 It is February 17th. This is Senate government operations and today we are looking at S 147 which is a bill that would create a ask the state to create a language access plan for all the agencies and departments. We have walked through it and had some testimony on it. But today we're going to be looking at it again. What I'm going to do is start off by having the committee introduce themselves because many of you aren't with us all the time so we'll start off. I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. Hi, I'm Anthony Polina from Washington County. I call them or from Rutland County. Allison Clarkson, Windsor County. Hayesha Rom-Hinsdale, Chittenden County. Thank you. And today we have with us both some but a closed captioner who is making sure that the captions that go out are actually what we're saying because we've had instances where the standard closed captioning that just happens by YouTube or however that happens is very often way off mark from what we're talking about. So this is, we're having a special closed captioner today and we have an ASL interpreter with us, and we welcome all of you and all of the people who are here with us. So I think that, first of all, let me ask if anybody has a time constraint so that they would need to leave early or get on first. Laura, did you? The interpreter is only scheduled till 2.30. Okay. So I think that what we'll do then, I think we'll start with Laura. So would you like to start off because we want to make sure that you get your testimony and while your interpreter is still here. Thank you. And I'll be happy to do that. I really appreciate being here and being asked to testify. Thank you very much for the invitation. You're most welcome. So again, my name is Laura Siegel. I'm the director for deaf and hard of hearing services and deafblind services to the Department of Disability, Aging and Independent Living. And that is within the agency of human services. So first of all, I want to thank you, Senator White and Senator Hinsdale, for speaking to this bill. I also want to add gratitude to Senator White for what you said a few weeks ago regarding American Sign Language and how deaf people do not identify themselves as disabled. I fully support your remark. Every person has the right to identify however they wish and use whatever language they are most comfortable with. The population that I serve, deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind individuals are just as marginalized as other minorities. People who primarily use American Sign Language are part of a linguistic and cultural minority. English and ASL are two distinct languages with their own grammatical structures. And just like assistive technology or captioning services, ASL provides access to information and a method of communication. As you know, the Americans with Disabilities Act exists, but many people lack basic knowledge about the ADA and what reasonable accommodation truly means. We fail to provide language access for people who rely on this access. We can cause misunderstandings, miscommunications, and disrupt their ability to engage in their communities. Not providing this access violates the ADA. As currently written, S147 omits American Sign Language and other assistive forms of communication or translation. Two weeks ago, Amelia Murda Zanavonic, the director of US CRI mentioned Nepali Sign Language. Other countries have their own versions of different sign languages that need to be recognized. ASL is considered and recognized as a foreign language nationwide. According to Title 16, Chapter 23, Sub Chapter 001, ASL counts as a foreign language credit in our Vermont school systems. A comprehensive language access plan should address non-spoken languages, like American Sign Language, and the current bill does not have it in there. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Laura? But before we jump to questions, I'd like to just make an observation here that the deaf and hard of hearing and deafblind community tends, as you said, to be kind of invisible to many people. And when we were doing a bill a number of years ago after the closure of the Austin School and we were working on this, it was really exciting to have people in the cafeteria who were signing with each other and very visible, and it was just really exciting to see that couple tables worth of people who were chattering away with each other and was something that we don't see in the state house very often. So thank you. And I'm just happy that you had that exposure. I was there that day and very fondly remember it. Thank you. So I'm going to go to Senator Collamore and then Senator Clarkson. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for that memory. I remember also when the bill came up on the floor, I think I even remember the bill number 166. I learned how to sign the word yes. So I could vote. Of course, we have to say it orally in order for the microphones to pick it up, but we're also able to sign yes and it's just one of those memories I have. Thank you. Senator Clarkson. Yeah, that was it. You're right. It's a very memorable day. Laura, thank you for your testimony. Wonderful to have you. And I assume we will add this to our bill. One question I have for you is also help us understand how big this community is in Vermont. If you could put numbers to the number of deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing. What is that population in Vermont because it would be important for us to know. I'm happy to speak to that. According to the deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind advisory council. In their legislative report that was recently published. It states that there are about 65,000 to 125,000 people in the state of Vermont who have hearing loss. But I also suspect that in full disclosure that there is there are more because as a marginalized population they don't necessarily self identify. There is a very negative stigma associated with hearing loss and with folks who are in a linguistic and cultural minority like deaf, culturally deaf people. Yes, and the deaf blind community. What are you incorporating them into that number or they are separate and distinct group. According to the Helen Keller National Center. They informed me that the adults on record is about 44 deaf blind individuals in the state on record. But that was last documented that data is from 2014 so it is a bit outdated. Yeah, and then according to the New England consortium of deaf blind and their project. They told me that there are 38 deaf blind children in our school systems. So you're looking at roughly around 100 deaf blind individuals in the state. Is that helpful. Thank you. Thank you. We did we one of the things that we did hear when we were doing this before after the closure of the Austin school that we had a number of young families. Moving out of state because they simply didn't have the services for their children. And there was there, they were put into schools with interpret with one one on one AIDS who couldn't sign, and they're just were no services so we lost a lot of people I think about about the time of the closure of the Austin school. Yes, that is correct. The number certainly did drop exponentially, which is very, very unfortunate right after the closure of the Austin school. However, there are many communities who are starting to partner and to work on lifting up their consideration for diversity, equity and inclusion. And part of my role is to help those communities make those connections and note gaps and services on a statewide level, and there's there is quite a bit of work to be done in that respect but I am I am here and I am working as hard as I can. Thank you. Good. Thank you. So, oh, Senator Rahman cell. Thank you. So, so first of all, I, I want to apologize as the original sponsor of the bill for this omission in the original language and I think it's just important for us all to be able to acknowledge when we've failed and failed or fallen down on being as inclusive as we hope to be with something of this magnitude. And I really appreciate that we've already started talking about the intersection of other spoken languages with not with non spoken languages. You know, I think it's an area where we'll need to grow in many ways as well as a state. I wonder Laura, if there are best practices in emergency communications, particularly, or other areas of life saving or life threatening communication that you think are really important for us to think about. And then finally, I just hope you can you're able and willing to help us make sure the language gets where it needs to be to include the culturally deaf community. I am more than happy to help in any way that I can crafting and navigating that language for the bill. You are correct that it does need to be as detailed and accurate as we can make it and I'm happy to help. Regarding emergency services, there is a myriad of things that you can do to provide access and communication communication cards being one. Obviously interpreting services for any press conferences or anything that's in the public eye or in the media, providing captioning services like you're doing today to ensure that emergency messages are captioned accurately. So those are just a few things that come to mind right away. Yes, I just want to ask if I try, even though they were not fully representative conversations I tried to start having those conversations in terms of communities that were verbally spoken language minority communities. How do you feel that experience was during during the early stages of the pandemic where communication was taking place quickly and urgently. What, what was the experience of people you talked to around getting emergency information that they needed. It was very unfortunate that the deaf community had to write a petition to convince the governor's office to provide access to the press conferences. There was a lot of work that needed to be done, not only in providing sign language interpreters but kept close captioning for those press conferences. That was something that was a big consideration for us. I think if there had been an effort to be more proactive for both spoken languages and sign languages in the beginning of the pandemic, that fear of misunderstanding and miscommunication may may have been much more alleviated than it was. I think setting up a plan for a common language and a common protocol for when these emergencies happen would really benefit everybody. Everybody knows what's going on, providing that access to deaf for monitors and to the communities that we serve I think really would be ideal in an emergency situation. Thank you. Thank you. So, Laura, we understand that you, the quarry will be leaving at 230. I don't know if the closed captioning works for you and, but we certainly welcome you to stay with us. Yeah, that that would be totally fine. I'm happy to do that and I can read the captioning. I just really appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of you all today. That's great. I only wish we were in person in the state house would be much more fun. Thank you. Yeah, someday someday soon for sure. So I think committee what we'll do. Were there any more questions for Laura. Okay, I think what we'll do. And just to just to add if you don't mind you are more than welcome to contact me at any time. I'm always available to communicate via email or set up a separate time to meet one on one just let me know. Thank you. Thank you. If I could just articulate and maybe madam chair, you have a different plan in mind, but I don't necessarily see legislative council here but I could offer to get Laura and an amaran on the same email thread to make sure that our language is fully inclusive. So I just want to say that out loud if that's appropriate. Yeah, we will. And when we get farther into the bill because we've only had a little bit with the bill so far so we haven't started marking it up or doing anything but we definitely will put Laura on that's a great idea. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Absolutely happy to take any of your suggestions as well. Thank you. So I, I think that what I'm going to do right now is jump to Susanna, because I, I just want to know how this fits in compliments conflicts with whatever it does, because I know that you are working on a language access project. And so we want to make sure that whatever you're doing, we're helping you and complimenting that project. So Susanna, would you like to join us. Yes, I would thank you for the record Susanna Davis executive director for the state is my volume okay. Perfect. Okay. I don't want to step on any other testimony that may cover the same topics that I'm covering. So I'm going to speak briefly about four main topics. One is applicability. The next is accessibility. The third is accountability. The last is quality control. Let me begin by saying that we are very eager to create a language access plan. It's no secret to this committee since this committee is where I give every annual report that a comprehensive language access plan has always been the goal. And that we did early on begin doing some of the footwork to legwork. To work towards that. We conducted a survey of our agencies and departments in 2019 and received a lot of important and helpful feedback in response. So first thing that I'd like so I'm grateful that this bill exists, and I just wanted to highlight some of what I see as potential roadblocks. So first I'd like to talk about applicability. The bill I think is a great start. And perhaps I am misreading but it appears to apply to executive agencies, which are a huge chunk of state government. And by reading, there isn't clear ties that apply it to the judiciary or to the legislature. And the reason I raise this is because the enabling statute for the racial equity advisory panel and the executive director of racial equity. States very clearly that our work is supposed to happen across all three branches of state government. Specifically, one of the statutory requirements is that this office work across all three branches to identify systemic racism. And also to develop performance targets and metrics for the executive, the judiciary and for the legislature. We've done a lot of work on this already. They've worked with federal partners, and have created a robust language access program, and have dedicated staffing to this as well. And I suspect that because language access in the courts is absolutely life or death, it is critical to people's outcomes that they be able to have access to justice in court settings. It is also critical that people be able to have access to state services, whether they're dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Health Department, the Department of Taxation, or anything in between. So one executive agencies is also very appropriate. And I'm happy to report that a number of the executive agencies and departments have also advanced their language access work in the last couple of years, particularly in the agency of human services portfolio. We have a lot more comprehension and consistency in language access. There's certainly a lot more way to go. And then Department of Public Safety has at least been aware of the conversation. And other agencies and departments as well have been made more aware of obligations, not just for federal compliance, but also so that we can go above and beyond those minimums. So on this first point of applicability, the racial equity office feels extremely strongly that for this work to work, it must be applicable across all three branches of state government. So that people can participate in shaping their futures, not just when the laws are interpreted in the courts or enforced in the agencies, but when they're being created in the legislature. The second point was going to be on accessibility, but fortunately Laura was here and was able to give that testimony in much greater detail. But what I was going to say in short was precisely what Laura said, which is that ASL and other forms of non spoken language should be included as well in a comprehensive plan. The next thing I'd like to talk about is accountability. So some of the bill provisions begin to wade into whose responsibility it is to develop these plans and whose responsibility it is to track them. We note that the chief performance officer is tasked with tracking compliance and reporting on it. While that's a great office to utilize for tracking and compliance generally, we feel that specific to language access planning that work is better suited in the racial equity office. So our suggestion is that the racial equity office be charged with conducting that tracking and reporting. We also know that cross branch communication and even cross agency communication has to be finessed and has to be well oiled. The reason for that is information sharing can sometimes be tough across different agencies or branches. There may be personally identifiable information concerns, when we aggregate that information from our sister agencies or other branches, or other parts of the executive branch for that matter, because of course the executive branch is more than just everything under the governor's purview, but also includes the auditor, the treasurer, the attorney general, defender general, and others. So as we think about all of those scopes of work and the different roles that each of our agencies or branches plays in the community, we also have to take the time to create a plan that allows us to talk to each other, share those data, and make sure that when we report them, or if they are made publicly accessible, that that's done in a way that doesn't create adverse consequences for the people who are represented in the data. Some agencies receive inquiries and their involvement with the public is mainly by fielding inquiries or questions. And other agencies are more proactive in reaching out. I'll give one example, we know that generally the courts more often have people reaching out to them, whether they want to file a motion or whether they want to bring an action. Whereas agencies like human services, specifically the Department of Health, do a lot more proactive outreach in the community. Access in each of those spaces is going to look a little bit different. Having a comprehensive plan that accounts for that is going to help us make this process more smooth and understand what are the minimums to which we should be adhering. And what are the ways we can go above and beyond. All of this is to say that timing is a big piece of this. We know that the bill will likely have its dates updated, but even if the timeline remains the same in terms of length of time. We're very concerned about being able to pull all of this together within that timeline and do it correctly. The next and last thing I wanted to mention is quality control. And I think that if I'm not sure if HRC is on the line. I know this was one of their concerns as well so I don't want to speak too much about it, but I will say a bit about quality control. One of the things that we really love about this bill is that it encourages using services from community translators and community interpreters. This is important. One, because this is a way that we can engage people who are already part of Vermont community in governance and in spaces where they've already been. And two, because it helps to build trust. And whenever we talk about historically marginalized or oppressed or underrepresented groups trust always is a huge factor. So we appreciate and cosine the encouragement to work with community translators. And we also recognize that not every multilingual person can translate. There is a certain standard of quality that we have to make sure translators and interpreters can meet, because again, in settings like court hearings, family law proceedings. When determinations are being made about people's life outcomes. One misunderstood word could be the difference between taking a plea or not. So we want to make sure that certification is front and center. And that is true both for any community translators we intend to contract with, as well as any non community translators. I mentioned non community translators because while we do prefer to have a local focus in Vermont. We also know that the set of most commonly spoken languages in Vermont is not the same as it is in many other parts of the country. And for that reason, we may have to look to a more national pool to be able to have the number and availability of translators necessary for a truly comprehensive statewide plan. When we talk about community translators, it's not just about getting them up to certification standard, but also about making sure we're fairly compensating people for their work. After all the way that things stand today, we often have people stepping in last minute to do translations. And that often pulls them away from other duties. This comes at an opportunity cost. And so helping people be whole, whether it's replacing wages lost from them having to step in for us, we're creating a more structured and predictable payment structure. Through which they can have a more consistent compensation is key. I'm reminded that in September of 2020. The racial equity task force made a set of recommendations and one of those rep well, at least four of those recommendations were for expanded language access. But one of them specifically was to increase support for multilingual liaisons in schools. They are an overworked and undervalued part of communities who don't just serve as interpreters for students and don't just serve as interpreters for families. They're serving as resources as information hubs. They're serving as points of contact for people who need to be connected with other social services. This is a position that on paper has to do with language access for students, but in reality plays a much more critical foundational role in communities that cannot be overstated. And we still feel strongly that multilingual liaisons are part of this community of interpreters and translators, and also our social workers, and also our liaisons to government. And so when we think about compensation and the full roster of people who perform this sort of work for us to our benefit. We need to consider. And so as we think about advancing any bill or any policy on language access. It is extremely important that we consider the fiscal impact of having to recruit and train and sustain the people who are going to be doing the work as well as the technological infrastructure that will need in order to track it, and potentially any staffing resources that may need to be augmented. Now earlier I mentioned that the Office of Racial Equity is well suited to do this tracking. And I'm confident that with the existing staff that has that have already been approved that we can accomplish this without an added need. So this is just one office in one agency in one branch. So I would encourage us to consider how the legislature and the judiciary may also need to have budgets reexamined to account for and support the scope of work that we're asking for. I've done my best to refrain from speaking quickly. And so I'm going to pause here so that I don't eat up all of your hearing, but I appreciate your time and thank you for your attention. Thank you and I have to say I've never heard you speak so slowly. You did a very good job. Thank you. So my, I guess my question is, and I There are some really good things in this bill. My question is and not to, not to discount anything that's in here, but is this bill needed, or is what's needed for you to come back with a report saying, This is where we need to go now because it sounds like you're already doing a lot of this and working on these and And instead what we need to do is as a legislative branch we need to look at our own how we how we function, but I so I don't I know that there are really good things in this bill but I'm just wondering is, is it needed, or is what you're doing addressing these needs, and you can do it without the bill. This is the latter and I say that with deepest respect to the sponsor because I know that Senator Rom Hinsdale has been a tireless advocate for underrepresented and marginalized communities. So, the purpose of the bill and the outcomes it sets out are absolutely needed. I do think that this is achievable without the legislation in a way that will give us the leeway to be able to do this correctly and not not anchor the work based on a fixed timeline but rather anchor it based on identifying the need. So, so it. Go ahead. I was going to say it would be our request that the committee consider holding off to provide us the opportunity to work cross branch with judiciary and legislature and other offices in the executive to create something genuinely comprehensive and statewide. So maybe what we need to do is we need to set up and I hate to, to say this, but set up some kind of a summer study committee that the legislature has input into that looks at what the legislature legislative branch needs to do around language access. Madam chair, I certainly would support that. And I want to accompany that by saying that what I don't want to do is kick this can down the road. I have said many times before my, my first words were not in English. And I grew up in a household where not everybody was an English speaker, but I have immense privilege to speak this language and so it is easy for me to say, let's wait. I'm not a person who is limited English proficient so what I don't want to do is to create burden or delay or disappointment for community to need this work. And I have to say that out loud because it is tremendously important that we do. And I also believe that this will be best and strongest. If we, if we really take the time, look at judiciary is example look at AHS is example and look at other jurisdictions as well. So I would support a committee with the simultaneous commitment that this is not just a stalling tactic. So I'm going to make a suggestion, I think that I don't know this for a fact, but I know that we're not going to be able to do much before crossover because that's two weeks. But I don't think that we are getting a ton of bills sent over to us from the house to deal with after crossover. We can make a commitment to spend a number of days working as a summer study committee might, but working on it in this committee after crossover, and really trying to figure out what the what we as a legislative branch need to do. Well, Madam Chairman, first of all, I'm grateful that, you know, you'd be looking to have a conversation on a leadership level about giving this more time. You know, I don't want to rush anything or give it just a two week window when we think we may have more time and capacity. I have a couple other reactions, you know, one Susanna you may know this but I just want to make sure those listening know that I absolutely hear you on the multicultural multilingual liaison piece and I introduced as 27 last year, which is about municipalities and school districts to share those positions without any kind of penalty in terms of the how the district financing works, which ultimately passed an S 16. And so, you know, it is a small step toward recognizing how important those folks are. But I think that was a really critical step, knowing that we're now again going to go into breaks like winter break and summer break, but at least Berlin to new ski have been able to start to take advantage of this partnership and make sure that on vacation breaks and people don't lose access to as you said they're social worker that's what a lot of people called that person supporting them. And that was a lifeline for them that they lost last summer as the pandemic was raging. And that particular example, what I'm most worried about is that there is a fast moving disaster that hits Vermont, and we are not currently prepared to offer lingual services for all who will who will need them to get the information they need in an emergency on an emergency basis. And so, you know, I want, as you do a comprehensive language access plan and one that has the flexibility to get it right. I wonder if you think if there was, you know, a major flooding event that came through the state this week, if the state would be better prepared than it was at the start of the pandemic to ensure language services for all who need them. I actually do, because early on in the pandemic, we had entities that came together like the multilingual task force which now has a new name and I'm going to apologize to that because the name escapes me now but that was a team that was put together and built up into something incredibly incredible. And with their assistance and their guidance and their intervention and their advocacy, the state has, I think, made some real strides in refining its emergency communications. Laura spoke earlier about captioning and signing at press conferences, and the information we have is that occasionally that is still a little bit spotty, but that for the most part, that is a system that runs fairly smoothly. Additionally, we have a dedicated funding stream for continued emergency communication translation running through the agency of human services, specifically VDH, and have also expanded the health equity. No, yes, the health equity and community engagement team. There was a new director there, who also I believe is a bilingual person, and the team is being expanded to I think 19 people, several of whom are already in place and who are multilingual and perhaps more of whom will be. And that is a big part of the response because it helps us to have eyes and ears on the ground to make sure that we're not hearing from the community too late in the game. The third thing I'll say is that we have a number of departments that do work in sort of the emergency space I'm thinking of the emergency operation center, public safety, fire safety, etc. I think that they also have between their links with federal emergency responses, response divisions, and the state ones we have, I do think that we probably would be not awful, if a flood hit tomorrow. Not awful. It's better than awful. Which we were beginning of the pandemic. Are any questions out Senator Clarkson, did you have a question. I just said it would be awful for other reasons. Yeah, yes, it would be. We do not want to think of a widespread emergency, but it could happen. So, any, any questions for Susanna. Thank you very much, Susanna and I, I appreciate your input. I like the way you broke down your four points and then addressed each of them. That was helpful. Thank you very much. Yes, Senator Clarkson. Susanna, I guess I have a question which is your sort of your time, a closer timeline on this I know the task I mean working on this in the next bit would be great I mean do you have a. I guess that's sort of our next step forward I was just thinking if you had an overarching timeline on more of this work. I actually don't have a precise timeline that I would recommend and it's precisely because I think that we need to hear from people to get a better, better assessment for example I did confer with our chief performance officer. One year proposal was of concern to him from a project management perspective. And we also heard from the judiciary who did implement their own language access protocol, who also had concerns about about that timeline so I would certainly mean on them, and also on the legislative branch as well so that we can understand what can we do and how soon can we do it. Right now it's in our was I was talking to some of your colleagues recently who said we're at a point now in budget where we've got to make some tough choices and. And I heard someone else say, actually, no, the recession was tough choices time right now is quite the opposite because of all of the money coming into the state so I think that we, we can get this right, but we just, I don't think that a year. And I apologize I didn't look, I need to re look at the bill again to see the precise timing but I did hear from judiciary who has done it and CPO who does project management that they were both concerned about the timeline. Thank you. Any other questions for Susanna. I mean, okay, yes, Senator Romney sale. You know, so I guess I just want to say. It has been longer than a year right and especially for the judiciary. This is a civil rights act protection and you know I do wonder. And it's one, you know how the, if it makes sense to speak with the administration's chief counsel, you know about how the state would be thinking about prioritizing and the all branches of government should be prioritized in terms of investment and what can be done in a year. Because I think everyone saying we need more than a year is is really concerning. And to how much is the state currently spending on on spoken interpretation and non I don't know if you know the non spoken interpretation. Yeah, I do think it would definitely be appropriate to look at how we want to prioritize it. Of course the federal regulation which is the civil rights act and then also the executive order from Clinton era, both describe meaningful which is loose enough to allow for nuance to allow for what is your typical catchment area or demographic so for example if the agency of transportation tends to deal with these 10 languages mainly. And if these five documents like driver license applications, you know driver privilege cards and registration applications. If those are the three most commonly accessed forms by and large. We need to prioritize the most commonly accessed forms, the most commonly spoken languages, however, if I contrast we know that and I'm just making this up here let's just say the Department of liquor and lottery tends to interact mainly with Spanish and French speakers. And they tend to have generic application being being sought most commonly, then the federal regulation effectively says, you know, start with that, look at what is most common and was sought. I think it would be certainly appropriate to think about how we're going to prioritize those. I know that again when we did that survey and it was a little bit a while ago now so we may have to do a new one post COVID or during moving. But we did get some insight from those agencies about what contacts they have with limited English proficient communities. The second question, what is the state spending right now I actually don't know. I do believe the bulk of it is coming through the AHS portfolio. And I know that because of COVID-19 a lot of that money has been diverted from federal funds to pay for this. So we probably are piecing together a patchwork of funding stream or I should say braiding funding streams to cover it so I don't have a fixed number for you but I can try to find out. Well, while we're on the topic. Sorry, of transportation, a meal might be able to speak to this as well. I think the value of a task force and or a language access plan is to also think about languages that are just starting to be requested because we may be bringing relations into our state and there's already been a lot of concerns raised about, you know, while we're very proud that we finally have the drivers written exam, interpreted into other translated into other languages. The manual is not so there are still a lot of people who for a year. That's a really long time to wait to access, you know, transportation and the economic benefit that comes with that so I do think, you know, being responsive and nimble is still just really critical as I know you're aware of. I completely agree Senator I completely agree it's it's not just about the data we have it's also about who's not captured. There may be a chilling effect if I know for a fact that you don't have it in my language I'm not, I may not come, I may not bother coming to you to ask for it. That doesn't mean there's not a need it means that I was shut down before I got started so I'm 100% in agreement on that and I suppose I should clarify because I think I didn't say this well about the timeline. I don't want to suggest that we can't implement broader language access until a year plus from now. I'm thinking mainly about the tracking reporting and that kind of that kind of workflow. I think that there's a lot that we can do sooner rather than later. And I would like us to do the high priority and quick items as soon as possible we don't need a year for that. The timeline where it does concern me is when we talk about like filing for more plans and having a tracking system and delivering a report to the legislature that may or may not necessarily have reflect the full body of what we're doing or what we're thinking. So I don't want to suggest that none of the work can happen in a year because that's unreasonable. So I'm going to suggest committee that we are think we had something else scheduled at 245 we got off the floor a little bit late, but I don't know committee committee members if you feel a need to take a break or if we can just do this for another 10 minutes and then jump to our next topic. I feel strongly one way or the other so will I think that what we'll try to do is close wrap this up today and I'm going to try and put it on for discussion next Wednesday. I'll try and put it on next Wednesday at four I think because we have something scheduled at 130 and something at 315 but I think we can put this on and for Linda did you have a question. I have a couple things piggyback on Susanna's comment is it okay that I say because it's related. So if you can do it quickly. That's just great. Thank you. I think last time I babble so quick in 10 minutes so it's great to see everyone here and thank you so much for inviting me back. I appreciate Senator Ram Highside. Introduce this bill and if people I forgot to introduce myself my name is Linda Lee, my birth name is Lee like and I am a social worker by training and I am the National Association of Social Work of among chapters president. I am a child therapist as my pager and I so glad to see so many familiar faces in here. In fact, I have been working with Lauren Corey on the certification of the licensure with interpreters, both spoken and foreign language or non spoken language. And I want to piggyback I really really appreciate Susanna your thoughtful, clear point by point. I do we do believe that that certification licensure system once it's set up, it will have create a trickle effect on one getting a standard pay for interpreters and better pay career path. It also would help push insurance company to reimburse for services so that more in such a state or grant funded organization could provide interpreters increase many, you know, SS. And I also want to point out that staff training is needed to how to work with interpreter within the agency. And just because you put you put this regulation in in the agency. They follow but like the, do they, that's the, that's the interpreters know, I mean, does the staff, say, for example, DCF staff know how to work with an interpreter in appropriate manner in the. So I do agree that it's actually illegal to ask staff member to take their time from their job to interpret. This is actually a labor challenges so I thank you Susanna for point them out. I just want to ask minor thing that Vermont has a protection for social worker titles for. So that means people who are doing the social work work but not didn't go to school for social work. We try not to call them social workers. So the sun is so important and and they are doing all the social work stuff. I just wish, you know, they can all go to social work school for free. So that they could, you know, really get the, the, the title and the, the, whatever that they deserve. Thank you. And thank you for joining us again. So I am going to suggest that we now wrap this up and come back on next Wednesday at four o'clock to for committee discussion on where we go next. Does that work. Thank you. And thank you everybody for joining us it was nice to see you here again. Thank you. Thank you again. Thanks. See you next week. Yep. Bye. Bye. So committee can do we need to take a two minute break or are you all, are you okay. Okay we need a two minute break. Okay. Be back in two minutes. I don't think you even after