 So we will start. Let's start with Michelle. She's first on the list. Got it. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Now it's perfect. No! It's perfectly toasty. Yeah, look at this jacket is on. Yeah, I may take it off. It is warm. It's a sauna. We're having a sauna experience here. Can you throw some water on the rocks now? Yeah. Just wait and see. Heat down. We'll be fine. Good one. I'll take it. Shall I be yours? Good morning. I'm Michelle Fay. I'm Executive Director of Voices for Vermont's Children. And I think two of the senators are rare voices, but for your benefit, Senator Susie, we have you two, Matt. We just introduced ourselves. So Voices for Vermont's Children promotes public policy that enhances the lives of children and youth. And we are particularly interested in improving equity in our community and our institutions. And for us, attacking equity means directing resources and targeting policies to eliminate disparities. As you heard last night during the public hearing, too many Vermonters are thrown into financial distress or forced to make unthinkable choices when they grow their families or experience a serious illness. Access to paid family and medical leave is an equity issue for low-age workers, for women, and obviously for their children. So the U.S. Department of Labor has run extensive studies on leave-taking behavior in connection with FMLA, which has been around for 25 years now, and their data are clear. There are stark disparities in access to paid leave. Almost two-thirds of people earning more than the median income receive full pay during their leave compared to only about a third of those who are earning less than median income. And then for those folks who have, who express a need that would qualify for FMLA but are unable to actually take that leave, it's substantially higher for people with children, people of color, and people with low incomes. The recent feasibility study on paid leave in Vermont projected that workers and families with incomes near the poverty threshold would increase their number of paid leaves by 38%, compared with 9% for higher-income families. And roughly a third of Vermont children live in low-income households that's defined as at or below 200% poverty level. So you've heard the testimonies of people who made it work when they experienced a serious illness or welcomed a new child without the benefit of paid family and medical leave. Backed into a corner with no good choices, they were forced to take steps to reduce families' financial security. 2012 FMLA survey data backs up their experiences. Leave takers without access to paid leave overwhelmingly reported that making ends meet was difficult, most limit spending to their bare necessities, and many draw on their savings. More than a third put off paying bills and about 30% borrow money. 15% sign up for public assistance. Even those families who are technically able to arrange paid leave by using their accrued sicker vacation time with no cushion for routine preventive healthcare appointments or unexpected events like childcare closures or school snow days, or even just a regular old sick day. Family economic security is fundamental. Welcoming a new child to the family, recovering from a serious illness or injury, or supporting the recovery of a loved one, are watershed moments that can set families on a path toward a healthy, secure future or turn them toward damaging hardship. The impact of spending childhood and poverty are devastating both to children and to our communities. Children raised in poverty experience poor health outcomes in relation to their non-poor peers. They're twice as likely to repeat a grade or be expelled, and more than twice as likely to drop out of high school. Girls raised in poverty are more than three times as likely to have a child as a teen. According to the Vermont feasibility study, an estimated roughly 1,100 to 3,200 workers and their families will stay above the poverty level due to benefits. Supporting family formation matters. When parents have access to paid leave to welcome a new child into their family, infants are more likely to be breastfed. I think you heard about that last night. They're more likely to have their full vaccination schedule and they're more likely to have regular check-ups. Adoptive families experiencing a kind of change in transition are allowed much needed bonding and relationship building time. And this is interesting. When partners early shared involvement in the care of children is linked to reduced divorce rates that has improved cognitive development and educational performance for their children. So we all benefit. Supporting parents in their dual roles as employees and caregivers yields economic benefits as well. Evidence from states with FMLI show that these programs improve workforce attachment and support economic independence with the greatest effects seen among the most disadvantaged families. Other key economic and health benefits include that children recover more quickly from illness than their care for by their parents. According to the impact feasibility report, Vermont would experience savings due to the increased number of Vermont's newborn infants that are healthy and have normal birth weights. And there's some data. I did submit my testimony by the way. I think I submitted it like 10.30 last night. So it may not be up on your website yet. That includes 5% fewer low birth weight babies, 8% fewer pre-tum births and 10% fewer infant deaths, child deaths. Vermont's foster care community needs our support. I was really glad there were a couple of folks testifying about that last night. It was a whole different aspect. One we hadn't necessarily thought about. We work fairly closely with BFAFA and we've heard from a number of members that those first two weeks when you have a foster care placement, you are running the child or children to, you know, catching up from a doctor's appointments they haven't had access to. You're taking them to the dentist. You're taking them to parent visits. That's the first two to four weeks. I think back to those figures, the percentages right before there about low weight and child deaths. What were those numbers related to? Access to paid leave is correlated with those better outcomes for babies. According to... Well, I can get the citation for that, but I think this actually came out of the impact report. The feasibility study. The FNLI. Would you get your testimony? I did. Ten percent fewer child deaths, five percent fewer low work place babies and eight percent fewer children. As a result of the state or any access to paid leave. Yeah. I think we heard about people who were working up to the day their children were born. If you were advised to have bed rest or you were advised to do something a little different, if you don't have access to paid leave you're not able to do that. Is that... Essentially in the flip of that is that there will be ten percent more deaths if you don't have paid leave. Is that a safe or safe thing? I suppose so. I think we're talking about the... Like what's happening now, we can improve on that by providing access to paid leave. So it's not like... Doing nothing keeps things the way they are. If you give people access to paid leave, you can improve those numbers. Can you get us a little bit more information on those numbers? Sure. I'm really coming to the end here. Vermont needs families to to build and sustain our economy and those families need policies that make it possible to balance their roles as caregivers with their contributions to the workforce. The Vermont Department of Labor's forecast through 2024 lists sales, food prep and food service and office administrative support positions as the job sector is expected to have the greatest amount of growth. These are the very jobs that do not offer paid family medical leave. They offer wages below a livable standard and are typically held by women. So if this is the reality of our economy, it's incumbent on the state to invest in infrastructure to meet the needs of this workforce. And while establishing a family medical leave program will have the greatest impact on low wage employees in the Vermont service industry, it's a benefit that will attract and retain the workforce across all sectors. So our specific policy recommendations will sound very familiar. We strongly support increasing the maximum leave back to 12 weeks as it was in the original bill. I think you heard a lot of evidence about why that's important last night. But it is the minimum recommended leave for recovery and bonding with a newborn according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And in addition to the health benefits supporting those 12 weeks of bonding, there is an infant care crisis in the state of Vermont in our early care and learning system. Paid leave is infant care and will take some of the pressure off this system. Implementation of FMLI program would save Vermont families, and this is from, again, from the impact study, an estimated average of between $1,017 or $1,800 primarily from river to child care costs. And when you aggregate this across the state, it's between $2.5 million that would be saved for the future. The second recommendation is to make the benefit accessible to low wage workers by maintaining or even increasing a high wage level replacement between 80 and 100% wage replacement. I think what we've seen from the early adopter states who for whatever reason started their wage replacements at 55 or 60% is that lower wage workers just weren't able to access that. So we can learn from their mistakes and make sure that benefit is accessible to the public. We agree with reducing the eligibility threshold back to the original level so that people who are working seasonal or intermittent jobs who are paying into this program can access it when they need it. I think it was 6 out of 12? 6 out of 12 months? For the original? Yeah. 6 out of 12 months, yeah. And these are in no particular order. We all feel all 40s are very important. But restoring the personal medical leave coverage is really critical. As I think someone mentioned last night the DOL shows that the majority of FMLA qualifying leaves are for personal illness or injury. So we need to design a program that works for as many Vermonters as possible. That concludes my testimony. So I have a question on you said that there would be I think you said a 38% increase among low income people in accessing family leave is paid a 9% increase. Yet the numbers we've seen so far so a very small increase with this bill in terms of the projected costs but how do you square those numbers? I think I remember 6% is what they're projecting in terms of the increase in the number of leaves as a result of I don't know if it's this bill or it's the house pass bill or the original bill. But surprisingly low. So I think a lot of that is I would attribute a lot of that to and I don't know if there's been any kind of pulling out of what I'm about to say from the feasibility study but as we heard last night and as if you look at what other states have experienced families are making it work but when we talk, when we dig down and see how they're making it work they're using up all of their accrued time. So at the end of their, for example if it's an intimate leave, a bonding leave at the end of that leave they have no paid time left to take their child to this next well baby visit or if they themselves get sick they're just bottoming out all their leave or they're taking the leave and going into debt. They're putting everything on credit cards. So we heard all those stories last night, right? Yeah. So I think it's a question of creating a system that supports families and doesn't require them to make these terrible choices that then actually impact their financial security for years. I mean it can take a very long time to dig out from those debts and that impacts their children's and their families. I think you're probably right but maybe it's the way we're describing it. If you say there's going to be a 38% increase among more people who are taking the leave it sounds like you may be saying well I'm not sure it sounds like you're saying that they're not taking the leave now. They're not making it work and scraping everything to make it work. They're just not taking the leave they're going to work. Yeah. So now there will be a 38% of people who wouldn't go to work for 6 weeks or 12 weeks and yet the people who did the work up here on the projections so very a small number of people who take the leave. I think I know what you're getting at now. So the I spent a fair amount of time with the 2012 DOL figures and the number of people, the percentage of people who don't take leave when they have a qualifying eligible reason to take a leave is very small. I think it's about 5%. So that's 38% of that 5%. You know what I'm saying? It's like of the people who are not taking leave there's a disproportionate representation of low income people in that 5%. So it's 38% of 5%. Almost half. I'm surprised that so few people are not taking I want to say this the correct way that so few people are not taking leave. If you listen to that testimony last night it sounds like most of the people are somehow continuing So it seems like that supports that they're not taking the leave. They're continuing to work when they shouldn't be continuing to work while they're sick. And on chemotherapy and in radiation that will not equate no holiday for two years as a result. That's the impression. They're continuing to work and they're struggling. So if most people are doing that and then you give them pay then you would expect the amount of people who take leave to go up more than 5%. Wouldn't you? But I think what Michelle's saying is that of the 5% that are working through the hell they're going through 38% of that 5% are the crowd that are more like they're predicting will actually take an end. We're not sure about more. Maybe our staff is familiar with that those projections. It's just this the way I read it is that there's 50,000 people taking leave and there's going to be 50 or 50% after the lockdown. Yeah, I think that there's two different dimensions. There's a pension we're talking about but the people who are working through it somehow going to their chemo sessions and going back to work and then there's this other larger group of people who are somehow making it work but not in ways that are actually good for their financial security. And I think just the closing I started out talking about equity because sometimes figuring out solutions that are equitable means really looking at those handful of thousands of people who are not being served by our system very well and figuring out how to make a work for them. Well, what impressed me about last night was the people who are making it work it's not making it work but it's digging themselves deeper into that it's making life impossible financially and adds so much stress that the stress is on the fabric of their marriages and their families and on everything else so it's huge. So it comes out elsewhere and in that all doesn't benefit employers it doesn't benefit anybody, schools, children children and everybody. We'll see you in my written testimony I actually made it work because it's clearly not. Thank you. I'm going to go a little bit out of here because I want to save the department for your end witnesses so can we hear from Erin Erin Erin Erin Erin, with okay. so how about Ray before is she here? So who are we looking for now? Oh. If you're looking for Eric if you can find Erin that'll be great we'll put her in the question because she may be right next door because I have to take a picture of her. I have to take a 5-minute break. Hi, this is Michael Sirup, Chair of the Economic Development Committee at the Legislature. And we welcome you. We have a room full of people here and two other senators, Senator Clarkson from Windsor County and Senator Sussi from Rutland County up from Chittenden County. And I understand you wanted to testify on each 196 pay family leave. Yes. And we welcome your testimony, so go for it. Well, first of all, thank you very much for calling and entertaining, you know, live conversations with you guys. Just quick brief on the Vermont State. I own a small grocery store in Georgia, Vermont, about 10,000 square feet. I've been here since 2005. I come from a corporate background where I was living for a number of years, 46 years. And we went bankrupt as a company. Did anybody hear me? Because sometimes phones are crazy. Everybody can hear me? Yes, now you're coming through good. Okay, perfect. So, here's the concern I have. Over 50% of my staff is under the age of 18. And when you're under the age of 18, there's certain things you can't do. You can't deny it in places that are greater than all these things. Our community bond is. And I have four departments in my grocery store. We're a full service grocery store. We have a protest department, a bakery apartment, a post office and a meat department, which are highly specialized departments, as far as I'm concerned. They're not like, they're not like, you know, caching system, caching system, which is, you know, or somebody who's on the floor working grocery. Those are more entry-level positions. We're in the protest department, bakery, post office or meat department. They're highly specialized. And these are all full-time people for me that I give them between two and two weeks of vacation now, for the amount of money that was paid. And we struggle to cover the week when they're gone. We're able to forward plan. When my meat ban is gone for the week, we're able to forward plan because they do orders, they work on ads, they do pricing because the markets are so volatile. We're able to forward plan the week. And I usually filter the gap on the owner. I'm the guy who filters the gap because it requires somebody trained. And for, you know, in this case, to train somebody in the department or train somebody in the post office or train somebody for, you know, produce or for bakery requires maybe 30 to 50 hours of training time. So again, when you leave them, you know, when they're gone for a week, when they take vacation, you can plan around that and make adjustments and survive. It's going to be back in the eighth day. So this paid leave, six weeks, poses for us a major challenge that a couple of options, you know, may, may occur as this is happening for us, is that the, you know, if somebody offsuit a fly and get the, you know, the, you know, the, the state to allow them to take this paid leave and somebody else from another department at the same time has an issue in a place that they can get, and get accepted. It puts the owner, it puts the business at a high risk because we don't have staff to roll into those departments to cover that six weeks span. In the case of the, you know, in this, in this case where I fill in, there's only somebody for me to have to go in and try to cover six weeks in the produce department and six weeks in the meat department. We would never be able to do it. So my option would be then I have to go hire somebody and train somebody. So then at the end of six weeks when that person comes back, I've got an extra person that I can't use. I can't maintain on my staff. And that, that's the dilemma that I see with this thing because it requires a way to fill the void and we don't have physical bodies to slide into that position because again, these are not entry level positions. These, you know, a meat cutter, a meat cutter really has two years of meat cutting under his belt before he's able to do meat cutting. He has to go through basically a whole process to gain the ability to cut meat. And that's the problem we have. And then, you know, what happens to us is we end up, you know, having to hire somebody, train them prior to which has had and cost us, you know, we're small, but we're very, very small. We're not a change, you know. How small are you? I'm sorry. How small are you? How many employees do you have? We have 38, but over half of those are 18. And with the right-hand school kids who come in at four o'clock and run the ministry, you know, from four, you know, fill the beer from four o'clock, so it's a lot for 90 bucks. How many hours do they work? This is Senator Susie, right? How many hours do they work? More than 30 hours a week. Most of these are, most of these are 12. How many full-time employees do you have? We have, I have six full-timers. Six full-timers. They're 40 hours. They're 40 hours with people. Out of the 38. So, you have 38 people, just, I just have a question for our staff here. Would they be covered under existing law right now if you had six full-time and 30 more times? The existing law goes off of average of 30 hours per week. And so it's really a question of are there, in addition to those six 40-hour-a-week workers, do they have an additional four to nine workers who are averaging 30 hours or more per week? And so that, that's the question about whether they're covered by the unpaid leave law now. So, Ray, this is Damien Leonard from the Office of Legislative Counsel. Yeah. Do you, do you have additional workers in the, the, that average 30 hours or more per week, or is it just those six 40-hour-a-week workers? That's, that's what I have currently. When college is out, I have a couple students that come back and they work 30-plus hours, but that's just for, you know, really to take advantage. June through, you know, August, sometimes early, early by September. So it's just a couple of college kids. But that's pretty much it, like six full-timers. And again, you know, the problem we have is that most of, again, most of my staffing part-time students, the parents get involved and say, I don't want little Johnny working more. He's got more than eight per week, you know. You know, school is more important. That's our emphasis, too. So it requires more bodies. And we, you know, we're open, we're open from seven to eight, seven days a week. We have to fill the void. You know, we have to have staffing here. But it takes multiple people to do it because some will need to work eight hours a week. So I've got a couple of my students who only work one shift, one four-hour shift a week. So Ray, it sounds to me like you're probably not covered by state and federal law right now and guaranteeing a person who wanted to take leave if they could afford to take it. You wouldn't have to give them that person's job back. And so in that situation, in that situation, you wouldn't have to give job protection and this law wouldn't change that in any way. If somebody wanted to take the leave and you were hard-pressed, you could hire somebody else and not have to train them. You wouldn't have to then fire that person who you trained. You can keep that person on and you could lay off the person who took the leave. Yeah, but that's not a good situation for us because I'm taking somebody who's got a year's experience and letting them go. There's somebody who's just come in and has six weeks of experience with their bell because they've worked with the two. I understand but unfortunately what you're saying is that if somebody wants to take the leave now, you're banking on the fact that that person can't afford to take the leave to help your business and you don't want to see that person get any money in order to take the leave. What I don't want to have happen is beat jeopardize my business. Mind sales, my customer loyalty because I can't get rid of the person who came in to fill the void for that six weeks. That's what I don't have to happen because people develop relationships. People who have a real old patch of budget care where you can set the mind of these guys and say, you know, Jason, I don't know, this guy, somebody coming, I need to rim by an inch and a half day. You can't get that kind of service at an enterprise shop because they do what they do but you can do that in my shop. He's coming to me. I just took an order two minutes ago for somebody who needs to make the leave dirty. You can't get that at the enterprise. You can't go to the enterprise and say, I need six pounds of dirt. Basically, they won't do it. So I would jeopardize my business if I was to let my, you know, my lead guys in the community for seven years let him go in six weeks because I can't absorb the guys that fell in for it. That's suicidal for us. Ray, this is Allison. Have you had in the past workers who have either had a parent die or go through the death of somebody in their family or a cancer, something where they've had to take some time off? How have you managed when, because it sounds like you have a good relationship with your employees, how have you managed those needs? They've never left me for six weeks. What's the most time people have left you for? That's the family they think might go for three or four days. You know, I understand that coffee as well. If anything, I'm going through an auto-muse disorder right now called SHP. I know what it's all about to be in the hospital for four weeks. I was there. I was there. I was just there. But the long story shortness thing is that, yes, it's fine in the end. You try to do the best you can. We have a business to run, and we have a responsibility. I have a responsibility to my employees, to my community and to my family to keep us in business. And independent markets, like myself, are exactly disappearing. And I just had the girls out here this past weekend they sold 270 to my face a cookie out of my store. When stores like me disappeared, because we kicked them forward, maintained, and abstained from business because of these types of things that keep coming at us, when we disappear, try to go to Dollar General and try to sell cookies there. Try to go to Antwerp and try to set up these brokers. I'm just a supporter for our local little league here. I believe for $1,000 a year, I supply all their shares. Go to Dollar General and try to get $1,000 out of them. Right. We actually all appreciate that and are very grateful for those businesses. I'm just curious, how did the store manage while you were gone for that time while you were dealing with your disease? I was very lucky that my wife ran the store for us. She became... I was very lucky. I have a wife who has a great knowledge of business. And the beauty of technology for me is that I can still do stuff from my hospital bed. Technology is a wonderful thing. Good and bad at the same time. There's something to leave me for six weeks because... I don't understand fully how the constraints will be played by some people, but it's my understanding that they can't take this time for themselves, but they can take this time for family members. So, do we get a chance to weigh in on this or do we have any sayings to us, Robert? Because, you know, doctors, I know doctors first hand are very meaningful in what they tell you because they try to cover themselves pretty tight. They don't want to run any risks themselves of saying, you're ready for your coverage. They are very, very, very conservative. I know that first hand. Well, when you ask, how are we getting feedback, you're giving us feedback right now and we've heard we had a public hearing last night where people gave us plenty of feedback. Were you on the verge of saying that you thought the bill at the moment needed to have a personal medical leave added to it if we were going to go ahead with it? No, we don't. I just want to say that you do not have personal medical leave. We don't. I was just curious if you thought in an ideal world we could figure out how to replace your workers if we should add personal care back in, personal medical care back in. Well, you know, here's again the problem we had. I am a small business without the wealth of people sliding into positions. We're not in an interest where I could pull something from another store, from another car to the chain to fill a void. I got nobody. I got nobody. So, you know, that probably happened again. I don't have the ability to sever somebody who's coming to fill the void than that for the profits because I can't do it. Not to say that, you know, if the intention is to drive small businesses out, this is certainly going to be a part of that. You know, we're getting fire and bomb barters every day would stop. So, local, state, federal levels, it's unbelievable. I've been doing this for a long, long time, but I've never seen the flurry of activities that we're seeing now. Never seen that. Well, I want to thank you for your testimony. You know, I just end by saying I know it's not any great solace to you, but we don't, we have a significant effect of small business exemption in this bill at this point. And that, in some cases, works to the detriment of the workers who work for small businesses versus large businesses. So, it may not be perfect, but at least you have you're exempt from the law of having to protect someone's job. I'm not sure I agree with it personally, but that's where it is right now and at least you have that choice. Some employers don't even have that choice under the federal law. So, I appreciate you taking the time. We have a bunch of other witnesses we have to go through. I think we've heard you very clearly. Thanks for calling in. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you. Good luck with your health. Thank you. No, no problem. Did you realize you were moving around? Well, I apologize. I was like three minutes late for that photo. You were, but Linda takes them. Okay, go ahead. So what? Okay, go ahead. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. So I will be I'll be brief as well for the record Aaron Segrist with Vermont Retail and Burshers Association. Thank you for taking the time to hear from us. Just a quick overview. The RGA represents about 700 members across the state. As you are aware, I've been in here and shared with you in the past. We're made up of small businesses that serve as stewards in the community. Across Vermont, we support local organizations as we would just heard Ray talking about grossed out cookies. We hire young adults with little to no experience and train them with the foundation of real world experience. And quite often they work right alongside employees seven days a week. I do want to throw in there that you know, these are the small businesses really are again the stewards in the communities and they really do have fantastic relationships and they work one on one with their employees to ensure that their needs are being met. We have pulled members regarding H-196 and received feedback about the bill as well as the various benefits that they're offering to their employees including extended paid time off short term and low term disability retirement plans, flexible work arrangements and additional training to name a few of them. As entry level employers, retailers and grocers are the terminator for the workforce in this state and will be the most affected employers in the state should this bill move forward. Members have expressed a couple of concerns. First of all, fund sustainability. There's concern that estimates from joint fiscal are conservative and that more employees will apply and participate leading the fund to be unsustainable. Just a quick numbers crunch an employee making the average wage of $13 an hour would pay into the fund $38.13 a year and if they're eligible for the full six weeks with pay at 80%, they would draw down just under $2,500. We have significant concern again that the fund is unsustainable. Number two, staffing concerns. As Ray was just talking, small businesses do have a concern about filling management or pertinent positions for those six weeks to ensure continuity and staffing and management of the business as well as customer service and managing employee workload. Quite often, six weeks will take it on the chin, right? If someone is to leave for an extended amount of time, we manage workloads among other employees. That means that their responsibilities can differ and there is some disruption in the workplace. Finally, mandated benefits. You've heard this before. While small businesses in Vermont appreciate and continue, they appreciate the continued community support. We remind the committee that a state of 620 residents can only provide so much support. This is why we continue to have discussions surrounding the increasing disparity in wages, which we all know are quite often working with individual employees to ensure that they have the benefits that are valuable to them, and each individual is different as is each business. Their ability to offer various benefits at their discrepancy is an opportunity to attract employees. Mandating benefits eliminates the ability to be competitive and the ability to provide flexibility to employees which they may request. We ask that should the committee move forward with this bill that it stands as is. We would ask you to not include an employer mandated pay. What am I saying? Are we quiet? Yes, thank you. But keep it voluntary. We would appreciate it if it were voluntary, yes. So, the difficulty I'm having is the following. It almost sounds like that the bill that came over has no job protection for people who work in small businesses. The correlate is it doesn't require you to hold open the job. It sounds to me like you don't want to facilitate in any way these people taking leave. So, if I was injured and let's say it applied to the individual I was injured and I had to bear with all of my family to pay to support me during that leave you wouldn't want to pay for that leave. Even if I could pay for it myself. I don't think that's at all the case. All this is doing is allowing people to pool their own resources to buy an insurance policy to get them through an illness or a family illness. But, I assume you share Mr. Rufard's position Rufard position that that's not too good that people can have the resources to pick the leave. I think it's rather difficult for small businesses to manage a business short staff. I think that that's the concern that a number of small businesses share across the state. We're already at 0.3% growth in unemployment which means that it's very difficult to find employees now. So, if I have an opening because someone has left for six weeks it's very hard to find somebody to cover that six weeks anyway. So, again it impacts all of the employees because they're going to be stretched extra thin when they have to make up for a person's absence for six weeks. And that's why I think the federal government and the state and the house has left a very substantial small business exemption. You can't deal with it, you move on if a person wants to take the leave. All they're trying to do is set up a fund to help pay for their daily living expenses while they're ill and can't draw down a paycheck. Until such time they go back to work and get another job afterwards. But somehow it sounds to me that that little step of setting up a social insurance program to allow people to have some money during an illness or a family member's illness is essentially making it more likely that people will take the leave and we don't like that. And I'm again sharing that there is concern about filling those positions for an extended period of time. Especially when we only have 620,000 people in the state and we only have so many people looking for positions. But we're not saying you don't have the choice that you always have to fill that position for six weeks. You could also go ahead and move on to find another employee. And I absolutely understand where you're coming from because my employee our concern again is how do we fill that for six weeks. If we have a really good employee we don't want to let them go. We want to work with them. Small businesses then who are backwards trying to work with the employees I'm simply saying there is concern about how we're going to fill that. I understand where you're coming from Senator. We heard last night about some union plans that allow their members to buy disability insurance. And so if they work for a large firm now they have a right to come back to work after 12 weeks. And the problem in the interim from the leaving is because they don't have any money to replace the patients. So the temporary disability insurance provided through their unions is helping them take that time off. I don't see this really as especially when the employees are not contributing anything I don't see this more than a universal pooling of small amounts of money to allow insurance policy out there to allow people to make this work. Absolutely. But again I'll go back to the fund sustainability if an employee who makes $15 an hour is putting in $38 and 13 cents and drawing down just under $2,500 there's significant concern that it's unsustainable. And we'll be right back here next year or the following year asking employers to match that. And employers who are already being it's already being discussed in this building about increasing minimum wage to $15 we have mandated paid sick days you know it's a cumulative impact and small businesses in the state 90% or 96% of the businesses in the state are getting stretched thin and we have significant concern that if this fund is unsustainable we're going to be stretched even further than and we have only so much elasticity before the van breaks. I don't necessarily I think it's perfectly acceptable if you have concerns that the fund is unsustainable but the fact that it'll cost so much to get so much in benefits is not the full end of the equation you have to look at how many people are going to take the benefits. And how many people are contributing. Right, how many people are contributing. So those numbers may be right but on its face that doesn't necessarily say to me that it's unsustainable. Those two numbers. I agree with it. We'll be back here if not a number if we don't have a large number of people who take advantage of this opportunity because it's a low it's a low contribution for a big benefit. I don't disagree with you that. I think that it's predicated on the fiscal on however many number of people actually participating. So we'd be back if that number of people were not participating. Aaron, the original house version and then it was changed from 15 employees down to 10. If it was back to 15 employees would that give you guys any comfort? I think the small business the small businesses that we represent are right between the 15 and 20 employees. I don't have the exact numbers on how that would impact my members. If you're interested in increasing the exemption. I'm just looking at that. I certainly am concerned about small businesses and how they operate. I run one of them. But I also am concerned about these people whose lives are devastated who may not be able to work anyway whether or not they're funded or not. For example if someone gets pregnant and there's some issues they're going to be out for an extended period of time and the employer is still going to have to figure out what to do with them. As far as there are some specialties certainly that some small businesses are going to be hurt. The meat cutter is one example. A guy who paints cars for example is also so the skilled worker is going to be difficult to be replaced. But in the same respect you want people to be happy and to be good employees. Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think that small businesses again across the state work very closely with their employees to make them happy and nobody wants to be in an uncomfortable work environment. Including the business owner. So I think that you're right. Yes, we all work together. Again, I'm just reiterating the concerns that my employers are facing. How many employers did you talk to on this and were there some who were in support of it? That's a good question. I don't have exact numbers. I would say probably about 40% of the membership responded to this. Yes, there are some who are supportive of it. A majority of them are not supportive of it. I'm happy to get the percentage difference. It was a much smaller percentage that were in support of something like this. Because we heard as you know last night I can't remember if you were there last night but we heard from a couple of small businesses that were very supportive of it and were... Yes, I did attend for a short amount of time but as you are all aware the public forums are usually quite one sided and the majority of businesses that I have had come in and testify at public hearings are quite often disenfranchised at the end of the night. How so? For example the minimum wage testimony public hearing there were three people against and several people for. How is that disenfranchising? So there were several comments made throughout the night one said that if you don't pay $15 an hour then you don't deserve to be in business. There were several comments that were made throughout the night. One of my members from Burlington was actually harassed via email. Yes, and he's a very active person in the community reported that that was the first time that they had made a profit. This past year was the first time they made a profit. It was $30,000 and they were still harassed via email. Well, okay harassment never a good thing via email or otherwise but putting that aside and I'm not the biggest supporter of public hearings because as you say I do think various sides tend to bring that people to be hurt with that said the business community I think deploys very very tough rhetoric when they don't want something they talk about businesses leaving the state they talk about they talk down the economy of Vermont as a way of not getting additional regulation so I think it's there on both sides what I would say is I know the chair was looking last night to hear from the business community what are your substantive concerns about this legislation so last night was entirely supportive of the bill it would have been great to have some of your people show up and be hurt because I don't think they would have been harassed. I think again the business community is rather disenfranchised again what I want to bring my business disenfranchisement that's the word I'm quibbling with that means you can't vote or you're not heard the business community has the bulk of the lobbyists that we're seeing in the building where's disenfranchisement I don't get that maybe I'm picking the wrong word the business community in this building refuses to make an effort because they don't need the harassment what is there a sustained harassment? I agree that I don't think that businesses in the public forum that it's good for their business to testify because they can be disenfranchised but they can people can look upon them as being evil or being bad because they didn't support $15 support paid family so I think there can be some repercussions for businesses testifying in a public forum like that in that it is one sided and that said I thought it was a great public hearing I really enjoyed the stories that people said it was impact on how illnesses and tragedies have impacted families but I think again we have to be mindful of the impact that these have on businesses and I do think that it is a cumulative effect that you look at $15 I want people to make more money and then you look at this and then another and all of a sudden now there's a lot of regulations that makes it even more difficult to do business in the state of Vermont I take that point I was just the representation of as disenfranchised and harassed doesn't square with reality as I'm seeing it in the building business owners by and large get the legislation that they want but with that said I would respectfully disagree to some level but regardless I think that you know there's a possibility for businesses to call in or if they come in and have a conversation with the committee thank you Mr. Chair for allowing that opportunity again I think that there is ample opportunity for the business community to participate in public forums in the future however it's going to take more than one person trying to bring their members to the hearing oh yeah I agree but most public hearings that on so many different committees when we hear have public hearings on tax or on firearm safety we have so many pro and cons it's been interesting in our two economic development public hearings that we've had this year that really there it hasn't been an equitable number on both sides it's very unusual for you I'll share with you it's because quite often the legislature continues to pit employees against employers employers and employees have fantastic relationships we need to stop pitting them against each other and putting offering these public forums is fantastic and I appreciate it but there needs to be work on everyone side to have it more balanced and have a balanced conversation and when my business is show up to a public hearing and basically say you don't deserve to be in business because you don't do this this or this I'm not going to go out of my way to bring my members I'd much rather have them here well and I'll say one more thing then I'll shut up I think the reason why honestly you don't use the public forums is because you have very powerful private forums and that's just the state of affairs I apologize that's how you feel I'm sharing how I feel I really try to get my members to go to the public forum and again my members are concerned that they will have repercussions they will face repercussions and it's not fair they're working as again stewards in communities across the state they donate their time their money again are the workforce trainers of the state I think that we need to start giving small businesses especially the credit where credit is due and it's rather frustrating walking into this building every day watching employees being pitted against employers I don't see it that way raising the minimum wage to my mind isn't pitting employees against employers I personally believe that if we want to lift the state up we should be working on workforce development and providing public and private opportunities where employees can get additional training so that they can move up the economic ladder and you know I appreciate your word Senator I believe that we can continue to do that instead of arbitrarily increasing the minimum wage Erin, you mentioned the survey you did and you were going to get us the percentages and you said you were mostly very strongly against the bills that the bill has introduced or out of general or as it is now that was for the bill as introduced we have not told them again this year but I'm happy to do so if time allows I'm not sure what your timeline is for moving this bill I'm not sure either but it's probably unlikely unless you can do a quick turnaround because we're all going to be here for another month so I will do my best because it's changed so completely it would be interesting to do that I'll get on that today thank you okay commissioners yes we'll just have you sir so I think this is the first time you've been here on this bill and I guess I'd like to start I'd like to do as you've died in terms of your concerns but I'd like to start with is there an administration position on the bill that passed the house sure so for the record I'm Lindsay Curley commissioner of labor and this will probably come as no surprise to you the administration does not support the bill as the governor does not support any of the taxes and fees okay with that we respect that you have a decision to make and there's been some really compelling testimony for sure okay no I'm just curious because this is the voluntary contribution no it's not voluntary well so far from voluntary every employee in the state has to be so everybody okay I mean I that's okay I just I know that I'm going to get a reputation here so is the problem the point one for tax on employees is that the governor's problem so that's part of the problem the other part which is I'll go into addressing going forward is just the department's role as you know in the bill is to implement the system and administer the system and we've looked over the bill and have concerns because we'll sort of we were asked to do a cost estimate that became a very difficult task because the system isn't designed yet and so the only thing we could really lean on to come up with an estimate was our current UI unemployment insurance tax and benefit system for those I think you all know this this is a federal program all of our employees that work in the UI section are all paid by federal funds but it was sort of like something we could look at it's an insurance program so when we started looking at it and looking at the estimate that was provided to us and I can't remember Joyce might be able to jump in who created that estimate to begin with is it okay if Joyce weighs in on that well are you talking about the estimate on administrative costs yes as well as like the implementate like IT building and implementation and whatnot so we look if you want the remaining choice to go provide that initially sure that's the feasibility study that was done for the Vermont commission on women in 2016 thank you so there were you know as we looked down through the list of employees that they suggested we would need to have you know it's hard to say yes or no you know it looked like we need some clinicians on staff and whatnot it's hard to say without really diving in and looking at other states and seeing you know their system one of the things that really stood out for us was the cost to build a system so right now we are in the middle of a modernization project for our UI tax and benefit system by the time that that is done it is our expectation that we will spend between eight and ten million dollars that is being built by in a consortium so the state of Idaho the state of North Dakota and the state of Vermont are in a consortium and the federal government provides us with that money to build the system in hopes that one that will keep the cost at consortiums arguably keep the cost down and building those things but also it creates consistency across the U.S. and then more people that have more consistent systems the better off they are in keeping the cost down so so in having different conversations we are trying to figure out is the expectation that we would piggyback this on to our current UI system is there like a standalone system like what might we be asked to do and if asked to piggyback that on to our current system we have some real concerns because number one we are not sure that the federal government will even allow it number two because it is being built right now if we were to go in and ask them to build more to make capacity for this it would significantly impact our go live date which is spring of 2019 but also I am not sure that folks that are building it in the consortium have the capacity or the time or what not to add to the project and it would impact the third state too because there is quite a timeline what are the three states again Idaho North Dakota and Vermont so I am kind of jumping around here a little bit the other if we look at the state of Rhode Island for example they piggybacked it on to a disability system that they already had in place something Vermont does not have right so if you look at the state of Washington they built a standalone system and while they are anticipating having more more activity so to speak they estimated their IT cost to be 72 to 79 million dollars so even if ours is an eighth of the size it is still going to be significantly more than what is in the estimate right now which state was that now Washington that is just for this new family yeah they are creating a system and it is completely separate from their UI system it is a standalone system there is like a lot of different things that are mine where we are struggling to figure out how this works because again if it is somehow tied to the information that we the data that we collect for UI it is not apples to apples for example let me give you a okay so the new program as we understand the department can make rules and confirm eligibility based on employment of 12 out of 13 months we don't collect that information we collect quarterly information and employers report on a taxable wage base so there is I mean that is just like one little piece but there is differences and the information that we gather that would you know we would have to figure that stuff out let's see UI let's see so in Vermont we have around 26,000 employers and there is just over 22,000 that actually pay into the UI tax so there again I think that it is going to be a different subset of employers who are paying the tax so it is just some things that would have to be resolved there is some technical differences you know that was why I asked if Dirk might join us because he has been you know working in a long time and has some more detail if you do want detail about the differences we can get into that more do you want to jump in well I guess I am one of the things that I was thinking about is to make this as simple as possible I am just going to demonstrate this one forward and it may change the projection because it may bring a few more people on but why don't I just say if you are eligible for an appointment you would be eligible for an appointment benefits you would be eligible for this so there wouldn't be any new runs being done it would be the exact same criteria you know in terms of eligibility is trying to demonstrate some connection to the workforce that is what the eligibility criteria is when you pick 12 or 13 months the goal is to show some connection to the workforce before you draw down the benefits so instead of reinventing the wheel I would just use what we have that is one thing but you mentioned something there that you said some employers put some stuff in here but you wouldn't have to send something in for UI purposes who would they be so may I bite your hand on this one I just with the Department of Labor all reporting done now in the unemployment insurance system is done quarterly and those quarterly numbers are not broken down by in a month so if we have I am saying we are going to use the same system are there different employers out there that don't have to look at if we use the same criteria the same employers would have to report but we currently have a subset of employers that do not pay taxes they file quarterly but they are so called reimbursable employers state entities, municipal entities school districts that do not pay a tax so they just reimburse the system on a dollar for dollar basis so we that's an anomaly that we have to address okay that's a big one I wonder, I mean again I haven't thought this through but I wonder if some of the very people that this bill is aiming to help might fall off though if the UI guidelines are used I'm just thinking um well I I mean we can explore that further but in theory you know the I would think probably more people would be healthy because you don't have any requirement like 12 out of 13 months in UI to determine workforce connection you know you could you can get on the program with 6 out of 12 months or even less it's a financial thing over quarters so I think it's just a matter, if it's good enough for unemployment benefits then why wouldn't in terms of workforce connection why wouldn't it be good enough for this that's the simple way of looking at it but you're right, you can get ground and you may miss some people but we're missing some people that the house did which is a concern of mine if we go forward with this the ground workers are a perfect example you know they're seasonal workers but maybe 10 months this is in your net oh oh it's you know and you know why should they be out because they don't work 12 out of 13 months and paying anyway and they are caught at UI I mean they're all included they're all included so actually that would be a much simpler way of doing it um yeah and I would say that you know thinking about that if somebody's time on unemployment benefits so as you mentioned like if a worker is collecting during that 10 weeks um if they're going to be part of this bill I just would encourage you to consider do we then tax their income do we do we apply the tax for the paid family leave on their unemployment benefit just something to think about right because if we're going to utilize it I don't know how to deal with that but but I think they did do something at least on the benefit side right you can't get unemployment and pay the family leave but there wasn't any I don't think there was any tax tax is just on wages just on wages you know um so yeah we can think about that um struggling you know in some cases I make things more complicated but in this area I think I look at what's the ballpark figure that's thrown out there right now has the number of people going to take this leave next year that's 6,000 uh how many people I mean 325,000 employees currently 325,000 so I know I'm simplifying things but it just strikes me that if if you're processing 6,000 checks you're calculating the benefits through a computer and you get over the reversible side you get over the threshold of who's eligible some third party could do this other than you but they send it into you and you just say yeah this person's it wouldn't be eligible for UI that's all they need to know to write the check they have to calculate the check it seems like 6,000 checks doesn't strike me as $5,000 in certainly annual costs maybe upfront it might cost the hardest there but it just doesn't seem like that big of a program I agree that your program may be expensive in terms of determining UI but you're doing that already so you start off by saying how we piggybacking you're not I think we should piggyback on steroids those federally paid employees would have to have an ability to charge to a state fund and if too much is charged to the general fund then the federal government is going to get pretty grumpy so again you kind of have to picture you've got a whole separate group of employees that are working specifically on this program so just keep that in mind when you talk about you know right now our UI our UI we have enforcement we have an ability to appeal so just consider there's a lot of things that are not addressed in the bill that are probably important components to running a program like this so I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the cost estimate of the people that would need to be employed I don't have anything to compare to to be honest with you so that's why I'm not disagreeing my job is to say we have to think about all these things so we don't break something like this or you know make the feds pull our federal dollars away because we've crossed the line again simplifying things let's say we I don't think we'll ever wind up there because it makes sense to have you administered I want to ask you about the health assessment in a second the third party to administer all you are being asked to do was to someone sent you an inquiry saying is this person if you apply for employment right now would he be eligible is that something that we're a file of the federal law to tell us give us that information share that information ah boy Derek do you have a bottom on that one as long as confidentiality was assured the third party administrator would be bound by the federal regs keeping so confidential but if we had that type agreement we could transfer eligibility information first time I've thought about this do you transfer eligibility information to any other agency state government right now we share information various agency various departments of AHS primarily to do wage and benefit cross match to determine if they're eligible for federal programs such as food stamps Medicaid subsidized housing so yes we do that internally in the state with other state agencies don't share a whole lot of information with third parties who are not state agencies if a claimant would have to file a claim for UI for you to tell them why they're eligible they couldn't just make an inquiry and say am I eligible we're eligible for UI currently we do not determine monetary eligibility until an initial claim is filed we would have the information do that if we were told to do that but it's not currently something that we want oh so isn't the 6000 take up number estimated on the current language in that if we expanded it to include UI eligibility then the take up rate could go up dramatically if we included for some medical you know of all the factors here the size of the program and the connection to the workforces well that's all the seasonal workers and we have a fair amount of them in the state of Vermont I guess I don't know how much detail they did when they did the 12 to 13 months when they could get that grand to tell us what the impact would be but I think the benefit levels of the weeks are much more bigger variables so but we'd have to look at and we will we'll try to and whatever we might have how that would impact Joyce would you want to join the commissioner up at the point? No you can stay there we'll get another chair for you sure I'm just thinking it's a good point to hear what the house needed to be calculated straight across here why don't we just start with the last question Senator Sushi if we put this on the table of just returning this to UI eligibility to be eligible for this program I think it does do something in terms of illustrative simplicity but does it bring a huge number of new people do you have any idea? right so for the record I'm Joyce Manchester with the joint fiscal office so let me explain that I did not do the modeling behind this family leave program as you know the Institute for Women's Policy Research produced the big feasibility study for the Vermont Commission on Limit back in the fall of 2016 and we have been relying on modeling since then as the provisions had evolved unfortunately I talked to the modeler earlier this week and he did not save all of the files that went with the modeling so he cannot tell me the number of people who were eligible a year ago when he most recently ran the model for us so even if I knew the number of people who are eligible for unemployment insurance I don't have a number to compare it to if this were really important we could you could perhaps find some money to ask him to re-run the models from last year to get that number or there may be a different way to estimate 12 out of 13 months eligibility I don't know versus the unemployment insurance the initial model which was 12 out of 13 6 out of 12 I'm less familiar with the original model because I wasn't involved at that point but a year ago the legislature found some money so he was able to model the bill 12 out of 12 12 out of 13 months so very roughly it seems to me like there should be more people eligible under UI rules and under 12 out of 13 months but it's also true on someone coincidentally that for UI 6 months might be the logical number of the last 12 months to be eligible for UI there's a lot of variables I understand the UI system in a lot of different ways but if I had to pick a number a calendar number I might say 6 months he worked for us the last 6 months in the last year so if we could look if we could get back to them we just don't have the 6 month number of people eligible we don't have an aggregate number of people eligible we know the number of people who would take leave under this program we have a guest we had a guest we had at what point so was it 6 out of 12 months was that the original eligibility when the feasibility study was done okay so again just to clarify here so to clarify here the ways and means proposal from the house which is the 12 out of 13 months was modeled the feasibility study modeled at $9,079 in wages in the past 12 months which is equivalent to 20 hours a week at minimum wage at the time $9.63 I think over the course of the year so it would have been 6 months at full time at the minimum wage or a year at half time at the minimum wage and so it used in $9,079 of income in the last 12 months eligibility level so that's a greater income than for example required under UI quarter and then an additional 40% of the highest quarter in the other three quarters there we go so it's very simple thanks for sharing that yeah it's really great so that's a little bit higher level than UI and I don't know if we have actual but it was originally basically 6 months at minimum wage so we're getting a little bit off the deal because I mean I think what we're talking about now is whether it will increase the program costs and what the contribution might have to if we do this the contribution rate might have to be adjusted to I'd like to continue to focus right now on the administrative cost and how we get that what do you know about what can you tell us about and we've heard a little bit from the commissioner she said she's looked at some other states what can you tell us about the administrative costs sure so I think all of us have learned a lot in the past week about administrative costs so let me back up and explain that when I took the school note a year ago I was relying heavily on the feasibility study and feasibility study looked at the three states that had existing paid family programs so all of those three states built their systems on top of their temporary disability insurance systems so that's where the 2.5 million IT initial start up cost came from now we knew a year ago that Vermont did not have a temporary disability insurance program to build on but we naively thought that we could instead build on the unemployment insurance system at the time I believe the Department of Labor was fully engrossed in their overall of the IT system for unemployment insurance it was difficult to get information nobody was willing to give us an estimate and so forth so we went with the 2.5 million the really interesting development since last April is that Washington state in June I believe last year voted out their bill to actually fund their paid family leave program and as part of that they produced a fiscal note which is amazing as a fiscal note relative to our fiscal note very very thorough and in that fiscal note they talk about this estimate of $79 million now that is the cost over six years and it covers personnel staffing to run the program set up the program as well as to develop the IT system and what we don't know is what's the portion of that large number that is just developing the IT system because it does come up so you take the 72 million to 5.6 well the problem is that you need the big upfront investment to develop the IT system and inclusive and six years and six years of maintenance have you called them to get that program so I haven't called them I believe I have a number so that I can't call them this is all happening very recently so yes so they're a bigger state and if we assume just a no basis to do something but just articulate it if we assume like $10 million up front for a hardware then $72 million might be 5.6 $10 million in their state there's no basis for those numbers but I'm just trying to give an example so we need to find that out and sort of see what back and that would be a stand alone system I should add that I have been consulting with the JFO's IT consultant named Dan Smith who has done a lot of work for the state of Vermont in thinking about setting up different IT systems for different programs and he says that there are unlikely to be big cost savings because we have only 8% of the population of Washington state he thinks that the big costs are in just setting up the program to handle all the possible eligibility rules all the why are you taking medical leave for your child who has this and this disease and so forth and also in making the connections to all those employers with the DLL system so he thinks that I was trying to be optimistic and saying oh well we only have 8% of the population so does that mean we shrink the $75 million by something well he said probably not probably not big savings there I was surprised at that it's also true that the Washington state system includes sick leave so I was thinking oh well that's a very complicated system but in fact you have to think about the very same problems if you're thinking about eligibility for people taking family leave to take care of a sick one do they have a disease that really warrants a person so how much are we expecting the program at the House Best Version to pay out the benefits in the first year so based on last year's modeling do I know this 6,000 people might take it up the average of 2,500 a person is that right that's about 15 million so my numbers say about 6,121 people let's see on average each of them takes 4.2 weeks the average weekly benefit was $651 and the total benefit cost was about 16 million that was a year ago and we were assuming an ongoing administrative cost of about 7.5% of the benefits so that would add another 1.2 million under last year's modeling so we get to a total cost of about 17 million so that is that doesn't include the upfront one time well last year it did because last year it was 2.5 million for the upfront cost and we were collecting taxes prior to starting paying out benefits so the years worth and we had assumed perhaps incorrectly that we could spread out the 2.5 million over 2 years so we were able to take in enough in the first year to start paying down those IT costs and then pay them off and then have a little bit of a reserve going forward as the system was in operation so the assumption here is that whether the one time ongoing or benefit cost everything is going to be paid through this contribution rate that wasn't something how quickly do you think we could get some idea on your best guess on the administrative costs and assuming I don't know if it helps you at all that we will use a system that shares information from the department and it may still be free standing but they don't have to go through a whole new eligibility calculation so where I'm going to this is we need to know whether it meets the straight face test we're going to spend as much on administrative costs as you are on benefits then my solution is but we need to know that but also I just the question is how is this lab to get out of the house with more costs than contributions the contributions as far as I can tell only if all 325,000 workers are paying in and only $38 a year that's the amount it's on average for I don't know if that's an average amount so what are we thinking the total contributions will be the first year I don't have total contributions here but I do know that what we did was to look at total social security number earnings at $150,000 or less so last year the bill said cap contributions at $150,000 so the Department of Labor nicely gave me a distribution of wages I was able to look at total wages below $150,000 the total costs were divided into those total wages and the rate came out so we decided to go with 0.141% which would provide a little cushion a little reserve in addition to the benefits so that raised like 18 or 20 so I don't remember exactly off the top of my head the numbers definitely worked and I have a spreadsheet that showed the reserves going forward for a few years and so forth so it all worked but that was with $2.5 million in the IT startup costs and if it's now $30,000,000,000 $50,000,000,000 we really don't know and the question is how long does it take to figure that out it is true that I will talk to Cregolio who's at the Department of Taxes this afternoon to find out if they have a different program that we might link into so that would be run through the Department of Taxes rather than through the Department of Labor I don't know if that would work but that's a possibility the Dan Smith, the JFO IT guy cautioned me not to come up with a number and not to offer to come up with a number in any short time because it's so complicated really to get on the details of the program and how the state is going to manage the program who's going to do it how does it work what is the experience we got didn't we add on the healthcare assessment to the UI program the Department of Labor have you gotten rid of it since may I interrupt again sure so the healthcare assessment was given to the what was called Catamount Health back in 2007 I think given to the Department to administer so that was an additional tax that we were collecting and it was going directly into the healthcare fund that's to be after Obama was elected and that was 08 was the Catamount around I don't remember the exact 2008 we were able to accomplish that by using our existing UI staff we worked with the feds to say we're going to come up with an administrative cost for this program that's going to come out of the general fund or it may have come out of the collection of the tax itself I'm not sure but basically we said we're going to use some of our federally funded people to administer this program but they're going to charge their time to a state fund and so we were able to do that and still be okay with the Department of Labor and we were able to tax that tax onto our existing quarterly filing form and try to minimize the burden to employers and we did that up until last December we transferred the program to the Department of Taxes because it was not a feature we could build into this new modern system that we're developing with our consortium of Idaho and North Dakota because neither of those states had a similar program so the cost and burden of building that into this system that we were developing was not something that the feds were going to support so tax so you have some track history of how much over the years you're charging for this function could you get that to us okay do you have any idea how tax is going to do it how they're going to get this information or how they're going to build employers for this well they're doing it now okay are they not on your four quarterly forms anymore no okay so we should we can get you that just keep in mind we were not determining eligibility doing enforcement there was enforcement obviously for people to pay but it was a different kind of program just keep that in mind in terms of the level of commitment from the staff that was working that hard but that program had its own conflicts so I mean it's just a ballpark to see if it can be done and how expensive it is I'm a little concerned with the advice that you're getting because you could put all the cabbage you want we need something and that's short fiscal's job to let us know if we want to move forward with this idea we can't just be told this could go to a hundred million dollars I think Washington sounds like even if we just have to borrow from what they're doing there it's going to be we don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel I don't think it's not going to be exact one way or another in the bill is an understanding that this is the first shot across the bow could go down but that's true of any program I think so one thought I had was that we buy the Washington state system from them so they are just developing that program now their program will begin to offer benefits until January 2020 I believe so there's nothing to buy yet but it's also interesting that they built in much more time to develop the system before they started the roll out of the benefits so they had two and a half years in between the time the bill passed and they first plan to pay all benefits and of course that hasn't happened yet so we haven't seen if they stick to their timeline but I think we may have been a little optimistic last year in thinking that there would be one year for collecting taxes and building the system and then benefits would start the very next year that may not be feasible the problem with the bill could be delayed though we did change the dates didn't we in this regard we will change the dates we have to change the dates a year now but then those dates could also be changed to build in a longer development period for an IT system or whatever the bill had passed last year the dates in the last years the dates in the last years of the bill were significantly significantly less than what Washington provides so I guess I do have a question the governor talks about he supports a voluntary program do you have any thoughts on what that might look like I have not spoken with the governor about that I think I don't know if the state of New York is voluntary but I do know that their program is more like a disability program where employers collect the tax from their employees and they use that money to buy insurance this type of insurance I honestly haven't really thought too much about that my job is to think about how we might administer the program and we've been thinking about that I know it's been challenging and Joyce has been really patient with us just because we don't have a lot of I'm a number cruncher I love doing this stuff but we just don't have the capacity to do the research and so it's challenging and we're trying we try to reach out to Washington as well but I don't know I don't know what that voluntary program would look like either I'm not sure I know people would pay in to cover the benefits so I did want to mention that there are three states that offer employers the choice of working with their disability insurance companies to offer paid family leave so New Jersey, California and New York thank you and New York system was just put into effect this January so again it's a brand new program that was just set up the bill says that paid family leave benefits can be obtained either through the state fund or through the employer's disability insurance company or through self insurance meaning that the employer funds the program himself or herself but in fact the bill doesn't have or I couldn't find any notice in the bill of setting up that state program so it says that there can be a state program but I'm not sure I can speak to that for the record Damien Leonard legislative council the New York program is built off of the existing temporary disability insurance program so the state fund was set up like 50, 60 years ago at this point when that program came into effect I think it was the early 50s maybe but that's beside the point we've had that fund set up for a long time as part of their temporary disability insurance and their workers comp program so New York's system is unique in that it's run through their workers comp law so the insurance your workers comp insurer will provide you with a basically a rider on your workers comp policy that provides the TDI insurance and now will provide paid family leave insurance and so it's part of that and the deductions there is a maximum contribution from employees and then employers pay the balance it's mandatory it's not a voluntary it's mandatory so the insurance is mandatory where the employer gets it from is up to them they can go through the state insurance program they can self insure or they can purchase it from a private insurance company but it is more or less universal yeah and I can't remember all the specific caveats in their law about eligibility and so forth but it's basically you have to either provide it or purchase it from the state the New Jersey a little different in that the large state fund but then employers are allowed to purchase private insurance that provides at least the level of benefits in the state program it could provide slightly different and more benefits but it has to provide at least the same level of benefits and I believe in both of those there's a caveat that it can't cost the employees anymore it could cost them less if they're able to get it for less privately I'm guessing that one of the challenges of anything voluntary is you get only a partial take up rate and as a result of not having everybody contribute in the people that do buy it have to pay a lot more is there any examples or numbers out there of any state in the country that has a sort of a voluntary structure out there and can we see how much that's costing versus the the universal kind of system? I'm not aware of any voluntary state family leave or disability programs I think your best model would be looking at you know sort of private disability insurance bulls whether they're run through an employer or union but that's way outside of my area of expertise all of the state programs that currently exist have a mandatory whether it's you get it like in New York where you are just mandated to provide the insurance and then you choose where you provide it from or the other states which is a mandatory state program on less in the case of New Jersey and California you opt out and I should note there's a summary of the New Jersey, California and New York laws that I sent to the committee yesterday which I think will be posted on the website and it's just a page and a half summary of the three programs it's kind of a 20,000 foot view of them that's the tax treatment the other piece there on the back is the summary yeah private insurance options that's there for everyone and that should be up on the website for the other folks in the room but yeah I'm not aware of a voluntary program and I think the main question with those would be how do you ensure that it's actually affordable because you don't have the broader pan and you really need to talk to an insurance expert who has expertise in sort of the insurance market where you might buy a personal disability policy or something like that I just have no idea can you just pop your head I know we have this can you tell us the contribution arrangements and mistakes that have this employer and employee right now off the top of my head I can't remember the breakdown it is on the hand out from the national is that national partnership for women and children women and families they have a breakdown of that and Joyce's chart too with the seven states also has a breakdown of whether it's employee employer or just employee funded and I think that's the way the states break out I believe Washington state did both employer and employee yes I think so I'm looking at three states that have both employer and employee back ends and two states that have employee only contributions so three states employer and employee contributions are they all 5050 no which sheet are you on Joyce I'm kind of lost on the sheets here I have updated this sheet this one that says comparison of family with seven states what's the date at the top of the chart it's March 17 I have 14 March 14, 2017 I believe it should say March 14, 2018 that would be okay I'd like to see if we have that I did update it in March and I'm not finding my copy there was an old version of that table that I'm looking at from last year's which is close except that Washington state won't save on me so we're the last best version is F so we're at 0.14 the next one is 0.255 0.5 0.9 0.28 so we're having the cost of any other state at this point that's in much because we don't offer medical leave so the newest one we have is from the national partnership that's February 18 I mean that's what I have in mind so I think Damien did send around the March 14 version which includes Washington state that a year was just not updated at the South Washington state so is that the one sheet this one right here this is the one you should look at okay so it is this one does anybody else have any questions at this point this chart is very helpful for all the variables alright so no other questions we'll take a break I think Senator Ruth is jumping out of his chair he's so excited we'll come out alone but before you guys go we'll work together but we need some you know what we need as best you can I would like something back by next Tuesday thank you do you have anything else to say well I just wanted to say in addition to numbers I think part of the struggle is if you look at the Washington statute or the intention the PFL section it's like very robust like 50 to 60 sections our bill is six sections which I'm all about simplicity I think part of what the struggle is is the lack of clarity of what we're trying to estimate so for what it's worth I know that's not the answer you want but it just makes it really hard because the bill just doesn't give us enough meat so I appreciate that but you need to give enough meat you need to give me some of that what exactly you're looking for I mean what does the system have to be able to handle in terms of like determining eligibility there's just a whole bunch of components that are not addressed currently well I think we'd like to assume that in terms of eligibility we'd like to use the UO we've got a couple of examples you say you share I know you share whether people are getting benefits or not I don't know whether you share potential eligibility but certainly finding out whether someone could be eligible for unemployment you can look with the doubt you have and plug it if you wanted to know at your office John Doe may be taking off will he be eligible you can don't do a run and find out so at the very least we'd like to just use I think it makes sense I haven't heard anything to the contrary why it wouldn't make sense what people are on but there's certain people that I think is really unfair that we're leaving off seasonal workers so I don't think it's going to be a big jump and you know there are other things we could adjust and we haven't decided what we want to land on as a contribution but beyond the eligibility what are the other things that you think are in these six sections we would think we'll regroup and we'll give you a list of our concerns in writing the programmatic things that we're just struggling with on how this will work and it may be really simple you may say like oh Don I think we just need to kind of regroup write something down we'll get it to you right away so we're talking in the same language here we're talking about how that detail impacts administration program whether Washington is any more complicated or less complicated than ours I don't think there's anything in the House bill that's not defined that's what I'm concerned with it's all there there are like six variables and we've said what they are I'll go back and look at it just my initial reaction to it was I walked away from reading it saying I have a lot of questions so we'll make a list and like I said it may be nothing I just recognize what Joyce's task is and I know you want numbers it's a struggle but we'll work together this is part of what we're missing from the House in a way it's a more fulsome understanding of the full cost to roll it out so I think it's really important that everyone look at that feasibility study because the basis for the fiscal note is the feasibility study that lays out in great detail the number of people you need to do the various jobs and what the various jobs are and what the qualifications of those people might be and so forth so there's a lot of background in that feasibility study that I obviously could not replicate in the fiscal note but just to clarify so we would be using the benefit amount from last year's House passed bill initially it may not be enough now let's just deal with the House the only thing we're changing is the eligibility and the IT costs so we're going with 6 weeks 80% for this just for initially let me just be clear why would any of those things change affect the administrative costs so I'm going to give you a for instance sure so for UI for example if you're collecting an unemployment benefit every week you have to reapply for your benefit and somebody is determining whether you're still eligible are these folks going to have to come back every week and have a redetermination or no but then how are we going to know they haven't gone back those things just are not spilled out the real question is because it takes time every time you're determining eligibility it takes a lot of people power to make those sounds really insignificant but correct in terms of initial eligibility I think we can use your planetary termination I guess we have it if you're right I don't know if anybody has asked the question how often are these checks going to be issued and does the person do you have to submit a medical note or what do they have to do to check in to establish so those are the things I think that make me most anxious about sort of where we're at and that's why I was saying let us write some of these things down because they may seem little but they could have a profound impact on the cost of administering if we don't address them up front we should be asking in terms of phone calls or whatever other states how do they do that those details we don't have to reinvent the wheel absolutely and those details are all covered in the where they look at the three states with the existing programs and they assume that the Vermont program would be set up the same way so you are eligible at the start you're given a maximum of six weeks you choose how many weeks to take it just strikes me by why because if this program whether it's piggybacked or independent was prohibitively expensive from an administrative point of view somebody would have screamed about that already so we can always take it with a contribution rate a little bit to cover the cost what we can't do is have a program that's 50% administrative cost well thank you for having me that's in California they've been doing this for so long they've been doing their temporary disability insurance program for a very long time as have many other states I thought their pain family was the longest established one it was in O2 the feasibility study there is 16 employees so can you get your business to Joyce by the end of this week oh yeah I got you cracking thank you oh right that's exactly what I used yeah you guys have this the feasibility study