Good morning chairperson and members, Garin Vendrell staff and guests, the lobby is open recording has begun.
Great. Thank you. Good morning everybody will convene the board caucus meeting for Tuesday, May 7 2020. For our first item today is a review of our agency's strategic plan. And I will turn it over to Jessica Dang, our strategy and performance manager who's been hurting this thing through the process. Good morning.
Good morning. Good morning Chair postmen board members, Garrett and Vaughn drop. I'm Jessica Dang, I'm the Strategy and Performance Manager here at LCB. And this morning, I'm here to update you on the 2024 29 strategic plan. Dustin, do you have perfect, perfect, sometimes there's a lag just be patient, we're good. No problem. I'm happy to report the plan is nearly ready. The language is final. And we're working behind the scenes to perfect the look and feel. But before I share the substance of the plan, I want to share the results of some feedback we received from LCB team members, I sent a survey out last month, I believe, and this survey was designed to get a feel for the relatability of the plan, as well as capture any highlights or concerns that people may have about the plan. So the next two slides, and analysis were done by Mallori Hayes, the new Strategy and Performance Analyst here at LCB. So thank you Mallory for this work. So here are the results of the survey. From the 60 respondents you can see we got fairly high marks on the relatability and simplicity of the plan. So the three questions that we asked, we wanted to see how people could, we wanted to know how if people could see how their work next and contributes to the plan, how their team's work, connects, and contributes. And then if the plan was simple to understand or follow, and I'm pretty pleased with these results. So we have about 84% of people seeing how their work contributes. And 'bout 85% people saying that the plan was simple and easy to understand. And that was one of the goals that the management team had. And I know, also yourself, chair, postman that we wanted this plan to be easy and simple for eight for agency, team members to understand. But we know we have some work to do, as we roll out the plan to demonstrate that we all connect to the plan. So there are you know, a few folks out there who still are struggling to see that connection. So we want to make sure we make that connection. Can you show the next slide. We also asked what excites you about this plan and wanted to know any concerns people individuals had with the plan. So you can see people appreciated the simplicity of the plan, that was inclusive, more people focused, and that we have some focus on modernizing processes. In terms of things that people were concerned about, we can see we have opportunities to be really intentional in our implementation, measurement, and achieving results. And I'll touch I'll touch on this a bit later in my presentation today. But now we can dive into the content. So here are our agency mission and vision. No changes were made to the vision statement, but we did make a change to the mission statement. As you all know, public health had been present in our agency goals for some time, but now we've brought it into the mission statements. Our mission statement now reads "promote public safety, public health and trust through Fair Administration, education, and enforcement of liquor, cannabis, tobacco and vapor laws." Next slide. Up next, our agency values. I'm really excited about the changes that we made here. As you can see on the slide, our values are the foundation of our culture, and they guide the interactions with each other in the communities that we serve. We spent a lot of time developing the statements under each value. And I really think that the hard work paid off, I'm really excited to see these values up, hopefully in conference rooms around the agency on the on those on the screens that we've got on each floor, I am really proud of the work that everyone did to pull these together. Next slide. Now we're ready to talk about the goals, objectives and strategies we're moving forward with. Goal one is focused on ensuring all communities in Washington have the highest level of public health and public safety. Our first objective and strategy here are focused on partnering with communities and other organizations to improve public health outcomes. The second objective is focused on public safety with strategies designed to make a positive impact on youth access; adult misuse and diversion; and to inform and educate our customers and communities in a coordinated and consistent way. So that is goal one. Goal two. Goal two is all about service delivery, we want our services to be accessible, responsible, excuse me responsive, and responsive to the needs of customers, partners and communities. We plan to do this through timely delivery of quality services, and prioritizing our efforts and allocating resources effectively, here are strategies are focused on improving and modernizing business processes. And using a framework for decision making, predictable repeatable framework for decision making. Goal three is all about our culture. We want a culture of trust belonging and valuing people. We are committed to providing opportunities for personal, professional, and organizational growth. We also want to share we are using a holistic lens when we think about wellness and professional development. We're also striving to be inclusive of industry and community members when making decisions about our work. And we'll do this through engagement and consultation on rule creation. And those are our three goals and go to the next slide. And when we think about next steps. So in terms of rolling this out to the agency, we plan to roll out within the next couple of weeks, I'll also be sharing at each division team meetings. And at the upcoming all staff event, the all staff townhall in June. So I'll be sharing the strategic plan there. As far as action planning that will begin this week. The goal is to have each division contribute action items toward each strategy. So that was something that was important. With the management team, when we went off site to develop the plan that everyone, each division would have something to contribute in terms of action to the plan. action plans will be for fiscal year 25. So that will be the timeframe we are planning for. As far as keeping people updated. And having progress reports. We've got quarterly updates for the next year with each division to track progress on strategies. And then we'll we will be providing these updates on the internet, we will have a dashboard also for action items. So that'll be up on the internet as well. Oh, I'm sorry. Question. And as we've done in the past, we'll have meetings twice a year with management team to discuss overall progress and barriers. Any barriers to achieving our goals? Next slide. Well, as I close out, I want to say a big thank you to the individuals listed here there was a strategic plan development workgroup that met several times over the past few months. Really taking the the work that the management team did and the intent that was there and building out something that I think we can all be really proud of. I'm really grateful for their time and contributions to this work. So thank you, Julie. Mallory, Jim, Candice, Captain Magerl, Kimberly, Dawn, Julian, and Nicola. And with that, I will take any questions you may have.
Why do you leave your name off that list to people who?
Well, you know, it's a team effort.
I know I appreciate what you're a part of it big part of it. So just thank you for doing it. I know it's it's a tough process to brainstorm, write, edit, and everything else by committee, and you've done it all these different levels. I think that's really good. I do have a couple questions, but I'll just pause first and see if there's other board questions.
I have a couple of questions and comment. And so I also want to also offer my thanks, Jessica, to you and the dynamite team that you pulled together to help accomplish this. I'd also like to acknowledge and appreciate the fact that although public health has always been part of our mission, and part of the work that we've strived to do that it's explicitly called out in the mission statement, I think that's incredibly important. And then I had one fun one. So great job. I'm really excited about this. I think that the high marks in terms of understanding it and finding a place where your work and your team's work fits within this is so important. And so I appreciate all the effort. I know there was a lot of effort put into the wording and making sure that it wasn't meaningful to people. So I really appreciate that. I have one question, and it was around the action planning. And can you give me an example. And this is actually partly to help people who are also maybe tuning in an example of what action planning by different sections of the LCB might look like, just to like, what what are you looking for when you're looking at action planning by different sections of the LCB on a quarterly basis?
Thank you. So each division will be asked to develop an action plan for fiscal year 25. So July, first through June 30, of 2025. And what I'm looking for are specific time bound activities, that the divisions will accomplish that get us closer to achieving those strategies that we've listed in the strategic plan. So we're looking for things that are specific and time bound. So I'm not looking for things that are like ongoing work, but what are some things that we can do that are going to move us forward? I didn't mention that we also will be doing some measure development at the objective level of the plan. So we'll have performance metrics that we can look at as well, in the next few months, in the next six months, probably will take a bit longer to develop those metrics, but that will also be part of the planning and the reporting.
Right. Thank you. Just one final comment. And that is about the three specific goals and goal three, particularly that whole engagement with communities that we serve and regulated industries, I have to say, as a as the newest board member, although I can't call myself new anymore, because it's been two years, I just have to say, I've worked in government for over 25 years. And I do believe the LCB offers some of the most frequent opportunities to engage with leadership within a state agency that I know of. Going into board meetings, joining caucus, these are just incredible opportunities. And I've seen people take advantage of that in ways that I think have made us better. And I was I'm so excited that we see that in the strategic plan and as a specific goal. And again, that engagement with communities is so important. And I think we've talked about it at the PEAR team. And there's so many opportunities for us to engage in communities. And we've had just great discussions around who are the communities that we most frequently engage in? And where are increased opportunities, and I look forward to seeing increased opportunities and community and engagement with those folks that we interact with on a regular basis. So thank you.
Thank you, Jessica, I just want to echo what Jim said on thank you to you and the team that helped you with this. Thank you.
Thank you.
So when you know, member Vaughn drops, question prompts for me, we should make sure that we build into this review at cetera, you coming back to the board to talk to us as a group as well. Because we don't very often, I don't not sure we've done it.
Yeah, well, happy to hear.
So, you know, I don't know if that has to be quarterly or twice a year. But we'll figure that out. But at some point, we can get a report from you on how that's going, particularly the work plan piece when when those come through. And progress. I think that'd be really important.
Absolutely. Well, happy to do it. We'll figure out a cadence that works.
Right. Yeah. You know, when you look at what the survey results were from folks, and the other feedback we've gotten, it sort of reflects what I think we in even the management team and folks who are working on this in the early days, it's truly about Okay, now what do we do? And so that's, I would sum up the staff feedback as okay, you can, you know, talk the talk, but can you walk the walk now? And you look at that sort of concerns list? You know, the pro list who is really what's in there, the substance, the way it's written and the clarity and the inspiration. And the you know, concerns are "Well, are you going to do something about it?" So I get that's really on us now. To try to make good on that and follow up. So appreciate all the work on it. I actually look forward to it. I think it's a good one.
Great, thank you. Thanks for all the support.
Thank you. Okay, we will move to a policy and rules team update. And there's kasseri West, our policy and rules manager. I'll turn it over to you.
Great, great, Good morning Chair postmen board members Garrett and Bollinger off before I pass it on to Daniel and Jeff, who are going to be presenting this morning or presenting for a preview tomorrow. I'll go ahead and just start with some upcoming events. So on May 15, we will be holding a stakeholder engagement session for social equity. So that will be held virtual and it will be from three o'clock to five o'clock PM. Also on the 15th. We will be, it will be the last day that we're accepting comments from for the THC Bill rulemaking. So we had this series of workshops, those rules are online right now. And so we're accepting roll comments on that draft language until the 15th. Coming up at the next board meeting on the 22nd, Jeff will bring a one on one to the board for cannabis waste. So that's implementing 5376 legislation that was passed this year. Daniel will be presenting a response to the ESOP petition. And also that day, we will hold another stakeholder engagement for social equity, but this one will be hybrid. So we'll have that in person. And there will be a team's invite as well. And that one will be from 530 to 7:30pm at Highline College, and just note there we are going to we're working on getting those invitations out today. All right. And so, for the meeting on June, the first meeting on six, five, Daniel will be having the public hearing for the medical cannabis endorsements rulemaking. There will also be a public hearing for the prohibited conduct rulemaking. On June 18, we'll bring the CR one or two for social equity to the Board to approve. And we'll also bring this era one or two for the TEKS bill. Daniel will bring the medical cannabis excise tax one or two as well. And then also which is separate the medical cannabis endorsement CR 103. Moving on to July, we'll be bringing the 102 for the cannabis sampling rules in July on July. That first meeting in July. And then also in July, Denise will be presenting a 102 for the miners on premises project. So coming up in June, we're going to be holding stakeholder engagement to get feedback to inform that rule development. So stay tuned for that. And then at the end of July, we will be fine. Daniel will be requesting your approval to file the CR 102 for flexible payment terms. This is for cannabis businesses. And Daniel's actually talking about the CR 101 today and just a minute. And then we'll also have the CR one of three on the medical cannabis excise tax, public hearing. Okay. All right. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and pass it on to Daniel and Jeff I who are going to be reviewing what they'll be presenting tomorrow. I don't know who is going first. Jeff is all right. Thank you, Jeff. Any questions before I pass it along? Thank you.
Thank you, Cassidy. Good morning Chair postmen and board members Garrett and volunteer off. At tomorrow's board meeting I will present a response and recommendation to the board regarding a petition for adoption amendment or repeal the state administrative rule request. And I will also ask the Board to approve filing a CR 105 to update current rules to replace the current system the former name of the agency which was Liquor Control Board with the current name, liquor and cannabis board. The response to the petition I will be presenting tomorrow was received from Sky ethereal on March 14 2020. For the petitioner requests to rule changes to be made to title 314 wack. The first change is to replace instances of the pronouns he she him and her as they occur in the title 314 WACK rules with gender neutral, gender neutral pronouns they in them. The second change requested is to change the name of the agency throughout the rules from Liquor Control Board, before cannabis with the current name, liquor and cannabis board. This change was actually made official by passage of SHP, 5052 and 2015. But some occurrences of the former name remain and rule. Both of these requests can be completed through expedited rulemaking and have many merits including promoting inclusion and improving rule consistency. Tomorrow's response will include a recommendation to support accepting this petition for rulemaking. So thank you. And please let me know if you have any questions about this petition response.
Question on the the language one, don't we also have a legislative is that in a budget proviso, Mark and Justin are here, but yeah, believe it is. Yeah. Do you look for bias language? So this is this? Yeah. You're working to allow us to comply with the budget proviso for that, Jeff. Yes, in part, the particularly the
the petitioners identification of pronouns in the rules is certainly something that is that I have found, beginning to look at the rules for the 5059 reviews. So so it really does go hand in hand. And if the petitioners accepted tomorrow, there is the opportunity that we could incorporate the pronoun changes into another CR 105 rulemaking because we do have other housekeeping things, you know, when it might not be in its unique rulemaking, but it would be it could be done in kind of a blanket CR 105 to make some other changes that are eligible for that expedited rulemaking.
That'd be great. Okay, thank you.
Okay, thank you.
See you tomorrow.
Okay, and I will continue on, I have one other thing to preview here. At tomorrow's board meeting, I will request the board's approval to file a CR 105. Notice of expedited rulemaking to amend several rule sections and title 314 wack. This expedited rulemaking would update current rules to replace occurrences of the former name of the agency Liquor Control Board with liquor and cannabis board, as it was changed in 2015. And to update the acronym news for the agency from ws LCB, to LCB, for consistency. If the CR 105 is approved, the rulemaking would have a 45 day comment period ending July 22 2024. And we would present the CR 103 on July 31 2024. And these changes would become permanent on August 31 2024. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions. I will note that the the change to change Liquor Control Board to liquor and cannabis board is the same change that is requested in the rural petition. But coincidentally, we're making this kind of a change now. So it's it's a good thing to do since it was since it was in the in 5052. We had the we had that change there. So we're just cleaning up the remaining instances of that. So thank you.
Any questions?
Yeah, Jeff. So weird. We're doing X and the changing from Liquor Control Board to liquor cannabis board is something that was already done in there was a something passed that change that correct. Yeah,
that's right. Back in 2015. I think it was substitute House Bill 5052 made that change. And it's it's reflected in the statute now and the RC w. So this was a change that for one reason or another wasn't made to certain sections, probably because those sections weren't ever opened up for other rulemaking. So this is a way to.
And I guess my question is, since that was already done in 5052, this is no different than when we went to change like from checking all of our language from marijuana to cannabis, changing that, and we did a CR 105 and just cleaned it up. So we're doing the same thing as a cleanup. So why are we accepting petitions for something for that is why are we
sure it's well it's kind of a coincidence because we were already undertaking the the the rulemaking to change the acronym from ws LCB to LCB. As a as a as a housekeeping change just to update the to update the rules. So we incorporated that one and two, because we noticed that that was a change that should have should have been done years ago. But for you know, probably due to other rulemaking, we that was something that wasn't ever completed. So, so that was recognized. So it's so they're sort of being packaged together.
So these are all housekeeping changes.
Yes, they are. And it's, it was very much like the change from marijuana to cannabis, because it did come it did come from the legislature.
Right? No, I was just confused as to why this is housekeeping changes, and it came from the legislator, why we're doing petition and changes. That's all,
we it's actually three different places, Justin Graeber. I mean, so we have the rules work that Jeff was talking about for the agency name, which should have been done before, just for whatever reason, we get those, then we have the petition that talks specifically about gender, language and the name. And now we have a legislative mandate for even a bigger review, which is to look at everything for anything offensive. And so I think what what we're going to try to do is, you know, do as much of that on an expedited basis as we can. I know, we have staff already working on the bigger question to see what we can do. But they're each like taking a little section. So they they could be considered together housekeeping, maybe because we're not changing the substance of the law, but we are changing the words. But each one of them is enough different and describes a little bit different piece of that, that we're trying to cast a wide net. Justin, is that close enough to the truth?
Yeah, the legislative pieces of report. So it's not mandating rule changes at this point. But these all kind of play into the theme that we have to identify. Yeah, yeah. And so you know, as we're going through the roof petition process and responses, this ties in really closely to that report. And so we'll highlight that as we go through and do our evaluations,
I assume that once we identify offensive language, then we will have to then move it into that next phase. And so if we have a process to expedite it, we should. So, yeah. And, Jeff, I think what you're saying was the reason maybe it didn't some of these name changes didn't happen, you know, years ago, was it we just didn't went up section of rules opened up for something else, then we would look at it for the name as well. So something set more been there, and we just didn't see it. It still might have the old name as as sugar bone broth found when he was looking through it.
Yeah, sure. Sure. I think that's really the case, you know, with with some with some of these changes that are just technical in nature, it can be done dozens and dozens of sections. And you know, I can see how how there were some that were never updated. And I think it was just inadvertent. But you know, but when when such a change requires opening dozens of sections at once it becomes a, it becomes a you know, bigger than just bigger than just a quick 105, it becomes a more of a sweeping project to review the whole chapter or to review the whole title.
But now since we have to review the title for this report, legislature this fall, we're going to have a roadmap for all of these changes. So hopefully, we get them all at this point. So.
So just for clarification on the report. Anything that we identify doesn't necessarily lead into a CR 105 for expedited rulemaking, because one of the things that we're trying to look at is bias based language in there. So those could be policy shifts, if we have regulations that are disproportionately impacting another group, right. So that would definitely have more than just a technical aspect to it. So that would have to go through normal banking process.
So we're looking at both that language, like the gender stuff that we're looking at today, but also then the more substantive is something being applied in a different way. Okay, that's great. Okay. Yeah. Be interested to see how that goes. Okay, great. Thanks for that. Mr. Go. Well, anything else?
No, thank you.
Thank you, Chair. Now I'll see you tomorrow. Appreciate it. Then Daniel Jacobs. Good morning.
Good morning Chair, postman members Garrett and volunteer off. This morning. I'm going to preview the CR one a one that I will be requesting approval for during tomorrow's board meeting on what we're calling cannabis payment flexibility. This CR 101 is in response to a petition that the board accepted in March 2023. Whack three 1455 115 describes what payment methods a cannabis licensee can use to purchase cannabis from other licensees. The rule currently identifies five methods of payment checks, credit or debit cards, electronic fund transfers, prepaid accounts, or payments using a money transmitter. To be clear, this is about a cannabis licensee purchasing cannabis from another licensee. This isn't about members of the public or customers buying cannabis from a retailer. The rule currently says that payment has to be made at the time of delivery. However, it provides further explanation and identifies other conditions for all of the payment methods except for checks. There's no specific explanatory rule language currently on payment via cheque. Micah Sherman submitted a petition back in 2023, excuse me, requesting that the rule be amended to allow checks to be delivered up to three days post delivery. This petition was accepted in March 2023. While initiating this rule project does not necessarily mean we're going to adopt the rule language as requested, it does seem like it would be appropriate to at a minimum flesh out details about how payment via cheque can be done. If approved tomorrow, there'll be an informal public comment period until June 20. Because of the relatively narrow scope of the request, we're and the fact that we have as Cassidy just mentioned, a lot of other cannabis rulemaking going on right now that involves stakeholder engagement. We're hoping to do public outreach on this project via survey after we've developed draft rule language, we're ending this we're aiming to send out this survey June 3, and give the public a month until July 8 to give feedback on the draft rule language, following the survey closed period. And assuming the survey results indicate mostly mostly support for the changes, we're aiming to file this CR 102 with the proposal language on July 17, that would put the public hearing for this at the end of August, August 28, which would have the final rule language filed September 11. And the rule changes effective October 12. Lastly, I'd already mentioned we're intentionally keeping the scope of this world project narrow. And we're intentionally trying to keep it limited to cannabis for a variety of reasons, mainly because alcohol sales involve different rules and involves several other statutes that aren't implicated with cannabis. And another reason is that the payment related to alcohol services and the alcohol industry generally has access to banking and financial services that the cannabis sector doesn't have. I can go into more details on this. But that's sort of why we're intentionally trying to keep the scope of this project now. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Could you just give me a little more on what you were just talking about with the difference in alcohol abuse, and we have more? There's generally more laws and rules around financing around alcohol and tight house all those other concerns that we worry about. But do they have the same list of payment options or what is different than what works? Yeah,
yeah, so they do have the same options. They do have the same methods. The rules obviously have been around longer. But that's just because sale of alcohol has been around legally at least has been around longer in our state and sale of cannabis. The when I brought this to the rules team, there was sort of there is also a dual concern here that because number one, with this project, we're only talking about cannabis licensees purchasing cannabis from other licensees. So that is implicating rule changes that would affect a couple 1000 licensees in the state. You know, our rules team right now is made up of folks from licensing and enforcement divisions and others that are in the cannabis side of it. If we weren't an involved alcohol with this rulemaking also, that would number one implicate more staff resources. Number two, that would expand also the pool of licensees potentially affected from a couple 1000 to you know, 10s of 1000s. That would also make our goal of keeping this to a survey that would make that a little more difficult, which in turn would potentially push out our timeline. Now, I did sort of want to say that while the team isn't inherently opposed to making these rule changes in alcohol, if we make rule changes on the cannabis side and we see that the cannabis sector, it frees things up in the Call sectors interested, we could certainly engage in that later. But given you know how much cannabis rulemaking we have going on right now, our sort of effort to address the scope of the petition, which we have to do, and the petition was limited to cannabis, we want to sort of start with a narrower effort. And then like, yeah, exactly.
Makes perfect sense. Yep. Yeah, I would just say I think there is interest on the alcohol side. So let's get through this. But then let's all figure let's all auto engage on the other side and see if there's any modernization that that it's time for there. That's all. Yeah.
So yeah, just to be clear, it wasn't like we it wasn't that there was a sense that no, we shouldn't do this. On the alcohol side, it was just a sense that for this rule project, we don't want to combine the two. And so if you know if it works out with this rule change, we can do it separately for the alcohol side later, and then we can deal with the implications for those statutes and the tight house rules and some of those other implications.
Yeah, try to keep moving our substances together as much as we can in big picture. Okay. Thanks. Any any other questions? On this one? No. Okay. Anything else Mr. Jacobs?
No, I was, I did want to hand it over to just ignored her. And I think he has an update on some medical cannabis excise tax. And also, I just want to give a quick plug for that that be the CR 101 has been filed on that. So we are accepting public comment at this time. And I can also stay on the line in case any questions come up? For Justin, implicating that specific role project.
Good. Thank you. Morning, Jason.
Good morning, Chair, postman members. Garritan. Volunteer off. Just wanted to give a quick update on the cannabis excise tax. And I know I've mentioned this before, but I think it's important for us to make sure that the conversation continues as there's a lot of confusion in the industry around the upcoming excise tax exemption. So first off, the bill is in effect on June 6, and we are not able to wait until rulemaking is completed before retail licensees are eligible to provide that excise tax to qualify patients. There are certain parameters around this particular bill that is more restrictive than what we've seen over with the sales and use tax at Department of Health and revenue. And so I want to make sure that people are very, very clear. So they don't have an inadvertent tax bill down the road. Especially when you're talking about 37%. That could really be a hindrance to a business if they do this wrong. So folks have to understand that (a) you have to be a medically endorsed store. So if you're not medically endorsed, this does not pertain to you, you're not going to be able to provide any excise tax exemption to you have to be selling product to a qualifying patient, which means that they've had to have the medical consultation, they have to get the authorization they have to go and get registered in the Department of Health, Medical Cannabis Patient Registry, and be a card holder under those provisions that are governed by the Department of Health. And so there's a number of different things that people will have to do if they want to be a qualifying patient eligible for this type of tax exemption. The third thing is the product. And so this does not pertain to all product in the store. It's very important. This pertains only to medical medically qualifying products under Department of Health's WAC 246-70-040. It's very specific, it has to be labeled as Department of Health compliant product. And it has to be tracked in that in that manner as well. Our finance team is already setting up the modified tax exemption forms to include the language so it'll be ready in time. But we're going to be making sure that folks have a lot of information. We're putting together some explainers. We're putting together summary marks put together some legislative summaries that that should be available soon. But we're also doing some additional work in this area. We're seeing some chatter informally from different companies across the state, some are promoting getting folks into you know, getting them a medical card. I want to stress, this is a patient physician relationship. If you have questions, contact the Department of Health around that, but this is not something you can just go and get something from an unlicensed medical provider. You also want to make sure that the product that's being purchased is medically compliant. We only have about 9000 patients in the registry right now. We don't have that many producers producing this we have a lot of interest at this point. But coming into June, that product will not be available immediately across the state. So those who are already producing it certainly could. But if you're in the process of producing new stuff, it's not going to be available most likely within a month. If folks are providing that excise tax exemption to, to all products in the store, they're going to have a tax liability. If they're providing it to a non patient, they'll have a tax liability. And if you're doing it when you're not in medically endorsed store, you'll have a tax liability. A lot of the associations are really concerned about this, so that's why I'm stressing this. And so when you get the questions, as you likely will all three of you. It's really important that that we have a strong understanding, because this is slightly different than how the Department of Health is, is doing this. We've answered formally to a lot of questions already. But there still seems to be some confusion that's being shared with us and stressing that they really want some additional communication, which we're working on. And we're setting that up. But just want to make sure that everybody on the board is is has a strong understanding of that, because you will get questions like I'm getting questions, you're gonna get the questions. So wanted to make sure that I bring this up for y'all today.
As part of the communications will doh be communicating with the 9000 on the registered?
I don't know if they're going to be putting anything specific out to those 9000 patients.
Yeah, it seems to me, we need to empower the patient as much as anybody so they understand how the rules have changed.
Yeah. And they're open. Department of Health has their rules open in this area also. So they're also engaging with other stakeholder groups on that as well. But we can ask Absolutely, there's no reason not to.
inform those stories that have endorsements. The patients, but also those sorts who don't have endorsements, who today might be giving a tax break to some people
correct.
And and that's been a practice, correct, right. I mean,
yeah, the Department of Health has a statement that they had provided several years ago on that particular issue with revenue. Right. Yeah. And there's, you know, there's been some discussion, and I'm not saying that forecasting something, for sure is going to happen. But there is some discussion around alignment. So it makes it easier for folks to understand both statutes and approaches so there's less confusion. And less confusion means less opportunities for error when you're when you're making these tax exemptions, which which holds a hefty price tag if you do it wrong.
Yeah, I think the bill is really good. And you know, it was a priority for some in the Medicare community for sure, you could put it away that initially, we're not scratching, we're not scratching on there. Somebody's not muted. Governance. Oh, additionally, it's going to it could feel like a contraction in this to some people who go into a store today, and are given a tax break on their cannabis purchase. Now, it's going to have to be only on this specific product. But that really is all purposeful because the way the system supposed to work is the medical compliant product has an extra level of testing that no other product is required to do. It actually is supposed to be medical grade, I guess, right. And you have that doctor's prescription and those things. So it's a shift. I think it's a good one. But But I'm glad you guys are putting so much effort and I would just keep encouraging doh to as much as they can communicate with the people on the database. Is it so?
The other question, I remember your question.
I think in some of your discussions, you've covered it, but I was gonna say thank you for bringing this to the board and board caucus, I think is good information to get out there. And is this something that maybe need to be repeated tomorrow and board meeting to the public since caucus is normally just for the board member? You bring it to the board?
I'm happy to do that. I just wanted to make sure that the board members all had the information and if you have any questions or concerns about this before we we speak to it more broadly, but yeah, you're gonna get questions and I'm happy to address the board in a public board meeting as well.
Okay, that was my question that because like you say, there's miscommunications going on a lot. Yeah. All right.
Jim, you're muted.
I was just going to repeat some of what Ali had just said. I think that this is really important. I do appreciate the effort. Justin and Jacob Daniel to bring this to us. One thing that I wonder about like sometimes I miscommunications that gets sent to the industry side of things I just admit, I don't know. And I just wonder, like, do we send it? You're just it sounds like you're doing a great job of figuring out how to get the communication out to the retailers and the producer processors. David, I really appreciate your comments about the patients too, and making sure they get information. But like, do we. When I'm in litigation review, sometimes I hear comments like, "well, I didn't know or wasn't aware of." So this extra effort, I think, is really important. And so I'm wondering about like, Are there are alerts, specific alerts, this is really important, there are three things that you mentioned. And this very clear and think about, like we just talked about our strategic plan, very clear, very easy to read, easy to understand, so that everybody at every level can read it. And there's no possibility that somebody could later say, Oh, I didn't know that when we go through this extra effort. So I'd really like to see something in writing. That's a one page document that just kind of goes through exactly what you just said. And it would serve me as a board member, as I get questions about this.
Yeah, we have already drafted up some language that I provided to our communications team who will clean it up and make it look nice. Because the stuff that I did was just very plain. But one of the concepts that we had is how do we get the information out, that's not just a big wall of text. So having a one pager maybe an infographic, I don't know how the end result will look, also potentially some FA Q's as a separate type of document. And then we'll also have on top of that, the legislative summaries. And so there'll be multiple forms of communication on this, on this front, and we'll make sure and if you want to see the rudimentary drafts, I'm happy to send that to Dustin, you can get those to you and look at those those three points. So you have them in front of you, when questions come in, because I know that they will.
Yeah, and I everybody's just trying to give us the heads up at the beginning of the process now. And all these things are, what they're talking about doing and generating. And we'll make sure that we see all of them when they go out.
And I liked the idea that board member Garrett suggested about coming to a board meeting, and especially when we've got this one page infographic or our bulletin out, that can be brought up and can be shown and we can all see it at the same time or something like that would be helpful.
Good. So yeah, we can either do the, you know, do update tomorrow, or if you want to wait for the final document, we can we can wait to the following board meeting. I'm sure it'll be done by then.
Whatever your, you have two different suggestions sort of on the table here, one away from the document one to do it.
We could do it tomorrow and
Yeah, I was gonna say tomorrow.
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Happy to do that.
Gretchen, what's your saying about communicating seven times, seven different ways. That's what we're gonna have to do with this. That's, that's what you do to AP to get things to really stick. And this is a super important thing that I think provides a great benefit to one group of people is going to be a little bit more bookkeeping for another group of people, some are going to be unhappy. So we're going to just keep sending this out in as many different ways as we can. So. Okay, any other questions on medical attention? You know, the quick question about what we're talking about earlier with the language review? How is that going on? In terms of the budget proviso work? Are we starting?
Yeah, it's still in the preliminary phases. I mean, I think part of the review is being informed with some of the roll analysis that we're doing. We've had some discussions about opening that up to other staff members as an incentive to look through this, this material. And so again, it's a report. So it's not going to be a real project, per se. Out of this now, we may have some new projects at the end of it. But that'll be kind of gearing up a little bit further, as as we get into the June and July month, we should have some more updated details on what that looks like. We've talked about reaching out to the Office of Equity to see if they have any suggestions around. What what would be perceived as bias based language, when we've done some preliminary work around some online searches on Okay, has this been identified anywhere else? It's fairly limited. So I don't think a lot of folks at least have published anything or thinking about it in that same vein. So, you know, I would be open if any of you three have ideas about something that you feel like is disproportionately impacting another group. That's in our regulations that you've seen, whether it's a litigation review or any other rule reviews that you've done, we'd certainly be happy to take that as an example to share with staff so that they can be going through and, you know, doing that search in that manner. Um, so I think that that would be important.
Is the proviso to remind me specific to language or to impact or both?
I think it's just language we're supposed to identify in the report. You know, the bias based language is currently in the regulation
which could or couldn't mean that we need to change. But then there could be other things that we don't even find in the search for offensive language that are applied in a disproportionate way, that's going to be much tougher.
And, yeah, and although the impact wasn't necessarily called out, I think it's implied. I mean, when we're coming in saying, hey, this language is is a bias language, you know, why? So we believe it does X, Y, and Z, you know, what barriers does it present what, you know, what limitations does it have within the regulations for certain groups? And so that's, I think, you know, the explanatory process is going to be part and parcel to that.
Then the other piece of it, which your research teams looking at is some of the data we have on enforcement that might also shine a light on current practices that we've talked about here before. Yep. So that's a lot. Okay. Good. All right. Any other questions? For somebody else? No. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. That takes us to board member or executive assistant reports. Dustin, anything from you today? Not for me. Thank you, Chair for seeing none, we will adjourn and we'll be back tomorrow at 10am and tomorrow afternoon is executive management team at 130 as well. All right, see, all right.
