Epstein on timeline for eliminating six-month backlog

10 will not, but obviously there's resources coming each year, and so this is really pacing us at...

A rate that will allow us to hire up and absorb new people.

You know, of course, if we have the ability to move faster and bring on more, and we're seeing that there would be a benefit to the backlog, we'll be working with our partners at OMB to show them those metrics and move forward on a...

So, I'm sorry.

I just wanted to know, like, so we're not getting to zero in the fall.

We're still, so people are waiting six months to even speak to someone, is what we were told, even if they submitted their documents.

When are we going to get to a place, what day?

Would someone be able to get to a short wait time?

Are we talking about 2029?

Are we talking about 2030?

It is very hard to say, but I would love to try to achieve that.

I would love to try to achieve that within a year, but we're going to have to see how it goes.

If I may make two points, Chair.

One, just to be clear, our worker protection, LLPS, is getting 10 investigators this year, but that's out of a total of 29 new folks.

Which is, I don't know what percentage that is for the division, but it's a massive increase.

It's almost a doubling of our investigators.

So just to be clear, you have 10 investigators now.

You're going to get 10.

You'll double the number of investigators?

10 investigators, but there are attorneys, there are some clerical, I don't know.

Right, I believe we have 11 investigators now, so adding 10 more is almost doubling it.

And then you're going to get some lawyers too, I assume?

So supervising investigators, which also increases capacity on that team, lawyers as well.

How many supervisors, how many lawyers?

So we're starting off with a total staff of 54 before this addition, and then we'll have 29 afterwards.

29 additional.

Additional, in addition to that.