 Friday, May 8th, Government Operations Committee. And what we talked about, we're gonna do a couple of things today. We're going to talk about the EMS funding issue. And I sent out, were some pretty rough notes from our meeting the other day. Did everybody get those? And I think Gail posted them and sent them to Shayla and Drew and Nolan. And Betsy, do you have them? Okay. So did it get captured right? I mean, is that what we're doing, Brian? Yeah, from what I read, we're asking in essence for 1.5 million from the COVID fund. 500,000 for the training and a million for expenses or operational needs. Yeah. And did you get the, I forwarded to you the thing from Nolan about what's been forwarded already to them. And that looks like that isn't either a loan or a grant, but it's in, what do you call it, in anticipation of reimbursements. Is that right, Nolan? In perspective payments. Yeah. So that, whatever that is, that amount, 50,000 I think it was for everybody, means an additional amount that they're behind because they have to essentially eat whatever that much. Allison, did you have a question? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I thought that this was great. And you have just been productive like nobody's tomorrow. I'm very impressed in it. But the only thing missing, and I know it's a longer timeframe, so I'm sure that's why it's missing, is the training for the paramedics. And it all, it's... Hold on one second. The Lieutenant Governor's on the phone and I'm telling him I can't do it. David? I'm in a meeting, but my telephone answer isn't here, bye. I'm telling you she's so productive. That's to the point. Right, very productive. So just to go back, post the compliment on your productivity, which is impressive. The paramedics are not in here and I understand they have longer timeframe for the training, but I was just wondering if we wanted to do anything about that because my guess is there were some that are in the process that if we accelerated their completion, we'd get them into the field faster. Well, I know that was true for the EMTs, that there were about 200 in the... Right. At some point in the line, but I didn't include that in there because I thought that what we were talking about was right now the budget adjustment and COVID money and then would put that in the new request. Okay. We can change that. This is just- I don't wanna lose it. Yeah, what I sent was just a... And I think we have Dan with us and Nolan and I did see Drew at one point. He's here. Okay. And I don't know if... And I don't see Shayla, but Drew, Dan is here. So do people wanna comment on what... Drew, did you get a copy of that? Okay. It is posted on our website right now. And it asks for 500,000 for the EMT training. And it talks about how... Dan, did you get it? Do you have it? I did not get it yet, but I'm looking for it right now. If you... Gail, you put it on our website, right? I think it's on our website. I did put it on the website and I just sent both documents to Drew, Shayla and Dan. Okay, thank you. So... And it's kind of the... Justification for the 500 for training was because about 400 people are lost a year and I figured you need more and you are probably losing more this now because of people retiring, vulnerable populations, caring for sick family members, et cetera. And then... One million to go out to replace lost revenue. And I used... I justified that by using the 152,000 that rescue is in the hole. And if you multiply that even by 10 providers, that's 1.5 million. Right. All the other providers. So that was the justification, but I'm not wedded to any of that at all. So just everybody start chiming in. I thought it was actually conservative. I thought it was a little conservative given the amount that we know one provider is in the hole. So I think it's A, a little conservative and B, I just was curious if the department or anybody knows other than us, if it would be realistic to put in any money for training paramedics that were in the works, like the 200 that are in the works on EMTs. Dan or Drew, do you wanna? It's a little difficult to say the deficit of paramedics because there's a couple of reasons why it's difficult. The first is that we're short all the time. So there's sort of a general shortage of them. So we're already in the hole. And to say exactly what the optimal number of them would be is challenging. So that's the backdrop. The second piece is COVID-19 has affected them a little differently because their program is two years long. So they're able to shift to online resources and that program a lot better than EMT classes that are three or four months long are. But that said, this is certainly a problem for us. We lose a lot of paramedics every year to out of state programs when they have to go to New Hampshire and New York to take the program. We certainly know that there are paramedic needs, advanced life support needs at most of our full-time ambulance services and a good many of our part-time ambulance services as well. So I know this is a terrible answer, but it's just hard to put a final number on what that would mean. So you don't have a notion of how many are close to being done that if we could accelerate, they'd be done by the end of the year and we'd have them ready to go. I would imagine if you give me about five minutes, I could have that information for you. I'm gonna send a text right now. That would be great because I think that would be helpful. Okay, that's it. Did you have your hand up? I'll work on that in just a second. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And I realized that it is a very conservative figure and so we could easily put 2 million in there, 1.5 for the actual shortages, 500,000 for the EMT trainings and then whatever Dan has here that might come up for the paramedics. Yeah, and Jeanette, how many remind or maybe Drew Ken whoever, how many providers are there? How many rescue, I can't remember how many there are statewide. About 2,800. People. Oh, that's people. No, I'm not serviced themselves. There, I don't know how many there are in total because some are connected to towns and some are nonprofits, but we could get that number, but they wouldn't all have the same level of losses. Right, no, I appreciate that. It's just a great step in motion. Thank you Madam Chair. Yeah, Brian. Yes, thank you. That was my question was how representative is the 1.152K that rescue Inc is short. How representative is that number for the rest of them? And then I would say, we could figure out what the total number is. And I think it's probably a good idea to say it's probably closer to two for the whole thing. Drew, did you have some of that information for us? So after our meeting Tuesday, I think I did send a survey out through the Ambulance Association. So there are 82 transporting ambulance services in Vermont. We received information from 32 services. And as part of the questions we asked about the population that they serve so that we could get kind of an understanding of what percentage of Vermont. So the 32 services serve 300,000 residents. So about half of the state's EMS needs responded. And we asked about the losses that they had seen in the last six weeks, so through the end of April. And some of them were still unable to provide that information because of the way their accounting works. So we had to whittle that down to 20 services of all different sizes with just over 1.4 million in losses for that group. So that group represents about 36% of the state. So the estimate we're making is about 3.8 million in total losses for all the ambulance services. That group did receive. So back to that 1.3, $1.4 million number. We also asked them how much federal assistance they received through the HHS grant. That's money that they're not going to have to pay back. So they received $432,000. They also received $91,000 from the paycheck, I'm sorry, from the Medicaid retention money. But we know that that money is payments of future, so it doesn't really. Sorry, Drew, how much was that? $91,000 was a total number that services said they got from Medicaid retention. But pardon me for interrupting here, but I think we should just ignore that number because that number is going to mean loss. I mean, it's a go-ahead. So they're not going to be able to bill for $91,000 until they, right? Is that right, Nolan? Sorry, yeah, those are prospective payments, so they will be offset in the future. So I think we should ignore that number completely. So that group, again, once you take away what they've got in federal assistance, is just under $1 million for that group, which puts the, and Nolan's number. I thought you said 432,000. They received 432,000 in federal grants. So their losses were $1,382,000. Got it. Yeah, the losses were 1.4, I thought you said. Yeah, and then you take that 432 away. Yeah, got it. It represents 20. You said it represented 36% of the state. It does, yeah. So what we ended up doing because of the incomplete data, so there are some services that don't have the information. So the numbers that I just gave you, the 1,382,000, represents services that cover a population of 226,000 people. So it looks like if we assume that you're figuring based on the percentages and moving them forward, 3.8 million. And if we subtracted the 800,000 from that because there's 400,000 here from them and assuming that the others got approximately the same, we're talking about a short loss of $3 million. OK, so I was way, way off. So let's raise that to $3 million, with 500,000 for training. And then whatever Dan comes up, if there's a need for people who are paramedics who are in the system. That's better. Dan? Yes, I'm sorry. I just put it in the chat. There are currently 22 paramedic students in the BTC paramedic program. And they're anticipating 24 more in a cohort starting this fall. And do you know where the 22 are in terms of, do they have a year left? Yeah, so there's parts of two different cohorts in there. So there's one that has a little less than a year left. And there's one that has a little more than a year left. But so an average of a year. I would say so. I can give you a little bit more of a breakdown here in just a moment. And it costs $24,000. So it's $12,000 for each of those 22 students, right? Yes. And then for those who are going to start in the fall, if we could pay their first, even their first years, and then look at long term. Do we have a math whiz among us? Oh, Nolan is here. So 12,000 times 22 is 264,000. And I'm doing something else. So OK. And then half. So I come up with $558,000 for the paramedics. Does anybody else have a figure? What were the numbers again? Well, I figured the 22 students, some of them have a year and some of them have less than a year. So I figured an average of a year left, which is $12,000 for 22 students. And then 24 students in the fall. And I figured half of those. Oh no, that would be. Half would be 12 times 12, which we all know is what? 264. No, 12 times 12. Oh, 12 times. That's 144. Yes, we know that from math, right? That's a gross. Exactly. So I came up with 80408,000 for paramedics. This really is an exact science. Well, no, I wasn't following you. So you got 12 students at 12,000. That's 144. And then you're doing what else? Then I'm doing 22 students at 12,000. 22, OK. So it's just 34 times 12, basically. So it's 408. You're brilliant. That's exactly what I got. And me too. You don't need me then. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because I ran out of fingers and toes on that one. So it looks like we are looking at 3.5. Well, three. No, no, three, three plus five plus four. Yeah. 3.9. Is that what you said, Brian? No, I said 3.5. But I'll go with the 0.9. Well, I think that if we have five for the paramedic, I mean, five for the EMTs and four for the. Right. You end up at 3.9. So you might as well go to four. And I think we can justify those costs as COVID related. If we look at the three things, a lot of it happened during the emergency. They lost revenue. It isn't in any current budget. And it needs to be spent between March 1st and December 2020. Is that the three criteria? Yeah. Got it. All right. Somewhere. OK, so what does that sound like, committee? And Drew and Dan and whoever else is with us? Anthony. Sounds better than where we started. Your way to conservative first. I think it sounds good. And I think it is very justifiable. So there was some new guidance that came out. I don't know what they are about how the money can be spent to COVID money. And I haven't had a chance to review them yet. So that's one thing we should look at just to ensure. It goes beyond the three criteria. There's all kinds of stuff. So we'll have to take a look at that to make sure that it fits. Steve did notes for us yesterday in Senate economic development. He said it was fluid. Yeah, they put out two sets of guidance that feel restrictive. And I know our congressional delegation is pushing back on trying to get some of that guidance to be a little bit looser. So we'll have to look at that to make sure that this falls into that. And there may be creative ways to justify it. But if we, as a committee, send this request to the appropriations and ask that it be included in their request, they will have to figure out whether how. I think that they're the ultimate deciders of how it can be spent and where it can come from. Right. And they'll be experts on it by then, because the AG and other committees are looking to do similar stuff. And economic development. Everybody. Everybody is. Ask who. Have to find those criteria. All right. So it took us 23 minutes to get to $3.9 million. Do we want to go longer and come up with more? Maybe we should circle back to Drew and Dan and ask what have we forgotten. Right. So this is the call of what's already happened. And what I'm concerned about in the future is what's going to happen. Though we've seen a little bit of an increase in call volume here, and I've heard from some services that we've seen a little bit of a increase in call volume. It's not significant at this point. So this $3 million will certainly make a huge difference in the immediate future for ambulance services. As we kind of look more long-term, we're going to have to talk about long-term funding strategies in order to keep services up and running. It was something we were discussing before COVID, and certainly going to need to continue after. And I think that before I jump to Dan here, I think that we did talk a little bit about that the other day about if we could somehow convince Medicaid to pay for calls that aren't necessarily transport calls and that then private insurers might do. And Shayla talked about addressing the whole EMS system as part of the health care reform when we move from fee-for-service to other funding mechanisms. So I think that some of those are more long-term. But good things to be addressing. Dan? Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head in that all of the things we're discussing now are temporary fixes, and not that they're bad in any way. But I think when you look at the broad picture, sustainability is what we're really in need of. And that's a lot of things. That's long-term education, sustainability, long-term reimbursement modeling. All of those questions need to come into play and should be part of this broader discussion. And I think that we are beginning those discussions in this committee and in other committees about how we move from this crisis into something that might be a little more normal and then what we've learned that we should apply going forward. And I think so what we're going to do next on our agenda is talk about how we talk about that and what makes the most sense for us to be addressing. But I think you're right, we really need to address those. Chris? Yeah, so I appreciate what Dan was just saying. We talked about it a little bit yesterday. The concern I have, I'm all for, 101% behind more funding for EMS, which has been scrapped for years. And the only concern I have is sometimes when we get a dose of money in and we apply it to a problem, it becomes a one-time funding for an ongoing problem. And then we get into a sort of a roller coaster ride where people get a surge of funding. They try to ramp up, stand up more work, more training. And then there's not enough ongoing money to report it. And it sort of throws the system back and forth. And it's pretty disruptive and can be pretty demoralizing to people to go through that if we've done it before elsewhere. We did that with weatherization. We did a whole bunch of hiring and build out on weatherization. And then the money disappeared. And they had to lay people off. So I'm thinking of wanting to be in the office and trying to make sure that somehow we take advantage of this moment and also try to secure a pathway to steady ongoing funding. I think that's one of the things that we're going to address as we go forward with Nolan. So on that line, one area could be if you're doing a bill, you could require AHS to work with the MS Advisory Committee to come up with a plan to come up with some kind of capitated payment system, whether it's through the all-pair model or some other mechanism and provide some kind of feedback to the committee on what their progress is. Is that? Yeah, I think so. Because one of the things that we've been hearing in the other committees or the hospitals that have been losing money, they're feeling like they're getting capitated payments has helped them significantly in terms of the cash flow. So that might be a sustainability thing that the EMS Committee can work with the AHS director of health care reform on how do you come up with a similar system or include them in the systems we're doing. Yeah, I think that, oh. No, no, I've just, may I just ask, Jeanette, what does that mean? Nolan, I'm not sure. What does what mean? That's our capitated. Capitated means instead of fee-for-service, where you bill, get a payment, bill, get a payment. It's more perspective payment, where they look at how much money you would make over a period of time, and they give you a lump sum to manage that population. So it's right. Our whole health care system is moving away from that. And your guy in a Scutney was one of the people who was headed up the. Yeah, Joe Parris. Yeah. Who? Joe Parris. No, at a Scutney to the old guy. Slusky, Slusky. Richard Slusky. Yeah, Slusky. Slusky. Slusky, Richard Slusky. He's fabulous. He was the head of the committee that was working on that for a long time. I don't know if he still is or not. But that's what his capitated is. I think he's retired. But the one thing when they come up with those methodologies is they look at how much money has been spent over time. And one of the things that we've heard consistently is that EMS providers are not paid for non-transport. So you want to make sure that there's something in that methodology that counts some kind of. So that'd be part of the discussion so that maybe they start getting reimbursed for the work that they're doing. Or they get capitated payments that include the non-transport so that it could help. If it's designed correctly and thoughtfully done, it could help alleviate some of those issues. But that's beyond my pay grade. And I don't know that we are going to do a bill about more long-term things. Or if we're going to generate ideas of what could happen. And in some cases, people could start working on those earlier. But I think we can direct that by means other than legislation. Sometimes legislation actually bogs it down too much. For example, we did with the Ethics Commission to do a state code of ethics. And for the committee that wants to look at digitizing land records, we didn't do legislation. We just told them to get themselves together and figure it out and do it and come back in January with any needed legislation. And you could do something similar where you just maybe in the budget or something like that, where you just direct the director of health care to work with the EMS advisory committee to review possible ways of coming up with capitated payment. So you're not being too specific, but you're forcing them to have a conversation. Yeah, I wasn't even thinking of putting it in the budget bill, but just asking for ideas. Because if Chris Bray signs a letter, usually people pay attention to it. Chris, did you have a comment? Well, I just want to make sure I understand the capitated payment proposal. So are there systems out there currently that look at a population and realize that some percentage of those people are going to need EMS services? So that's just another piece of the overall budget that they build in. And it's not that any particular person is getting the service. It's that covering that population, they allocate a block grant for every 100,000 people you need $100 million worth of EMS. I don't know what the ratio is. So the way that the all-payer model works and the ACO works is they have attributed lives and get a capitated payment for those each attributed to lives. So there could be similar methodologies. A lot of feet, what I'll say is when they did it for all the other services, a lot of thought and effort went into it with a lot of stakeholder input. So I think that if they were to have those conversations, I think that that would be part of a bigger conversation. Well, great. The reason it seems odd to me that we have EMS in this predicament is that I think in rough numbers, the state budgets about $6 billion and health care spending all in is like $6 billion. So it's a tremendous amount of money that's moving around. And then we have, I just feel like EMS is left as sort of a poor stepchild. Even though we talk about them as hospital extenders, for instance, the eyes and ears of the physician in the field, all sorts of things, you know? So. Right, that's a very recent, I think that's a very recent conversation. I think that there are still people who are stuck into the thought that the EMS is a transportation system. And clearly, we consider it a transportation system since we only reimburse for transportation. Right, so when I was a student of Pat Malone's taking my EMTB class at UVM in the late 90s, we talked about it this very same way. You know, you operate under an ER docs license, you were extending the reach of the hospital, things like that. So it seems like we're slow to catch up here. I don't get it. I'm feeling so relieved that we have an EMS trained person by Pat Malone in our committee. I mean, anything can happen now. I could put a Band-Aid on you probably still. Via Zoom. Virtually? Well, I mean, obviously not when we're operating now, but when we get together again, I'm much relieved. Yeah, well, I would love to help, but let's not have any need. That would be the best. You were so much in your brain. If I can say that you are right, but it was the internal community that was looking at it that way, the external community, meaning all of the rest of us in the world, I don't think saw it that way. And my guess is that if you, and in fact, my understanding is that there are still hospitals who do not think of their ambulance services as extenders of them and don't particularly treat them with the respect that they deserve. So I think that it's an, I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that like, when you were talking about it in that class, it was the choir talking to the choir. And that now we need to make sure that the rest of us in the congregation actually get the message. And I was, the training was right at UVM. So it could have been that they were into that model ahead of some other places in the state, I don't know. Dan. Thank you. I think you've hit it exactly correct here. This is exactly the conversation that needs to be happening. And I think we're very fortunate that this committee is among the initiates of this conversation, because I don't think very many people understand this at all. I don't think the average person, the average citizen, the average taxpayer understands how EMS has performed, how they're reimbursed or any of that. And we've been working with the advisory committee and that's been a goal of ours together to try to educate better and to try to inform our stakeholders of the real challenges that are out there. But look no further than the COVID-19 response to see exactly how EMS plays a role in the public health world. Tomorrow morning, there's going to be 20 EMS providers in Colchester collecting specimens and doing COVID-19 testing. That's not in any EMS textbook. That's not in any prescribed scope of practice on the national level. That's us mobilizing this very important resource right here right now. And by the way, also having to come up with some very creative ways to pay them for their time. But nonetheless, and agencies couldn't wait to step up and help us. So I think this is exactly the kind of conversation that we should be having as we look forward. Good, thank you. So I'm going to write up a request to appropriations for 3.9 million to be put into the Budget Adjustment Act to come from wherever. And they may decide that some of it should come from, I mean, that's up to them to decide where it comes from. We're going to relate it to the COVID-19 crisis. And it's gonna be 3 million for their lost revenues up to this point. And I'll define that a little bit more. And then 500,000 for the training of EMTs and the 400,000 for the training of paramedics. And I'll break that down into the ones that are currently there and the ones that they expect in the fall. And I'll send it to everybody first, just so that I get it right. Great. Is that okay? I'm gonna ask a question for ourselves ahead of time. Maybe the approach doesn't ask this question or not, but I'm a little concerned that someone might say of the 900,000 in training money, well, how is this different than the training expenses from a current year? So to what degree is any of the training dollars attributable to COVID? I'm not trying to whittle that down. I'm just trying to anticipate a question that could come back. If someone said training, they had extra losses because the people didn't want the exposure, so they lost more people. So they have to train more replacements and ordinary. That seems pretty straightforward. But to lay it all in as COVID-based funding, I'm at a bit of a loss to come up with a sound argument for that. I'm not sure that I can directly answer that. We had $844,000 request in before. So they may decide that they're going to request 200,000 of it from the COVID and put the rest of it into just a budget adjustment. I don't think that we're saying all of this money has to come from the COVID, the CARES funds, but I think we can justify it as being related to that. It wasn't in any budget. It hadn't been passed in any budget. It did happen during the emergency, most of it. And those people in the pipeline are, some of them are stuck there because of the emergency. I'll send it out and then you can add to it or try and justify it more. Well, sure. And maybe I misunderstood a little. I just don't want to sort of getting caught off guard when approach calls you in and you have to justify anything. Wanted us to be sort of ready for what the questions we would get. So, and just to refresh my memory. So you're saying the prior to COVID, the request would have been 750 anyway. So it's only gone from 750 to nine. Is that basically the only change since eight weeks ago? Well, it was a little, it was 477 and four, but then it turns out that the 477 wasn't actually really there anyway. So it was a, that number was a little fluid in itself. Yeah. Okay, great. And just so that you know, when, if I have to go to appropriations to defend it, I won't have to sit in that little chair and feel like a supplicant because I can sit in my own chair here. Yeah. You mean the special chair they have in there that's two inches lower than everyone else's chair? Yes. Yeah. I know the first, the first thing I do when I go to testifying approach is to take about four of their books off the shelf. Put it on top of the chair. Big hint guys, get a proper chair. Well, it's a little bit nerve wracking, but anyway, we won't, we won't talk about that because the world is watching. You mean our colleagues turned into inquisitors? You find that one? No. Okay. Anything else on this right now? And then we are going to talk now. We're going to shift a little bit here and talk about how we're going to talk about what we've learned and stuff. And I want to hear from Brian and Anthony about what happened this morning in their groups and where we are and what we think we're doing. And I think I sent out a note. So I, somebody just went away. It was Senator Bray. So we're going to shift gears here a little bit now. I will send this out and I will copy Dan and Drew and Shayla, even though she isn't with us, I'll copy her also and Nolan and then the committee members. Yes, Brian. Would you copy Jim Finger too, please? Yes, I will. Okay. Yep. And then those Drew and Dan, they should feel free to share it with other people also to make sure that the draft is really what we want to say. Okay. Alice. Are Drew and Dan still with us? Yes. Can't you see them? No. I have it set so that only whoever's speaking, I get to see. So I've had plenty of time seeing Drew and Dan. I just, I'm looking at you now. I guess my question before they leave is, I would like to ask them to think about the questions we're going to be discussing and ask them if they have thoughts on lessons learned and or on transitions. Some of these questions in this subject area, if they had thoughts on them and if they would like to share them over in the next few days, if they would get them back to us. Well, the way I thought we would organize this is we would have our discussion now and bring up the topics that we want to address. We would then, some of the topics are going to be EMS, law enforcement, municipal issues. And then we would set a time to have the conversation with the stakeholders in that area to come to us instead of just having, so that we can just kind of have round table discussions on them and share ideas back and forth. Does that make sense? So we will have a day when we talk about lessons learned for EMS and that would be the, I mean, they can certainly think about them before then but we'll have that conversation. Got it. Okay, thank you. Okay, let us shift here a little bit now. And I thank you, thank you, thank you so much and I'm so glad we had this conversation because it helped me focus a little more and we're going to ask for that money. Thank you very much. You're welcome Drew, thank you. And thank you guys for all you do. Betsy, are you leaving us? Or are you just saying goodbye to Drew? I was saying bye to Drew. Okay, bye Dan. Bye bye, thanks. Bye. Thank you. Okay, so I had thought that we could just do some, have some conversations about where we are. First of all, Anthony and Brian, do you wanna tell us kind of what happened this morning in your groups or subgroups or whatever they were? Well, I'll go first because my report is very short. We didn't have a subgroup meeting, we don't have one till Tuesday. Thank you. Tuesday at 8.30. I thank you, Alison. Isn't that when it is? Yes, I didn't know you were keeping track for me. I'm on it with you. I mean, we're out of the nine person group. I'm in a subgroup first with Senators Pierson and Perchley. And then after the floor, we're gonna do a bigger one, I guess. And did you figure out your marching orders and what you're doing actually? And just for, I don't think Chris and Alison were with us when I kind of half apologized for sending out a snarky email yesterday. But I, that's the way I felt, so. I didn't think it was too snarky. No, I didn't either. It was fine. So if you would answer your question, Madam Chair, yesterday we are gonna be charged with judicial matters, if you will, agriculture, natural resources and transportation. So each of the three of us took one of those categories and that's why I asked you if you could funnel back anything that happened in judiciary so I could make a report and again, I'm struggling because I don't know exactly how that's gonna help us, but that's what we were asked to do. But I guess what I don't understand is, I mean, there are probably 50 or 100 things in judiciary that dealt with the judicial system itself with the public defenders, with the bar association, with corrections. And I don't know how to, are we supposed to, I'm confused about what it is that is doing. I am as well, I guess. Okay. Anthony, I hope you have a better. My report is similar to, similar to Brian's. We met this morning. We were scheduled to meet for two hours. We met for about a half hour. The team leaders had sent out a thing called the chairs, as you know, Jeanette. I know I sent an email back. Did you talk about my email? No, we didn't talk about any of them because we hadn't gotten them all back yet. So they were going to summarize what they got back from the chairs. We didn't break into subcommittees yet because they, they, we just didn't, I don't know why, exactly why. We decided to meet again Monday at noon. And there was a little bit of discussion. I brought up the idea about. Wouldn't it be better if sitting commit committees, just did this work instead, but. Some people chimed in and explained why it was better to do it through the task forces. And I can't really explain what the, I can't, I can't really explain it, but they, they justified it in some way that we're, we're here to gather the big picture or something like that. I really didn't get it to tell you how it's true. I just have some real concerns about that because just, just what we were talking about with EMS. I mean, there are some very specific long-term things here that I think that we should be addressing around EMS. Are we supposed to pass all of those ideas on to. To you. And then you're going to pass them back to us to deal with. I'm not sure. I don't know. Okay. The only thing that makes sense to me about the groups in a way compared to doing it committee by committee is that when you do have people across multiple committees and areas of jurisdiction, there could be some, you know, synergies and thinking like, oh, something you learn from economic development areas over to judiciary and that kind of jazz. And if we're working silo by silo committee by committee, you might miss the opportunity to have that exchange. I think that was part of what's behind doing it this way. The whole thing is supposed to only last about two weeks. And we've already gone through almost a week. So what you're saying makes sense, Chris, but given the fact that we're under this time constraint, I'm not sure how much of that we can actually make happen. Alison. Like how are you going to learn enough fast enough to have the conversation. Right. And then make a decision and what, what the highlight or not to highlight. Right. Alison. Two things. Gail has a question for us. And then I would like to say something. Okay. Gail. Just please let me know when you'd like to let. Finish the live stream portion of this. Oh, no, this is fine. Okay. I just, because we need to make an announcement when we do turn off the live stream. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, no, I think that this is. A committee discussion that we would normally have. And. It's fine for us to. Be floundering. And people to know that we're not always. Always exactly sure of ourselves. So Alison. So I think that it's a little ass backwards. I do think. That the committee should begin this conversation. And then Chris, I think you're absolutely right. It would be very valuable. To share what we have learned. In. In a kind of cross-pollination. I completely agree. That's great. But I think it makes no sense for people. To be identifying lessons learned. In subject areas. They aren't. Versed it. So. Lessons. Yeah. And so I really think this, this discussion has to start in the committees. And then we can, can do the cross-pollination. In the task forces, I think. Yes. I think that's right. So. The thing that occurs to me. Sorry. What Chris. I was just going to say, it also feels timing wise. Like we're in the, you know, maybe the eye of the storm. Right? So. Yeah. There's a lot more to come. It'd be great to capture lessons learned at the moment, but I also have the feeling we have months of learning ahead too. Exactly. Exactly. So the only thing. That I was asked from this committee. Is. How by the group. Those are called groups, right? As opposed to committees. So. They're called task force. Okay. The only thing I was asked. Was. If towns don't collect their taxes, how will they make their obligations to the state? That was, that was the. That was the only question. For. That seemed important from our committee. So I. You read my, I copied you on the email to. To the group. And said that they would have to deal with it like. And I assume they're talking about the Ed fund here. But they'd have to deal with it like. Everybody else is going to have to deal with their shortfalls. Figure out how to borrow it or anything else. I mean, I. So anyway. So given. Given. That what we seem to think. Here, what I would like to do is. Have a conversation right now about. What are the areas that we should. Address. I kind of thought that it went into three. Buckets. One would be. How, how do we make the. In some areas, it's going to be much harder to make a transition. I'm not sure that ours. Our committee is going to have a lot of that, but it might, but I. One of the. Areas where I know that there's going to be a huge issue around transitions is in the judiciary. Because they haven't been taking any cases. And when they hit. When they open up again, they are going to have. A bazillion and how do they do that? So, but that's not our committee's concern. So one is the transitions. One is. Short term. No, how do we. How do we. Put things into place. So that if we're caught. Here in this situation again in November or in. March or whatever month it is. We have systems in place. That allow us to. Not have to scramble like we had to this year. And then the third bucket is. What are the lessons that. We learned that can be. Can become part of our standard operations. Instead of just short term. I mean, there are some of the short term things we learned that. Even like the AMS thing. So those three kind of issues. And then I thought that. We have. Various. Topic areas. We have law enforcement. We have EMS. We have elections. We have state employees. We have. The military, but I don't know that we need to deal with that much. We have. We have municipalities. What? Just on the military. I mean, we've had in Senate economic development, we've had discussions about why aren't we employing our national guard more effectively during this COVID crisis. I mean. So, I mean, actually I think military in terms of your second bullet, which is how do we ensure that we have another similar, if we have another similar emergency, we'll be in a better position to respond. I think a whole conversation needs to be with. Greg Knight about how can we more effectively use the national. Yeah, we could have, we could have that conversation. One of the things that I fear is that. The national guard, most of them already have other jobs. So you would be. So you would be taking them from their other jobs to deploy them. To be helping with the. And some of them that might. I mean, we did see it at the beginning. That they took some EMS people. Yeah. Very EMS jobs. Right. But very few. And with a third of our workforce now unemployed, you can guarantee that a third of the national guard are probably. Have some time on the hands. They might. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good. That's a good. Suggestion. We could have that conversation. But anyway, so how do you want to do this? Brian, did you have your hand up? No. Oh, I thought I saw. Okay. No, I was going to add municipalities, but you. You capture that. And that's where we spent. A great majority of our time, I think. Well, and I think that's because that was so immediate. And, and their statutes are so confining. In terms of how they can meet and stuff. Yeah, but the interesting thing about the municipalities though, it's also the things that we had allowed them to do in an emergency. We'd want to maybe say, well, next emergency, these things will automatically kick in. But the thing is a lot of what we're asking them, letting them do now are things we don't want them to do. You know, in other words, like we can potentially weaken the open meeting laws that. I don't know. Weakens out the right way. Yeah. But we don't want them to do, you know, in other words, like we can potentially weaken the open meeting laws. I don't know. Weakens out the right word, but make changes to the open meeting laws and notice, notice requirements, things of that sort. I'm not so sure it's an interesting dilemma. Cause they need to do it during an emergency, but we don't want to, we don't want to bake that into every day. Every day. Well, but, you know, I think actually more people in some of these zoom select board meetings, they're more people are attending than ever do in person. So in, in some ways it's been a huge engagement opportunity. This pandemic. A, people have more time on their hands and B, they're engaging with their local government in ways. I mean, we have members come to our zoom meetings, our parks commission meetings that I've never seen before, which is great. But, but before the, before the pandemic, I think it's a positive thing. I think it's a positive thing. I think it's a positive thing. I think they would not have been able to do zoom meetings. Is that a yes. What they have been able to do. They could have, but they didn't. Well, I think the one way we can look at it is we could allow them to do zoom meetings are not going forward. Anybody that wants to zoom meetings can, if they think it's a positive thing. So when an emergency comes, they're already doing it. They don't have to like, we don't have to pass a lot of let them do it. I think that there's. That we don't. I think it's a positive thing. I think it's a positive thing. We didn't allow them to use. Zoom meetings. What we did around the open meeting law is said, they didn't have to have a physical location. I'm not sure that we want to do away with that permanently, but there might be changes around municipalities that. We could allow more flexibility in the way they do things. And I did this, but. I don't want to get into the details today. About what the things are that we should, or shouldn't be changing in our system, but rather figure out how the process of how we're going to do this. And what I was thinking was that we would have those three kinds of. I call them buckets. I don't even know what they should be called. Areas. I heard somebody say something. There are three areas that we need to keep track of. Right. And that we would could take. The stakeholders. In, in each of these then. Topic areas. Like law and justice. I don't know what they should be called. Areas. I heard somebody say something. There are three areas that we need to keep track of. Areas. I don't know what they should be called. I don't know what they should be called. Like law enforcement, EMS, elections, municipalities, the middle military, state employees. And have a conversation with those stakeholders about. What it was, how they see. Our response to this and what. They might suggest. We can. Change permanently. I don't know what they should be called. I don't know what they should be called in this with our pants down again next time. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. Yes. So. How do we want to divide it up then? I mean, I think that. The only other thing. I believe that we have to do Betsy. If I'm right. Is. Betsy and everybody else is. I don't know what's left of S. 124 to see if there's anything in there. Cause I think there's some things around the academy that we need to, that we should get past. And I would, and we'll hear the whatever. Amendments. Jen and Betsy come up with around the. The medical practice board. And are there other, well, we have those two. Charter changes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's left of it. I believe so. And then there's just the one technical correction about. EMS regulation. When we passed S182, there was that one part. I talked about licensure by endorsement. I just let some care know about that. But not the rest of the committee, but there's one area for correction. When we. When we passed the licensure. And I drafted a. The language regarding credentialing, there was one part where it could have been clarified better. So that would be a potential amendment to S233. That would be, and you're going to amend to S233 anyway. To make sure that it conforms to what's happening with the board of medical practice bill H4 38. That's what Jen and I are working on. So, but we, so we would just hear that amendment. Okay. Okay. So I think that's the. That's what we have left to do, right? Is the, just those things. And the OPR bill. Well, we don't have to do that. We've, we're done with that. Yes. You're right. I would assume that when we passed, what we did pass as 233 and you were the reporter. So. Right. You then can report those amendments also. Yeah. Okay. But then, so I think that's the. That's what we have left to do, right? Yes, you're right. It's incentive finance. It's in finance. But, but, but I think that's the end's point is a good one, which is we have bills that are still not out of the Senate. That we still want to make that, that we need to shepherd. And, um, and, uh, be like little sheep dogs on them, you know, make sure they happen. So. Yes, I am, I am doing that. I know. But our committee doesn't have to do anything about that. We just have to make sure that. That. Or 233, except for the amendment. Right. And then one 24, we should go through the. Yeah. What's left. And whatever the sunset bill is going to be. Yeah. Oh, right. The, the boards and commissions. No sun. This is repealing sunsets that will happen on July. But that's because of our inability to function. So, um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the usual manner. Right. Really should be repealed so that they don't sunset. Quick. And, and. Where is our boards and commissions bill? I forgot. Is it in the house? Yeah. But we're not going to deal with that this year. That isn't. So we have that. And then we have the OPS to. To 20 as the OPR bill, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Appropriations. I think it's also in finance. Okay. That's two twenties OPR bill. Uh, as two 33 is uniform. Licensing. And then the other one is. Oh, the nurse licensure. So that wasn't this committee, but that's also. Yeah. No, that's not us. No, we just have the charter changes, but we're not going to deal with that. I don't know. I don't know anything about the auditor. Well, he would like it, but I. H793. Yes. He would like it. But it isn't. That's the rules committee is going to have to decide how important that is. Um, to pass this year, or if it can wait till January. And it can probably pass quickly in January. Right. But what this committee needs is bills that they would like to pass. And the rules committee wants to be really careful about making sure we don't overload ourselves on the floor. Do you? Have you had a conversation with dog about why it's timely? Why he wants. Well, he's, he's been wanting these changes for quite some time. I understand that. But do you, have you had a conversation with, with him since. if it was a must pass or if it was a would like this to pass and he defined it as a little bit stronger than would like this to pass but not a must. Yeah, I sent I sent to everybody the bills that affected them and the treasurer's office they don't need theirs. Okay, so we if we're going to if this lessons learned and transitions thing is timely and I assume that you're talking about the he wants his done by May 22nd. Correct. Is that yes. I mean that's two weeks. We have two weeks beginning on Monday. No, we have we have the overall commit the task forces have two weeks. Right. My guess is that deadline was very fluid and particularly if we give them feedback that maybe it's a two step process. Maybe it starts in the committees and then goes to the task force. If that's the case, I would want to have the task forces have some extra time. Well, we're going to assume that that's the way we're going to do it. We're going to we're going to start these conversations and give it to people if the task forces want to go off on their own and do things. That's okay too. But we're we need to have the conversations in this committee, I believe. Anthony, you look like you're in witness protection. I can't. Brian. I'll move into the light. I'm curious whether anyone from I'm curious whether anyone from the rock ballant side. That's me. Okay, has has approached anybody from this committee to become informed on government operations issues. I'm an embedded person. Oh, so they've already said, Allison, you'll be the one that brings this to us. No, we have not had as formal a conversation as you have had yet. We have not yet met in our little subgroup. Okay, then I'm still just totally confused. I have to say that the depth of conversation that's going to happen in the next two weeks with these subgroups and groups is pretty, what's the word I want to use? Intense. No, I think it's pretty surfaced. Are you trying to say superficial? Yes. Well, even there, we're going to spend all weekend working. Okay, so let's let's us do what we're going to do. Okay, okay. We are going to. May I just update Brian? I just have to say to Brian, we only met as a nine some on Tuesday afternoon at 430. At that point, you were put on the other group. You weren't there and you got put on that group three. Yeah, I didn't even know that you guys had met. We aren't meeting until Tuesday morning at 830, my little group, or maybe all of us. I don't know whether it's my little group or all nine of us. So I love it. I love it. Oh my God. The organizational team is getting so high. I'll just have to remind us all that when I asked the pro tem about how this worked. He said the groups, the task force, would then bring proposals back to the committees of jurisdiction. Right. Yeah. And I think that's it's fast back sending something that we then see back just so you. Yeah, I know. Well, we're going to, we're going to do our process and Brian and Anthony and Allison can feed it to their committees and then they can feed it back to us. So what I'm going to suggest is we Allison, you can't meet on Wednesday. Is that true? I can't, sadly, Wednesday afternoon. I just sadly have assumed we worked on our Tuesday, Thursday, Friday schedule. I know, but Thursday, we're on the floor. But we don't know that. I mean, we have not, I've not gotten an email from Vanessa. I have got he announced it the other day. Only Tuesday, Tuesday at 9 30. There was no discussion. And Vanessa hasn't booked that with us. Maybe it was at the chair. Maybe I think we sent out to all the he sent out to all the chairs asking us when we would like to meet. And when we would like to have a second weekly set floor session. And in terms of our committee meetings. And if everybody agreed that the second floor session should be Thursdays at one, that was the majority vote. So we cannot meet Thursdays at one. Could we meet after that? Well, I don't imagine they'll take very long, but if we start getting into, into longer bills, just for next week, could we meet? And then I would know that for the following week. Could we meet on Thursday after the four? Just for next, I can't do it next Thursday afternoon. I'm not saying you should not meet as a committee, but I actually have to go to it. I have to go physically to a doctor's office. It was just kind of frightening in its own respect that I'm going to be up there Thursday afternoon. So I won't be in, I doubt I'll be around Thursday afternoon. Okay. So then let's let's not say you shouldn't meet without me. I'm just saying I won't be there. No, I would rather, I would rather we all were there. So could we meet Monday, Tuesday and Friday? Sure. Oh, next week, Allison. Yeah. I think so. Monday, it fits in the afternoon. Yeah, the afternoon I have at Monday, Wednesday, Friday, next week. But that's all I'm going to ask for, sit noon. Yeah. And then we can meet Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon. And what did you say, Jen? Friday? Friday? Yeah, that would work for me. Okay. I can do Tuesday, Friday and Monday. I feel like I have like 88 things planned, but nothing is in my book. Brian, are we meeting on Monday? I've gotten no email about that. You mean you and I? No, our Lessons Learned group. No, Tuesday. Okay. So our, our, our Transition Committee's meeting is new on Monday. I don't know how long we'll meet for. It's only for 10 minutes last time. Reminding me of foods on first. It's not funny. Can we meet Monday, Tuesday, and Friday at one? Brian, yes. Chris, yes. Anthony? I'm not sure about Monday at one. I get, I feel more comfortable saying 1.30 or something like that. Well, let's do 1.30 because then if you're, if your group goes longer, it'll give you time to make up your little break. Right. On Monday, 1.30. Yeah. Allison, does that work? I think, I'm, I'm sort of feeling, uh, yes. And let's just do it. Okay. And you'll just have to tell all those other. One of the 87 other things. Well, you'll have to decline. Right. Or, or it's like town meeting. They can all assume you're someplace else. That's why you're not with them. No, we're doing a virtual interview with our television, you know, local access. And I can't remember what time that is. Well, anyway, you'll have to change it or they can record this, our meeting. Or they can do the following Monday. So, 1.30 to 3.30? Yes. Monday and then Tuesday and Friday. Right. And let, let's start since we spend most of the time on municipal issues, let's start with that. Okay. But Tuesday and Friday will be one to three. Yes. Not 1.30. Right. Yes. Let's, can we start with municipal issues? Yes. Sure. So we'll make sure that we get the clerks, the league, anybody who wants to join us for that conversation. Because that would be around open meetings and decision making and all of those kinds of things. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. And do we, should we devote an hour to that? Yeah, let's just start with, yeah, let's start. Okay. So let's do that. Yes. On municipal things. The other thing that I've noticed that we're dealing with, it came up in Senate natural as well, our certifications, licensures, you know, so it came up with wastewater and clean water drinking facilities. So I don't know exactly where it fits in that group of municipal concerns, but there are timelines that have been getting interrupted and we've had to do extension. I guess that's why I would call in general extensions required. Well, I think that what I'd like to do on that one is, and I forgot to put it on here, I think I put it in the email, but another issue is the whole OPR, the licensing and we do that and certifications and all of that, that a whole different topic. So maybe we should do, what? I was saying some are municipal and others are not, right. Right. So maybe we should do municipals from 130 to 230 and at 230 have a conversation with licensed OPR and because they might overlap a little bit. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, so that's Monday. And then Tuesday, let's do... Can I add one thing to that OPR thing just so I don't forget? In addition to license, well, some of it was that their training in CLE got interrupted. Oh, right. That's right. Yeah, I think that would all be under there, but we'll make note of it. And maybe Tuesday we could discuss elections because we've learned some things with elections. That's full of options. Sorry, while we're on elections, has anybody heard anything new about anything? No. No. Okay, so let's, on Tuesday, let's do elections from one to two and military from two to 230 and look at the charters at 230. Okay. The two charters. That won't take very long. That might take us 15 minutes to do those two charters. Can we do that? Yeah, get those done. Okay. And then Wednesday, let's do... What's the military on Wednesday? Is that National Guard or what? Yeah. That's lessons learned in transitions. Okay. Yeah, we'll send, I'll send you the kind of invite, Gail, so that they, but it would be Greg Knight. Okay. Great. Yep. And then Wednesday, let's do... Alison, did you say anything? No, it just occurred to me that DPS would be a good one to add too. When you talk about law enforcement, maybe we can, anyway, we could do them another day. Well, we haven't come to law enforcement. Yeah, right. Got it. Got it. So I was thinking that Wednesday we could do law enforcement and we could walk through the remainder of... We're not doing Wednesday. We're doing Friday. I mean, Thursday. Friday, Friday. I mean, Friday. I mean, I love you all. Every day, really, enough already. Friday. Friday. We'll do law enforcement and EMS. Yep. And on law enforcement, I'd make sure we get the Matt Birmingham. Well, yes, he will come. And local, like local chief of police people. Yeah, we'll inform... Gail has kind of a usual suspects list. Right. And so it would be the sheriffs and the chiefs... Constables. Don't forget the constables. Constables. And then maybe instead of doing... Trying to do a walkthrough of what's left of 124, Betsy, if we can pull out anything from 124 that relates to law enforcement and fold it into that conversation. Does that work? Okay. And I think I actually had a summary of the law enforcement provisions. You did. I'll send that back out, too. Okay. Okay. So we'll do law enforcement and EMS on Friday. And then the next week we'll tackle state employees and the bills that we have left and gel all of our wonderful thoughts on these issues. Does that work? Yeah. Okay. And we can vote on adjournment. Can we get to June? What? Does this mean we're not meeting into June? Yes. I have no idea what it means. It just means we're trying to get this done by May 22nd. Okay. No, not every... Are you saying, Allison, that we're trying to get everything done by May 22nd? No. We're trying to get this work done to suit the task force's work in the May 27th. Yeah. I'm not even going to worry about the task forces. We're going to spend the appropriate time that we think we need on what these issues are. I hate to be a rebel, but... But you're having a cause. Thank you. But I don't have a leather jacket. Not yet. You don't know what we're getting you for being scared this year. Yeah. It's a light birthday present. Yeah. An old bomber jacket, leather bomber jacket. I can see you shuffling manure with that. Okay. So... With a sidecar. Do we need to do more today? Oh, heavens, no. So thank you. I think we were very productive around the EMS funding thing. Thank you. I thought that was terrific. And I hope hopefully it will make a huge difference. So I will write it up. I will send it to you and to the four people that we talked about and we'll see if there are any comments. And Chris, feel free to defend it more around the COVID-19. I mean, everybody should feel free to put their thoughts on it, because when I write something, I'm very rarely wedded to it. Hey. If we're done, may I just bookmark Chris Bray for a call? May I call you instantly after we're done here? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. All right. So I think we're done for today. Everybody have a great weekend. Yes. Thank you. So I think we're off live now, right?