 Okay, so I see the red button. So welcome everybody, Senate Education, Thursday the 27th of August, and still meeting remotely. So we have basically two things to do today. One is to catch up with an issue that a couple of months back seemed crucial, and we attempted to prepare some legislation, had a disagreement with the House about what that should be, and eventually the decision was made at the leadership level to let the local elections play out, see how those budgetary situations shook out ultimately. And so that's what we're taking a look at today, just a reminder that on the list that the pro tem sent out of bills that are not necessarily must pass, but that are agreed to pass, this wasn't on it, that is districts without budgets. This was on an addendum at the bottom called undecided, and so it's clearly no one's priority that we write legislation, but I wanted to look at the situation and determine whether there was need in case the House is interested, because again I am thinking that we would wait for legislation to come from the House first. So with that said, Brad James from AOE is with us, and he's got up a little chart under the documents part of the website for today, so if you want to pull that up it's headed districts with no budgets approved, or budgets currently in reconsideration, and why don't you take it from there Brad? Okay, for the record Brad James, agency of education, I think you all know me, nice to see you all. Welcome back to the committee, to the legislative session. So I believe when we left back in June, there were I want to say 19 districts that did not have school budgets at that point, they had not voted on them, or they had not approved them one way or the other. We are now down to eight, I did not print off a copy of this for me, so when Jeannie pulls it up I can walk you through it pretty easily and straightforward, and what you will see is you will see a list of maybe nine school districts that I do not have budget data for, although as of 25 minutes going on, budget data for two of those, because it was in our system, I just pulled it, had it pulled down for me. But most of the districts ended up having votes that turned out to be successful on the list, when it pops up you will see that there are two of them, Slate Valley in the Fairhaven area, and South Burlington have voted their budgets, the voters approved their budgets, I believe they voted on August 11th, so they are a 30-day reconsideration period. Then there are two districts on there that that I now have the data for, one is Caledonia Cooperative Union, if you remember it is one of the newer ones, Caledonia Cooperative Union Elementary School District up in Caledonia Central Supervisor Union, their budget is now in, and so I work on that tax rate right now, where I'm done with you guys, and also just in is Wyndham Northeast Union Elementary School District, another one of the newer ones, they just got their budget is now in also, so they'll accept tax rates from those towns, so what you'll see when this, if Jeannie can get this pulled up, or if you guys can see it. I think we can all see it. Okay, I'm not seeing it, that's what I'm saying. Oh, I see. That's what I wasn't sure if you guys are seeing or not, so it's okay that I don't see it, I know most of it, the count obviously not, it's eight or nine, but there's Buell's Gore on there, Buell's Gore is an unorganized, well it's a Gore, and they always get their stuff in late because they have a meeting usually at the end of August, and that's when their budget is finalized, and that will be sent in to us, and then we're missing Oxbow, Oxbow Union High School has a vote on September 1st, that's when they'll be voting, if it passes they go into their 30-day reconsideration period, and then we're, I don't have any information on Grand Lehancock, Rochester Stockbridge, and First Branch, which is Chelsea Tundridge, I don't have information on where they stand, because their business manager is on vacation this week, so as soon as she comes back, or my guess is she'll check email at some point, respond to me, I'll send it to you guys so that you know where it stands. Okay, so Brad, am I interpreting you correctly that there are, that there are then only three that we, and maybe less that we really need to worry about? I would say probably four, because I think Oxbow is one of them, because they haven't voted yet. But they have a vote scheduled. They have a vote scheduled, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm mad as the other three do also, they were, I remember if I recall, they were a group of school districts that postponed their vote due to COVID, and they're pushing it back so that people weren't coming in, so I'm not sure where they stand right now at this point. Okay, so I think they're just four that we haven't heard from really. Yeah, and if they do have a vote scheduled, we could conceivably, in a few weeks time, be in a situation where everybody's got an approved budget, although they may not be out of the reconsideration period. Right, correct. Okay, so it's moved forward fairly well. Yeah, that's kind of when Representative Webb and I had our meeting with the speaker and the pro tem. That was the argument that one of the arguments I was making was that it seemed as though we shouldn't step into these, you know, kind of friction filled election scenarios that they would probably shake out all right. I haven't heard any, you know, any indication from the House that they're still interested in pursuing legislation on this, and we can ask the superintendents, we do have a representative from them here, Chelsea Myers. Chelsea, would you be comfortable in a bit talking about that? Okay, Ruth, you had a question? Yeah, well, I just I had heard that Granville Hancock passed their budget. I believe they had a meeting this month. Okay, so they may be off the list and same with Buell's Gore. Those are both in my district and I'm pretty sure they did. And just a note for your your data, Rochester Stockbridge, that's Windsor County, not Addison County. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I figured you did. So we may be down to two because I'm pretty sure those have already passed, but I can, if nobody knows, I can make some calls if you need me to, but I'm assuming you can make those same calls, Brad. I can and I will. I didn't I have not gotten in touch with Buell's Gore. And again, as I said, I didn't I didn't know about the Granville Hancock one, so but yeah, I knew I knew they're voting somewhere. They had planned on voting somewhere around now, but I didn't know when it was. So okay. And Chelsea Myers, if I could ask you so a while back, the superintendent's favored legislation that would change the statute to reflect a default scenario that would be including an inflator in the event that a district didn't pass a budget on time. And then following that, the superintendent's position was that we should wait and see how things shook out. So any update on where your organization is now in terms of what it is looking for not looking for? Yeah, we're really pleased that those districts that didn't have approved budgets for the most part have been able to pass budgets and really works through challenging circumstances. I think we would like an opportunity to check touch base with those that don't have approved budgets now and I'm happy to do so and get back to you about those specific budgets in particular. And how they're feeling about their upcoming scheduled votes. So yeah, pleased overall. Thank you. I'd appreciate that. Any questions for Brad James while we have him here? Okay. Brad, anything final you want to add about this or anything else while you're here? No, I think that the budgets went more smooth than people anticipated. I think I'm from all sides that I had heard from. I know that I did hear from South Burlington that some people were offended and surprised and shocked that they had another vote because they didn't think they could. And I said, well, yes, they have to have a vote. But outside of those things, I think it's all gone pretty well. I have not heard rumblings from any of the towns or the districts that don't have budgets yet. So I'm not sure where they stand. And that's kind of all I have to say on that topic. If you want to talk about anything else, I'll be happy to if I know anything else. Well, the secretary is coming at 315 to talk about ADM and various other topics. I don't know if you can be here? Yeah, I was playing. I was playing on being here to listen in on that too. And okay, good. Requests if necessary. Yeah, that would be great. I'll just say about South Burlington. I probably have spoken to the person you're talking about because there were a number of people organizing the no campaign who were still of the opinion. This last budget I think was it was under 2%. It was something like 1.6%. Very, very modest, very lean budget at this point. And it did it did pass. But there were people who felt that any increase during the emergency was on its face and insult to the community. So what can you do? Yeah, I think the vote result was fairly close. So yeah, be shocked if there is a petition for reconsideration on that one. I, you know, speaking as an outsider because I don't live in South Burlington, I hope not. I mean, they've already had three votes. And all of those are conducted under the, you know, elaborate COVID procedures. So, you know, asking for reconsideration seems, is there a threshold for a signature number? Yes, there is. Off the top of my head, I forget. I want to say it's 5% of the registered voters, but it also changed. You could make it higher or they had the ability that that price of piece of statute was changed. But then in order for a reconsideration vote to to win, they have to have a, the no votes have to be a certain, I've forgotten off time, had the certain percentage, I should be able to find it quickly, a certain percentage of more than the yes votes. It changed. I don't remember when it was on the top. That's all right. Don't bother yourself with it. I knew there must be a rubric for it, but I just couldn't remember. There is something. Yeah. Okay. You know, we'll see what, if it happens, I'll let you know what the answers need to be. All right. So, committee, we have, as I said before, we have an interval where Secretary French couldn't join us until 315, which is about a half an hour from now. So, unless anybody has a topic that they want to bring up in that time, I, Corey. You can finish what you're going to say, but I'll, I was just going to go ahead. Well, you're frozen Corey. There you guys all there. We are, but we didn't hear what you said. Okay. One of the thought process I'd have, and I don't know if it comes up in this committee or in government or in Jeanette's committee, you know, are we going to talk about vote by mail for the next school budgets next March and getting some of that system set in place? Because I think, you know, if we're going to have another, you know, potential another round of COVID issues and we're talking about vote by mail being a way to increase voter participation, I think some of the lowest voter participation votes we have our town meeting day. So, you know, it's a concept you think that I think we should be bringing it up now and getting in place for March. I think it'll give much more access to for monitors to have an input on their schools. It is, it is a good thought. I would imagine that I'm trying to remember the exact wording of what we passed. I think everything we passed with regard to voting is conditioned on the emergency. So if the, if the governor's executive order is still in place, then I think they can any municipality can automatically move to vote by mail. Anybody have a different read on where we are than that? Ruth? I seem to remember that it was in place for 2020 elections and that we might have to do something again if for 2021 if there's still a pandemic raging. But I also seem to remember that when you were talking about the list that Secretary French was going to talk to us about today, one of the things was Australian ballot requirements. So it's possible that we could tackle it via that vehicle if we all decide it's a good idea. But again, like Corey said, it may be something that Jeanette and GovOps would want to weigh in on. Yeah, it's even the Australian ballot piece we'd have to send to Jeanette's committee because she's, she's very rightly of the opinion that all voting issues are her, are her bailiwick. Yeah, I'm not, I just can't remember clearly if we, I mean, most of the emergency legislation we passed had a prefatory clause that said during the state of emergency, blah, blah, blah. If we didn't do that on the voting changes, then we'd need to make a date change. But I know now municipalities can send out ballots. So I wouldn't imagine it would be that problematic, but I'll, I'll send Jeanette a an email just laying out the Australian ballot provision that the Secretary's promoting. And then I'll ask about, about town meeting day school votes and see what her response is. Jim, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I just pulled up the act you passed. And it says in section three, it is act 92. Section three is lost, I'll get back. It says in the year 2020, the Secretary is authorized in consultation with the governor to order or permit appropriate procedures for health and safety, etc., including requiring mail, mail balloting by required, requiring mail balloting by requiring town clerk to send ballots by mail to all registered voters. So it's 2020 and it requires basically coordination with the Secretary and the governor. So I imagine the thinking there was that we'd be back in January. And if we were still in a state of emergency, we could update it then. But well, my point is the Secretary of State said we couldn't wait till now to make it make that decision for the November election. So can we really wait till January to make that decision for a March election? Yeah, fair enough. So that's just my point on it. Okay. Jim, could you send me the reference to that specific? And I'll include that in the email to Jeanette and I'll just ask her. We amended that though to take out the in consultation with the governor. I think that's all that was the only change though. Yeah, yeah. But we didn't. But Cory makes a good point about there being a time lag that we've delivered for some reason. But Jeanette may have a, you know, an answer to that they may have done something else or are planning something else. Okay. So why don't we just... Yeah. I could give you an update on... Oh, yeah. Go ahead. A full air quality program. I had a meeting with EBT this morning and they sent me some information based on the program if you want to hear that now. Yeah, please. So they have over 300 schools. I think they said 304 schools, which is like three-fourths of the eligible schools. So they said there's only about 100 schools that they haven't had a contact with and had to walk through. So they have a scope of work set up with all these 300 schools, which I think that the pipeline, not all of them have a dollar amount for it, but the pipeline they have is over $7 million. So right now they can't, they don't have enough money of the 6.5 we appropriated to do all the work that they've scoped out so far. There, if they do the average, around $40,000 has been around the average cost, 30 to 40. So if they extend that out to the other schools, they're thinking that would be 12 million, 12 to 18 million, and if the 100 schools also joined in. So basically the program has been going well. The one issue that they had thought would be an issue was as far as the workforce has not turned out to be as much of an issue as they had worried about that the HVAC contractors have been able to bring folks back that they had furloughed and have really stepped up and they want to do this work and help the school. So that has not been proven to be a bottleneck. So they do feel that they could spend more monies. And if you wanted to, we could have them in and they have a program director who I spoke with who's really good about, you know, she has experience working with the schools with the EBT and she could describe how the program is going, how they're setting it all up and think like they could get through another $4 million or up to the $12 million total. Okay. The other thing that occurs to me is in finance when we were hearing Mark Perrault, he was talking about two streams of money, CARES funding, which was conditioned on a December 30 deadline. And so they've developed this protocol where everybody's being asked to spend down CARES fund first. And then if CARES fund runs out or if the date is past the 30th to use the other pot of money, asset money. Yeah, Brad. Just if I could just jump in for a quick clarification. That's essentially correct. When you say CARES act money, there are two pots of money that we're really talking about here for the school districts. There's the Esther money, which is education or elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund. That's the Esther money. And that has a time limit up through September 30, 2022. The money that you called CARES money is really CRF money. I get the confusion. Coronavirus relief fund. And that's the money that expires on December 30 of this year. They have to incur their cost by then. So that's what the money is that Efficiency Vermont is using. That's the money we're trying to get people to use first. If a cost can be used, if a cost can be covered by either Esther or CRF, we want to use the CRF money first because it has a shorter time period. And the Esther money has a broader set of uses. No, understood. I guess what I was saying is our whole thought pattern was built on this idea that there were only so many contractors and that the work, because students would be in the building, it would be slow going. We'd only be able to do 6.5 million before the 30th of December. But it seems like we might be able to set up a kind of contingency piece of legislation so that as we spend down the CRF money and we get to the 30th that we continue the program, but just then feed in the Esther money. If we could get the leadership and the administration to go along with that. The one qualification there is the CARES Act itself is very clear that the state has no say in how that money is used. You can make suggestions, but you can't tell the school districts how to use that money. How to use the Esther money. That's very clear. And so it's in the form of a direct grant to the district. Yes, yes. Okay. It comes through us and then goes to the districts. Okay. Well, either way, I think there's the possibility of a need for more money, which is good news in a way. The more we can get done with these funds on this infrastructure, the better. Senator Hardy. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Senator Parchlick a question. I'm wondering if you asked about a Senator Bruce just alluded to or mentioned that, you know, now that students will be in the building soon. My understanding is they can't do the work while the students are actually in the building. And so that will delay it even more. So even if there are enough contractors, did they feel like there were enough days? Because I talked to one school district who, you know, has been waiting to get the money so they can get their projects started. And now they're bringing students back in a week and a half. So now they're going to be doing it on like weekends and vacation days and things like that. But they're just worried they're not going to get the, it's going to take a long time. They can't do the work when the students are in the building. So did that come up in your conversation? It did not. We didn't talk about that directly. So I assume that they've been finding ways to either do it while they're in their building. It probably just depends on the project of what they can do when somebody's in the building, whether it's staff or students and what they have to do on weekends and nights. But there are some schools that are doing the hybrid where there is days where there aren't kids in the schools. So maybe there's enough of those. Or there is the digger article about the school that said we would do it in person, but for our HVAC system. So they're doing all remote. So there might be enough of those. But that would be something I could clarify with them or they, if we have them in, they could talk about. Yeah, I guess just when we get tested, I think it's good testimony from them, but also maybe have the superintendents or somebody who's at the school side of things. So we understand how it's playing out on the school side too. Yeah, it's sad to have a district that can't have students back because of the HVAC. I know that we didn't put any criterion in for efficiency Vermont to prioritize according to need. But if there's a way to get them worked on in the early days, that would be better. So I'll just have it in my mind that we might be looking, because we're going to be asked to develop some budgetary recommendations, kind of the way we did last time. And so if efficiency of Vermont is now of the thinking that they might be able to do up to 12 million, I'd like to make sure that we put our hand out quickly, because the money, the hundred million dollars that we fenced off, the administration is sort of choosing to pretend like we didn't. And so effectively there's a an argument being set up over that money. And so seems to me impossible to turn down a need like this. So but I will keep that in mind. Anything else before we take a break and wait for Secretary French? Ruth? Yeah, this, I see Jay here. So I'm wondering, can I ask Jay a question? Absolutely. He will be testifying, but feel free. Okay. Okay. And maybe Jay, you're going to cover this in your testimony, but I've been hearing and I believe you've been working on the protocols for school athletics. And I've heard from a few parents, not a huge amount, but a few that are really worried about school athletics and would prefer that we not do it this fall. So I'm wondering if that would be what you're going to do and sort of update where school sports stand? Sure. In terms of my testimony, we actually have joint testimony together today, Senator Barouf, and Chelsea will be delivering that. And anybody else that can join us will just be there to answer any questions. In terms of the sports piece, if we can't have sports in Vermont, nobody can. You know, we've got mitigation strategies that are very scientifically sound. We've worked with the state epidemiologists, commissioner of health, as well as Dr. Lee and Dr. Raska to come up with a plan that we think is very safe. We've had plans this summer, recreational plans that are not nearly as safe as what we're proposing for the fall. We have not had outbreaks. So our feeling is if we can have kids go back to school, and if we can have safe mitigation strategies for them to engage in extracurricular activities, not just sports, then we should do everything we can to make that happen. All students, coaches, officials will be masked at all sports, except for cross country. Cross country will be staggered starts, which will help so that kids are not breathing on each other. Football, we're going from a 11 on 11 tackle football to a seven on seven no tackle football. We're taking a lot of negative heat on that, but it's the right thing to do in terms of safety. And Dr. Lee and Dr. Raska have been with us at every meeting to talking about how we're going to do sports in a way that's safe. And I can answer any specific questions you have, Senator Hardy, but that's kind of the gist of it. Are you doing any indoor sports or are they all outdoor? So for the fall, we are doing the only indoor sport that we have in the fall was volleyball. And so what the volleyball committee and we were told we're not, we're not going to have volleyball games because in the Safe and Healthy Schools guidance document that's guiding the reopening of schools and full disclosure, I was one of the authors of that, we made it clear in there that they could not have visitors from other schools. So that means that we could not have volleyball in the school. So volleyball can have practices inside with masking, but if they have inter scholastic competition against other schools, they'll have to do that outside. So we won't have a volleyball championship this year. It'll look a lot different, but at least the kids will be able to have the volleyball experience and activity with their teammates. I do have a question, Brad, and I can ask the Secretary if you don't know, but in terms of the money, well, and maybe it's outside your purview, but we had put in for money for independent colleges to test students when they come back. And is there any money for K through 12 that's specifically earmarked around testing for districts? I had a business manager ask me that question as they're filling out their application for the CRF funds. And I believe you all know that the agency administration has contracted with a consulting group called Guide House to provide expertise and guidance on what things can be used for. And what they're saying is that testing can be it is it is covered by the CRF funds, but it's also covered by FEMA. And so they would so again, if we're talking to hierarchy of how you want to use your money, you would want to use FEMA first than CRF and ESTER monies. So that's just that's information is kind of coming out now that we heard about. So I believe that that that will be an elsewhere cost for FEMA coverage. And that would be reimbursement. Yeah. And if and if not it's it's covered it is covered by CRF money. Just curious if if a district decided not to say they would but they decided we're going to test all students once a week. What if FEMA then says, well, that's way too much. You shouldn't have spent that much. Do they have specific guidance that they've put out in terms of what you could spend on testing? Not not that I have seen. Again, FEMA's Guide House is is dealing with FEMA more directly. We kind of talked to Guide House of the agency of administration. When we have questions and they check, I believe some of them have contacts with FEMA. I have not seen much information from FEMA. My understanding from talking to Guide House is that this is all new for FEMA also. They've never dealt with a pandemic before they deal with hurricanes, fires and things like that. So this is new for them. And so it's somewhat unclear as to what costs will be covered. There apparently are 10 different FEMA regions within the country. And some were able to get some stuff covered and some cannot get that same stuff covered. So it's I don't know. I don't know how to answer the question really outside what's going on that as far as I know. But I think if they do it, then it will be covered hopefully by FEMA. If not, it'll be covered by CRL. Yeah, I mean, I have to say I don't at this point, I don't trust the, you know, the equity of the federal government because President Trump is very clear that blue states do not enjoy his favor. And, you know, he will say in the middle of wildfires in California, we're going to cut off your money. Whereas if it's a flood in Texas, then he immediately rushes to say everything will be paid for. Don't worry about a thing. So I do worry about districts incurring costs and then being told later whether they're eligible. But testing is something we absolutely need to be on one page about and clear about and managing. Yeah, Ruth. Yeah, and on top of that, I mean, I share your concerns. And on top of that, I think the CDC has now changed their testing recommendations to not recommend any tests for asymptomatic people. So that would preclude any testing for school districts unless there's an outbreak, which is quite frankly just irresponsible. So it's unlikely that they're going to, that they're going to pay for testing unless there's an outbreak and then it would be done by the state, I would assume. Yeah, I believe the state guidance has not changed yet because there was some, I don't know if I want to call it an out in the CDC revisions that said unless a state chooses to do something else, I'd have to go back and find that email. But it sounded to me like Vermont is not changing how we're approaching things. Yeah, I think we should get more information on that because it sounds like the rhetoric has changed a little bit from what I've been hearing from our Department of Health that they're backing off on the asymptomatic testing. So this is way outside your purview, Brad, but it might be helpful for us to get a briefing again about testing. Yeah, I didn't want to do that. So this is from the Division of Department of Health sent this out to everybody yesterday at 822 and it says, if I'm going to read it to you, it says, CDC testing guideline change does not alter Vermont requirements. On Monday, the CDC and prevention changed its testing guidance to say that people who are asymptomatic may not need to be tested even if they have been in close contact within six feet of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes, unless state or local public health officials recommend you take one. And then it goes on to say that that was the CDC Vermont goes on to say Vermont guidelines and recommendations for who should get tested are not changing at this time. The Health Department continues to recommend tests for people with symptoms, people who had close contact within six feet for about 15 minutes or more with someone who tested positive, and people who are for a red healthcare provider. So it sounds like Vermont hasn't changed a significant amount yet, but you may be right and it may be subject to change. But that's what we received yesterday last night. Yeah. And I mean, this is the same problem we confronted in judiciary with corrections. There was a disagreement at the beginning of the emergency about whether or not they should just test all the prisoners, which was the approach I favored, or wait until there were outbreaks. And our prisoner population is so small, 1400 people. We could test them all for a relatively small price tag and know right away what the situation is. Obviously, we have a lot more students than that, but there are certain counties, certain districts that are at greater risk than others at this point. So I would think that, for instance, Burlington High School parents would not be, I think, delighted at the idea of testing their kids, but I think they would prefer it to never testing their, the population of the school. So, yeah, maybe that's something that we can get a little more information on from the secretary when he comes in in a minute. Anything else? We don't really have time to take a break now. It's maybe a five minute break. So everybody want to come back at 3.15 and theoretically Secretary French will be here. So what did I see in five minutes? So I think we have Secretary French coming in. There he is. Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. Good afternoon, sir. How are you? Good, how are you? Good. So we were just on a minor break. Looks like we've got everybody back now. So as we mentioned earlier, the secretary's mostly here to talk about some a handful of small bore changes in statute that would help during the emergency. And I think we have that under the documents page. So Mr. Secretary, I'm hoping you can discuss these pieces and help us understand the way you see them and then also make a few comments on the summer nutrition report that you sent us. And then before you leave, I have an issue from Senator Starr with regard to Lemington, which is I've sworn that I will ask for your help on. So why don't we start with the COVID-19 near term education policy proposal sheet? And if everybody's got that up, begin whenever and wherever you like. Sure. Good afternoon, Dan French, Secretary of Education. So what I had shared out with Senator Ruth, these were some policy ideas that as we've engaging with our emergency response with districts made the observation of some ideas that should be, I think, considered before you adjourn for the General Assembly adjourns this year. And they're going to say the chair characterizes small bore, I would agree. These are just very targeted issues that have emerged relative to an acting emergency response. So I'll just take them one at a time and pause after each one, if there's any questions. The first one has to do with modifying statutory language around the minimum number of student days and minimum number of teacher and service days. Statute requires that school district calendars have at least 175 student days and five teacher and service days. I think there is an interest on the part of the districts, and it's one I support of modifying those minimums for this year only so that there are 170 student days but to transfer those five days to the number of teacher and service days. So there's more time for teacher and service planning and so forth to respond to the emergency. That seems like we're already there given that September 8th is now the start date. So this is really just bringing us into alignment with reality. Yeah, to a sorting center, I mean with the September 8th we essentially have pushed the whole calendar off. But we also, you know, to get further into the weeds on the statute, but the statute also has regional school calendar. So the superintendents in each region are required to establish a regional school calendar by April 1st of the prior year. That's certainly been disrupted with the governor's emergency order. So if we have this issue sort of bring that into alignment, but the specific need around increasing the number of teacher days available would one I think that would be welcomed by most districts. Okay, I don't see any questions there. So let's go on to ADM. So the issue of ADM, we have several things happening right now that would point to the need to introduce some stability in this regard. One being there's been a record increase in the number of home study students. So we're basically seeing at least 100% increase in that over last year. Home study students are not counted as resident pupils for the purpose of ADM, meeting the districts then could stand to lose some basic pupil count in terms of their funding formula, which could lead to an increase in taxes. To a lesser extent, we're seeing new students move into the state perhaps. So there's just a lot of uncertainty. And as you know, the budgeting process will be very challenging this year to say the least. So the rationale here, firstly, the suggestion is that we freeze essentially ADM to be at least as the amount that they had last year. And the goal here would have produced at least one to isolate one variable in the very complicated budgeting process and introduce some stability into that to provide some assurance that districts would at least be able to navigate that. Now, it would be helpful going into the budgeting process. I know I don't have a question, just a comment. In speaking with Chairwoman Webb, she seemed to think this was something that should be held over until January as though it were part of a broader discussion that would take a lot of testimony. Just doesn't strike me that way. Have you heard from her what her rationale is or is she still of that frame of mind? I have not had any conversation with her on this topic. I guess I'd asked for Brad to check me on this. But from my perspective, I think January would be too late. And we're going to ADM factors into the calculation of equalized pupils and that starts to be frozen sometime around December 15. So the objective here would be not only mechanically to stabilize the number, but also to influence people's behavior as part of the budgeting process. So to provide that assurance now influences behavior going into the budgeting process, which will start here in a matter of weeks, to leave it as an open question through January and possibly February or March, really doesn't begin to address the issue I do. Okay, agreed. Brad? I was just going to say, I completely agree with what Secretary Friends just said. This would remove one big concern from people as they're trying to develop budgets and what's going to happen down the road, especially for allowing districts that are seeing people moving in to have a greater count. Okay. Like I say, it makes perfect sense to me and it doesn't seem to have a lot of moving parts that would need a lot of thinking about. Okay, let's go on to the waiver of online teaching endorsement. Yeah, this isn't a similar theme of stability. As you know, the licensing regulations are controlled by the Vermont Standards Board. They've been amenable to addressing this issue through their own action and remain open to the idea. But the question would be, could school districts benefit from having greater certainty around this issue now? And so that's why I'm bringing it forward. So what this would do once again on a temporary basis require that teachers not be required to hold a specific teaching endorsement to teach online. We think this is especially important considering a lot of districts for the first time are standing up virtual learning academies that it's going to require some more broad provisioning of online services than ever before. The Standards Board has expressed interest in continuing to support the waiver, but they're not necessarily interested in supporting a waiver for teachers teaching in the online virtual academies because that sounds, I think, to them a little more permanent. And therefore those teachers should have that expertise. But I think from what I've heard from superintendents, they would prefer to have some assurance now that this would be the condition that teachers would not have to have that endorsement and would alleviate a significant area of pressure that districts are under right now relative to staffing during the pandemic. And this would be specifically framed as while the emergency is in place? That's correct. Okay. Ruth? Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to ask Secretary of Friendship a question about this. So I want to make sure I understand it. So there's a specific endorsement that is required for teachers to be able to teach classes online. And so this would remove it for this school year so that teachers, any teacher can teach remotely, teach students remotely if necessary during either part-time or full-time. Is that right? That's correct. They still be required to have their subject area license, but they wouldn't need the additional license to teach on the online platform. Basically, they wouldn't have to go through a process to learn to teach online. They'd be allowed to do that. Okay. It's unfortunate that there wasn't a little bit more professional development over the summer about online teaching because you can do it well and you can do it not so well. But I'm assuming, since you didn't recommend it, but I just wanted to ask, are there other licensing issues that may be coming up because of staffing shortages? Is there something else that we might consider? Yeah. I think that's a bigger question. And in the spirit of just trying to stay focused on sort of the small bore issues, I think that's a larger bore issue. And we've been very cautious about pursuing a waiver of regulation that should otherwise work through a more deliberative process. But to your earlier statement, yes, I've taught online myself and there's a lot of professional development offered this summer to do that, but this online endorsement actually takes quite a bit of coursework to do. So it's not something that can be achieved over the summer. It's a rather lengthy process. But yeah, I think it's too early to contemplate waivers of licensing regulations. We don't know the patterns yet of how that'll emerge. And I'm still, I think we err on the side of maintaining our quality and see how this plays out for a bit. Okay. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I just have heard of schools struggling to find teachers because teachers were tiring or whatever. And we do have an emergency license provision already on the table. So we have we have some already in our regulations, the ability of districts to approach an emergency situation or a provisional situation. So I think we have some flexibility there that perhaps isn't the same in other states. Okay, so thank you. Maybe this is a good moment to introduce the issue that Senator Starr brought up. He has in Leamington and other areas that border New Hampshire, they send students over the border to to New Hampshire schools. And New Hampshire schools apparently have an online platform called VLACS, VLACS. And New Hampshire as a state is picking up the costs for that during the emergency. But these students are not having their attendance in that picked up because they're Vermont residents. And so the the person who was writing this felt caught between two worlds. And it seemed to me like the sort of expense that we could easily classify under CRF funding. So my question first is, has this come to your awareness? And if not, can I send the email to you? And does it sound like something you might be able to find a solution for? Hope you're muted, Secretary. It has not come to my attention. And I will say this is one of my old school districts. I was superintendent for Leamington. So I'm very familiar with the community. They pay tuition for their students. They do not operate any schools at all. And they also have special dispensation and statute to tuition their elementary students in New Hampshire as well. They're part of that border group that's mentioned in statute. So I'd be happy to review it. It's not come to my attention. I do speak with a superintendent up there regularly. So my first thinking would be, why aren't they covering those costs for their regular tuition dollars that they pay for the education of students that don't operate their schools? But I'd be happy to take a look at it. Okay. I will send it on to you. It's good to know you were employed in that district. So you'll understand immediately what they're talking about. Yeah. Okay. Let's go on then to requiring the use of Australian ballot. We had some discussion earlier before you joined us. Senator Parent brought up the question of universal mail ballots for town meeting day in the coming year, which so far as we can figure out where we're not set up to do because the change that we made in statute was dated 2020. So I'm just curious, does this reflect part of the thinking for town meeting day next year? And if so, are you already thinking about the universal ballot, mail ballot? This is offered in that concept of how people are going to access meeting, particularly when there's floor votes. Yep. So just to recap, the voters control the voting methodology. If you will, so voters decide whether they want to have a floor voter Australian ballot. In order to change the methodology, they have to vote first in their current methodology. So if voters wanted to change to Australian ballot for COVID-19 for town meeting in March, they would first have to hold a floor vote and vote to shift to Australian ballot. So we saw that as problematic. And this is introduced to essentially require Australian ballot for this year. So it would alleviate districts who currently have a floor vote by this year. I'm sorry, do you mean by this year you mean including 2021? Yes, this school year. So it would be during the COVID emergency, you know, so districts essentially would, if they found a floor vote to be problematic and I would argue they are in this context, the Australian ballot would be utilized and it wouldn't require them to first change their voting methodology, which would be very difficult in the COVID emergency. And we think with the Australian ballot, then people can then request absentee ballots more readily, but they at least have full access to the town meeting information, including school budget votes. I think, and Jim, maybe you can check me on this, but I think we made this change for 2020, isn't that? What was in the statute that you read, Jim? Yeah, so the statute that I sent, I read to you earlier. I can just find it again for you. Make sure I'm correct. I know the change was made to allow Australian ballot without a town meeting to allow it. Right. So this was section three of Act 92 and was amended to be mentioned, sorry, Bruce, but I believe it says in the year 2020, so the entire year, I guess the governor now is allowed to change appropriate election procedures, protect health, anything requiring, sorry, sorry, we talked about before, so Bruce, the Australian ballot section four says that voters, notwithstanding law, that requires voters of municipality to vote to apply the provisions of Australian ballot to an annual special meeting in the year 2020, any municipality may apply the Australian ballot system to any or all of its municipal elections held in the year 2020 by vote of the legislative body. So that's needed, it can be done by the school board as opposed to going to voters. Okay, so this makes perfect sense to me, it's in line with what we already did, it's just updating it to go further in time. So what I said earlier about mail and ballot, I'll just extend to this, I'll begin a conversation with Jeanette White and find out what the government operations committee intends because they did put a specific date of 2020, which I assume was meant to leave them the option in 20 January of 2021 of extending it, but as we've said a couple of times now, why wait and have a gap in people's understanding of what the procedure is? So I can talk with her about the Australian ballot issue and the mail-in ballot issue at the same time. Any questions for the secretary on any of those five, I think it was five pieces or four pieces. We also, Jim found language that he prepared around the transportation grant issue. Do you remember that, Mr. Secretary? I'm familiar with the program, but I would refresh me. Similarly to prevent a corruption of the numbers because of the pandemic. And so Jim just fished out the old language that he had done. So my thought was that we could add that to these pieces because it's a very similar thing, just making sure that people aren't disadvantaged because the statute calls for the number of students that they delivered rather than during the pandemic delivering meals along the same corridor. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd invite Brad to chime in, but my understanding of the transportation reimbursement is based on the prior year's expenditures. So what happened this spring won't be getting to them until the following year. But then it would corrupt the numbers later on, right? Yeah, in my caveat would be provided they don't access CRF or other sources to cover that difference. So they might have a commensurate reduction in expenditures that are allowable for reimbursement. They might have the cost, which would be to your point about the reimbursement, but they also then might have some new ability to justify reimbursement under CRF or SR to cover those costs. Okay. While I'm thinking about it, we were talking about the HVAC grant program and apparently efficiency Vermont Senator Perchlich was telling us they now believe they may be able to complete more than $6.5 million, up to $12 million perhaps. And I started thinking of the SR money because the problem with the CRF money was that the work had to be completed by December 30. What would you think about a piece of budgetary language that directed that following December 30th a chunk of money from SR could be used to continue that program? Yeah, I deferred to Brad. Brad's got the expertise on this. I don't, first, my first flag would be I'm not sure we can direct how SR is utilized. Yeah, but they certainly could use it, I believe, and that's what I don't see Brad's head nod. I mean, if they have HVAC costs that are qualified, they could use SR funds to address those issues. But we can't direct them to do that. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah, Ruth. I just following up on that. The SR funds and the, is the SR funds above the spending cap or below it? Does it, it's federal, so it's not included in the spending threshold calculation, correct? In terms of education spending, yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting question. I would think, keep inviting Brad to correct me here. So, you know, if they have, you know, if you figure, you know, with a budget, you have expenditures and then local revenues, which would be any other way a district could spend or cover their costs other than relying on the ed fund. If they had an expenditure on HVAC and offsetting revenue from SR, they would wash each other out and therefore not impact their aggregate education spending. I guess the question would be what fiscal years that happens and conceivably, a district could spend money in November to fix HVAC and then not get reimbursement on or use their SR one way or the other. But theoretically the two I would think would wash at some point if they're smart about, I'll say smart about it. Is that also true for the CRF money, Brad? For things outside the budget, yes it is. Yeah. Yeah. So they're gonna, they're gonna show in their budgets any revenues coming and they have to under, you know, the law. So they'll show those revenues coming in. But it's a question of how to do that in the same fiscal year, I guess. Right. But it's not counted as part of education spending because it's federal funding. Right. Okay. Because it's, it's covered, it's covering the cost. So as, as Secretary Friend said, it's a wash. Because this is a question I've gotten from superintendent. So hopefully when you, I don't know if you can... Just to be careful, to be careful on that question, I think it is legitimate education spending. It does count as education spending, but it would be offset by revenues, you know. Right. I agree with that. Okay. Mr. Secretary, if we could ask you to speak just a little to the summer nutrition report, which is also up on our page. Okay. Yeah. So we, as required, we've provided a summary of the, the summer meal delivery. The report, I don't see your page, but it's dated August 19th. I'm happy to go into this as more detail. And certainly I think you're familiar with Rosie Krueger, our excellent person on this. We, I think the summary point I'd make is that with the CRF, the legislature, I believe appropriated about $12 million for reimbursement. And we've received about 2.2 million in claims for that for a variety of reasons. But we have some recommendations of that in terms of how to continue to support these programs, allowing the funds to be used for early September prior to school reopening. I will say we've subsequently received, or say everyone's received national waivers to extend the summer eligibility or the summer flexibility into when school starts. Also to allow funds to be used for nutrition costs occurred by schools to provide meals to children once the school year starts and consider using the funds to address solvency issues for meal programs that will involve the universal meals. So we have some other ideas, but that's, you know, a summary to date and certainly the issue of, you know, what was appropriated versus what was accessed in terms of a reimbursement request is interesting in terms of CRF. But, you know, these programs have been running nonstop essentially through the beginning of the response. And I know districts are going to have increased demands, particularly in the implementation of hybrid learning presents a whole new set of challenges for these programs because they're basically running in some cases three different kinds of meal programs at the same time. They might be doing grab and go for remote learning students or delivering meals while at the same time provision meals for in-person students in our buildings. Questions. I have one question, which is the 50 million dollars that we appropriated, which included, I believe, this 12 million. Yes. The large frame for this is concern from, and we have superintendents and principals here, concern from them about the 100 million dollars that the legislature had quote unquote fenced off for K through 12. And in my memory, that was always attached to hopefully getting the flexibility to fill the ed fund gap. But over and above that, there was understood to be a chunk of money that would be left from the 100 million that would be added to the 50 million that would cover reopening costs and not leave anybody out in the cold for those sorts of things. Can you just speak generally to it seems as though there's a chunk of money that will go unspent from this program? Am I assuming right that you'll just continue the timeline out for nutrition and continue spending that 12 million? That's one question. Then the next question is, is it also your understanding that money over and above the 50 million will be necessary to feed into what we've already appropriated for K through 12 now that we're reopening? Yeah, the issue of the 100 million, the 50 million, I think, you know, just to back up on our, when we made a proposal to legislature for reopening costs under CR, if it was approximately the 50 million, we used the national, you know, it's a guess, you know, no one knew what reopening costs would be. And we used the model that was produced by the American Association of School Administrators and their sister organization, the school, national school business officials, the business managers association. And they created a model that worked out to about $490 per pupil. You know, we use that $50 million is, you know, slightly more than that, but that's the general ballpark. And that include, and their model included things like child care before and after school child care, a lot of things, you know, that we could say are not or part of the reimbursement process. And certainly HVAC, you know, the HVAC is a big can of worms, I think, and a lot of it gets into our deferred maintenance issues in the state, you know, to go back, predate COVID and so forth. So it's, you know, really what we have from a logic perspective is this hypothesis of what costs would be, and we adopted more or less that model, I think, to our credit. But then what are the real costs and waiting for more factual information to answer? So your second question about will additional costs exist? I know there are additional costs related to COVID. The question of are they related to reopening or not? To what extent? I often equate CRF with reopening just because of its reimbursement nature and the fact that it has a very compressed timeline. But that is just my assumption that's not necessarily CRF could be, you know, used through the fall. But I think, you know, for the moment, I, my impression is the districts have been able to manage cash flow. You know, they have yet to really start to draw down these funds or ESER funds. I mean, we were looking at the ESER, I invite Brad to run on the numbers here, but a large most districts have started their ESER application and the ESER application has been available in July, but I think only two have actually submitted their application. So, you know, we have that issue out there. We have there's cash flow. I only know one district this summer that had cash flow issues. They usually contact us when they run into that scenario. So I think districts are managing reopening costs, but I would argue they also have the expectation of seeing things reimbursed. And as we get closer to the budget process, they're going to get anxious about seeing these new costs manifest themselves into a tax increase for voters and get caught in that very difficult position. Like we were told to make these investments, but now we're saying we're going to pay for another property tax bill. So I think right now, my inclination is to say, and certainly looking at the reimbursement for the food service programs to say there's adequate funding on the table to reopen schools with a caveat about HVAC, you know, HVAC, I think, depending on how we qualify those expenses, I trust efficiencies of Vermont's diagnosis to sort of corral that if they're saying it's 12 million instead of 6.5, I think they have some log logic to sort of confine that because that number could be much, much higher if they open that up to a broader definition. But, you know, absent other information from districts, it's hard to say at this point if 50 million is not sufficient. So I would say I think right now it is. Well, one question just to clarify. Again, my memory could be faulty, but I thought that the 50 million also was going to reimburse expenses that had already been incurred. So in other words, there was about 12 million, as I remember, that had already been coded to COVID-19 in districts around the state. And the 50 million included that. If that's the case, then it isn't 50 million, it's 38 million with 12 of that for nutrition. So now you're down to 26 remaining. Is that correct? Well, I don't do the math that way. Like I said, in our proposal, we were looking at sort of the national model about reopening. It didn't say food service is not part of reopening or childcare is not part of reopening. It sort of, it was a general model of here's what we're going to put on the table. And maybe Brad can speak to the retroactive piece a little more fluently than I can. Brad, do you have a recollection of how the retroactivity piece was going to play out? Yes, I do. Because I was part of those discussions towards the end of the session, or the first part of the session. Senator Ruth, you're correct that part of that Sierra money is intended to pay for some of the costs that were incurred back in FY 20. And that last three, four months, whatever it was, with a large part of that hoping that some of those costs that they could be reimbursed for would be eligible costs that were in their budget. And that money would roll forward into FY 21 and help offset the Education Fund deficit. Additionally, though, a lot of they did incur costs in the end of FY 20 that were not in their budget. And so CRF is a true reimbursement at that point, making them whole again. So but you're correct. There's one there. And I believe our last assessment was around around $12 million. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have a better idea of what that number really is for FY 20. Okay. So if you don't mind, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to just allow Jay Nichols and Chelsea Myers, if they want to comment on that piece, because a letter went out, as you know, undersigned by all of these organizations with concerns about the $100 million. Jay, anything you'd like to ask or add? I'll just say briefly that we've been telling principals from day one and superintendents as well to spend what they need to be able to reopen safely. And we've been planning on overall the number we've been talking about is $100 million with the hope that if there's money left over, that there'll be federal flexibility to allow for some of that money to backfill the Ed fund to address the gap in the Ed fund. So that's what we've been telling people since last year of Chelsea, if you want to add anything to that or not. No, it's a significant part of our testimony today. I don't know if you want us to start or just I agree with Jay's comments that we superintendents are under the impression that they were to do what it takes to reopen schools safely. So that's the mindset that they've been approaching this with. Yeah. And I believe the secretary's finished with his testimony. So and did I understand you right, Jay, that you have a joint testimony today that one of you will deliver? Yeah, Chelsea is going to deliver a testimony for the superintendents, school boards, business managers, Vermont council, special educators and the principals. Okay, let's go to that then. Yeah, I don't know if Jeff or Jay, sorry, said this about Vasvos also included on this. So just for the record, since I haven't been here too often, my name is Chelsea Myers and I'm the associate executive director of the Vermont superintendents association. So thank you for having us here today. As you know, school boards and administrators have been working tirelessly to responsibly navigate the safe reopening of schools on September 8. This includes contending with evolving health and safety guidance, which has changed a number of times, competing concerns from families, staff and community members, operational and logistical challenges, and the significant academic developmental and social needs of the students they serve, perhaps the most important part. At this time, we have recommendations for your committee to consider to ensure that school districts have the financial stability and support to safely reopen schools in September and to address other issues facing public education. As mentioned by Secretary French, our association support the idea in light of the governor's order to delay the opening of school until September 8 that the required 175 student days set forth in 16 VSA be reduced to 170 days. This modification will relieve districts from the obligation to find ways to make up the five days that would have been fulfilled had school started as originally scheduled. And again, perhaps most pressing is the question of the additional coronavirus relief funds fenced off by the general assembly to help K through 12 schools with the cost of reopening during the pandemic and to address the deficit in the education fund. The governor's budget does not include money to help schools deal with reopening costs amid the COVID-19 crisis. If the federal coronavirus relief funds are not used to pay for these unvegeted costs of reopening schools, districts will be operating in a deficit which will need to be addressed in the following year's budget leading to a spike in property taxes and potentially drastic cuts to spending at a time when students will need additional academic social and emotional support. The essay has begun to collect information regarding the costs associated with reopening schools. And we did this ahead of the CRF application, which was just released on last Friday evening. It is becoming clear that the estimates will likely exceed the original allocation for reimbursement, though more information needs to be collected. As you can imagine, superintendents and their business managers are quite busy with the approaching start of school. Furthermore, many business managers and superintendents have reported uncertainty about what is considered an allowable cost. This may in part be alleviated given the release of the application last week. Given the go ahead this summer to do what it takes to safely reopen schools in the fall, districts have purchased protective equipment and cleaning supplies, increased their technological capabilities, hired additional staff such as custodians, school nurses, and the highly coveted right now substitute teachers and committed to providing childcare for their employees with their children while their children are in remote learning. They are just now able to submit for reimbursement for these expenses and have significant concerns about operating at a deficit leading up to an extraordinarily difficult budget season. As a secondary factor, in many cases it is unclear to the field how to be proactive and supportive of the efforts to use federal funds to address the education funds shortfall, though many have expressed a desire to do so. We respectfully request that the General Assembly proceed with its original plan for the $100 million, which we were set aside for K-12 education, to cover all of the costs associated with reopening schools. Given the collection of the CRF applications, they are well poised to estimate for the General Assembly the costs that schools have incurred above and beyond that. We imagine that as schools open, they will begin to realize that what they couldn't anticipate in terms of safely reopening schools. So that's to say, when September 9th comes around and the students begin to enter the schools, they don't know at this point what they don't know and that will kind of come to a head then. A changing course requiring local taxpayers to pick up the costs could disrupt reopening plans already in place. In particular, more systems may determine that it is safest to move in the direction of remote learning, which would have additional implications for the reopening of Vermont's economy. All the territories, French's testimony, local school district officials are very concerned about reductions in equalized pupil counts. A survey earlier this month by us indicates that with 46 superintendents responding, 85% are either very concerned or concerned about declines in enrollment in the current year due to COVID-19 dynamics. As you're keenly aware, a decline in equalized pupils will translate in an increase in education spending per equalized pupil and increase tax rates at the very time when schools need to both invest in learning opportunities for students and are contending with the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis. So just a couple other observations. In an August 5th letter to the House and Senate Education Committees, the superintendent serving Vermont's three technical center school districts informed legislators that they had learned from the AOE that under current law those districts are not eligible for federal relief funding since that letter. It was announced that this fund will be directed to career and technical education. Our associations believe strongly that the technical center school district should be granted sufficient funding for the reopening of schools through one of the available federal funding sources. Our associations have heard concerns from members that through tuition dollars paid by so-called choice districts in Vermont. We have not surveyed receiving districts about this concern, but we are hearing from school officials about anticipated revenue shortfalls in districts accustomed to receiving tuition revenues. So it might be something to look into as well. And again, as has already been discussed in this committee today, it has been reported that approximately 300 schools are interested in applying for the grant for the HBAC program, putting us over the original allocation for the project. We agree that this is an essential component of reopening schools safely. Thanks very much. Thank you. I'll just know that the house has already drafted legislation around the career technical center issue. And my assumption is that language will be coming to us and that will be a vehicle that we will put all of this stuff on if it's not already on there. Questions for Chelsea Myers or Jay Nichols? Okay. Go ahead, Ruth. Thanks. I think Senator Ruth made a really important distinction that Secretary French and Chelsea, you also talked about the difference between opening costs and ongoing costs. And I think school districts are going to have a lot of ongoing costs. And the focus has been on this, what do we do to restart schools or reopen schools safely? And it's not going to go away once kids get back in the building. And in fact, I think we're going to start to see even more costs that we didn't know we were going to incur or issues that we need to address. So I guess I would encourage all of us to think about what are schools going to need for the fall and even for the school year. But since we're dealing with CRF, it unfortunately has to be for the fall. And those ongoing costs for school meals for sure. And hopefully we can address that. But also with substitute costs, staffing costs, equipment costs and all of that. And making sure that we are able to address not just what they need on September 8th, but what they need on December 8th potentially. And I think you cover that in your testimony. But I thought that was an important point that Senator Baruth made that we should just under, I wanted to underscore about ongoing costs. And I see in the chat that Jay is going to be sending the testimony to the Secretary. So I think it's great. I know you all have been in dialogue all the way along. I think it's great if that continues. And now that we're back for four or five weeks, we would like to be part of those conversations and make sure that, you know, I don't see it as any great stretch of the imagination to think that everybody's going to want to provide all of the funding necessary for K through 12 related to the emergency. If it's above the 50 million, which it seems likely that it will be, I'm imagining Mr. Secretary that the administration will support moving money to that. I heard you just saying it's too early yet to know whether that will be necessary. So, you know, my hope is that the federal government gives us flexibility. But if they don't, we'll have to work with the Ed fund in other ways. And that will leave a large chunk of the CRF money unexpended. So maybe that's a situation where the expectations of the superintendents and the principals can be met. And also the administration's desire to use that money in other places can also be met, you know, the governor's economic development proposals, for instance. So all remains to be seen. Any final questions or comments were at time. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I know you have to leave. And thank you to Chelsea Meyers and Jay Nichols and Brad James. And I will send you the Lemmington email, Mr. Secretary. And I will email Jeanette White about the voting related parts of our discussion. And then I will see you all on Tuesday. Thank you very much for having us. Yeah, sure. See you all soon. Again, bye.