 Good morning. We are very excited that we have some folks from the Scan Foundation from California. We've got Gretchen and Megan. Gretchen is Vice President of Policy and Communications of the Scan Foundation. And Megan Burr gives the policy to the panelists. And those of you who know me realize that you can't, I can't say this, I can't not say this, which they're both MSWs, although Gretchen has a PhD. I'm recruiting everybody into this. But spearheaded by members of the committee as well as people in the community for years, trying to really identify and have a focus on aging and unhealthy aging in Vermont. And having us be prepared for the changing demographics and to both celebrate the fact that we are the second oldest state in the nation and to make sure that we are tapping into both the challenges and the benefits that that brings. And what thanks to President Tim Ash, along with Senator Kitchell, they were connected to the folks at Scan based on a presentation somewhere. And the Senate would all do respect Senator Lyons, deemed to talk to the House and say, they're these people who you need to connect with. And so we have, and they have a presentation and they also got a copy of the bill that two House members, Teresa Wood and Dan Noyes created. So with that, I want to invite the two of you to come up. Please. So Gretchen and Megan, thank you for coming. As I said, it's great to have the face with the voices on the telephone. And as we talked about the plan for aging in the state, we had already communicated with the House and Senate. Actually, do communicate on a regular basis. And it seemed more appropriate that you folks get to know the House first before the Senate. So we're really happy that you're here. And thank you for the work that you've done and look forward to hearing your thoughts. Wonderful. Can you all hear me OK? Yes, yes. Fantastic. Thank you so much. It is a sincere honor to be here in the great state of Vermont to speak to you about some of the work that we've been doing in California on a master plan for aging to share our thoughts in regards to all the amazing work that has been done and has been done here in the great state of Vermont and to offer some considerations for your reflection. I'd like to thank Chair Pugh and Chair Lyons for the opportunity to be here to speak to both committees. It's a great honor to speak to one. It's even more so to have both of the committees here and the members of the committees, all the staff that support the committees. Great, thank you for all of that. As well as administrative leaders who are in the room with us today and many stakeholders who are here to be part of this discussion, we do see this as a really important discussion across the nation as we're seeing that changing demographic of Americans growing older and Americans living longer, family caregivers being part of the mix across all ages. And this is not just a baby boomer phenomenon, it is a transformation that is happening from this generation, the generations that are alive today and all future generations to come. So we see this as really a spearheading movement and instead of just simply a moment, it really is a longer trajectory. And so the presentation that we will share with you today is to give you a little bit of a reflection of what we call a master plan for aging at the Scan Foundation and what that means, what the lens in which we were thinking about that concept then again shares some thoughts of the activities that we're doing in California and then pivot immediately to OVC in Vermont and they asked that was made of the Scan Foundation. The Scan Foundation is a nonprofit public charity in Long Beach, California. So we're a long way from home, but frankly we've all spent time in the Midwest so we're really enjoying the snow. So thank you for the decoration and it is beautiful. And so we were created as a one time gift from the Scan Health Plan that felt it was very important for the nation as well as California to have conversations about how do we transform care for older people so they can live well in the place that they call home regardless of age, health or ability. And so you can see more about us on our website and our origins and the kinds of work that we do but we are a nonprofit public charity and the work that we share with you today was from our own charitable purposes, there was no payment made for the insights and the analysis that we made so we just wanted to be super clear about that and I'll talk to you a little bit later through the slides about how do we come to be in front of Senate President Tim Ash. So moving on to the next slide. So if you take away nothing from today I would really love for you to take away these three points. And the first point is that when we look across states and I'll share some work that we do with the AARP and the Commonwealth Fund out of New York where we look across states and how well they are providing and serving their aging populations through long-term services and support systems what we found is that those leading states that have the best kind of systems of care in total have some form of a master plan that they have thought about aging in a much more comprehensive framework than simply thinking about their older Americans act money or thinking about Medicaid or thinking about what is often called frail elders. These are states that have taken a big step back and looked at all across their systems of care and how can they connect different parts of their government agencies, the regulatory frameworks and lead the way by saying aging is bigger than one particular program. And number two point is that from our analysis and we are very humble in our analysis so I'll share with you that we really looked at through what we could find on the internet because ultimately that's what consumers will do. That's what the private sector who doesn't know any of you and don't know any of the administration officials that's what they'll do. That's what philanthropy does is they look and see what are you saying about your aging state, your aging priorities, your vision, your goals and as we did that look, that very humble look Vermont has many, many, many pieces to build upon to create a master plan for aging. And third, Vermont is already a pace setter and can continue to lead the way. And on the bottom part of that slide is this nice little purple graphic. It is perfect for Vermont that as we looked through this work called the score card which I'll speak to in a moment, we gave Vermont a prize for being a pace setter in affordability and access for older people here in the state in 2017. So there's more on that we can share with you but Vermont is already a pace setting and leading the way. So let's move on. So I keep talking about the score card and I want to share with you a little bit about that. The long-term services and support score card was built by the AARP Public Policy Institute out of Washington, DC with funding from the Scan Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund. And our first score card was built and released in 2011. And it had five dimensions of care, five dimensions of services, focusing on how do we think about quality across a total system of care. Ranking states, this is a state score card, ranking states and the District of Columbia on how well are they meeting domains like affordability and access, choice of care and setting, quality of life and quality of care, support for family caregivers and effective transitions of care. And what you see here is the front page of the three score cards that are out so far, 2011, 2014, 2017. That leads to the next score card comes out in 2020. So it'll be released on June 25th. We'll get to see where Vermont is in that lineup. As of the 2017 score card, Vermont was ranked third overall, which is very impressive and had solid scores across all the different dimensions of care that I just spoke about, which ultimately led us to give Vermont a PACE Center Prize Award, where that was the SCAM Foundation looking at states kind of across multiple score cards to say how well is our particular state's doing and you all like for affordability and access, so you should feel really good about that. When we looked at those states, we took that step back to say, what really is a difference maker in a state that over time, across all the dimensions, seems to be ranking higher? Those folks that are in that top quartile of states time and time again, and those were states that generally had a master plan of some form. They may have not called it that, but there's documentation, there is a focal point of saying we as a state are thinking beyond the particular lines of dollars that are traditional and aging services. So I'd like to share a little bit about why a master plan for aging, why go through the work of putting this kind of visibility project together, this vision setting, and with goals and strategies and an orientation towards an accountability framework that looks beyond budget cycles, beyond individual legislative or gubernatorial cycles, but ultimately takes a step back and says where do we wanna be as a state in 10 years, in 20 years, whatever the time frame is that a state would like to choose in that frame set. And first of all, it's about bringing visibility to population aging priorities across all sectors, across not just inside of what is traditionally a department of aging, the department, say the department of aging and independent living that's here in Vermont, or the California department of aging that we think about in our state, but it looks at what is the visibility of aging inside of housing, inside of transportation, inside of the business sector, inside of consumer affairs, inside of energy, inside of the treasury, all the different aspects of government because we can look at every single agency department through an aging lens about what does it mean for an aging population and the work that those entities do, and a master plan for aging has the potential to do that. It interconnects goals and outcome measures across various strategy and reporting documents, and we'll share with you what we found in Vermont about there's so many different elements that are the ingredients for creating a master plan, but they live in different places inside of your architecture at the state. They live at different levels. There are people who know them very intimately, and then there's all the rest of the folks who may not even know that Vermont is measuring these important outcomes for their aging population. So it's about bringing all that great work up to a visible surface so that any individual inside of Vermont can easily see what are we shooting for in the state for our aging population to live in age well here in the place that folks call home. A master plan can provide a roadmap for the legislature and administration as well as all the staff to think about what are both planning priorities, incorporating budget priorities, incorporating oversight priorities, and that it can transcend the legislative timetable that for members time in your seats, as well as governor changes, as well as frankly good and bad times inside of a budget. It's about kind of keeping your eye on the prize of what do you want for aging well and living well here in Vermont, whether times are flush or that times are tonnied. And finally, what a master plan can do is call for the engagement of public, private, and what we think of as philanthropic leaders in your community to collectively engage in aging priorities and that we're all working towards the same goals, objectives, and strategies. So this is not about setting a plan for only government to be involved in executing on that plan, but you all and all the folks who work with you inside of government here are leaders, you're setting a framework for what is best for Vermont because you were elected into those positions to do that. And so, but this by that collective energy can say, what is our North Star for aging and living well in the state? And that's something that everybody can get on board with and move forward. So as we took a broad scale review a couple of years ago when we kind of had that discovery of, wow, states that do better have some kind of master plan. I wonder what's behind that? What are some of the ingredients to get to creating a master plan for aging? That we saw five critical elements to get to the success of a plan. Part of the reason, part of the reason since we focus a lot on California to call these different elements out is that we were really excited at that time to get California to do a master plan. And so we wanted to say to folks inside of the governor's office, inside the legislature, inside the stakeholder community, here's what we need. Here are the big key elements to get to a master plan. Decisive leadership that comes from all levels of government and what we felt in California we needed was engagement from the governor because we've had a lot of legislative activity over many years. That there was a kind of a rational set of priorities inside of a plan that are also data driven. So we don't always have all the data that we want and need to measure where we are today or where the outcome measures can be for tomorrow. But if we start from a place of looking at what is the information about health, human services, about financing, about housing, about transportation, where we're putting our priorities, we start there and then set some achievable goals in a 10 year time frame that helps us know are we kind of hitting the mark or not. Comprehensiveness, really critical. This is not about focusing only on health and human services. This is about looking far outside of that realm, inclusive of that realm, but far outside of that realm to consider things that we've talked about earlier, transportation, housing, business sector, consumer affairs, regulatory bodies and the like. Stakeholder involvement is critical. Lots of voices around the table and the critical element of incorporating those new voices around the table. People who don't think that aging is their business. What we say at the SCAN Foundation is aging is everybody's business, including the business of business. That to be focused on what is it that the aging population is needing and interested in and what does that bring to the table from a stakeholder perspective. I think probably before I even go on to accountability, something that's critical to consider is that this isn't a master plan for older people. This is a master plan for aging that includes all of us, wherever we are on the aging trajectory. And then within that accountability so that even though the vision may be big and broad, even though the goals are audacious, that there's a sense of timeline and accountability and what are we seeking towards to achieve the comprehensiveness through those rational priorities and that there's a sense of clarity and vision on what those measurable outcomes can be. So a little bit about the California universe. There have been calls for change in California to address the fragmented system of care for vulnerable older people and aging well across the healthy sectors of the aging population since, gosh, probably the early 70s in our state. Some of you may be familiar with the program for all inclusive care for the elderly or called PACE program that was built out of a pilot project in San Francisco and that's in the early 70s and that was one of the first calls for bringing all the care delivery services together for our very particular population. And from that movement, continue to spark this conversation of that aging isn't just one thing that aging has touched to many, many different sectors of public life. And so when we say a call for change, California has been calling for that change in many ways, but change is difficult because it's changed, from my vantage point, right change for you is great, but if I have to be involved in that change, it can be really tough. And so the master plan for aging says we're all involved in that change and let's set the vision of where we wanna go. So we had had, as I shared, we had had a number of different legislators over the time, the legislative analyst's office, many different commissions call for, what can we do to break down the fragmentation of care and those individual silos in the spirit of aging services and frankly, it hadn't gone beyond those reports that kind of sat on the shelf and we felt really strongly that we needed to have both partnership with the legislature and the governor to call forth this concept of a master plan for aging. And in 2018, we had a great opportunity in the sense that we had a gubernatorial race that was not having an incompetent, which was a great opportunity to say, let's put aging on the map, let's put it as a priority during the governor's race. And so the Scan Foundation along with another philanthropy down in San Diego called Lest Health, we created a platform called Lest Dan with Seniors and funded a whole body of polling work to speak about where is the general California population's interest on aging issues. The polling firm needed to do the analysis three or four times because he could not believe the high numbers of people responding over and over and over again in every question about how much they wanted California to have a plan on aging, how relevant aging was to their own family's lives, how this touched them in a very personal way and they wanted to see California's leadership take this on. We did the poll also two different times and continued to see across racial ethnic groups, across age groups, across party status, across rural and urban, this high 70s and 80% of folks saying we want to have a master plan for aging. So when you have those kind of polling numbers in an election year, governor candidates listen and we were very excited to have both the Republican and the Democratic candidate at that time call for a master plan for aging which was very exciting, something that had never happened in the state. There had never been a discussion at that particular political level about what does aging mean for our state. We were able to catalyze that by having governor Newsom who came in to continue to speak to those issues but in the meantime the legislature was very active because they were seeing this trend of a gubernatorial candidate, something they had never done, speak about aging issues and they frankly wanted to get ahead of the curve and a little bit of healthy competition I think between the executive branch and the legislative branch in California and so what we saw was a number of legislators put forth master plan for aging legislation in very early in the year. This listing of five on the screen gives you a sense of just some of the engagement and interest but with tremendous amount of sign on in each of these bills. Just to give you a sense of it, the first bill by Senator Hanna-Beth Jackson was about the parameters of creating a master plan for aging so kind of setting up a legislative architecture which we would be happy to share that information with you if it would be helpful about what it is that was called for as the elements and domains of a master plan. The remaining bills, the remaining four bills were speaking to what are the elements that you wanted to make sure were in the master plan for aging so make sure that consideration of affordable and accessible housing is part. Make sure that there was a state level reorganization something that had been called for in California for years about creating a department community living as inside of our state to pull together different state offices in ways to really catalyze this concept of community living as people grow older. Statewide implementation of a universal assessment so that when we assess people for various public programs that we're using a core set of indicators and measurement tools inside that so that we have a better sense of who are those folks inside of California who have need for publicly funded services as well as workforce and family caregiver support issues to make sure that all of those components inside of a master plan. In addition, Governor Newsom continued to stay true to his promise to call for our master plan for aging after he was elected and in his very first state of the state which as I was looking at the date yesterday I was like oh my gosh that was a year ago. On February 12th, 2019 he called very loud and very credibly that it's time for California to have a master plan on aging in the state which was truly exciting for us to see that level of leadership. That was catalyzed even further in June when he put forth an executive order. Again I think a little bit of healthy competition in some ways between the legislature and the executive branch that he didn't want to be completely, I think you served by the legislative branch and instead worked with them and created much from all of the bills that were put forth to say let's put a master plan on aging for the table in California and continues to have legislative support and engagement through that process which is very exciting to see that two branches of government working so actively together. That executive order called forth that California would have a plan by October 2020 and let's move to the next slide with multiple elements of that plan. First of all, I think the most critical element that was called foreign legislation and that was catalyzed inside the executive order is that a plan would ultimately be developed and truly owned by a cabinet level work group. That the state owns this aspect of a plan for aging and that their spirit of their work is engaging stakeholder input from that but that this is California's master plan for aging as opposed to what had been done historically as calls for different reports that were buried in many ways inside of stakeholder processes but not truly owned by the state itself and led forth both from all different parties. That cabinet level work group involves every single agency and that's the highest level in California. Every single agency has a seat at that table which is beyond exciting for us to see all the different entities who have ownership over government processes be involved in that cabinet level work group. It is advised strongly by a robust and comprehensive stakeholder advisory committee that has about 30 members on that committee from folks outside of government to give advisement on all the various aspects of that kind of a plan that helped create goals and outcomes and in your packet on the website is a one pager about what are California's goals for a master plan for aging and we put that forth there for you to take a look at how the state is framing that vision. There are two very particular subcommittees that were called forth in the executive order that came directly from comments inside of the legislation. One was to have a subcommittee with a particular eye on long-term services and supports recognizing the critical role that the state has in funding Medicaid related programs and the touch points to both the public community based side of services as well as inside the nursing home industry and they wanted to have a particular vantage point of views around the whole range of long-term services and supports and what should we be thinking about as part of a master plan for aging on this end. However, the master plan is way bigger than just long-term services and supports and you'll see that inside of the goals that is on the sheet on the website. Lastly, that's okay. Lastly, the executive order called forth a research subcommittee recognizing that we probably don't have all the data that we want inside of California to see how well we're doing on a master plan as well as we need to have some measurables that were part of the executive order to think about how do we start to learn how well we're doing as a state in order to move forward over a 10-year window and so the research subcommittee which I sit on along with many of my university colleagues across the state, the conversation there is to help create that early dashboard about how do we track progress on meeting the goals of aging well and living well in California, something frankly you all are very much ahead of us on and we'll get to see you in a moment. And so, in fact, there's a little bit of a window just in terms of some of the pieces that California is working on. One of the other pieces inside of your packet that's on the website is an analysis of other states who already have a master plan for aging including Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, and Connecticut and looking at those pieces so that you can see how do other states conceptualize this concept of a master plan. We also recently learned that Massachusetts has moved forward on this kind of a concept as well and they have a robust website which we'll send to you and your staff so you can have that as part of your background. So at this point, we'd love to turn to our analysis of the state of Vermont to give you a little window into what using this lens, using this perspective, what we see is already here in the foray in Vermont, many of the pieces and building blocks for a master plan and then how that might be converted into something further. And so just to give you a window into the consultation review, I had the great pleasure of meeting President Pro Tem Tim Ash at a meeting in, I think it was, he was either Miami or New Orleans. There's a group called the Reforming States Group that is funded by the Millbank Memorial Fund that has three meetings in the fall and I went and presented on a master plan to all three of those meetings and President Pro Tem Ash came up to me afterwards and he said, I think we might have one of these, master plans on aging. And I said, well, that would be great. I'd love to see it. And so he said, would you be willing to look, because I offered to the whole group, if anybody'd like us to look at what their state's doing. He said, would you be willing to look at what we have in the state of Vermont? And I said, we'd be delighted to look and see what you have in the state of Vermont and learn from you and to see how close do you fit the criteria that we have for a master plan. And again, no charge for this. This was our consultation and great learning experience as a foundation. And so we looked at what he sent, which was the state plan on aging, as well as we found many, many state reports and other pieces of legislation that you all have moved on very judiciously over time. And our findings ultimately are that you've developed many strategy and framing documents that have key ingredients that could be woven into a master plan for aging. So at this time, a colleague and policy analyst at the Scan Foundation, Megan Burke is going to walk through what the pieces are that we found. And I would again just remind you that this is our very humble review of your documents from your website. We did not speak to any administrative officials. We didn't speak to frankly any of you and your colleagues. And we did that with a very particular intention of that we took that consumers view, meaning that they're just gonna go to the website and see what they see. And we wanted to share with you that vantage point. And so you all may see much deeper than what we have. And we are delighted and honored and look forward to learning from you. But this is what we see and Megan, take it away. Thank you, Gretchen. Excuse me, I have a little bit of a cold. All right, so this slide is a list of the different resources, the documents that I reviewed and the analysis. I'm not gonna go through the list in the detail right here. The following slides kind of highlight different aspects of the different reports. But wanted to have a nice solid list of the resources. So we started with the state plan on aging because that's what was asked of us. And the state plan on aging is a report or this measurable framework that every state has to do. And it's related predominantly to the older American Act-funded programs. And what I really appreciated when I was looking through it is actually how person-oriented the language was and how person-oriented the goals are. It's definitely data-driven. And it was a really great resource for pointing me in the direction towards all these other documents, all these rich documents. But it's really primarily focused on that one funding source, right? So the next thing I looked at was Dale's scorecard, as you can see here. And that was just super exciting to see. I just was like, oh my gosh, there's data, and it's all what it's gonna understand, and holy cow. And again, very person-oriented outcomes and program measures. I did notice it's primarily focused on health and long-term services and supports. What was great is that it combines the outcomes from the state plan on aging, incorporated with other priorities from Dale, into one single reporting format. There's the accountability there. And one of the things I thought about when I was looking at it is I wonder what the level of stakeholder engagement was. Like who came up, who decided on these outcomes? Did we talk to the people? And they were like, here's something that's really important for us to measure. That wasn't clear. The Dale Mission statement was right there, smack in the state plan for aging. And person-oriented, loving the principles that are put forth that is really a core that you all can, you build your programs around. Respect, independence, choice. There's obviously a value system here that is guiding the work that you all do. We looked at Act 186, the outcomes bill, as that established, I believe, the outcome measures were the requirement for the Dale's Ford card. And what's great about that is the accountability piece in there, right? It requires that annual report. I think a lot of times, especially in California, when we would look at those calls for change and groups that would come together with really great recommendations and these reports, the piece that was missing was that reporting out that accountability, that how do we get this moving? Everybody has a lot of great ideas, but how do we make it actionable? And in the bill itself, there was once language for one specific outcome that a best-older adults and basically Vermont's elders, people with disabilities and people with mental conditions of a dignity and independence and setting safer for her. It was great to see older adults called out on a piece of legislation as a target population. So then there was, I'd seen the Dale's Ford cards, saw the reference to the legislation, I'm like, oh, there's some broader outcomes reports for the whole state. And it does incorporate aspects of the Dale's Ford card. Again, it's person-oriented. I noticed that on the website the 10 outcomes that are listed, two of those outcomes do have aging-specific measures, so it was nice to see aging, it's starting to make its way in. Again, stakeholder engagement a little unclear. And then there was Act 172, they got the older Vermonters Act Working Group going. I'm sure you're pretty familiar with that. And when I did this initial analysis, the Work Group hadn't submitted its report yet. So I was just kind of working off of some of the framework that was on the website and really appreciated seeing how comprehensive the Work Group was thinking as far as all those different aspects of daily life and how our needs kind of interact together. So financial security, health and wellness, right? Social connection and engagement. And I think we often focus on health and long-term services and supports and there's a lot more to each of us than our health and things that we wanna do with our lives. So then there was the Working Group. And it was great to see the broad stakeholder representation in that working group, all the way from the state staff to older adults themselves and caregivers. And the recommendations, I got a chance to kind of go through them a little bit. And seeing, again, I found it interesting. I love that the recommendations addressed what was required in a lot. And that had all those extra recommendations that were said that that's not enough. There's all those important work that also needs to be done and that they're empowered to include that, that's fantastic. Again, the feel and the framework of the report is person oriented. We're looking at the person, not necessarily program specific. We're really trying to think about what's the older adults experience, right? Living in Vermont. Great data sources. And again, as I said before, representing that intersection of basic human needs. So I have to work here today for age 6-11. Take a look. And it was great to see that the bill incorporates the principles from the framework, from the working group. They're very thoughtful, person oriented, again, really focused on what's the individual's experience. We see that the bill outlines, again, Dale's responsibilities, the area agency on aging's responsibilities. Adding a few more requirements to the state plan on aging. So maybe a little bit more than this older American Act dollars. But again, it focused, the bill so far is focused predominantly on health and community-based services. So is there a broader viewpoint that we can have? Also notice it's focused on kind of the most vulnerable or low income kind of individuals and not the broader older adult population. Well, I know the other documents that I saw was, you know, bumbling through the website, came across the state strategic plan. So I'm like, oh, there's another strategic document we're thinking. And obviously this came through the governor's executive order. And it was great to see, again, that focus on measuring and reporting outcomes on a regular basis that there's accountability to the departments. But the thing was, I looked through it because I really was scouring to see where is aging in all of this. It wasn't really apparent where aging issues fit. Or I could figure out where they might fit, but it was not communicated. And the breakthrough indicators that I could see, there was nothing directly related to aging. And so as we talk about a population that is aging, and we know that, well, as Gretch said, we're all aging, you know, that should be intertwined in there somehow. And it doesn't always have to be, you know, blatant aging, da, da, da, da, but there should be something. So I looked at all these documents with these five elements that Gretch had reviewed in mind, just to kind of see where those elements fit. And here we're just gonna kind of go through each one. The first element is state leadership. Obviously you got a legislature that's engaged. There's several pieces of legislation or bills that look at aging and really thinking strategically about the future. You have a governor that thinks strategically and from what I could tell on the website does have person oriented values. Seems like thinking about, again, the Vermonters experience. So there's a value system there. And then with the administration, seeing the leadership with the principles that have been put forth, how those were incorporated into the state plan on aging, understanding that those really were a foundation, probably for the working group and then they just built upon that. And then just the accountability and the Dale's work are in the leadership that is shown through that. And what we see as missing in the leadership part is really just that call for a comprehensive master plan on aging. So there's definitely these elements, there's interest. You have these strengths, but how do we take this and just look it up for that to the next level? So the second element, priority is a rank to data driven, definitely. You guys are great at that. You use a variety of reliable data sources to develop and track your outcomes. And it was great to the transparency in the sources that I saw. Again, love the scorecard. I think the first time I went through and just saw like basic reporting out, the next time I went in, I was like, oh, you can open this up and you can see what the data source was. Oh my, oh, in some of these there's analysis, you know. And it was, oh, I can see how maybe they're working with another department maybe here. And so the transparency in that was, for me I guess a bit of a data geek, it was exciting. But I go back to what's missing again and it's like you're almost there, but we still say that visible cohesive platform, right? Where all the data and the priorities are easily accessed by everyone, the policy makers, your state staff, your researchers and the public. So they don't have to go through and search everything the way they did or have this interesting little winding path through that it's readily evident and easy to access. Well, my three comprehensive. So many of the priorities in the Dales four card and the state plan on aging touch on different aspects of our lives, right? Obviously the health and LTSS, there's touch points to housing, touch points to employment, like to see where everybody's thinking about how do we keep older adults engaged in employment but also how do we think about the workforce? So there's all these little touch points but they still appear to be connected to probably specific funding sources. And it's, yeah, and I think it could be a little bit broader in the thinking. When we think about what's missing, we did see a lack of connection across state departments beyond Dale. There were some touch points I think I saw with an outcome related to transportation and it might be some work going on with Department of Transportation but it's not, it doesn't appear to be kind of an expectation and part of the culture. I don't know. Population planning, regardless of socio-economic status, we often focus our attentions on, what is the state funding? That's your role that as Gretch said before, how do we think broader? And then I didn't really see much touching on long-term care financing. One of the caveats here, I didn't list the working group report here. The list of recommendations definitely was very comprehensive but it's not something that's in action yet and their recommendations and there were actionable steps on them yet. So I think there is the right thinking and going in the right direction but didn't really include it in this list yet because it still needs to be acted upon. Stakeholder involvement, state plan on aging, there's the stakeholder surveys, focus groups and depth interviews that's required in the process and then the older for Montreusek working group. Again, the prize of a number of stakeholders are represented and I think most importantly included the individuals themselves, family caregivers and older adults themselves. Really strong but what we see missing is taking that stakeholder engagement late to the next step. So it's creating that actionable plan. You've begun to identify issues and some solutions but engaging the stakeholders as you move forward with implementing recommendations and prioritizing. And element five, the accountability. State plan on aging for your plan has its measurable outcomes to report on and then you've got your score card again and outcomes report that are reported annually, have your measurable goals and like I said before, great information making a very transparent. What's missing again going back to that just that visible cohesive platform that reports the outcomes that's in Vermont or friendly language. So, you know, myself going or someone from the public being able to see what is the value system, what's important in Vermont, what are the guiding principles and what are we doing to get there and how are we measuring that success? So just kind of bringing it all together. I'm going to send it back over to Greg. Just to kind of a quick synthesis, obviously lots of strengths across the main elements with leadership, a focus on person oriented values with lots of data driven priorities and accountability. And I think in terms of opportunities for improvement which is where we're seeing, where the next steps can go from whether it be this body in tandem with other committees as you see relevant or inside of the executive branches to move forward to that call for this much more visible cohesive platform where all these pieces are coming together and creates a visible vision point for aging in the state from more of a 10 year window as opposed to, or 10 or more year window as opposed to a four year window and sending out those priorities, goals and strategies that all elements from the public and the private sector can get behind to move forward with a very activated stakeholder engagement path to move that forward. And they think that the older Vermonters working group really pushed you over the line of having a great score in our mind on that stakeholder engagement process, particularly as we started to go through the recommendation set that was beyond what was called out from the legislation of really kind of pushing that conversation forward to add so many of the other elements of the components of life to be added into a plan moving forward. And so our recommendation is that Vermonters craft that highly visible public placing platform that incorporates and communicates vision, goals, strategies and outcomes to support aging well in Vermont. And it's not just about creating a website so please don't hear me say that, but it is about, it could be easily interpreted as that, but it's the process that gets to that place of saying who are we as Vermonters who want to age and live well here in this great state and what is the vision that we are seeking towards and all the elements of what is the movement forward of great life here, regardless of age, health or ability and that the visible platform of that certainly can be a visible website, but it is a document that all can see and all can participate in in their own unique ways including the legislature and the executive branch of today and tomorrow and tomorrow beyond that. And so how do you get started? These are a couple recommendations of ways to take the next steps action. I'm sure you may have many other considerations but we would see that it would be the legislature and or the governor calling for a master plan on aging process and platform. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a really long experience. I think in California our governor has basically gave it about 15 months and part of that is we've been talking about it for a really long time and needed to have that next steps push from leadership and to get to a place of setting clear priorities and moving forward. And so given all of the elements, all of the capacity, all of the knowledge base that you all already have here in the state has shown through all of these documents, we actually don't believe it would take a very long time at all and it is about taking so many of the pieces that can feel a little bit buried down in the administrative architecture from a consumer's point of view and gathering them together and lifting them up and creating a message architecture around that in using Vermont or friendly language. And you all know how to do that way better than us folks on the West Coast. But that people want to hear from you in the ways in which you speak about living and aging well here in the great state of Vermont. And there is already that existing person oriented principle platform, the goals and principles that are in the Dale State aging report that feel a little bit buried right now but that's an amazing starting point to kind of catapult that vision set and bring it upfront and forward as opposed to certainly there are required documents that need to be done for federal funding but there's so much great content in there that could be the early base plate about what your goals, values and perspectives are to set your vision for what does aging look like here in the state. You have a great opportunity to continue to push forward and expand on the older Vermonters working group and all the other stakeholder engagement to help shape around the edges as you bring all these pieces together to make it something really visible, credible and polished and make planning for population aging a part of Vermont's culture. My experience of the people I know who were born and raised in Vermont is that this is the place where they wanna stay, this is the place where they wanna live and being visible and active in that conversation says that folks are heard inside of their elected bodies and that's infused, aging lens is infused across all departments. That it's not about that transportation has to only focus on aging but that if someone goes to them and has a particular need that is kind of from the lens of aging, that they get it. They know what the goals and the priorities and the mission is and they can speak to that in an effective way. That the housing department could speak to that in an effective way. That consumer affairs or whatever your licensing bodies can speak to, what are they doing to promote healthy wellness and aging here in the state of Vermont so that everybody has that ownership of aging being everybody's business. And that as you pull these pieces together have a clear statement of impact on older adults through general population goals. Obviously we thought it was lovely inside of the state strategy document with an acknowledgement of protecting the most vulnerable. It's very easy from a historical standpoint to think about older adults as part of that most vulnerable group but as we all know aging has a full range of heterogeneity of need in it for folks who have lots of needs to folks who have no daily living needs and are living like all of us here in the room. And so thinking about what is aging well look like across all populations can be infused through that general population vantage point for the state's strategic plan. And so we'll just return to the three points that leading states and we believe Vermont is one of them has a master plan for aging and we think it's a great opportunity to take the next step in that place because you have so many pieces to build from so far and we would love to see you taking your pay setter status as a pay setting stake on aging and long-term services and supports and push it even further to a call for a master plan for aging. Inside of the documents that you have on the website in addition to this PowerPoint deck are the goals that California is working on so you can see that for your consideration as well as a shorter word document that has effectively a summary of the strengths, challenges and recommendation to all of you that you can share as you wish with some resources that live underneath that and with that the presentation part of today's convening is complete and we welcome any questions or thoughts or dialogue that you have. Thank you so very much for the opportunity to speak today. Well, thank you. Thank you. And I think it says something at least speaking for my committee that people were listening and paying attention and not interrupting you which is sort of our regular way of doing it. I think we've never done it before. Okay. We're deeply honored. I did warn them. But so, I don't know if you want to say anything and then we'll just open it up for questions. Oh, I don't know. I just want to say thank you. This is extremely well done and very thoughtful. We look forward to receiving the bill from the house so that we can, well, we always make improvements, right? Whichever way it goes, but. Can I ask a short question? Anyone can ask questions. Oh, good. Thank you. So as you were talking about increasing stakeholder participation and including in that, going across all the silos of government and knowing what the goal is and encouraging the mission statement to be fully realized. How do we keep the, how do you control the size of this? I mean, without it becoming behemoth. I can see this just reaching out into every little nook and cranny of both the state and state government. So any thoughts on how the stakeholder groups are can be managed effectively so that we end up with something that is contained, doable. I think that's a great question. And different states have done it different ways. I can share with you the current process that California is doing. California chose to very deliberately inside of what was legislation and then effectively turn into an executive order to have a stakeholder advisory committee that was the main convening point group that was a 30 member body that meets on a regular basis at this point in time to give feedback and it represents a panoply of perspectives from housing, from long-term services and supports, from mental health, from transportation, kind of all the way across the board within this 30 member body. And people, we really sought in terms of where the state folks decided to get this representation is to make sure that there was depth in the bench of each one of those individuals. So it really is like the 30 big leaders in the state who have worked across many, many different domains and can bring that perspective to bear than having some subcommittee work across that from the long-term services supports and the research side. And then the state decided that the best way to garner feedback in an open way but also in a manageable way was basically to create effectively an inbox and that having some folks in the team to kind of sift through that and seek themes of the emails coming in. California was a bit more concerned about having breadth of voices as opposed to containment. And also I should acknowledge that one of the things that came up through the main stakeholder advisory work group given the extensive diversity that California experiences was to have an equity work group alongside of that to make sure that we got voices from kind of all of the main racial ethnic communities, communities of various types of culture, rural, urban, tribal communities, kind of LGBT communities, you name it, to have voices across the board and making sure that those voices were heard through the process as well. So while I think the question about containment really is from the lens of where one sits in the middle of that process, but I think right now we felt like inflow of ideas was really important in being able to sort and acknowledge what are the different themes that are coming through with that to then bring it back to the cabinet level work group. Can I add a little bit? Please. So there's the subcommittees for research and long-term services and supports but not all the role areas have subcommittees. And so one of the things that the state decided, I would say fairly recently, is to do like a webinar Wednesdays or whatever. And so they take a different theme and have the experts in that area. So housing was one Wednesday and it's, um, how are we going to go on? But that's, you know, put out there and everybody can join, you know, the experts talk and they field questions and then people can submit comments via the website that they have or this email in response to what that presentation and what that was. And another thing that we did early on with Greater Good Studios, they found really valuable. As a foundation, we wanted to hear, we really wanted to learn from folks on the ground, like what they value and what's important to them. And so as the state was even trying to decide that we're going to do a master plan on aging, we had funded a project with Greater Good Studios, I don't know what they're like. They're a human-centered design firm that does kind of on the ground, almost anthropological research of various communities kind of across the health and human services sector. And we brought them into California in order to hear the aging experience from on the ground in three different communities. And then to host three different design sessions, getting the voices of older adults and family caregivers to the foray to again, garner more feedback in that process. So I think it doesn't necessarily respond directly to your kind of containment point, but we thought more was better. And what of course, you know, I think what's critical is that the themes are many of the themes of resonance that you all have articulated in terms of respect and equity and responsiveness. And those themes continue to emerge in unique and various ways. Thank you. One of the things, so we were meeting about H611 just before this, one of the things that we were struggling with was the expansiveness that Senator Lyons just spoke about and trying to figure out, you know, how narrow or broad H611 becomes is, but I think for me, I think helping to think about sort of a master plan concept, which I think is something that Representative Noyes and I have been thinking more about not with that language, but is helpful. It's a helpful framework for us. And I'm not, I don't know what we'll totally get to it in H611, but I think the other aspects of state government that impact on all of us as we age, like in transportation or housing and community development, things like that, they have aspects of what I heard you say are helpful to have in a master plan aging, but I think exactly you said we need to dig them up, elevate them, and have them be present and visible through this process of a master plan. So, because I know we have a lot of focus on those things and for my, maybe not sufficient, maybe not measurable enough, but I think that would help us to elevate those things. And we do need to work with the governor's office on messaging. We talk about that all the time. Thank you for your comment and if I may reflect a little bit on an experience for me inside California that I've been working in California on these topics for about 30 years now. And the master plan call has been this amazing stone soup exercise. If you think about the metaphor of the stone soup and communities who feel like I don't have anything to feed in my family or in my community and somebody puts forth a big pot of boiling water and puts a stone in the middle of it, you know, I'm glad I have fellow notters around that. And you know, and the carrots and the potatoes and the beef bone and the onion, preferably, that have come out of this process are things I've never seen before. There's data that, their data that were inside at the Department of Finance about aging trajectory and trends that I have never seen before. And my colleagues who've been in this business 10, 15 years longer than I have have never seen that data before because it sat inside the Department of Finance's office. And it's public data, but nobody knew that somebody had really thought about those pieces and analyzed them in that way. And they said, oh yeah, we'd love to present. And you know, it's the hand these slides over and I'm looking at these slides thinking this is so instructive for us to think about California's aging population. And that has happened over and over and over again simply by the call for a master plan for aging. The stuff that's inside of the public health department database that has connectivities to transforming systems of care for both healthy and vulnerable older adults. Again, never seen before until the pot of boiling water was put out in the middle of the community square. And so it's that value in addition to people working and collaborating in ways that frankly usually butt heads in the stakeholder community. And we are not seeing that at all because they all wanna make sure that their value and their perspective is inside the master plan. But this is not about setting up program streams. It's not about setting up service streams. It's about setting up the vision and the goals and the strategies across elements of public life in its biggest sense about where do we want our state to go and bringing information to bear on that. This is not about creating a budget stream. That's also very, very important for me to communicate that in terms of the master plan itself it will generate budget streams and consideration of service lines and connectivities beyond that or thinking about how do we use the budget that we already have allocated and down the road but it in and of itself is not about setting up a budget line or budget stream. So I just wanted to share that. So thank you. What is California like 50 times the population of Vermont? I can see advantages and disadvantages. Could you just comment on the differences in scale? Sure, I think 50 is probably conservative in terms of this. Yes, I mean, we lovingly call it the country of California sometimes inside of the state let alone the country of Los Angeles, a whole other aspect. And so I think in terms of an opportunity that comes out of that, that California is willing to set forth a vision about what does aging look like in the state over a 10 year period is tremendous and it's a huge endeavor to save the very least. And so, one thought is as well, if California is willing to put this kind of marker down we would hope that other states would as well. I think there is opportunity in one opportunity of a smaller state is but similar to California is all the major stakeholder players already know each other and that can be good and that can be challenging in different ways. I would also say that there are probably many stakeholders who have never thought about this, have never thought about what their work does in an aging context. And I don't know who they are here to call them out but I can just tell you that our effective Bureau of Economic Development, they didn't really think about aging necessarily that transportation has thought a lot about bullet trains and a lot about really massive scale infrastructure but that hasn't necessarily thought about how do we bring that to communities and the aging lens in those communities and you all have your same issues just like we do in that sense at a different scale. I think there probably could be something more challenging in a small state but in many ways I think you could probably get it done quicker because you have A, so much groundwork already done and B, it's probably about incorporating 10 to 15% of new players who haven't thought about this and you probably know who those players are in the big macro scheme of things or you could get to them as who are the top 10 players that are the advocates in other committees who never come to your committees and ask them what do you think about aging in your issue, whatever your issue is. And so, thank you. You mentioned the issue of data, the importance of data and I feel like one of the challenges that we're up against as a smaller state is aging IT infrastructure and the collection of data. And I'm just trying to underscore this everywhere we go that we're as good as the data we collect and I just, has that been a priority in California? I mean, obviously you're dealing with a whole different scale but I'm guessing that you're in agreement with that but I just like to talk more about the data piece. Very happy to. In many ways, we have incredibly challenging data IT infrastructure, measurability, information gathering, maybe different ways than Vermont has but challenging in its own right. We have something called the California Health Interview Survey and there is a paucity of aging questions inside of that and to add aging questions inside of that is very expensive for any given unit. So in many ways we have something that's really rich available to us yet we don't have any aging lens on that and so to add the aging lens is complicated and problematic and that's macro survey data as opposed to something that may be more delivery or site specific as well. And so part of the research subcommittees work is about making recommendations to the state, to the cabinet level work group about what do we really need to have and to know in that 10 year window for us to say how well are we doing and so I think what we feel incredibly encouraged by in terms of taking that widespread macro look at Vermont is the work that the team at Dale has done to create the Vermont scorecard so far has been incredibly resourceful of using information that you have in the state and information that is coming from outside sources like incorporating the long-term services and support scorecard measure in your scorecard measure needless to say, as we funded that product we were really thrilled that y'all used it. Like yay, it's being used. But to part of it is making recommendations about if we really wanna measure these things what do we need to do that? But this is also a place of looking at as creating a vision about what do you want the information set to be because my guess is that there are a number of private sector players in the state through healthcare delivery systems or health plans or other kinds of entities, transportation authorities that already have data systems and could add that one to two meaningful things that would really give you a lens into how well are they addressing the needs of an aging population from their vantage point. So I think this is that space of saying here's where we wanna go what can everyone bring to the table to make that happen again so it's not all landed here on state government you're setting the vision of success. So I actually moved here from California 40 years ago and I moved to a town of a thousand people and the thing that surprised that most surprised me was that government was all done by volunteers at that level whether it's school board, select board, everything. And so what that has meant on a practical level is that we use retirees because they are the people who have the time to do the job right. So to me that puts a really different lens on aging because I see our retirees as a resource in the state. Very much, I'd love that. Thank you for sharing that. And from that perspective of coming into the state it would be so awesome to have a master plan for aging that calls that out in the principle set very high up and very visible because it's that kind of nuance about what you're seeing here that should be cherished and celebrated at a state-wide, you know, physical level. So thank you. You talked about the, you were talking about a master plan and California, it sounds like it was made possible through ultimately an executive order. And then you referenced Massachusetts is doing that. Now is that emanating from an executive order or is that emanating from a department or agency or from legislation? That's a great example. I reached out with some executive order that started that. I just kind of dove into that really just the other day but I remember correctly I believe it was established through an executive order. I think at the end run we've seen many states move that to that place of an executive order and really pushing it forward and making a call. I would say that from in the Colorado instance in the Connecticut instance and in the Minnesota instance what we have seen were a lot of activity through the legislature to bring that visibility and really draw it up from people and stakeholders to get to that place. So I think different places, different entities go through kind of different processes and you all know what would work best here in Vermont but I think there is a place of that championing leadership and how that could come through on the legislative side would be wonderful and amazing. So it's sort of, it's a both end. I mean, in the sense that if it's an executive order it only lives as long necessarily as the executive in charge and if it's from the legislature and it's put in the green or white books it exists whether or not the people around this table are here or not. I think that's the most important piece of a master plan wherever it emanates from is that well different processes can catapult the development of it that it ultimately lives in its own and is codified shall you say in whatever way is the most appropriate inside of the state government for it to have life and it to have residents and to be visible and distributed and shared as particularly as each legislative session comes through and any type there is priority setting for the state in whatever way that it is called out, carried forth and visibly revisited. So it's saying, yep, we've called out our priorities and here's where they are. I wanna ask if there's any from the legislators, any final, any question, yeah. Thanks for coming in, it's very enlightening. I know how much work these people put in on this thing and I'm wondering, I think we could have a conversation in the committee about this and adding maybe something in this vehicle that we have now with setting up some kind of an infrastructure to get that done. But I don't think we can get into too much more than that but it would get it started and it would be, I love these one-liners, setting up, blah, blah, blah, then start working on it in the summer and go from there. I don't think we can jump into the water fully but I think we've got a vehicle where we could start something like this if the committee thought it was okay and because we don't wanna lose what we're doing now. You know what I mean? Thanks, Tom. You're welcome. Other questions or comments? There is this part of me that wants to, because you are here, if there is someone in the audience who would like to ask a question to take full advantage of it before they leave for the plane. I have a question. I'm Angelus McJane, I work at Dale. I worked and helped write the statement on aging and I was curious if any of the states that have developed a master plan or are building a master plan use their state plan on aging as the foundation for that and build it out from there or if it's a completely separate kind of a deal because the Old American State Plan on Aging, part of the dance we were doing was trying to create a vision but at the same time recognize we can only fund it to do this and this is what we're required to report around, right? So it's that question and I was curious what other states have done and how they tried to align these two, right? Sure, that's a wonderful question. And I think that's how, ultimately how this conversation got started was, it was a member of the legislature saying, tell us about the state plan on aging from your perspective. I will acknowledge that, well, I've not read every state's state plan on aging. I'm fairly clear that there are better and not so great plans and what I mean by not so great is that they need the letter of the law and are the accountability documents to the Old American Act funds in that way and yours is not. Yours is a really beautifully written document that puts the person very squarely in the center. It remains true to your funding source and meeting those objectives but those will be on that in terms of expressing values and continuity to the best of what you have to work with within the aspect of your office. And so I think there's an amazing opportunity to take the pieces that you have and truly lift them up and out because right now all of that is inside of one department and we see it as an opportunity to bring it up and move it further. I would say, I don't know the full history of Minnesota but I would, my guess is, if I were to put a nickel down, it would be that Minnesota recognized that they were doing all this work on their state plan on aging and it wasn't going as far as that they wanted it to be and they recognized the need to set forth deeper and longer standing values across things well beyond the funding streams that they had control of and they were able to get buy-in from other departments to say, let's build a plan that's with us but will be on us and that we can still address all of our AOA, the ACL, the Old Americans Act funding requirements and so that they did it in that evolutionary spirit. So kudos. First of all, good thanks. Monica. So first a comment and a question. I love that you were calling out the RDA work and the accountability work primarily because the immediate RDA is that it recognizes places where you can have a direct responsibility and a direct accountability but also recognize that places where you continue only to the goal and require other contributors and participants and so I think that that's really the strength of that mechanism and that's something that state government and the legislature has really stepped behind and is supportive of. So I think that's a great vehicle. My question is, when you were looking at the master plans on aging and the states that are doing those, do they correlate with states that have also sought the age-friendly state designation? So I'd say that there's a little bit crossover but not a ton of crossover. Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Colorado. Yeah, and Colorado. So with the age-friendly designation, there's the piece of work to pursue this. I commend it to pursue it versus the implementation. Right, and I would say when I was looking through it briefly, like Massachusetts has their plan but they started the master plan for aging and incorporated that into their, I think into forming their age-friendly. Is it like they kind of started or it might have been aligned? It's really a good way to work because I feel like the stage, the designation requires a planning process that I would imagine you would, because that's something that we've been exploring and so I'm just saying you're thinking, gosh, we've met recently with the ACCB which is an amazing entity. We've met recently in the transportation to make sure that we were to pursue this and they would be on board and they are very busy aspects. I think it's a really great kind of housekeeping that we see a lot of approval and that you get the message around that if you were to receive age-friendly state designation you get to say that and then the process by which you are working to get that designation and all the work that you've already done can actually have a whole floor relative to the plan. So it's like there are these aligned and parallel processes that aren't the same but they feed off of each other and they build that capacity in those relationships in order to get that kind of buy-in because they also believe for age-friendly designation you have to get a higher level letter to see a little approval, right? So that's a great way of championing across all of the leadership bodies. Here. Part of it for us is the leveraging, right? Yes. Because one of the dilemmas of a state that's the size of one of your towns is for three people in our state and non-aging. Right. So we really are trying to work smarter as well as for our towns. And that's a great expression of the opportunities for leveraging and bringing more people in the boat not to necessarily do Dale's work but to say there are bigger outcomes than just what we're moving for that meet the needs of a truly age-friendly university of Vermont. And that was Monica, commissioner. I'm sorry. I saw, I'm so sorry. No, that's all right because I think because A, not everyone may have known who you are and we are being filmed or on tape so that people know from the span from what you're doing. I saw another hand. Please introduce yourself and for whom you are speaking. Dale Hackett, consumer in Africa. So the San Juan Capistrano, Daytona Point, LA, Pasadena, Lake Ellesnore, Big Bear Lake. These are all very diverse areas, very different. You've got the San Juan Capistrano, but you've got the mission, you've got the Native American community, you've got the Latino community. How are you going to work with this with such the diversity of culture and then the layout, like, you've got the gated communities, but then you've got the sprawl of the farms at the same time. You go to Lake Ellesnore and you suddenly roll 3,500 feet up, you know, down at the town like they're coming into land but you're in a park. And it's a short clip. So Big Bear Lake, you again, switch into, I mean, you go far. So your question is, how are you dealing with diversity? Wonderful question and a great description of the Southern California landscape upon which I am from. And so what we see in that is already sparking, so what I'm about to share is a discretion's dream. It actually is happening throughout California is that there's a master plan for aging at the state level that sets forth goals and strategies and objectives and measurables and that that sets of template for counties, which are very powerful in our state, and cities to then do their own master plan for aging relative to the diversity and the experience that they bring to bear. And so instead of, because we have many cities who have gone for age-friendly city status and they got to the place where they got the stamp, right? And then, but they didn't have a lot necessarily underneath that to move that forward. So I think you brought a really great point earlier that connects with this question here is how that age-friendly is needed but not necessarily sufficient to transform the landscape for an aging population. We see that the master plan has a bigger vision point than that and an executable opportunity within that that then cities and counties can replicate that planning process for what does it look like on the ground and we're saying Ventura doing that at the county level, we're saying Los Angeles do that at the county level. San Diego's been on a journey for a long time and they're so excited that the state setting of frame so that their planning processes actually marry up nicely with what the state elements are. So we see it as an umbrella to then states that cities and counties can localize it in their own life. So thank you. And Gretchen and Megan, thank you. Thank you very much for being here. This is excellent information that's going to help Dale and it's also going to help the House Human Services Committee and the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. I think we're all very enthusiastic about trying to work on the master plan and do what we can to include some of the comments that you've made. It's been really helpful and we really appreciate your being here, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much and we are here and we're happy to keep you posted on what happens in California and other states and look forward to seeing where you all take this information. A wonderful day. Thank you very much. And House Human Services, could we be upstairs at 11? And Senate Health and Welfare will be downstairs at 11.