 Welcome, Jeffrey Bennett. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thank you. No pressure leading off, right? So we know that incentives matter. That's an easy economic principle to understand. What's harder to understand and predict are the unanticipated impacts, and that's where I spent a lot of time asking students to reflect. And so I'm curious when creating this proposal where any unanticipated impacts considered. For example, what will happen to local school budgets when the most experienced, the most veteran and the most expensive teachers stay on in many cases for an extra 10 years in order to receive full retirement benefits. Here's a snapshot of unanticipated impacts from some of my teacher colleagues. Aaron Barenberg is a fourth grade teacher at Orchard for 13 years. This job is mentally, physically and emotionally taxing and you are asking us to give more years to get paid less. This proposal requires me to work at least seven more years from our current plan. I'm in my 13th year of teaching fourth grade, and I'm often exhausted at the end of the day. I can't imagine having enough energy at 67. Leah, a special educator for grade six since 1998. As a single income household my teaching salary barely keeps me financially afloat. In fact, I have worked at least one and sometimes two extra jobs to support myself and my family. I cannot afford to pay any more out of my paycheck and expect to survive. I fail to understand how this proposal will attract and retain teachers to the state of Vermont. Teresa Akely, a high school science teacher for 16 years with advanced degrees and enough credit hours for a PhD. Teachers were in the same position in 2010 during my fifth year of teaching. Here we are again in my 16th year of teaching. If you don't scrap this plan and figure out how to fully fund teacher pensions you will likely lose me and many other good teachers. You all have an opportunity here to keep good teachers in Vermont. Don't fumble it. On the bottom line this proposal is not a solution. It's a scapegoat. It fails to create a real sustainability because the only new revenue stream is asking teachers and state employees to pay more, which we already did a decade ago. You need to find a dedicated revenue stream like Senate bill s 59 and you need to let us retire with the rule of 90. Everything else is a distraction, a sucker punch to teachers and state employees and an application of the state's responsibility and promise. Thank you. Next up is Janet Chandler and on deck Andrew Lemieux. Welcome Janet. Hi. Nice to see you all and thank you for this opportunity to speak with you. My name is Janet Chandler and I'm a high school teacher at Pultney high school. I really hope that these testimonies will give you the kind of information that you need to understand what the realities are on the ground for Vermont teachers and state workers. This proposed plan to reform the system is really not acceptable. There is still a lot of work to be done. The government's failure over a period of decades to responsibly manage the pension system places really an untenable burden on Vermont's public servants. As proposed, we stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars that we've counted on in order to retire with dignity and I know I am not alone in feeling angry and completely disrespected every working day as a result of this proposed plan. The jobs that we do in schools provide the ultimate safety net for our young and vulnerable Vermonters, especially in this last year. As you know, the pensions make up a much larger percentage of women's pensions plans than they do for pensions plans. Men make much more throughout their career and largely because of the wage gap and they usually do not take time away from their jobs to take care of children or to take care of elderly parents or family members. Thus they have larger pensions available to them and this proposed plan is a dish has a disproportionate impact on women and children in Vermont, and I don't believe that that's who we want to be here in the state of Vermont. Finally, I feel that this has a huge impact on the education system right here in Vermont. It will not serve us to recruit highly qualified teachers and it will not create a dynamic 21st century economy that we are seeking to create. So, I'm reneging on this pension plan, I believe is not the way to go and I hope that in the future, weeks and months we can work on this to come up with a plan that works for all of us Vermonters, but you need to find another solution. Thank you for your time. Thank you Janet next up we have Andrew Lemieux and after that Shauna Clifford. Welcome Andrew. Are you able to hear me. Yes. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Andrew Lemieux, and I've worked as an engineer for the agency of transportation for four years. I feel betrayed by the changes you proposed our pension system. While I fully understand that some changes are needed to stabilize the fund to ensure it will be there once my turn to retire. Stabilization of the fund should not be balanced solely on the backs of loyal state employees and teachers, many of whom have dedicated their lives to the betterment of the state. You're asking me to give over 11 more years of my life for a smaller payoff at the finish line and to pay more for it along the way. This is not what I was promised when I joined the state's workforce. Why should I stay and work myself into the grave. Many my coworkers have echoed the same sentiment in the past few days. When we decided to work for the state we chose with the knowledge that while we would make significantly less money in our paychecks. It was worth it for security given to us by the retirement system. This proposal would shred that understanding. The inevitable result is that many of us will decide to leave state service for the private sector. My colleagues and myself are not people that you want to lose. We're hardworking dedicated and traditionally loyal people. Why would we stay somewhere that takes promises and throws them back into our faces. Let me be clear. I don't want to leave. Working for the state of Vermont designing bridges is my dream job. This job in this place is what I saw myself doing for my whole career. However, these proposed changes are causing me to reconsider. Maybe I should put down my roots in another state where I will be able to secure a better retirement through much higher salary. Adding insult to injury at all of this. There's no promise that the goalposts won't be moved again, even if I do stay. Also, at the same time that many experienced employees are walking out the door because of this, the changes will make it a lot more difficult to recruit and hire new employees, increasing the pressure on those who haven't left. The scope of the proposed changes will be harmful to both the state and its employees. Thank you for your time. Thank you Andrew. Next up is Shauna Clifford and on deck is Brian Walsh. Welcome Shauna. Thank you. Can you hear me all right. Yes. My name is Shauna Clifford and I have 31 years of state service with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. At this time this present proposal does not affect my retirement. However, it will affect many of my coworkers. This proposal will be a detriment to all Vermont taxpayers. The intention of the plan may be to address the retirement fiscal crisis, but this is extremely short-sighted and will actually cost for monitors much more in the long term. Negative effects that this plan will generate include the loss of senior employees, which translates to the loss of institutional knowledge, increased challenges in attracting new hires as well as the retention of current employees. I work for the Trans Maintenance Bureau in District 7 for the last 21 years. There are 42 communities that rely on the assistance given by my staff. We are a constant. Towns know they can contact us for anything and we're there to point them in the correct direction, even if not be trans related. I have worked to prepare my staff for my impending retirement transfer of knowledge and history gained over the years. This may not be the case across the board and the urgency that employees will feel to get out while the getting is good will lessen the succession planning process. The pension uncertainty has already caused a mass exodus of state employees. If this proposal becomes reality, state government will lose many more. We will lose those that love their jobs and take pride in making our communities better, but feel that they cannot take the chance to stay to receive minimized benefits. Retired employees will go to work for consultants that the state will hire back because there aren't enough people to cover the ever increasing work workload. The consultants may fill an immediate void, however they don't have the same feeling of investment as our employees do. The trans is already confronted with finding qualified candidates and employee retention is problematic given the current environment, what incentive is there to stay. Please give proper consideration to whatever proposals move forward. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here Shawna. Next up is Brian Walsh. And after that is Susan Davis. Welcome Brian. These unmute yourself. Good afternoon. I am speaking as a retired Vermont teacher and former union leader, my experience includes serving two terms and Vermont NEA vice president. Vermont's teachers and other public sector workers negotiated their contract with their employers and the state of Vermont made a promise regarding pensions. Now, due to chronic underfunding, we are told that there is insufficient capital to honor that promise. Legislators have been meeting behind closed doors to address this crisis before the end of the session. This lack of transparency leads me to believe that the committee is rushing in neoliberal fashion to balance their budget on the backs of hard work in public sector workers. There's no doubt that this is a complex problem. This partnership requires a complex solution. Rather than simply renege on promises made experts need to explore options to create a permanent revenue flow and prevent pensions from becoming unfunded liabilities. These include using federal money to finance other post employment benefits and likely increasing tax revenues from those Vermonters best able to afford them. Finding a satisfactory solution that honors those promises requires the creation of a dedicated work group, including labor representation and time to complete that task. In closing, I want to remind Vermont's Democratic legislative majority that they were elected with the economic and electoral support of Vermont's organized workers and their unions. Therefore, I urge those Democratic legislators to remember that they were elected to protect, not betray working class Vermonters. Thank you. Thank you Brian. Next up is Susan Davis and then on deck is Jeremy Hansen. Welcome Susan. Hi, can you hear me. Yes, we can. Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Susan Davis. I'm from Washington, Vermont. I'm a retired state employee substitute teacher and unpaid caregiver. In my first job, I made $1.75 per hour, no benefits and no pension plan. The job didn't work out. So I got a job in state government where I had a union benefits and a pension, a promise for my future. I am retired now. I kept my end of the bargain. I worked through hiring freezes, vacancy savings, rifts, step freezes, outsourcing threats and expensive constant moves. I worked in excess of 40 hours a week. I was on standby 24 by 7 by 365 and worked many holidays and weekends. My family suffered and wanted me to get a different job. But I had put in many hours and I chose to stay because I had the promise of a pension when I retired, I could retire and dignity. But this isn't about me. I am testifying in solidarity with the state employees and educators. Little did they know that they would keep their end of the bargain only to be faced with the mismanagement of funds and the redirecting of state pension debt payments. Not only in economic downturns, but also in good economic times as well. I know you want to do the right thing. This problem must not be solved on the backs of hardworking state employees and educators. The American rescue plan and prohibition on direct pension spending does not rule out the possibility that the federal aid could free up other state money to shift towards pensions. It might be that legislators wait for updated analysis on the economy as we recover, really examine the two year capital bill and the state's bonding authority redirect the bond premium into the pension fund, analyze what is happening with investments at the governor's office recoup lost tax dollars from the boost tax cuts by adding a surcharge to the taxes for the wealthiest for monitors inflation will rise soon because of all the stimulus taking thinking outside of the veto box is needed. Please pause and get it right. Reject this plan and do no harm to our state employees and educators thank you for listening. Next up is Jeremy Hansen and on deck is Christina couch. Welcome Jeremy, please unmute yourself. There we go. All right. So my name is Jeremy Hansen I'm from Berlin. I teach at a university and and I'm not eligible to join a union but I stand here in solidarity with Vermont teachers and state workers. I will know that Vermonters have your back even when the legislature doesn't. I see this is just another, another in a long string of attacks on working for monitors, and I think house Democrats you've made a strategic error. You cower in fear at the prospect of a veto. There's not going to be consensus on this. So have some courage. And I want to let you know if this passes I will personally donate to and fundraise for candidates that run against you in the primary next year. So how this proposal was rushed out the last minute after crossover, and thus is arguably to quote, you know, and this arguably this like starting point that you're saying, but then representative chinas amendment is shot down as being out of order for being too rushed, supposedly because the economic impact hadn't been studied. So has the economic impact of your flawed proposal been studied. I don't think that it has. I think kudos to the progressives and the handful of Democrats for having spines and voting for that amendment. Representative chinas proposal has been around in many different forms for a long time, going back to at least 2011 when Senator Polina introduced a similar measure, almost identical. You had to have seen this coming. It's not a new idea. This proposal is shameful. It's disrespectful of all teachers and state workers who are majority women by the way. Those are they just a fiscal knob for you to twist to balance your budget. This is on past and present legislators treasurers and governors, not on the teachers and state employees. What you reap is what you so keep an eye on the calendar. It's awful close to me first. Thank you Jeremy next up is Christina Kelsch and on deck is Emma Zavez. Hello, and I have to apologize because my toddler has chosen this moment to melt down. Um, so just a minute. Yes, this is tough. Okay, so. Thank you for listening. Um, I live in Richmond, and I teach for the Champlain Valley School District. I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom, but as a young person that really did not see much opportunity here in the state and so I left. Hello. Thank you for being with us. Okay. So anyway, in my early 30s I decided to become a teacher, and I got an ed degree and I came back to Vermont. I was thrilled. I was so happy to come here. I took a big financial hit. And it sounds like a story that's really familiar to a lot of people. And I was okay with doing it because I wanted to be here. Also, I felt like the predictability and the promise of the pension was something that. All right, I'll be there in it. Um, so anyway, this is like, of course this happened right this one. It's been quiet up until now. The predictability and the promise of the pension is what makes it possible for me to live in Vermont on a teacher's salary. I have two young kids. It's really hard to make ends meet here on a teacher's salary. So to be honest, I just don't have the extra to bail out the state in this. My older teacher, my older two, my older daughter, her teacher had to take a leave in November. And it took months to find a replacement who was suitable. And they finally did. They found a recent grad. He's great. He shows a lot of promise as a teacher. We need to make sure that we make it doable for people like him to stay in our state and teach our children. So I've heard rumors that the reason that you're not considering a new revenue source is because you're anticipating a veto. And I want you to ask, I want to ask you really to reconsider. I'm going to explore all the options because I really think that we are do that. And, you know, I don't know what the answer is, but I just really want you to put all options on the table and keep the pension promise because yeah, we deserve it. Thank you Christina. Next up is Emma Zavez on deck is Kirsten Sultan. Welcome, Emma. Hi, thank you. Good afternoon, my name is Emma Zavez. I grew up in Vermont and recently moved back to the state to accept a job with the Department of Vermont Health Access. I am a highly educated young woman with several years of professional experience in my field, the kind of worker whom the state claims it wishes to attract and retain. I echo my fellow workers concerns and consider the proposal put forth by this committee and speaker Kowinsky to be unacceptable for many reasons. In the interest of time I offer these three. First, under the current proposal, you will certainly lose talented young teachers and state workers, as many of my peers have already said, many of those who work for you now will leave. Those who might have worked for you in the future will accept other positions, some in Vermont, many more out of state. Second, if the current proposal is enacted, you'll be contributing to the well documented erosion of quality benefits and pay for women in Vermont. As Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray noted in her recent press release, more than half of state employees are women and three quarters of Vermont teachers are women. Third, there are alternative options to make up the funding gap, aside from forcing public workers to pay more and work more for fewer benefits. Just one example is the proposal that would ask for monitors making more than $500,000 a year to pay an additional 3% income tax or charge. A pension crisis that has been decades in the making does not call for an overnight solution. It calls for a purposeful, deliberative and patient reform process that allows meaningful input from all stakeholder groups. I implore you to please slow down and explore the many viable alternatives that are out there. Please do not repeat the mistakes of the past by forcing working families to pay for a crisis that is not their own making. Vermont public employees deserve respect, and we deserve dignity. Thank you. Thank you, Emma. Next up we have Kirsten Sultan and on deck is Michelle Salvador. Welcome Kirsten. Go ahead Kirsten. There we go. Sorry about that. Good evening. My name is Kirsten Sultan. I live in Lyndonville, and I am testifying today solely in my own personal capacity. In 2005 I worked in private consulting for 16 years and had my own successful business. In 2005 I left the private sector and took a position with the state in significant part for the benefits. Since 2005 I have administered Act 250 for the Northeast Kingdom region. It is not easy work. I strive to be fair and to help everyone I come into contact. What do I get in return? I'm 55 years old and my husband will be 61 in May. I am an old group F of the pension plan. The state takes my money sends me an annual statement. My husband and I have relied on these statements for our retirement planning. Only now after almost 16 years am I learning that the system wasn't always properly funded. My husband was, for many indicators, mismanaged. Some of the teacher's money even used on other things. And the chair and vice chair of this committee now suggests that I take a huge financial hit and work an additional five years as I approach retirement. No, I think it is outrageously unfair to put this problem almost entirely on the backs of the teachers and the state employees while holding others largely harmless. We were not in control. We did not create this problem. And I ask myself, why wasn't this brought to light with the employees sooner? The very opposite occurred. Unbelievable. Just one year ago, Beth Pierce stated as follows, quote, the retirement benefits of our members are secure. The retirement benefits members have earned in their defined benefit plan will be there at retirement. This was a press release in March 2020. This proposal is a broken promise and a serious betrayal. As an engineer, I am frequently contacted by headhunters and I am weighing my options as this unfolds. I ask for fair consideration and that this process please be slowed down and fully vetted with an economic impact analysis. Thank you. And next up is Michelle Salvador and on deck is Deirdre Donovan. Welcome, Michelle. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, my internet is unstable. So I'll do the best I can do here. I can't help but highlight the irony that we are here just a few days after equal payday. Michelle Salvador, my pronouns are she, her and a dedicated 23 years of my life to public service as a substance use prevention consultant. I'm the past vice president of the VSA, past chair of the largest bargaining unit and founding chair of rights and democracy, and my best role mother to my 12 year old son. I have been alone has brought millions of dollars into Vermont and contribute to the health and wellness of Vermonters, both in my work as a PC, and through my work over this past year on the pandemic. I speak for my comrades at the Department of Health who were unable to sign up because for one year we've been operating an emergency status, working nights weekends holidays, neglecting the health of ourselves and our children to save the lives of Vermonters while you're working to attack the future of ours. Additionally, it's not lost on us that this proposal is being forced through by a speaker who has historically worked for women and children and now is leading this attack on women and children. Shame. The majority of the state workforce and overwhelming majority of the education workforce are women to be inclusive people who are assigned female at birth. In 2018, the median wage female worker earned $0.85 to each dollar her male counterpart made. In a year full of full-time work that amounts to $6,365, this gap has been widening and not decreasing. Your draconian proposal will calculate my pension by using an average of seven years as opposed to three years, further widening that gap. The pension is not a promise and it's not a gift. It's an agreement. It is wages that are deferred, wages that I have earned over 23 years of service and overwhelmingly the wages of women. The wages of two income households are barely enough to get by in Vermont, let alone the wages of a single income in a female one parent household like mine. I don't have enough time before my retirement to make up for what my son and I will lose with your proposal who's cut off excludes me because I'm two years of shy of being within five years of retirement. Recent studies reveal that public pension benefits have positive effects on local states and economies, many studies. Studies also show that when public pensions are cut, there are negative economic consequences. Cutting pensions is irresponsible at best. Never do I see any under the dome taxing the wealthiest among us the way that you continually balance the budget on the backs of workers, especially the backs of women and children. We've held up to our end of the contract. In fact, we have given much more. So now it's time for you to hold up to your end of the agreement that you made with us. Thank you. Next up is Deirdre Donovan and on deck, we have Heather Dunn. Welcome, Deirdre. Hi, Deirdre Donovan. I'm a teacher at South Burlington High School and a resident of Burlington and I've been a public school teacher for 23 years. I would like to discuss the following, the lessons of the pandemic, what happened in 2010 and make a recommendation. So the pandemic, if we've learned anything during the last year, it's that teachers matter. The pandemic has shown the country that teachers don't just provide academic instruction, but we also deal with social, emotional health of students, food insecurity and mental health issues. Every public dollar spent on schools and teachers are dollars well spent. Going back to 2010, this problem is not new. I'm not sure how many of you were in the legislature in 2010, but I was in my 12th year of teaching. Due to the underfunded pension, teachers were asked to contribute more and work longer to fix the problem. We did our part. In 2010, contributions went from 3.5% to 5%. More for new teachers and we implemented the rule of 90. But yet here we are again, 11 years later. It was the Vermont legislature that didn't do their part and it's us being asked to pay more, work longer and receive less. In terms of a recommendation, we understand the complexity of this but the committee should completely scrap this plan and spend your time writing and enacting legislation that commits to fully funding the pension system which you should have been doing all along and holding teachers and state employees harmless. We the Vermont teachers, we've kept our commitment to Vermont students and Vermont families and we expect the state of Vermont to keep their commitment to us. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Deirdre. Next up is Heather Dunn and on deck is Dorothy Gomez. Welcome, Heather. Thank you. My name is Heather Dunn. I teach sixth grade science at Essex Middle School. I have a bachelor's degree in biology from Colby College and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Vermont. I come from a large family of educators. My mom, aunts, uncles and cousins, even my daughter when she was in preschool, her teacher said it was the first time they ever saw a kid who could get an entire room of three year olds quiet just by giving them a look. I think it's safe to say that teaching is in my blood. Last week, when your pension proposal dropped after 13 years as a Vermont educator, I looked across the dinner table at my fifth generation, Vermont's her husband and said, I think we might have to move. Your plan will undoubtedly drive away highly qualified teachers like me and discourage new teachers from entering this field. This will decimate the education system we value here in the state. In 1995, state auditor Ed Flanagan said, it's not fiscally prudent for us to promise today what others will have to pay for tomorrow. This type of generational inequity is both unfair and fiscally unsound. That was 26 years ago. Since then, the state government has deliberately chosen to underfund our pensions year after year and mismanaged our funds. The state created this problem. When students in my classroom are designing a solution to an engineering problem, I encourage them to take as much time as they need to discuss possible solutions and to investigate potential issues. The group that rushes their plan inevitably fails in the end. Please slow down and look for solutions that don't put this enormous burden on the backs of this generation of hardworking teachers and state employees. Take your time because instead of failing at building a bridge out of popsicle sticks like my students, this solution impacts people's lives. Work longer, pay more, get less, that's the plan. It's unjust, it's awful, and it's time to come up with something better. After a year of risking our lives teaching in person during a global pandemic, teachers deserve better. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Next up is Dorothy Gomez and on deck, Alex Fox. Welcome, Dorothy. Oops, sorry, here we go. Perfect. Yeah. Hello, I'm probably better known as Dodie and I'm in my 20th year of teaching. I started teaching as my second career. I went into debt to become a teacher and I quickly realized I'd never reached that rule of 90 in 2010 when they came out of that, but I wasn't concerned. I gotta start my pretty. I was just so passionate about teaching. My parents never had at small business owners, they never had a pension plan. They died very poor and I'm a long-term Vermonter and so I was really excited to involuntarily be enrolled in the state's retirement plan, but at the time I could not contribute to additional retirement funds. I needed to pay back my student loans and I needed to get my kids raised and through college. So I'm here to echo everything that my colleagues have said. This proposal is terribly disrespectful and I believe it would be incredibly damaging to teacher recruitment and retention. Children's education are fragile and sometimes oftentimes contentious school budgets and consequently the relationships within our communities. And I've seen all the presentations to grasp the charts, I can't say I understand them, but I know this committee's been asked to do like a miraculous job of fixing this, but the public teacher servants and teachers to ask them to work longer and pay more and get less is not a fair and just path, it is the wrong solution. We made a commitment. This proposal pushed places the burden of remedy on those that abided by the bargain, not by those that created the issue. It is incredibly short-sighted, has a very real potential of causing more problems than it remedies. So admit this proposal is a mistake, it will not work. We tell our students all the time, it's okay to fail, it's okay to start over. You need to admit it. I agree with Lieutenant Governor Gray when she stated the proposal does not reflect the value we place on teachers, their tireless work, their dedication and their commitment. I'm confident that given the ingenuity of remoners that you can come up with a viable solution that does not penalize teachers and state employees. Thank you. Thank you, Dodie. Next we have Alex Fox and on deck is John Cart. Welcome, Alex. Hi, thank you for your time. My name is Alexandra and I'm actually new to the education field. I have always worked with kids and just really loved working with them and that is my passion. I'm a single mom to a four-year-old daughter. Right away going into education, I was quickly awoke to the fact that teachers work 24 seven, they do not get summers off like I thought they did. They are constantly putting their students before anybody else, including their own children. This last year has been extremely difficult as a new teacher and even more as a single parent. I can't imagine having to work any longer than I already have to for a pension. And I also don't think it's fair to the Vermont children. I expect to give my students a hundred percent of myself when I go to work every day and you will have educators who are not giving their hundred percent every day to these kids. Vermont kids need people to be able to be there for them, to give a hundred percent and to really help give them the tools to be positive citizens of our state and of our world. And if we're going to not care about who is in the classroom, we're going to be raising a society of students who are not prepared and ready and who are not going to be assets to the society. We will lose teachers. I'm considering taking my new licensure and moving to a different state if I can't afford to live here and provide for my daughter and myself. And I just wanna give a shout out to all the teachers and state employees who are doing and going above and beyond during this time for our kids because our kids are our future. And I hope that you guys realize that teachers and the state governments and the state agencies are really what are helping raise these kids the right way. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Next up we will have, I believe John Cart is missing. So we will have Christina Hansen and on deck is Courtney Cron. Welcome, Christina. Thank you. My testimony is from my dissertation work on teacher burnout. This pension proposal will place more stress on teachers with disastrous consequences. I think we've heard a lot of the teachers testified today and Friday about stress on teachers. The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome tied to chronic workplace stress and researcher Christina Maslak has shown that burnout leads to health conditions such as headaches and hypertension and is marked by mental exhaustion and fatigue and decreased work performance. Teachers are actually between two and three times more likely to develop a mental health illness than other professionals. And this pension proposal will trigger two areas that actually lead to increased burnout. One is when a worker feels a lack of financial or social reward. As Maslak says, when one's hard work is ignored or not appreciated by others, it devalues both the work and the workers. The second area that is triggered, the triggers burnout is fairness. When there is an inequity of workload or pay, workers feel disrespected or lacking in self-worth. And this can lead to exhaustion and a deep sense of cynicism. Importantly, stress and burnout in teachers has an effect on students. Another study found that the higher the level of stress in teachers, the higher levels of stress hormones were found in that teacher students. Teachers under stress are also less able to build positive relationships in the classroom and express fewer positive attitudes about their students. One can only imagine if we screened Vermont's teachers for pandemic burnout and what would the burnout levels be if this pension plan was adopted? You're hearing teachers urging you to revise your work on this pension plan and resubmit it to us teachers for a higher passing grade. Thank you. Thank you, Christina. Courtney Cron is next. And then after that, we'll have John Cart. Welcome, Courtney. Hi, thanks for having me. And thanks to those of you who've responded to my emails over the last couple of weeks and months. My name's Courtney Cron and I was born and raised in Vermont. I attended Vermont's public schools myself. And after college, I moved back to Vermont to start my teaching career at Randolph Union Junior Senior High School. After that, I decided to embark on an adventure still in my early 20s and I moved out to Wisconsin to teach in the public schools there. Shortly after arriving in Wisconsin, we elected a new governor there by the name of Governor Scott Walker. Without getting into the details of that era, I'll say that Governor Walker was seriously threatening to dismantle the schools there with proposals not dissimilar from this one. So my husband, also a public school teacher and I evaluated what we wanted for our future and for the future of our kids. And we came back to Vermont where we've been teaching both of us in the Vermont public schools for 15 years. We wanted our kids to attend Vermont's public schools to go to strong schools and learn alongside their peers from other Vermonters from all walks of life. I'm a public school teacher who contracted COVID-19 at work this year and gave it to my children ages two, six and nine and to my husband. And I would take that risk all over again if it meant working to strengthen the overall quality of our educational system for all kids. I'm a teacher who's the anticipated retirement date is extended under this proposal by 10 years. And I'm a teacher who hasn't left work yet because instead of being home to eat with my family, I've been waiting since 330 to give this testimony. However, here's what I want you to know. I won't leave public education. I believe in public education more than I believe in most things because I think it's one of the last great equalizers of our society. And our system is only as strong as the people who make it tick day in and day out. So thank you for letting me, a national board certified teacher, a middle-class working mom of Vermont add my voice for those of my colleagues from around the state. I appreciate it. Thank you, Courtney. Next up is John Cart and on deck Leslie Dustin. Welcome, John. Hello, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the speaker's proposal for restructuring state employee and teacher pensions. I'm a 17 year employee of the Fish and Wildlife Department. I work on projects and programs that bring in millions of dollars of federal funds to the state for wildlife and environmental conservation. When I'm not working, I've served several terms on my local select board. I've been assistant treasurer. I'm currently on my town's transportation committee. And for the past dozen years, I've led a program in my area dedicated to river restoration. It's worked with hundreds of students from the community. I say this not to brag, I'm not much different than any of the folks I work with at the state, but just to say that I'm deeply committed to Vermont and to my community. And I understand the value of commitments and working for something larger than myself. It's with this perspective that I see the current process and its result are both short-sighted and they're already doing harm. The speaker's proposal, the rush process, the rhetoric surrounding it are clearly adversarial. Why take this approach with those who have dedicated their careers to public service? I really don't think we're the enemy here. The speaker's proposal is already undermining productivity in the workplace. I've heard from a number of colleagues who've never discussed retirement before about the need to fast track their plans now before further damage can be done to their retirement. The current proposal and the committee's discussions of it will hollow out state programs before the program even takes effect, costing everyone more and worsening the retirement funding problem. For the sake of all Vermonters, please take it off the table immediately so that we can work together on equitable solutions. A responsible starting place would include mechanisms to address the root cause of the problem, the need for dedicated funding source. I'll wrap up just by saying please slow down, create more time and opportunities for comment, input, and debate, and thank you. Please take the speaker's proposal off the table and let's start working on solutions that address the historic and underlying problems fairly and equitably. Thank you. Thank you, John. Next up, we have Marie Ayer while we're still trying to find Leslie Dustin. Hi, I'm Marie Ayer, teacher. Hi, welcome. I'm a teacher at Richmond Elementary. I am currently 46 years old and I was planning on retiring in 10 years, but this proposal would add 21 more, 21 years of teaching before I can retire. It'll increase my out-of-pocket payments, yet has me receiving way less than promised. I will need to pay out $1,900 in new contributions and risk assessments. I'll be taking a pay cut and that's before I even increase, I know the increase of my healthcare payments. With two children in college and another in high school, it's a huge amount of money for me to lose out of my budget. Should I live to the age of 85? I've lost over $112,000 in retirement benefits. This proposal has a huge financial impact on my family. In 1989, Governor Kuhn and his administration agreed to start underfunding the retirement system for both teachers and state employees in order to pay for new initiatives. This underfunding by the state of Vermont continued for 16 plus years. The shortfall that we have right now is not due to anything teachers or state employees have done, but it's a lack of foresight by previous administrations. The proposal will make middle-class teachers and state employees suffer for the poor decisions of our past politicians. We have all been required to have money taken out of our paychecks for a retirement system we were promised but had no ability to opt out of. As a house debated, the continued underfunding of the state retirements in 1995, Treasurer Ed Flanagan wrote to the speaker of the house and he said, by underfunding the retirement system today, we only delay an inevitable reckoning that amounts to a kind of camouflage deficit spending because the state must eventually cure the funding deficiency. Your counterparts didn't heed his warning 26 years ago and here you stand ready to take another rash decision that will create a day of reckoning by requiring teachers to teach for 45 years or looking at school funding crisis for the future. Towns will be left shouldering the cost of high salaries and healthcare costs for older teachers. The pension proposal will impact not only current employees, but the sustainability of our educational system. You made a promise to me when I signed the contract. I chose this profession based on the benefits, knowing I would never make the high salaries of my peers in college. I've kept my promise, I've made my payments. The state of Vermont needs to keep its promises and make payments it failed to make for two decades. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Marie. Next up, we have Dove Stucker and then on deck will be Matthew Christian. Go ahead and unmute yourself. Thank you all. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sure. Great. I didn't expect to be sitting here for two hours hearing. Everyone else's testimony, I wouldn't plan for that. I am heartbroken. So my heart goes out to everybody. I have my own story to tell, but it just didn't have the impact of hearing everyone and I hope you're feeling it too. I've been an educator in Vermont for nearly 20 years. I have been a licensed teacher for 11. Like many of my colleagues, I've considered changing careers. It's hard to overstate the stress which seems to increase every year. As you know, schools have become the holistic safety net for an ever increasing number of our most marginalized kids and families and every inequity in society, every inequity shows up in schools and these have only been amplified by the pandemic. I've stayed in the profession because of my passion for teaching and learning, but that passion is not enough to just log through the next few decades as a martyr. The current proposal is regressive. It shifts the burden from the state which is responsible for its pensions to the people themselves who should be receiving those benefits. It breaks a promise. I have paid every cent into the pension system that I've been asked to pay even as my healthcare costs have skyrocketed even as the challenges of epidemic poverty and trauma let alone a medical pandemic have upended public schools. If the state has chronically underfunded the system then the solution lies with the state. While I realize that you might be focused on the financial long game, there's another long game to consider whether teaching in Vermont remains a profession that draws and retains innovative engaged professionals. More than anything else, this single resource is the most important one that we have. It's already at a tipping point. I can't tell you how many of my colleagues are considering a career change. Trading the mirage of financial stability for the beating heart of Vermont's education system is not a win. Considering faster. Thank you for reconsidering this proposal and listening with an open heart to all the testimony today. Thank you. Next up we have Matthew Christian and on deck will be Josh Schwanier. Matthew, welcome. Good evening. You guys hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. So my name is Matthew Christian. I am a probation officer with Royal Improbation of Pearl. Since the delivery of the proposed pension reform, I've reached out to my legislators. I've sat listed testimony and during my conversation with my legislators, my goal is to get my voice heard and show them that what they're doing is not just pen to paper, but it has real life effects. So I'll do this by telling my story. At the age of 18, I was offered a job with the Vermont Department of Corrections along with a promise. After 30 years of service, I'd receive a pension. I was told I didn't have a choice to pay into this pension. At 18 years old, I took the job offer and the promise of a pension. I started my career as a line staff at Marble Valley Correctional Facility, not an easy nor glamorous position to take on. However, the good outweigh the bad with the stability of state employment and the promise of a pension. Through the years, I've been an active member of my union. I believe that state employees have done more than their fair share from pay cuts, wage freezes, cut positions, costs, increases of benefits and much, much more. Labor has always made concessions when budgets were tight, adjustments had to be made. I am currently on my 15th year with the Vermont Department of Corrections and it seems the state wants to out of their promises. With potential change, I would have to work an additional 34 years more to get less than initially promised. Essentially, I would have to work 49 years to collect my pension. Just want to let that sit there. 49 years to collect a pension. I may not be within five years of retirement. However, I had made financial choices with the understanding that I had a promise of a pension. In closing, I would like to speak about some of the problems that concern corrections already. Hiring and retention. It's already difficult to staff our facilities with these changes that will only make the problem worse. I think myself as 18 years old working and living unit, I think I would have to endure that environment for 49 years. I can promise you the good would not outweigh the bad and I would have left state service. I want to thank you for your time and I hope that the state will stand and do their fair share and hold up to their promises. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew. Welcome, Josh. And on deck, we will have Elizabeth Adams. Go ahead, Josh. Josh, you are unmuted. Josh, I have you here. Have you been able to unmute? It looks like you're unmuted. All right, Josh, let's give it one more try. Are you there? Try that one more time. You look like you're unmuted, but I'm not hearing you. Let's see if we can get you back in the queue and we will go on now to Elizabeth Adams. Welcome, Elizabeth. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Adams and I'm an eighth generation from honor. 18 years ago, I took a low pay grade job with the state despite my economics degree because I was treating short-term salary for long-term pension security. Proposed changes would add a decade to my career and I wouldn't get a step raise for the last 19 of those years because of step maximums. As a nine-moment dispatcher, I worked a decade of midnights, weekends, holidays, mandatory overtime. I was the person you called on the worst day of your life. I've coaxed people out of burning homes. I've talked to people through heart attacks. On a good day, I helped a father catch his newborn baby in the back seat of a car in a blizzard. I was leading a fully staffed expert nine-moment one center with excellent retention until a former governor closed the Rutland PSAP, eliminating my position and a failed attempt to save money. Instead, that rushed decision created the PSAP financial and administrative debacle that continues today all because legislative decision makers panicked and they leapt at a quick, easy short-term solution proffered by loud voices who were elected by a wealthy political kingmakers, solutions that had not been carefully studied, ignoring smaller voices, advising of ripple impacts, long-term costs and the safety of remoners. It should have been a lesson learned, but instead here we are again, loud voices falsely proclaiming the sky is falling to incite panic and unstudied proposals echoing wealthy special interest groups getting rushed through that will do irreparable harm to everyone except the wealthy. Six years ago, I could have quit and gone to a private sector when the state eliminated my position, but I stayed solely because of the pension. I transferred to a different state agency taking a three-pay grade demotion. If you can't do any better than this proposal, every state employee and teacher with more than five years on would be financially better off quitting so we can join the ranks of the inactive vested. Thank you. Thank you. So now we're gonna try with Josh again. Josh, are you able to unmute? I can see you this time, but I can't hear you. I have you on a phone as well. Are you able to unmute on your phone? Well, we're waiting for Josh to see if he can fix that. I've got Andrew, excuse me, Christopher Wycoff on deck. Star six to unmute yourself, Josh, on your phone. Try star six. Can you hear us now? I can't hear you. Let's see if we can get you texting or chatting with staff on the backside and we'll go to Chris Wycoff now. Welcome, Chris. Thank you. So I first read this pension proposal. I was overwhelmed by many emotions. First, I was outraged because I had planned my life on a commitment to the terms of my retirement from you, state of Vermont. And now I hear that this lifetime commitment that around 10,000 teachers and 9,000 state employees have agreed to, paid into and even compromised on in 2010 is now being threatened by the same governing body that underfunded the retirement system in the first place. It is truly outrageous that legislators would mismanage our money, that we never fail to pay into the system and spend it on other infrastructure needs or invest it on high risk and high fee alternative investments and then have the audacity to now say it's our obligation to fix it. Then I was hurt. I couldn't believe that the terms of this proposal ever saw the light of day. Forcing fresh, energetic and passionate teachers right out of school to work 45 years to get a full pension is absolutely unreasonable and degrading. This felt incredibly disrespectful, especially after the Herculean effort put forth by teachers during this pandemic. You said we were heroes last year and now you try to cut our pensions, sad. The last thing I felt was astonishment that people didn't realize how much this proposal would hurt not only our teachers and students but the entire economic wellbeing of our state. Asking teachers to teach for 40 plus years not only hurt students by forcing teachers to teach past their prime but will dramatically raise our local property taxes because of significantly higher teacher salaries which would force even more people to move out of the state. As a fresh UVM grad, would you stay in Vermont with our high property taxes and horrendous pension plan? I don't think so. This package would hurt everything you're trying to do to help this state. Americans are waking up to the fact that this is no longer the country of the American dream but is now sadly the country where the wealthy and those in power squeeze every last cent and morsel of energy out of the working class Americans. Do not end up on the wrong side of history by punishing teachers and state workers for a crime that did not commit. Sue Howard Dean or Sue the Vermont Pension Investment Committee take money from recreational cannabis sales but do not break your promise and touch our pensions. You're trying to go. Thank you. Let's give Josh one more try here and see if we can get you unmuted and in front of us. All right, so Josh, you're still muted on your computer side. Maybe if you leave the meeting and come back we can get you back on. In the meantime, we'll go to Andrew LaValley and we'll come back to Josh if he's able to get his volume figured out. Welcome Andrew. Hi, thank you. I have also sat through a couple hours of hearing these anecdotes and personal stories and I just wanna amplify those stories and hope that they're not falling on ears that are looking at policy and trying to make quick, easy changes that you're seeing the humanity in these stories. I am a young teacher, I moved to Vermont under the impression that this was a state that valued education and now the state has gone after my healthcare since I've been teaching for four years and it's going after my pension now. So this isn't an if, this isn't a problem of if you pass this I might consider leaving. I'm out, like mic drop out. You pass this, I'm gone, I'm excellent at my job and I want you to hear that. I'm a young educator that you are trying to bring into this state and I'm leaving if you pass this. Representative Sarah Copeland-Honzes said at the beginning of this that this was just a start to the conversation. You all should be embarrassed that this is where you started. Democrats should feel embarrassed that this is where you started. I lived in California, this is not where Californians would start. This is embarrassing that this is where you started and you should go back to the speaker and check her. Okay, next up we have Laura King and on deck we will bump Josh if he makes it back in, otherwise we will go to Ryan Mora. So welcome, Laura. Hello, am I on? You are. All right, thank you. I'm a branded resident and a passion national board certified Vermont educator. I've been a Vermont teacher since 1988. The only title I love more is parent and my two adult children benefited from Vermont's quality schools. The pension is one way we keep vested career teachers in our state. These teachers, my colleagues, your neighbors are essential to Vermont's highly valued attribute of educational quality. Therefore, I strongly disagree with the governor. This new proposal is not a step in the right direction. It's a betrayal. This proposal suggests we work more for much less, dollars we won't have to spend in the state if we can even afford to stay. As a more seasoned employee, I have a new expiration date to consider. I can retire within five years, but do you realize how much institutional expertise will be lost over those five years? Ironically, these professionals hire salary contributions to the pension fund would be gone as well. Less people are choosing to work in education given it's less than average professional salary and you want to cripple the pension benefit for younger teachers, making them contribute more, work to 67 and bird local schools with resulting increased budgets and teaching positions they cannot fill. What about the ability to attract specialists such as speech and language pathologists? Decreased benefits will make it much harder to fully staff our public schools. Historic decisions, unfunded liabilities and missing revenue streams are the problems not teachers, state workers and the group they represent. This proposal is an attack on women and on middle and working class by basically taxing salaries and shrinking our pensions. Finally, it's an attack on Vermont's children and family. Coming at a time when educators called heroes by our governing bodies when convenient want to focus on the challenges of educational, social and emotional recovery post pandemic. This year's budget and surplus covers the yearly pension obligation. I implore you reject this proposal in favor of a four letter word, time. Time needed to work through this challenge with head and heart. I would even borrow the governor's metaphor rather than a road public trust and educational quality with a destructive and virulent proposal. Turn back the spigot. I believe we can do better. Go slow, seek full collaboration and remember there are people behind this number scheme. Thank you very much. Thank you, Laura. We are at 630. This public hearing was scheduled to be two and a half hours long. As I worried, we have more people on our list than we will be able to get to. And so I'm going to ask staff to please put the email address in the chat again for anyone who was not able to share their remarks during the public hearing. And I promise you that the committee will have access to these and we'll look at them from our committee page and in our email inboxes. And so the final witness for tonight is Ryan Mora. Welcome, Ryan. Wow, under the buzzer. What a way to end with a cute kid for that wake up at the last minute of the hearing. It's been impactful to listen to everybody's statements. My gosh, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak to my friends and colleagues on this committee and to my friends in the leadership in our legislature. We all know that the cost of living in Vermont is high relative to the wages most of us are able to earn. And this fact was actually just underscored on VPR this morning in a segment, noting that Vermont is at the bottom of the list in terms of affordability for buying a home. And in my decision to enter the public teaching profession, I took into account the entire employment package that includes salary, healthcare, retirement benefits. I'm the husband of a small business owner at our business right now and we have a growing family and all of our benefits are tied to my employment. These changes to our payout and eligibility would pull the rug out from under us. If this were only being proposed for future employees, I would still have reservations about the education system being able to recruit talented and committed individuals to the profession. But at least they would be entering the field with a realistic understanding of their financial security and making these changes for active employees would rob us of that ability to plan and feel secure. Vermont educators secure the future of Vermont by nurturing the young minds that will one day live, work and govern the state, maybe this one. And yet in proposing these changes, it feels like the state does not value its educators enough to ensure our security. So I implore you to look more deeply at other revenue streams that do not put the burden on teachers and state employees. I love teaching and working with young people. These changes add insecurity and uncertainty into a profession that already feels unstable. I love living in Vermont. I would like to continue contributing to the current and future economic wellbeing of the state. The benefits package I was promised would make both of those things possible. So please don't jeopardize this. Thank you again for hearing all of us today. Thank you, Ryan. And thank you to all who came out to the public hearing tonight. It has been truly impactful to hear all of your stories and we will continue to look through the remaining pieces of testimony that are submitted through the email address. I apologize that we weren't able to get to all of you. Two and a half hours is a long public hearing. I'm sure that we could do two or three more nights of this and still not run out of people who would like to come and talk to us about how this proposal impacts their retirement savings. Thank you all. And I look forward to committee tomorrow and we will have some time to discuss our reactions and observations to all we've heard in two very long and powerful public hearings on Friday night.