that is the 600? It's an interpretation, actually, of the way that the city of Boston Inspection Services has set out our occupancy for each area. The occupancy for the hall, that they refer to the entire first floor, clubhouse, link building and grandstand of it as a hall that has occupancy of 22,000 people. But the restaurant on the second floor, which is the same footprint as the first floor of the clubhouse has an occupancy of 600, the top side or restaurant, the top side or room on the third floor has an occupancy of 600. So we are assuming that the first floor of the clubhouse has the same occupancy of 600, and thought that 50% of that would be 300, and that to limit the crowd to 250 would keep us well under the occupancy for that area. In other words, the 50% occupancy of that area. Yes, correct. So, and that's the only area that where there will be the simulcasting monitors. Correct, yeah. So, which I think is the relevant number. Again, I appreciate the expanse of your building. But so just help us understand, and it's been a while since I visited. I don't know if other commissioners have been to the top side or room that Chip is describing, but there's a small monitors is my recollection, and people generally congregate around them to see the end of the race. How is that going to be, you know, set up so that there is the adequate social distancing, or do you foresee any kind of challenges there? Yes, so that's a good question, Commissioner Zuniga, and we have marked the first floor of the clubhouse with specific areas for places for people to stand, so they're six feet apart. We have started both a system of queuing up for the mutual windows and in front of televisions. And since we're only opening the first floor, we are moving televisions from other places so that there are more television screens on the first floor, allowing people to be able to see whatever race signal they want to see without congregating around one or two sets. And then the personnel that I mentioned before will be monitoring that people are actually standing where they're supposed to and not congregating in ways that are not consistent with the social distancing guidelines. We are also moving some screens outside as well so that people who are outside on the clubhouse apron will be able to see the races from outside in those areas. Okay, good. Also, I don't know if you have seen our discussions from yesterday, but we struggled quite a bit with beverage service and the notion of people walking around with that. Can you paint a picture of what that might look like in your operation? Yeah, so this is a work in progress still, as you know, but what we're planning is that there will only be a waiter and waitress service at tables outdoors, consistent with Boston DPH guidelines on outdoor service. You won't be able to go to a bar and order a beer the way you were able to pre-COVID-19. But if you're interested in coffee, soft drink, or an alcoholic beverage and seated at a table outside, you will be able to order one from a server who will then bring it to you. That's great. And then what happens if the patron decides to stand up, take their drink with them and go to another area, like the monitor, because it's the ones they wanna see? Yeah, and I think that's where we're going to need to be vigilant and cognizant of requiring them to follow the protocols. So on that, just as a reminder, we have learned to, Mr. Tuttle, that the idea is to be seated while eating or drinking because that's when your mask would be lowered. And the recommendation is that the mask stay lowered during that time, so you're not constantly lifting and lowering so you're not touching your face. So once the drinks are done or they are finished from staying seated, no, the idea is the mask goes back up and then you're not allowed to have drink or food. So that's where the requirement of the mask will actually be a great enforcement measure, right? Commissioner Zinnick, I didn't mean to interrupt, but that is all part of it. That is one key element. The other one is, again, some of the things that we were struggling with yesterday, the notion that somebody sits down because that's the only place that they are allowed to have a service, but then take their drink and move around because that's also part of the nature of what they are used to doing before. So I just wanted to talk through that. I guess it's something that we didn't quite, we have not quite resolved when it came to the casinos, but I think it applies as well to the operation at Suffolk Downs in the indoor area. I think currently the state's position from the public health is that, and Mr. Tello, you can correct me, but if I'm wrong, it's that they are not able to leave the seated area with a drink, and that's your clear understanding right now. It can't be carried. Yeah, I believe you are correct, Madam Chair, and I'll double check, but I think that's true. For a restaurant, and of course, no bar service right now. Yeah. So is that what you were anticipating, Chip, that they will not be able to take their drinks with them? Yes. Okay. One follow-up question. You mentioned the 300 number, Mr. Tello, but in actuality, your average patron, a number of patrons is far less than that. Is that correct? For simulcast only? No, actually, on weekends, the crowd can be, depending upon summer weekends, crowd can be in excess of three or 400, sometimes five or six, depending upon the day. So I think part of this will be monitoring, and they'll be counting at the turnstiles and regular counts, and part of it will be to see if we do need, and I think I referenced this in the plan, Commissioner Cameron, if we feel as we're getting through the summer that demand requires us to open the second floor, and then we'll come back to you with an amended plan to do that. I see. Okay, thank you for that. Chip, I had another. Commissioner Stubbins, would you just mind if we could just go back to the drinking and eating, because I do see where it probably isn't entirely clear what you just committed to in your written, unless I've missed it somewhere else. Mr. Tello, but it does say right now, points of entry, signage and greeters encourage or will require gas to wear masks that cover the nose and mouth well at the facility, except while eating or drinking, and perhaps we should add at a designated seated area. And of course, at a certain point in time that there may be relief to that restriction, but I think, and I'm welcoming the input from my fellow commissioners on that, that might be helpful, and then actually affirmatively say, you know, guests may not walk around with their drinks. Commissioner Zunica, what do you think? Yeah, I guess that's what I was trying to get at, how it's phrased is very important, but then of course, how it's enforced is something that we discussed the planning yesterday. I believe that's consistent too with our next guest. So that's another point of clarification in your written document. Commissioner Cameron or Commissioner Stebbins or Commissioner O'Brien, if you want to chime in on just that and then we'll go to Commissioner Stebbins question. Yeah, I do want to chime in on that. Chip, just to remind or Mr. Tello, just to remind us is a beverage service at Suffolk, is it free or patrons paying for their drink? Patrons are paying for their drinks. Okay, I could see that causing some issues. Somebody saying, hey, I paid for my drink, why can't I bring it with me? So, you know, the communication with patrons as they arrive or even before they arrive to the extent you have the ability to do that. I could see that causing a little friction, but if people know, don't leave your drink that you paid for, leave it where you were sitting until you finish it. That's a little bit different than how our gaming licensees operate. Understood. Anything further on that point and then we'll go. Commissioner Stebbins, did you want to speak on another point or maybe elaborate on the communications plan? Obviously, you know, and thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Tello, we've obviously stressed with our licensee or casino licensees to do as much communication ahead of when patrons arrive so they have an idea of what to expect being that you're required to wear a mask and we'll have some available to you or obviously this protocol or provision around beverage service. Additionally, I had a question of, we know that racing is back open in other jurisdictions. Does the availability of races to watch and bet on is that impacting in any way your hours of operation or is there enough product out there that you see a good steady flow of patrons throughout the day? Yes, Commissioner, in March and April, there was not a ton of product. You know, a handful of states, Florida, Arkansas, California in some areas because it was more of a countywide decision in several parts of California. Now we're, you know, we're back to almost full menu of simulcast options. You know, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, operating with no spectators, but operating safely with COVID-19 protocols due to the unique nature of horse racing and the fact that there is not any physical contact between the participants. It's good to hear it. Thank you for that update. In fact, the bell on stakes is these weekend, isn't it? Correct, Commissioner Zunaget is Saturday down in New York. And when were you planning to, are you working towards a phase three reopening? Yeah, we're working towards phase three and, you know, and while that may be early July in order to give everybody a chance to catch up, we're looking at July 8th, 9th, 10th, that timeframe. We do wanna have the ability to have the employees in for training before we open up and get everybody comfortable with the protocols and the communications issues that you've raised will be a big part of that. Madam Chair, sorry to interrupt, but as I mentioned at agenda setting, I need to leave the meeting until 1230. So I am just gonna exit and I will rejoin at 1230. Thank you and good luck to your graduating fifth grader. Thank you. We applaud her. Excellent, appreciate it. Thank you, good luck and we wish her well. See you at 1230. All right, bye. Thank you. Any additional questions for Mr. Tuttle? We are gonna be hearing from Mr. Corey and perhaps Mr. Kearney on Rainhem. If Mr. Tuttle, you wish to stay on. I don't believe that Mr. Grossman, we are expected to act on these guidelines. I was gonna make that question. I wasn't, I assumed that we, when I got the packet that we didn't, I think there's enough time to look at this, but that was gonna be my question as well. Mr. Grossman? I think that's right. I think this is a good opportunity to look at them and ensure that you have a satisfactory comfort level, allow Mr. Tuttle to make any updates or tweaks that he would like to make in response to this conversation. And then we can have another look at it maybe before the intended opening, if I may. I'm gonna pause for one minute. Our dear colleague, I can see Mary Thurlow is struggling and I suspect she's looking for her shared drive right now. Is that possible, Mary? Can you unmute? I can't unmute her, Sharra. Sorry, I'm trying to figure out, for some reason my computer is running on battery and not plugged in, so just, I'll... All right, we just, I was gonna ask for technical assistance for you if you needed it. It was almost like I was being a citizen, just observing a crisis at hand, so. Yes, I appreciate it. We're trying to figure out why it's not charging. So if I go blank, I'll get my home computer up and... We're good, we're good. You've got time and good luck and I can see you're in good hands. Thank you. Okay, then that sounds good. Mr. Grossman, we have time. We've given a couple of suggestions in terms of probably bringing these guidelines further in sync with the current status of the advice that we understand is being made available from the state level from the Governor Baker's administration. Okay, firing no further questions at this time, we'll move on then to Mr. Corey and Mr. Kearney. Good morning. If Mr. Kearney's here, I only see you, Mr. Corey. Thank you. So, Madam Chair. Oh, sorry. Good morning. We have Sue Rodriguez from Rainham, representing Rainham, she's on the line. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just didn't see her name. I knew that she was planning on joining, thank you. Yes. Good morning, Sue. I don't know. We might have to unmute her at star six. Shara. I'm looking for her phone number. 508-824-4071. Yes, can you hear me? There we go, yes, thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Sue, how are you? I'm very fine, thank you. We have Mr. Kearney and our Rainham Park team as well. Excellent, thank you. So, do you want to walk us through your guard lines? As Alex, is that how you'd like to proceed? Yes. Okay, excellent. So, we have very unique our facility and we do not face a lot of the challenges that the other facilities may because we have such a large venue and our attendance pre-pandemic is less than what we would have to reconfigure. So, we have taken out numerous tables and chairs. We will be using our club two and three area, which is on the second floor, and the occupancy there is 660. So, on a regular weekday, we would not see 660. We wish we would, but we haven't seen that in some time. So, a regular weekday, we might have approximately 150 people. A Saturday would be our busier day, and on a busy Saturday, we may be looking at about 200 people. So, we're lucky that we have the occupancy limits that won't constrain us from our regular visitors. We have put up the plexiglass in front of the paramutual lines. We are installing glass in front of our concession stand. So, all of our employees we protected, everyone, including the guests, guests and employees will be required to wear masks. And we have installed markers and arrows throughout the property, reminding or guiding our guests and employees of the social distancing. Questions for Sue, Commissioner Zunica? It's similar to what I was asking of Mr. Tottle earlier. And I know, I haven't been to rain, I mean, a little while, but you describe the concession stand where people can come in and get a snack or get a beverage and then walk around. How is that, generally, can you just describe that setup and how is that? Sure. So, we are planning, the bars will be closed. We will offer food and beverage by waitress service only. We do allow patrons to walk up to the food stand. Again, if you could visualize the number of patrons at a time, there is rarely any queuing to be needed, but we have put stanchions and markings throughout just to coincide with all of the regulations. So, on a regular day, you might have a patron or two that decides to come up to the stand to get their food themselves, but for the most part, our customers enjoy the waitress service, and that's what we'll be providing. And of course, we'll have staff throughout helping our patrons acclimate to the new procedures. But we rarely, other than Kentucky Derby Day, have a day where there's crowd. You know, it's a little bit the notion of people walking around with a beverage because that's sort of gonna have the layout lens itself too, especially if you were being served that, you know, you have the ability to walk around. That's again, one of the points that we discussed at length yesterday. Right, and quite frankly, we don't have patrons that walk around with their food, eating it, and beverages, and one of the main reasons is they have a program in one hand and their tickets in the other. So that's not something that they ordinarily do. Ordinarily, they're eating and consuming their beverages at a table. So I don't foresee that as any type of an issue at all. Thank you for that. And the other question again, same as what I was asking Mr. Tuttle, my recollection of the configuration is that when it comes time for the race that people were expecting, there's congregation around monitors. Some of them are small. I remember some of them are like designed to be for just the small table. How is that, how do you foresee that operating? So once again, I'm happy to report that I don't foresee that as a problem. We don't regularly have a congregation around televisions because we have such a large number of larger televisions. The smaller televisions are placed at tables where we've arranged there to be two seats at those tables for people that travel together. But because of the number of televisions that we have, it's not been a problem at all. And the way the seating is configured with the televisions, you can be seated and see all of the televisions right from your chair. And our population does happen to be an older population. So they do tend to be less transient. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rodriguez. Commissioner Cameron, do you have questions? You mentioned you will have staff available to, I think you said to remind people of the new protocols. And are they in a position to enforce those protocols as well, meaning just, you know, make sure that people are listening and complying with the guidelines. Yes, and a nice thing about our clientele is we have people who are here every day. They sit in the same seats and they tend to sit by themselves. So we've lucked out in this aspect. So we, a lot of our customers are like family here. So the patrons and the employees have a good relationship. In addition, we are going to have a random police officer here, especially as we transition into these new regulations, just in case there's any type of resistance. Great, thank you for that. And it sounds like as you started your comments that there are no challenges that would create any kind of a problem. You've kind of thought this plan through and you don't feel like there's anything that would be problematic in implementing. We really don't, we feel very confident in the guidelines and how we can implement them. Great, thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Stevens. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I think both our simulcast operators did a very nice job pulling these plans together. And as I was reading through the random plan, they covered every aspect from the program table to how they get clean. So I appreciate the thoroughness of both operators. Sue, a quick question is, do you intend to do any communication or email or note or a letter for patrons either before they arrive on property or when they arrive on property to make sure that they're aware of the guidelines and how to conduct themselves? So yes, we have our website where we will once everything is approved, we'll make our patrons aware of these new protocols. And we have a Facebook page, our website, and we will also put something on our telephone system. Again, with our clientele not, some of them are not too tech savvy. So a lot will come either through telephone and also when they arrive on site, we'll be sure that we have plenty of staff before they enter the property to let them know the requirements. Okay, great, thank you. And of course, the signage that's required, we have all that ready to go. Okay, thank you. I myself feel that the verbal communication is what's going to work best. Thank you for that, I appreciate it. Is Mr. Carney on? Yeah. Good morning, Mr. Carney. We want to thank you for presenting these guidelines. Your attorney did a very nice job. Mr. Carney, thank you. To be honest, the student did the job. I did have a question for Mr. Carney. How are you doing, sir? How are you doing? For 90 to hold him hanging on by a thread. If I could add to that, if we all could be doing as well as Mr. Carney, I would be all very lucky. Mr. Carney, when we last spoke, you in March, you were 92, when does 93 happen to you? July 14th. Well, we'll be thinking of you on that day. Let's hope that you're able to have safe conversations at that time. We appreciate the good work and I think that the overall consensus is that we cannot pass on these formally today. We'll take another look. Alex will be with Commissioner Cameron's guidance and we can, as required, act on this probably at our next board meeting or as Commissioner Cameron has heard me say repeatedly, we are nimble. We will not be the ones to slow it down. So as required, we will return to this. Loretta, did you wanna comment at all? I see you coming in. No, just staying ahead of the agenda. I'm all set, thank you. Okay, excellent, thank you. So thank you, Mr. Carney and Sue and Mr. Corey and the entire team down there and Mr. Tuttle. If we have no other questions other than to wish everyone, oh, Mr. Corey. Thank you. I apologize, Madam Chair. I work with you and represent the horsemen at Plain Ridge Park racetrack. Oh, but I saw your name on the bottom of the guidelines, no? No. That's what they're on mine. That was, I think it was a separate letter that came in related to the reopening of. Oh, I know that you were, I thought, well, maybe you were also representing Mr. Carney and folks, Mr. Corey, my apologies. It's the way it printed. I thought you were a very busy gentleman from yesterday and from today. So Mr. Carney, my apologies, but the guidelines are very well done, very thorough. Mr. Tuttle's the same. I think we just had a couple of suggested edits but we will take a closer look and then we'll move on to the next item on our agenda. But I just wanna thank you and I wanna make sure that everyone stays well with a special thought to the gentleman who turns 93 in July. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Alex, do we have anything else on our agenda then? Oh, I think she needs to be unmuted. Oops. There we go. That concludes that part of the agenda. Okay, thank you. So Karen, I am wondering, as I look at our agenda and I think about Commissioner O'Brien's schedule, you have three next three matters are expecting votes. I know we would hope to have her be able to participate in those. We obviously have a quorum and continue on four A, B, and C that we also could begin our discussion on the community mitigation fund. It is now 11.32 and she would be coming back at 12.30. I'm sorry that our technical difficulties through our agenda planning. So Karen, what would you suggest? Yeah, I mean, I don't think these three items would take an entire hour. So either way, I think Commissioner O'Brien is gonna miss some of the Community Mitigation Fund discussion, we'll go on that as well. So it's a matter of, you know, I think these agenda items for the Investigation and Enforcement Bureau, having four commissioners vote on that, they're quite non-controversial. So I think that would be okay. So I'm actually thinking going ahead with the agenda and that way Commissioner O'Brien will miss most of the Community Mitigation Fund discussion and have a more fulsome understanding of that. Okay, thank you. That makes sense. Okay. All right, so going ahead with agenda item four, with the Plain Ridge Park Casino License Renewal, subsection A. Initially, I'd really like to thank Loretta Lilios, Joe Delaney, and Bill Curtis and their teams for all the work gathering that information. This is the agenda item regarding the vote on the complete to solve the application and that renewal. As a housekeeping matter, we did receive a letter from the Harness Horseman's Association regarding PPCs re-licensing. However, fortunately it appears that most of not all of the issues in the letter will resolve at the public meeting on Tuesday, given that the racetrack is expected to open at the beginning of phase three. But in any event, the agenda item today is for a vote on the completeness of the application, not a determination on actual re-licensing. So this would not be the form for the discussion on those issues anyway. Steph is aware of the points, so there doesn't need to appear to be any need for action on that today. So my suggestion is we just turn it over to Loretta for the review on the suitability portion of the completeness of the application, and then Joe and Bill on the rest of the application and the completeness of that. My understanding is they got some additional materials this week, and they can update you on that and you should be ready for a vote. Shall I proceed? Yes, please, thank you. Sure, so good morning. As a reminder, the five-year term of PPC's license ends on June 24th. So at the outset, I want to remind you of the language of section 13 of chapter 30A, the Commonwealth Administrative Procedures Act. And the relevant provision states that if a licensee has in accordance with any law and with agency regulations made timely and sufficient application for a renewal, his license shall not expire until his application has been finally determined by the agency. So the matter for your vote today would be whether the application for renewal has been timely and sufficient. With respect to the status of the suitability applications, we worked with the licensing division to identify the individuals and executives who would need to submit to the qualification process of the renewal license. And we completed that process in January of this year. As a result of that scoping process, we identified 11 executives who needed to submit full applications, comprised of the multi-jurisdictional forms and the Massachusetts supplements, complete with financial histories. We also identified an additional five individuals, independent directors at GLPI who needed to submit a modified application which you previously approved. And we identified a number of entities, including PPC, Penn National Gaming, and some pass-through entities that needed to submit detailed applications. All of those applications were submitted to the licensing division in a timely manner and the licensing division verified that they were complete. In addition, the investigative team requested supplemental information from the qualifiers and conducted interviews and all of the requested information has been provided. The investigators have worked efficiently in this period of telework and have already provided me with their draft reports in all areas of suitability. I've reviewed them and in the few instances where additional information was requested, the qualifiers provided it promptly. We've shared the financial report information on the entities with Commissioner Zuniga and are in the process of making sure that any areas that he has identified can also be addressed in the report. And the licensee is continuing to cooperate fully in that process. In fact, there was a call with Monica Chang, Commissioner Zuniga and Justin Sebastiano from Penn National this week. So I can report with respect to suitability that the licensee has made timely and sufficient application, which is the matter that's before you for a vote today. I can also report, as I've indicated, that we are very close to being able to make the suitability report and presentation to you. As I've indicated, all the reports with the exception of the financial report are complete. The financial report is near completion and you had asked for a summary memorandum, which I intend to prepare. So I have two requests for you today. The first is that you deem the suitability portion of the application to be timely and sufficient. I'd suggest that you roll that into your overall vote after you hear from Joe on the other aspects of the application. My second request is that next week's agenda-setting meeting, we set a date for the suitability portion of the renewal. So if you have any requests on suitability, you know, I invite them now or after Joe's presentation. Mr. Zuniga. Yeah, I can only put in a finer point to the portion of the financial report that Loretta talked about. We had what I believe is the last phone call necessary with Mr. Sebastian of Bend National Corporate just the beginning of this week. And it's really only a matter of reflecting it in the report which had been drafted, you know, previously and in my opinion, in really good shape. So I would actually characterize that report as virtually complete. It just needs to go to print, if you will. Any other questions from Loretta at this time? Otherwise, we'll move to Joe. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. So, you know, we've been giving you updates on a fairly frequent basis in the last few meetings on status, but just as a little bit of background, you know, we received sort of three large batches of information from PPC, we received one of them on April 15th, another one on June 1st, and the last one just this week on June 15th. So we compared all of that documentation to the application requirements in the letter that we sent to PPC back in February. And the, you know, essentially we compared those and it appears that the application is complete. So we would certainly deem the application timely and sufficient. So we're recommending that the commission accept this application as timely and sufficient and then internally we'll work together to pull together a schedule for all the deliberations and so on. I think it was our intention to discuss this at the next agenda planning session so we can figure out when it makes the most sense to come in front of the commission. We know we wanna do a public hearing, we know we wanna do a site visit. We also want this to not conflict too much with the reopening of the facility. So I think, you know, next week, early next week, we'll probably try to get the team together and have a meeting and see how long it's gonna take for everybody to get their work done and we'll put together a reasonable schedule for the deliberations. And with that, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. On those logistics, I do think, as Loretta pointed out, that would be really helpful if we could have a good solid timeline for those different touch points, Joe, to discuss on Wednesday at our agenda setting meeting, if possible, understanding that it's a little bit difficult to assess in total with the reopening. We'll try to pull something together for that meeting. Right, and then we can have a sense as to how it fits into our overall planning. And I think next Wednesday is the right time to do that discussion. Substantive questions for Joe or Loretta in terms of, you know, it is our assessment of what is in fact sufficient and timely. And so we've heard recommendations from both Loretta and Joe that we deem that the application is such. Are there any concerns or questions regarding meeting that threshold standard? I have no questions. I think they each gave a thorough report and really gave us all the key elements to feel, for me to feel satisfied that this is something we should move forward with. Thank you, Commissioner Zunica. Yeah, along the same lines. Thank you for everybody who does the work, but especially in this case to the people at Penn National who are operating under a number of staff production that they've had, although it has increased in other areas recently and are able to comply with all of and respond to our requests as well as keeping other things at play like the reopening of the casino. So thank you to everybody. Commissioner Stevens. Yeah, I would simply echo the good work and the Commissioner Zunica's point. PPC is a little short-handed, so their ability to get some of the remaining documents that we needed in a timely fashion. I greatly appreciate it. Yes, and I wish to extend the same thank you and to, of course, our team, because I know that it's your relationship that you've established with our licensee and their understanding that you will work reasonably and collaboratively with them in good faith during these trying times. And I think everybody's achieved the goal that we had hoped for. In advance of the June 24th deadline, I have no reason to think we can't act on this today from my perspective. You have raised no concerns. So I just want to, again, echo on both sides for the licensee. PPC, Penn National, we thank you. We look forward to the next part of the work that has to be done. But at this stage, I believe sounds as though we can act on this today. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I'd move that the Commission find that Plainville Gaming and Redevelopment has made timely and sufficient application for renewal of its category two gaming license consistent with procedures established the February 28th, 2020 letter. According pursuant, accordingly pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 30A, Section 13, the gaming license shall not expire until a final determination as to whether to renew the license has been made by the Commission. Second. Further questions? Discussion? Commissioner Cameron? Aye. Commissioner Zinnega? Aye. Commissioner Stebbins? Aye. And I vote yes. 4-0, noting that Commissioner O'Brien simply could not be here during this vote. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would like to apologize. I realize it's very difficult. You know, I look like I'm in witness protection over here. I just have no lights in front of me. I can't figure out how to solve that. So the next item on the agenda is an NGM qualifier with a vote for suitability. So I'm going to turn it over to Kate Hardigan, our Senior Enforcement Counsel at the IED. Good morning. Good morning, Kate. It's nice to see you all. And yes, as Executive Director Wells said, there are actually two corporate qualifiers for your consideration. The MGM qualifier is Mr. Mahmoud Sliman. And in addition, I'll be presenting Mr. Marcus Trummer. I'd note that he's a qualifier for Ankur Boston Harbor. Both Mr. Sliman and Mr. Trummer submitted all of the required forms and complied with all of the IED's requests for supplemental and updated information. With regard to both investigations, the IED conducted its complete protocol for suitability for casino qualifiers, and confirmed financial stability and integrity, reviewed litigation history, searched criminal history, verified that no prohibited political contributions were made in Massachusetts, and conducted checks of open source and law enforcement databases with regard to both qualifiers. The team for Mr. Sliman's investigation was Trooper John Morris of the Massachusetts State Police Gaming Enforcement Unit and financial investigator Faye Zhao. The team for Mr. Trummer was Trooper David Collette of the Massachusetts State Police Gaming Enforcement Unit and financial investigator David McKay. And I would note that IED investigators were able to interview both of the qualifiers via video conference given our current situation. Mr. Sliman was interviewed on April 8th of 2020. Mr. Trummer on April 16th of 2020. Both parties were noted to be cooperative and forthcoming in all aspects of the investigation. And at this time, I'll turn to the specifics of Mr. Sliman's investigation. Mr. Sliman joined MGM Resorts International in February of 2019 as the Executive Director of Development Operations, responsible for managing team and automation processes for software releases. He reports directly to MGM's Vice President of Quality Assurance, Release Management and Project Management, Mr. Samir Al-Rashid. Mr. Sliman is based out of Las Vegas. Prior to his employment with MGM, he began his career in the gaming industry with Aristocrat Technologies, where he held several positions in Australia. Beginning in 1998 through 2008, he was a senior software engineer with Aristocrat Technologies. From 2008 to 2009, he was a program manager with Aristocrat and from 2009 to 2010, he was their CBL planning manager. Then moving from Australia to Las Vegas, but still employed by Aristocrat in November of 2010 through February of 2012, Mr. Sliman became the Director of Quality Assurance and Product Compliance for Aristocrat. He then transitioned to employment with MGM, beginning in September of 2012, working as a program manager until July of 2013, and then became the Director of Business Technology Partners in July of 2013 and held that position through March of 2015. Beginning in March of 2015, he became the Director of Quality Assurance until September of 2016, when he took over his current role as the Executive Director of Quality Assurance, serving as through February of 2019. And his title now is beginning in February of 2019 to the present Executive Director of Development Operations, Managing Team and Automation Processes, as I mentioned, for software releases. It's noted that Mr. Sliman holds gaming licenses in the jurisdictions, Nevada, Michigan, and Mississippi, and investigators were able to confirm that all of these licenses are in standing. Background review confirmed that Mr. Sliman completed his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nueva Esparta in Venezuela in 1995, where he received the equivalent of a Bachelor of Science degree in computer information systems. Mr. Sliman has demonstrated to the IEB by clear and convincing evidence that he is suitable, and the IEB recommends the commission vote to find him suitable as a qualifier for MGM, Springfield, and I would pause at this point before turning to Mr. Traumer if the commissioners would like to vote now. Do you have any questions? I'm sorry? Yeah, yes, Madam Chair. No, just that it was a very clean investigation to read no issues at all, and I see no reason why we should move forward with finding Mr. Salim suitable. Any questions then for Commissioner Stepp and Sir Sunita? No questions. Good report. So with that, Madam Chair, I move that the commission find Mahoud Salim, Executive Director of Development Operations for MGM, Resorts International, suitable as a qualifier for Blue Top redevelopment LLC. Second. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. Commissioner Steppens. Aye. Yes. Thank you, and I will pass the compliments onto the investigative team who are joining me on this call. They did an excellent job. So thank you. Moving on to the next qualifier, Kate, thank you. Certainly. The next qualifier for your consideration is Mr. Marcus Traumer. He's the Senior Vice President and Chief Audit Executive for Wind Resorts Limited, which is the parent company of Uncle Boston Harbor. Mr. Traumer attended the University of California at Santa Barbara graduating in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in business economics. At Wind Resorts Limited, his main responsibilities as Senior Vice President and Chief Audit Executive are development, implementation, and monitoring of the company's internal controls with an emphasis on compliance with outside regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators like the MGC. Mr. Traumer is based in Las Vegas and reports directly to the Wind Resorts Audit Committee. He does so at their core meetings. Prior to joining Wind in 2003, Mr. Traumer worked at Caesars World Incorporated where he was the corporate internal auditor. He began there as an intern and moved into a full-time position where he served from July 1994 through November of 1995. He then moved to Arthur Anderson, LLP, a large accounting firm from August of 1999 through May of 2002. He then moved to Deloitte & Touche was an experienced risk services manager. That was the same role he had held at Arthur Anderson. He was at Deloitte & Touche from May of 2002 through July of 2003. It was in 2003 that Mr. Traumer joined Wind Resorts Limited. He joined first as a Department of One as their Auditing Chief. And since then the company growth has required him to take on more control. He now supervises 30 auditors on an international basis for the company. So, due to that, Mr. Traumer, although he's essentially held the same position since 2003 because the role has evolved and because of the investigation into Mr. Wind, the rescope has captured Mr. Traumer at this point, although he's essentially held this position since 2003, so just to clarify that timeline, if it did seem attenuated to any of the commissioners, that's why he has been captured and then subject to qualification at this point. Mr. Traumer is currently licensed and good standing only in one jurisdiction and that is in Nevada. He's licensed there through the game and control board and his license is noted to be in good standing. Mr. Traumer has demonstrated to the IEB by clear and convincing evidence that he is suitable and the IEB recommends the commission vote to find him suitable as a qualifier for Encore Boston Harbor. Any questions from the commissioners? I have one question and it might need to be best directed to Councilor Malilio's. Can you help me Loretta? Is this the same position? Because I know Commissioner O'Brien is not on. Is this the position that was raised in the independent monitors report where there was an outstanding qualification issue or is that a different position on compliance? That's a different position. So we are working on an outstanding matter on that. There were three qualifiers designated around the time of the hearing last spring. Right after the hearing while you were in deliberations, three additional qualifiers were designated. Mr. Traumer is the second of the three and Mr. Whalen is the third of the three and his is still outstanding. Thank you for that clarification. This is a critically important role. So excellent report. Thank you, Kate. Commissioner Cameron or Stebbins, do you have questions? Commissioner Zunick, oh, you're all set, okay. No questions, thank you. Commissioner Stebbins, you're all set as well? All set, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, it was important to clarify it for me and an excellent report. Again, thanking everyone on your entire team, Nevada and Kate for the thoroughness, including the officers who helped on the interviews. Thank you. You have a motion. Madam Chair, I'd move that the commission find Marcus Alexander Traumer, Senior Vice President and Chief Audit Executive for Wind Resorts Limited suitable as a qualifier for Windmass LLC. Second. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. I mean, Commissioner Cameron might have- Aye. Commissioner Zunicka. Aye. Commissioner Stebbins. Aye. But yes, 4-0. Again, noting a Commissioner O'Brien's absence. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Kate, excellent presentation as well. So moving on then on our agenda, we have the community mitigation fund. Extensive work has been done by this team. We applaud the thoroughness. We all enjoyed very helpful, our two by two briefings. Had the opportunity to review extensive materials, but this part of our meeting is incredibly important given the amount of money that is at stake. So we welcome the first part of the community mitigation report, starting with Joe and Mary, and questions I think should be asked along the way, perhaps, Joe. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. Yeah, my intention is to go through each of the applications and at the end of each application, open it for questions on that particular application. So just to start, I'd like to take five minutes up front here and go over a kind of a high level, how we arrived at our recommendations. There were a number of factors that came into play that resulted in an award recommendation that was below the target that was in our guidelines. Now, the implementation of the Community Mitigation Fund for 2020 has proven to be particularly challenging. You know, with the advent of COVID-19 right in the middle of our review process, we've had to react and develop systems to work around, you know, these issues of working remotely while holding extensive meetings with applicants, licensees and other agencies, all while keeping to our established schedule. Because of this, we've also had to rethink some of the assumptions that were made when the guidelines were developed and we've had to modify or postpone some of the applications in response to the effects of COVID-19. Looking ahead just a little bit, you know, the closure of the casinos and an expected ramp up of operations once the casinos reopen has tempered our expectations on revenues for the Community Mitigation Fund for 2021. I've done some early, you know, really rough estimates of the revenues and they range from a low of about 4.7 million to a high of 7.3 million, which compares to the $11.5 million that were generated for the Community Mitigation Fund in 2019. So as such, we've tried to be conservative in our expenditures for 2020 with an eye towards 2021. No applications that we received were identified that needed any kind of an expedited review or were considered to be particularly urgent. This year's also been a little challenging from a grant award standpoint. The program is fiscally constrained in several ways. Under the guidelines, target spending was identified for several categories and spending was also constrained by region. So for instance, in region A, the guidelines establish a maximum spending of $6 million while there were applications for over $9 million. Similarly, under the Transportation Construction Grant category, we had a target of $3 million with applications totaling $5.7 million. So we did have to make some difficult choices with respect to which grants were recommended for funding and some worthy projects had to go unfunded or be funded at a reduced rate. Now, one of the major tenets of this program is that these grants must be in response to a direct impact of the casino. Before the casino is opened, the connection to the casino was typically based on studies that had been done as part of the BIPA process or other studies conducted by the licensees or by the Gaming Commission itself. Now that the casinos have opened, we've been asking for documentation of the actual impact of the casino on the community. Now, some jurisdictions have done a good job with this, but there were instances this year where we did not recommend funding due, at least in part, to a lack of supporting documentation of the impact. Now, and there were also a few projects where applicants were requesting additional money to continue work being done under previous grants. Now, some of these applicants requested money where expenditures from the previous grants may not have even started. Now, considering the expected shortfall and funding next year, we were reluctant to recommend tying up these additional funds that may not be used for some period of time, some perhaps substantial period of time. And again, just before we get into the details of the fund, I wanted to, once again, thank the review team for all their help. And the review team consisted of Commissioner Stebbins, Commissioner Zuniga, Joe Griffin, Carrie Teresey, Kate Hardigan, Crystal Howard, Teresa Fiore, and Tanya Perez, who joined our team partway through, also Vivian Shoal, who helped out with some administrative tasks, and especially to Mary Thurlow, who was spent countless hours pulling this all together. And again, everybody really stepped up to the plate on this and were integral in getting this done on time. Now, getting into the details of the fund itself, just a little background, the applications were due to the Game and Commission on February 1st of 2020. We received 37 applications totaling over $13 million. Now, both the number of requests and the dollar value are significantly higher than we have ever received before. In fact, I think the applications were up more than 50% from the previous year. And as we mentioned before, under the guidelines, $11.5 million was available for grants with 6 million targeted for Region A, 5 million targeted for Region B, and 500,000 targeted for the Category II on Tribal Facility. These applications were also sent to our licensees and to mass.com for comments. And in the write-up, you'll see that these comments from the various groups were incorporated into our write-up. For each one of the grants. So the review team is recommending awarding grants totaling just under $6.7 million, with 3.9 million going to Region A, 2.5 million to Region B, and 283,000 to the Tribal and Category II Facility. So Mary's sharing some pertinent sections of the memo with the group so you can see what we're looking at. And this chart here that's on page four is a good summary of the targeted spending and the recommended awards. So now these numbers are significantly lower than the $11.5 million target that was established in the guidelines. But due to the reasons we just talked about a moment ago, the review team is very comfortable with our recommendations. Now, before we go on, did the commissioners have any questions on sort of the broad parameters of what we're doing? Commissioner Stevan and Commissioner Zuniga, you're quite involved in supporting this. Is there anything that you wanna comment on in particular? Yeah, the only thing that I would add, and that was a very good summary, Joe, and I'll speak more to some of the details as we go along. But the one thing that I would add is you mentioned all the reasons for being conservative and I think they're all appropriate. There was also, I would say, a recognition and a lot of discussion that a lot of these projects will be very important to the communities as in the environment that we're in that some of the funding recommendations will go a long way to make a big difference even if they're reduced in the original request. And that is a theme that I think makes it through a lot of the recommendations. So I would argue where there's a balance that is being at least desired here, I think achieved in the notion of trying to be conservative on one side from the original target that was set on their very different circumstances but recognizing that there's monies available and they will make a big difference in some of these projects in these communities. Commissioner Stavins? Sure, thank you, Madam Chair. And a good update and a good overview from Joe and also wanna thank our team that works so hard on all of these recommendations. And also thank the applicant community officials who with everything else going on made time to connect with us all virtually, go through those question and answer sessions as well as do a lot of the follow up replies to additional questions that came up. I think it's just not to sound like Debbie Downer but I wanna pick up on Joe's concern about what we head into next year, having again lost a few months of revenue ensuring what revenue will return when our class one licensees are able to reopen. So I appreciate first of all the conservative approach we had this year but something for the commission and as Joe and Mary begin this ramp up process to next year, thinking along the lines of unused reserve amounts that have not been tapped into by communities as well as awards we've made in previous years that have not been tapped yet. Giving some consideration of whether the commission should claw back that money. Not quite knowing what 2021 is gonna show us or face us with. So the great work all around great job by Joe and Mary and keeping the process going in the whole team. And I think the recommendations as we'll go through them you'll see are pretty strong and as Commissioner Zuniga hinted are backed up by data and showing direct impacts. Excellent, Commissioner Cameron do you have any questions at this stage? I do not, thanks. Okay, excellent. Well, thank you for that thorough overview Joe do you wanna continue now? Yes, thank you. So just for our discussions today we're gonna jump around a little bit in the memo we're gonna try to cover specific categories of grants. So today we're hoping to cover the workforce grants the non-transportation planning grants and if time allows the transportation planning grants. And for next week, next Thursday we'll cover the remainder of the transportation planning grants if there are any and also the specific impact grants and the transportation construction project grants. So Mary's skipping up here to page 35 of the memo to the workforce grants. And before we get into the details of the two particular grants I just wanted to talk a little bit about some of the COVID-19 impacts on this area in our discussions with our licensees early on in this process we asked them what the effect of COVID-19 would be on their workforce once the casinos were allowed to reopen. And their general indication was that they don't see right now a significant need for newly trained dealers or hotel or culinary positions since they'll initially be operating at a reduced capacity and also will likely be hiring they're currently laid off or furloughed workers. You know, in fact, given what we're seeing in the news these days, I've seen several articles recently with respect to hotel and restaurant workers there certainly could be a surplus of qualified workers available in these areas due to layoffs and other things at other locations around the city. So for these reasons we are recommending that certain industry specific portions of these grants not be funded particularly the culinary and hospitality related programs. Now we are recommending grants to maintain the basic education programs as all the casino employees are required to have a high school diploma or a GED or high set and while maybe not the day the casinos reopen but over the course of the next year there will be some turnover as there always has been and keeping a pipeline of people moving forward to fill those positions we think is worthwhile. And I have with me Jill Griffin today and she's going to go over the two workforce grants in a little bit more detail. So I will turn it over to Jill. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners. Good afternoon, Jill, thank you. So Holyoke Community College submitted an application and they initially requested $450,000 to continue the training programs they had established through the Community Mitigation Fund over the past couple of years. And these were focused on addressing the lack of workforce readiness skills of Hamden County residents. Their proposal is made up of four parts. One, Springfield's ahead of the game basic skills program that focuses on adult basic education and high school equivalency program. Number two, Springfield Technical Community Colleges Hamden Prep, adult basic education, digital literacy and career readiness training. The third component was the Mass Casino Careers Training Institute's gaming skills training. This was a collaboration between Springfield Technical Community College and Holyoke Community College. The fourth component was Holyoke Community College's Culinary and Hospitality Skills Training. So as Joe mentioned, the review team is not recommending awarding the gaming school or the Culinary and Hospitality portions of the grant funds. The review team is recommending awarding $199,000 for the Hamden Prep and the Springfield Public Schools portion of the grant. So with that general description, I'm gonna open it up for questions. Commissioners, can you hear me? This is Dale Cameron. They have been offering the combination of these two schools have been offering this training for the last couple of years, correct? Correct. And it is working successfully. The team took a look at that and it is effective toward getting folks the skills they need to then be employed at MGM. Yes, we have seen results. There were changes that they recommended in this year's application such as marketing, funds for marketing of programs to encourage, I guess, a larger pool of applicants. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure the team, and I know that the team always does look at past results when awarding new recommending that we approve new grants. So thanks for that. Other questions for Jill on this. Jill, I just wanted to ask is have you heard whether or not there's been disruptions given the need to be entirely remote? In terms of learning right now. So these applicants did propose digital learning shifts to encourage remote learning. So we are comfortable with this proposal in terms of being able to offer those remote learning situations. That's excellent because I know there have been challenges. So that's good for everybody, including for us today. So that's excellent. I have no particular questions except that I'm pleased to see that they'll be continuing, we'll be able to continue to support components of the, if I'm understanding correctly, the adult basic education. And at this time, if anything, this allows people the opportunity to study where we're in this remote situation to concentrate on completing this part of our education. So I am very pleased that we can continue in some way, even though I understand it's a conservative way on education and workforce development. Thanks, Jill. I know it's tough to swallow this for you at this time, but again, the dollars will hopefully be able to be applied next year when it's in a more targeted way and compliant with our requirements. And I just wanted to add one quick thing in, is that your agenda does indicate that there would be votes on this, but we had agreed that we're gonna wait and do all of the votes next Thursday's meeting rather than doing them individually. Thanks, Joe, because I think we all decided that it really makes sense for us to have the whole picture in front of us before we vote in part. So thank you for commenting on that, that we will reserve the ability to vote next week. And then of course, Commissioner O'Brien will be able to participate for us. With that, I'll turn it back to Jill for the next one. Jill, let me just comment on that. I'll use Commissioner. No, no worries. Both of the workforce grants, interestingly enough, you know, it's, what was unique, I think, in this process of reviewing these two workforce applications that these applications came in by February 1st. And we went back to both applicants and said, if you had a chance to do this application now, would you make any changes? And there was some good back and forth between us and applicants. I would suggest, I mean, listen, a lot of us are trying to figure out what the employment landscape is gonna look like. You look at unemployment claims, a lot of those are coming from the culinary and hospitality industry as Jill referenced in her comments and that we're not sure what that's gonna do to the availability of people when our licensee is reopened. You know, additionally, you know, focusing on still doing some of the basic ed programs helps give residents a runway to be able to complete that education and then look at, you know, some specific job skill training after that, but it kind of keeps them on that path to keep going through a lot of adult basic ed requirements that so many careers require now. What I would suggest, and again, I know we're not voting on this today, I would suggest that Jill and her team and Joe and Mary continue to work with our workforce applicants as maybe the employment landscape becomes a little clearer in the weeks and months ahead and certainly invite them if they had to come back and repurpose or defer that part of their proposal, come back to us and say, there's an emergency need to do this type of training, not only as this program was set up not only to respond to the needs of our licensees, but the needs of the business community who might have lost employers, employees, I'm sorry, to our licensees and just give them that flexibility that we could revisit on application in the future as the kind of employment landscape becomes a little bit clearer. I think we have that authority and I would think that this is probably one of those places where we should give it serious consideration. That's a really helpful observation, Commissioner Stevens, as we struggle on this particular category, that's very helpful. And if our processes permit and there's no statutory prohibition, I think that's a really helpful suggestion. Joe? Yeah, that really is, I think. And I think we do have the ability to do that. Should it become necessary? Yeah. Yeah, thank you. We're working with our folks. Okay, I think that we would note that that's with respect to this particular area, the workforce, in light of where we are with respect to COVID-19, that's really your point, correct, Commissioner Stevens? Yes, it is. Thank you. So I just wanted to clarify two things. Thank you, Commissioner Stevens, for your remarks. I'm sorry, I can't tell who's speaking right now because the memo covers everybody's faces. So I don't have the ability to see faces right now. So if you could identify. This is Jill Griffin, sorry. Thank you, Jill. I couldn't tell if it almost sounded like you were Loretta, so I'm so sorry. Thank you. I wanted to clarify two things before we finish with this grant proposal. We mentioned that the $199,000 was to support Hamden Prep and the Springfield Public Schools. But additionally, we did recommend $37,000 for regional collaboration. And this was to fund a coordinator to focus on recruitment, cross referrals, and to track outcomes. And as you'll remember, the guidelines allowed us to award up to $50,000. So, and we will likely be coming to you with a request, an applicant request to approve rollover funding from FY19 to be used this fiscal year. Thank you, Jill. That's helpful too. And I do apologize. Perhaps because we are using the, we'll be using the memo throughout the presentation. If we are, we should identify ourselves to the extent that's helpful because I couldn't see Jill's face. I had to scroll down. So thank you. There you are. My version. Thank you very much. Jill, are you continuing on to the next one or? Yes, if you're ready, I'll continue on to Mass Hire Metro North. Thank you. So Mass Hire Metro North and the city of Boston have collaborated with Mass Hire being the lead applicant. This application requested $450,000 to address hospitality sector needs. The project consists of five parts. One, outreach and community engagement to local residents. Number two, career advising. Number three, adult basic education, job training, job readiness. Also for job placement and five job training. And the job training they propose is the New England Center for Arts and Technology, also called NECAT, which is a culinary arts training program. Best hospitality training was focused on housekeeping, pre-apprentice and English for hospitality. So again, the review team is not recommending awarding the NECAT and the best portions of the grant. The review team is recommending awarding $172,000 for the community engagement, career advising and employment services portion of the grant. And with that, I will open it up for questions. Oh, and before I do, I will just say that they're also in this portion of the grant, we awarded about $40,000 for regional need. So with that, I'll open it up for questions. I don't have a specific question. I think you are certainly the team has been consistent in looking at both regions in a similar manner and awarding the portions that make sense under the present circumstances. So that looks like it's appropriate to me. Thank you. Commissioner Zuniga, Commissioner Stevens. Well, I will just emphasize, I guess, the point that Gail made and has been made before that I think this strikes a balance in recognizing that there may be a supply surplus for at least some time, but funding the longer lead items as described before the pipeline to reserve the overall programs, which is what is why the recommendation comes the way it is. So I'm full support of this approach. I thought I would just note that the, of course the licensee on Corbasson Harbor has acknowledged that they had a very positive experience collaborating with Mass Hire. So we look forward to the continued partnership. And again, as Commissioner Zuniga said, it is a, we're investing in some long-term opportunity for individuals down the road as our economy begins to stabilize. Commissioner Stevens. No, nothing to add. It was, you know, just to comment on both programs, as Jill alluded to both programs, both applicants have had a good working relationship with their licensees and their track record has been successful. So this is in no way any reflection on the great work that they've done in the past grant award cycles. Yeah, I should acknowledge, I appreciate the difficult decision-making that's gone on here. So thank you, I'm very, very thoughtful, although I understand difficult. Moving on, Joe. Okay, so we are done with one category. Thank you very much, Jill. Jill, we appreciate you and Crystal, your team's work. Thank you so much. I can't see you right now because of the configuration, so thank you. And I love seeing your live face. You have a great photograph and the live is special. So thank you. Thank you. I just am noting it's about to be 1230. Commissioner O'Brien should be coming back momentarily. And so it might make sense. Oh, you are. Oh, good. First off, congratulations to the conclusion of the fifth graders year. Commissioner Zuniga, would you welcome a break? Can he hear me? Yeah, I think I can and I guess you couldn't see me, but I think it might make sense to take a short break for sustenance and in between categories makes some sense. That does make some sense. And my apologies, it's gonna be a little bit hard for me and perhaps Joe and Mary to navigate sometimes because it's important for us to see the memo, but we are only seeing a limited number of faces. So speak up, there's no one is being rude if I can't see your photo and I can't detect differences in voices. So thank you. Kathy, I think that the memo being up as a distraction, we can certainly take it down. I just thought it might be beneficial for some of the people who are looking in who can see a little bit more detail than what we're describing. I'm comfortable with keeping it up unless my fellow commissioners would feel differently. Keep it up. Yes, I hear Commissioner Cameron. Yes, I think it's important. And we can, it just means that we should speak up. I can't see hand signals are leaning in. So I don't want to in any way be hampering the progress of our discussion. We should be okay. But I'm welcome back, Commissioner O'Brien. I think we'll take a break. It's 12 30. Commissioner Zinica does 20 minutes. We're giving our late start or would you like more? Fine, whatever works for people. Can we reconvene at 12 50 then? 10 of one, please. Does that work? Or is that too short folks? Fine. Thanks. I'm hearing no major complaint. I appreciate everyone's patience and we'll break for 20 minutes. Thank you. Reconvene at 12 50. Again, I can't see, but Commissioner Cameron, are you? Let me see if I can scroll down. I'm right here. Okay, excellent. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. There we are. Okay. Karen, you're back on. And Joe and Mary, and we have had Jill's report. So it looks like we are in a position for me to reconvene meeting public meeting number 308 of the Massachusetts Gaining Commission. We'll continue now with the community mitigation report from Joe and Mary. Thank you so much. Great, thank you. So we're moving on now to the non-transportation planning grants. And the first one for your consideration is an application by Everett for a study of their designated port area. So they're requesting $100,000 to perform a study on the designated port area in Everett, which is adjacent to the Encore Casino and the additional land owned by Encore. The port area is about a 300 acre tract of industrial land generally located to the east of Encore on the Mystic River. Think the Exelon power plant across the street plus the scrap metal yard, the Schnitzer scrap metal yard beyond that and there's a bunch of other uses back there, you know, pretty heavy industrial nature. So the development of Encore and the subsequent purchases of land across the street by Encore has really changed the whole character of lower Broadway. As the area further develops, it's expected that there'll be some additional market pressures put to bear on that designated port area. So because of this impact on the port area, Everett is proposing to conduct a study of that area to determine if it's really functioning at its highest and best use and to determine if any changes should be made to the port area. So the review team agrees that it's certainly appropriate to perform a proactive study like this before there's a real firm proposal for those other lower Broadway properties and we recommend that the $100,000 be awarded to the city of Everett for that study. And so with that brief description, I'll open it up for questions. Commissioners, Commissioner Zuniga. I would add that there's a key feature here and that's a little bit of a theme from before, but it carries over to other grants as well. And that is long lead nature. I think Joe alluded to it well, but the notion that it's important to invest in these kinds of studies so that then subsequent uses and economic development really can happen. So I'm very much in favor of this grant. Commissioners Stebbins, Cameron or O'Brien. I'm hearing none. And again, forgive me. I can't see everyone at one time. Commissioner O'Brien, you're all set. Okay. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Again, just to, it's in your memo. It's quite clear in the red, the bolded red, but again, on Corbonston Harbor, supports the city of Everett study here. And we thank them for their continued collaboration. Makes good sense to me, Joe. Thank you. Okay. Well, no other questions. We'll move on to the next one. This is the city of Medford. They're looking to hire a consultant to establish a business technical assistance program in the community. So, you know, Medford gets an allocation of funds from the surrounding community agreement to help businesses kind of spruce up their operations and so on, but the SCA also requires that on Cor try to spend a certain amount of money in the community. In fact, their target's $10 million a year. And what has happened, well, to date, those purchases from the city businesses have not been reaching their established targets. You know, we only have data up through the end of December, which was six months of operation roughly, but those numbers were lagging somewhat. And in addition to that, the city itself has gone through an administration change and has had some additional staff turnover, which has created some difficulties for them in implementing this business assistance program and monitoring on Cor's compliance with their SCA. So this grant will establish criteria for the distribution of those surrounding community agreement funds with local businesses. And it will also develop a system to ensure compliance with the surrounding community agreement, which should ultimately help local businesses secure additional business with on Cor. So the review team agreed that this grant will help city businesses in obtaining the SCA funds and also improve the ability of these businesses to establish relationships with on Cor. So we're recommending a one-time grant here of $100,000 to the city of Memphis. Questions for Joe on the Medford program? I would only emphasize the one-time notion here. There's monies as Joe mentioned that come to Medford from the surrounding community agreement. And this would go a long way to helping them figure out how and where those are being spent and used in the best way possible. But I as one commissioner would not want to necessarily see an ongoing funding of these type of requests. And it's something that we can either make very clear now and also reflecting guidelines at a later time. I think it's the one-time nature really achieves some balance. Commissioner Stevens or Commissioner O'Brien or Commissioner Cameron? Yeah, I would just echo that. And obviously on Cor. of Boston, Harvard and a number of those surrounding community agreements as Joe referenced had commitment to find local vendors as well as procure a number of thousands of dollars in gift certificates. So hopefully this grant will kind of drive that communication between on Cor. of Boston, Harvard and this business assistance person on behalf of the city of Medford. By the way, I should mention, there was quite a bit of discussion and this is a good example of just the timing of some of these requests, even the uncertainty of an ongoing closure, let's say. So I guess there's an anticipation that there will be an eventual reopening, however that looks like. And then there's still plenty of time for some of these monies to make it through to their communities and they can start planning in advance. But it's another one of the many features of what we wrestled with in terms of making funding decisions in an environment where, well, for one, the casino is not operating. I'd like to add, I understand, Commissioner Zuniga, that you're suggesting it's one time. I'm appreciating why you are making that recommendation. I am wondering if Joe, if you could explain what the follow-up is, the feedback that we get on a grant like this to learn how it leverages these services will help actually assist the relationship and the coordination with Encore into achieve its goals. So I'm just wondering what the follow-up is because perhaps this is one time for this particular city, but if it's particularly effective, I'd like to know that so it could maybe be replicated. Sure, the city of Medford, their longer-term plan is to hire an economic development director and that person would be responsible for implementing this plan. So with respect to, part of this is going to be looking at the grant money that they are, the money that they get from this around a community agreement and how best to spend that. And the other piece of it though is building up these relationships and maybe the capacity of some of these companies to participate in contracts with Encore. There may be some training for these firms to working with a company like Encore is not the same as working for a much smaller company. They have a whole set of protocols that you have to follow. And the idea is to try to build up the capacity of these businesses to allow them to pursue opportunities with Encore. And I think having that economic development director is very important. But also this document will establish a framework that frankly anyone could use. Part of this problem with turnover and other things is you have someone has an idea of how to do something and if it isn't well documented, it disappears and then it says, oh, we have to start this whole thing all over again. Part of this whole thing is to say, let's document this whole system here and what we're trying to accomplish. And then we have a framework to go forward that whether it's a new mayor, a new employee, a new whatever, that they know sort of what the expectations are. Right, and if it's effective, it could be a roadmap for another municipality that's facing the same challenges. So I think part of our job will be to see the follow-up and to make sure we get the feedback. I know that this is part of your overall goal, but I think it could be just the right amount of sort of seed money to actually be something that could be replicated for others. Yeah, and the follow-up on this, I mean, we will see a much more detailed scope of work when they go out to hire this consultant and we'll have input on that and we will make sure that this is, checking all the right boxes on what we're trying to accomplish. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron or Brian or Stephens? Makes good sense for me. I follow the logic with the team and it makes a lot of sense. Thanks. Great. Commissioner O'Brien? No, I think I would just echo what was said by commissioners to begin, Stephens. Okay. Commissioner Stephens. I'm all set. Thanks, Madam Chair. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. If you want to go on to Northampton. Okay, Northampton. This is known as Northampton Live. It's their marketing program for 2020. Northampton's asking for $100,000 to continue operating the Northampton Live website, which was originally developed with Community Mitigation Funds. And we also do provide a little bit of additional funding last year to continue with the marketing effort. Now, the purpose of this website is to mitigate negative impacts on Northampton from the development of the MGM Springfield Casino. And the way they do it is they're really continuing to focus on marketing to their sort of usual clientele as well as expanding to target new customers drawn to the area by MGM. And some numbers that they have submitted to us regarding taxes, meal and hotel taxes indicate that this seems to be working that Northampton is sort of holding their own with respect to keeping business in town. Now, obviously that's all before COVID-19. But these non-transportation planning grants were established to provide planning funds for projects that weren't funded sort of in other categories. And we generally expect that it's the responsibility of the community to implement the plan. Now, with respect to this Northampton application, much of the proposed funding appears to be for normal operational costs associated with just running the platform on a day-to-day basis. Now, some of the spending is definitely for additional content development and things of that nature. Now, much of the costs are for reporting and advertising. And so the review team was not convinced that many of these costs are for true planning activities. And frankly, this is a hard one. The website was developed using MGC funds and we felt that that was appropriate and we certainly don't wanna see this whole thing wither on the vine. But also this category of funding was not designed to be a vehicle for ongoing operational support. So I guess, you know, in a sense, we're looking at this as a transitional year where we provide enough funds to keep the platform moving forward. But really with the understanding that Northampton cannot rely on MGC funding, you know, to keep this thing going indefinitely. They have to work and get their local businesses and community and others to support this. And, you know, and they're making steps towards that, but they're not there yet. And of course, with COVID-19 and, you know, the impact that that's had on small businesses, you know, asking small businesses to, you know, put up monetary support for this at this point in time is probably a little bit of a difficult ask. But so what we are recommending is that we award $50,000 to Northampton for this project with the understanding that these funds can only be used for the further development of the platform and not for routine operational costs. And in addition, we expect that Northampton will need to make this platform self-sustaining in the future, you know, without the benefit of CMF funds. And with that, I will open it up for questions. Questions from Commissioner Stevens. Madam Chair, more comment. I think Joe in the review team laid this out really well. If you think back, Northampton came to us with this proposal, original proposal, prior to MGM's opening. And, you know, we're very forward thinking and worrying about the impact of MGM on their community. And as Joe pointed out, some of the, just some of the measurements that we would look at to see if there was a negative impact. And that's local motel taxes, local meals taxes have really not been affected. And I think to Joe's point may have been helped along by the presence of the website. So I agree with the recommendation and the city of Northampton should be congratulated for trying to get out ahead of any potential impacts. And I think they've done them. Are the commissioners comments? Yeah, this is very consistent with what we've done in past years, you know, meaning operational costs were not the intention of these grants. And so I think this is again, very consistent with approaches we've taken in the past. And it does make sense to tell, you know, let them know like the project, but the monies can't be used for operational costs. Can I just get a clarification on that? Because this is the one that I am, you know, struggling with a little bit. It may seem like, oh, it's not our largest request, but with respect to what just commissioner Cameron said, it isn't an affirmative prohibition that they can't be used for operational costs. It's just, is it in the actual guidelines that they may not? Or has it just been practice? You know, it's not specifically prohibited in the guidelines. But if you read, when you read the guidelines, it continually talks about planning efforts and so on. And it sort of indicates that in any plan, it should be addressing a specific thing and that there should be a clear plan of implementation for that. So right now, Joe, yeah, so right now, Joe, the idea is that this 50,000 could only be used if we were to award it for a further development of the backend and not the front end. Is that the idea of the website? Yeah, you know, some of the things that, you know, some of the lessons learned on the first year of operation of this thing, they're saying, hey, we could probably do a little better job here, trying to target these kinds of businesses and this and that, you know, and it's sort of really development of the platform and not just a, you know, some of these things are, you know, they run, the website runs advertisements on other people's websites, you know, when you are searching on maybe Expedia or something and you type in Northampton and Ad will pop up for their website. So I'll tell you, I'll be more specific as to what I'm concerned about is that, you know, given COVID-19, local businesses are struggling with respect to being able to, as we've repeatedly said, communicate their plans for safety and how Northampton itself is communicating its plan for its safety while continuing to support the local businesses and small businesses. And of course, I'd love to see a collaboration with the casinos in Northampton to sort of leverage this grant to further communicate their cross-marketing efforts in a way that's reflective of our current situation. And so I'm assuming that all of these tweaks and these communications plans are taxing the budgets of our localities. And I just am thinking it made my concerns just may deviate too much from our criteria, but this is, I'm struggling a little bit where we're saying at this particular time that 50,000 can be used, but it may be on the back end and maybe it's actually would be much more helpful to be on the front end. And if that's considered operational, I guess I understand. That's a, it's Enrique, Chair, I have a slightly different and perhaps more on the fundamental side of our concern. I think the recommendation is okay, and it's embedded in the licensee comment here, which is there's originally Northampton was quite concerned that MGM was going to take away customers from their downtown, from their entertainment destination. And that really narrative never really came about. Now came COVID-19 and who knows what's gonna happen, but the efforts, the notion turned what's really in the guidelines is the connection to the casino. And what that's really in the mitigation in the statute when it comes to the mitigation. And that to me is where I struggle a little bit on this one. I do on the other hand, recognize that we funded in the past an effort that it would be really a pity to let just as Joe said, to just die on the vine and that in these most of unusual circumstances, it makes sense to continue at least funding, whatever might keep things alive. And I guess that's- Perhaps it's the website that's keeping it alive. You know, the cross marketing, that's the thing is that as commissioner Stevan said, they had early vision to be proactive to say, let's not just let all everything go to the casino. And that's one of my concerns now is there's a lot of focus on the casinos possibly reopening during COVID-19. Small businesses and every locality is really struggling. So I wonder if it's still consistent with that fundamental statutory requirement of mitigation on impact. That's really where I'm struggling. Like right at where the localities are having such difficulties. Well, the difficulty is that they're closed. You know, and I think- No, they're not all closed. Now the small business and the retail's are starting. Well, it has been. That the most recent until, you know, they're operating with a couple of chairs on the sidewalk as opposed to indoors and they're part of phase three or phase four. But that's, again, my point. Commissioner, I don't want to belabor it, but I just, if I'm way off, I want to make sure that we're just all thinking about the fact that if there's, if this other extra 50,000 in any way fits into the paradigm that we're facing right now given COVID-19 without deviating and just I'm throwing it out, you know, just to remind- Well, yeah, that's the impact. The impact has been COVID-19 on everybody. Now, does it affect different entities in different ways? It sounds like it does. But, you know, it's not the impact of people going to the casino instead of Northampton. It's the impact of COVID-19 that we're- Well, no, but we don't know that. We don't, you know, that's my, without really good cross marketing and cross continued coordination will Northampton get forgotten because of this year? That's all. And that's why I asked if it was, could they use any of the 50,000 for the front end or is it strictly for the back end? Yeah, I guess, you know, just the guidelines just simply aren't that specific. You know, I mean, our reading on it has been that these, I mean, the category itself is planning. So we say that this is supposed to be for planning. Yeah, I understand. But I imagine that, and I guess I would have to ask maybe Todd or someone to opine on what the commission's ability might be legally to, you know, to extend that to other types of uses. So I don't really know. Okay, I don't wanna be labor. Other commissioners, if you have any thoughts on what I was addressing, I welcome it, otherwise we can move on, okay? Then let's go on to Revere and the hospitality advocate. Okay, excuse me. Revere is requesting $100,000 to fund a hospitality advocate in their Department of Strategic Planning and Economic Development. They're looking for these funds to pay for that person for 18 months. And they're looking to have this person organize the city's hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues into a Revere Travel and Tourism Council. Apparently Revere had a Travel and Tourism Council some time ago that went away during the Great Recession back in 2008 or thereabouts and they're looking to kind of resurrect that. Now the application and the follow-up information that we requested identified some potential opportunities for cross-marketing with Encore and to capitalize on Encore related hospitality opportunities. But the main focus of the application seemed to be the re-establishment of this Tourism Council. You know, the review team just didn't believe that Revere articulated sort of a clear impact of Encore that this proposal seeks to address. And in addition, the review team also questioned, you know, whether the use of this grant was appropriate considering that the area is already served by two different visitor bureaus. We have the Greater Boston and the North of Boston convention and visitors bureaus. So for those reasons, the review team doesn't recommend awarding a grant to the city of Revere for this hospitality. That'll open it up for questions on that one. Commissioners, Commissioner Cameron. Yes, Joe, I know that when we talked about some of these applications in the two by two, I said, well, they've had two bites at the apple to really convince the working group that there is a connection. And I think you explained to me that actually they had three bites at the apple. Well, this is one of those applications that you gave them a chance to explain further what the connection would be and they didn't do that to the satisfaction of the committee. Yeah, that's essentially it. You know, we ask them, they need to provide that in their application. And then we have a conversation with them where we, in this case, we don't ask every applicant, but in this case, we asked for some additional information regarding that. And then we submit them those questions in writing. So we sort of got a, you know, in the application then a verbal response and then a written response. And, you know, when we added it all up, there was, you know, there was some anecdotal evidence of some connections, but there was really no indication that there was either a positive or a negative impact, particularly from the casino that really needed to be addressed. Now, with that said, if they established this Travel and Tourism Council, they could certainly try to attract people to stay in revere hotels, because it's probably less expensive than staying at Encore or, you know, other attractions of revere, revere beach and other things. But we just didn't see that they really established an impact that this application would really address. Commissioner O'Brien? No, I'm all set, thanks. Okay, Commissioner Stavins, Commissioner Zunica? Yep. Madam Chair, this is the first. Just to pick up on a couple of Joe's comments. You know, and again, I want to go back for a minute, reflect on the fact that, you know, non-transportation planning grants are also designed to allow a community to try to maximize the presence of the casino, the presence of the casino itself. And I think that's, I think an attempt here by revere to do that, even though, as Joe said, you know, drawing those lines and those connections weren't as strong in the application as we would have liked to have seen them. Kind of going back to our discussion around Northampton and there's a couple other applications coming up. You know, Joe talked about the fact that there are already designated tourism bureaus, tourism councils, which were designated by the state to cover the economic and tourism development going on and their territory and the communities within that territory. I would hope at some point, we might be able to get to a point where all of the host and surrounding communities are working with our licensees so that there are great lines of communication and also bringing in the regional tourism council so that there's more of a regional approach which might maximize the dollars and maximize the impact of future grants. But I agree with the recommendation that some of the lines for the impact just weren't made that clear to us. But on the other side of this, got to be excited for the city ever in the growth, I'm sorry, revere and excited for the growth that they're seeing. Mr. Seneca, just to expand a little bit, you know, I wanna make it clear it's not that the review team didn't like this project in and of itself, it's just simply that the connection to the casino wasn't there. You know, I think any community that's trying to improve their travel and tourism, we think that's a laudable goal, but we just need to see that nexus to the casino. Mr. Seneca? Yeah, I think that's a theme on a lot of the instances where we're either reducing the recommendation or declining to fund the grant request in full. And I think I agree with the recommendation. It's not easy to say no to people that put the time and effort to think critically about what they want as advocates of cities. But I think as you mentioned, these cuts the way it does. So I wanna, I understand why we're not making this recommendation, but I had this conversation with Joe and Mary, I'm not with Mary. Well, I guess Mary, yes, you were there and maybe Jill too. I'm wondering if, you know, where we are seeing the applications not rise to the level that permits, we haven't made that connection that we need. It doesn't permit us to recommend an award that perhaps, and maybe it's during our remote, while we're working remotely, perhaps that we have some kind of round table trainings where disappointed applicants and successful applicants and our team are able to gather exchange ideas so that they start to imagine how this money can be leveraged for their benefit. It was contemplated to be used by the legislature in this way, and we wanna do everything we can to train and to enable the communities to be able to successfully apply for these awards. So I'm hoping that we can think about that. You know, grant writing is an art, and it may be in many ways that some of the people who are writing it think that connection is so obvious. But one thing I won't, you know, I heard Commissioner Cameron say, well, they had three bite of the apples. I was lucky enough at one point in my career to run the Judicial Nominating Commission for a governor and the number of times great judges, some of the best judges in our state applied and didn't get it was because their application just kept on improving. And then finally they got their judgeship and then they became all stars. One very successful as today's judge said, I applied 17 times. So I don't wanna ever have it be that they weren't successful. I would always want to encourage, it's okay to keep on trying, but I think we should affirmatively offer some supports and guidance too. Well, we have the process of the local community mitigation advisory committees. Now granted, they happen more towards the fall in anticipation of the guidelines for the new year. And this in the most of unusual years, there was no real consultation. Right, I understand that commission. Yes, and I think we should leverage them too. And Joe said the same thing to me, but I'm just wondering if we can think outside the box about how using the HD meeting, the virtual to get feedback and have maybe the municipal, particularly the folks who actually write these applications maybe meet, I know that they meet with you separately, but if they meet together, it's just an idea again to support successful application writing. Yeah, and I think this is something that it seems to me is probably appropriate when we issue our new guidelines is to have a series of meetings, maybe a meeting in the East, another one out West with the local communities and other agencies that are requesting funds to workforce or otherwise. And just to have a little workshop to say this is what we need to see for you to be successful. Yeah, I love that idea, Joe, the workshop. And Joe is so fabulous at thinking about how to pass along that information. So I just thought in addition to the, we do have the local for the local committees and that's great, but I just thought if this could help the process, we should try to implement it, adding it to the to-do list. Sorry, Joe. Right, all right. Okay, great, so moving on. And I think that that's just, I won't mention that again, but I do know, as you mentioned, Commissioner Zuniga and Commissioner Stevens, it's a little bit of a theme. And I think I encountered it last year, right, when I came on. So I know it's a challenge, but grant writing is a challenge and an art and an art itself. So thank you. Okay, so the next one is Saugus. They are looking to hire a casino related business development specialist. They're asking for $100,000 to fund this position for two years to try to help grow business connections between Saugus businesses and Encore. You're gonna, I think this really is very similar to the Revere application in some respects. So what this did, the main focus of this effort is to look at the businesses in an area known as Cliftondale Square. And Cliftondale Square is a sort of a shopping district in a neighborhood, which has a number of restaurants and other uses there. They've done some studies in the past to identify ways to improve businesses in Saugus and Cliftondale Square in particular. And these studies do mention Cliftondale Square and trying to attract Encore business, but that's not really the focus of the studies. I mean, they're really looking to try and attract more local area residents to that area and doesn't seem to be a real focus on Encore. And so essentially, similar to the Revere application, the review team felt that the application and follow-up information just didn't really articulate the impact of the casino or provide documentation of that impact. So therefore the review team does not recommend the award of a grant to the town of Saugus for this application. Questions, commissioners? Commissioner Cameron or Commissioner O'Brien? No questions. Okay. Commissioner O'Brien, I'll set. Yes. I'm all set. Thank you. Yeah, now I can shift to see faces. My lighting is shifting to commissioner Zuniga, commissioner Stevens. All set for me. Yeah, no questions for me. Okay. And of course, Commissioner O'Brien, before you had returned, we of course are going to shift voting after we hear about all of the applications. So for next week. All right, moving on. West Springfield, Joe? So West Springfield, West Springfield's requesting $50,000 to create a series of videos to market West Springfield attractions, businesses and amenities to attract customers from the surrounding area to help build vacant storefronts and to capitalize on casino patrons that are interested in exploring the area. And again, you're gonna see, you're seeing a similar theme here. You know, the application that we got, asserts that, you know, West Springfield's businesses are being negatively impacted by MGM because the local businesses rely on the same pool of discretionary income that the casino and nearby attractions draw from. And the application of, but you know, there's no real connection to the casino on why those storefronts were empty. And the thing that complicates matters here is that the first look back study, now that look back study is part of what they do is they look at the economic impact of the casino on the surrounding communities and their local businesses and actually tries to put a dollar value on what that impact is. So absent having that study in place, and we also don't have, you know, some of the economic stuff that that signals doing and other things, you know, we just don't have any level of documentation that really demonstrates this impact on the local business. So now there also were some other concerns expressed with the application. You know, the scope of work that they provided made this project look more like a general function of the West Springfield government. You know, they wanted to have pieces on the schools and the city hall and the town hall and you know, how to do things within the town and not really a huge focus on the economic development purposes that were sort of the stated intention of this. And then the other thing is that the town hadn't really developed a true partnership with the casino regarding sort of distribution and implementation of the project. And, but really, you know, it comes down more to the lack of connection to an impact where we're not recommending funding this project. Now with that said, you know, once these look back studies are done and some of these other studies are done and we can demonstrate an impact, this might very well be an appropriate use of these funds. For a future year, but it just seems that, you know, today we can't make that firm connection to an impact from the casino. And with that, I'll open up for questions, but I think Bruce, I'd like to ask you to opine on this a little bit. I know you had a lot of input while we were developing this. Sure, thank you, Joe. You know, it was an interesting proposal, I think, and mirrors some other proposals that we've gotten. There was some reflection in the application about vacant commercial space that they were hoping to fill and some of this, they even referenced that some of the space had been empty prior to the casino opening. And, you know, there are thoughts about in their application trying to bring, you know, neighboring residents into their city to, you know, enjoy local businesses in West Springfield. For me, just made me a little cautious about are we trying to take business away from one community to another. But again, I want to go back to this point of, and we've seen it now in the last three applications that we've looked at and others, that, you know, there are a number of hosts and surrounding communities that are trying to maximize the presence of the casino. They're trying to capture the patrons coming to and from and through their community, as well as be a benefit to our licensees to offer additional activities and things for patrons and guests at our licensees to go out and do during their stay. And I'd be more in favor of more of a regional approach with our licensees at the table to try to think through a bigger strategy and a bigger planning grant application than what we're seeing in these kind of individual communities that are still not strongly connecting the dot with our licensees. So. Commissioner Stevens, is that something that would be addressed in the guidelines through the guidelines? Is that what you're imagining? It could be. And, you know, the frameworks as we put them together, you know, for next year, obviously those are built with a lot of input from the local community mitigation advisory committee folks and our staff. So it certainly could be. And I do think we want to look at that this fall with the advisory committees to saying, you know, look, if we create these categories that make it exceptionally difficult to obtain the funds, why do we have those categories? Or maybe we can say under certain categories that if you're a community that touches the host community or host community that you're presumptively impacted and if you're looking to do sort of positive things like, you know, to increase, you know, economic development in your community and try to leverage the increase in visitorship or so on that, you know, we can establish those guidelines. But the way the guidelines are written today, we just have a really hard time making these affirmative connections to an impact. Yeah, I think that's a great point, Joe. I think maybe the categories can be singled out for proactively to say we really would favor a regional approach and fairly non-transportation planning would be one of them. I'll remind everybody that we have the incentive when two communities work together, they could get an additional 50,000 or whatever the case would be to what caps we place to incentivize, which I think has worked in the past in a few times really well. We could go further, as you suggest, Chair, and try to say either for this category or this type of requests, so grant requests, tourism promotion or whatever the case may be, that we really need to have some or would welcome the regional approach. Because we are seeing a lot of some of these same themes. Yes. If you read through the memo, there's another video for Everett and the like. Yes. You know, and we funded a video in August before. And that's a topic that keeps coming up in the review committee discussions. It's like, well, it sounds like a great idea, but it would be a lot more worthwhile if it was more regional. And that could actually be part of, I guess if you're doing any kind of outreach, encouraging them to start thinking about that now as we would be looking at our guidelines down the road, but have we ever, I guess you, if you don't have it in the guidelines, a regional application wouldn't conform with our criteria or do we need to have those guidelines established first? No, we do allow multiple communities to apply and we give them actually a bonus for doing so. Yeah, that's what I thought still. So then that's, I think I'm hearing that theme too and Commissioner Stebbins articulated it so well. It just seems to still be a more successful application if it's in more efficient and impactful. So Commissioner Cameron and Brian, do you wanna chime in on this? No, I think it's a good idea. We've done it before. I know there've been comments about even in workforce development areas where people join groups, join forces, a bigger impact. So I don't think there's anything bars it at the moment, but it is a good idea to be maybe more proactive and mess to doing it as we move further away from the initial impact. Yeah, so. And we have publicly said, we appreciate that and it makes a lot of sense to work regionally and not duplicate the efforts in every town. My other question was, do we have any idea when that first look back study will be completed? No, you know, I know I had had some meetings with MGM back at the beginning of the year and it was in process. And then of course, when everything went sideways in March, everything kind of got put on hold. I know that, so they have a couple of consultants. There's one consultant who does the economic piece of it and then there's a traffic consultant who does traffic measurements. And I think they may have actually taken the traffic counts, but they haven't compiled it. So it's still, I think most of the data has probably been collected, but it just hasn't been all pulled together. So I'll follow up with Seth over at MGM and see what the status is, because ultimately they are the ones who do the study with the input from the communities. All the communities agreed that they would compile their police statistics and their business statistics and all of those things that they need to do this study. So it's definitely a partnership and we asked a number of the communities in our meetings with them, what's the status? And they're like, oh, we've got put on hold and this for various reasons. So that will certainly need to be resurrected and it would be great to have that information to see what are the impacts that we're really dealing with. Can I mention one more thing about regional efforts I'm really not trying to argue both sides now but the counter argument to the regional questions that we often ask is more clear in my mind this year around the grant request from Everett in which they argue maybe this can be a pilot type of program that then is scalable and can be replicated in other communities. This is their data grant request. Again, we'll get to that. But the point is that it's not very straightforward. I think there's good reasons to think that well maybe funding this one year can then be replicated later on even if it's not a regional effort but one that could be replicated regionally. Yes, I agree with that. That was kind of my point on the other consultancy. Maybe that could be replicated as opposed to that wouldn't be a regionalized effort either but I think Commissioner Stebbins if I'm correct you were really thinking about the tourism the cross promotion of promoting the expansion of business opportunities in each community and the challenge that individually the applicants are having particularly that area. I know that it comes under non-transportation category I just wonder if it almost begs that there should be an additional category where the regionalization would be really promoted. I like that idea. I certainly think it's something worth exploring. Again, the basic premise or the basic thrust is we have communities again that are trying to help capture some of the business from patrons coming in or trying to promote their community and some of the assets in that community as a destination. Yeah, connecting it to the casino is seems to have been a hurdle. And again, I think moving forward and looking towards work that Joe and Mary are gonna do lining this up for their work in the fall is to get some of those partners together and maybe rethink one of these grant applications. So to your point, everybody can be successful with the application they put in. Okay. So we had anticipated, oh, I'm sorry Joe, your plan. So yeah, so we are, that is the end of the non-transportation planning grants. And I guess I will leave it to the commission to decide whether we wanna tackle the transportation planning grants now or wait till next Thursday. I know there's some other things that are still on the agenda and I don't know how we're doing for time. Well, I appreciate that because of course we are behind substantially today given just our initial IT challenge. So we do have our report from Dr. Volberg and Director VanderLinden, which we look forward to an item number six. And then of course we have our budgetary initial discussion with our Chief Financial Accounting Officer, Lenin. So Karen, maybe perhaps Joe now you can take down, oh no, let's wait to see if we're gonna go transportation. Karen, do you think that we should pause now and perhaps expand next Thursday's timeline? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking given the hour and I do think, and we could always see how long the other items take and then come back to this if Joe and Mary don't mind being on hold, I could text them if we wanna jump back on and defer to Joe and Mary if that would work as well. Yeah, I mean, I'm available all day. I've got the whole day booked for this anyway. So that's fine. The only caveat that I would put on if we defer this to next Thursday is that we're adding a whole new category for next Thursday and that could potentially cause some of this to jump to July 1st, if we don't get through it next Thursday. But next Thursday is dedicated to this, correct? I think we have one other agenda item. I think we got maybe use a mark up front for a half hour or so and then it's this. We can discuss next Thursday at the agenda setting meeting on Wednesday to make sure we don't have any other cleanup work as well, but I'm hearing you, Joe. We really do want, as Gail said, we wanna try to focus next week on strictly community mitigation. So if, you know, I know we really wanna make sure to get next weekend for various reasons on Mark and Elaine's presentation as well, so. And look, I think we can get it all in next week but it just may be a bit of a marathon session, that's all. Well, maybe two breaks. Right. Two 20-minute breaks, Henrike. All right, so let's pause for this excellent presentations and thank you for allowing us the opportunity, Joe and Mary, Jill, to ask our questions. And some of these questions are kind of preliminary questions on the overall process and not on the individual application, so maybe it will even go more streamlined next week. But if you don't mind being on hold, that would be great. No, no, no, and I'll stand by if you do wanna take this back up later today, which I somehow have a feeling probably isn't gonna happen. Let's see. I'll stand by and if you wanna do that, I'm certainly available to do that. Well, I'm just looking at my Mary Ann's timeline and I know we're quite off. And again, we typically aren't and it was just, as I said, unprecedented challenge I'm assuming that we won't have it repeated. So, okay, then we'll move on to item 6A. Director Van Der Linden, do you wanna start? I'm just looking to see if I can see you. Thank you, Jill and Mary and Jill. Thank you, Jill. And we invite you to stay on if you want, but thank you. Okay, there you are, Mark. And then I know that we have Dr. Bolberg joining. Would you like to set this up, Mark? Yeah, I would be glad to set up. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, great. Dr. Bolberg, I see, has joined the meeting as well. So today we're going to be talking about gambling involvement in its relationship to problem gambling. In 2013 and 2014, the Gaming Commission began working with the UMass Amherst in order to establish a baseline. Primarily the purpose of that baseline study was to establish gambling rates and specifically problem gambling. So to do that, the Sigma team, social and economic impacts of gaming in Massachusetts led by Dr. Bolberg did two studies, a general population baseline study of roughly 10,000 people and a baseline online panel of roughly, I believe, 5,000 individuals. What I love about the current study is that it takes these two data sets that were fielded for a very specific reason and it dives much, much deeper and it satisfies another piece of the overall research agenda as required by statute, which is to take a deeper look at the causes of problem gambling and this is one such way in which we can possibly do that. So this takes a look at gambling formats. In other words, what are the forms of gambling that have a tendency to cause more problems than others? It also takes a look at gambling involvement, meaning how many different types of formats people are involved in and what is that relationship to problem gambling? And then finally, intensity, which is the amount of time and money spent on gambling. And probably most importantly, and Dr. Bolberg will dive much deeper into this, is what is the relationship between these three issues as it tees up problem gambling for specific individuals? So I'm thrilled that Dr. Bolberg is here to present this. I'd like to point out that this is one of, this is a paper that was published in a peer-reviewed journal, BMC Public Health. And Rachel, was that in the current edition of BMC Public Health or at least a recent? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so it was published earlier this year in an online format. And we were actually provided some resources by the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology to ensure that it would be open access so that anyone who clicks on the link that I have in the final slide can download the full article or they can get it from our website. Okay, so I will now, I guess I can go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Bolberg, but I hope you find this as useful as I do. I think it has broad implications, not only for regulators, but also we really need to look at what is the utility of this specific research as we consider prevention and treatment initiatives. So Rachel, I'll turn it over to you. Okay, I am not sure how, this is going to work because I don't have much experience with screen sharing. So let's see what I'm able to do. Rachel, you see that down in the bottom center is the share button and you can launch your presentation from there. I don't think you'll be able to use the presenter. Mark has Rachel emailed it to you. Do you have it? Because you could share it as well. Here it is. Okay, so well, let's see how this works because I'm going to do the slideshow. And now I'm going to see if I can do presenter view, but you can also see the presenter view. So that's not going to work. All right, so I'm not going to be able to see my notes, but... Mark, do you want to share it for us? So she can give you her own notes. Sure, let me try. That would be great. Thank you, Mark. Okay, I apologize. I know this meeting is running long, but we'll... It's actually running on time. It just started late. Okay, great. Can everybody see the full slide there? I think you might have... Yes, we can. Okay, all right, great. Good, and I can look at my notes. So that's fantastic. And I'll just guide Mark through it and let him know when I'd like him to advance the slides. So thank you very much, Mark, for helping this presentation. So if we go to the next slide, the background for this study is quite broad. There's been a very long-term expansion in the availability of gambling and internationally, but in Massachusetts in particular, there's been a very specific interest in addressing problem gambling as a public health issue. I'm very proud to be able to say that Massachusetts was one of the first US jurisdictions to actually take a very specific public health approach to addressing gambling harm and problem gambling. So one of the main concerns that gambling researchers and policymakers have had over the years is whether particular forms of gambling are more risky than others. And by more risky, I mean conducive to leading to problem gambling behavior. So there is conflicting evidence from the research field as to whether and how much the type of gambling format matters in relation to developing a gambling problem. And while some researchers argue that specific gambling formats are more harmful, others suggest that a more critical factor is actually involvement or the number of gambling formats or types of gambling that an individual is engaged with. And of course, this has implications not just for the development of services, but also for policymakers and regulators like yourselves who are trying to think about the safest way to make different types of gambling available to people. So moving to the next slide. Different types of gambling, as I'm sure you realize, have different structural characteristics and are associated with different types of players and different types of player experiences. So just a couple of examples. Traditional lotteries allow an individual to wager a very small amount for a chance to win a very large amount of money based entirely on chance. Sports betting, as another example, contains elements of skill and the amounts that are wagered can vary widely. And electronic gambling machines, which is what researchers call slot machines, allow for continuous rapid play over potentially very long periods of time. So there's evidence both from population studies and from studies of people in clinical settings that there are links between the types of gambling that people say they have engaged in and the likelihood of having a gambling problem. So there's studies in quite a few different European countries in Canada, in Australia, and in the United States that have identified electronic gambling machines, casino table games, and online gambling as particularly problematic or risky forms of gambling. So if we move down, I'm just gonna give you some very top level definitions here. So Mark indicated that involvement refers to the number of gambling formats or types that an individual engages in with high involvement known to be associated with problem gambling. There are some studies that have suggested that the relationship between gambling types or involvement and or between specific types of gambling and problem gambling significantly decreases or is even erased when controlling for involvement. But there are a number of limitations that underscore that particular argument because in fact, extensive involvement in several types of gambling is one major aspect of problem gambling itself. And so therefore it's not really appropriate to use gambling involvement as a predictor of problem gambling. This also explains why the number of gambling formats that a person engages in is a very strong predictor of problem gambling in statistical models because you're using an aspect of the disorder itself in the model and other variables will not add much additional discriminative value. The next slide turns the topic a little bit. This sort of notion of intensity emerges from some extensive discussions that I've had over quite a period of time with international colleagues in Australia and in the Nordic countries. And what we have sort of concluded that there's an aspect of gambling involvement that needs to be addressed that has a great deal of overlap with involvement but is not a complete overlap. So intensity we define is the amount of time or money spent gambling. And it's, we understand and there's good evidence that the relationship between involvement and intensity can overlap but we have come to believe that if high involvement captures high intensity then that latter construct high intensity may be a better more direct measure of problem gambling. So the next slide. I actually authored, co-authored a paper with a couple of Swedish colleagues where we formulated this argument and we used data from a very large survey that was done in Sweden in 2008 to test these four hypotheses that you see here. And the results were very, very interesting in Sweden and it seemed to me that we had a great opportunity here in Massachusetts with our baseline survey data to actually replicate that analysis and see if the results were similar or different because each of those scenarios would be very informative both in Massachusetts and internationally. So the study that I'm presenting today we sought to improve our understanding of the relationship between problem gambling, forms of gambling, gambling involvement and gambling intensity, specifically in the Massachusetts context. And we tested these four specific hypotheses. I won't read them to you here in the interest of time because we're going to be revisiting them a little bit later in my presentation as we look at the results of the analyses. So the next slide describes our methods. The analyses were based on data from the baseline general population survey and the baseline online panel survey. Both of the surveys were conducted in Massachusetts in 2013 and 2014. The eligible population was Massachusetts adults aged 18 and over. The two samples were administered the exact same question. So we had two different samples of Massachusetts adults but they had answered all of the same questions. So we had the same information from all of them. For this particular analysis, we only include people who had gambled regularly that is once a month or more on one or more of the eight major forms of gambling that we asked about in the surveys. We used the PPGM to determine problem gambling status and we looked at gambling involvement as the number of gambling formats in the past year and gambling intensity. We used highest frequency of participation as a proxy for time spent because we hadn't actually asked individual questions about that in the surveys. And then for money spent, we used responses to questions about how much people had spent on each type of gambling in a typical month. So a little bit more information here is that or one caveat is that the information about specific casino games was not collected in the Massachusetts baseline surveys. So we didn't ask them separately about table games versus slot machines. However, the majority of casino gamblers in our Massachusetts surveys gambled in Connecticut and Rhode Island, both of which offered full service casinos with thousands of EGMs and hundreds of table games along with sports betting, horse race betting, bingo and Kino. And we know that in the U.S. EGMs or slot machines account for between 65 and 80% of casino revenues. So moving down to our first hypothesis. Our first hypothesis was that problem gambling would be more closely related to some gambling formats in Massachusetts than others. And indeed, we found that the proportion of the individuals experiencing gambling problems was substantially higher amongst those who engaged in some gambling formats. So hypothesis one was supported. In particular, regular participation in betting on casino games, bingo and sports were especially associated with problem gambling in Massachusetts. And just to give you some context, the study that was done in Sweden found that regular participation in EGM gambling, casino table games, poker and bingo were the formats in Sweden with the highest problem gambling rates. So what this graph shows you is that, for example, amongst past year casino, I'm sorry, monthly casino gamblers, the problem gambling rate was quite high at 26%. Almost the same amongst monthly bingo players and then sports betting and private betting again had quite high problem gambling prevalence rates amongst monthly players. So moving down to hypothesis two. Can I ask a question? Yes, of course, Enrique. Just go back a little bit to the prior page. I just wanna conceptually make sure I understand and I understand why we have only the casino aggregated in the one bar because of the timing that we made the survey. But if I take a parallel to the lottery, all these other forms of gambling at the beginning, lottery, jackpots, instant scratch daily, daily is the daily games of the lottery? Yes, that's the Kino game. Right, just help me understand conceptually why in the aggregate all lotteries lower that any one of the other ones by themselves. Right, so all lottery is an aggregate of the large jackpot, instant scratch and daily games. Yes. But it's important to understand that because lottery play is differential across those games. So the large jackpot lottery games are by far the most popular followed by the instant scratch. The daily Kino games, participation in daily Kino games is quite a bit lower than it is for other lottery products. But the prevalence of problem gambling amongst that small proportion, even of lottery players is quite high. I'm having trouble with that too, Enrique. I'm having trouble with that. It's a weighted average of sorts. It's a proportionality, I suppose. Yes. Because the populations are different. But doesn't this make this graph hard to digest because isn't it under-representing the impact of lottery overall? I guess because you're separating it out when we think... Yeah, I think the way to sort of look at this is to understand that there is some overlap amongst the problem gamblers that are in these different groups because as I'll get to in a few minutes, these are not mutually exclusive problem gambling prevalence rates. So the folks who are problem gamblers in casinos, a proportion of them are also in the problem gambling bars for all lottery and then all of them, of course, are in the problem gambling bar for any gambling because that's the largest group. It's got the largest denominator. Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, okay, thank you. Yeah, I think you may have answered the next question but let me put it this way. Imagine that we were trying to desegregate the casino and we were only concerned about two slots and tables. Okay. And if there was a... And tell me if this is correct or the type of reasoning. If there was an equal proportion of players in slots and in tables, that we would see the similar, the same amount of problem gambling rate or not necessarily. Well, if the casino denominator, that is the people who played at casinos, if they were made up equally of slot machine players and table game players. Yes. It's not guaranteed that you would have the same prevalence rate for each of those because they're, well, yeah. You're right, Enrique. If it was equally divided, if it was 50-50, then the prevalence rate would be the same across the two types. We know in the United States that slot machines are far more popular and generate more revenues than table games, which is opposite from Macau, for example. So, you know, I would not want to stake my reputation on those bars being exactly the same if we disaggregated for type of game. Yeah, and I was just interested in trying to make a simpler example conceptually for us to visualize. If you only had, let's say, two games, slots and tables, and we were comparing, they were evenly distributed, would we be likely to see the same rate? But understood, let's move on, I think. Yeah, very helpful, though. I'm glad you asked the question, Enrique. Thank you. Okay, hopefully I'll be able to shed a little more light on just some of these other hypotheses. So let's move down to hypothesis two, Mark. So hypothesis two was that problem gambling would be positively related to high involvement of gambling. And indeed, we found that the number of gambling formats, which is what is displayed on the x-axis, so this shows problem gambling prevalence rates for people who only engaged in one format monthly, those who engaged in two formats, those who engaged in three formats. And for some reason, no matter how many times I tried to copy this graph, the plus sign kept dropping off the four. So this is four plus gambling formats monthly on the right hand side. We did a number of additional analyses, which I won't go into. They have statistical names like Spearman's correlation and ROC analysis, but we did determine that. And as this figure shows, the proportion of regular gamblers experiencing a problem increases linearly as the number of monthly gambling formats increased. So as a statistician noted, this is a beautiful line. So that means that, or what this shows is that our second hypothesis was in fact supported in the Massachusetts data. Moving down to hypothesis, oh, I'm sorry, moving down to the next slide, I want to just note that the hypothesis was supported but with an important caveat. What this figure shows is that the overall percentage of individuals not experiencing or experiencing a gambling problem across the number of formats. So you can see here on the left, the estimated proportion of non-problem gamblers and the estimated proportion of problem gamblers amongst individuals who engaged in one gambling format. And similarly, across two gambling formats, across three gambling formats, and here I was able to get my plus sign in. I have four plus gambling formats. What this slide shows is that among individuals not experiencing gambling problems, 45% gambled on only one format. But as the number of monthly gambling formats increases, the proportion decreases. So from 45 to 34% to 13% to 7.5%. It's not quite, but almost the opposite story for people with gambling problems. It increases from about 16% among those who only engage in one format. It jumps a little bit to 28% amongst those who gamble in two forms on a monthly basis. But if you smooth it out, it's a linear increase rather than a linear decrease. So you can see amongst individuals who gamble on four or more types of gambling on a monthly basis, about a third of them are actually experiencing gambling problems. And why am I, here we go. And Rachel remind us what was the cadence of involvement for you to make it into any one of these categories for months? Once a month? Once a month or more often, yes. Okay. So yeah, there is that important caveat that there is a small but substantial proportion of people who experience in gambling problems who actually are only engaging on a regular basis with one gambling format. So that sort of unpacks or loosens the relationship that many people have posited between heavy involvement and problem gambling to an extent. So moving down to hypothesis three. So hypothesis three was that involvement in gambling would be positively related to intensity of gambling. So that's the idea that a better way to assess sort of heavy investment in gambling might be through assessing the amount of time and money a person spends gambling rather than limiting it just to the number of gambling formats. And so we did a statistical tests using gambling intensity measured in money and frequency, which would be a number of days in the past year that a person or in the past month, excuse me, that a person has gambled. The relationship was not as strong as it was in Sweden. We think there's a number of reasons for that. So while not as strong as the results in Sweden, the results from Massachusetts do suggest that there is a positive relationship between involvement and intensity. I think that if we had been able to disaggregate the casino gambling into table games and EGMs, we might have found a stronger relationship because that was where the strength sort of of the positive relationship in Sweden kind of emerged. I'm sorry, somebody seems to have a car alarm going off in my neighbor. Okay. I don't hear it, Rachel. Oh my God for that, because they seem so great. I'm sorry, they're having a protest in my neighborhood. That we welcome the exercise of some- On my street with honking horns. Are you sure you can't hear that? You can continue. I think we can all hear you just fine. And I understand it's a distraction for you. That's fine. I'm sorry, that was terrible. No, I support their right to protest, but I wish their timing had been better. Okay. Finally, this slide. Oh, I'm sorry, Mark, if you could move down. So this is the thing of beauty that we ultimately created from Massachusetts. This is our last hypothesis, which was that gambling format would mediate the relationship between involvement and problem gambling. And indeed that is what we found. So I'm going to explain this graph to you a little bit because the first time people look at it, their heads just explode. It's very colorful, but it doesn't immediately make sense. What this illustrates is the proportion of individuals experiencing gambling problems among those who regularly gamble on a specific format across groups of increasing invoices. So this first, the green line is casino gambling and you can see that it stands out a good bit from the other gambling formats. What this dot here, the first point on the casino line represents is the problem gambling prevalence rate among those who only gambled on casino games. So that's only people who had gambled who gambled on a monthly basis on casinos. Second point on that line, which is over the two, the second point represents the problem gambling among those who gambled regularly on casino games and one other gambling format. And then the next dot here above three is the prevalence among... Just give me one moment. I feel redemption from yesterday. It's not mojo or chipping. No, wait, for a moment. Just for a moment. Well, Rachel, I had to do the same thing yesterday, so. Really? Thank you. What I found in my neighborhood is making my dog just absolutely cuckoo crazy. Okay, so third dot. Third dot, thank you. Thank you, Chair. The third dot is the prevalence rate among people who gambled monthly on three types of gambling and the fourth dot is the prevalence rate among people who gambled on four or more types of gambling. So you can see that the casino, the prevalence rate amongst monthly casino gamblers, regardless of how many other formats is substantially higher until you get to four or more. It's interesting to see also that regular beta participation at the highest proportion of problem gamblers among those who participated regularly in four or more types of gambling. And except for those who participated in casino and sports betting, prevalence of problem gambling for all other gambling formats was below average among those participating vaguely in three formats. So overall, this was basically this exercise controlled for gambling format and involvement simultaneously. And that was the unique aspect of the Swedish study and that was why I felt it was worth replicating or trying to do the same analysis in Massachusetts. So moving down to... So moving down to... Before we move on, are there any questions on that particular slide? I think you did just briefly cut out, Dr. Volberg. The bingo line, did you address that? I'm not sure if you... Yeah, the thing I wanted to draw attention to on the bingo line was that it does have the highest prevalence of problem gambling amongst monthly bingo players who do three or more other types of gambling. So the policy relevant piece here is if you're a regular bingo player and you gamble on three other formats, three other types of gambling. Say you go to casino as you play the lottery and you bet privately as well as playing bingo, your odds of having a gambling problem are quite high. Interesting. Thank you. Other questions on that? Okay, thank you. I do have a question. Sorry. I was gonna ask it earlier or later, but might as well. Is there something about the life cycle of a game, Rachel? If I look back at the arc of, let's say, bingo versus casino gambling, one is much newer, the other one has been with us for a lot longer as a society. And so is it possible that there's an effect of whoever remains in any particular game is likely to be more a problem gambler just by virtue of longevity of the game? Or a longevity of the player. That's sort of a confounding issue that bingo like horse racing trends quite a bit older in terms of the demographics of their players. And you'll notice that we don't have horse racing on this graph and the reason for that is because of the very small number of people that engaged in horse racing on a monthly or more frequent basis. Similarly for online in our Massachusetts data, we don't have enough people in those cells to be able to look at those data with confidence. Right, but I know that there's a disproportionate, so slightly higher from other studies that you've made, you've done in those groups, slightly higher risk in aggregate, not just probably gambling, but when you're putting at risk. Yeah, that's true. And I've argued in a couple of other contexts that there are these older, more well-established or longer established forms of gambling, certainly in the United States, horse racing and bingo, that have been around for many, many years that people very much associate with a social network or with, they have their gambling friends, the horsemen or the regular gamblers on horse racing. There's a whole culture associated with that, similarly with bingo. So that's another piece of the puzzle there. Right, yeah, I know, I mean, I think that's happening, that's beginning to happen to the slot player, both aging and a life cycle, I think, throughout the country where younger people are engaging in a different format, unlike their perhaps older parents. Yeah, I remember, I did adult and adolescent surveys in Nevada about 20 years ago. And we hypothesized that both the adults and the adolescents in Nevada would have much higher gambling rates and much higher rates of problem gambling. And it worked out okay with the adults, but the adolescents had very substantially lower participation rates and lower problem rates than any of the other jurisdictions where I had done adolescent surveys. And in sort of talking to young people about the results over a period of time, it's pretty clear that kids don't wanna do the type of gambling that their parents are doing. It's very uncool. Are there any other questions about this beautiful graph? Thank you, Rachel. Okay, let's move down to the conclusions. Okay, so this study was consistent, as I mentioned, with other research showing that casino gambling, in the case of Sweden, it was especially EGMs, but also table games. And we can't unpack that for Massachusetts, but we can say that casino gambling in general may be an especially problematic gambling format. And with the introduction of casinos in Massachusetts, we are looking forward to the possibility of examining whether and how relationships that we've identified here may have changed. We are quite excited about the follow-up general population survey that will be fielded not immediately, but in the fall of 2021, we hope, when we would strongly recommend that a follow-up online panel survey be added at a relatively low cost in order to be able to replicate this particular analysis, but with the added benefit of being able to disaggregate EGMs and table games. Another direction that we are interested in pursuing perhaps in the future is using these data to explore relationships when controlling for age or race or gender or socioeconomic status. And then I believe this is almost, well, this is my next to last slide, is the next one, Mark. So this study, I believe underscores the importance of focusing both policy and regulation as well as problem gambling services and particularly prevention in Massachusetts on casino gambling. I think there is a suggestion in these data that pending sports betting legislation may need better safeguards and funding for problem gambling prevention and research. And I think my concluding point is that while we know that the online environment is riskier, we also know that it's more amenable to technological interventions and I've written a number of occasions about using the online environment and designing basically gambling problem prevention seat belts and airbags as online gambling is made available to people. So one last slide, because this was an academic study, we of course have to acknowledge that there are some limitations. These are cross-sectional data, which limits our ability to make causal inferences. For that, we need longitudinal cohort data. The data does not distinguish between physical and online participation in specific formats and different forms of access may mediate these relationships that we've identified. And then finally, despite the large data sets that we had, some of the groups were quite small and associated with large confidence intervals around the estimates. That's the main reason why we didn't include horse racing and online gambling in our analyses. And then last but not least, Mark, my last slide tells everybody where to go to get the article and how to cite it. Excellent, Dr. Volberg, questions. Commissioners, because of just our formatting or perhaps, Mark, you can take down the PowerPoint now. We can... Well, actually, I actually have a question. Oh, did you want to go back? Yeah, I had a question on the page of the conclusions. Yeah. So sorry. I'm so sorry, I was just about to catch myself. No, no, that's quite okay. If, Mark, if you can go back to the second page of the conclusions right there. You know, I'll plug, I wish... We'll get this presentation to our friends at DPH because that's... There's many implications in terms of policy that concerns them as well. I will just first make a comment and then ask you, Rachel. So you are very familiar with the Game Sense program that we have by statute at the casinos where we hope to have the most intervention in real time on casino players, which you seem to suggest at least directly in your conclusion here in the first one. I'm wondering if you follow that logic to what also happens at the casinos to the Game Sense program in terms of eventually being able to sign up people to the voluntary self-exclusion list. Does that mean that if you take away one, let's say one of the more risky behaviors, in this case, casino gambling, does your risk go down? In other words, from your graph where you had the sliding up graph where you went from one to two to three and four plus, all of them trending upward, is it possible to, once you take one, to come right back? I'm not thinking of anyone individual, but does that thinking translate? So I think what you're asking Enrique is at the population level, if you remove a form of gambling from the mix, does that move all of the prevalence rates across the multiple involvement down? I wasn't thinking about the population level. I'm not suggesting let's say that now we shouldn't have casinos. That's not gonna happen. I'm thinking if you are in this soft population of gamblers that engage in multiple ways, where as the number of your engagement goes up, your risk goes up. And again, maybe that's the answer to the question. I'm thinking more individually and you're thinking more population. But is it possible that a group of people that make it into the voluntary self-exclusion after having engaged in the casino, one of the most risky as you show here, now you've removed that one form of gambling? Does this distance to reason that then the risk or that group goes down? In other words, is it intuitively your graph made it the more you gamble, the more your risk goes up? In other words, from left to right, is it possible to ride the curve backwards? So at the individual level, we know that problem gambling can be episodic. And so people use voluntary self-exclusion or they change their own gambling habits, maybe without any other kind of interference. Usually when they sort of become concerned about their own involvement and intensity of gambling. So we know that there's a lot of sort of in and out, but as you'll recall, one of the limitations of this study is that it is cross-sectional. I think it would be very, very interesting for someone to take a look at the relationship in the magic, in the cohort data between changes in gambling participation or number of gambling formats or to use this approach even to try to understand how people's gambling changes from wave to wave of the cohort study. I think that would be an even better way to answer the question that you're asking, which is if somebody stops one form of gambling, but they're still doing three other forms of gambling, what happens to their problem gambling status? Yeah, I'm reminded of early, early on in my tenure as a commissioner, I came to see a recovering gambler, speak, did one of those testimonials that the mass council puts together that are so powerful. And somebody asked her a question that is very relevant to this study. I think they asked her, is there any particular form of gambling that you think did it for you because she was doing a number of them? And she made the great analogy. I thought at the time that I think still holds, which is that I was also, this is what she said, I was also an alcoholic and my preference was Scotch, but I could have any kind of drink at any given point. Right. That would do it. And so is there a substitution effect here that you're observing, as you say, and it's cross-sectional, but if you're a problem gambler or an alcoholic, you'll take whatever. Well, I would respectfully disagree with you. If we go back to slide number 10, Mark, if you want to share that slide, basically what that slide shows is that there's a very substantial proportion of problem gamblers in Massachusetts who are only gambling on one or two formats. So this is going to be up to hypothesis two. Yeah, this one. You can see that 16% plus 28% of the problem gamblers were only gambling on one or two formats. And most of the people who were in... Wait, let's see. Yeah, no, this doesn't tell us about specific gambling, types of gambling that they're doing, but this tells you that a very substantial proportion, so 30 plus 15 is about 45%, a little less than of problem gamblers in Massachusetts that we surveyed were only doing one or two types of gambling. So it's not just the breadth of gambling involvement. This very clearly shows that there's something about specific formats of gambling that are associated with problems. In other words, is it fair to say, if you're thinking, if you take the VSE and you take out Casino Play, you're suggesting, Enrique, that they're going to find another source of gambling, but Bingo may not be their thing just because Bingo's the only other alternative available. Well, there's a lot of lottery games. There are a lot of lottery games, right? So the lottery is more intuitive than Bingo, fair enough. So that's what I think, Rachel, you're saying that that's not necessarily the case, that they won't get the satisfaction of gambling from just another form of gambling where, so alcohol is not necessarily a great analogy. Yeah, I mean, gambling and alcohol are analogous in lots of ways, but this is one of the ways that they're not analogous. Interesting. There are very specific groups of people that are attracted to specific types of gambling, whether they're gendered, whether they're age-related, whether they're class-related. It's very well documented across many jurisdictions. And so someone who has a strong preference for sports betting, for example, they may do lottery playing, but that's just like something that they sort of do on an impulse occasionally. But their real thing is that they think they're really good at betting on sports, and that's what they're enthusiastic about, and that's what they're intensely involved with. Perhaps you saw the article, I think it was in the globe, maybe this week where the younger demographic had shifted because sports betting wasn't really available, but now they were doing the sort of micro-investment in the stock market. Day trading and trading. Yeah, the day trading in the micros. So they weren't going to the lottery convenience store and buying lottery tickets. They were now shifting to a different challenge. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's sort of where the alcohol gambling analogy falls apart a little bit. Interesting. Not all gamblers are going to be equally attracted to specific types of gambling. Thank you. No, I think, again, some of the insights from these type of studies, I think, leave us to programs like the Game Sense program where if we engage in conversations with people and we know that they're regulars when it comes to slot play, but we also know, for example, that they play the lottery regularly, we have one in three chances, I guess, if I'm reading this graph correctly, right? 27% of that person being a problem gambler just by knowing those two data points. Is that a first statement? I'm sorry, I wasn't quite able to follow. So you're talking about the 28% of people who engage, who are problem gamblers, who engage in two formats. Right. Right. Oh, maybe that's the key, who are problem gamblers. Let's take ourselves to the Game Sense program. We have a lot of casino visitors and we engage with them regularly. Right. And let's say I am a Game Sense advisor and I'm interacting with somebody who I happen to know, they come regularly, they come at least once a month, which is part of your study here. I don't know if they're problem gamblers or not, but they come here regularly. I also then know that they're regular lottery players. Right. So then you know that they are gambling on two formats. On two. And if I know that that second format, they're also engaging in monthly. Yeah. Now, can I transport ourselves to this graph and say, this is a person who won out of three, 28%. I may be, without asking them any more questions about their gambling participation or expenses, I may be engaging with somebody, you know, one out of three people who may be a problem gambler. Is that the right way to... Yeah, I would make it one out of four because I would round down to 25%. Okay. But yeah, that is a good takeaway from that for a Game Sense Advisor or a Game Sense Program. And similarly, if the Game Sense Advisors are finding out about all of the other forms of gambling that people that they're talking to do on a monthly basis, if they identify that they're doing four, but three other types of gambling on a monthly basis, in addition to the casino, then it's a one in three. That's a 34%. Yeah, one in three. Rachel, I hadn't thought about this, but are there combinations of gambling that would indicate greater risk? Because there are a deeper analysis of this that you could say that casino gambling combined with daily lottery or sports betting is actually the combination that has the greatest risk. You know, we thought about that as an analysis mark, but again, we ran into sample size problems. When you start carving this two and three and four plus groups into casino and horse racing or casino and bingo or each of those specific ones has to be disaggregated. And we very quickly ran into a cell size problem. So it's a really intriguing idea. I can talk to the team about maybe trying to figure out some way to do it, but it would be too much. But it would be challenging just for statistical confidence in your statistical results. Rachel, this is Bruce and just to pick up on Mark's point, and I know you're talking about the conclusions around sports betting, but you give sports betting a high degree of prevalence up under hypothesis number one. And that among everything across the scale is the illegal part. Is that tend to show a riskier behavior and that somebody who's willing to, you know, do that kind of betting transaction illegally is probably a riskier or more problem gambler? That's a really good question, Bruce, but I'm not sure that these data really speak to that. I think because sports betting, well, yeah, in Sweden, it was online poker, where'd it go? In Sweden, it was EGMs, casino table games, Bingo, and online poker. And the data that we collected in Sweden was actually collected right in the midst of the poker fat, you know, like craze. And Sweden did not have online poker available to its citizens through its gambling monopoly. So these were all offshore sites that were marketing to Swedes. So, you know, we've speculated at the time that there might be something similar to sports betting in the United States where, you know, there's sort of this change that's going on. It's rather uneven jurisdiction by jurisdiction. So, you know, sports betting is legal in New Jersey, but it's not legal in Massachusetts. But people living in Massachusetts are like, well, you know, if it's legal in New Jersey and, you know, why can't I do it or what's so wrong about it? I'll just go, you know, find a way around, you know, the federal laws. So, you know, there was a similar sense in Sweden of online poker was incredibly popular. It was all over TV all the time. And there were a lot of young men in particular in Sweden who got very, very deeply involved in online poker playing, but it was all with these offshore operators who weren't regulated. And we think that was one of the reasons why that particular form of gambling was so closely associated with problems in Sweden. So I think there might be something similar going on with sports betting in Massachusetts, but I can't say for sure. Okay. Thank you. Other questions for Dr. Wolfer. I can add, I thought this was an excellent report and presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. And important work for us to kind of pause and think about really what is core to our mission. So thank you. The timing was just right. And unfortunately in terms of today's schedule, not, but in terms of our overall agenda, really important other. No, thank you very much. Rachel as usual, very insightful. Thank you. Well, thank you for the opportunity to present. I was, I was really so proud of the work that, that my colleagues and I did in Sweden. And when I told them that I was going to try and replicate it in Massachusetts, they were very, very excited. And when I finally sent them the link to the article, we had a great back and forth about, you know, the differences between Massachusetts and Sweden. But I feel like that's something that I really just really enjoyed bringing to Massachusetts and, and to the gaming commission in particular is lessons that I've learned, you know, over 35 years of gambling research, but more specifically, you know, doing work with international colleagues and bringing it back to Massachusetts and trying to see, you know, how it sort of manifests here is, is really, really a, an honor and a privilege. Well, thank you. Thank you. And we experienced whatever, if it were either a celebration or a protest, we experienced it with them. But it was not, but it was not disruptive at all. Thank you, Dr. Volver. Thank you, Mark. Mark, are you all set? Yes, I'm all set. Thank you very much. Actually, if I could just say one thing, this tease up an agenda item that we'll, we have next week where we begin talking about how the data. Several years has incredible value in, in a whole host of ways. Thank you. And we're looking forward to that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He throws up, but he's talking about the data access project. Right. For next week. Yeah, you just broke, but we, we, we, we were aware of what you're up to. So. Thank you. All right. Then. Thank you so much. And we'll move on. To another really important discussion. Item number seven on our agenda. We're going to put it in the chat. We're going to be starting with the meeting. We're going to start with the meeting. Derek, I'll let you introduce. Um, And. Kathy, could we get a five minute break? Sure. They make sense. I will stretch because this is really important for us to be hydrated. And, and, um, I, I had to, I had some sunlight challenges. So maybe I'll be a group on that too. Great. Thank you. We'll do five minutes. I think Derek reserved about a half an hour or so for today's discussion. So we should be looking at some kind of a conclusion around three 30 or so, not in any way to hurry that discussion, but that was the original. Five minutes will return. Thank you. Do we have all five of us. Commissioner Cameron. I'm here. Thanks. Hi. Hi, commissioner. Commissioner Zuma God, commissioner Stevens, commissioner Brian. Great. I see Derek and team. We'll reconvene meeting. Number 308. Continuation of. A good long day. Thank you, everyone. Good afternoon, madam chair and commissioners. Good afternoon. Before I start on the presentation, I'd just like to take a quick second to thank and recognize what an excellent job the it team is doing. And implementing the transition to the cloud. You know, and we all talk about it in our groups. It's easy to focus on the things that are in inconvenience right now. But I think it's just as important to recognize the amount of mission critical items that are working seamlessly and in the background. But we don't take notice of and may take for granted. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Katrina and our team. Thank you. This is no easy task you're undertaking. And doing it in a completely remote environment makes it that much more difficult. So now on to the item on the agenda, the FY 21 budget recommendations, which I know you've all anxiously been waiting to get to. It's taking a while to get here, but we are all ready for this. And I'm going to go ahead and get into the agenda. And Agnes Bolier and we're here to present to you. Staff's recommendations for the FY 21 budget. I'll just try to, if I pause a little bit, I'll be trying to move the memo as we work, work along on it. We're recommending a collective 39.7 million dollar budget for the gaming control fund, the racing oversight and development fund, the community mitigation fund and the public health trust fund. The community mitigation fund. The community mitigation fund. The community mitigation fund. Funds. 93 FT ease. Six contract positions. And I just want to point out that the budget we're presenting does not include estimates for the racing capital and promotional trust funds. Nor does it include funding for the grants from the community community mitigation fund. The 39.7 million dollars. Is composed. Of the following. 225. Let me get up there a little bit. 32.25 for the regulatory and statutorily required costs of the gaming control fund. 2.68 million dollars for the racing oversight and development fund. 170,000 in funding for the community from the community mitigation fund, which I'd like to point out, this is the first time. We're recommending any spending of administrative funds from the community mitigation fund. 3.62 million dollars from the public health trust fund. The MDC's office of research and responsible gaming. The gaming control fund. Is composed of two areas. The MGC's regulatory costs, which are directly within the control of the commission. And the statutory assessed costs of the expanded gaming act, which we do not have control of. Both costs of the responsibility of our licensees to pay. Page three of the memorandum breaks out the regulatory costs, which are 26.7 million. And the statutory costs are 5.5 million. And include funding for the attorney general's office, the alcohol beverage and control commission. And the Commonwealth assessment for indirect costs. The gaming control budget. Overall is a 4.5% decrease from FY 20. Currently approved funding levels. And on the regulatory side, it's a 5.28% decrease from our current funding levels. Page five of the memorandum illustrates major funding variances. And the following is a list of major changes. Now, one thing before I get to the list of major changes on page five. Well, we are down 5.28%. From our currently approved level. We are down closer to 10% from what our maintenance. Funding level was. So we started this process back in January before COVID-19 hit. And, you know, people are looking at what it would cost to maintain current levels of service. As we go through this, you'll see just from where we are right now in FY 20, we're down quite a bit. And in some categories. So under payroll, we are down 9.8%. Or approximately 957,000 in salary and fringe funding. We're from the 20 levels. This is a 10% decrease in our FTE count. It's achieved by not backfilling vacant positions. You'll see in the memoir, it's two gaming agents and enforcement council, a license reciprocation verification coordinator, an open source specialist, the ombudsman, a staff attorney, a help desk position and a chief administrative officer. We're building in some anticipated turnover savings and associated fringe benefits. And there's also no funding for raises built into the FY 21 budget. I also want to point out the, you know, where we stand right now. If you look at where we started off FY 20, we're at about 8.2 million proposed for, for salaries right now where it's 6.6 million. For FY 21, we're proposing that's close to a 19.5% cut from where we started last year. So I know, you know, the numbers show our currently approved levels throughout the year. We have used turnover savings and attrition to fill in some of the costs we've experienced so that we didn't have to increase our assessment on licensees. For the first time, we've shifted 1.25 FTEs of funding and associated fringe and direct cost of community mitigation fund. That also helped to reduce the AA. We've reduced our travel and training budgets by approximately 66%. We've reduced the legal costs to the minimum required by our insurance policy. We do see a slight increase in public safety costs. And there's also a slight increase in IT spending for our shift to the cloud. The racing division, division budget for FY 21 is decreasing by 2.67%. This is mainly a result of the administrative positions. We're not backfilling that would have been charged off a piece to that division. Finally, the research responsible gaming office of the MBC, of the MGC will be funded from the Public Health Trust Fund for the second time in FY 21. Let me get down to that. And funding for this office has been reduced by 26.5%. That number is correct, 26.5% from the approved FY 20 budget of 6.29 million. The FY 21 proposal is down to 4.62 million. With most of those reductions coming from the Game Sense Program and research contracts. However, funding for the research manager, a position that was approved in FY 20, which we cut, is also cut from this budget and represents a 33% reduction to our staff in that area. So there's a lot of information in the backup documents, but we did hold two by twos to update on some of the details. So, you know, I know we're, we're moving rather slow on this meeting. So I will move on to the, the assessment piece, which is another main issue and is, is not clear this year. MGL Chapter 23K, section 56, as well as 205, CMR 121, require the MDC to make the following annual fees and assessments on category one and two gaming licensees. A $600 fee for each slot machine approved to be used at a gaming facility as of July 1. And an annual assessment that's the difference between the projected spending for the game and control fund and the projected revenues. And finally, not less than $5 million to be deposited in the public health trust fund. Due to the uncertainty of the timing of reopening of licensees, needing a revised approved slot count for July 1, and not knowing the number of gaming positions that each facility will open up with, we're unable to provide the normal chart that we'd have that would show how much each licensee would be paying for that $600 per machine fee, as well as what their proportion of the remaining assessment would be. What we can tell you is licensing is projecting about 750,000 revenues. And if you use 23K, section 56, basically the licensees are responsible for the difference between revenues we're projecting to bring in outside of them in our spending. So that would leave $31.5 million for the licensees to pay for that slot fee assessment. Yes. Can I just interrupt? Because I'm not sure if I'm seeing on the screen, if you're following. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yep. That just would be helpful. My apologies. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for correct. Thank you for correcting me. I'm reading from my notes and not following along in the memo. Thank you. Just will help us follow. Thank you. Absolutely. So that leaves $31.5 million. So I'm just going to say that the licensees will pick up of our budget, whether it be through slot fees or through the assessment process. The big piece I want to point out is the $5 million that was required under 23 K as well as well as 801 CMR 21, the public health executive committee met. And is trying to provide some. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what the timing. Relief on this. So they're looking to basically delay the first quarterly assessment of the $5 million. Until either the very end of FY 21. Or the very beginning of FY 22. So they have said that, you know, out of the $5 million, they'll try and pull in 3.75. They'll try and pull in 3.75 to provide a little bit of relief. So if you combine all of those together, you know, the licensees are responsible for a 36.5. Or if you go for this revised amount and then roll the other 1.25 into the beginning of next year, 35.25 million in assessments. Timing of payments was a big issue. So, you know, I think that's why I moved back really quickly to say the whole process we went through was, was very difficult this year, given all the uncertainties, but it was also helpful. I think staff came to the table. Understanding the, the circumstances that the licensees were, were experiencing. I think licensees came to the table with an understanding that. Well, they may be experiencing very difficult times. We still have a job to regulate. So they had some very good recommendations during our meeting with them on May 26. Some very good ideas of how we could reduce our, our spending levels and they had a few requests. They asked us to consider for the first time, breaking the annual slots fees at the smaller tranches, either quarterly or monthly. We usually do that on an annual basis right up front. And then they asked us to continue billing the assessment on a monthly basis, which we've been doing for the last quarter of FY 20. So, you know, I, I put that in our conclusion that, you know, we're asking the commission to contemplate that. If you were asking for an opinion on that, I think that we would prefer to see quarterly payments of the slot fee. So that we do get some money up front and we're not worried about bouncing payroll and as well as getting two months up front of the assessment and then going to a monthly billing structure and continuing to review that throughout the year. We do have some agencies that rely on ISAs from us, the attorney general's office. So we'd need to provide some funding to them too. So by doing this, I think it balances the request, the licensees, the fees that we've received from the commission. As well as being responsible to ourselves and our partners that rely on these funds. Let me see. So I'd just like to say thank you to the staff, division and bureau heads, licensees, commissioners, and especially the finance and HR teams, Jacqueline, for coordinating and generating loads of information. And especially Karen and commissioner, and the commissioners that have been working with the commissioners to help with the public budget, especially meeting with licensees as well as internally with staff and helping me to explain it to, to people when I couldn't do it in a, in a plain terms way. At this point, if the commission has any questions, we can field them now, or if there are no questions or comments. Everyone just wants to be done with this meeting. So I'm going to turn it over to the commissioners and the commissioners, and I'm going to turn it over to the commissioners and the commissioners to email for public comment and return back to the next public meeting for vote and or adjustments. Before we begin, I do. I also personally want to thank Derek and team and commissioners and commissioner and, and, and interim executive director Wells, because they were very patient with me early on as I, as I sort of slide my way through the process. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that has been very complicated by all of the circumstances that the entire Commonwealth is facing. I have one, one. Issue that I'd like to address. I don't know if my fellow commissioners have any others, but I'll start, you know, one of the, the largest items of our expenditures is with respect to our, our. I know that we have monitored that in the past. I've been fortunate enough to sit down with captain Connors and he's gone through his process. And I know that commissioner Cameron has done that very, very carefully. I am wondering if I could ask commissioner Cameron and commissioner of Brian to maybe do that kind of review to support captain Connors over the course of, you know, the next year because it is such a significant part of our work in the budget. And just so that we can have some kind of a regular reporting, it will give captain Connors, I think, an additional reporting, you know, so that he has somebody to speak to if there are any challenges. Madam chair, that is not a problem at all. Happy to assist. And as you mentioned, we've been doing this for a number of years with, with captain Connors, looking at those numbers, looking at ways to frankly have savings and, and, and deciding where our public safety costs should really be and are effective. So happy to continue to do that. And I would like to thank the team, the finance team as well. These could not have been easy discussions with licensees and other stakeholders. So I think this year in particular was so challenging. And this is a really good work product. So thank you. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien. I'm sure that you and commissioner Cameron can coordinate, but I just think that that would be really helpful process. So thank you. Yeah, that's fine. I'm happy to continue helping on that. And I get, I was briefed in one of the two by two is by Derek and team. And thank you to everybody involved. I know they worked really hard on dealing with something in a really tough time. So I appreciate the work. Thank you. Commissioner Stebbins. I think maybe you were going to speak. Yeah. Thank you, madam chair, just to, to jump in and to, to thank Derek and the team. I know Derek and over the years is we were growing staff as we were opening casinos and hoping to get to a steady state where we might be able to balance out some of our costs. And appreciate the great work. Derek has done to finally start achieving. I'm sure what is some of his goals with respect to our budget. As we talked about in the two by two is I personally have a concern about using some of the community mitigation funds for some administrative costs. I think we can have a discussion about that next week when we, when we vote on the budget, but. I would suggest perhaps having a separate vote. On that because that's kind of a policy change for us going forward before we have a vote on the full budget. It might warrant a little bit more discussion. Derek exactly what that policy issue is because you are sending the budget out for. You know, for comment and we want to be fully transparent about that. So perhaps the timing is if you could just elaborate briefly. On that, I think it was a $170,000 shift. So thanks. Correct. We're shifting off 170,000. And it's a, it's approximately 1.25 FT's. And it is the staff. It's part of Joe Delaney and part of Mary Thurlow salaries. They work on that program on a daily basis, not just on giving out the grants, but as well as administering it, tracking expenditures, getting the reports in from the grantees. And, you know, the statute does require us to administer the funds. We have sent over to. To the Comptroller's office as well as a enough to get that appropriation set up for payroll to be charged to it. That is that has been approved. But commissioner step is correct. It is a policy discussion, which is why we're putting it up as a recommendation. You know, most grant programs do pay for the administration of the funds. You know, we had talked about doing this in the third quarter. When we made a lot of reductions and we decided to come back and give it a better attention during the fiscal year budget process. So I think it's completely appropriate to have a, have a deeper conversation. You know, it is 170,000. We can move it back to the game and control fund. And then that just gets absorbed by the licensees as part of that assessment and slot fee payment. But it, I think there is some merit to charging off the costs associated with administering that program to the program, especially now that it has a steady stream of income coming into it. While it may be reduced completely understand, but it is a steady stream of income coming from the gross game and rather than us. And just, just. One second. Commissioner Stebbins, please. And Derek brings up a good point. I certainly appreciate. What we're up against and kind of thinking outside the box. So I'm not necessarily. Saying that I don't agree with this recommendation. I think there's some things we need to consider. Certainly flow of money into the. Community mitigation fund for next year. This might not be the best year to do it. As well as making sure that we're. Sympathetic to the fact that, you know, there's. Allocations of the money that stay in region B. And there are allocations of the money that stay in region A. And being fair that if we do this, there's fair distribution of that funds from. From both of those accounts. Yeah, I think it would be done proportionately by taking, you know, taking of the fund. I, I, I, as it's been alluded, and again, it's, it's good to talk about it. And we'll talk about it in the next meeting as well. But it seemed keeping with our practice in other areas. This is something that we propose to do. And our prior executive director didn't want to pull the trigger. Last year. But there's parallels to the public health trust fund racing. So, you know, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's, you know, In charging people who spend most of the time doing work that comes from a revenue source that is not licensees. So it's, I know it's not easy. It's not, you know, I don't think it's, it's significantly short changes that the fund. But I know that, you know, it's a, it's a difficult year. I want to touch base on a couple of things. I will just chime in quickly again, something that we might not have to decide today, but one of the things that Derek mentioned as a, as a bit of an open question. I think I would, when it comes to the quarterly assessment. In this year, I would be in favor of making the quarter assessment to have a working capital, if you will, for the first quarter and then move back to month to month, just like we did at the end of this fiscal year, move back to month to month after the first quarter, as they, you know, as they have asked. The reason being is that we have a number of obligations and ISAs like Derek mentioned, and it's important to have, you know, the ability to make those commitments with cash on hand. But again, that is, that is subject to discussion and we can, we can decide on that separately. And the other thing, maybe I don't want to confuse more, I think Derek outlined it well, but the slot fee in my mind has been, not in my mind, the slot fee has been a topic of discussion with licensees and where were I, one in which I think there are at times a little bit of confusion, meaning that if by July 1, that there's no slots operating, which may or may not be the case, that they might then not have to pay that fee. And to me, that's where the misunderstanding might be. If that's the case, then the balance, which is the rest of the approved budget, would still have to be assessed on licensees in proportion to the prior, the previously approved gaming positions. So to me, there's not a difference. It's a bit of a difference without a distinction, unless the thinking is that we will not assess that fee and eat the difference because we're not doing the balance. And that's not what I suggest we should do. If that were the case, then we would need to find additional savings somewhere in the budget. Okay. If I could just ask Karen on that matter, if you could follow up with Todd and see if there's additional guidance from a legal perspective on that. No problem. Thank you. And a key point to that, which commissioner Zuni guy and I have talked about is this, actually the ability to assess on a prorated basis, the $600 for how, how long the flop machine will be in use. And in the past we've, there've been no machines in use and we've assessed that fee on what was actually approved. So if we wanted to go back to what's currently approved, but not operating, there'll be a much higher number. So, you know, there are a lot of issues to discuss with Todd about this, but more than happy to have those discussions and hopefully we'll have some sort of initial numbers before we come back for the meeting in July. Can you remind me what, which, what the date is the July 2nd that we're planning on? Or is it later in the month? Derek. I don't know when that next meeting is Karen, do you have that next meeting? Schedule has the, you know, because the 25th is an extra meeting. So that's regularly scheduled cadence would be on July 2nd. Yeah. That would be the one because we'd want to put this out for public comment and give it time to. Okay. Okay. Is that enough time for you for that? If the public comments go out. Now it's July. Okay. Yes. Can I make another point? Yes. Just just in terms of what the budget does not include. Which I think is also important to at least consider. We're not assuming that there will be furloughs or the need to do any kind of really work out scenario. Let's say with, with some of the, of the contracts that we have a rent, for example, or the contract, the central monitoring system. I don't think we're there yet. Certainly not there. But I did want to mention that in this environment, the longer that the casinos remain. The longer that they're closed. The, the, the more likely that the, the, the event is in which one licensee might say, I have no indication that anybody's at this point, by the way. Let me preface that. But the likelihood increases that somebody might say, I can simply, I know I owe this assessment, but I may not be able to pay it. For now or for the time being. And that's something that it's important for you to at least, for us to at least mention it. Consider it as a possibility, not a large one, but one with implications in the budget discussion. And again, that, that has significant legal implications as well. It's, you know, so again, you know, Enrique is, it's completely hypothetical based on, you know, some of the projections you're making, but of course there's a whole status statutory scheme that we'd have to consider should that ever happen. Right now, our, our, our licensees are, have, we're working very collaboratively and it's been very significant work done on the budget. And we thank you for that, Derek and team Karen and, and Enrique. Navigating this at, you know, remotely difficult circumstances. Thank you. And, and as Enrique pointed out, you know, that, or as you pointed out, Madam Chair, that is a very low likelihood. What Enrique is pointing out, but he does bring up the what if scenario and we have to walk through that. I do want to report that the licensees, all of them have paid the April, May and June assessments. So we have our full funding in the bank for FY 20. Yeah. And by the way, this is perhaps bringing my risk assessment hat because we're going through that process as we speak. And in that format, you know, for, for our internal group in that format, we have the low probability scenarios with huge implications. This is one of them. There's high probability scenarios with high implications. And this is not one of them. But it's, it's something that, that it's a decision that we would have to react quickly in the big and confines, et cetera. But one that we at least all, all my fellow commissioners need to at least consider. Thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments? Excellent job. Derek, this is our first step in the process. And we're very interested to see what public comments we receive. Thank, I know the entire team. I see Agnes there. I know Jacqueline and Doug. Sarah, your entire team. Thank you so much. It's all part of the effort. I'm leaving out someone. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I think that that is our last item on today's agenda. We will not. I'm making an executive decision. Fellow commissioners return. To community mitigation. I see a thumbs up. At least one, at least one. I think that, uh, I think that that topic deserves our really, you know, focus attention and it's been a long day. So, uh, to give, um, that our, um, proper consideration will hold. I don't have any. Oh, sorry. Madam chair. I, um, I see Mr. Corey wanting to speak. And it's entirely at your discretion to, uh, to give that opportunity to anybody. I didn't see Mr. Corey asking to speak. Mr. Corey, just so that you understand, um, when we have public meetings, tip, we don't typically, um, have the public, uh, um, make presentations on us as part of our agenda. However. You have been here the entire day and it would be really unfair, um, for us to, to disregard, uh, your, your increase. So, uh, Thank you. For the, for the, At least to create a precedent of your, your, um, Uh, willing to hold us out. We, we will allow you for a brief comment. Thank you. Madam chair. I just wanted to, uh, request that now that you, but, um, accepted the application of, uh, Plain Ridge Park as timely and, uh, sufficient. I would like to hold over, uh, Um, I would like to, um, I would like to request to the harness horseman with regards to the renewal of their license for the time in which you will be actively considering, uh, the renewal. Our presentation on our request with regards to that matter. Certainly. And you did submit the letter and, uh, that's in our records. We, as you heard today, um, we have a schedule for the deliberations on the remicenture. So, um, you'll be aware of, um, Our schedule and I'll make sure that, uh, Dr. Light down is in coordination with you. So, um, again, my apologies if you had intended to speak on that, but again, I did not. Oh, it's, it's, it is a challenge. It's, I must say on these kinds of items, the virtual is a challenge to otherwise the virtual is pretty easy, but it is hard to see people raising their hands. So my apologies. This has been very informative. Uh, so I've enjoyed it. Well, thank you for sticking with us. And the, and the, uh, the work that has been done recently between, uh, Chris McElaine and, uh, HHH and E has been extremely encouraging with, with the, uh, work, uh, with commissioner Cameron and Dr. Lightbound as well. So, uh, we're so appreciative of that, uh, as well. As well. Thank you so much. Well, we like that. And, and I did feel that Tuesday's session was a very positive session. And, um, I'm hoping that every voice felt heard. So thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mr. Corry. Bye-bye. All right. Um, uh, our next item is actually, if we have any commissioners update, is the update any updates? Okay. I'm seeing all knows with that. Um, I want to just thank the entire team, everyone for their patience. We just had a little late start, but it was a really, um, you know, great business operations, uh, meeting. We got a lot done and, um, I appreciate everyone's effort. Uh, you know, people who are still on all of you have contributed today and every day. So thank you. Appreciate it very much. And stay safe. With that, do I have a motion? Motion to adjourn. Thank you. Commissioner Karen, you couldn't jump in there fast enough. And I'm not even going to ask for further comments. Karen. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner, uh, Zunica. I thank you everybody and especially to the finance team and, and, and Mark and everyone. Great job. And commissioner Stevens. Uh, thank you also to the team and, uh, happy father's day for all the fathers out there and I vote aye. And I vote yes. And again, thank you everyone. Be safe.