Jen: So, good morning. It's now 10:02 on March 17th, and I am calling the Washington Real Estate Commission meeting to order. Before introductions, I'd like to ask Deborah to please explain the process that we'll be following to conduct today's meeting. Deborah: All right. Good morning. Thank you, Jen. So, we are excited to continue to be doing these meetings virtually and having everyone participate and hope that the commissioners and the public find this to be an effective way to conduct our Real Estate Commission business. I'd like to make note for our guests to please go ahead and turn off your projection of your cameras during this section, because we have found it to be distracting, so that only our commissioners are projecting. When we get to the public session and you want to speak, then you will be invited to please turn your cameras back on. Also, in note of the public comment period, we will have a public comment section where we will allow our guests to be limited to three minutes per person to speak. So again, as a courtesy, please do not speak during the commission meetings, except during the public comment section. Okay. So, please remember again, to turn off the cameras, turn off the mics when you're not speaking. For our commissioners, if you're getting ready to make a motion, it would be really helpful if you would please restate your name before so that we can capture that in the meeting minutes. And that's all that I have. Thank you. Jen: Thanks, Deb. At this time, I'd like to ask Sherry to [inaudible 00:02:05] call roll, to confirm attendance of all of our commissioners and staff. When Sherry's called your name, please respond. Sherry: Perfect. Thank you. Good morning. Okay. The first one will be Sherry [Song 00:02:18]. Sherry Song: Here. Present. Sherry: Thank you. Sabrina? Sabrina: Here. Sherry: Scott? Scott: I'm here. Sherry: And Ruth? Ruth: Good morning. I'm here. Sherry: Good morning. And then we'll move on. Jen [inaudible 00:02:38]? Jen: Here. Sherry: Deborah? Deborah: Here. Sherry: Rick? Rick: Here. Sherry: Mike? Mike George: Here. Sherry: Darla? Darla: Here. Sherry: Stephanie? Stephanie Sams: Here. I assume you mean me, right? Sherry: Yes. Sorry. Stephanie, my apologies. And that's all I have. Did I miss anybody? Okay. Back to you, Jen. Jen: I think Sherry, at this time, I'd like to go over the order of the agenda. As you can see on the screen, we'll call the meeting to order. We'll then go on to new business, old business. We will... Committee task force report, staff report, other business and public comment. Do I have approval of the agenda? Do I have a motion for that? Sherry Song: Sure. Scott: I'm moved. Sherry Song: Sherry Song [inaudible 00:03:42] move. Sabrina: Sabrina second. Sherry: Who was first? Jen: I heard Scott and Sherry. Scott: I, yeah, I jumped over Sherry, sorry. Sherry: And Sabrina second. Okay. Jen: Okay. All in favor. Sherry: Aye. Sabrina: Aye. Jen: Any oppose the agenda? Great. We will move on to 1.3, the approval of the minutes from December 1st, 2021. Do I have a motion for approval of the minutes or any comments? Sabrina: This is Sabrina. I move to approve. Sherry Song: Second. Scott: I'll second Sherry: I got Sherry as a second on that one, Scott. Sorry. Sherry Song: Just throughout the whole meeting, just Sherry slash Scott. Scott: Yeah. Jen: Thanks. Okay, great. So all in favor? Scott: Aye. Sherry Song: Aye. Sabrina: Aye. Jen: Any oppose the meeting minutes from December? Great. Thank you. So Deb, we'll move on to you for agenda item 1.4, review of communications. Deborah: Okay. Thank you Jen. This morning we did receive two email communications. However, we weren't able to get them onto the agenda because of when they arrived, but we will be addressing the issues in those communications when we get to item 3.1. And so we'll have further discussion at that time. There were no other communications received at this time. Jen: Thank you, Deb. We will move on to our new business, which, I'm not sure what's going on Sherry with the... Oh, there we go. Our new business. Okay. So we will move on to our new business, which is 2.1 fair housing curriculum. And Stephanie Sams. You're going to lead us through this part of the conversation. Stephanie Sams: Hi everyone. My name is Stephanie Sams. This is my first Real Estate Commission meeting. I'm really excited to be here. I am a regulatory review manager and policy advisor in the business and professions division. And prior to being the policy advisor in business and professions, I was the policy and legislative analyst for BPD in our agency headquarters office. I also supported driver's licensing and vehicles. I've been with DOL since 2016, primarily involved in policy legislation and rule making. I'm here to give an update on where we're at with the implementation of SSB 5378 regarding Washington fair housing curriculum. This curriculum will be required for new and renewing real estate licensees. It goes into effect at June 1st. Where we're at right now is we are developing the curriculum. Tim shared a draft a while back, and we received some feedback. And what we're doing is we're going to be holding six listening sessions between starting next week through the first week of May, when we'll wrap up the curriculum and share that so that folks can start developing those courses. The stakeholders that we'll be reaching out to... The legislation really spoke to some stakeholders that we are to work with to get input on what that educational content should consist of. And so we've been sending emails and setting up these listening sessions for folks to come and share and provide input on what that educational content should look like. So that's where we're at. And we're just really excited to be working with everyone to get feedback and input on what the curriculum will look like. Scott: I'm curious what kind of feedback you're getting in terms of the work to be done versus the June 1st timeframe. I mean that's a lot to get done, I think. Isn't it? Or are you going to be able to get all that done? Stephanie Sams: Yeah, that's a fair question. It's a good one. So what we're looking at doing right now is we know that developing, getting the curriculum is just one piece. Then there's the actual development of the courses, the submittal, the approval, and then also getting licensees enrolled and taking the course. It's going to take a lot time. And so we are not going to start the auditing piece to ensure that licensees have met that until June of next year, of 2023. We want to ensure that licensees have classes available to take, right? So that's our proposal right now. I think `we have room to be flexible and work with the industry on what's working, what's not, and we will continue to take feedback on how that's working. Sabrina: So just to be clear, the legislature requires that the curriculum be available June of this year, but not that licensees have to have taken the course by June of this year, so- Stephanie Sams: Yeah. Correct. It does require that they take it starting June 1. So that's on the backside, on the enforcement side, that's where we're going to provide that flexibility because it doesn't require us to audit them right away. Sabrina: So again, just to clarify, so the law, the statute says that effective June 1 of this year. So then it's probably tied to renewals subsequent to, right? So after June 1 of 2022 licensees have to have that six hour course or whatever, but we have the flexibility within the statute to extend some time for when someone has to complete that course. So from a practical perspective, let's say I'm a licensee. And my license expires at the end of June of 2022. And there aren't any fair housing courses available yet because they haven't been able to get approved or whatever. So I'm going to go ahead and renew my course without that new fair housing class. So then I'm in essence going to have another two years to get it done before my 2024 renewal, right? Stephanie Sams: Yes. Scott: [inaudible 00:11:03]. Stephanie Sams: I believe that is accurate. I think we're saying the same thing. Sabrina: Okay. And the statute gives you the flexibility to do that. Stephanie Sams: Yeah. We just have to make sure that we have a curriculum and that folks starting June 1 on, are taking it. And so we can give that window of time for them to take that course. Scott: I think that's a really important point Sabrina, or that Sabrina brings up in that there's going to be a lot of licensees who roll over whose whose renewal time is June 30th through September-ish that are going to panic thinking they have to have that done. I mean, we really need you to communicate that. I'm sorry, I've got window washers outside my office, so I'm sorry for the background noise. But however, that message gets communicated to our state licensees, I think is really, really important that it's clear that there is a grace period until your next license renewal, if that's what I heard just now. Because that's a big relief for a lot of folks. Stephanie Sams: Is there- Ruth: Go ahead, go ahead. Stephanie Sams: I was saying, thank you for the feedback. I have that noted. We will definitely work on that. It's as entertaining as a cat. Ruth: Is there going to be communication email to the managing brokers, the offices, on how the process is going to take place and what is expected? Stephanie Sams: Yes. Ruth: Do you know when? Is it going to be until June or... Stephanie Sams: We are working on that. I don't have a timeline right now, but that is a fair question because it's already March, middle of March. So we need to build out that timeline and what that looks like, so we know exactly what communication's going out and who, and what is included in that communication. Ruth: Thank you. Sabrina: I know part of the challenge, and I'm curious, Stephanie, if you've gotten this feedback, I've spoken with a couple of local instructors here in Spokane that have already been teaching fair housing. In fact, we have a couple of code of ethics courses at our local association of realtors that they've incorporated fair housing into it to make it a full day class. And their feedback to me, these two instructors have said, good googly. And I know I've heard this from other folks at prior meetings. It was hard enough to come up with three hours of fair housing course content. And now we have to create a six hour fair housing class per the statute. Is that consistent feedback you're getting from other education providers across the state that how are we going to come up with six hours of fair housing content? Stephanie Sams: I have not heard that feedback directly. my understanding is that the six hours is a one time thing, right? It's something that renewing brokers have to take under the assumption that they haven't previously taken fair housing, right? So it's kind of like a one, wham bam, you've gotten six hours of training now, moving forward for every renewal, you'll only get three. And so we'll have a rollback period of when that six hour training is no longer needed, because everyone should have had that, either the initial training as a new licensee or that six hour. So it's kind of equitable that way. I haven't heard that feedback yet though. So I think it's really good though. Sabrina: What I had discussed with our local instructors at our local professional development committee level was it would seem to make sense to develop a three hour like basic fair housing class and then tack on another three hour, because I think you're exactly right, that it's not dissimilar from... Do you remember when we had the license law? Maybe not many of you were around, but when we had the license law transition, there was a class that all the licensees had to go through. So there was a very limited shelf life for that class, right? Once all the state licensees went through that class, nobody needed it anymore. So like you're saying current licensees, once everybody gets through the six hours, nobody will need that class anymore. So it seems to me that the curriculum might be developed with, here's your basic three hours of fair housing that will go on and on and on and on. Right? With updates as maybe new protected classes are added or whatever. And then here's the add three hours to make up the six that this potentially goes away when we get to that tipping point where everybody has gone through their six hours. So just that's been my instructor brain kind of noodling through how to create that six hour course that ultimately you can get rid of the three that you don't need at some point. Stephanie Sams: Yeah. Thank you for that feedback. And I saw a comment. It just popped up for a second. But yeah, like I said, we love all feedback, right? We have a lot to take in and consider, I think three hours could go really quickly. We want to make sure that we're getting the right and meaningful content. So we have an email address set up. We can share that. I can get that so that folks have that so that anyone can share that feedback with information about... We have specific questions that we sent out as a part of the listening sessions that we're looking for. And we welcome any and all feedback on that. Jen: Any other questions for Stephanie on the fair housing curriculum legislation? Okay. Thanks Stephanie for joining us. And if you can supply that email address, we'll make sure it out in the commissioner minutes. Stephanie Sams: Will do. Jen: Okay. Great. We'll move on to 2.2, the ARELLO annual business meeting April 6th through the 8th. Deb, it looks like you're on. Deborah: Yeah. So I wanted to let the commissioners know that the Association of Real Estate Licensing Law Officials, ARELLO will be holding a midyear meeting in Savannah, Georgia. So it's an actual in-person meeting this year, so that those dates will be April 6th through the 8th. The department will be sending Mike George, our administrator from licensing and Sherry Song will be adjoining him. So after that, I believe in the June meeting, we will have an update and they'll bring back a report out from that attendance. And that's it. Jen: Great. Any questions for Deb? Okay. Thank you, Deb. You get to be a 3.1 as well, which we head into our old business. 3.1 is the PSI exam update. Deborah: Okay. So the PSI update, I've brought a guest speaker as well. So Mike George will be joining me on this as well, but just to start off the conversation, we did receive two emails asking for updates on where we're at. There were a number of questions that were included in that very pertinent to this discussion, kind of to sum it up quickly, which I don't think I can, because it was quite a bit. But very pointed questions about where we're at after our last meeting on the managing broker examination. And we had a few takeaways that we wanted from PSI to provide in terms of their commitment, to putting resources available on their website. There are a number of different issues. And unfortunately we have not received any updates from PSI at this time. And the capacity to follow up with them has been really limited. So I'm going to turn it over to Mike George to kind of fill in some of the why on where we're at in terms of the reason we haven't been getting to it. Mike George: Yeah. So I think that, one, they don't want to come off as trying to come up with excuses or anything like that, more of just kind of helping you understand where we're at as in our group, right? Licensing, customer support services. One of the things that we talked about during the last mission meeting was the fact that we wait on phones for a long time. Having to wait a long time to get a response to emails. Waiting to get my license so that way I can go work so I can provide for myself, I can provide for my loved ones. Just being able to provide kids, work, drive all of that. So that's been our main focus right now. Right? Is bringing on additional people now in the midst of all of that, which I'll talk a little bit about later. January first- Natalie: Mike, your microphone is a little bit not clear. Mike George: Okay. Just one second. How's that? Can you hear me now? Is it better? Natalie: We'll see. Mike George: We'll see, okay. I'm going to go off of video and see if that helps. How's that, is that better? Natalie: Just continue we'll see. Sabrina: It's better. Mike George: This happens every time that I'm like, oh, I got to speak and it's important. And then my computer's like, no, I don't think so. Anyways. So I what was saying is during the last commission meeting, there was a big focus obviously on having someone from PSI come out, speak about the exams, things like that. So, and that's really critical and we're going to be putting resources there and figuring out what can we do. Right? We're going to look into it. We're going to figure out, we're going to listen, and then we're going to come up with solutions. But we also heard that folks have been waiting on the phones for a long time trying to get help to get their license. Waiting a long time to get an email response. Things like that. So this last couple months we've really focused getting recruitments out there, getting people on board. And in the midst of all that, and I'll talk a little bit about it later, we had a data breach. And so... It sounds like Natalie [inaudible 00:22:18] can't understand me. Its very- Scott: I don't think anybody can, Mike, unfortunately your audio pretty terrible. Natalie: Yeah. The microphone is not clear. Mike George: Okay. Let me try to call in. Let me try calling in really fast. Deb, is there a way that skip the next section and I can come back to this, as I try to call in? Deborah: I believe we can do that. Mike George: Okay. I apologize for that. [inaudible 00:22:45] Jen: So while Mike tries to call in and the next agenda item's actually his and Debs also, one of the things that Mike was... I can talk about some of the staffing issues that we've been having at the department around... Well, we were in a hiring freeze for part of this during the pandemic. And then we came out of our hiring freeze. We've been working through trying to get positions filled. We heard you really clearly at the last commission meeting about how important it was to be able to respond to our customers. And we were failing in some areas, we were failing around our phone coverage. We were failing with responding to emails, and we were trying to process things as quickly as we could, but we weren't being able to meet the standards that we'd even set for ourselves. And so the whole focus has been on recruiting, hiring, training some team members. And so that's really been our big focus this last quarter. On top of that, as you all are aware, we had a data breach that took place the end of January. Which our system then came down. It took us a few weeks to our system back up. And then in the midst of all of that we created some additional processes so that we could actually keep our licensees working that we could. And then we had to then recover. We've been recovering, still recovering, from the period of time that our system was down and the work that we weren't able to process during that time. Not only did you not all not have access to our system, but we didn't either. And so there's been this time period that now we're working to get caught up on that workload. So we were hopeful to be working on some of this exam work, but the priority really became getting our folks trained and being able to process through Polaris, be able to handle some telephone calls so that we could also meet the demand of getting licensed once they got into our system. I just recapped for you, Mike- Mike George: Yeah. Jen: What we've been working on for the last couple of months. Mike George: Okay. No, thank you. I appreciate that. It seems to always happen during... Yeah. It just seems to happen often during commission meetings or board meetings. I apologize. But yeah, Jen, I think you covered it. Like Jen was saying, our main focus right now is just being able to focus on getting people up to speed. So that way, when we're bringing these new people on, they can have immediate impact and then you all can feel the value of being able to get those phone answered quickly, getting an email response quickly. And then ultimately getting a license in each of our applicant's hands that qualifies so they can provide for themselves and their families. So that's been the main focus. But at the same time, making sure that we're not just ignoring this other piece, and we'll talk about here in a second, but being able to look into that and figure out, Hey, what can we do? And so I'll pass it back to Deb with that. Scott: So Mike, just to give us a census of the magnitude of the reinforcements that we're bringing. What was our current staff level versus how many people do we get to add and how big of an impact do you think we have that? Mike George: Yeah, so we've actually done quite a bit. So before we shut Polaris down for a time, we had gone through the process of bringing on three additional team members in a non-permanent capacity for 12 months. While while doing that data is really big for all of us. And so making sure that we're analyzing it at the three months, six months, nine month mark, to see what kind of an impact they're having to see if we need to adjust. Do we need to add more people? Do we have too many people? What is the impact that we're having? I would say right now, Scott, it's too early to be able to say definitively and say, hey, this is the impact they're currently having. Mainly because the data would be skewed based on the fact that we've been dealing with the system issues thus far. We've also brought in some additional help though from throughout our division. So we do have some folks who typically would work investigations, or we do auditing stuff. And they, when the system went down and we had a lot of emails we needed to respond to, they heard that call and it's really great here at DOL because they were like, hey, we want to help. We see you struggling over here. We want to come and assist. And so we did have a team of, I think, around it fluctuates between like eight to 11 people, that help out at least on a part-time basis, answering questions and emails. We have some additional folks who are helping us with the phones, things like that, just during this busy time. And again in these coming weeks, as things kind of, quote unquote, normalize, we'll start being able to really capture what kind of an impact these, again, those original three non-permanent team members, what kind of impact they're having. Because again, right now, the data's a little skewed. The phone calls we're getting is not what I would consider normal, volume wise. Same with emails, things like that. Because the system, once it came back online, obviously there was a huge push, a huge influx of people reaching out, things like that. So did I answer your question, Scott, I hope? Scott: Well, I guess I'm hoping that we're throwing enough resources at the solution at the issue so that we can get the backlog of people who have been waiting forever and so frustrated to where we can get it normalized soon and then whatever the normal staff level is at that point, great. But just let's fix the problem. And if it's more bodies, let's try and get them there. Right? Let's try and get [crosstalk 00:28:27]. Mike George: Yes. Yeah. And that's what we've done. And so the actual backlog or workload that we currently have of, if you think of renewal applications, original licenses, those types of things. [inaudible 00:28:41] What is the normal staff level? Normal staff is a team of four people, if you're yeah. So what it was before versus... So we basically beefed it up by a hundred percent bringing almost doubling the team. But as far as renewal applications, original licenses, we're currently processing, for the most part, we're in the beginning of February with those. We do have some stragglers though, of things where they sent in their stuff and maybe they're missing fingerprints or maybe they're missing another requirement. And so we do have some where we've sent a request out to that individual to say, hey, we need this to be able to continue on in the process. Right? But the additional resources, additional help that we have is definitely making an impact and we're trending in the right direction. Scott: Okay. Mike George: I'll continue to give updates on that, Scott. I can continue to give updates. And I can also follow up with you specifically and some other folks, if you want, to just give you kind of our thought of where we'll be at in three months. Again, predictive models are always... I tend to try to shy away from that because there's so much unpredictable things. So when you try to predict and say, hey, we'll be caught up by this time. Scott: No, I appreciate that. My goal, I think all of our goals, we've been every board meeting, we're talking about this darn system and the backups and the customer service and all that. The hiring freeze seems to be over, let's fix it. We have to put enough bodies on the problem so we can get it fixed. And so we can start normalizing our operation for our customers as soon as we possibly can. Mike George: Yeah. Jen: So Scott, I have been committed to Mike and his team about finding resources, being able to help support them. So, for two things, one, to get us caught up. And then two, to see what do we really need moving forward to stay at that customer service level? Our commitment to our licensees across the board is a 10-day timeframe, right? From the time it comes in to where we're being able to issue. And recognizing that sometimes things take longer because maybe the applications aren't complete. So Mike, it has to be accountable to me every week with where we are with what we've hired, other training. Is that making a difference? Is that moving the needle, as well as are there things that- Jen: Making a difference is that moving the needle, as well as, are there things that we can be doing through the system that can help make things better? So we're not just looking at it from a... The staffing part, is one part, but there's other components to that as well, to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible. Scott: Thanks, Jen. Mike George: Yeah. Sabrina : So kind of point of order, I guess, here. So some really great questions are being posted in the chat. Are we wanting to address those later? Jen: In the public comment timeframe? Yep. So I do think that we've meshed a couple of agenda items together, which might be also getting a little bit confusing. So I want to go back up to item three, which is our old business and the PSI exam update. Deb gave a little bit of an overview of some comments that we, for questions we received late yet last night. So we didn't see them until this morning. And one of the things that I would like to ask the commissioners is if anyone is interested in being part of a subcommittee to look at these questions that are coming in around our exams and being able to help us work it, we're struggling capacity wise between for the agency to be able to put as much time in this that we should with trying to get Mike's team up to speed and being able to handle regular licensing stuff, as well as the new fair housing legislation that we're working on implementing. So I'm just curious if I have a couple of commissioners, I can take up to three, like on a subcommittee to be willing, to help dig into some of this with Deb, with Deb leading it from the department. Scott: What exactly, what kind of expertise are you looking for? What kind of help are you looking for? Jen: Do you want to take that one, Deb? Or do you want me to try? Deborah: I was going to say warm body Scott, but this- Jen: More than that. Deborah: More than that, I think that what would be appreciated is from the industry perspective, some background in education, I'm trying not to look at Sabrina, but I'm looking at Sabrina and having that area to lean into, because unfortunately right now, Tim being our resident expert is occupied with implementation of 53, 78. So that's mainly it. I think that what we need to do is we need to dig in and look at these questions that have come to us, try and figure out where we can leverage some knowledge and understanding of what's going on with our examinations, particularly with the managing broker and bring back some answers. So anyone who has the ability to dig in and do some research with me, that's who I'm looking for, Scott. And I'm not trying to pick on you Sabrina. Sabrina: It's okay. My bandwidth is super limited right now, but if I am needed, I will help you. Yep. So you can put me on that list. There was a subcommittee formed at our last commission meeting, as I recall? Deborah: I think you're correct. I don't recall who was on that. Maybe Sherry Honeywell, can you remind us to, do we have an education [crosstalk 00:34:45] Scott: Yeah, I actually had raised my hand at one point, too. And it was related more to, my priority is making sure there's commercial curriculum woven into the education requirements versus all residential oriented. But I'm not an education expert per that last conversation, so I'm not sure I'm the right guy, but I'll help if I can on that to the extent that I can. And again, limited bandwidth, limited education background, but I'll do what I can. Deb : Okay. Shari H: Question. Do you guys have Teams, is Teams a better option for the committee? Does that work better than Zoom for you guys? No? Scott: Zoom's fine. Shari: Okay. Sabrina: Zoom is better for me. Deborah: Okay. Okay. So Sabrina and Scott... And I anticipate it'll be probably April before we can get a meeting together. So we'll do some calendar pinging and find out what kind of availability you both have. Scott: Sounds good. Sabrina: Can we also try to find, I'm not seeing it in the minutes, but can we try to find, because honestly I think we've got some stakeholders that can be helpful that have frankly better input about this because they have their ear to the ground more so than Scott and I do. That would be really helpful. Scott: I agree, Sabrina, 100 percent. Deborah: I think you're right. But I think at this point let's keep it to a small group and figure out what the questions are, and then we can take it out to a broader audience. Okay. Sabrina: Okay. So- Deborah: Was there any of the other commissioners that were interested in serving on this? All right. Shari Song: I mean if you need me, I would definitely like to be involved as well. And I don't know if this is the correct time to ask, but in discussions in the past many times we've asked if it was possible to perhaps pursue other testing companies besides PSI. And has that been pursued at all? Deborah: It's a discussion that we continue to bring up in terms of others. The struggle is that there... Under [arillo 00:37:12], there are really only two options. There is PSI and there's Pearson VUE. And at this point I think, that is when PSI contract comes up, we could talk about going out to bid for that. Shari Song: And when was their contract up? Deborah: Their contract wouldn't be up, I believe, until next year. Shari Song: Okay. Scott: It'd be interesting, again, whether I don't know it's the commissioner's role or the staff role, but to talk to some other state agencies and find out if they're having similar frustrations, is it just us, I have a hard time think it's just us, but we see sure seem to have more than our share of issues with PSI. Maybe another vendor is the right idea, but it'd be interesting to get some perspective from other users as well. Shari Song: That is the question I'll take. When I go to arillo and ask some of the other people from other states. Scott: That'd be great. Good. Yeah. Good format to do that. Deborah: So these would be great questions to have during the committee meeting. So I think at this time, Jen, we're going to move this to the action item of having a subcommittee formed to discuss this issue. Jen: Great. And so then the goal would be of the subcommittee is that we will have a report out at our next commission meeting. And at that point, we'll figure out like what our steps forward are as far as, do we broaden the group, make sure that we have all the right folks on that moving forward. Okay, great. The next agenda item is item number four, which we don't have any current report outs of community task force. But next meeting we will. Item number five, the staffing report. So Deb, did you want to start with this one? And then it heads over to Mike. I know you and Mike are going to take both these items on. Deborah: So staff report, did we miss the action items or Sherry? Or am I getting my order incorrect? Shari H: No, you're right. I accidentally, that's my error on that. So yeah, we do have this. I don't believe that was on my annotated, so I apologize. Jen: That's okay, Sherry. Shari H: So we have, I've updated the website, so this will be coming off. This was from December as well, the email the commissioners, the org chart, we still don't have that in place completely yet. Ruth asked for the PSI PowerPoint and that was sent out. Budget, that'll be talked about down farther in the meeting. We're working on the real estate report for the commission. And then this is still in progress too. The subcommittee meeting for discuss clarification on license names and teams. So those were the takeaways from the last meeting and that's all I got. Jen: Thank you, Sherry. Shari H: Back to Jen. Jen: So we will now head to the staff reports with Deb. Deborah: Okay. So Sherry, can you move ahead to the slide with the statistics? Okay. Thank you. So this is, we've gotten some wonderful reports, it's been a while since we've shared any of our statistics, our licensing statistics with the commission. Because it's been a while you probably don't remember what they used to look like, but I want to call out that as we've moved towards being more aligned functionally, one of the things that we're trying to do is to really get all of our data and our statistics that we report out to be more consistent. So with that, this is probably different than we've looked at before, but this is consistent with what we share with our other boards and commissions. If there comes a point that there are things that this commission wants to see, you can make those requests and we can try and accommodate that. But this is kind of the baseline of what we'll be looking at. Okay. So, and these, Darla who we called during roll call is on this call. So if you have questions, Darla is the one that put these wonderful charts together for me, and she can help to explain if we have any in depth questions from the commissioners. So you'll look at, she did a really wonderful job of breaking down our licensing by age brackets and not so much in real estate, but in some of our other professions, we've been kind of calling out this age bracket that is moving towards retirement. And in a lot of the other professions, the concern has been that they don't have a lot of new licensees wanting to move into the field. You look at real estate and it doesn't look like we have that issue as much. I mean, yes, we still have from the demographics of 55 to 64 a little bit higher numbers, but we still have a lot of younger demographic moving into the licensing profession. So the grand tot al of real estate brokers that are active currently are 33,640. Our canceled license is 5,550. There was a question about what canceled means in terms of when we go from our expired status, which is right now we have 5,982, when they move into canceled. For real estate, you remain an expired status for one year after you do not renew your license. After that, you move into canceled status and you have two years to renew that license and canceled status before basically you're forfeiting and you have to start all over again with education and pre-licensing and examination. In real estate we have an inactive status. So you'll notice that right now we have very few brokers that are inactive. There's 1,270, which is a little surprising to me, but grand total of 46,442 licensees. Brokers are considerably less. So for managing brokers it's less, you see 7,601 active, canceled 622, expired 965. And then inactive is 553 for a total of 9,741. So that's a large number of licensees out there. She also has broken it down by Washi ngton only licensees. And then the next category down in the orange is for out of state licensees. So as you know, we allow for reciprocity and those would be those workers. Do we have any questions on this slide from the commission? Sabrina: Not a question, but just a clarification observation. So if I add up the 33,640 active brokers and the 7,601 active managing brokers, that's 41,241 active licensees. Right? Deborah: Okay. Sabrina: So just an observation of how many folks are actively licensed in my mind, in theory, maybe trying to eek out a living selling real estate in the state of Washington, that's 41,240 people, right? Deborah: Yeah. Sabrina: Wow. Okay. Thank you. Deborah: Yep. It gives you an impact of what it means when our system doesn't work correctly doesn't it? It's a lot of licensing renewed. So it explains where Mike's focuses on those renewals and making sure that we are supporting our licensees. Sabrina: I guess then along those lines, and maybe it's to curiosity more than anything, but with that kind of numbers is one to assume that about 1/12 of that are renewing every month? So for about the month that Polaris was down 1/12 of those 41, that's 3,400 licensees were trying to, in theory, renew their licenses and couldn't. So that's how many folks were now trying to catch up. Deborah: Yeah. When we were pulling numbers, Sabrina, when we were looking at our implementation, I think we estimated around 1,800 renewals for brokers managing brokers in June and going out. So that's about, that's the average. It's quite a few. Mike George: Yeah. So yeah, you could estimate in that way and in a lot of cases we had folks wait until the system came back on, so then they can renew online. So all, if we were to say those 3,400 people, right. Not all 3,400 folks just waiting and then just sent, so we don't have 3,400 applications waiting to be worked by any means. In fact, a lot of folks waited. And then when the system came back on, they're like, all right, now I'm going to go, now I'm going to go in and I'm going to renew. They filled out the intent to renew and they indicated on, a lot of them indicated on that form to say, I'm just going to wait until the system comes back up and then I'm just going to, and then I'll renew then. Deborah: Oh. Sabrina: How many intents to renew did you get, did you receive? Mike George: That's a great question. I don't have, oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jen. Jen: That's okay. I don't have it broke out by real estate professions. I have it broke, I have the whole, all of our professions and we have 44 different professions that we license and regulate. And we had over 3,000 that we received during that time. And then, because some folks do renew early and especially since you need to have your fingerprints and different things, a lot of people don't wait until the last minute. So that intent to renew was just kind of a snapshot of folks that were either worried about when the system was going to come back up or their license was coming up on expiration. So that was a whole different workload than those that then either were in the system and that then renewed once the system came back up. Deborah: Should we go to the next slide? Okay. So for our real estate firms, we have currently in the grand total 4,746. So you'll see that we do have some canceled firms. We have expired and we have inactive. Branches are considerably less, so grand total being 624, but 129 of those are in canceled status, 19 expired and eight inactive. So that's on par about total active, about 4,000. That's held pretty steady. Okay. And we do have some firms that are, Washington only would be the majority and we have a few of them that are showing us out of state. I think that's more of a reporting issue where the company, the ultimate parent account may be out of state and the actual firm is here so those probably shouldn't be reported on there. Okay. And is there one more slide? Nope, that's it. Okay. So that's it for the statistics. If anyone has any questions? That's all. Jen: Thanks for sharing that, Deb. I think it's really helpful to see it from this perspective. Scott: It is interesting. It'll be interesting over time. If we continue to keep this as a graphic to see if our industry's growing or shrinking by with this, more on a, with a visual graph of the totals. Cause it is interesting information. Deborah: Well, and Scott, I think one of the things that was fascinating for some of our other professions, recently we had a geology board meeting and they were looking at that demographic that is looking at retiring soon and realizing that their big, big concern with their industry was that they didn't have as many licensees coming into the profession as they had going out of the profession. And that real concern that, you weren't going to see that I think with real estate, we've got a pretty good healthy balance in our demographics, which is great to see, but I appreciated that perspective that the reality is that there's going to be a lot of talent leaving one profession here soon. Scott: Well, I think the numbers also, demographically anyway, it would be interesting for the folks that provide education because the younger demographic generally will do things online, more so than the older ones and that would impact maybe how they run their businesses. So... Deborah: Absolutely. Jen: Yeah, this is one of the great benefits that we've had with some of our functional alignment that we've done is being able to kind of take things are working really well. So like these board meetings is a great example of how do we bring in share information to the different industries that's been really helpful and consider, continue to share those best practices. So I think this is a great part of that. So Mike, you are up for item number 5.2, where we're going to talk about Polaris and licensing. I know you've already talked a little bit about it, but is there more that you'd like to share here? Mike George: Yeah. Just giving an update on Polaris or our licensing system that we call Polaris in house. So I kind of just wanted to walk through some of the background of the data breach and what happened. We've gotten multiple questions. So what we've done here in the agency has gathered kind of the frequently asked questions and then we have some just responses and things like that. I've shared it at some different board and commission meetings and a lot of folks have found it helpful. So kind of just walking through some of the background that, during the week of January 24th [ DOL 00:00:53:08] did become aware of suspicious activity involving professional and occupational license data that's contained within our professional and business licensing system. The DOL immediately shut the system down and began investigating with the assistance of the agency that we call WaTech or Washington Technology Solutions. In addition, DOL retained the services of nationally recognized experts in cybersecurity and incident response as well as involving law enforcement. So obviously one of the main questions is, well, was there unauthorized access to data at DOL? And the short answer is yes, based on our investigation, DOL believes that the professional and business licensing system was accessed and that records were required without authorization. Through the investigation we've estimated that about 650,000 individuals may have been affected. Our investigation also helped rule out any likelihood that any of our other systems such as the driver and vehicle licensing systems were compromised. So we continue to monitor that obviously, but this particular data breach was really focused on the professional and business licensing system. Another question that we get often is how did it happen? And up to this point, our investigation has really been focused on just trying to find out who may have been affected so we can notify them and offer assistance, and also what information may have been accessed. And once all that is completed, then we're going to turn our attention to kind of the root cause, how did it happen? As far as like what kind of information was accessed? Although specific types of information, our system can be different for different individuals based on the type of license they hold. Our records do contain sensitive information, such as social security numbers, driver's license numbers and dates of birth. And we provided notification to any of the individuals that may have been affected. Notifications went out on February 25th to those impacted and giving them kind of the next steps, offering free credit monitoring, offering identity protection, those types of things. And so it just gives them that, here's, here's what you can do, here's how we want to be able to help you. That kind of flows into the- Sabrina: Can I just interject as you are talking, I just, questions are arising. So I know in my office of about 62 agents, I think just about every one of us got the letter including myself. So is there a sense that of our 41,000 real estate licensees, did pretty much everybody get a letter in real estate licensing? Jen: So I can take that question, Mike. Sabrina, every person that was in our system got a letter, whether it was just their name, because they're a contact for your business or you're actually a licensee. So we send out notifications to 650,000 individuals. All of our licensees got a letter. Sabrina: Okay. So all 650,000 licensees got the two page letter with the offer of the Experian credit. Jen: Yes. Sabrina: Oh, interesting. So that doesn't necessarily mean that your social security number, your driver's license number, your birthdate was compromised. Jen: Correct. We went the extra, we wanted to make sure that we did everything we could to protect anyone that had information in our system. And so we supplied that to the 650,000 folks that were in our system, but that does not mean that we were able to confirm that their information was leaked. We felt that was the best way to approach it though. Sabrina: And I actually appreciate that. I appreciate knowing that, I do. I agree. I think that was, better to be on the safe side. And maybe Mike you're going to cover this, and if so I apologize if I'm leaping ahead, but is there any way to identify which licensees' really super sensitive information was compromised, or is that just a, if something happens, it happens and then you'll know that your information was compromised. Jen: We weren't able to confirm it. And so that's what gets really tricky with some of this stuff. And that's the part of the ongoing investigation that is continuing to go on. So there was very few that we were able to actually connect to our data. And so we just took the approach of, we wanted to protect everyone that potentially could be. And I was super proud of the work that the agency did. This really sucked, right? Like none of us wanted or ever want to have any of this. Data is really important to us at DOL and that protecting the data is extremely important. And so with this happening, we wanted to go to the extreme extent of what we could do to give everybody as much information as quickly. We were able to notify people faster than what's actually required in law for them to be able to get this credit monitoring in motion, if that's what they chose to do. Scott: There was a notice pop up on the screen and asking, some of their people did not get a notification and I, myself did not get one. And so was there a group that did not? Here's another one saying some of, not all their licensees were notified either. So is there a separate phase of what letter coming out or is there any- Jen: No. The only reason I can think of, Scott, one I would ask is your address updated in our system? Cause so we went off of the records that are in our system. So your address associated with you, was that the correct address? We are getting some that are returned to the department and they're slowly coming back. So we're trying to figure out who did not get their letters, but our letters going out are only as good as the information that's in the system. Scott: I can tell you, again, my address, I haven't moved for 40 years, so it should be the same. And there's three or four people just popped up on theirs on the screen where there's enough people that apparently didn't get the letter that we might want to revisit that somehow and make sure that if people didn't get a letter that needed to get a letter with the credit information, that would be, and I don't know how you do that, but I think it's worth looking at it. We seem to have a big problem or a good size group that didn't get the letter. Jen: Yeah. We can absolutely take that back and figure out what is the process if you didn't receive your letter so you can get your credit monitoring member, if that's what you choose to do with us. And I'm not exactly sure. Mike, do you know that process? I don't know that I have it yet. Mike George: No, no. Don't have a current process yet on that, but I'm sure like Jen's saying, we can take that back. We get the process and then I can follow up with all of you. It's not a problem. Jen: We all also have a packet of information that we can supply to use the commissioners, kind of a tool kit that shows what that letter looked like. It wouldn't have the specific code that everyone would need because that's tied to a licensee themselves or a customer that's in our system. So that will be the different part of the process that we need to establish for you. Sabrina: Not to put more work on your already overwhelmed plate, but I wondered, is there any easy way to put that letter in the licensees SAW account so that if they didn't get the letter, they could log on to SAW and pull the letter down there? There's probably no easy way to just like upload those, I mean, I know you're talking hundreds of thousands of licensees, right? But I'm just thinking, if you try to just put out their, hey, cause certainly it was my understanding that not everybody got the letter. So if you put out there, everybody should have gotten a letter and if you didn't let us know, I can only imagine the deluge of calls and emails that you are going to be overwhelmed by. So yeah. Jen: Well, I can take a look and see, I do know that we've had some information also out on our website, but we'll take this back and see what we can find out as far as what we can do for those that didn't receive the information. Shari Song: Can it be emailed to them or is it too sensitive to email? Jen: No, I think we can use email. We chose to use mail in this situation because we don't have email addresses for everyone. And it was really important to connect with. Sabrina: And unfortunately the letters do have specific, like when you sign up for the credit monitoring that you have your own, I would assume every licensee has their own individual code. Sabrina: I would assume every licensee has their own individual code that you sign up for at Experian. Deborah: That is correct. Sabrina: Just as a little aside, you got two codes in the letter. There was an initial code and a secondary code. And when I went to sign up and this was the experience of all of my licensees, it never took me to a screen where I had to input the second code and my managing broker called Experian to say, "Hey, I never got to a screen where I put in the second code. Am I signed up or whatever?" And Experian said, "Oh yeah, we're having a little glitch with that." It's like, oh my God, the credit reporting and monitoring bureau is having an issue. So, ah, that does not bode well, but just a little aside that I don't even know that system is working optimal. Deborah: Well, something to think about in terms of real estate that you probably didn't dawn on. If you've changed your brokerage, your firm, and you didn't update your address to your new firm's address, it's possible that your letter went to your old firm. So it could be that you've got a whole bunch of letters from managing brokers that have left your firm and they didn't go to the right place. Which is a good reminder to keep your address updated in our system. Sherry: This could be a nightmare, but can people call in to get that code? Jen: I don't think so Sherry. So part of the problem is we don't have the code either. It was handled by a different company because we didn't have capacity to take the workload on, as you might imagine. So we actually hired a firm that has been helping us with phone calls around this specific incident. This is their specialty. They also helped us with the mailing of these letters and matching up, merging up the Experian code with the information that went out. And so, I'll have to work through our risk manager and some different folks to see what we can do in this case. Sherry: So people should not contact EOL to get a code, which is good to know. And then if the letters that come back, are you going to try to mail them out again? Or what are you going... Okay. Jen: Yeah, that's what I just had a meeting about that this morning, where they were starting to show back up to the department. Some of them are showing up to us. And some of them are showing up to the company that mailed them for us. And so we're trying to then figure out how do we reach these folks? We are very dedicated to getting the information into the hands of the folks that we think are impacted by it. And it's become quite a workload, as you might imagine, trying to make sure that they've been contacted. Sabrina: Sorry, Mike, we all interrupted you. Mike George: No, it's not a problem. It's not a problem. And I think this is a great conversation and exactly in my opinion, why we have these commission meetings is so we can just talk through different things that we have questions on and it segways into a lot of folks asking what are you doing to protect me? And that's an exactly we're offering the credit monitoring, we're offering identity theft protection. And it's one of those unfortunate things. And especially in the day and age that we live in now, where folks are getting better and better at hacking systems. And it's similar to when your house gets broken into, nobody goes to the person that their house got broken into, and say that's your fault. There's bad people out there. And we try our very best to safeguard against that. And when a failure happens, you fail forward, you learn, and then you put additional safeguards in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. And so that's what we're doing. We're working hard to make sure this never happens again. There are bad people out there unfortunately. I go through life just assuming that 99% of people want to do good, but there is the 1% out there. And it's a stinker when something bad happens to you. But like I said, we're putting those safeguards in place to make sure this doesn't happen again. One of the final questions that obviously has been resolved now, but came up quite a bit was when's the system going to be back up? And we did take a phased approach to that. Again, we take the security of people's data very seriously. And so we know, hey, we don't want to take the switch and turn the thing back on before it's ready. So we did take a phased approach to say, hey, we know that we can turn this particular portion on right now. And that was mid February turn on what we call the back office functionality, which allowed us to process through some of the renewals and things like that. But still didn't give folks the ability to go online at home, to renew or to do a new license. They have to send in paper, but it gave us the ability to at least process through some of the work. And we could have people send in by mail or we could do that type of thing. And so we did that for about two weeks. And then in the first couple weeks of March, the first week of March is when we were actually able to turn on what we call the front office or the customer portal, which allows folks to go in from a computer they're choosing, whether it's at home library, wherever to renew their license, do their business, things like that. Now the license lookup functionality was one of the ones that also again, phased approach. So we brought up that customer portal and then the third phase is bringing up that license lookup, which I believe there was a question on, in the chat there and the approach that we're taking with that again, phase because we want to make sure this never happens again. Even talking about just making sure we learn is that with the license lookup, we're bringing it back on, but for authenticated users. Now, what does authenticated user mean? It just means you have to have a SAW account to be able to use the license lookup currently. And so again, taking a phased approach on all these different things and just continuing to learn all of that. So one of the other things so that we did to limit impact upon licensees who expired during the outage is that DOL automatically waived all late filing penalties, late fees, things like that through April 1st, 2022. And that was just to try to limit any financial impact to our licensees, because it wasn't their fault that there was an outage. So we did that and it is again through April 1st and that's an automatic thing. It's not something they have to call in about or say," Hey, I expired during the outage." Just an automatic thing that we were able to program into the system. So with that, I'm sure there's questions. Is anybody on the board or anybody have any questions for me? Sabrina: So what are those numbers, Mike? So based on your dates of during the week of January 24th, and then the customer portal coming back online, the first week of March, that was really then six weeks that Polaris was down. Do you have firm numbers on how many licenses expired during that time period? I know Jen spoke to- Mike George: I don't have those license- Sabrina: Overall numbers. We're all- Mike George: -I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I can get those numbers easily and can provide them. I can follow up with you and provide those numbers. That's not a problem. Sabrina: I don't know that I personally necessarily need the numbers. I'm just curious how many folks did expire and then if you don't have the exact number, how caught up are we. Do you feel like 50% of those folks have been able to now get in and renew or they sent in paper and you guys are caught up or is it less than that, more than that? Do you have any sense of- Mike George: I know our team is processing February 10th for a majority of the transactions that we do have when it comes to renewal, when it comes to original license and that's paper applications. So a majority of the ones that were sent in during the outage people phoned in, and we're like, "Yo how can I get this done?" And it was through paper. And so we are continuing to get caught up and I'll say, our main goal like Jen was saying is within 10 business days. But as far as an exact number to say, oh, this is the exact number of people that expired during that period. And this is how far we've worked through. It would almost be, I don't want to say impossible to figure that out because a lot of those folks, like I said, are taking care of it themselves now. So, I could go in and we could pull the data to say, we know this many folks have renewed online by themselves. And they had expired during this time. So, let's say 500 took care of themselves and we're still working through other batch. But again, one of the questions I ask is value of the data that we're pulling versus yeah. And in the time it takes, because if we take resources to pull that data, which we totally can, it does take resources away from doing other things like processing and stuff like that. Sabrina: Nope. Not that important. Maybe at the next commission meeting. Mike George: No, definitely. I can report on that. Sabrina: Hey, did we get caught up? Is everybody caught up? Mike George: Yep. Jen: The other- Mike George: Of course, of course, Jen: -Sabrina that we will be watching is if we are preventing... The reason we waived the late fees to April 1st is it was really important to us, that we didn't impact by the system being down, us getting back up and that backlog that we knew we were going to have, we didn't want to be causing late fees for folks. So we're going to be taking a look at where our workload is as we start to approach that April 1st date, and we may need to move that out again, we may need to waive late fees for another month that we can get the work through us. And not cause a financial impact to our licensees as we work through the work that we have. So right now of all of our professions that we've talked about, we have three that we're still struggling with workload. Real estate is one of them. Our cosmetology license group is another one. And our notaries is the third. All of our other license types have been caught up and are processing within that 10 day timeframe. So, you're not competing as much with the other professions. We're being able to really put additional resources to your profession as well as a couple others to get them up into that 10 day processing timeframe. Scott: Okay. Mike, I have a question. Mike George: And we got [inaudible 01:12:45]. Scott: Out of curiosity- Mike George: Oh, go ahead. Scott: More out of curiosity but, it may act may actually have a bearing on potential risk is, do your experts know who the perpetrator was or anything about what they might be using the data for? Jen: But I can take that one Mike. Mike George: Yeah. Again, Jen. Yeah. Go ahead. Jen: Yeah. We don't have a lot of that information right now. Scott, law enforcement is involved from that end of things and they are working it. So I think over the next couple of months we may know more about that, but that's a part that we have turned over to them and we've focused on how do we make sure that we have all the processes in place, penetration testing as we pull up parts of our system a little bit at a time, which is why it's been this chunked out a way that we brought our system back up, we brought in outside vendors to help us do that penetration testing. So it's not just DOL doing it. We've had a third party coming in and checking different things to make sure that as we bring it up, it's as secure as possible. So more to come, but we're just not quite there yet. Scott: Okay. Thank you. Jen: Yeah. Like Mike said, the third part of the system that hadn't come up until this week was that license lookup was the course lookup. And then that complaint filing. And if you have a SAW account right now, you have access, you can go in and look at the stuff that you used to be able to look at without a SAW account. So if you have a SAW account, you can go do that license lookup. If you don't have a SAW account, I think right now, the best way to deal with it is either set yourself up a SAW account or you'd have to call into us, which is something that I hate to say out loud, right? But that's the only way that we can provide that information to you right now. We are looking at a couple of other ways to be able to supply that information around. We do a lot of stuff with open data where it's data that is open to the public. We have a different way that people can view that information. And so we're trying to figure out what is the best way for folks to be able to get the information that they need to, that they rely on us for. Sabrina: So not to be Debbie downer and burst your bubble, but I literally just logged into my SAW account and the license lookup is not working. I tried to look at it yesterday. I'm looking for one of my own licenses. And when I log in there and try and do a license, lookup, I get a, you must do a CAPTCHA something... The screen disappeared so I couldn't look at it. So, sorry. It's not working. And I'm in my SAW account. I did my authentication and everything. So... Jen: Well, we can look into that. Do you know anything about that? Mike George: Yeah, we'll look into that. I do not know anything, but I sent out multiple messages just now to multiple people to figure out what's going on. Sabrina: Thanks. Jen: Any other questions from the commissioners? Okay. We will head to our item number six on the agenda. Thank you, Mike. Other business. So any other business that any of you would like to bring up with the commissioners? Scott: I guess, no, not new business, but I guess just a suggestion. I'm curious as to what the status is of our new or additional commissioners search, how that's going. And I guess I'd add to that. So much of what we discussed is about education and courses and tests and so forth. And I would sure be great if the new commissioners had a background like Sabrina in education, real estate education, because it's a huge topic and some of us aren't as well versed in that area, but we it sure would be more valuable. Deborah: Jen, I can field that answer, Scott. I think I meant to update you. We're still not at the capacity that we can do the recruitment for those two vacancies that we have right now on the real estate commission. Unfortunately, we have nine boards and commissions and real estate is only one of the nine that is also lacking seats, positions at this time. And our board and commission support services consist of myself, Rick Storvick, who's on the call, Sherry and our other support staff, Kim Hall. That's four of us. We have identified that we have a need for more staffing, which is not surprising. We have three positions that we're actively recruiting for. And so once we get those positions filled internally, then we can start focusing to getting our boards and commissions vacancies filled. With that said, I have reached out to the governor's to ask for permission to send out a recruitment for replacing both Kyoko and Jess at the same time, so that I can do a dual recruitment on that. We had started before we did the switch back in September. I think I had asked the governor's office for candidates, and I think I had 12 candidates forwarded to me. Those will continue in the pool. So when we get ready to reach out and have some conversations, they'll also be considered. And you're right. When we look at how to fill the positions for our real estate commission, there are some very specific demographic issues that we need. So the two positions we will be recruiting for will be one from Western Washington and one at large position. And then beyond that, we do try and find a balance of those education providers as well, but they have to be a licensee first. Scott: Right. Okay. I think that should be a strong emphasis. So I appreciate you keeping that on. Deborah: Absolutely. We agree. We count on you for the expertise. So... Sabrina: I'm going to tread very, very lightly and carefully here, but I feel compelled to make this call. I understand the governor's orders are ones we have to abide by and I understand the vaccine mandate for state government employees. I was a little shocked when I found out, oh, as a commissioner, that's deemed a government employee position and that I had to be vaccinated. I just think it is an incredibly sad and unfortunate that we have a commissioner Jess, whose time was not up, that would happily continue to serve. Apparently had received a notification about the meeting and was prepared to be here. But because for personal reasons, chose not to vaccinate could not continue to serve on the board. And it just seemed totally ridonkulous. When these commission meetings are being done remotely. I'm sorry. I just feel a little compelled to go on public record for that. We need commissioners serving. He was willing to serve, is willing to serve. And I know that is not DOL staffs under your control, but I'm a little bit upset by that. I think that's really unfortunate. Deborah: Appreciate that Sabrina. I think we all feel the loss of just not being on the commission. So... Scott: I think that while we're on that topic, I know, or we'll have our next meetings. I think I saw something that was going to be another zoom meeting. Why not go in person? I think we're heading that way as a society. And I think there's so much more effective when we're together. Is that something that we can talk about or is that, is that already decided? Deborah: Well, it is something that we're talking about, Scott. Again, when we come back to the topic of capacity, we do 32 board and commission meetings a year in this very small unit of four of us. So it's been working for us right now, doing it remotely. But in terms of when we start to travel, we have to have more capacity. We have to have more staffing to be able to do that at this point. And with that said, that is definitely the goal. We would like to be able to start having in person. And it's going to be something that's probably a little different than this, where we'd like to have technology catch up with us where we can do something that's both in person and virtual, because we find that a lot of participants show up when we do these virtually, because they're not constrained by location and by time. So when we do start to travel and we do start to do meetings, we want to make sure that we're doing it. So we're as inclusive as possible so that we're making it so that the benefit is to all of our community. So, hopefully December of this year, I know we said December of last year, but fingers crossed the way things are moving, looks like things are opening up and we will have staffing by then that we can have that conversation. So we'll share more in June. Sabrina: I agree with Scott, I think it would be great to meet in person. I was an advocate before the pandemic of at least consider holding a meeting or two virtually. I didn't think we always needed to meet in person, but I am anxious to meet with my fellow commissioners and staff in person. But I think if the pandemic has done anything, it has changed how we will conduct business. And the hybrid business model is the business meeting model of the future. And I think it will be important to continue to conduct businesses in a hybrid model where other folks can attend. And it just makes sense to do that. So I appreciate that that's the direction staff appears to be headed. So thanks Deb for considering that. Jen: Any other topics from the commissioners. Okay. I'm not hearing any, so Sherry, I'm going to turn it to you for action items. Shari H : Yes. Thank you Jen. So we're going to set up the subcommittee, which will consist of Sherry, [inaudible 01:24:31] Sabrina and Scott. So I'll be working on that, getting that set up for you guys. And then we were also going to look into the letters. What was the process for the breach and find out about the SAW account, what's going on with that? So those were the action items I captured, I don't know if I missed anything. Sabrina: I would just think that we would go back to the action items from the previous meeting and the ones that are in progress, they would continue as action items out of this meeting as well, because I am still interested in seeing the budget numbers as well. Been quite a while, since we've seen any budget numbers. Jen: Yes. And we should [crosstalk 01:25:19] our budget manager on board by then. So we've also had a vacancy in that space from the agency. Yeah. Shari H : Yes. These will be added too. Mike George: And just so everybody knows the license lookup is being sent over to our developers right now as what we would call a severity one issue, which is one that gets worked a meet like quickly. So that's been since they were right away right now, Sabrina: Mike, is there a- Mike George: More to come on that, yeah. Sabrina: Perfect. Is there a preferred browser that Polaris works best in? I know for many of my different programs, I have to remember which browser, I need to open my MLS in Firefox and I need to open my email in Chrome. Is there a best browser to use with Polaris? Mike George: Chrome. Google Chrome is one that it works well in. Yep. Sabrina: Okay. And that is what I'm using. So for whatever that's worth. Mike George: Yeah. No, thank you. And I appreciate everybody's feedback on that, because that obviously helped us get that figured out quickly. So I was able to get a screenshot and send it right over to the team. They're fixing it. They're working on it. Shari H : All right. And so that's it for the action items. Jen: Okay. Do we have any agenda items for the next meeting? Shari H : I- Jen: Report out [inaudible 01:26:52]. Shari H : Yeah. The report out on the [inaudible 01:26:55] and that's really all I had. Jen: And then the new committee that was created that [crosstalk 01:27:01]. Shari H : Yes. Yes. Deborah: Can I offer that we probably need to look at the nomination of a vice chair for this commission? We don't have a vice chair at this time. Sherry: Can we do a nomination now or would that be for next meeting? Deborah: I think we would need to have it on the agenda to be able to vote on it. Sherry. Shari H : So the next meeting. Deborah: Yeah. Shari H : That's it. Okay. I got it. Thanks Deb. Thanks Jen. Back to you. Jen: Okay. So we're going to move into the public comment portion of our meeting. This is an opportunity for the commissioners to receive comments from the public, but the commissioners will not address comments at this time. An individual comment will be limited to three minutes each. So if you'd like to make a comment, you can unmute your line and turn on your camera. Please share your name and your comment with the commissioners. So at this time we will open it up. Natalie : Can I speak? Jen: Yep. Natalie : Can I speak? Jen: Yes. Natalie. Yes, Absolutely. Natalie : Okay. I am concerned because I did do a full report and tons of research. And at every single commission meeting, since about 2018, there's been problems on the managing brokers exam. And of course, nothing occurred at this meeting. And I'm concerned because it just keeps going on. And at the last commission meeting in December, there were action items that were brought up and I went through the entire transcript and they're attached to my report that were never even dealt with discussed or anything even listed for of the December 21st meeting or discussed today and followed up on. There were a bunch of them with about contacting AMP and PSI. And there's just no excuse for three months to not contact them. And you can read their thing. And you just listed action items and agenda for the next meeting. And you just listed committee meeting. So there's no action items that are going to be done except the committee? And you don't even have a list of what the committee's going to actually do. And next the money. Thousands and thousands of dollars since 2018 are being spent for people retaking this exam. And then the fee went up in September of 2020. And the pass rate is 30%. I am guessing that there's a money issue and that's not even being investigated. And that needs to be investigated today. I think it's so wrong. There's people now that are taking it 12 times. And if you talk to the people that have taken the exam, even attorneys have taken the exam. There are problems with the exam. Nothing is being done and the money, follow the money. I would guess that vice president did not answer directly a single question at the December 21st meeting or at this September, 2020 meeting. And none of those questions were answered directly about our past rate, comparing it to other states, nothing. She just avoided all of them. Every question that was asked, and if you want to go back, you can review them. So I think that's got to be included. I think there's something going on and I don't think I'm going to just wait till June. We need to take care of the real estate licensees in our state. I'm really serious about that. There's no sample test. That's been out there for year and a half since September, 2020. Speaker 9: I can. Jen: Okay. Thank you, Natalie. We've heard you. We hear you. And we've got a group of people working together to see what we can, what we can do. So Kyoko, I saw that your hand was up next. Kyoko: Oh, thank you very much. I also wanted to thank you for the plaque that was sent, except for I am not Kathy Trus. Shari H : Oh no. Kyoko : How, how do I get this back to you? And maybe she's not mine. Shari H : Dang it. I'm sorry. That was my fault. I'll reach out to you Kyoko. Kyoko: Okay. Shari H : My fault. I'm sorry. Kyoko : Thank you. Jen: All right. And looks like Shelly. Speaker 11: Thank you. I did join the meeting a little late, so I hope I'm not reiterating something that was said, but because Natalie brought up the managing broker exam, I have had some brokers right now. What they are going through is they go to take the managing broker exam and then when they're done, they can't get their results. There's a glitch. Something happens. PSI cannot give them their results. I have one broker right now, February 8th is when she took her test and she couldn't get her results. And she's been contacting PSI, emailing phone calls, all of that. And it's becoming a little bit of an issue. Also, another thing- Shelly: It's becoming a little bit of an issue. Another thing I'm hearing is people will go and maybe they're only given the national exam, and then they find out they needed another piece, and it's just not being given in the proper manner. And the managing brokers, and we all know all the issues that are going on with it, but I feel like it's getting deeper with more issues. Every time I turn around, I've got somebody else coming to me with just a really odd experience. And I keep thinking, "Oh, maybe that was just a one time thing." But what I just shared, I have had three now come to me with that. I have emails on what their experience was and dates and everything that happened. And I don't know if it would be helpful if I shared that with somebody, when they're looking into it. So if it is, let me know, and I'm more than happy just to pass along the information that we have, if it's helpful. Because I've been on a lot of these meetings and this is a meeting topic, is the PSI and stuff. And so if there's anything I can do, though, to help with any of the information I'm receiving, I am more than happy to share with whoever through DOL I need to share it with. Mike George: Yes. Yeah. I'll provide a quick response to that. You can share it with me, if you'd like, and I can reach out to you specifically. I will say that there are these sporadic issues with folks being able to get the results from PSI, and things like that. And usually when we dig in, there's a reason for it. But if you send it to me, I can help facilitate that. Shelly: Okay. Can you throw your contact information in the chat? Deborah: Shelly, I also sent you my email address, so you can either send it to myself or Mike, either one. Mike can probably help you with the actual facilitating of getting your managing broker exams. But I would be curious so that I've got this for the work of this committee. Shelly: Okay. Thank you. Yes, I'll do that. Sabrina: I think I heard Jen say commissioners aren't supposed to comment, but I'm sorry. I can't not comment about this. This is, a hundred percent agree with you, Natalie. There are action items that came out of our meeting, which is that we are setting up a subcommittee to dig into these issues. That is the action item. And I know it's been meeting after meeting, but we will dig into this. But, to me, fundamentally, that's a problem. You're paying for a test, you go take a test, you should be able to walk out of that test, just like the broker exam, and find out if you passed or failed. And this is now the second person I've heard that's had this issue, so this is... Mike, I know you said a sporadic issue. It would be interesting to find out how sporadic. What the heck? Is every system in the world glitching right now? Because there should be no reason why a student shouldn't. That's what you're paying for. When we contract with PSI, that is the service that they have contracted to provide to us, provide the testing and I assume provide immediate results. And if they're not providing that result, they either need to fix it, or not charge the same amount. That's a significant fundamental problem that a student, a potential licensee, leaving that exam doesn't have their exam results immediately let alone months later, that's a problem. Deborah: I just also want to say that we will keep a transcript of the comments that are going into the chat so that we can address them. I know Mike is taking notes, I'm taking notes as well, but we'll have a copy of this so we can reach out to anyone who has a real specific problem. I'm seeing that there's a few of those where you're having some issues getting people through the system. So we're making note. Thank you. Jen: Okay. And thank you Shelly, for bringing that forward. Krista. Krista: Hi guys, I'm going to kind of say the same thing. I took the managing broker test three times last year, and I finally passed the first time I went in. I stared and I went in fully prepared. I studied, my business, took a hit. I went in and I stared at the monitor thinking, did I get the wrong test? Did I take the wrong course? It was so not applicable to what we do as brokers. I walked out of the test having failed the national portion, frustrated. Not that I failed it, because I knew at that point I failed it. I didn't even know where to start to study. I thought I'd used every word. I didn't even know where to turn. I think that the only way that I passed was that I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on just kind of grabbing anything from other states and just taking those tests over and over again. Second reason I passed was just tenacity. I had decided I was not going to give up as frustrating and as expensive as it was. And I think the third reason I passed was that I did absolutely no business during the time that I was taking and studying for the test. So my business took a hit for three months and honestly, I think I'm still recovering from it. I finally passed in September and I still don't feel like I've caught up. It was horrible. I regret ever even starting the process. I honestly enjoy my job, but that was kind of the worst part of my entire job was getting the managing broker's exam for taking the test. And I don't know what I would advise to do differently if I were to take it again. I think it was mostly luck and money. Jen: Thank you for sharing Krista. Is there anyone else that would like to speak during public comment? Sabrina: Jen, are you going to go back through the chat like we've done in the past? Cause I feel like posting in the chat is people's way to public comment. Jen: We can, I want to see what kind of help I have for my team on that. So Deb, I know you said you had been going through the chat or Mike. Deborah: Yeah. Sabrina: I'm happy to do that. Mike George: Well, No, I'm scrolling all the way back up to the top here. Cause I've addressed some of them like individually. So I've reached out to some of the individuals through direct message and have been having my team kind of while we're doing this assist. So for example, there was a firm issue. And so we were able to get that individual actually licensed while on the call. Some of the things that are addressed in here as well are things that we've already talked about. Deborah: There's a Kimberly Goodie that asked, is the six hours, (and I'm assuming you're talking about the fair housing), only needed for the first time renewals post licensing? And the answer to that is yes. And then the subsequent will be a three hour fair housing course after that. Sabrina: Sorry, Deborah: Sorry. After post. No it's three and then three. Sabrina: Can I clarify that actually so, what I think the statute says is effective June 1st, all existing licensees as of June 1st, 2020, have to take a six hour class prior to their renewal. And then anyone who is not a current licensee, they will have to... Pre license courses after June 1st will have to incorporate what three hours of the core, is that right? Three? And then now they get licensed as a broker. They won't have to do six hours. They'll just have to do three. Deborah: They'll have to do three. And then each subsequent renewal will be three. Sabrina: Yeah. And then just kind of going back up to Natalie's question, which was before Kimberly's that you just answered can the six hours be completed with two three hour courses? And it's my understanding again, that the six hour course is going to be that limited shelf life, get all these 41,000 existing licensees through the six hour one time. So it's going to, there's going to be shelf life, right? Probably June 1st, 2022 through June whatever 20, 25, if there's going to be one year grace period, that is going to be one six hour course that all existing licensees are going to have to take. And then after that, existing licensees and new licensees will take just a three hour course. What I was just suggesting is those that are writing the course, rather than writing two different courses, the three hours that will be the ongoing, I would imagine could become part of the six, if that makes sense. Deborah: Yeah. And I think Sabrina, Tim Allen is on here and he's been more involved in a lot of the discussions on the writing, and the work for that. Tim Allen: Yeah. Sabrina, you are correct in that aspect of the six hour course, the individuals, the courses actually will be titled to Washington real estate and fair housing. That will be the only acceptable mandated six hour course that you'll be able to take. It'll also be titled for the three hour course. The three hour course will be separate from the six hour course. You can't combine two three hour courses to make up a six hour course. And so ultimately they will be separate individual courses and you're correct in the shelf life because once the shelf life expires of the six hour, the three hour course will then roll out and that will be taken going forward. Sabrina: But they do both need to roll out at the same time because for new licensees who are in that first two year renewal, they'll still have to do the three hour. Tim Allen: So they don't necessarily get one first simultaneously because ultimately as a new broker, sometimes what you guys call baby brokers, they're going to get three hours in their fundamentals and in real estate law. So ultimately they will be covered from that aspect. So ultimately what you're looking at for the six hour course, any existing licensee who has not taken the mandatory fair housing course, which means that new broker who took that three hour course has to take the six. Sabrina: Yep. Deborah: Yep. Thank you Tim. Far more eloquent than I could say it. Tim Allen: My pleasure ma'am. Sabrina: Me too. Deborah: Well, Tim's been living it and breathing it now for the last year. Mike George: Yeah. And then, the only other comment that I noticed in the comments that we did not address was questions around what we call to-dos. And so we actually do have people on our IT side working that, there is an issue with the to-dos. One of the things we're doing to fix it, kind of that internally gap period is they're doing what we call data fixes on a weekly basis. So if someone doesn't have their to-dos, login to their account, once the data fix goes on, on a weekly basis there, and then that person is impacted, then their to-dos show up. But the team is working diligently right now, our IT team to get a fix in place quickly to where that is resolved and they can, and it's immediate when they log in there's to-dos there so they can continue on, but it is a known issue, and it is being worked. Sabrina: Natalie had asked about midway through the meeting about the licensing statistics. Is there any reason those can't be posted on the list serve, are those not intended for public consumption or? Deborah: I believe that we were going to have a dashboard where you can pull those. Those are a snapshot in time. So basically as soon as we pull those reports, they're not valid after a set period, but we are working on trying to have statistics, a dashboard where anyone can go onto our website and get those statistics. And I think, I hope I'm not talking out of turn, I think that's going to be launched fairly soon. There has been talk, we've been in the process for some time of having those available per our different licensing. And they'll be pretty aggregate. If Natalie would like, we could send her a copy of the packet with those statistics. That's fine. Scott: Hey Tim, while you're online, we've talked a lot about PSI and our frustrations with them and I think Deb or Jen or somebody mentioned earlier, there's really only two options that exist for this type of testing. Would it be worth starting now to talk to the other vendor, just to talk about some of the challenges we're having with our testing and results and so forth and see how they handle those kinds of situations and start getting ahead of the RFP process for whenever the end of our PSI relationship is because it sure seems like it'd be worth looking at the other vendor right now. Shari Song: Yeah. I think that's an excellent idea. Yes can we talk to Pearson and see what they have to offer so that we have options and everything seems to take a long time in change. So I think that the earlier we start, maybe it'll be better. And that if we get to the last minute, we may not be able to look at the options. Jen: There's things we can do, but we have to be really careful about how we go about them. So we might be able to do like an, what we call an RFI, where we request information from testing vendors, for example, and take a look at what options are out there for us, but we don't have the ability to just start reaching out to other testing vendors and start having conversations prior to us, like looking at new vendors so that we have different processes we need to follow, but I think we can start that sooner rather than later, for sure. And then there's a whole contract management piece, the current contract that we need to be taking a look at as well. And we do have team members doing that as well. Scott: Okay. I agree with Sherry, that always seems to take longer than it then they want the process to, so whatever we can do legally, I think it's worth starting to gather information for, for sure. Jen: Okay, great. So Mike, from my understanding, you were going through the questions to make sure we had answered everything while we had the last couple that we had answered? Mike George: Yeah. And from what I could tell, the one that hadn't been answered yet, which I answered was about the to-dos and the agent that when people log into their Saw account. Also found that it actually specifically affects folks who don't have a Saw account. They take their exam and pass their exam, but they don't have a Saw account created. And that's why, I was noticing that there's some people it does affect, but then there were some people that it didn't affect. And so if they already had a Saw account for whatever reason, and then they went and took their exam and passed it, then they would actually, they would have there to-dos. Anyways, that's just a little bit of background there, but we're getting all that fixed. Sabrina: So just to be clear, because they were scattered throughout the chat comments about just overall the Polaris system for licensing, new licensees. It's still not working. And I know that right now you're digging out from the data breach and getting caught back up, but we're still working through glitches in the overall system. I mean just myself getting some folks licensed, and I just sent into your team yesterday a couple of problems, an agent who did set up a Saw account, took the test and two weeks later, no email. So, we still have work on the system itself to be clear, Polaris is still not working fundamentally to license new brokers. Mike George: I would say that there are glitches in the system. Yes. And I don't have percentages to break it down for you to say, this is how many people get through perfectly fine. This is how many don't. I mean, personally I have a friend that just went through the process and he was able to get, I was curious and I asked him and he was able to get through the process completely fine with no issues. But there are a lot of people who are having issues and I don't have a breakdown. As far as now, these are the ones that are having issues. These are the ones that are not, but yes, there are glitches in the system. We are aware of those. And as soon as we become aware, we go through our process of prioritizing those based on impact to the licensing base. Sabrina: Please know that I say that with all the love in my heart for you guys, because I know you guys are overworked, underpaid and working so hard to work through all of these issues. And I do appreciate everyone on DOl staff working. But I feel like it's my position to let you know because I don't know what you know on your end. Right? Unless it's brought to your attention and I know folks call and email, so I'm sure you're aware. But the system is still not working optimally, as I'm sure you know. Mike George: No. And I always appreciate the feedback and one of the things we do with our teams is we huddle with them every day. Like our folks taking phone calls, taking emails and we make sure that we're, cause that's data, right. It may not come in a spreadsheet, but it's, we're getting live feedback from live people. And we're able to ask the team and say, Hey, what are the top five things that people are struggling with? And a lot of the things are navigating the system, figuring out where things are at just things like that. And so we're coming up with strategies. Also as we bring these new people on to say, Hey, how can we have the most impact with these people? And so we have some cool stuff that we're thinking through and how we can best serve all of you and all of the licensees. So I'm excited to start rolling some of that out. Sabrina: Yeah. I think you take the licensee, the user end experience, maybe I'm not technologically inclined. And so I struggle with the fact that Polaris is not particularly user friendly right on the public facing portal. And so you've got that challenge. And you guys did a great job of creating videos and things to help people walk through and people avail themselves of that or not. And that's one issue and I can really appreciate that your team is probably trying to think of how do we create ways so that we're not having to one Z, two Z walk people through this, on the phone or email or whatever, and that's one issue. And I appreciate your working towards educational pieces for that. But the bigger issue for me is here we are sitting here with Polaris, it's coming up on two years and it's still just fundamentally as a licensing portal and as a licensing system, not working and I just yesterday sent your team, I had two or three issues again that I'm working with my own folks. And it just seems like who's the purveyor of Polaris? Who do we buy this system from? It just seems nutty that two years later, we're still having these glitches. And I don't know what the solution is. I know you guys are still working through it, but just seems muddy to be still struggling, so mightily two years later. Mike George: Yeah. And I've had the privilege of being able to go through two other system modernizations and also what we would call, I guess, stabilization for both the driver's side and the vehicle side. What we're experiencing right now, based on my experience with those other systems is normal. And again, it's not fun. It's not. It's challenging and it does affect all of us. But what I can say is I know that 10 years down the road, cause the system that we create, the system that we put in place is one that's going to last for a long time because it's found, set up to where kind of, when you think of like your cell phone, it needs updates to make it so continue to stay safe. Well, the old system we had, I mean, in two years or less, it would've been obsolete. It worked really well, right. It was easy to use all of those things, but it would've been obsolete and we wouldn't have been able to do any date security updates. We're talking security breach on this thing. It would've been crazy with this old system. And so the foundation that we have right now and the type of system it is one that is built to last for a long time. And so we are going through those struggles right now. And I apologize, but all I can offer is that we continue to give feedback and we'll continue to work through those challenges together. I can almost guarantee that in five years, we'll I tell my team this, in five years we'll look back and be like, man, that was rough, but we're in a much better place right now. And so we're just going to continue to look, we're going to continue to show up to these meetings. I will like the feedback. I appreciate it. Even when it's not, I don't need good feedback. I don't need positive feedback. If I wanted that I can go somewhere else. I appreciate the feedback that's actually critical and can allow us to move forward. Right. And continue to improve, continue to get better. That's my goal every day. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate the feedback. Jen: Great. Yeah. Thanks for taking that question Mike. I would second exactly what Mike is just saying is that we're in a tough spot right now of still getting through that. We've gotten through the stabilization part, but there's still things that we need to fix and enhance to make sure that the experience is the best for all of you on your end. And I think our other two systems that we modernize, we're finally getting there, because it is such a process. We will continue to hear your feedback. We'll continue to take it back to our development teams and continue to invest in making the system a better product. For sure. Sabrina: Michelle posted that child license number, which was one of my issues, Michelle, that I sent to Mike and his team yesterday. And Mike, do you want to speak to that? Because that was weird. Do we know what that was about? Mike George: Child license number? Yeah, let me pull it up. Yeah. Let me pull it up again Sabrina. Cause I can't pretend that I'm the expert actually. And then I'm not going to pretend that I'm the expert in the system because I'm not, but I have a lot of friends who are that work with me and work really hard. And so what I can do Michelle, is I can ask about that, the child license number, cause I don't know off the top of my head, but I can, I'd be glad to loop back with you and Sabrina. I know that I had sent you a follow-up email. I know all the issues that you sent over yesterday, I believe have been resolved or the license he's been given, like the next steps to be able to keep moving forward. Sabrina: This child license number, it was adding a new licensee to the firm. It was asking for the child license number. So I know that got resolved for me for the new licensee I was adding to my firm. I guess the curiosity question is when something like this comes up for me and I bring it to your attention, does this issue get resolved across the system, system wide? Mike George: A lot of it, yeah. So for this, this particular issue is more of a, you say training issue, it's like, oh, I know what I'm doing, but I think it's just because the system's new there are invitations that get sent out. And then there's a process with which the licensing needs to go into their account or whatever and accept the invitation. And so there's a multi-step process to be able to get it done. And so at least in the instance Sabrina that you brought forward yesterday, that was the issue is that the person had not accepted the invitation by the firm. Sabrina: Yep. Separate issue. That was a couple of licensees that I had issued invitation to that for whatever reason they thought they had, but hadn't accepted. This was a brand new license that you helped me. It was one that she had taken her test fingerprinted couple weeks ago. Never got her email to sign up though. She had set up her Saw account. Anyway, we got that squared away. But when I went into my firm to add a licensee, it was asking me for the child license number and it sounds like Michelle had the same thing come up yesterday. So my question is, so I bring that to your attention, your team's attention. Why is it asking me for a child license number? Like what even is that, it gets resolved. Right. But, is it getting resolved just for my firm or can that get resolved systemically- Mike George: Happening? Yeah. So I think for when we get questions or when we get feedback like that, we do bring it forward, say, Hey, can we, is this something that we should add to the website maybe? Like a frequently asked question, what's a child license number when it asks that, what do I do? Especially if we see that it's a wide ranging issue, then that's the approach we would take is we would try to make it to where it's not, we're having going to deal with everyone off that comes through, but we're take it to where, Hey, how can we get this out? Maybe it's we work with Mary, from Washington realtors association to get it like a messaging thing out, or maybe it's going through Lister to get messaging out to say, Hey, we noticed that this is a big issue. That's impacting a lot of people and it's causing a lot of confusion. And so then we send out like a frequently asked question type of a thing. Jen: I see that you have your hand up. Shelly: Yeah. I just wanted to comment on that child license number. So ever since the system came up, when I go in, it has had that. And not only does it ask for the child license number, but it asks for the child license type. And so I don't know if other DBS or other firms are having this, but I actually thought it was system wide since I was seeing it, I can put in a license broker's license in there and they do come up. But yeah, it was a little different. Sabrina: Maybe they took our baby broker thing to heart, Tim. Child license. Mike George: Yeah. And in that case too, cause I, sorry, I'm writing people also as I go, as I go along to be like, Hey, what's, , what's this and what's that. And I know that some of the language too, and the verbiage that Polaris uses is a lot different. Our system uses a lot different than what it used to be. So specifically when it's you got the parent license is I guess what it's called, which is like the firm. And then you got, you have licensees that are associated with that parent license and that would be the child license number. So that would be like your real estate broker license number would be the child license and they call it a child license because the firm license is the parent license. That's that one. Jen: Okay. So at this time it looks like we've gotten through our public comment part of the agenda. I don't see any more hands up and we'll move on to the adjournment part of the meeting agenda. So at this time, unless there's anything else from the commissioners, I'd like to adjourn the meeting at 12:03 PM.