 All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for being here today. I'm pleased to announce that the state of Vermont is signing a contract with the Hartford to implement a voluntary paid family and medical leave program that will eventually be available to all Vermonters in a phased-in approach. You might recall a few years ago, Governor Sununu and I pitched a similar concept which was called the Twin State Voluntary Leave Plan. Unfortunately, the by-state agreement didn't work out and New Hampshire has now gone on to create their own plan and today we're announcing ours, which includes both personal and family leave. The program will be anchored by our state workforce, creating a broad pool. We bargained this benefit with the Union pre-pandemic. And now that we've completed the RFP process and selected the Hartford, based out of Connecticut, we're able to implement paid family and medical leave as an area of agreement I've had with legislature. However, our differences in the past have been more about how to pay for it. As I've said, I hear from Vermonters over and over again that they're already burdened enough and don't want any new taxes. The innovative approach we're launching today gives Vermonters and employers the choice to opt in to this program. Once the state employee's piece is put into place, Phase 2 will allow employers across the state to sign on and create plans that fits the needs of their employees without a one-size-fits-all mandate. This will help Vermont businesses attract and retain new workers in a way that works for them. In addition, in Phase 3, all Vermonters, regardless of whether the employer has joined, can sign up through the individual purchasing pool. Commissioner Gaffney and Jonathan Bennett, the head of group benefits at the Hartford, will go into more detail in a few minutes. But between now and the launch of Phase 2 and 3, we will begin working to encourage Vermont's employers to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Because of this partnership with a seasoned vendor, we're able to build this program more efficiently and quickly if we had to do it from scratch. It prevents a unique opportunity for Vermont businesses to set themselves apart from other states, hopefully allowing them to attract more of the workers they desperately need. And we're delivering this opportunity without growing the state bureaucracy to manage what could be a complicated state-run system or imposing a new mandatory tax on Vermont workers. I truly believe this is a win-win-win for all, and it accomplishes the goals I share with legislators. So I want to thank our teams at the Department of Financial Regulation, Human Resources, and the Agency of Administration for their hard work over the last couple of years, and our friends at the Hartford for their work to develop this exciting opportunity. I'm confident it will make a big difference for Vermonters as it rolls out. So with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Gaffney. Thank you, Governor. Hi, I'm Kevin Gaffney. I'm the Commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation, and I'm thrilled to be here today to be part of this announcement. And I want to thank the Governor for his commitment to this important public policy initiative. On behalf of the Department of Human Resources Commissioner Beth Festigy and myself, I want to thank the team at each of our departments for their great work over the past several months to bring this product to fruition. The Vermont Family and Medical Leave insurance program is an innovative voluntary insurance program that employers and individuals will be able to purchase and be available in three phases. Specifically, the phase timelines commence starting this summer, next summer, July 1, 2023 will be available to Vermont state employees. Phase two will commence July 1, 2024, and the program will expand the Leave program to employers with two or more employees. In phase three, July 1, 2025, individuals who do not have access to their current employer and sole proprietors and single employee businesses will be able to access the program. Through a competitive bidding process, the state selected the Hartford to design, administer, and ensure this program. The state is currently in the final stages of that contracting process and expects completion shortly. Through this partnership, the Hartford is able to leverage the state employee base as a springboard to create a marketplace for Vermont employers to provide FMLI coverage to their employees and then to ultimately offer this coverage to individuals whose employees choose not to participate in the program. Using the state employee population to provide an economy of scale along with the expertise and experience of a private insurance carrier, we are able to address a critical concern of large taxpayer investments in infrastructure and the financial solvency around a voluntary plan. The Vermont FMLI program will provide up to six weeks of paid benefit in a 12 month period at 60% of the employees' wages for the following events, birth of a child or care of a newborn child, placement with the employee of a newly adopted child or foster care, caring for the employee's family member, an employee family member is a military member on covered active duty or has a serious injury or illness and a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of their job. This is a base plan. However, it is designed to be flexible so that employers who opt into the program can purchase additional coverage if they choose. For example, an employer can choose to purchase additional weeks of coverage and work with the Hartford to do so. I am extremely happy that we were able to offer this program to state employees this summer and I wanted to, on behalf of Commissioner Festigieg, wanted to express appreciation for the engagement with our labor partners, the Vermont State Employees Association and the Vermont Troopers Association for the launch of the FMLI program for state employee populations has been eagerly anticipated. While we may have differences of how to deliver paid family and medical leave, there is general agreement that the goals are similar, that the benefit is of value to Vermont businesses and workers. A voluntary approach allows businesses to offer and design this benefit in a manner that is best to meet their needs. As a new legislative biennium is upon us, there will likely be further discussions regarding paid family and medical leave in Vermont and we expect to share more insights and experiences as they develop. One of the discussion items will likely be program costs, which are anticipated to be approximately $4.50 a week for state employees and in phase one estimated to be between $4.00 and $8.00 a week on average for small businesses in subsequent phases. The foundational work is in place, but there's more work ahead of us, including now partnering with the agency of Commerce and Community Development and Secretary Curley and her team, along with the business community as we collaborate with the Hartford to promote phase two of the program. Businesses who want to be updated on this program should subscribe to the Department of Economic Development newsletter at accd.vermont.gov. The Hartford was chosen as the insurance carrier based on their experience with administering paid family and medical leave programs. The state team appreciates the Hartford's commitment and engagement over the past several months in developing the program and design and execution plan. At this time, I am pleased to announce, to introduce Jonathan Bennett, who leads the small group business program at the Hartford to share some thoughts on their critical role in administering the Vermont paid family leave insurance program. Jonathan. Good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you, Commissioner. It's a pleasure to be here today with all of you in Vermont. My name is Jonathan Bennett and I do lead the group benefits business for the Hartford. First, I'd like to personally thank Governor Scott, Commissioner Gavney, and Commissioner Festigy for their partnership, as well as many others who really work tirelessly to bring this program to fruition. On behalf of the Hartford, we're thrilled to be selected as the insurance partner for the Vermont paid family medical leave insurance program. Our company has a long history founded in 1810 with vast experience with employers and offering benefits, including leave management services, paid family and medical leave. We ensure about one in nine working Americans and our number one and fully insured disability in force in the country. We see every day the important role that these benefits play in helping employers take care of their workforce. Employees are the most important part of any business. Being productive at work requires the flexibility to manage personal and family needs. We understand the value this new paid leave program brings to Vermonters. Paid family and medical leave is an important issue for many workers whose families suffer a loss of income if they need to take time away from work to care for themselves or a family member. Programs like this offer meaningful wage replacement during circumstances that may be planned, such as the birth of a new child, or at other times unexpected, such as injury or illness. Paid family and medical leave helps provide peace of mind. Knowing your income won't stop when you are on a covered leave can help people worry less about how they will make ends meet and focus more on their own recovery or caring for loved ones. For employers, offering paid leave can also enhance workforce engagement, productivity, and retention. Our work in helping employers with paid family and medical leave goes well beyond administration. We have compassionate nurses who assist with claims to ensure claimants receive optimal support for their needs and the right data to help employers spot trends and better understand the impact of wellness on their operations. This can help them address some of the root causes of employee absences and better plan for the future. I want to reiterate how thrilled we are to help bring Paid family leave to Vermonters. The Hartford has the expertise, the technology, and the skilled staff to provide a seamless customer experience for employers and their workforces. We look forward to expanding access to these important benefits and to helping make Vermont's innovative program a success. Thank you, and I'll turn it back over to Governor Satt. Thank you, Jonathan, and we'll now open it up to questions. Is this a done deal? I mean, you're set to go. The papers are signed. This is going to happen. The contract hasn't been physically signed. It's at the AG's office just making sure everything is in order. We brought a question to that. How is this going to square with two-part questions? Why did the deal with New Hampshire fail from four years ago? And secondly, why will this one not fail? A couple of reasons in terms of there was the pandemic that put a stop to many, many different things as we ventured out to try and get to solicit different insurance plans and insurance companies to assist us. The legislatures are different in New Hampshire and Vermont. We can get that alignment in sync with one another. And we decide to keep moving forward. They decide to keep moving forward, and we believe our plan allows more flexibility. It fits Vermont very well. And it is a done deal, so to speak. This is something that we've been talking about for a number of years. And we're offering it. We bargained it with the union, and we're moving forward. It's a done deal. Anything I should add? Or anybody else want to add anything to that? Cost for the first year of Justice David Boyce. Yes. I mean, we are, and I'm not sure if that is solid. $2 million. Yeah, but about $2 million is what it's going to cost for state employees. And that will be something that we'll be asking the legislature to fund. Mr. Bennett, if Vermont were to decide in the next few months or next couple of years that it wanted to have a mandatory paid family leave program, would the infrastructure that's being assembled by the Hartford right now be able to accommodate that? If the state were to consider that, we'd be happy to work with them. We believe that we are in a position to continue to support the program if they were to change some of those directions. So we're feeling confident about where we are today and where this program could ultimately go over time. Does the cost per member decrease as the pool, the size of the pool increases as a general rule? Having a sufficient pool, of course, is part of an insurance principle. We're confident that what we have here in Vermont, especially anchored with the state program, gives us all the basis we need to begin to offer a very competitive program. Our outlook right now feels quite consistent with what we see in other jurisdictions around the country. So we think you're off to a great start in Vermont. And is this a model that has been done before in other states where we have a private insurance carrier that is administering a paid family leave benefit on behalf of state government? There are programs like this in other jurisdictions. They have different constructs, but it's quite a common practice right now to have the support administratively by an insurance carrier in the private market. And we participate in private markets as an insurer all over in jurisdictions today wherever paid family medical leave is offered. We're one of the largest providers of paid family and medical leave in the country. And we see this practice quite commonly and feel like it's a really good construct to stay competitive, offer important capabilities around administration and service, and feel really quite good about the way this has been set up. I know New Hampshire is doing a similar thing where they're anchoring and opting paid family program using state workers. Is anyone else doing that, specifically that using state employees to anchor the program? Feel free to go ahead. I'm not aware specifically of any state other than Vermont and New Hampshire that are doing that specific. But we are hearing a lot more discussions about other jurisdictions looking at the voluntary option as a way to deliver paid family leave. So I think we're a little bit ahead of where things may go in other jurisdictions. If I could just add, I believe and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe that we're offering paid family leave and medical leave. Whereas I'm not sure that New Hampshire for the state employees is offering both. That's correct. Is the state employee funding for state employees? We will be, yes. So they don't have to pitch in? There's no contribution from state employees. That's something we've argued with them on. And the two million is already funded for the first year. You're asking the legislature to fund subsequent rules right now? Again, I'm not sure. We'll be starting this beginning July 1 of 23. So I'm just not sure if that's funded or not. Does anyone know that up there? We'll put it in the FY24 budget. Right. Beth Fass, did you commission on human resources? About 8,000 state employees? Yes. Did you say 8,000? Yeah. The Granite State FPML plan includes tax credits to entice businesses to avail themselves of this. Do you plan to encourage lawmakers to adopt similar financial incentives for the business community to sign on to this? Again, I believe that just having the benefit itself and offering it to employers and employees will be enough. But if tax credits are something the legislature would consider, I'm always encouraged by tax credits. If they so choose it would be more than willing to have that conversation. The Granite State plan also caps premiums for individuals whose employers aren't signing up for this at $5, I think it's a month. Maybe it's a week, I don't know. Would you have a similar cap on what out-of-pocket costs would be for individuals that want to sign up for this? Again, we've got a couple of years to figure that out because it's going to take some time for that phase three. But we want to make sure that it's affordable as well. So we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it. Because I don't even know what the cost will be at that point. We'll have to figure that out. Part of the program will be to establish some capping system. Is there a universe in which lawmakers convince you that a mandatory program is a worthwhile approach today? It's all about the funding. If it involves a payroll tax, probably not. Is there another funding stream that you can imagine that could be used to pay for this? I have not envisioned one. But again, a payroll tax once you open that door, that's very tough. They have a lot of initiatives that they're looking to fund. So we'll just have to see what they present. Governor, is it clear to you that the legislature would fund the two million dollars to allow this program to go forward? Yes. This is part of the pay act. It's something that we bargained. They understood, they knew that we were bargaining. They understand that we've already bargained this with state employees. This is part of the... It's in the 2024. I suppose they could go and not fund this benefit for state employees. But I'm not sure that that makes any sense. I can just imagine perhaps lawmakers who support a mandatory program feeling as though they are not going to support the first phase of a voluntary program. So as to make sure that their path... Keep in mind this program is being built by experts that have done this in the past and putting it on this timeline I think is advantageous. If we built something from scratch then not funding the two million dollars for state employees and having the state employees wait for years for this plan that they're maybe putting together to come to fruition I just don't see how that helps state employees. That would hurt state employees. We go against the bargaining agreement we have. I know my family would have difficult time with just 60% of my salary. Should that be necessary? Can someone speak a little bit about what 60% came from? It's consistent with New Hampshire? Is that a match of number? I would say that's the beauty of some of the plans and some of this concept in some respects because the 60% as I understand is a floor. So if you are working with a major employer or any employer you can craft this in a different way. That's correct. One of the concerns of the outset is that this design will allow for that flexibility so an employer can do it on their timeline with the benefit levels that they think is best supports their employees and so that's why we think it's not only a valuable benefit on its face but it really helps a new business, a growing business or an existing business to retain or attract new workers. When an employee can take the benefit and could they take it all at once half and half a week at a time or one day a week? It doesn't have to be taken at once so it has even within the 60% six weeks it has flexibility. There is a 12 month period in which that benefit is afforded. The six weeks is afforded in a 12 month period. Does an employer have a say whether an employee can take it during that time frame, let's say, for seasonal work or maybe it's not easy for the employer to have somebody out at that time? Is there any negotiation between the employee and the employer or is it a right? This program is designed for the same types of qualifying leave as the federal FMLA as well as the state leave entitlements. A lot of employers are already required if they are of a certain size they are required to provide job protection for employees who take that leave. This is wage replacement for what would otherwise be unpaid leave for those employees. This voluntary plan is also going to be available to those businesses and employees that aren't necessarily covered by the federal FMLA too. I don't know if that helps. Most of us are trying to understand if an employee could decide to take every other week off to care for their new child and that the employer has to just accept that, that they can't say no to that. If they are eligible for the federal entitlement, the employer can't say no to that already. The difference is that in this situation there would be some wage replacement for that employee if the employer had that insurance coverage. Do we have a sense of how many employers already offer their own plans? Maybe the employer is based out of state has signed on to a separate plan. Do we have any sense of that number? Specifically no, but that is something that we will pursue as we prep for phase two is to understand what the current penetration is, work with ACCD to evaluate what our current small businesses here in Vermont already have. I can tell you that there's been interest from employers and some have said they're taking the initiative to introduce their program and they see what the state is doing. We will see I think what exists now is there are employers that offer this but we're hoping that this will actually jump start more interest and that's part of this program. The Hartford has a whole team to help with the promotion of the design and the role out of this so that it comes out in a time that allows employers to digest the information and have the time to make those decisions because if they're making benefit decisions they can't do those like effective July 1. They have to be making those plans six months in advance. Commissioner and also maybe the governor weigh in on this too but if you could just weigh in and reflect on socio economically where the state is now compared to 2019 when we last had this discussion you know wages are up but we've also got inflation housing, fuel challenges. I guess could you just speak to how the state's economy is in a fundamentally different place now than it was two years ago and how that could potentially interact with this plan or how this could affect this plan if at all. I will just answer it this way as you know we are challenged with the workforce shortage. We need to do everything we can to bring more people into the state and having these tools to do that is going to be very helpful. Having a paid family leave and medical leave program I think is going to be beneficial for the price they can afford and having the flexibility for different businesses to encourage that. So our challenge we're challenged by inflation individually, collectively, every sector but also it's really about the workforce and we need to bring more people into the state and I think that this is part of the answer. How many companies have been on this? You guys mentioned that this was a competitive bid for this. Three companies. And the deal with state employees was first signed I believe in 2019. It's been three years. Why is this happening now? I guess the obvious answer is the pandemic. Well again the pandemic really put a pause on things in some way. I think insurance companies weren't as interested to go out and bid on this but we hadn't given up. As I've mentioned many times I think Peter has asked at multiple press conferences about this program whether it was dead whether we're continuing and I kept saying we're working on it and we have been working on it. So the timing is right. We were able to get some money as well. So I think we kept moving forward. It wasn't a case of giving up. We just wanted to keep doing whatever we could to encourage this and fulfill our responsibility to state workers. Now we've opened a program for the Grand State plan just began about a week ago but are you getting any word from your counterparts over there about what uptake is looking like? I haven't heard anything about it have you heard anything from others? I have not. I will actually be with some of those folks at a commissioners conference next week so expect to have some initial conversations with them to see how it's going. To what extent does the success of the program as it's going to exist just with seeing employees hinge on businesses buying into this? From our standpoint we feel like the state program is stand alone will operate just fine so we're not concerned at all about or attaching those two things. We do see the opportunity as the other phases come online though to build a bigger pool as we've described and I think link those things together but right now the state program stands on its own and we're quite comfortable with what's being proposed here. I think as well though we're such a small state and I think that it's like taking this approach on a test drive we don't have a lot of it in the state. The state employees haven't had this and if they have a good experience with this I think it does have a ripple effect and I think it will help in selling this to private entities, private companies and grow this in the state to add this benefit to their portfolio. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.