 the resources and the attention that everybody's giving to this from coming out of from various angles, sort of adding to more confusion. I know the, and just to be upfront about it, I know that we set up a new task force in the legislature to also look at this and I don't want that to add to the confusion. So we want to work collaboratively with the administration if we're going to get something done in a timely fashion. So I'm going to turn it over to you and maybe you can bring us the latest and greatest. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. I appreciate that. I agree. Like what we want to be careful about is actually creating overload and confusion. And I'm glad both Linda and Darcy are on the phone because they can talk more detail in terms of specific programs right now. However, what I will share with you is that the team at ACCD has built a web page where folks can go. In fact, I just, I have a brother-in-law who's a, who's a small business owner. And while we, you gave me an extra 15 minutes, I got on the phone with him and I walked him through our website. And it actually was really slick because you land on the ACCD web page and you'll see the COVID-19 image. And it says financial assistance and guidance for, for businesses. So when you land on that, the next page, it's really clear. It says resources for business, resources for individuals and resources for communities. So if we want to start with businesses, when you click on that, there is another box that says financial assistance. The reason I say there's another box that specifically says financial assistance is because there's also folks who are still looking for sector guidance with respect to whether they should be continuing their operations right now. So when you go to the financial assistance, it talks about the CARES Act. And it's a very interactive opportunity for people who, you know, you know, we have something, for example, says, do you need capital to cover, to cost, do you need capital to cover the cost of retaining employees? And there's the link to the payroll protection program. So, and it goes on to talk about like the economic injury disaster loan. And like with my brother-in-law, I was kind of taking him through and sure enough, he said, I want to apply for this economic injury grant. And I was able to say, bam, like here, you hit this link and now you're at the application on the SBA site. So basically what I view our team trying to do right now with respect to this part of the information is to create one stop for people to land there. And again, we're going to keep, it's going to evolve as we get more information. And as both Darcy and, you know, Linda will talk about, I'm sure, is like there's still guidance that we're waiting on. So we, you know, this thing isn't, it's not like it's complete. But I think it gives people enough to give them an idea of where they should go. It also tells them, you know, when, in what situation, they should go to their own lender or they can go to the SBA as well, or Vita. But a lot of folks find that really comforting that, you know, if they already have a lender that they have a relationship with, they're, you know, they can go to them. My brother-in-law happened to mention, he said something about they, he said, they sent me the payroll protection information. And I said, who's they? And he said my CPA. And I was like, awesome. So that's good news too, right? That the CPAs are getting this information out as well. So that's kind of like the business piece. The other thing that you'll find on that page is resources for individuals. So when you click on that, it will, again, it'll say like, you know, do you need financial assistance? Do you have a housing issue? Do you, you know, want to go right to unemployment insurance? So same thing. It's an interactive kind of asking people some questions and helping them try to navigate where they go. And the other, the third leg of this stool, which is still really being built out, because again, the guidance is a little bit lagging and not for any fault, but the CARES Act included $5 billion in funding for the HUD community development block grant program. And our share, Vermont share, is $4.7 million that will assist communities across the state. So that's, again, we have a little bit about that on our page, but that will be built out as the guidance comes through so that, again, communities who have experienced specific negative effects as a result of this or, you know, also other, can support other needs that their community has, like this would be a place that communities could go and, and, you know, propose how they might spend some of that money. So that's kind of where we're at. We, our team has been, as you can imagine, very resource trained, trying to help people come into compliance with the executive order. And I, I do feel, I just want to say, like, I do feel positive that for the most part, people are getting it and they understand there are always a few that kind of want to fight the individual battle. And that's okay. Like we're, we're walking through that with them. But our goal is to, we've, we've started building a team that is really specific to that part of the business support, because what we need is, we need to free our team up so that we can focus on the business recovery side of it, like this part, you know, building this, this website out was really helpful. But we need to continue to try to, what's the word, identify the areas that maybe there's some holes, like there's federal funding, but are there going to be some areas that we might, you know, say come to you all and say we need help because we, you know, there's a, there's something that's missing and we have to fill in that hole, but our team has to be thinking about those things and working together. So we're just trying to free up some capacity to work on, on some ideas. And then the other piece is obviously communications, you know, having the tourism and marketing department within the agency, we have a lot of assets that are generally used for outward facing campaigns, I guess. And, you know, we really need to turn some of those assets inward now and, and kind of, you know, if you kind of think of like the Vermont strong campaign, like help create things that will provide Vermonters with hope and reassurance that, you know, there's some relief on the way that it's coming, here's how you access it. So, you know, now that we're starting to build it and we're thinking about other areas that are missing, we're also really thinking about the communications aspect and, and making sure that folks do know where to go to get the help. So those are some things we're working on. And I'm glad to be invited to, you know, the, the task force that you're putting together, I think that it'll be, you know, helpful if some of you all, we're trying to put a task force together too. So if we have some legislators on that, it'll help us not duplicate the efforts, you know, we can, can spread out the work that's necessary. So a couple of questions on both the front end and the back end. Okay. And it's, I mean, the work you're doing sounds exactly what we need. But as you have identified, we need people to look here as the default and the primary place to go. What communication efforts are out there at this point now that this web page is up and running to get people to know, to go there, like, you know, is there any kind of public service announcements or is the governor going to make a statement? I mean, I think that's what we're trying to do is narrow down to a definitive proper place to go. And then the back end is what happens to people. As you say, there are some people who will have individual challenges or either individual circumstances, or they're just their personalities such or their skill level is such that they can't deal with it on the page. Is there something on the page that directs somebody to more, to a more individual attention? Yeah. So as far as letting people know that this website is up, we did announce that yesterday at the press conference. So that was sort of our public unveiling of it. And, and overnight, you know, we've been trying to share that page on social media. I noticed Senator Ballant shared it. Thank you. But we, our team right now is working on, again, we all hands were on deck to even build this thing. So the comms team is now talking about public service announcements, you know, even paid advertising and social media. So they're, they're developing the plan. And I wish, you know, Heather was on the line because I think, you know, she probably could really share with you that she's further ahead than I even know because they're they, that's how they work. That's how they roll. But that will be forthcoming that that's very much in the works in terms of really broadcasting and making sure that the public knows this is out there and this is how they access it. As for your question about the back end, so when folks come, you know, some people you're right, are not going to enjoy, you know, an interactive experience online and may just want to pick up the phone and call. So we do on our website also have a phone number for folks to call and we can give them help. The phone has, you know, it's been a little bit nutty. So we're trying to, you know, again, assess what that looks like. And as we build our team out to deal with business recovery, and I shouldn't just say business recovery, just recovery, we can can think about expanding the phone availability if we need to. But we also have a, what do you call it, email that set up specifically, it's a COVID-19 email for people to email in and ask whatever question it may be, and they can connect with us. The third thing that I'm going to mention, I'm probably letting this out of the gate before, you know, I should, but we have been talking a little bit with the Agency of Digital Services about a chatbot. So I don't have a price tag or anything, but some of the other agencies like the Department of Health is using it and whatnot, but trying to just give another opportunity to create some capacity help for when people have questions, this chatbot would, you know, scrub everything on our website and give people answers and help that way. And if they're still not feeling like they have the help they need, then, you know, a live person can help them. But the other thing I should mention is, you know, we've talked about doing town halls. I'm probably forgetting some things that I do. I think Jess might, yep, Jess is on the line too. So she may think of something I'm missing, but we're definitely brainstorming about all the different ways that we can get the word out there and help. And as I mentioned, I mean Linda and Darcy have been incredibly helpful and great partners in this. I've learned a lot in the last week. So that's kind of what's going on right now. Okay. Michael, can I just ask a question? Lindsay, thank you and thank you for all your work. Really terrific. Darcy Carter participated with us. We did a four chamber. We've now done three of these four chamber town halls on four businesses. It strikes me doing a town hall that the chambers would publicize for you with you and Linda and Darcy and Linda on the phone. And it's fairly easy for people to ask questions in a thoughtful way. I think that would be a great thing to do if you were able. Yes. And I'm actually participating with the Vermont congressional delegation tonight and my first town hall experience with all this. Okay. A little before five o'clock tonight, but I'm excited to do this because it'll give me the opportunity as well to envision how our team can roll these out regularly. And as you mentioned, I know the chamber will help us. These are great ideas. I look forward to that experience and obviously joining that crew tonight. And Michael. I did want to tell you that the Department of Labor is doing a very small soft launch of a town hall this afternoon for businesses. I think it's just, I think they're doing it with one business group as kind of a test. But then publicizing them, hopefully we're going to be rolling those out and sending invites more publicly every Tuesday and Thursday for the next couple of weeks. So I'll make sure to get this group that link and that information, but they are testing that this afternoon. Oh, great. Right. And Lindsay, I appreciate that you're keeping this up to date. I know that this is evolving and things are changing all the time. One of the situations that I heard from, of from a constituent was that, you know, they check the list of, say, essential workers at one time or their employer did, and they were on the list. And then they have subsequently been taken off the list. And I just hope that there's a way of telling people that they have to continue to check this, this website because things are changing all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think there may, I'm thinking there may be an example where there was a course correction at some point right out of the gate. And I can't remember what the exact incident is. But again, I think that, you know, and this is part of our communications that we need to get out there is what we really want employers to use this guidance as is if they think they're critical, but they're not sure and they're thinking about closing. What I think we, you know, did which caused some confusion is I think folks thought they needed to get permission to stay open from us. And really what we're asking people is if you're not essential, please just shut it down right now. And so I appreciate what you're saying. And I, you know, I wish I could say there's no way that happened, but I do know there was an incident, it was within like an hour or two of putting the site up where somebody caught something that kind of had the barn door wide open. And, and we close that loophole, but you're right, if we, if we make a course correction and honestly the intel that we get, because of the outreach tells us where we have areas that we need to address, we know we have some loopholes. And for the most part, even though those loopholes are open, people are willing to say like, I probably shouldn't be doing this, but others are using those loopholes as an opportunity to say, well, they left the door open, right? I'm going to do it. So Deputy Secretary Brady and I were just talking about this this morning. I mean, we have a little running list of some of the things that we know we need to tighten up or make more consistent. You know, we've created some inconsistency in consistencies at times where we didn't intend to. And, you know, we've known like we have to keep working through this book. But like with the box store announcement, we'll try to make it clear if we're, if in the box stores, box stores, it wasn't necessarily any, it wasn't a course change. It was, we realized people were interpreting something very loosely. Well, and I think, you know, this has put some employees in awkward situations where they've been told to go back to work. Oh, have chosen. I would be interested in hearing what that industry or that sector was. So, you know, again, we can maybe issue some help there. But yeah, no, it's, it's hard. I mean, I think some people are relieved when they realize like we shouldn't be open, right? It's like a relief to say, I should be closed down. I need to stay home and others want to fight it, you know. So one of the things you mentioned when you were talking about the chat room, you sort of slipped, you sort of slipped in that sort of pricing it out and do it. So one of the, what I hope you guys can do, especially in conjunction with this committee and with the special task force is come to us with ideas that where the legislature can be of assistance. I mean, we're kind of clunky, and you can move a lot faster, but we have control in large part over the purse strings. So one of the things, then there's a lot of money coming into the state that's discretionary. And this is not going to last forever. It's going to be a short term thing. Sound expensive upfront in the scheme of the amount of money we're getting, we might want to invest in these kinds of things. And we can do that fairly. So we want to, one of the things I think that this task force, and I've talked very briefly in my first call with Representative Mark Codd, is to figure out how we can help you with resources. So don't limit yourself in terms of your thinking, saying, well, that's going to cost a half a million dollars. And truly we can't do that. Yeah. Okay. Because that was actually, Michael, one of the questions that came in as we were gathering questions, which is under the CARES Act will Vermont be reimbursed for additional compensation, administrative costs, administrative costs, and that's exactly the kind of thing we'll be hopefully able to funnel your way on those kinds of things. Yeah. The chat. Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think what happens to me is I get a little bit like anxious thinking, okay, if we don't suck the money into the technology, then maybe we can create a program that feels a void like a hole that's missing. You know, you know, can we, like I said, build programs that specifically go to the situation. But I agree. I mean, we have to be able to manage it and make people feel like, you know, just to shift gears and go to what's happening at, you know, in the unemployment insurance program. Like I'm incredibly amazed and proud of the team and what they've lifted. But at the same time, there's a lot of frustration out there because the system is, it wasn't built to handle 40,000 claims in a week, you know. So sometimes when I think about spending money, I'm like, oh, somebody else needs it more. But I hear you, I want to make sure people, you know, the expectation is laid out there for them and that we're communicating and that we are utilizing the technology that would make us communicate better. So I will keep that in mind. And I really do appreciate you saying that to me. Okay, good. So we should probably move on to Darcy and Linda. Does anybody have any further questions for the secretary at this point? If you can, if you can hang in there in the background, that would be great. But if you have other things to do, I understand. No, I'll hang in. Just quickly, Lindsay, I assume that Heather is available for sort of in and resort related questions because we're getting a bunch of them, particularly on this limiting on bookings. Yes. So just to like, just to give you all some comfort on this, we are hearing what they're saying. And so I've asked the Vermont Chamber has offered, actually, they're going to put their heads together and make a proposal for what would be a realistic date for them to open up their schedules, right? So as you probably know, like when we take down the whole online, people can't book out into the future. So if we were to let the online come back on, but we really want people to block certain dates. So they're in the next few days, they'll come back with something. And so I just want you all to know, like we hear and heard that concern. And this is one more of those areas where we can still get to our goal, but give in owners and restaurants, I mean, hotels and whatnot, the comfort of knowing that when this is lifted, they can be back to business. But yeah, so Heather's available as well. And she's obviously been very dialed into what's going on there. Great. Okay, anybody else? Okay, so Linda and Darcy, maybe you can tag team here. We'll start with Darcy. And maybe you can give us an overview from the SBA's perspective of what's happening in the real world out there at this point. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, be happy to. Everybody has been trying to get the word out. And so the word has gotten pretty confusing for a lot of people. So I know Linda and Lindsay and her team and I, we're all spending a lot of time trying to help people decide what they should do between the two SBA programs that are available. One of them, of course, is this Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program. That's been available for a couple of weeks. It had some hiccups initially. Now it's got a better streamlined application. We were going to do webinars on it, but we kind of pulled back until the system got expanded. So we're going to start those next week. And those are for the public. Yeah, those will be for the public. We'll just keep redoing them. Maybe you can just give us a brief outline of that program. Oh, absolutely. So this is a program that you apply directly to SBA. It's up to $2 million for businesses and nonprofits. It's very limited for any act. You could do some value added acts only on that program. And I think it's because they feel that FSA handles that side of the house. So again, nonprofits, small businesses, including sole proprietors, self-employed, independent contractors, and their regular businesses. And the interest rate is 3.756 for up to 30 years for businesses, 2.75% up for 30 years, again, for nonprofits. And this is to help replace operating expenses for about six months. So what they will look at is what was your gross margin last year, and they're basically giving you half of it to try to help replace what you lost due to the last revenues from the disaster. So that's very standard program. And that was up and running prior to CARES Act passing. So once the CARES Act passed, up top this thing that's called an advance and sometimes called a grant. So there's an ability now when you apply to request an advance. And everything we've seen, and we are still waiting for more information, is that this up to $10,000 amount would be converted to a grant. So that sounds very good, but we don't know the mechanics of it yet. And that's what everyone wants to know. So we're just encouraging people to go ahead and apply, request it. They will be calling from the Office of Disaster Assistance when they pull up your loan. And then you'll have that opportunity to find out how it all works and what you want, you know, do you want it or you don't want it? We have expanded our call center. We contracted it out. That was an issue. So now we're, we have 24-7 coverage. And that's, you know, hopefully going to get up to about 7,000 people manning that system, which will be very helpful. We've gotten, as of Monday, over 300. Are you taking applications? Are you taking applications right now? Yeah. It's called EIDL. Yep. And so you go right to SBA's website. So it's like SBA.gov forward slash disaster. Yep. Yep. And it's actually working now. Last week, not so much. So it just got basically overloaded with the interest. I mean, you've got 10 million people unemployed. I mean, there's almost that many business owners that are trying to find the capital and, you know, help that they need. So that program is up and running. But we do encourage people to look at the newer program that came out as part of the CARES Act that Lindsay mentioned. It's called Paycheck Protection Program, PPP. And this is helping to replace your payroll that you basically couldn't cover. And so you either let your people go or you're retaining them. Either way, it's been painful financially. So this is to help replenish about eight weeks of your payroll expenses, which includes more than just the actual salary and wages. It includes, you know, medical leave, you know, sick leave, vacation time, your rent, your utilities. So it's kind of a bigger number there. And the loan can give you basically 250% of your payroll for eight weeks. So it's a little padding in there to, I guess, you know, some people are asking, could they, you know, give people a bonus to come back? Because for some, you know, positions, the unemployment is actually paying a little bit more for a bit. But we're trying to get clarification on that. But we hope that that is something employers could do. And this program is open to farmers and ranchers, we've heard. And it's also open for nonprofits and small businesses. And it has a much bigger size standard available. So it's based mostly on 500 employees. And for lodging and restaurant, it's 500 employees per location. So if you have a, you know, a lodging or a restaurant corporation that has some locations in Vermont, but they have them elsewhere, they hopefully could be helped by this program, they wouldn't be considered too big for it. So that was a special carve out for them. Some of the concerns that we have right now is that we don't have a lot of clarification on how the banks will actually roll out the PPP loan. It will be banks and credit unions. Vita will be able to do it. And they really just need some information from FBA. Our understanding is that it's in clearance, but it's been written. And this would basically tell them eligibility rules very clearly, how they determine the loan amount, and how they process that loan with us. And the banks do have unilateral authority to make the credit decision, but the onus is on them to follow the rules and make those determinations. So we've noticed in our system, they're already approved to do PPP loans. So it looks like the switch is ready to go live as soon as they get the details. So hopefully that's going to come even today and hopefully by tomorrow because the banks and credit unions are all getting just as many calls as Lindsay's team is and we are with people interested in that program. So I'm not sure if you need any more of the nitty gritty, but I just had one question of what you said, which I was a little confused on. Is it possible for an employer to qualify for PPP to cover their payroll and at the same time tell their employees you can go qualify for unemployment benefits? So the money, it's sort of like two sources of funding to pay payroll, one unemployment and one actual covering the payroll costs. Right. And then there's like a tax credit too, right, payroll tax credit. That I would have to admit I am not up to speed on. So I should probably look up, you know, that answer for you because we're just dealing with the employer trying to get the money to bring their people back by June 30th. That's what the PPP loan program is for. Typically it would disaster type loans. We do look at other benefits and we try not to have any duplication, but I don't really know. We haven't seen anything about that with what we've seen on the PPP program. I don't know if Lindsay is probably much more able to talk to that question. She's still on. I'm still on. Tell me what the question is again. Question is can a business qualify for PPP at the same time during that period, that payroll period that they lay off their workers, the workers collect that employment and then by June 30th, they rehire the workers. So you basically have almost a doubling of payroll. Yeah. Well, I would imagine actually that maybe a question for, you know, Darcy or somebody else, but what I would say is generally you can't collect unemployment and, you know, get paid somewhere else. So if they take the PPP and they're not paying their employees because their employees are collecting unemployment, they may be able to get the loan, but I can't imagine that it would be forgiven. I don't know how somebody checks that, but I think that's a really great question. Maybe Darcy has answered that. Well, I think there's a set period of time that's called the covered period. So if you bring people back and pay them for that covered period of time, it's eight weeks. So then you would be in compliance with the SBA loan. So part of that time, you know, it's kind of hard to say when those people aren't there. If that's part of the eight weeks, then you've got an issue, like Lindsay said, because you can't say, I paid my people for all of those eight weeks, and that's the requirement in order to have that amount forgiven in the loan program. The other thing I will say is with unemployment, you have to report what your earnings are for a week. So even if you get partial earnings, you have to report that. So if a company is paying their employees through PPE, and their employee is also trying to collect unemployment, hopefully the system's operating well, it's going to catch that, and it's going to prevent them from getting the unemployment benefit that week, or it's going to reduce it by what they did get. An employer wouldn't get the full forgiveness of that payroll amount if they didn't bring everybody back full time. Got it. Okay, thanks. So I just ask, because Darcy, that's what's confusing about what you first said is that you could have choices of either letting your employees go or retaining them. Well, it doesn't sound like you can let them go and also ask to keep paying them. I mean, it doesn't sound like actually you can do both those things at the same time. No, it's just some people have already let their people go, and some people have retained theirs. So both of those scenarios, you'd be eligible to apply for the loan. So for the period the employees have been let go, they're able to collect unemployment with additional benefit, then they get brought back on, and then they fall under the PPP. Well, yeah, I mean, our whatever I've seen is silent on that whole other side that you guys are much more knowledgeable about. So when you bring up a really good point, ours doesn't speak to that at all. It just says, you know, they calculate the eight weeks of payroll expenses largely based on what you did last year. And if you bring all that, those people back and pay that same amount of wages for eight weeks, then you will get that amount of the loan forgiven. So what the devil's in the details in terms of what period, which eight weeks, what are we talking about? So I think it begins when they've when they've gotten the loan, that then they have to count those eight weeks going forward. And once they've done that improved with their IRS payroll taxes or whatever documentation that they've done it, then they ask the bank to forgive it, and then the bank can ask us to purchase the loan. So Darcy and Linda, going back to the conversation we had with the Secretary, excuse me, I know you have your own role and your own outreach and you're taking calls, but are we at a point where your federal agency is in sync with ACCD so that if they've got the best tool at this point to refer people to is on your website or on your phone call is the first avenue to say go to this ACCD, it's great, it works, and you'll eventually, if we're involved, eventually you'll come back to us because I mean I can see you duplicating that effort with different font, different typeset, different wording, and maybe even different interpretations, and I think we've gotten to the point where everybody has trying to be very earnest to try and help constituents and people, and you know I think we have found out that maybe we should have tried to tell people as the Governor did yesterday, we've got to be patient here, you know, information's coming from the feds, guidelines are coming, and we need to get our act together in one place or in one message, so I'm wondering whether we've got a lot of different silos out there where people are giving out information. So personally I think that our teams you know are working really well together, I look at our job as you mentioned to be a place where an individual or an employer can go, they don't have to sort of like be thinking other than like I've been hit, I need resources here, so they can go to our page, and we're trying to drive them as appropriate to the other landing areas, so to the SBA or to Vita or you know where it may be, and so I like I said I know that you know Linda and Darcy and we've connected but I know they're also working a lot with with Joan and the team over it in DED, and so it is our goal, our personal goal to push people to our webpage, and you know if somebody thinks that that is not the appropriate path or we're stepping on toes or something I would you know I certainly want somebody to speak up, but I mean we're about to you know we'll be issuing additional press releases and announcing the page in addition to what happened you know yesterday because my mind like we announced it yesterday, but it was a long you know it was almost a two-hour press conference, and I'm sure some people checked right out after 10 minutes, so we're going to be getting the word out more, but would you agree Darcy and Linda do you feel like we're on the right track that we're pushing people through to you as appropriate? Yes and we're referring everybody to your website from day one when we knew about it we were sending them to the you know sign up for the newsletter this is where you need to go because we don't cover like the unemployment you know things and all the other good stuff you've got on there. Yeah so yeah. Sure so good morning everybody Allison did you want to say something first? Is that Linda? This is Linda I just wanted to read from my screen so I'm off video for the moment I'll be back but I'm well I just I just wanted to tag on to Michael's question which is the and Darcy referred to it briefly which is the the time frame for the flow of money and for the standing up of these programs we're all saying have patience but I thought I heard Darcy say that she felt that the PPP program would have enough federal guidance to be able to stand up by next week and you'd be rolling out webinars for people in that would coincide with that it going live. Yes we well we can definitely cover EIDL and we can cover the PPP all the you know everything we've got now and hopefully we will have more information so that we would have some of the clarifying information that people are looking for on that program. Well but my sense from you is that for the time frame that the EIDL is up and going that that is what is not live yet is the PPP and and there's still some federal guidance being worked out but that next week it sounds like it might be live and you would make it live sort of announce its liveness its living breathingness by having these web webinars. Right and basically the way it's kind of behind the scenes a little bit because the banks just internally know how to work with SBA and how to submit something through our system already for just normal good time lending so they're already geared up to go they know what to do from that standpoint there might be a couple tweaks and you know how they coded or something like that in our system especially for PPP but you know in our system they've all been approved already to submit PPP loans and our e-trans system that they submit to has already got a new code for that so I think a lot of the groundwork has been laid and what needs to be communicated to the lender particularly is how do they determine who is eligible for this loan there's you know certain criteria it's not a huge long list but you know I have to make sure they were in business before the disaster they have to make sure you know that they can determine the payroll expense amount to determine the loan things like that and but they make that credit decision so literally if they get the guidance on Friday you know they can make a loan Friday they get it on Monday they could make a loan Monday so are you suggesting that people who are interested in the PPP program should be is it a dual application that you apply both to your lender and to SBA or is there one application and then it gets sent to the lender right there's an application right now for the PPP program that's on our website so a borrower or lender can take a look at it and I mean they can get started to put some information together and and fill it out so that they can maybe hurry things up a little bit they can talk with their lender many of them have already approached their lender and the lender's like I you know I want to help you but I'm waiting for some information from SBA so there's been a lot of conversation going on already and the other important thing is you can apply for both loans you can apply for an EIDL and you can apply for the PPP loan that's where a lot of confusion is because people don't know which one is better for them and things have changed a little bit on the PPP loan started out with a 10-year maturity now it's only two years so that's a big difference if you know some of your loan's not forgiven a two-year maturity date if you have a large payroll that that's going to be challenging if for some reason you couldn't bring everybody back you know may not be your fault maybe you couldn't you know just cash flow otherwise other issues going on you couldn't do it then you're stuck with a loan not a forgiven loan and people need to be aware of that that that's you know you can't predict everything in this pandemic like that's that's a risk in that kind of loan situation with EIDL you don't get as much potentially forgiven but I think it seems like it's a bit more of a it's more clear what it is you're getting what can you use the money for there isn't that oh you know I've got to produce all this documentation kind of situation for the PPP application be dated retroactively to the time of payroll you want to cover that you uh or is it just perspective from the date of application sorry I'm still working when my husband so it's a little bit nice um can you repeat the question it goes back from your question was when does the cover period start yes how can you go backwards retroactively and cover some payroll with the PPP loan or is it just from the date you get your application in well yeah it's kind of that's where we want a little more clarity because it talks about this time period from like February I think it's 15th to June 30th as this covered period and that's kind of like it's a little hard for me to understand I'm willing to kind of have more of an idea on it but it's it's eight weeks of payroll that you're trying to calculate based on past payroll and that's what you're trying to replenish and you have to bring your people back by June 30th according to current rules that we've seen um and you have to pay them for eight weeks in order to get that money forgiven so I don't I don't know the I don't know if the retro active part applies other than it could calculate what your average monthly payroll expenses because you can use kind of the first quarter of this year if if say you don't use last year to determine that so that's what's confusing for everybody would that complicate whoops am I on would that complicate issues as people have been sent home and then started collecting UI and then the employer decides to go with the PPP loan I mean does that make that kind of double dipping an issue that's how they don't really know other than ours would start like when they get the money is when they would count those eight weeks of payroll that they're paying it starts when they get the loan and it goes forward in time so I don't I don't know because there's gonna be probably like you said some overlap with maybe not everybody coming back full-time um so it's going to get it's going to get complicated to figure some of that out and whether or not IRS or the state or the feds whatever look at this is some what of a double dipping situation so Darcy can you clarify for our committee um but as we go forward and we get this clarification things start running smoothly we hope um what is the role of the SBA dealing with remonters and the SBDC dealing with remonters and the banks in dealing with remonters are they like portals that you can enter from any one of those three or are you just a referral agency to say what banks um are are enrolled in the program or are processing claims and what kind of volume are you are the two of your organizations sort of seeing now um no this is just a great question so it's it's kind of everybody comes at every door and we refer people appropriately like we we have two customers one is our is our lending participants and we train them and keep them up to date on what they need to do to make SBA loans so we're going to train them on these new programs and there'll be some new lenders that join us and um there's quite a you know a lot of different things they need to do um to use the program but we also do outreach to the public a lot and then we work closely with SBDC and our women's business center and the SCORE um because those are SBA programs and um we refer people constantly to them to help prepare them for their loan program the loan package they're trying to get together for that holistic look you know is a loan appropriate for me what you know what else is going on in my business and Linda will talk to this so we're tightly um you know hooked together and then of course ACCD as well so I think you can feel very confident we're talking with each other constantly especially this week we've been on the same phone call I think for week straight um and you know we're we're going to refer people where they need to go like I don't think people will feel that they didn't get the right you know referral so and it is important you have a physical office in Vermont where people can walk in yes we do SBA does in my failure course now you know we can't but okay okay but uh in the so in the normal course of things could somebody sounds like a naive question but can somebody walk into your office or an SBDC office in addition to getting advice as to what programs are out the appropriateness for that particular business could they walk out of there having filed an application for a loan um not with a SBA I don't know if Linda says I'll have to have her answer that yeah she's she's been trying to get in that's okay I'm taking good notes thank you all I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you um I'll try to start with a couple things that I've heard are kind of main conversation and maybe that'll help give you a kind of a picture for the time being um on the communication and messaging front I will say that we're working very closely with SBA as well as the agency and in fact what we do is in order to streamline the communication the agency's web flows through like the secretary said to us and so what we do is we every uh week if not more often we update our special it's vtsbdc.org forward slash coronavirus and we update that page with new information as it comes about which is in the realm of here are things that a business owner can do now and it's you know taking control of the things that they have control over in a very uncertain time preparing financials negotiating the debts they already have reviewing their insurance policy about whether there's pandemic clauses looking ahead at both the loan now that is available for people to apply for and getting ready for the one that's coming so I would say to kind of put it in a nutshell if it helps you sort of have a sense of the who does what I look at SBA and all the other agencies as describing the what of the program so a lot of the communication that happens since Friday was congressional memos and really good information how we viewed of the intent of the CARES Act to be implemented and then it needed a few days for the individual agencies to then stand up their own programs and make them available to the public so the agencies are the what of their own program which we're staying in tune with so we know the rules and the details to give clear guidance SBDC is all about should you how to and when and a lot of that is the interrelationship between these loan programs many small businesses who were right on the verge of being viable or or not before COVID-19 came to town are not really excited about taking on debt unless it's you know a grant only and things like that so our role as we go through this is to listen to the individual case by case situation and the last two weeks we've gotten great insight into how those fall into several buckets of questions and so just to kind of recap on the messaging I think what's working very well is every time we update our page the agencies nightly email to their massive list and their website page funnels people to our page that we're updating all the time anyway so people who are getting through that funnel of how they're receiving information it is coordinated so last week we put together and this was a collaboration with the 12 RDCs in Vermont and with Joan and Ted and the team at the agency and DED is we put together and it's authored by SBDC and this is just as we sift through information here's our best guidance things that are coming things that are available things that you can do now and so we put it together it's called Disaster Business it was 101 this week it's 201 and we're starting on 301 and you know I'd be happy to make sure that your committee is notified when those updated documents are published but I think that to your point about working with larger groups like trade associations and chambers so that we're all as consistent as possible with giving guidance on what people can do now and what while they have to be a little patient on things that aren't ready to apply for yet there's still things that we know they can do we have a checklist of financials and things that we can work on with them and so we know that the three buckets are essential businesses and workers workforce labor unemployment is kind of that second and then the access to new money so every day we're making sure that we know more and more clarity about the available capital loans financing choices so that publish anything and recommend it until we feel it's sound and I'll stop there in case you have questions but I actually on the PPP I'll just say that I'm leaning towards our guidance being please consider the PPP on the merits as if it was alone because you don't know now for everyone what June 30th is going to look like it will be awesome if it's all forgiven or or even partially forgiven but we don't want people to make the application with that as a guarantee so you know we're going to be looking at the the realistic should you how to do it and I guess just one more pieces again we're learning more and the volume just to give you a sense in a given year SPD about 600 625 individual Vermont small businesses through one-on-one advising we got another 650 that were in touch with in the last two weeks so what does that mean that means that we're figuring out how to batch information deliver it in short chunks of triage style 15 to 30 minute phone calls because that's a more effective way along with these joint communications with key partners and industry groups so that we can deliver information and help as many Vermonters as possible is all your funding through I know you get your funding that gets passed through Vermont Vermont technical college but or I think I do is that all federal dollars or is there some state dollars it's a great question so yeah just just for clarity for folks we are a program a department if you will of the Vermont state college system so we're education our funding comes in part federal through SBA and in part state through the agency of commerce as matching dollars we know that SBDCs nationwide are poised to get significant dollars as part of the CARES Act there is a process to apply for it we know it's available we just need to go through a process to make sure that you know there's performance measures and good documentation so we expect that will be in place in the next couple of months and that will allow us to add capacity and build more infrastructure for I think the longer term response recovery and resilience phases right now this month next month we're working and coming up with our own continued improvement systems like everyone is as we know what that volume looks like and what those key questions and how we can add the most value so we can give clear guidance to Vermonters okay so one question straightforward one that I was still not clear on is can somebody come to your office and apply for PPP so we provide the guidance and advice about what it is how to apply what documents to get ready in order to apply our entire team is not working in an office where they would normally they're virtually giving advice zoom email phone calls but they're all available and they transition to virtual advising on March 16th so no place to walk in but very accessible but but there's just Ross Hart for my neck of the woods and and just Deb in the I mean are they getting some additional help so right now our current team which is the same team pre COVID-19 is six full-time advisors and two part time for the state of Vermont right I have a part time consultant I brought on yesterday and here's what she's doing she's going to be our version of the incoming the first step in the triage so that she can take the people who have general questions and want general guidance so that all of the incoming doesn't go to the Ross Hart's and the Deb Boudreaux's to answer FAQs if you will so that is going to be a step in the right direction I'm looking to work with the rest of our you know partners and say how can we best deploy resources so that we can make our advising team as effective so they can stay in the realm of one-on-one and not as much in the messaging and I'm happy to go on webinars and you know other other things that allow me to speak for the whole team and keep them in the realm of serving more Vermonters but you're absolutely right it's a small group but I will say the good news is everyone has been has been responded to within about 48 hours adding this consultant on who came on board yesterday we will make sure that people get responded to as quickly as possible and actually for the most part small business owners have been very grateful to have someone that they can share their story with who listens and provide some short next steps for now and as long as we hear them and we talk to them they're able to be more patient for a few more days before they see real programs available for them to access so it's a good question I'm looking at what's the best way to add capacity as we move from the short term to the longer term and I'm happy to stay in touch with you about those things so I think I know the answer to this question but let me pose it as a frequently asked question can I online at this point in addition to getting your help actually file an application with you for a loan with you or the SBA or do I have to do that through a lending institution so two two things we help you navigate the system but we don't have it's not we're not a lending institution we're an advising body so we will so we provide the advice and the guidance and the checklist of documents but the individual business owner will fill out the application and right now today EIDL and its partner EEIG as the app for up to 10,000 as the grant advance those are available right now and so business owners can apply online if they have questions and they want to ask our advice about should they and how to and all of those things they can contact the area advisor of SBDC for those questions but the business owner themselves will apply for the loan and then once the PPP gets stood up at the individual Vermont banks that is something again will provide guidance about advice on should you how to evaluate your financial condition overall take everything in totality what we don't want to do is give people advice to apply for one thing that then down the road somehow negates their ability to do something and they wish they knew about it so we're trying to look at advising in a more holistic approach but the banks are going to be the vehicle for the PPP and the business owner is going to be the person who applies for the loan directly through the online sources and portals the online sources and portals where you can apply is an online source of the people's bank where citizens united that's where you're saying they go online to apply and Darcy's team at SBA is going to once that SBA policy notice comes out the banks will know how to make their program available to the public and that's what she said is going to be through webinars to the public next week so again we don't apply for the loans on behalf of people people apply for them as the small business owner themselves but we provide advice guidance tips checklist of documents required and all of that does that help yes yes does anybody have any questions uh at this point i we got a message that our next group of witnesses was in the governor's office and they were going to be delayed i don't know if they've joined us or not uh Denise or faith do you know if any of those witnesses are on at this point this is faith i don't see any of those witnesses having joined the call yet okay so we can continue on a little bit i apologize i have to go for another meeting oh really we're shy sorry i hate to see it i'm not going to go very far from your chair and by the way i want to say thank you because by being on this call with with linda and Darcy as well like there's a couple things that clicked for me that i need to bolster so this is a huge help to me great that's good to hear so i'm learning every minute we thank you everyone we are we're all in the same classroom i know nice to see your faces it's great to see yours lindsay thank you bye everyone linda and Darcy i have a concern and it's it can't just be wood stock but the td bank office here has closed so you're saying that so many of these programs depend on partnering and working with their banks with their lenders i'm very concerned that some of the banks are closing up their local shops and not as available and not as accessible as they might be in the past and this is Darcy um well they are all working um senator and um the lobby is closed so you're right it has the appearance of nobody being there but nobody nobody's nobody's there i mean and and because it's anyway i guess they just have to call the whatever is open and establish a new relationship with a new lender individually because that's that's a problem right now for some banks i would think yeah i've been talking with them about that i said well you know you normally deal in person with commercial loans you know how are you going to handle the ppp loan can you do it digitally can people sign digitally can you know you exchange documents and all of that and they can do that on the consumer side they just haven't typically done it on the commercial side and most of them were still like oh oh yeah you're right huh so i think that they've been thinking about it at least this week how they're going to you know get their act together from that standpoint in terms of um being more um paperless uh but they still do zoom and things like that and um they've assured me they're all working so i i don't know about that one branch they closed it down is that what you said senator they've temporarily closed it completely and so okay it's a challenge i've heard from a number of businesses that it's a challenge they don't know individually who to email or who to be in touch with and the phone that they've been sent we've been all of us have been referred to the ruttland branch anyway it's not an issue for you so much although it is as it relates to the lender interface yeah i'm gonna all let the bank president know that because that's a really good point now that people are really looking to apply but it's a it's it's it's an on it's a it's an ongoing frustration particularly with these programs that are lender dependent so i hear you yeah i would imagine darcy that the the lenders will wait when they have their application and they communicate out to the public about how to apply they'll include the information about virtual access and the process in light of uh physical branch lobbies and such being closed they're gonna have to i mean right now like i we're trying to refinance their house and they're like go up to the drive-through and you put the documents in the thing you know and then they said or someone can meet you at the door and you can hand them to them uh so they're they're trying to still make it work so i i have confidence that that'll get sorted out but it's a great question because they were caught kind of like oh yeah oh you're right yeah may ask a question at this point yes good i'm wondering what kind of feedback you're getting as far as the spdc as well as the sba as well as lenders in terms of their accessibility and whether or not you're hearing comments or complaints or questions from people who simply aren't able to get through or are not able to get their questions answered or are you hearing that everything is going entirely smoothly uh well this is darcy i would say that the volume is exceptionally high in all respects um on the sba side like unprecedented so we're trying to get back to people with the within the same day but it's often within the 48 hours i would say with the contact with the questions that we're getting and are people anticipating that there will be that kind of delay uh in other words our phone messages and so on uh that are on the lines indicating that there will be a 24 hour approximately we'll get back to you in a day or two of what kind of communication is being given to set expectations for sba just locally we have put on our emails um something to that effect and then we refer people to our customer service number for the disaster loan program and that's open 24 seven yeah and this is linda i i would just say that our main number in randolph that is monitored we've adjusted the voice message to give people um a sense of the expectations and our website special covet 19 and just you know we're not putting a certain number of business hours that we'll be getting back to people but we do say that we're working hard to get back to them just as soon as possible but we give them the direction on that site that says here's what you can do now here's how spdc um advisors can help you and it gives them some actionable steps that they can take while um they're looking forward to having a one-on-one engagement with an advisor but like we said i think the because this is so massive you know there's not a small business in vermont that's untouched there are certain industries more than others um people people are appreciative of being called back and having the conversation even if we have all the answers yet so i think with this extra consulting um on board we'll be able to have those conversations sooner even if then people's expectations about some one-on-one work take take another day or two um yeah we're like i said in two weeks we've had about the same volume we would have in a year so um it's it's a challenge we're doing the best and we're learning from the experiences how to be better at delivering common information that most people want answers to so that we avoid the bottleneck to the best degree possible okay um i think if there's no other questions is damien i see damien uh we're still waiting for our other witnesses but you are going to do cleanup uh today so maybe we can change the water and you can give us some of your insights in terms of um the CARES Act and its intent in terms of some of the thornier issues that i'm sure you've heard repeatedly both today and uh earlier in the week morning everybody good morning damien so um i guess before i get started one question that was posed to me uh at the end of the last meeting was um whether um whether we could reduce the reimbursement requirement for non-profit organizations um the answer is we can't um that's part of our federal conformity requirements is that they reimburse the full cost of the unemployment compensation paid out to individuals who have been laid off and i think that's why the CARES Act structured uh the 50 percent reduction in that as a reimbursement to the non-profits in other words they pay the full amount due for unemployment compensation benefits paid out to their employees who have been laid off and then after that they'll get a 50 reimbursement in federal dollars so if we wanted to address that issue going forward for those employers um we basically have to come up with a separate pool of state dollars um to then provide some sort of subsidy to them uh only only one state allows them to um be non-chargeable for certain benefits but it's on the basis of their paying in actually a portion of the unemployment insurance tax uh continuously so they don't allow people to be fully reimbursing it's like a hybrid setup in that state um so for our state uh we could potentially explore revising the law going forward but at this point the best relief we could provide to them if if it's even on the table and there's funds available is some sort of uh reimbursement to the non-profits for the amounts that they have to pay out um so that i guess is not very good news but um that's where where things stand unfortunately but it goes back to the question that we were talking about before you came on which is additional costs that aren't necessarily specifically allocated by the feds that we may need or that we may want to make those choices about and it'll be a good question as to what's flexible money coming into us and what isn't because these non-profits are all small businesses and and to me the interplay of their UI getting only reimbursed 50 percent which is a challenge and what they're eligible for and I mean could they be totally made whole through the PPP program but you know so so they qualify program does not cover unemployment insurance right i understand that but but it does cover their potentially right they could potentially use the PPP program to um basically uh as a forgivable loan to get them across the gap um the catch is there's a little bit of uncertainty depending on how long things are shut down for um so if you're going to pay people to keep them on um and you're using it basically I mean you can get forgiveness for rent or mortgage interest uh payroll costs and utilities costs um and so they could use it for all of those things um but the the thing is is it's eight weeks from the origination of the loan after that those costs aren't forgivable so they could estimate what those costs will be for the next two months but then they may still be in this place two months from now if the economy hasn't gotten restarted um I think we're all hoping that the shutdown won't take us uh let's see that would be into the beginning of June I think we're all hopeful that things will be winding up by then or or already wound up but um that is kind of one of the questions so the PPP program is there um there is potentially a little bit of delay um just in terms of the time it takes to process the application and get the money um so that's another concern for those entities um there is the uh I have to look to double check the language of the bill but there's also the um oh gosh um the EIDL grants which is basically the advance of ten thousand dollars on your EIDL loan um and that advance of ten thousand dollars is a grant uh even if your EIDL loan is changed over to a PPP loan um I think the catch on the EIDL is it's a little bit higher interest rate and I don't know the extent to which nonprofits qualify for it um they qualify and they pay a lower rate they pay a 2.7 something rate versus the 3.7 rate okay they mean it seems they mean it seems like um for the most part it's a very viable understanding at least nice time for eight weeks and can relieve the nonprofits of the reimbursement of unemployment costs because they could just take the money as a loan ultimately converted to a grant and pay people payroll not lay them off and have them work from home or have them do nothing but still pay make their payroll the question I guess I have you said something about a delay and we all anticipate delay and the need for patients what's the federal law in terms of the timing of interest and penalty on um if they did have some layoffs for a few weeks and you didn't submit their reimbursable bills how long is it for the state to get a bill out to these people when do they have to pay it back and can the state forgive any interest in penalties on uh paying uh paying that uh reimbursement so um the the bills for reimbursable employers are sent on a quarterly basis um so you'll get a quarterly bill for all of the unemployment's paid out uh in that quarter um part of the um CARES Act there was direction to the USDOL to provide guidance to state departments on uh basically providing additional flexibility around payments uh and reimbursement to the fund I would have to look at the um discretion that we grant the commissioner for late payments but I would I would imagine that there is some flexibility there already and if necessary we could grant some temporary uh additional flexibility or or waive penalties and that sort of thing temporarily um but I'd have to look into that I can make a note to just kind of address the issue of um what interest and penalty provisions there are and any changes we might need to make if there's not enough flexibility in those statute and it would seem at the very least another option would be that we could set up a temporary interest-free loan with state funds to pay pay the um uh the 50 percent um 50 percent of the reimbursement that they have to make to the UI trust fund because unless somebody makes that payment you're leaving federal dollars on the table that could come back so fund that money and have some sort of lean on the money that when the Fed money comes in comes back to the state uh it would it would be a case if we didn't do something like that we'd be leaving a lot of federal dollars on the table it might not solve the problem for the nonprofits that need a hundred percent reimbursement but at least we would have access to the 50 percent and not lose that because cash flow problem by the nonprofits yeah and I think uh if you set something like that up um as long as the funds come from sort of state general fund dollars and not from the UI trust fund then you're free to set up any sort of program that you want along those lines and I could work with uh David to set that up okay great anything uh else that jumps out at you at this point I guess one question to keep the conversation going but we need to answer I don't know if any of our witnesses have joined us yet because they certainly could answer this question as well is um under the PPP program that we're talking about can you somehow have your workers in a situation where they could apply for unemployment but you as an employer can get partial or full PPP payments for payroll I think not but I want to hear your answer to that yeah so the PPP program the loan forgiveness is subject to a couple of potential deductions let me just see if there we go so the actual amount forgiven um basically you start off by taking the forgivable amounts so what were your forgivable expenditures and then you take the proportion of your FTEs during a period before you got the loan and then the eight weeks during when you have the loan um and so whatever that fraction is so employees during the period the eight weeks on the loan versus employees from the period before the loan that they use as a baseline so say you lay off 25 percent of your employees your your initial um amount forgiven is just 75 percent and then in addition to that if you reduce the salary of any of your employees by more than 25 percent those reductions also come off the top of that forgivable amount and in order to qualify for unemployment you either have to lay off the employees or reduce their hours to a point where they can receive benefits after the income disregard so the problem here is that you're in danger of reducing your forgivable amounts the more you lay off employees the more you reduce the amount you can be forgiven so you could still get some forgiveness but you may not be eligible for all of it and if once you get past a certain point and I haven't done the math on this you may lose all of the forgiveness depending on what your expenses are and I think that's going to be highly case specific because your expenses can all in addition to payroll include mortgage interest and utilities and rent so if you owe a lot of mortgage interest or you have a high rate of rent or high utilities costs that can offset some of the loss and forgiveness from layoffs but definitely the layoffs drive down that forgiveness rate very quickly even if they're only furloughing people for a couple days a week to reduce your payroll expenses so the goal of the loan is definitely to get you to keep as many people on payroll as possible no requirement as long as you pay the employee their check there's no requirement if it whatever reason if there's a coded reason or there's a lack of work reason there's no reason to do any work for the business yeah exactly so um the uh they're looking at your payroll going out they're not looking at whether the employees are doing any work to earn that pay you know so as far as they're concerned you may be giving your employees COVID-19 leave at full pay and benefits and that's that's fine because you're stabilizing the workforce there which is the goal here is to basically provide some stability for people's incomes and for the labor force and by keeping more people on payroll it's less burden on the UI system and it's less people who are unemployed when we start to come out of this so yeah it's they don't the the small business administration for purposes of loan forgiveness isn't going to look at all at what the employees actually did as long as they were kept on payroll okay let's talk a little bit while we're still waiting to get our council's thought on the issue that's that's floating out there about disincentives in terms of employment um I know there are uh health insurance and people's willingness wanting to work people wanting to know they have a security of a job uh but other than the comparability of what the UI check is versus what the payroll check is what are some of the other factors pro and con that would lead to continued employment so sorry there's somebody who's not muted and there's some funny background noise going on are other people being bothered by it a little bit no okay sorry okay so um I think we're all familiar with the um the potential for um your unemployment check now that there's the the federal enhanced payment to basically overcome your income um so if I remember right um the let me just do the the math out quickly here um while you're doing that uh Damian do you have any insight as to when that six hundred dollar additional benefit is going to start I don't um I know it's retroactive it's retroactive to March 27 the the simple question is when does it start yeah I don't have information that's something that I was hoping the department could tell us right well we asked it it was one of our questions so uh with the money basically if you're earning um around fifty seven thousand dollars or less um you could potentially break even or come out ahead um with your unemployment check um and the um so um yeah at fifty seven thousand dollars that's about eleven hundred and thirteen dollars a week which equals um your unemployment check at that rate um plus six hundred dollars um so that's roughly accurate there it's somewhere between fifty seven and fifty eight thousand so from a monetary standpoint if you didn't have any other benefits so no retirement benefits no health insurance nothing like that at that point you're kind of doing from a monetary standpoint in apples to apples comparison right now because of the virus outbreak there is not uh jobs or a work search requirement although you have to be able and available to work um so then you get to the question of does the individual have the ability to quit for good cause in order to get that um and we've set it up so that uh you know you can quit for good cause if you're sick with uh COVID-19 or you need to quarantine or you have a family member who needs you to care for them uh or uh the two that are probably the most important here you have a child who is out doesn't have school or daycare right now because of the COVID-19 closures um and there are quite a few Vermonters who are dealing with that and then the other piece is the closure because of the unreasonable risk at your place of business uh and one thing that we're running into um at least anecdotally here uh that I've heard about from other members is folks in their districts who cannot get the personal protective equipment that OSHA says they're supposed to have for their employees because of the shortage on that equipment and the fact that it's being sent to the healthcare facilities first so other areas where there's a lot of person-to-person contact for example long-term care facilities are not able to get enough personal protective equipment for all of their employees and their employees a lot of them fall within this range where they're earning less than fifty seven thousand dollars so they'll either break even or potentially come out ahead um uh with the uh insurance so then the question for the employee really becomes balancing uh on the one hand they're sort of time in that job and commitment to that job and any benefits they may receive through that job versus a slightly larger check potentially through um the end of July if they stay unemployed that long and then having whenever the economy starts to recover and the um the stay home stay safe order is lifted having to do a work search at that point um and and take a job that they're qualified for because if they don't meet the able available and actively searching for work requirement once the work search is lifted then they'll lose their unemployment benefits so um certainly in in instances where you have a low hourly wage with no benefits and a potentially high risk or high stress job right now you could see an incentive that people would have to leave their job and take the unemployment on the argument that they they're at an unreasonable risk or you know potentially their child is home um and needs care on the other hand I think uh you'll see with um you know folks where either their employer has that personal protective equipment so they don't have the potential to say there's an unreasonable risk um or they've got really uh solid benefits that they don't want to lose um you know for example if you have good health insurance you're not going to want to give that up right now um so there there's definitely a balancing act there um we are not permitted uh and I I mentioned this at the very end of the call uh last time and I think it's worth reiterating now that everyone's on we are not permitted to reduce the amount of our weekly unemployment benefit or the length of unemployment benefits that people are entitled to uh without losing eligibility for the federally enhanced benefits uh that is a yeah I sent that around to the senate um so that people because there was discussion about that night uh just to clarify because in face of this as you know people were thinking well could we lower the UI benefit so that they could then it would equal their pay and you know there was all that kind of conversation and so to derail that I mean we just needed to be clear to people that we were going to lose the cares money if we did anything right and so I I think they're at this point the talk is about um are there ways to encourage people to stay on the job right um and so I know there are discussions going on I don't think there's anything that I can share about that at this point um but I know that that's a topic of conversation is just you know how do you provide an incentive for people to stay on the job if they don't have those incentives necessarily through their workplace or their employer you know can't afford to pay them hazard pay or something like that at this point knowing that a lot of employers are in a very tight spot financially right now so they can't necessarily afford to have a 30 percent increase in their payroll costs right um so this is Becca yeah do you know of any states um that are looking at incentives for health care workers that are staying on the job financial incentives at this point uh I don't off the top of my head um I uh have been tied up with child care um from much of the morning uh I know Jen Carby sent out a um uh resource from um one of the um large sort of legal research groups the group that publishes our statutes yeah um and so I will take a look at that later um I know NCSL has also put out resources so I will look through that and see if I can find anything um and I know that there's some work going on actively right now to try to figure out options um and whether or some of the federal dollars that are coming to the state you know could potentially be used to provide uh you know some sort of incentive especially for high-risk workers yeah um you know an essential job such as healthcare long-term care grocery stores things that we need to basically stay open um and that are really feeling a crunch right now right so I have a question I mean in addition to the benefits that people get and the job protection they may have by continuing to work I sort of haven't I think it's existential and practical at the same time where does the fact that for the concept of flattening the curve for all of Vermont where does that fit in in terms of whether we want people to make the choice based upon dollars and benefits and maybe in some cases you want the choice them not going into work for their own safety and you know I think it's probably less of an issue for uh first responders and hospital workers but other businesses is there an element here where and I think we've set up the law where if there is an unreasonable risk that they're going to get disease or spread disease that we actually want them to take on important benefits right and I think the law is set up right now so that employers are not disadvantaged um if for example they're not able to provide uh safe workplace as OSHAs kind of set out the guidelines on that um they're not disadvantaged by their employees um taking unemployment right now because they won't be charged uh or their experience rating won't be charged for at least eight weeks of those benefits um so I think the question for the senate and the general assembly more broadly is going to be if you do create an incentive how do you tailor it so that it's uh aimed at folks who are in jobs that are really crucial to public health and public well-being versus um you know more broadly and I mean I think we we've all heard stories about employers where it's hard to see what their reason for staying open is asking their employees to continue coming to work versus um other employers uh you know the healthcare industry the long-term care grocery stores we're hearing about the crunch that they're all feeling right now and the difficulties that their staff are facing in terms of a lack of protective equipment extremely enhanced exposure to the virus uh and very difficult challenging working commissions right now um where they're dealing with a very high volume limited staff numbers and very high stress um work situation so I think a lot of these are going to be policy questions that you have to consider um and I'm not sure where you draw that line so I want I want to piggyback or go back to Becca's question this kind of situation we really need to know what everybody's doing across the country because everybody's facing the exact same problem it's not just us we you know we may have a a mid-range of our maximum unemployment benefit whether the maximum is $450 or 513 the feds put $600 on top of that that puts this added financial pressure on decision making or complicates it anyhow so and I'm sure other states are facing situations with masks and other equipment that make it an unhealthy workplace nursing homes and residential care homes and those kinds of things so uh I hope as soon as we see anything new from other states we'll hear about it I mean we'll continue to go through but there's no sense in reinventing the wheel if people are already coming up with some creative ideas and you know in my mind I'm not a lot of spin thrift but we got to get past these three months or whatever and if we need to put money towards the problem to fix it on the back end we'll figure out how to repay that stuff right right right and I I will take a look um at what other states are doing um I know some of the discussions are are happening offline right now um about kind of addressing some of the best um so um but I I will start researching that and follow up with the committee once I have a listing of other things and I'll just plan to keep updating that list uh as additional sort of measures become um become public or are starting to get discussed um but I I will reach out to um NCSL and uh to also just start going through the resources we've got on that issue right and then as soon as I've got a decent list I will send it to the committee so I'm I'm concerned I think there's needless to say some sense of urgency on this because people will be once they start knowing and understanding this they there may be movement like immediately uh and so I I think like like the evictions there's a sense of urgency about this for us to figure out fairly soon right and so just to be clear um I've I've been working with some of your senate colleagues on this issue since yesterday and with with the folks at JFO we have another meeting this afternoon um and uh so this is uh this is a priority right now yeah it thank you so much I realize you're doing that so thank you yeah and I I think this is something that a lot of people are aware of right now particularly if you have a uh you know a healthcare facility or a um long term care facility nearby and I think everybody in the senate has uh has those in their district so you're aware of the challenges they're facing some of us even have parents in those facilities yes so I don't know uh Cheryl do you have anything you might want to say I understand that you're on the committee that's for the task force that's looking at this well just that as Damian said JFO is working on this and it's going to come up with some um scenarios that we would look at so I think that we need to wait until the numbers are in the air and then we can discuss it further um the other thing I I've been thinking about I mean we've been talking a lot about small businesses but here in Rutland GE has just you know laid off 50% of their the workforce so what is there maybe Damian can address this for large businesses you know in the CARES Act I mean what can we look forward to there as far as some kind of um help so that not all of the benefit that are going to be falling on you know UI in the state so um we've talked about the the various small business loans that are out there uh there was also a significant portion of um money in the CARES Act uh that was dedicated to sort of more industry specific spending um I don't know the details of that uh it's not something I've looked at closely um this was uh towards the end of the bill it's where the I think most of us have read about the airline money the loans for the airline industry this also included funding for um national defense and other other industries that congress deemed kind of crucial to the the you know national well-being um to try to keep them up and running but I don't know the details of that um and I know uh you know with with uh folks like the GE plant I mean the struggle they're facing is that um they may have some money coming in but it's not business as usual um and so they have to let a portion of their staff go what we have provided in the UI is some cushioning against their UI experience rating um to the extent that they have to lay off staff related to um the uh COVID-19 you know emergency order stay home stay safe or something like that um and the the governor's order has exceptions for um sort of essential businesses which I think include national security um but to the extent that they have business that's not covered by that order um and they're laying off people they would have some protection there um beyond that though uh there there's not a lot that I can offer you as far as insight goes I just haven't had a chance to dig that deeply and it might be something go ahead I was just gonna say my question is you know what is there in the CARES Act that would kind of relieve some of the pressures from the state as far as UI goes where people would be getting benefits but not necessarily under the unemployment insurance from the state so I think the um the the big things in the CARES Act as far as Vermont is concerned the biggest impact will be through the small business loans to keep people on because most of our businesses virtually all of the businesses in the state fall under the qualify for the small business loans uh unfortunately our our largest employers like GE and um other groups like that don't fall under the small business piece but um I'd have to look at the employment numbers but it's it's more than 96 percent of our businesses qualify as a small business yeah um so I think that's the biggest thing to cushion the impact on the UI trust fund the other piece is that for sole proprietors um and self-employed individuals the disaster unemployment assistance whenever it becomes available will be there to help as well it doesn't keep them from laying off any employees they have but it does help them get a bridge and it keeps money flowing into the economy to the extent that you can actually spend it right now locally or something like that but um you know that uh I mean they're unfortunately there's not a lot that we can do outside of the um the sort of federal small business loans except to the extent the state stands up some sort of grant program um which I don't know if there's money of a hillbill to do um to kind of encourage small business owners uh or businesses around the state to keep employees on payroll rather than on on UI uh Cheryl your question which you would include it I was sort of hoping that Lindsay Curley would get to uh because it wasn't you know the larger employers and what what ACCD is thinking what are their thoughts about that so we can re get back to that with them at some point because they may have some thoughts about that but we didn't have time to talk about today and go ahead Allison so um we still have no Michael Harrington or Cameron would I take it uh excuse me this is faith uh speaking we've just had one of our live videos hacked so I had to lock down the meeting which is to not allow participants in I'm working with Denise to notify the three people that you're expecting we haven't heard from them yet but I will have to unlock heard from jerk we have heard from jerk Anderson and he did try to get in he has tried to get in right and I just sent an email what's up to that it says to read yet that uh says you know you can call in no I can't call in Denise the I thought they could no well I thought um senator Sirachan would you like us to arrange these next people to join the call or do you want to pick it up I think I think uh it's five minutes before journey we have another call coming up all right I do anyhow it's representative more caught so I think maybe we'll um close tomorrow but I do want to hear from Allison as to her uh impression of where we are on landlord ten I want to thank her for the excellent job she did on Tuesday um and um uh I know that uh some folks are hoping that uh we might be able to combine a bill here on landlord tenant in our senate uh meeting on Tuesday where we're going to be dealing and it could be changed on Tuesday we're going to deal with the real change on remote voting um obviously every day we move on the eviction issue if we're going to do anything it is is not helpful to flattening the curve so um I want to hear from Allison I think we have it on our schedule to talk about again tomorrow at 9 30 but let her bring us up to speed well um it occurred to me uh Tom and I had a a catch up after our meeting on Tuesday and then we talked again Wednesday morning uh it occurred to me the senate is poised to act sooner than the house but and Becca correct me if I'm wrong but the house has yet to even be looking at a draft rule about the body vote remotely I think is that correct yeah so so Tom and I Tom was thinking if they could get the bill into good shape which they did yesterday and I have yet to be able to connect with him today because we just haven't had the time but um I thought maybe Michael Tom and I could meet because we if we could create a senate vehicle and vote it out tomorrow morning we could have a bill on the floor ready to go next week our landlord tenant our evictions bill so we're at poise to take action faster than they are it struck me we could do that uh and and and speed this whole eviction uh opportunity you know the the eviction bill along faster if we did it that way so that is the question I I believe they did the Damian can oh no it was David Hall um anyway we need to have that conversation with Tom but I think we're in pretty good shape for tomorrow morning uh and the question is would we be able to vote on it tomorrow morning and choosing the vehicle that we could do a strike all on and and put it on well it seems to me though we had a question the last time that we met uh and we sent back Vermont Legal Aid and the landlords to see if they they were supposed to do that work for the the Wednesday meeting for the house and that's what I haven't been able to find out if that actually happened yeah because that in terms of to vote this out uh we don't have a creation I think there will of course yes it's it my hope is that so anyway I'll email you all once I find out from Tom and while Michael's talking to Mark I'm going to call Tom because that'll be the first moment I've had and that and we're sort of like uh this is more for Becca we're sort of in this a weird uh time frame here because I know what I've read and being able to catch up that Tim and the rules committee wants uh us to get mission to be working on something and get permission to vote on a not to work on Michael not permission to vote we're just talking about voting in terms of getting something on the calendar not permission to work on something okay okay so even permission to vote this is still sort of in a strange area because I don't think that's been formally adopted but any of that I'm going to talk to Tim about it if we're going to do something this is the kind of thing that the whole purpose of remote voting is to move things along and you know if we have to wait on a vote for this till after the uh the rules committee or the rules changes it's going to delay things I'll talk talk to him and you know my own personal position on this has always been that we should have a moratorium but we should have a provision for exceptions for emergency and I think that's where the bill is going uh and it shouldn't just apply to filing of eviction proceedings it should also file to rits of possession that are waiting to be served so if there's a if there's a reason to go forward that uh rid of possession an individual judge finds is worthy uncomfortable with the default position being that their state that all the ones that are pending state are state unless there's an emergency judge feels is necessary like the classic example of a lab which I don't know if that's a real or not but uh that would certainly be something that we might lose down so um okay so we will reconvene at 9 30 tomorrow morning to keep posted your email from some of the follow-up calls we're having and uh uh Randy and Allison I will reschedule the task for us so it doesn't interfere with the rules community meeting tomorrow