 We're going to start because we, I just learned that our witness has another engage with it at 10 to 10. Jessica, would you, would you, would you want to make the, Sure. So, perfect. Here's our chair. So, Jessica, we're just, we're just about in here. Oh, good. So, I have asked Adam Bunty to come today to talk to us a little bit about the work that he's doing at CBU. He's the principal of the Chamberlain Valley Union High School. And he's also principal of the year. So, today on the floor, that also will be noted. And he's here to talk a bit about the survey that he's been doing at the school that really helps with prevention in that you can hopefully start to see who might be at risk ahead of time. Which would be really nice if we could all do, be better about that, because it would prevent maybe a lot of big problems in the road. So, Adam, if you would join us. Sure. I'll put you up on my own bag first. Sitting, standing, does it matter? No. Yeah. We have a thing about sitting. What's that? We have a thing about sitting. The thing about sitting. Yeah. Just want to take one of those and pass it on. So, do you want to just, it would be a little bit awkward for me to be correcting Jessica to start? Because I so appreciate her support. I think we might need a couple more copies. One more. One more? There we go. What I want to talk about is, we are talking about students or young people who are at risk, but to support students who are at risk, you have to approach those students in a bit of a counterintuitive way. And that is, we all get so concerned about our populations of students who might be predisposed to violence or predisposed to use. But we have to focus on strengths. And we have to focus on belonging. We have to focus on community. And most importantly, in my mind, we have to focus on engagement to actually make a difference for our kids. And that's about prevention. But at working with JoLinda and the opioid coordination council, that's also about intervention. That's also about recovery. To me, the physics of human wellness transcend all of those ways in which we try to parse out our approach to things like the opioid crisis or school violence. I think it makes it easier for us when we talk about it to break it into little kind of concrete silos. But the reality is we have to have a similar approach when we think about these things. So the fact that I'm presenting data and surveys is slightly ironic. I'm truly an English teacher at heart. People, we don't walk away from me and say, man, I got no thought about data. But they might be able to write a poem about data. But over the past two years, my learning about data has been transformative in my leadership at CVU and transformative for our community. I won't talk about that a little bit. And our data story starts with one student a couple of years ago who joined us in the fall. I'm just going to give you a very abridged version. And JoLinda is very sick of hearing this story, I'm sure. But I met this young man in September. He had come to us, like many of our students from around the state who kind of go from high school to high school to high school. I'm sure you are well versed in adverse childhood experiences and trauma. He's a student who had lots of aces. I'm pretty sure the student was under the influence when I first met him. And within about a day of being at CVU, he got in a fight. A lot happened over that year for him. And I was just genuinely worried about him from the first minute I met him. I'm just going to fast forward you all the way to June when I was working out in the weight room at CVU after school on a treadmill. And I turned my head and realized that this young man was on a treadmill next to me. Not only was he not earned the influence, not only had he become involved in school, but he had also become involved in academics and become a real part of our community. So we off the treadmill and I turned to him and I said, I said, Jared, this is like unbelievable. Think about who you were at the beginning of this year and now. And he said two things to me that stuck. He said, I didn't know I could be this person. And he said, I didn't know life could be this easy. And he was referencing making good choices. And I mean, a lot had changed for him in that year. But I began to think about the power of our communities to help our individuals transform and then in turn the power of those individuals to transform our communities, which you'll see by the survey is he has gone actually. So I had Jared in my mind as we're talking about the shootings at Parkland and we're talking about the opioid crisis and we're talking about trauma. And it was interesting for me to look around our state and see, and in our educational community and see how reactive we were all being. And I felt like, and I was being reactive too, but I felt like some of the measures that we were taking, actually were inhibiting our ability to engage students and to build relationships instead of helping them. And just like with Jared, we as a school began to realize that building a healthy community begins with an invitation to kids on an individual level to become part of that community. So we have this idea. So if you look at slide two or page two here, we began looking at the 40 developmental assets. This is pretty old research, but basically the assets describe characteristics that young people have, advantages that young people have, personality traits maybe even that young people have that give them a higher chance of thriving in adulthood. And they're pretty simple. Like I have an adult with, I have a connection with one adult in the building. I'm engaged in extracurricular activities three hours a week. So we looked at these 40 developmental assets in as a school. So what can we control? We can sit here and whine about the state of the world and our concern about anxiety or we can say we're going to make an impact. And so we built a survey on probably about 10 of the developmental assets that we thought we could really control. And we also, if you just slide over to page five here, decided that you do get some good stuff out of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. I don't want to deride it, but getting information back a year and a half later usually isn't all that helpful. You'll see the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey says we don't have a problem with vaping. We do. But that's just because the information is a year and a half old. And it's also anonymous, which is to me a problem. So we gave a non-anonymous survey to all of our students. And you'll see on page five, we also asked at the end of the survey would students have responded differently if it had been anonymous? And you can see 22% said maybe 71% said no. In fact, when we first gave out the survey, we sent out the blank over email. I had a student respond to it who had dropped out a month earlier. To me, that was a strong indication that our young people, we all, we want to be known, we want to be connected. So if you jump over to page seven, this is what we lovingly call our heat map. And you can see the darker the color, the greater indication, the greater number of students who have responded to a particular response in the Likert scale. So from strongly agree all the way on the right, strongly disagree on the left. Some really interesting things pop out. And you can see the questions on the left. There's some of the questions in the survey. They've got one adult, they have friends at school, their friend group supported the tolerant, they're interested in their classes, their life feels satisfying and manageable. We'll come back to that one and so forth. And I'm going to give you a second to just peruse this data. So the first time we gave out the survey, it was too much data for me to look at as a principal. And admittedly, it was about a month before I got to looking at the data, which is, I regret because it's a little bit dangerous to do that because students may disclose something. We had all of our advisors look at this survey because if we have students broken into advisors, they have won every 12 students we have wanted to match with them daily. It's almost like a home room. But when I looked at this survey later, I was able to isolate sort of groups of students who we were worried about based on the results of the survey. I realized that these questions had to actually become predictive. So students who were at risk of dropping out of school or students who had gotten in trouble from just from the survey to when I looked at the data, their names were appearing again and again as having answered honestly to things like, I don't have friends at school or I'm not interested in my classes. And all of a sudden, or I don't have a connection with an adult. You can see the top of this, eight students strongly disagreed with that. Well, I know who those students are now. I can go and talk to them. I can go and meet with them. And they appreciate that. We also wanted to make sure, we gave this survey out to the students' parents and to their advisor. So all of a sudden, you can see discrepancy between what the student is perceiving in their life and what the parents perceiving and what their teachers are perceiving. And that discrepancy becomes really important. Another fascinating little flip of this was we had students write down the names of the adults in their lives who they're connected to. Really interesting to be like, wow, Ron Fleming. If you ever hear these phenomenal human behavior works at our school, why are 400 people saying, Ron Fleming is their go-to adult? And does he know that? And what is he doing? It's a great reason. It's a great reason. And then we could also, for a couple of teachers I talked to, I said, hey, this person listed you as someone who you're important to and they said they did. And their relationship with that young person changes. But then we, as a full faculty, could say, hey, these A students aren't feeling connected in three or four of these areas. What do we do about it? And the faculty said, every time I saw a kid in a hall, I walked out and made eye contact with him and smiled. So those simple things, I mean, we're always looking for a specific program or a panacea. We're trying to solve our problems. We have got to come back to some of these simple human connections around belonging, again, engagement, unconditional positive regard. Also, but if you don't ask, you don't know. So I wanted to get you to ask questions in a minute. So there was so much data. I reached out to a friend of mine named Brian Roy Newberry, who is a dealer.com. And I said, help, I'm not a data guy. We also need this to turn around instantaneously. So Brian and a couple of other people said, well, dealer.com, we help car dealerships build dashboards so they can have more effective relationships and connections and foreign relationships with their clients. Why wouldn't we use that same technology in schools? So we spent this past year building an app that's pretty interesting to work with with Brian because his hours are very different than mine. He was like, Ray, I don't like, give me the dancer, everybody, Brian. This is what software engineers do. You're freaking me out. But he did this all on his own time, for free. It's pretty remarkable. We have hundreds of hours of this. So then now that when we get out of the survey, we have instantaneous results. We can see this school wide, but we can disaggregate this data in really interesting ways. I actually look at the bottom of this survey when you see it shift to the left towards the more negative side, where the neutrals are more heavily darkly colored. That's Act 77 stuff right there. That's proficiency stuff right there. That's personalization. We need to do a better job of autonomy mastery within our schools. And that's for the House Egg Committee. And then the last thing for me, if you look at page six here, one of the questions we ask is, is life outside of school, does it feel satisfying and manageable? So our strongly disagrees and disagrees aren't too bad. But when you look at the neutral response to that, the fact that we're, you know, that the neutral to the strongly disagree is almost, it is around 200-something kids, that to me says something. And it can be as simple as, I'm not one of my advisees who strongly disagree with this incident. What's going on? Why are you feeling that way? You know, what's, talk to me about it, and his mom was there and we were having this connection, and he was like, well, I'm involved in 4-H, I'm involved in this, I'm milking the cows at three in the morning, and I'm coming to school, and I'm manageable. So you have that response. You can also have the response of, I don't feel safe at home. The response of my mom and dad are, you know, struggling with addiction. We've had all of that come out, just simply asking. For me, it comes down to, when I became an assistant principal, I began to get better at recognizing, particularly when our young males wanted to talk, they would show up to my office and hang out and hover. And so, after a while, Don and I were like, oh, they want me to ask them what's going on and how they're doing today so they can talk about it, but they need that invitation. So this has really changed. We also, we looked at the last thing, I keep saying the last thing, but it's not the last thing, it's the fashion thing. I'm excited about this. Do I have a voice in school? You'll see students are not feeling like they do, as strong as they might have relationships. What we realize is, they have a voice, but they aren't seeing where their ideas are going and how their ideas are actually changing schools. So we had a discussion with kids about starting a student congress, which we're going to have this spring. So we have 120 advisors in school, one kid from every advisory is going to be a representative of that advisory and come together and start looking at school by change. So that should be good, but it's different than, say, what the, you know, student council that we're used to were here elected by your peers. So this is, you know, more of an equal voice. So also out there, I'll let you ask questions. If you have any, you can also poke through the data here. There's some pretty interesting stuff. I have not shared, this is the data we gathered just about a week and a half ago. So I have not shared the full list of my student with my faculty. So if you just want to keep this to yourselves, you can. That's great. The last thing I'll, the last, last, last, last thing, as you get into page 16 and 17, you'll see student A and student B over these pages. What's on the left is our proficiency reports. So these are graduation standards. On the right is the SBAC testing that we do. So all of a sudden you can start triangulating information. So you can look at our proficiency data in our school, student voice, some standardized testing, and then you've got a more holistic view of a student so that you can really look at some of their strengths. Quick example are that student who I was talking about was milking cows. I think some people in initial response would be like, all right, well, that's your passion. Let's get you into the tech program. But when I started looking at its proficiency scores and standardized tests, his reading and writings off the charts. So while I think actually technical education makes sense for him, you better not be hysteria typing that kid. Because we have got open doors. And this is how some of the proficiency work in the Act 77 has made a huge difference for us in that postgraduate based on meaningful standards first in these season fees. I did want to let you know if you do not know Representative Lippert who chairs our self-care, he is from Hinesburg. He came to listen in. He represents to listen in. And I just wanted to make sure you saw that. I don't think I would reflect on anything yet. I guess I am curious in terms of when you get this data and the school wraps around the students in some way. What is, when do you reach out? When do you reach out and what are those challenges and as well as strengths in terms of reaching out to after school activities, to mental health and substance use counselors, to fill in the blank? Well, we are more blessed at CDO and I have to remember that Chittenden County has some resources that other places across the state don't. So we have a pretty hearty system and lots of opportunities for students to engage both in and outside schools. But it comes down to that primary structure of advisory for me. So I have 12 advisees right now from the four different, you know, nine through 12. And that group of students I meet with every day. So I am like a gatekeeper for those kids. So when I immediately look, I can look at them. The survey data is instantaneous. So I can look at them and see their responses and I am the first discussion and we also have our personalized learning plans. We have our PLP meetings with parents. So parents come in and meet with me. So it begins with that nucleus. The nice thing about what Brian built is that we can look at our, you know, we don't have the right word for it yet, but it's like, we don't want to say students' concerns. This wouldn't feel right, but loosely the kids were worried about based on their responses. Immediately it goes to their school counselors as well as their school counselors have a page that they can look at that is populated with based on the responses that we care most about. So that's really where we start. We have the school SAP which is really important. Students' assistance person. So it's, I think in the past they would have been called like a drug alcohol counselor and Tim Schrupp is an incredibly talented human being. But again, the ethos is about focusing on the positive and saying, alright, you're not feeling it right now and this comes from some of the Iceland model research which I don't know I'm sure you've all seen. But, you know, one of their tenets was change what the kids are doing. Don't just talk about it. Right? So what are the structures that you can change around that young person to get them involved? And some of that involves taking some risks. Having programs to rest as we had a kid a couple of years ago who we really went down the road personal life's learning with he was pretty frustrated in school so we were able to get him some, and I'd say rigorous credits but through building tiny houses. It was what he wanted to do. And he was able to get math and English credit via that. So there are just lots of different ways of your creative to build relationships and partnerships. But it starts with that advisor in my opinion. Okay. I just was curious how are you sharing your information your methods with other schools with your peers? That's a good question. It's been fast and furious. So you know all of the survey stuff we've done over the past year has been it's been quick and dirty. There's lots going on. So that's our plan over the summer and fall. But I have a principal's network at Chittenden County Principal's Network. I've shared that with them. I talk a lot. So that's the main thing. We rely on J2 but we need to more widely distribute that. And I would like to make that path accessible that everybody I can't imagine now they're like how have we not always been doing this? That's what my wife my wife's response is. You know I'm like oh we got graduation standards they're in K-12 now she's like wait you didn't always have that oh I guess now you know I'm going to do that right now. So we're going to get on the road and then that's the question of resources because Brian has a day job. So trying to figure that piece out. Parents guardians can you talk a little bit about how they're involved? Sure if you look at developmental assets parents, guardians, neighborhoods we don't I mean it's common sense right it's factored hugely into a student's success so they become partners with us in the survey first of all as they're filling it out but just like with students you have to invite them into it right so at the beginning of our now we have our core program where our goal is to have 100% of our parents as students are entering CVU meet with their teachers and administrators and that's you'd be surprised how hard it is to get to 100% but you have to be tenacious and you have to believe that it's really important because it's easy to not believe that families are crucial in this work sometimes you want to push families away so I mean again I think it comes it comes down to those mechanisms that you have in school that bring bring community in and then you can go out to the community as well but you've got to be it's hard to it's hard to get to 100% so what percent of you left? for our ninth grade I mean for our ninth grade intake meetings we're like 99% for our company meetings I would say 80% is it's 80% ish but we're you know I'm kind of making that number up on this console it's too much how typical is CVU in terms of or what we talk about structure you know I think about the things outside of school and so I'm wondering inclusive what your students come with in terms of economics and where that fits in in terms of games of connectedness and that yeah I wouldn't want to speak for I mean I've worked in at CVU I taught at 6 for a little while and I was principal of Montpelier High School for a few years and Montpelier and CVU were pretty similar in terms of those demographics from what I hear and Jenny can speak to this better than I could not put you in the spot but we're we have an incredibly supportive community that has some resources now having said that I think sometimes that group that's kind of lower socioeconomic status is almost more divided as a result because there's a sharper marginal sense of being marginalized so I think we're similar to other communities in that regard but we do have some real advantages we have about half a minute I think before you need to go to the floor are there other questions? did you have I saw a picture of her here just quickly you collect your data with phones it's all electronic so you can do this whenever something came up text everybody the answers are right and now we have the analytics to see when they're responding which is really interesting too we try to do it all at the same time but then obviously some kids are out of school two in the morning are taken here's me another piece of data actually really interesting teachers that students know for who they're connected to you can start to see the areas you're like this one's math this student really tends to gravitate towards them just in the relationships they're building interesting ones pay attention to that how can we start guiding a student's path Carl you have a quick question the red light is just in a couple of words how would you define what's the defining difference between this survey and other surveys take people that students have taken we're acting on it I have lots of data just sits on my shelf the survey is not anonymous it's not anonymous the second you start doing things it's a problem this is very specific the individual the intent is an invitation kind of discussion so thank you thank you thank you absolutely and I can see why you're consulting you I'll show the next one thanks we have about an hour or so to hear testimony around Proposition 5 and we've got two people who are testifying and then we have some questions for Bryn or follow-up with her as well and so Karen this is a note on it I'm sorry so maybe if you had looked at your email with the schedule last week it had a page on there Guy hadn't gotten the email that was sent and he has a new role and he is he is anyway so he's moving into being a member of the press or a blog so but he still has some commitments and he hasn't gotten the information and in the meantime I think over the weekend or at least when I got it on Monday Carrie had emailed Julie around speaking for a lawyer who's unable to come and so she has so that is why it's not got page and I could just submit those thank you testimony believe it or not at least my desk we try to go paperless right got it so my name is Carrie and I have been asked by Helen to read this testimony Helen is actually a professor of law at George Mason University in DC Virginia I'm sorry Carrie we have lots of ambient noise speak up thank you does this work it's recording you it's recording you it's recording so someone wants that afterwards alright so if you need more on me or my credentials Helen and I have been colleagues for a number of years mostly because I'm a journalist and she and I have brought across each other a number of times over these issues that we're talking about today so getting right to her testimony thank you sincerely for this opportunity to present this testimony concerning proposal 5 it's a momentous event when a state amends its very constitution especially considering the age of the Vermont constitution and its generous recognition of natural inherent and unalienable rights and the government's purpose for the common benefit protection and security of the people so given this human rights language and the medically supported fact that abortion destroys the life of the human being proposal 5 is a humanitarian tragedy which can only stain the legal and social fabric of Vermont abortion advocates do not appear to take this moment very seriously and her testimony Kerry Brown executive director of the Vermont commission on women speaking before the house committee on healthcare devotes less than a full page toward justifying all abortions at any time and for any reason she uses a total of eight footnotes seven of which rely upon the online summary of a turn away study written by abortion advocates or an online news report by the same study written by one of its research directors the eighth footnote supports a statement concerning the high rates of unintended pregnancy among poor women here are the significant shortcomings of such an argument first it's neither wise nor respectful of the important deliberative role of a state legislature to offer testimony supported almost exclusively with the conclusions of research ideologically committed to abortion second although the official summary and online reporting regarding the turn away study sometimes employ the language of causation a reading of the studies themselves indicates that the authors are at best able to determine only a correlation between a woman and subsequent experiences and events such as already received public assistance single parenting full-time employment and maternal bonding in the study the authors concede that there may be no there may be no proof that an abortion turn away actually caused negative outcomes for a woman's existing children instead some third factor like a woman's chaotic life has to be for risk poor relationship with the father health or income status etc led both to her unintended pregnancy and her delayed search for an abortion such that she was turned away as being too far along and to the situation of the existing children in her home to pose turn away I hope that made sense it was a long sentence furthermore the authors of this study admit what so many others studying unintended pregnancy have admitted the term is an complex phenomenon to measure and often mistakenly includes women who have mixed or ambivalent feelings and later come to welcome the children into the error these same types of error plague all of abortion advocates claims that unintended pregnancies or denied abortions cause poverty or single parenting or less employment or other losses researchers regularly fail to capture the meaning of unintended pregnancy poor health violent relationships among others are responsible both for unintended pregnancy and for what these same women experience post birth third if correlation matters and even if one can draw a causal line between fewer abortions and some of the events and experiences women undergo then it would have to be acknowledged that as abortion numbers and rates of abortion have grown at the same time soon after abortion became legal and numbers of abortions rose precipitously in the US women's levels of happiness declined so that for the first time in recent history women reported themselves less happy than men it's helpful to look first at figures taken from reliable federal labor and education and healthcare databases and you'll see this is noted in this document submitted here we find that abortion rates declined steadily in every year from 1991 to 2014 both in terms of absolute members and in ratios in 1991 there were nearly 1.4 million abortions 338 for 1,000 for every 1,000 like first 24 per 1,000 women of reproductive age by 2014 the federal government reported 650,000 abortions during that same time however rates of women's labor force participation grew from about 66.6% in 1991 to 70.2% in 1996 peaking at 71.2% in the year of the Great Recession and settling at about 70.8% currently over the past six decades including the past three during which abortion rates and numbers remain the percentage growth of the labor force for women has been greater than for men women's completion rates for higher education have also soared during the last several decades to clients in abortion numbers and rates in 1991 for example women achieved parity with men regarding the completion of four years of college today when abortion rates are about participation and women in the United States are generally more likely than men to have a bachelor's degree women's self reported happiness however took a sharp dive after the 1970s when abortion became legal and widespread a widely hailed study by two economists of the University of Pennsylvania reported that previously women the decline is in their words ubiquitous and holds for both working and stay-at-home mothers for those married and divorced with the old and the young and across the education distribution it's also similar as between the United States and almost all of the nations of Western Europe where abortion has for the most part been freely available during those decades the others cannot pinpoint the precise reasons for these declines to ask did men and women's movement alternatively perhaps the well-being data quite to different different differential impacts of social changes on men and women with women being particularly hurt by declines in family life rises in inequality or reductions in social confusion they also ask about the declines possible relationship to a changed sexual marketplace made possible by the sexual revolution of which nonmarital sex contraception in abortion or part and its effects upon women fourth claims that easily available abortion is a one-way ratchet favoring women's well-being fail to account for its possible negative effects an honest evaluation of the sum total of outcomes associated with abortion would at least have to know that more than a few studies in top medical journals have raised the possibilities of harmful psychological and physical health effects upon women abortion advocates regularly and vehemently dismiss as partisan all claims that women experience post-abortion difficulties but a close look at these studies reveal them to be not at all partisan I and I'm speaking for Helen recall during time during the early 2000s as an appointee of the council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the NIH several times in that role I implored the leadership to study the mental and physical effects upon women if any of undergoing an abortion and no action was taken if abortion advocates wish to know the answer to the question of abortions effects upon women they would pursue it honestly with the ample academic tools and budgets to their disposal furthermore there is a flourishing body of literature regarding the effects of legal abortion upon the sexual market sexual marketplace leading to more not fewer non-marital pregnancies and births in literature by leaving economists including President Obama's appointee as the chair of the Federal Reserve Bank Janet Yellen scholars claim that as compared with other explanations of non-marital pregnancies and births a technology shock hypothesis it's going to be a long sentence combined with the declining stigma of a non-marital birth better explains the magnitude and timing of marriages and the numbers and rates of non-marital pregnancies and births during a historical period in which federal, state and private support for both contraception and abortion were increasingly widespread they conclude that the current sex and mating market enabled both by contraception and abortion operates to the disadvantage of women respecting the quote when the cost of abortion is low or contraceptives are readily available potential male partners can easily obtain sexual satisfaction without making promises to marrying the events of pregnancy and will thus be reluctant to commit to marriage end of quote single women thus feel pressured because if they do not participate in sex they are at a classic competitive disadvantage because sexual activity without commitment is increasingly expected to have marriage in the event of pregnancy they are afraid their partners will seek other relationships the stigma of non-marital non-marital parenting then declines as more and more willing their children without marriage according to this theory even women who want children reject contraception and abortion and want a marriage guarantee as a condition for sex have non-marital sex anyway because it's the price of entering the mating market such a market the nature's view is therefore likely to produce higher rates of sexual activity non-marital pregnancy non-marital first and abortions all at the same time this is all from a study how long it's referencing you can see putting on this document eminent Princeton almost done eminent Princeton sociologist Sarah McClanahan relying upon the above research notes further that while the pill likely boosts women's confidence to invest in advanced education it is also true that both the pill and legalized abortion made it easier for men to share their front as responsibilities in sum the simplistic notion that abortion is clearly and causally linked to improved well-being for women is easily falsified clearly many important factors help cause the rises in women's educational and labor force participation rates during the very periods of time in which abortion rates were falling was not assisted the families of the poor in the United States non-marital births as a percentage of all births have risen during the time of abortion's legal availability they rose from 5% in 1960 to about 18% in 1980 to 33% in the mid 1990s to over 40% in 2013 were the rate of births today the poor who annually received billions of federal and state dollars to pay for contraception and abortion have the very highest results tends to reproduce itself intergenerationally helping to cause a historically large gap between richer and poorer between black and white Americans determined very largely by family structure as for the equality and freedom of women in relation to abortion it must be said that it is a sad day for women when abortion is valorized as the means to such ends if abortion advocates are right and the child is nothing more than a part of the mother's body and her property than the case for legal abortion boils down to an argument that women are required to destroy a part of themselves in order to achieve equality if a product of abortion are right and abortion destroys a completely vulnerable genetically unique self-developing human life than the case for legal abortion boils down to the claim that a woman has to destroy another's life in order to be equal there is no logical complete or intellectually sound argument that widely available freedom there are too many counter examples too many questions abortion advocates are afraid to explore and too much human and moral history demonstrating that a program of even legally sanctioned violence against vulnerable human beings can never have a happy ending it should also be noted in closing the proposal fives particular support for personal reproductive autonomy is a recipe for humanitarian disaster auto-nomos has been employed by scholars and activists in the family and reproduction fields to justify everything from genetically engineered babies to cloning to the person of gametes or embryos on the basis of a prediction that a child technologically engineered from superior materials quote unquote will have certain traits including skin color talent intelligence and beauty it is unimaginable not only unlimited abortion but also give parents and doctors unlimited power and direction over the human beings of the next generation Karen when you emailed us and might be on there but if you could just for the record comment on who's who I just read who you just read so that we know the source and that's that's clear I don't know right here Helen is a professor of law at the Antonin's Scalia's law school George Mason University where she teaches family law law and religion property law she publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting nonmarital households and the first amendment religion clauses she is a faculty advisor to the schools civil rights law journal and the Latino law student association they consult her for the typical council of the land in the city an advisor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Fisheries in Washington D.C. founder of Women's Speak for Themselves.com and an ABC news consultant she cooperates with the permanent observer edition of the Holy See of the United Nations as a speaker and a delegate to various United Nations conferences concerning women publishes regularly in news outlets including the New York Times The Washington Post The Huffington Post and USA Today she also speaks at academic and professional conferences in the United States Europe Latin America and Australia and prior to joining the faculty of Scalia Law Professor Elbury taught at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America represented the U.S. she received her law degree from Cornell University School of Law and her master's in systematic theology from the Catholic University of America Anything else? No, thank you I appreciate that I think it was important for people to really hear the extent of her background and her publication and her knowledge so that it would be great to have her in person and I honored that I was able to read this testimony and I hope we can convey to Helen Are there questions to convey to Helen? Carl, I can't tell You look like you're about to say something I'm trying to formulate something Okay Okay Were there any other beams of say birth control other than abortion that she was that she talks about birth control but an abortion seems to be the main nature that she's talking about here and any other ways to assess in this area Helen is actually an outspoken proponent of women having reproductive freedom through a better relationship with men and choices in that regard I think that if I understand your question correctly she didn't speak about this in all the aspects of this Proposal 5 which really extends to reproductive freedom I understand and she understands abortion is actually explicitly mentioned I think that she could speak at length and I can ask her to give something more specific but reproductive opening up reproductive freedom to a constitutional amendment it's very open-ended and she makes it very clear that it would not be the best interest of anyone really I mean when you think about it we can't even agree on how to interpret the right to life in a constitution but to open it up in this way seems to be very dangerous so thank you I just have a question where does she live she's in Virginia she's from Virginia and you said you were a journalist right I actually live in St. Albans I'm a freelance writer I've also worked for the Roman Catholic Diocese in the past that's actually where I first came across Helen we work together with women's for themselves I've written everything from vegetarian times to the St. Albans messenger to crisis magazines so anything else thank you Carrie thank you you must stand in thank you I know it was long it was helpful and having it online so that we can read it and go back to it especially one person is still not here she's in the principal's office thank you thank you I'm sorry I'm apologizing I'm apologizing before I start it I did not submit a written testimony yet but I will that will follow up good afternoon everyone Bore Yang with the Vermont Human Rights Commission I am the executive director in legal counsel I'm sure you know but for the record the Human Rights Commission is a state agency that has a relatively large mandate we are required to investigate claims of discrimination in housing places of public accommodations and in state employment we also have a statutory requirement to educate outreach and also advance public policies that impact people who are protected under our statutes some of the categories that are protected are sex breastfeeding and pregnancy certainly if someone were discriminated against based on the fact that they've had an abortion that would be the type of case that we could take at the Human Rights Commission although we have not fortunately have had to so the Human Rights Commission strongly supports PR5 we firmly believe that the right to have an abortion and the right to not have an abortion is a fundamental human right it is a right that transcends race and national origin and socioeconomic status but I do think because I'm from the Human Rights Commission it would be important to sort of talk about the interrelationship between race socioeconomic status and the right to reproductive liberty a person's access to timely affordable abortion care can be profoundly impacted by her race her socioeconomic status and what resources are available to her we know that women of color and women of low socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be impacted by funding cuts to programs and services that provide healthcare in their communities they have fewer reproductive healthcare providers in their neighborhoods black and Hispanic women and women of all races and low socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to have insurance coverage for contraception and family planning care this is why we see women of color and women of low socioeconomic status grappling with undecoded pregnancies and choosing abortion at greater rates than their affluent white women these disparities also match disparities in education income infant mortality rates cancer and life expectancy in fact unintended childbirth as well as adverse maternal infant health effects are associated with decreased opportunities for education and paid employment when women have the right to control their bodies they have equal opportunities to meaningfully participate in society women of color and women in poverty already face high levels of stress in the workplace they are the group of people that are most likely to face discrimination they are the group of people that are most likely to face sexual harassment in the workplace and they are the group of people that are most likely coming from poor living and work and end up working in poor working conditions so the right to decide if and when they start a family should not also be a barrier to equal opportunity Any questions? Gavin from your testimony women of color have less access to contraception like brain disarmament like that birth control and so they have a higher rate of unintended pregnancies is that what you're saying? less access to birth control but they have less access to healthcare and they have less access to healthcare providers in their communities and family planning programs and services often when we see government cuts it's cutting to programs that serve these particular women and so it's what you're saying specific to Vermont or in general in terms of healthcare policy sure in general but certainly there are many women of low socioeconomic statuses in the state of Vermont okay then it's time for we just heard some testimony about people from low income families and so on and talked about billions of dollars federal and state dollars they put towards people in that particular instance so that they could have access you made the statement that they don't so I would like to know what the source of your information is I definitely have cited these things and I can provide that in the written testimony too but in which specific fact would you like me to cite the they have fewer reproductive healthcare providers in their neighborhoods that hold it huh hold it okay and would you like me to state so right now in the record or in my written testimony what do you want to do okay sure I want to look at it yes I've got references in this testimony that I can go and look at yeah I absolutely will provide that to you but I can say it's the Gutmacker Institute Alisa von Hegel and Daniella von Spock called reproductive rights in the age of human rights 2016 study and those are the two that I wrote here just my talking points but in my written testimony that will be provided to you good questions for thank you very much thank you very much so much do we have anything bring we have anything that we would like bring to get back to or to provide us with information based on what we have heard today for not to mention from before okay sterilization okay the sterilization issues are you here in the room I'm not here okay can you repeat the issue sure concern my question is about whether anything in Prop 5 how it intersects with our current laws around sterilization and who can make decisions I'm familiar with who can make decisions around sterilization so when Prop 5 is referring to the individual is it referring to the person who can make that decision or is it referring to in this case the potential individual disability okay so are we talking specifically in the context of a person who has either advanced directed or somebody who's acting as their agent agent or guardian guardian the situations that I'm particularly referring to are young women of child bearing age whose in most cases their parents are their guardian and seek to have sterilization performed and so what I am what I need information about is the rights that are being protected in Prop 5 are they the rights of the individual of the disability or are they the rights of the person seeking to have that person sterilized and Bryn if I heard the testimony from the testimony from Helen Alvare I wasn't following it written but I thought there was comments around the notion of self-law she said and so I'm curious as to what that is and I will take a look at the document testimony I share that okay turn if we ever get a definition of personal reproductive autonomy a definition of what those words mean will we talk a little bit about how shall I do it now? yes please sorry so for the record Bryn here from Legislative Council we talked a little bit about how a court will interpret those words typically as we've talked about before we'll look at the plain meaning of a particular word or phrase in interpreting the meaning of that word or phrase and if it is unclear the definition of that word and the court will look to other sources to infer what the meaning is so for example a purpose section or the legislative record but I think that the conversation about personal reproductive liberty was that it's likely that a plain dictionary definition of those words will be sufficient for a court to understand the meaning and I can tell you those words that's helpful would that be helpful yeah that would be helpful okay so the and what sir defines personal as of affecting or belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else reproductive means relating to or affecting reproductions and reproduction refers to the system of sex organs that function together for the purpose of sexual reproduction autonomy autonomy what is autonomy what's the plain meaning of autonomy so the plain so I didn't look up the dictionary definition of that word but right so the freedom to self-determine or make decisions for oneself but I will get you the dictionary definition if that's helpful just for the record would this mean that an individual could make the decision of reproduction all the way through to birth and including birth make a decision about reproduction because the next sentence if I remember right says something about life's having control over life's course or something like that liberty and dignity will determine one's own life course so is that is that a so is that a correct assumption well I think you know like as I've said before the court will interpret the extent to which the rights and personal reproductive autonomy the extent to what that protects and again I will say again that connecting it to the strict scrutiny standard means that it does not inhibit a state from regulating the right to abortion or contraception as long as any regulation means that standard of strict scrutiny Carl yeah I'm still having a little trouble here understanding when I said that an individual's right an individual could be a man or a woman is that correct this context okay so if I looking at it from a man's perspective he has an individual right personal reproductive autonomy and let's say he he wants to procreate life he has procreated life and the partner with which he's procreated life with he's not interested in this it seems that we have conflict between one person's reproductive right and the other and I read this several times I still quite see the how should I say it that it would give the woman the right to have an abortion so can you tell are you suggesting that it may indicate that a man's right to have a child would override the right of a woman to have an abortion I'm asking you know I'm asking how that would be so it seems like it would end up being a pal in court because you know their life destiny or how is it their thought of their own life's course the man's looking this is his or their project and the females deciding that she doesn't want to pursue that life course so there's two life courses that are not synonymous in this case but and how does it get settled then you know we're saying that they're which I say obviously one is carrying the child I understand but it would seem to me that if we're giving an individual and the individual is either a male or a female how can it be decided and on what basis is it decided so I think that you're right that it would be up to a court to determine how to apply Article 22 in that situation and I think the last time I was here is that in my opinion I think that it's unlikely that a court will apply Article 22 in a way that directly infringes on the right of a woman to have an abortion because that would be a sort of direct undermining of the right to reproductive liberty as it's understood in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that talks about the right to abortion so it's going to go back to the Supreme Court decision I mean in the Roe vs. Wade versus this article or this proposition well I don't think the proposition is clear about that issue at all that you know look like a man's rights are being abridged to use another term in here okay or what we call infringed okay by the action of his partner so I hear you saying that you don't think that it's clear I think what I'm saying is that based on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and deciding cases about abortion I think that the Vermont Supreme Court will likely look to that body of jurisprudence and determining what the right to reproductive liberty means and what it protects and typically the regulations on reproductive choice are centered around women and women's bodies and so the court will likely look to that history and interpreting what are the 22 minutes we'll do it and flip around if I can just continue with questions we're not trying to dissuade right we're not trying to dissuade well it's a question well yes like the shoes on the other foot here flipping the coin and saying so now a man wants because he doesn't want children but his wife does okay and so if she prevented from having I was saying that she would not be able to prevent him from having a perspective no I mean it centered on personal reproductive autonomy so I think that that word personal really indicates that it's up to the individual to make a decision for themselves about their own reproductive choices I look at that word personal as being a significant word in an article and an indication that it doesn't wouldn't allow for anybody to make a choice for somebody else to people to create the life so you know both people are involved in this process anyway I guess thank you for the questions for legal responses or more information so I'm looking at the language of article 22 most of the time when we're talking about constitutional rights whether state or federal we are talking about state action and so when I read this shall not be imprinted or denied I have in my head parents that say brackets that say by state action that's a question question mark I would agree that the the language of the article signals to the court that this is an indication about what the legislate the parameters on the legislature if the legislature chooses to regulate the rights to abortion or any other right that might be protected under the article and I think that's correct I guess in the the he versus the hypothetical it becomes not applicable yes I think that it's a little bit more of a challenge for me to see a situation where a person could assert a right under under article 22 as an individual as opposed to having a regulation imposed on them that they are challenging as an constitutional what does it mean to be a self-executing clause so the second sort of purpose of the of the second phrase of the article that directs the court to use the strict scrutiny standard is a signal to the court that the article is a self-executing article meaning that a suit can be brought under the article so for example the common benefits clause is also a self-executing article of the Constitution as opposed to article 1 which sort of is a broader is a broader article that indicates the policy of the state and it's not a self-executing article and self-executing means what that should an individual can challenge a regulation under that article are there other at this juncture information that we would like to come to come back to I didn't I mean probably not today but if there's other research that yeah I know we talked about having a judge come here and what we talked about was that having a sitting judge who would buy their actual position after rule is not appropriate and so what we will do is we will have various people and bring can talk about that as well in terms of the criteria by which people judges make decisions and they need to go through higher judgment or something like that I think there are potential challenges and I will speak to something that has been in the press recently that a retired judge sat and made a decision on so to have to have a retire I mean I think you know I think what we need to do is have people who are lawyers and we you know and perhaps we could the constitutional person who is the professor that we just heard from who teaches at Georgetown they could perhaps George Mason they could perhaps add that to their comments and if other people but I think it is it's not appropriate to go back further and other and so that's one place that we can get we can get it from there in terms of what what kinds of decisions what do they the criteria if the criteria was black and white and one way they wouldn't just to make decisions they have to weigh the specific facts of the case and so I think what perhaps this committee needs is a little primer on that because otherwise the specific facts of the case the unique facts of the case and the presentation of the information based on certain criteria which are unique to the facts of that case for how decisions get made I'm not a lawyer so you want to have people who are who are lawyers which is what judges are judges are lawyers is to talk about those so Bren if you can help us with that not today that would be helpful as well yeah lawyers don't have to be judges I mean judges don't have to be lawyers I believe they do I beg to differ most of them are most of them are but you know I have to go first correct no as supreme court justices need to be lawyers we had one here in the month that was not a lawyer I'm wondering about a magistrate I think it's possible I'd have to check on the statute for you my understanding is that there have to be some minimum qualifications one of which is that they are an attorney there may be a different rule for a magistrate check well you will rather than us relying on I mean past history or our memory or our what is a supreme court justice which is really what we're talking about is that who makes these decisions if you could get back to us on that as well because the last thing I wanted to talk was argue over what are the qualifications of a supreme court justice to get information I don't even but you made a mistake on the night I made a tree with it so we're going to go to our so we're going to find out if it was ever one I almost remember trying to think of his name but that's beside the point I'm not asking for the judge to come in here to I'm asking for how they would interpret the language that's what I'm interested in and I think we need to start with how decisions get made because how you will interpret it and Topper maybe by misinterpreting what you and some others have are asking for you're asking for how they will interpret a certain that will depend upon the facts I think if I recall there was an interest in understanding from a judge or an attorney I think from a judge what a compelling state interest which that was that was the line I remember as the and what we constitute and as I said we will get from a lawyer what is a compelling state interest if there was a very clear answer to what is a compelling state interest that was uniform and why would we go to court it would be clear as a bell why would it differ as to whether what the facts of the case are so I we get into I think looking for insurance that may not necessarily be that sort of courts and stuff or all of that yeah maybe a compelling state interest could negate the phrase personal reproductive reproductive autonomy that's what I'm trying to get at is there's something in the way this is written that doesn't shine and that's what I was saying how would a judge interpret this well if I understand that question which I may or may not the language signals to the court that any regulation that restricts that right the right that the article enumerates must in order to be constitutional it must be be due to a compelling state interest and be narrowly able to achieve that interest that is what the strict scrutiny test is so it signals to the court what level of analysis to use in looking at the statute to determine if it's constitutional so a state interest could override that fundamental right that's enumerated in the article if it meets the strict scrutiny test you're making my case friend so if a judge decided that having an abortion in the whatever trimester or whatever if he felt that that could negate what's being tried right if the legislature were to pass a law that would prohibit abortion at a certain stage of pregnancy and the court found that the state had a compelling interest in doing so and crafted that regulation in a way that was narrowly tailored to achieve that interest then it would be a constitutional regulation like limited to a certain time period period gestation and like third crime that would be narrowly again that would be up to the court and it would be up to what the regulation is and it would be up to what the interest of the state was but again it would have to it would have to be crafted in a way that had the effects of achieving the interest that the state had in the regulation so friend what which one of these things in your opinion the constitutional amendment or the bill that we produced best protects this right I think that the Proposition 5 and age 57 work together to protect the right to abortion putting the right in the constitution in the way that it's been drafted in Prop 5 would provide for fundamental right that was protected in the states like highest legal documents and age 57 is obviously a law and so the legislature is free to revisit that policy and change it in the future obviously it's more difficult to change the constitution in the future so in some ways you could look at it both ways that Proposition 5 offers maybe a more long term protection of the right provided provided it passes right right I'm sorry I assume that's what you meant if what they've brought was a pass no I'm saying I'm sitting here today and we're we've already passed a bill out of here and now we've got a constitutional amendment and that thing takes two years to happen in the meantime three the other could be done and we could do both as he rolls his eyes I just feel this thing is ambiguous I really don't I understand and I just thank you so committee we've got a 15 minute break we've got three topics this afternoon we're going when we come back at 2.15 we're going to talk about leg and then at 3.30 we're going to talk about the child care financial assistance program sliding fee scale we're going to get introduced to what is in the minimum wage bill as it has sent so I mean some of this was because we actually had some time because I don't we have Riva but I think Riva Riva Riva you are coming I'm here I think we had questions for you I hope so you have answers I hope so we do do you want me to come in yes please we missed you we haven't seen you I know I know it's like we thought you were a member of the committee we celebrated good afternoon we're from Murphy deputy commissioner for child development in the department for children and families so we are engaging in our own examination we're trying to keep focused on child care which I realize sometimes the difference between child care and pre-K really moment is the difference between where the money comes from but we won't go there we have various questions some of which have to do with in the one I don't know prepared remarks I don't have answer your questions I'm I'm going to ask a few questions that I think was why we asked you to come here sure and then other people whose memory is better than mine or whatever as we are looking at child care facilities and in the version of S4 that has S40 it's the same thing whatever S40 the past house education it identifies three different kinds or four different kinds of fixtures in education is this the right one I that's the amendment that's the amendment that passed no that's our that's the amendment oh okay this is you know we sort of asked Mike O'Grady to put some stuff up there this is the first time and Mike O'Grady's not here so we're all like oh my god how do we do this but one of the things Logan and you or someone could scroll down one of the things was to add it seems in recording there was something oh this isn't it's you I want the fixtures okay that's that's in the villa pass by the senate or pass by it's on page okay it's on page 12 of 13 of the education version and we were seeking to insert commissioners for children with families into those places so what is challenging about this this is no wonder you're confused because it's not a strike all so I have the other one okay good that's the one I had okay good page 12 has the fixtures so although the fixtures doesn't seem to be in this amendment that Mike has done for us one of part of the conversation that this committee has had is that in the version that passed page 12 page 12 there's 11 pages on this I think it's I've got as past as we need as past how many how many just go between right there under Friday you're touching it there you go pew by the way they have been somebody's private email this is why these at the end okay that's the one okay good there was only one type of picture yes and our conversations we were like that doesn't seem right because especially in terms of childcare facilities they may have other clients and so one of the things we're talking about is having those same possibilities for childcare facilities so I did Crystal and I touched base and she said that we are aware there is some public there are drinking fountains in some childcare programs and there are outlets used for cooking right so just I mean I don't know so given that would would do that any issue with us saying you know just consider that for these yes that's we have no problem you were talking about the adding I was just going to make her aware yeah um in a couple of sessions it asked the commissioner to confer with the agency and natural resources and somebody else and even though you're all in the same agency I felt like they should also confer with the Department for Children and Family so we inserted that in a couple of places they are just it's always nice to have just in case and I will tell you we have a pretty long standing relationship with health on lots of things from immunization to we work together a lot just for conversation there's some other amendments that people are thinking about still trying to figure out what we had talked about um doing some level of 100% um funding audit voice so that nobody's going to shortchange and nobody's getting a windfall um it's also more accurate just in general um and some discussion about doing remediation I'm not remediation testing and then um holding off remediation but that to allocate up to a certain quantity to um remediation this year for maybe just the higher levels and then finish the rest next year but the real crux of the whole thing was to switch from a big arbitrary 70% number um it's not one picture especially and it doesn't reflect reality to a good figure that out I just wanted to get your input um knowing the whole range of childcare centers in terms of their largeness and smallness and complexity um you know if you had any opinion or sense of the 70 30 like with the 30 being a hardship for any of these facilities or does it feel the more hardship and expenses because they don't have any margins to speak of so um but of course if they're smaller they have probably less faucet so it's less remediation right so um that's all I would say they you know it is sometimes a struggle because there isn't a lot around the margins for them to pay for extra things so we will follow whatever the law says something like this like I'm really happy the testing itself is going to be funded because that will make the process a lot easier um but it you know if you haven't got anything extra and you have to put it into this and we do want them to comply because all of us want the kids to be safe we don't want to be using bottled water but we use that I got that in my pocket um I believe there's a term for what you're doing he just he begins with an S an S a five there's so many S for me supporting he begins with an M and it's two words S and M oh my gosh so what David was reminding me of which I I know I was just waiting for a question is we do have uh supplemental childcare grants that are when people are in danger of closing because of the large expense um for something as small as 30% of a faucet fixture it's a lot for them to go through to apply for one of those but if they had a large remediation project to do um jeopardize their program we could use those supplemental grants to assist them we sort of had that in the back of our heads around um if we have any big surprises we have to anticipate I mean we've helped people replace boilers in the middle of the intern so why do the state funds for remediation in any case I can get it for testing I love answering this because then all the educators and everyone freak out but um I mean I mean it actually is on some level a serious question why are why are we um no matter who you are no matter how big or small no matter whether it is a um all I know is you know my outlet wasn't 319 dollars when I redid my um 450 or 450 certainly not that um when there is available already a structure which is the grants you were just talking well the topological grants one of the conditions is that you have to be in danger of closing your program which you have just alright so that's why we were thinking if there were big remediations to do that that literally would endanger a program from remaining we would do that replacing a faucet but if they had lead pipes or some major problem which I will say frankly we'll surprisingly we'll have to see because we have been testing for years so we've only been testing but don't get many of these programs are small and even if we're testing one faucet if it was in the pipes it would probably have turned up but if we if we have that that's why I feel a little bit less anxious about major remediation be difficult for people and that this would be those grants are a lot of work for someone to go through to get $200 Sandy we had a witness the other day who said that your standard is the EPA standard of 15 parts per billion I had I had heard I thought I remembered that you were at 5 you know we're at 15 parts per billion now we support 15 parts per billion in the bill and your testing results from the centers from family homes from family homes shows that the vast majority in the test are still within are still under 5 are still under 5 at least one of our proposed amendments is that down the line you would make your regulations of of course we will yes true of actually maybe since this is so important we have to do it immediately well we are to be honest we just we've been working all winter with school based programs around beefing up exceptions where there was any duplication we've been working with them and so we are planning to open the rules if this all passes soon enough we will try to do it all in one shot and it would mean opening up family childcare too which we hadn't planned to do but we could probably do it together to get this in while we do that process but whatever the other will get it done right I mean there is some risk of opening up every single versus this very this very singular very important children's health thing that maybe it makes sense to do that we can use an executive now to do one thing for a period of time eventually we'd have to amend our rules so I have a couple of questions rather than testing the head so I think I'm probably the only one that's confused about this but in previous in your current regulations that require testing what's the difference between those individuals who are connected to a public water supply and those who are not who have like private wells is there any difference in your testing because it's only able to be reported for those who are private right who are under that I forget exactly what under some special programming I'm going to for testing open something if Christ was here she could probably open it to do this off the top of her head but I believe they're all I believe they're all tested at least for the lead piece I think well people with wells are tested for other things I've got the I've got something to do with the rest you're you're faved to you know the answer to that question could you can I shout out to my friend you absolutely can my name is Dave Bender I'm the senior positive supervisor of the commissioner of health so the the department of health got a grant in order to provide the testing for child care wells and so they they test in one tap we take the testing but that allows us to collect the information so that we have surveillance on those so the regulations require all all to be tested but because of that grant you had data on the the folks well or on wells yes and then your regulation your current regulations I'm looking at them now okay your current regulations now say I don't want to open a child care I have to have it tested or something I have to attest to to get a license to get a license you have to attest initially okay our initial licensure okay and I am remembering something about every three years we I checked with crystal this morning we do not have a periodicity about this the only folks who are asked to retest are folks who who test high the first time and then they have to test till they're fine so we do not have that in our regulations now but my understanding from the law as I read it is that the Department of Health will be developing rules that we'll all consult on and that that's the periodicity will follow after the rules are done okay and the first draft of these are things we are thinking about in this committee I think we may have had language in there around not any less protective than what is been three years we don't have any now and I don't honestly know I'm looking at my friend in case he knows I don't know what the science is about if you know does it pop up in in causes after a certain period of time I don't know if there's science around that but certainly if there's a periodicity that's in the Department of Health rules we'll follow that and we'll just enforce it that way the only thing I would say at that point is that that would end up being part of doing business for the providers because we would in terms of this new law get all the testing done the reason that they got that grant for family childcare was it was in you and we were trying to you know help people come in with new regulations but the sidebar help about this which we're kind of excited in this instance is that because we ran it all through their lab we had all those results and what we'd like to do for this as well to help the website and all is now we'll have results for everybody which will be most helpful and again the rules will be investigating what the science is around how things become impacted by lead and what we have to worry about and that we be guided by that Tristan is dependent and now we move to Mr. Lead so the rest the rest of my question was about so people had to be tested previously and I guess I'm making an assumption that some people were above the levels so high before maybe not do you anticipate there being any issues with people who have had to make remediation on their own dime previously and now theoretically this bill says oh but we're going to pay for it now we've had very few that were higher than the old level and no one's expressed that I think people are generally grateful when they can get assistance to do something that needs to be done they like to do the right thing I'm not sure that people would argue that oh I had to pay for that before now and then the last part is this the bill I don't the bill doesn't seem specifically to say this but it seems like this is what we've heard in testimony is that there would be ongoing periodic testing done but the funding here really only relates to this initial testing and so do you have capacity whether it's an interdepartmental transfer or whatever to pay for ongoing testing so we don't have anything in the budget for that I'm not sure my understanding of the bill is that this initial run of testing whatever periodicity that is part of the rules that VDH creates would be the part of the cost of doing business at least for childcare providers I don't have funding specifically to fund that I mean occasionally small grants are available for people they could use it for that but we were not anticipating that we would do this on that periodicity level so theoretically there would be their water sample tested I believe it's twenty dollars of faucet thank you which is not a huge no it's fifty is it fifty it's twenty dollars per tap per tap per tap so you do the flush you do that oh right so yeah so anything could be shipping so that would end up being part of the cost of doing business thank you I just wanted to clarify prior to what was happening your action level was fifteen parts per million right yes our current action levels fifteen parts per billion it will be five with the law and what I will tell you is that for many years center based programs have tested their water and we've never it's always just been part of the cost of setting up your business we haven't previously ever paid for family childcare homes because we got a grant and it was one of the things we could do for them to help them meet some of the new regulations we didn't pay for centers at that time because they had always had that obligation and they always paid for themselves these are the confirmation you have sorry I'll take that post first and then go first okay yeah I'll sit down oh the data the list you said you had a number of home based systems tested during this period have we seen the data or what the statistics were on that we did yes it's in the testimony I gave you last time I was here okay I knew March 27 March 27 yeah but it looked like a very low number at any real drop even at the point even at the five parts per billion that's what I just wanted to what do you have to okay that was my question too and those would be the folks I know what Chris is working on right now A. she's working with the private of health on you know preparing for some of the other things she's also working on the list of because public programs would be included with their schools so she's working on you know who's a private program they're looking at who's open during the summer and closed during some of the they'll start with who's open during the summer and we'll look at anyone who tested high the first time that we know of and go to those folks first like we'll we'll sort of prioritize our process to the group Helen I was the same question that there you go great one there is the advice for the committee there is a a desire that whatever is in place for school is in place for childcare facilities I appreciate that and so if there are whether it is how much the state how much we are how much we collectively are going to be putting for as opposed to the entities themselves in terms of what is the criteria in terms of the testing retesting one we want parity but two it really is right now the difference between 3K and childcare is where does the money come from and our understanding when we were doing the childcare bill so we can't talk about that we we learned that there are in fact some privately run private not private privately run zero to four or five contracted they are in a school building but they are not provided but it is not the advanced space there is some house in the school building there is some but the license is not right thank you that is much clearer yes and so it begins to get fuzzy if we if we go down the road of making differences because they are all children and we are very concerned that children no matter where they are so we want the children to be treated the same yes thank you that parity I think will be important are there other things that we think we are going to be discussing because my goal committee is whatever gets six votes on Thursday is out the door because then it is because it has to go to another committee and I keep hearing from everyone that this is we need to act quickly well sorry we got to a June yeah well there is another committee are you going to June no we don't we don't yeah if you were here until June we would like to not review that yeah the only thing that you know in going along what you were talking about in terms of parity is it would be helpful to understand a little bit more why you know this 454 versus the I am presuming that 454 replacement fixture would be similar to the all other outlets fixture I just don't know is there's a reason a real reason to have a separate thing why don't we just do everybody the same look I think that's what we were saying we were going to do yeah no and I know I know that what people are going to say is that the fixtures in in school buildings are fancier or more extensive or they're different than the fixtures in your home and that would mean that would mean that the daycare centers should be less because all other outlets is 319 right okay yes sorry this is still David um the 454 was actually so Junker is correct it's actually more the idea being that it is likely that schools would have facilities so people could do that work before the 454 I'm not advocating explaining the rationale but the 454 was to account for the labor that a private person would have to hire and so I guess we would need then some um language from you or Stephanie or whoever figured this part out because what I'm understanding people in this committee wanting is that outlets used for cooking um or you know something and then maybe again I mean that is assuming one kind not the other kind of fixtures so that's J.M. these numbers didn't come from health and the another more more childcare programs now have industrial kitchens because any newly built facilities particularly facilities uh serving meals you know we're building industrial kitchens we have them and the headsets have them so more and more of them do have the industrial kind of fixtures for cooking had to be a little newer maybe than what you might kind of have issues with them assuming we'll have issues with every single faucet in homes you see more of a standard kitchen faucet for cooking and again it's a total cost of not just the fixture itself but the the labor to go into the fixture some folks might fix it themselves I would never touch blood paint in my own pool so the numbers that we're looking out on the screen are those is that a 70% of a hundred percent of another number yes that's 70% so I ask Stephanie to run some numbers as if we had we were having child care providers in the first the same way as schools and I think I forwarded the email to Julie over the weekend but if I did not do it right now I'll be around nothing so that means the other side is before 54 is about a hundred and thirty she sent it to every all of us on email maybe you could post it email yeah but when did you send it by email I just sent it she just she just sent it by email to all of us and what did she send to us I'm sorry Kelly Kelly asked joint fiscal to to run coffee numbers based on the number of child care providers that they were working with do we know that she's so she she used the same percentage of how many fixtures would be drinking mountains kitchen and other and it was the same breakdown that they used for schools so there's a lot of assuming in those numbers but they she ran numbers as if child care facilities were going to be reimbursed at the same level and in the same way so since you have that open if you could forward that to yeah uh-huh that's it because one I'm sorry I didn't think to I mean in terms of what I mean um if we open up our email they are there right now folks if I recall it had both at a hundred percent as well as seventy percent yes we are still yes that is that and then the question would be if if B was to take into consideration that a child care provider might be less likely than a public school to have someone on site whose job it is for maintenance and so could do plumbing so the B was to provide that little extra right for the for doing that is that do we use that same little extra for all the others so there you go um so um and Reba a question that has come up maybe it's not an issue but some child care Reba yes some child care facilities don't own the building where they are yes that they rent and so is this something that will never happen but what happens if the owner of the building goes yeah I don't want to do this it's always possible that a landlord would say that we generally do providers who have to move as we work with them to move to find another spot to move in terms of you know recent history we don't need to go back to that in terms of regulations whether maybe it's fences or space something um have there been places where have there been child care um providers who have had to move from where they are not because they're having more kids but because the site where they're at no longer meets the requirements and so have you have you been successful and did that ever happen in my memory most of the programs we've moved in the last few years have had to do with either uh the safety of the environment you know something like environmental toxins or something of that nature um or you know flooding oh you know other mold uh has happened on more than one occasion that uh I actually think Katie testified about the mold that they found in Ascension um that's very concerning with young children and so usually people want out as quick as they can so we work with them we help them find other locations sometimes they move in uh you know like you know we work with them we have a little bit of familiarity I don't know if you remember a couple years back there was a um I don't know that it got as far as you became such a big deal as people thought of what they were looking at brown sites and there was perfect intersectional child care programs and old dry cleaning sites and we were very anxious and we um went in and we had a whole plan we'll help them fortunately we didn't find many but it is something we're prepared to do and we've done a lot of that but so and again I I have to look to David for this but I believe landlords have some responsibility around lead in in the properties they own in rented properties um because you know that's an issue we also worry about you know renters in their homes are there other ideas questions that we want Riva to be aware of so Riva when we pass it it says it's 100% not 70 not 50 where are you going to find it in your budget well in terms of remediation I believe that's cover section at least in the bill that I read is that right so I believe the testing is covered um there is language I saw in the budget adjustment act which has not been fully signed and I don't know the status of it um that the money that you gave back in that in the BAA that I saw so that was 300 that um and so the question is are there does this cover cost oh if you say you want 100 just for childcare maybe I'm not following the question instead of the 70 30 we said 100% oh I I am presuming that you I am presuming that the um oh so childcare would now seek child development division would be responsible for the remediation costs of not only childcare facilities but also public schools no we would do only childcare facilities so who's going to well the bill determined that right um S S40s came out of hesitation would pay for 7% of everybody the Department of Health will and I believe I said this the other day the Department of Health will disperse funds whatever funds allocate to the general assembly would disperse funds with that required so the general fund would disperse 70 whatever that number is but the bill the bill coming out does provide for both that's what I thought both species at 70% and the right and the Department of Health will be dispersing the money to the child development division and the local um schools schools have whatever makes sense in terms of the ministry of development of funds work with the CDD to see what makes the much sense so either we transfer the funds to CDD or we will work with them to provide to cut the checks for recipients of mediation of funds I'm not going to ask any more questions like um but I will either way whether you use a set amount or whether you decide to do some kind of an inquiry because we have a system and a process to pay child care providers I was the easiest thing would be for them to give us the money and us to keep track of those records and to run it through our regular payment systems but we would work with BDH on that ever worked we make a number of small payments is a child care facility the boys and girls club or the YWCA or whatever who are organizations you know Sarah Holbrook who have not who maybe what they have more of is the third space school aged kids school aged kids they're a part of this set unless they're operated by public school so when I asked this question about the differences between the numbers from CDD and the numbers that Stephanie was using in her estimates she did write back to me to let me know that her numbers do not include third space after school oh she didn't include after school because she wasn't including people located in public school that was my guess that was as well I'll find her email here okay so we would still care about after school kids drinking lead in public school or I would well I mean my understanding in early kindergarten I mean my my understanding in terms of our concern about lead and drinking water is that it goes from zero to to a hundred of the age of the person because not only are we concerned about young children who are most at risk but we are we are concerned about their brothers and sisters and we're concerned then about the teachers and the teachers who might be pregnant or just the teachers in general and so if we're going to be we should also then be concerned with the after school things we have been assuming that after school programs aren't included okay so could you email Stephanie and ask her to re-run well I'm just re-reading this sentence oh I did not include after school programs for licensed pre-K programs that are provided in the public school so if that clause provided in the public school applies also to the after school I'll just clarify with her okay but that makes sense because the schools are already checked and like the center is also probably checked as a child care center which they do child care well I mean I guess my question is Sarah Hullbrook and the YWCA or I'm seeing whatever they are and King Street or whatever there may be places where they have both a cute little child care and then they may have different spaces in the building which is the after school and so which ones would be tested and so that would be all under this law any of those places we'd be testing anywhere that care is provided you must under the current regulations designate to us where the children will be in any larger facilities so we know what their footprint for child care is you know what bathrooms they use we know if there's bubblers or I come from water fountains we call it here if there's water fountains it's part of the licensing process so I mean and some of these questions will may or may not impact our collective decision of at least six of what is the financial distribution and in um in a center based child care preschool program um they are able to under that license serve children up to the age of 13 right so many of them have after school programs for k12 within their building under that same license and the school age provisions are in there um very few of the programs would hold two separate licenses for after school and center based care unless the only it's really after school programs are only doing after school and they're doing is there such an animal yes there's an after school license which is only after school in kindergarten to act I think sick those up to 16 and family child care homes of course can have the entire range so I um can I shake up I missed a little bit and I apologize if you've already answered this but I was curious what would you say do you think it's important that we cover 100% um child care centers when they find for remediation when they find out that they've got a problem I think cover 100% of the cost 100% of the cost 100% of the cost I think they would appreciate having 100% of the cost covered because for some it would be a So right now we're just talking about pictures maybe like the scenario that there will be places that have other remediation needs are we then talking about 100% of those costs as well are we just maybe like the physical question I'm not sure of the question but now we're only talking about reimbursing for the remediation of pictures there may or may not be places that need types of place or so that pops up that's not accounted for here we're talking 100% reimbursement at cost and I know that's not as a bill but it's not a way to go that's what the bill is about right is the bill about pictures or is the bill about protecting children from like poisoning it's about fixtures that's not it's not a straw it's not a legacy you want to protect children but it's only going to be done through the fixtures should we phone the friends I mean, theoretically, it could include other things. Could it include other things? No, I just, I mean, if there's a cold home, let's say, 100-year-old, though, that happened to be a day care center, they still may have buried in the ground their connection to a well or a water system that's a lead type. So that would be an additional remediation. Okay. Now, presumably that would be few and far between, but there probably some exist out there in older homes. So I think that's what somebody was getting at. There could be further remediation, you know, required in some homes. I doubt it would be in any schools. There could be. It is based on our surveillance. It's extremely unlikely. It's extremely unlikely. It could. I don't know if they did. That's your problem. So you had those cranes? Yes. And you had those cranes. We had a program that had a serious problem and was in danger of closing due to remediation for lead. We could revoke those cranes. Yeah, that's not a big deal. So sticking to it. James then came up and, oh. I was first. I thought you called. No, just for your information. Okay, no, excuse me. We generally negotiate the programs for those cranes. Some programs will take some of it as a no interest loan that they actually pay back through their subsidy over time. So we try to stretch the money a little bit and we look at sort of what the cause of it was and they have to have a sustainability plan. This would be a little bit more straightforward, but we work with them. My question was back to our friend, which was, so do you believe that the legislation as it reads right now is really, remediation is about fixtures and not about, are we making a commitment if we say 100% to fixtures and anything else that's found? My read that's 40, it is about fixtures because our experience with the pilot and the surveillance with the licensed child care is that the problem is not typed. That 100% of the folks that did remediation by means of the fixture replacement achieved what we helped, which is extremely low. Thank you. That's not cool. James. I guess this is going to be covered. This is going to be a second one, but really not a second, but bounce off. What Kelly said is we can make it either Ipes or say fixtures. Yeah, it's just fixtures. Yeah. It seems like it is fixtures. Since she called on me, I still want to say anything. It was already answered. I think you already started covering it, but my question was just, the conversation we had last week about, do you have any protections in place for people? I would assume it's a problem that's not very common for people in a family child care home that get remediated and then stops their child care. Protections in terms of getting them back? Yeah, protections in terms of like just getting that grand money and then just getting out of business. When we do the supplemental grants, it is a sort of long process about whether or not they're staying in business or getting out. And if they're getting out, we sometimes help them hang on more than that to give families notice. If they're staying in, they actually have a sustainability plan that we expect them to. And most of the ones that have gotten grants to stay in business have managed to stay in business. So is it? We actually, not many family child care homes access it. It's mostly center-based programs who encounter financial issues. Sandy, Tapper, then Carl. So we've been hypothesizing about the bad pipes. But in fact, the child care centers that you currently regulate have all had at least one water test. And one would assume that if the problem is in the pipes, they might already know that. That is our... That was my question. We already know. And if that happens, it's going to have to be more than those figures. Because if centers had above, then again, we don't have the same level of detailed data that we have on the homes. But if centers were above the 15 parts per billion, they would not be able to use water in their center until that was remediated under the current rule. And I can't remember anyone who's had that for lead in my memory. That's not to mean it never happened, but I don't recall that. And I usually get briefed on your issues. It's usually some other weird substance. We're not right about that. We are, but not right now. We're being... No, we remediate for them. Carl. Yeah, I guess I'd suggest that we just narrow it down to, if it doesn't say it, that it's just the fixtures that we're trying to deal with in this bill. And that if I understand it and read it properly, there could be some special grant money or something available for people that might be in further remediation outside of this bill. Yes. And there's also a very small grant program at the Community Loan Fund that family childcare providers avail themselves of more. It's a small amount of money, but it's for small projects like that. That's why they don't usually end up with us for the larger issues. And we talk to them as well. No, just, I'm still having a hard time understanding. I saw that as well. They just disappeared out of my screen. But anyway, the 70%, 100%, and was there any money in the bill that I presumably voted against? Okay, all right. Brian, you voted against the budget she said. No, no, no. No, you voted for it. If there was any money, you voted for the money. So I was just, I'd like to see what, what that juxtaposition, was there any money that required, you know, voted for this? How much we're saying we have to do now at the 70%? I will get clarity by Friday or by Thursday when we take this up and when we take action on Friday. Or Thursday, whatever. Thursday. When we take action on Thursday. My understanding in the budget adjustment, there's what, 400,000 or something? That's what I... That was my understanding that there was 400,000 in the budget adjustment and the Senate sent over was a little bit more than that. And what the House Senate sent up just was even a little bit more than that. Or actually, I'm not sure what the Senate sent over anything because they're not sending over anything with money. But I will get that information for you from appropriations or joint fiscal in terms of the very clear. But I do, I mean, I want to say this bill and the money part, I mean, I think we want to give our, the recommendations of the majority of this committee in terms of the money, but also this other sort of policy issues around what we want to add or subtract or around fixtures and stuff like that. We have eight or nine possible things that we could do between now and the end of the session that I know are priorities for various people and they're large bills that won't necessarily come to us. But for instance, that we're going to take up a piece of it at 330, which has significant pieces that we in the past have been interested in. So we could spend all the rest of the time on this or we could do the best we can and take action on Thursday. So what I would ask from each of you is ideas about amendments, about changes. Make sure that we have one. We have one. Get them done. Get them done. So that we can go through them and do that. And then of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions and we might not. But that's my goal. So we bring those on Thursday? Bring those on Thursday. Have them drafted by the council. Send it to Mike. Send it to Michael Grady. We're having them drafted for you. And let's put it all on the table because there's some really good ideas. There's some things that have come out and then there are things that we may, you know, let's just create something that the majority of the committee feels comfortable moving over to appropriations. And I will try to get the clarity in terms of, Carl, your question about what money have we already voted for? What money have we already voted for? What's in question? We have six minutes. We have six minutes before we get to do. Look at what is in the minimum wage bill related to CCFAB. Thank you. Do you want to come together? Sure. We are now changing. We're being oh so flexible today. And changing sometimes. So my interest, I think, with you guys. But it's not, and Tanya's as much with the committee as well. We are not right now. Today what we're focusing on is what does S23 say about CCFAB? And what did we say about CCFAB in the bill that we've asked, and where are they the same way, different? And then I guess we're going to drag Deb Brighton over to talk about the money part or whatever. Whatever she did. Okay. Do you want a reminder of what you did first? Or would you like the minimum wage bill as well? Well, you know, it's all, thank you for that very thoughtful offer. Okay. And we always do what Legislative Council suggests. Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Council. Daniel Leonard, Office of Legislative Council. So this is H531 as past the House. And there are two sections that amended the Child Care Financial Assistance Program, which I prefer to CCFAB. So the first section that we're looking at is section two, and this was in the green books. This was the ongoing language. So first, at the bottom of page two, and the, sorry, the bottom of page one and the top of page two, the committee chose to kind of flip this sentence to say it in a positive and also to allow somebody who's currently unemployed to receive CCFAB for three months instead of one month. So now he's family seeking employment, shall be entitled to participate in the program for up to three months, and the commissioner may further extend that period. And subdivision two, this committee had a conversation about using language referring to current federal poverty guidelines so that we're always staying current. And then there was a sentence added at the end of that subdivision that said, if the federal poverty guidelines decrease in a given year, the division is to maintain the previous year's federal poverty guidelines for the purpose of determining eligibility and benefit amount. So we're never going back. We're only staying as we are moving forward. And then subdivision A4 was added, and this is to recognize that currently some centers or programs are receiving a payment through CCFAB that's higher than what they are charging for tuition. So this language is saying that the excess of the usual customary for services can't continue after September 30th of 2021. Then section three, this was session law because it only pertains to fiscal year 2020. This is the appropriation of 1.25. That's restoring the base. And then an additional 6.9 is appropriated for CCFAB. And there are two moving parts in this section. Subdivision A is moving part around the sliding fee scale, and subdivision A2 has to do with increasing the market rates. So first in one with regard to the sliding fee scale, we're saying that we're ensuring that families with gross income is up to 100% of current FPL receive 100% of the available benefit that's maintaining the status quo, and that families with gross income is between 100% and 300% of FPL guidelines receive between 99% and 10% of the available financial assistance benefit. And then we use this language at the top of the paragraph, I guess the bottom of the paragraph right before line A, scaling between the set eligibility levels as follows. So that's important because A through D sets certain points on a graph and tells you what the corresponding benefit is to that FPL level at each of those spots along the graph. But the scaling indicates that in between each of those points on the graph, there's some movement in the benefit level. So 95% of available financial assistance benefit for families at 125% of the federal poverty guidelines, 75% benefit at 150% of FPL, 50% benefit at 200% FPL, and 10% benefit at 300% FPL. So that's the sliding fee scale portion. And then the subdivision two has to do with the market rate. So the second part is aligning market rates of reimbursement for preschool and school-aged children and fiscal year 2020 with the market rates reported in the 2015 market rate survey and maintaining rates of reimbursement for infants and toddlers at the 2017 market rate levels for fiscal year 2020. So we did it vis-à-vis the federal poverty level and market rate. These are changes proposed by the Senate to our... No, this is H531. This is what you reported. This is just a reminder of what happened in the House. Actually, Damien, before you continue, let me ask Reba, how many and what has been the take-up, for lack of a better term, the change in policy that we passed two years ago around you can keep the same level if you get a raise as long as you put that money in a child savings account or retirement? I'll check with Ann. I don't think it's been very high. I'll check. Now, has that not been very high because we're still rolling it out and people don't know and people are not aware of it and then how do we make people aware of it? I think people don't have money. People aren't putting raises into savings accounts. Okay. They're using it. That's what we're hearing. But then you used their child care. That was the whole reason you did it, that they would get the money and then put them just a few dollars over maybe and then all of a sudden they lose their child care. So that's the clip. Right. So they wouldn't be able to keep, they wouldn't probably be putting money because they could need less money in their pocket. So that's what I think the chair is asking is who has taken advantage of that. Let me check with Ann. I mean, what we will be finding out is that it is too complicated for people to figure it out. Certainly. So what's in the minimum wage bill right now is language that was, this is almost identical to what passed in the minimum wage bill that was vetoed last biennium. And so what this provides is that to the extent funds are appropriated, the child care financial assistance program would adjust the sliding scale of the benefits to correspond with each minimum wage increase required pursuant to the minimum wage bill so that the benefit percentage at each new minimum wage level would not be lower than the percentage applied under the former minimum wage. So the problem that this is addressing is there's currently what everyone refers to as the benefits clip which is a point where your cumulative loss of benefits outstrips your increase in income and the concern was is that in the out years of the minimum wage proposal you would inadvertently push people over the edge of that. And so this is shifting out the sliding fee scale for the benefits pushing it out to correspond with each minimum wage increase so that we don't inadvertently push people down that slope. The second piece is to adjust the rate page providers on behalf of families in a manner that offsets the estimated increase cost of child care in Vermont resulting from the increases in the minimum wage required pursuant to this act. So again, this is dealing with the other side of it so providers have a number of workers who are receiving less than $15 an hour so it's anticipated that those providers will need to increase their payroll to meet the new minimum wage requirements and this would increase their overhead costs. And so what this is doing is increasing the rate that's paid to them to offset those increases so that they're, to the extent they're receiving CC subsidies that those increases are offset. So, where is the... I mean the current system that has been in place for ever many years uses some version of the federal poverty level as the percentage of what you get for CCFAP and some version of the market rate to what is the other half of that equation. This, as I am understanding it which may not be at all, throws that out or does it layer on? Where does the... I mean, where does this... Where does the calculation of the minimum wage come into play vis-à-vis the federal poverty level? Sure, so I believe that this is more of a layer and because it's silent it leads it to DCF to figure out by what amount the sliding key scale would have to shift in order to maintain the status quo for families to make them no worse off for having been impacted by the minimum wage than prior so they'd be receiving an equivalent amount in terms of their benefit but it doesn't specify it doesn't do the calculation here but it leads it to DCF to figure out the accurate amount. Now, we're not at the 2019 market rate for 2017 for infinite numbers and the bill proposed to $0.7 $0.7 for everybody else $0.5 for everybody else So is this layered in terms of 2? Is this layered on the 2017 or 2015 market rate? It doesn't specify it would be meant to layer on whatever the existing market rate that's being used So the impact would be different if our bill passes then it or if it doesn't pass so we don't really know the answer to any of these questions I know 531 I guess what I mean is if it's layered on we are behind we have been behind we've raised it up but in terms of the year of the market rate and we figured out much to our sadness that we could not bring it all the way up to the most current which is 2 years old anyway in terms of how they would do things out This is going to what is this going to do? Because every 2 years every 2 years the market rate I presume increases You want to say something? No Is it fair to say that when you do the survey that the market rate is increasing? Even more if you get Peter Christian for child development in the Department of Children and Families Last year when we were talking to folks about this bill my understanding was that this clause was about making families no worse off so that would mean that we would look at where a family was before the minimum wage went up and adjust so that those families would be no worse off than they were at that point not way better off in suddenly current market rate just know that a family would not go backwards I believe Deb has done a lot of it's complicated because as you know federal poverty level goes by family size right so minimum wage doesn't adjust for family size so you have to kind of adjust for that we also have very few dual earning families for reasons you saw in presentations so pretty much it's single parents who would be feeling this impact but my understanding was that the language was designed to make a family no worse off and we would be looking to make them no worse off with each minimum wage adjustment so we look at what it was before it went into effect whatever year and what percent benefit they got and we adjust to make sure that wherever they landed after the wage adjustment that somehow or other we make sure nobody lost benefit their percent of benefit but it wouldn't necessarily make the benefit better it didn't solve the problem that you attempted to solve right so it's not solving the goal is not to fill the hole it was just to ensure that people weren't being pushed down the slope as a result of the minimum wage bill and it's important to note here that this bill raises the minimum wage so we're in 2019 right now there's a wage increase in 2020 2021, 2022 2023 and 2024 so there are five times when this would have to things would have to shift under this bill and so it's both trying to make sure that individuals are no worse off and the families are no worse off and it's also trying to mitigate some of the pressure to the extent that employers get that their market rate that they're getting cc fat benefits from families that are affected by this obviously the providers may have 20 families and only 8 of them are getting cc fat so they'll have to raise rates for other families to compensate for the increase in wages but it is that's trying to kind of mitigate the impact there so that you don't have providers saying great the families are no worse off but I'm still getting a fixed amount and so now I have to do a double increase on the other families to compensate for that similar to what you are asking if I'm in a family that's getting 100% and the federal poverty because I get the raise I go over over the federal poverty rate that seems to me that instead of me getting 100% I might end up getting 95% or lower so I don't think this fixes that it puts me personally in a different category on how much I'm going to get I think what's saying is that when you get that raise no matter what happens you're going to get the same benefit of 100% well then we got to say that if you just can't automatically because the other bill says if you make a certain amount of money you get 100% if you get a pay raise now you may not be in the 100% category of the federal poverty level only for this bill to say no one's going to get hurt we've got to say somewhere this is not saying no one's going to get hurt this is saying that if I was making minimum wage on January 1st or if I was getting minimum wage on December 30th and on January 1st when the new bump up comes I'm making more money and that might kick me off of 100% poverty level that I would still get 100% still making minimum wage it's just a new minimum wage not more than a percentage of what so I can do a quick calculation only for a family size of 3 just looking at the provisions of age 531 and even before just by the changes in the slide and prescale that Katie just described and moving to 2015 none of the families affected in 20 and 21 would have a copay any longer it would be they'd all be done they'd all be getting a full benefit so they'd be better off than they are nah, they'd be better off it sort of becomes a moot point they no longer have a cost sharing so they'd be 531 makes them so much better that this becomes a moot point just with before the redesign for the first two years when you go to the redesign none of the families accept the ones earning $15 an hour have any copay at all and the folks earning $15 an hour this is for a family size of 3 would be at $25 a week right now they would be at $24 a week so essentially 531 makes this language less necessary if it passes that's the tricky part so I think I understand how this affects mother and child but I don't understand paragraph 2 what does that require exactly so I'm a child care provider and I now have to pay Jessica 50 cents more than I did yesterday and what happens what happens so in paragraph 2 this is reflecting the fact that the cost of child care will probably be increasing as minimum wage increases because as we heard from testimony the wages of child care providers are probably below current minimum wage but what does that do so this says that not only is the sliding fee scale going to be sliding over but also the market rates will be increasing to correspond with the increase in minimum wage so that the the difference between what a family is paying and what the tuition is isn't growing is the assumption that child care providers are paying their staff or paying themselves the current all that they are paying is what's the current minimum wage so they are being paid $10 and $78 dollars cents an hour so the understanding is that the average wage for child care providers is below $15 that's in your 2024 we're doing this in little steps so the understanding is there are some who are getting minimum wage there are others who are getting more than $15 but because the average is below that $15 currently and far enough below that inflation isn't necessarily going to close that gap the assumption is that you're going to have a portion of child care workers swept up in the minimum wage increases which will drive up the cost for the providers there's also the question of wage compression and so as you take someone who's earning $15.50 and then you have to bring everyone else up to $15 they may want to make more that the provider may want to pay them a little bit more so you end up having some pressure there not just for workers who are earning below the $15 threshold or whatever the threshold is going to be over the years I think the right now the average wage is like $12 and something but there you go you guys know better than I do so the average wage for this year is above minimum wage if no one gets a raise next year it will be $12.71 and under this bill what would be the minimum wage for our next year so if we go back to section 1 here the minimum wage is going to step up to $11.50 which means that if the average wage is $12.71 it's still so then if no one ever gets a raise when does it become higher than $12? yeah it'll be $20.22 it'll exceed the average minimum wage but the thing to keep in mind is because it's an average you will have some employees who will see their wages go up and you'll see some pressure they're pushing other wages out in the industry so and that's kind of what you're looking at is because it's an average they're making a lot more than $12.71 and there are some who are making a lot less and the question is for those employees who are making less are they making less than the $11.50 that it's supposed to hit next year which is conceivable so then you start to have that upward pressure and then providers start to feel more of a pinch with their bottom line trying to do this so that's what that piece is put in there for because we've in the committees that have been hearing this they've been hearing from both the child care providers and then groups like the VNAs and so forth saying that she's being so weird just hearing that but they've been hearing from these groups saying that not all of our workers make minimum wage but we have some workers who are at the minimum wage and so as soon as this starts going up if we're stuck getting a fixed subsidy it's going to make it even harder for us to continue to provide the services that we're being asked to provide right now I'm going to ask a child care question I know you're surprised I am so back on the provision in paragraph number two that talks about the rates paid to providers and the adjustments of those rates so right now DCF does a market rate survey approximately every two years and sometimes the there are adjustments to rates paid and we only pay it three quarters of 100% of the market rate or something like that the 75th percent of which is what 75% of providers charge so so would the current procedure that we have in place satisfy the intent of number two so this isn't tied to the most recent market survey this is tied to the market rate that DCF is using because it was statutorily required or otherwise but it's not every time there's a new survey this language isn't tied to to the most recent survey to the rate that's being used right so I guess what I'm saying is that as the minimum wage changes if this bill is passed then that would be reflected in the market rate survey that's done and so is that reflection of what providers are now paying and then charging and the reflection of that in the current procedure that we use for market rate surveys sufficient to meet the intent of that language or do we need to do some or with this language requires to do some additional adjustment beyond what we would already perhaps do with a market rate survey that takes into consideration those increased rates already you understand what I'm saying I do understand what you're saying and I don't have a great answer I think I would have to talk to you about or maybe Deb would have to look at that even well I almost flip your question Teresa and say you I believe I heard you saying Katie that in H531 there's some language about staying current with the market rate survey which we've never actually there's not so currency with the market rate survey would again make that not necessary because if we're using a market rate methodology and the market goes up because they're paying providers more and we follow them that would meet the intent of this rule if we don't stay if we don't keep up with the market rate then again providers will get caught in the middle of that and families as well and then yes so I think we don't really have a clear answer about that the language said about keeping up with the FPL right so we remain current with that and we couldn't I mean we would do that but we don't give it 2,000 even going from 15 to 17 too much so then my other is just an editorial comment that I love the fact that we're looking at the impact on families and then the impact on providers of these particular services and I don't like the fact that we're only looking at that for children that's my only editorial comment elders, older Vermonters people with disabilities have the same exact impacts that would be experienced and I know there's a potential amendment something that's being discussed and next door this week is how to address that because that's been a consistent concern that's been brought to the committee's attention until she brought that up we thought we could solve it with the appropriate quadratic equations but now I thought she was very much more of a mathematician not a mathematician as well and a physicist she came in she was in the hall can I can I just mention another thing other than the VNA that is concerning to me the work of everyone's daughter but yesterday there was a child care center and they don't offer healthcare benefits so all of their employees are on Health Connect and when you switch from a 28 day to a 31 day just that little bit of a switch meant 4 hours different for one of the younger employees there and that means that that person spent the last 4 months fighting with Health Connect and they lost when over and they wanted the full pay for their premium and so to me you guys should also be in the health care room saying what are we going to do about because this will have an impact on all those people who are on the edge as far as getting their health care covered through Health Connect their health insurance and it's worrisome that the young woman was she said her parents live in Massachusetts and if she hadn't figured this out she'd already told the child care center she was leaving and the child care center has been paying to help her go to school but they didn't realize that this would happen like that and so now all of a sudden when you know what you're talking about is that you have to be if you make a little amount of money just like anything else you qualify for Health Connect for free you get your insurance and she went over because it stopped counting 28 day hours to a 31 day month instead of a 28 in this bill? no but what I'm saying is if that little bit of a change made that kind of an impact for this young woman imagine what the change will have this is a much bigger difference and so I'm just concerned that when you just brought up the aging group and all that I mean you immediately think of this woman yesterday and how just like for child care benefits they could go over by just that little change the same thing with their health benefits they could lose those as well are you saying because her wages went up on months that weren't 31 days yes 28 days okay so they wanted her to pay for those months which seems I understand one thing that you might want to take a look at and I'm not saying that this solves the issue but it does put it in a easier to digest graphical so you can kind of see what's happening with people as their wages go up because Deb has these wonderful charts where she shows all the different forms of public assistance that you can receive and then as your wages go go up the public assistance goes down and the wages are supposed to compensate for it when we did the minimum wage summer study a couple years back the thing that they identified as the thing that sent people negative on that was the cc fat benefit and the loss of that because that pile on top of everything else made it so that for each additional dollar earned there was no they weren't actually netting any money they were actually losing money until they got out of that trough I'm singing the praises of the new charter but it's there definitely are various points along the way where you'll either lose or see a decreased amount of whether it's a subsidy for insurance or your your earned income tax credit or something like that and I'm going to cuss this off because you're here in the building all the time and we're going to change the subject and have you come in we're we're taking the subject from healthcare and everything else and asking you to come into the seat and I believe you understand our dilemma or our questions which is we asked a child care bill that had changes in ccfab and this that's over that's 23 okay thank you so I think this is the thing I was talking about yes so this is an example of a basic needs family or actually it's 20 basic needs families but you'll have to speak up because there are people here who can't hear so well am I allowed to stand please confirm not sorry because we let you stand everyone else will be able to stand so just use a really loud voice alright so the basic needs budget we have a lot of different family types this family type is two parents, two children the children are a six year old who goes to school and needs child care after school and full time in the summer and a four year old and the four year old needs child care full time but also gets universal pre-k okay and they're mined up by their earnings okay and the earnings go from zero over here to 85,000 okay and the height of the bar is showing you the resources the family has available to it to meet its basic needs the blue solid part is the net earnings net of taxes and then the other colors on top they can also get to supplement and so they are this green first green line has in it fuel assistance, reach up health care they're going to medicate on to the exchange so it's public the next one, darker green is food stamps the blue one is various tax credits and the purple one on the top is child care financial assistance program and it includes pre-k so that's why it goes all the way up to the high income that's the pre-k part of it and so what you see is that as the family earns more they for a while their resources available to make the basic needs goes up and then at a certain point it starts going down so that they take on a new job earn more money, work more hours and they actually end up worse off and so right here you have two parents both working at minimum wage in 2018 and then the minimum wage bill would move from here to here okay and so you see that they're in the down slope area so they've started out here and they're moving down and so what S23 tried to do was to change the two basic parts of the child care financial assistance program the first is the provider and they wanted to increase that and not this is sort of assuming that it is at market rate but then they wanted to increase it by the amount that child care workers pay would go up because of the minimum wage some child care workers now are getting paid less than what would be the equivalent of $15 an hour minimum wage so then we go up for that amount the second part of S23 is to change the sliding scale and this sliding scale is the percentage of that amount that you would get and it would move it to the right so that in other words every time we can just change those brackets so let's say the minimum wage bill increases the minimum wage by $5,000 over five years and we'll say it doesn't equally so every year we change those brackets up $1,000 so that if you were at the 95th percentile before we were going to move those brackets up so that when your income goes up you're still at the 95th percentile it does it little bit by little bit so what is the breakdown of the money? what's the breakdown of the money because part of what we pass I'm not sure where part of what we pass was dependent upon the money we had to work with so one of the things that we're interested in is how does this impact that money that we had appropriated it was astoundingly similar so I'll just show you this is what they did so the gray bar on the top is added to the chapter financial assistance program and at the low end it's added because of the provider thing going up and then in this valley where you expect it to go down it's actually going up for the two reasons one is the provider fees gone up and the sliding scale has changed this one is showing you yours and I want to make sure that I did this one part right I scaled when you got to 50% instead of dropping to 10 I went down to 45, 40 you want to do that alright and I had to sort of go between 100 and 95 by whatever yours looks pretty similar when I overlay the two I was blown away like how close they are sorry I'm just kidding and so here's the difference right around so you go at 100% at the 100% federal poverty level you go down to 95% at 125 and doing it the incremental way keeping up with the minimum wage change it would stay at 100% this one here 125% federal poverty level it's teeny tiny dollar-dollar difference but to the people affected you know it's important and then they're pretty much the same yours is more generous in this area which is really important because it's in the valley that's where people are still losing and in terms of the money it comes down to estimates I actually estimated higher costs for the S23 even though it doesn't but I imagine it's just an estimate here I think that they're really close so in terms of what they do and in terms of the money they're like so similar I couldn't believe it the issue to me is like what happens if they both pass also part of our question is that piece 1 despite what happened in previous years that piece in the minimum wage bill needs to get r-ok and we have passed and whether we go to the senate and try to change things or whether we go over across the way and go you know we spent you know or is there something that meets both of us I mean you know to have two things pass so if they if they both passed we're trying to figure out what is the difference and then making an assessment of what is the more appropriate in terms of the if the goal is our goal is supporting child care and when people do better you know to ensure that they still have available affordable child care and that is what we try to do if what is in there is a better way of doing it then we'll talk about that what we passed is a better way of doing it and it comes to basically the same I mean we're trying to understand the interplay I think the big difference is that you do it in a big jump and the the bill that goes with the minimum wage goes step by step in other words it does it gets to that red line in five years and we do it next year yes so what would happen is yours would benefit more people immediately because it would happen in the first year but theirs is pegged to the changes in the minimum wage so that when somebody gets an increase in the minimum wage you know their they're health homeless essentially but it also means that there's income coming in each year because the minimum wage brings in more income because people pay more in taxes and because they don't need Medicare and whatever Medicaid they've moved up Medicaid anyway so in a sense that it can pay for itself step by step by step but the other difference is that it if this were passed all in the first year and then the second year we could also have an income out change then it would be then the minimum wage workers would go backwards I guess I'm not clear as to what you're saying we're not saying jump I mean we're not making any comment on the rest of the minimum wage bill this part in terms of how those two paragraphs in the minimum wage bill in terms of fussing with the child CC FAP what I just heard you say is that what is in H531 in fact makes it is a stronger benefit for families right now are you suggesting that in the out years it is a less strong no I'm just suggesting it's more of a problem it's more of a work disincentive for the people getting minimum wage increase in other words because it's going to have it all in one year and then it's not going to be moved so that somebody will end up somebody will end up instead of being here they'll end up here but then it's not going to change so the next time the next minimum wage so they wouldn't be worse off as the minimum wage changes up to $15 after $15 that's anybody's guess but this is also at 531 the resources that are in 531 right now are year one of a multi-year improvement effort for a program that will essentially I believe numbers are great will almost virtually eliminate that dip as we move out so I don't know this is just the first blush of it but it seems like 531 is a better for families than the language that's in S23 even though I understand what you're saying there is a small space there at the just as it starts to take that little dip where there are some families who might not be as well on some of those other families but what you were pointing out standing so I just want to clarify say your line at the top is S23 in 5 years yes so actually I could put some lines on whatever to get to that point Carl I hate to be so ignorant but I'm looking at S23 is that synonymous with the minimum wage bill there's an amendment to the bill it is synonymous with what is sitting across the hall right now in your discussion so it is the minimum wage bill it is what is your situation so I just wanted to clarify Teresa said 531 by itself is better than that paragraph right what demonstrates that to you in the visual you see the red line that red line is after 5 years do you see the pink area that's next year so in 531 we've raised families they're already above that level they will get that increase increase in being better off financially better off in one year as opposed to taking 5 years and in places it's higher and in places it's higher in that little valley you can see is not only comparable but brings families up plus the cliff you can't really call that cliff after 531 in all reality suck me I should speak for myself it's a bunny slope it is a bunny slope so if they both passed I want to say that they're both not going to pass in the same way this is why you are here this is why we are having this discussion so that there is not a dueling responses to something that this that is the response that there's not dueling responses right I mean but the whether this may be impossible in my vote the best solution would be if we first went to 531 and then in the subsequent years we did a 5 year increment the way that they're doing it in S23 with the money from the minimum wage so it's just it would start with 531 and then it would just move with the same sort of logic over 5 years have you seen the multiyear proposal so did you graph that I haven't graphed it but I think one of the one of the really important things about that is thinking about so right now we have a sliding scale and it's pretty much always been based on getting from 100 to 0 in x amount of time in a straight line and if the way that we're thinking long return is turning around and looking at not as a way to phase out the society but rather a way to phase in the co-pay in a way that makes sense for families I think that's huge progress and I think that's part of the proposal and I realize that these are all interim steps we're not perfecting it in any of these proposals clearly we're going to need to have more conversation and I'm really sorry that these conversations took place separately and that the goals are separate and I sort of can't believe that this is happening when we all work for the same state and let's come back to it in terms of where we're going and Riva I guess I would like you and Deb to sit down I mean Deb is making some statements that I don't know whether you would agree or not agree with in terms of what the goals are and what can happen and so that we can and what we may be facing with is that there are very different goals that we can restore than there are here and it's too bad we didn't know that ahead of time and maybe we can find our way around that so we'll take this up again thank you thank you very much we have those graphs up they're on our webpage so you can look at that thank you so I will see you we're on the floor tomorrow at 8 or so or something we have the hearing at 5 please know that the information that I have said to both the guide page and that has been also translated to Mary on Bairsworth is that that as I said I expect people to act as if they were in church that displays the actions that will indicate support or opposition to what someone is saying when they testify are not allowed are not within the decorum of the house if you're coming in with pink, blue, purple sweatshirts or buttons that's a whole different thing but there was an incident there was a controversy in the gun hearing around waving of the American flag at certain times during the testimony and so we are not the message that I'm giving people is the displays of things that during one person's testimony to indicate support or opposition are not within the decorum of an open hearing and no signs or posters oh right no signs or posters I mean I said that before I mean just like people have flags on their table they have flags on their table on your thing but people don't wave the flag when the vote is supportive of what they want nor do they so that's so I just want and folks if there is anyone who thinks that that really I am really off base I would like you to please talk with me about that but that is what I will be I mean this is really just to maintain a respectful setting I don't think there will be as many people as there were last time there were people last time who were very concerned about not the well of the house but room 11 where the overflow was and there were people who were upset that they couldn't hear and they thought this was on purpose and they accused me and the sound people of turning the sound off when certain groups were testifying and then there were others who hold a different perspective who felt unsafe because of all of the outward displays of support or not support for when people are saying so I'm just trying to make a setting where everyone feels comfortable no matter what they are saying about Trump's opposition 5 that they feel safe and okay to say their piece because that's what we're here we're here to listen to them and to hear and I don't want folks to feel like it's not safe in the wake of the gun hearing I got calls from two constituents one was a couple here who attended another was a 15 year old young woman who testified and they both were surrounded out in the parking lot afterwards and I was going to go talk to about this this weekend but I also wanted to express to the Capitol Police if there could be a little more presence outside I mean I don't think that we'll have that issue with this group but I do think it's you know something is another issue when we get that group together it does tend to get okay thank you and I understand that there is children no they're youth in state colleges are in the cafeteria or something like that I have an answer to your question which question? the question about the education investment plan so two years ago we put a question on our application asking if someone had invested in it in a child education account such as Vermont higher education investment plan anything that qualifies and if they say yes we deduct what they tell us from their monthly income three people have marked yes in two years so that's the take up is we've had three the other policy change though that is a little bit helpful is if people get a raise within their 12 month eligibility period their their financial assistance does not change for the entire 12 months if they lose income so they go backwards we reconfigure right away and have them pay less but they are guaranteed the same for 12 months so we've had three people take it up so do you publicize when I sign up and so you know I filled out my thing and I said no I don't have the do you tell me by the way if you get a raise see us about that I'll check if the if the eligibility specialist do that they are community people and they're generally pretty helpful in trying to maximize benefits for families but I'll mention that to Anne if she would send something out reminding them okay thank you see you all tomorrow