 All right, good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10am central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays that's fine. We record the show every week as we are doing today and it will be available for you to watch at your convenience later on our website and I'll show you where you can access all of those recordings at the end of today's show. Both our live shows and our recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the shows we have on Encompass Live. Here at the Nebraska Library Commission we provide services to all types of libraries in the state, so you will find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries, public, academic, K-12 schools, museums, archives, corrections, anything and everything. Really our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. We do book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that come on sometimes talk about programs and resources and things we're offering here through the commission, but we also bring in guest speakers sometimes. And that is what we have today. Today we have a group of people from Nebraska's ARP to talk about the Nebraska Tax Aid program and being able to reach those hard to reach taxpayers and help them. And it is tax season starting up. I know my W-2 has arrived and I'm sure other people are arriving. So it is that time. So I will hand it over to you. We should take it away and tell us all about what we can do. Good morning. My name is Rich Owen. I am the partnership and communication specialist for ARP Foundation Tax Aid for Nebraska. And with me today will be Betty Greer, who is one of our officers in the program and will be running a virtual program this year. Also with us, of course, is Katie Lofgren, who is the branch manager of the Milton R. Abrams Library here in Omaha. We're going to go over the Tax Aid program and what it is in Nebraska, how it works a little bit. It is estimated that our program we're primarily focused on going to reaching people that are lower income and elderly, although we will take anybody that walks through the door unless it's Warren Buffett. We're not qualified to do his return. But we can help most people that come in. Our primary focus are the elderly and the lower income folks. So we estimate the IRS estimates that there are half a million people in Nebraska that could use our services. Unfortunately, a lot of that population doesn't know about us. We have around 200 volunteers in the state and we have over 20 sites where there is personal preparation. And we have now, as of last year and this year, a new site where folks can do their return virtually by just sending us the documents and we can prepare it and get their return done. There's really a lack of awareness. That's one of the problems why we don't have greater capacity. The other is that a lot of folks, even with a virtual system, have trouble understanding the technology. We deal with the elderly and I know I'm elderly and staying on top of modern technology is constantly a challenge. And frankly, the biggest reason we can't do more is because we don't have enough volunteers. Our whole program is run by volunteers. There is a national leadership, but most of the entire nation in AARP Tax Aid Foundation is run by volunteers. So sorry for skipping around the slides here. I run away fingers. Let's talk a little bit about our service delivery modes. And as I said, we do do in-person sites somewhere where we have sites that people can come in and face-to-face work with us and we'll prepare and file their returns. We have several models. The pandemic caused us to make some alterations on it. But right now, we would like to talk about the virtual service delivery. So I'm going to bring Betty Greer, who is the local coordinator for our virtual site on, and she can explain to you the virtual system and how Nebraska libraries fit in just a moment. There you go. Hi there. Hello, Betty. Hi. I'm Betty Greer, and I've been with Tax Aid 20 years and worked for the Internal Revenue Service before that. And I love the program and how we can help people, especially in the rural areas where we don't have a lot of sites or volunteers. So National Office has come up with a new, what we call a delivery model, and that is no visit. We do everything virtually through computers, phones, printers, scanners, and things like that. So how this works is the taxpayer schedules a virtual appointment. And then the counselor would start with that appointment and call the taxpayer and then first determine if they can do the return virtually. And if they can, then they would continue and sending them emails to with attachments to read all the legal documents that we would have like at a site with civil rights. Their, their responsibilities as a taxpayer, you know, and the different things like that, just legal documents that are necessary. And then we send a second email that would have all the tax prep documents, which we have one that is to get the taxpayer to give us permission to do their return virtually, and then our standard intake and interview sheet. And once they get those, they would, we would set up an appointment with the counselor to do a Google Meet. And in that Google Meet, we would have them show their ID card, their driver's license or whatever they have for ID, and their social security card so we can verify who we are talking to. And then the counselor would explain to them how this is going to work, where they're going to upload their documents, W2s, 1099s, this intake sheet and the form giving us permission to electronically, excuse me, to do their return virtually. And then the volunteer would, that same volunteer would prepare the return, and then, and of course keep in contact with the taxpayer to make sure that we got everything right or if they had any more questions. And then it goes to one of our quality reviewers who is a separate person, a different person then prepared the return would review it. And then send it back to the taxpayer, having them review it and asking them to sign it electronically. And once this signed electronically it's returned to us, and we could see that signature then we will e-file it. And it would be up to the taxpayer to get it printed. And so, let's see, I want to make sure. And so, historically, how the virtual program has worked is we've only been in existence one year. We did not do a lot of returns last year, and all for the same reasons is lack of technology experience. So, we do have some people who have had their returns done electronically, but by other people, either a relative or a friend who had the capacity that they have an email address that they can upload and download and print. So, you know, this basically is the wave of the future electronics. I mean, we can't even go to a restaurant without having them scan a code so they can look at the menu. So, this is what we have to do. So, what we would like, let me get my bearings here, I kind of went off on a tangent. Now you're doing good. Yeah. Okay, so we believe that, you know, the libraries can be a big help here. In both recruiting volunteers, providing space for in-person and drop-off tax prep and provide technical assistance in using the program. I'm going to go to the next one. So, and these are the things that we would ask you to do. Of course, scanning, if they need an email, set it up for them. We would prefer that you go through Gmail. Be there when maybe they do the Google Meet so they can communicate with the counselor. And what we would never ask you to do, answer any tax law questions. And then schedule the volunteer who's present, if possible. So that is a question, I do have a question about the Google Meet and Google. Is it required that the taxpayer or the taxpayer have a Google account to use Google Meet or do they have to have their own Google account for that or no? Okay, we have other people here, they can't hear your question, so I'm just going to repeat it. Okay. The question is, do they have to have a Google account to use Google Meet? They don't have to have a Google account, but they have to have an email address and computer access. Okay. Any email, okay. Yes. With a Gmail, right. Okay, did you hear that? No. They would be establishing a Google account with a Gmail. Right. If you do get them set up with Gmail, yeah, that would automatically come along with it, which is why you said definitely prefer that because then it's just easier than they already have. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Okay. And here's Katie. Hello, everybody. My name is Katie Lofgren and I am the branch manager here at Abraham's, which is one of the 13 locations in Omaha. And this is my second year being one of the hosting sites or being the manager at one of the hosting sites. And our experience has been absolutely fantastic. It's a wonderful, wonderful program to be able to offer to patrons. My particular branch is kind of at a cross-section we do have, we just have a very wide range of patrons that use our branch. And it's been wonderful to be able to, when they come in with text questions being, hey, guess what, there's a program right here in the library and we can help you sign up for a time to go meet with them. So some of the things that was concerning to staff, maybe when they first came in is, well, if we're an AARP site, they're automatically going to assume that we're part of that or that we can answer questions. And it is a hard line. We do not answer medical questions, legal questions or tax questions. Exactly, libraries know that, yes. Yeah, we absolutely don't do that. It's perfectly fine. It's never been an expectation that we're helping them in any way with their actual taxes. And as far as the different things that we need to assist them with, at least here in Omaha, those are things that we typically do on a day-to-day basis anyway, helping patrons scan documents for any number of reasons, helping them set up an email. Definitely not doing it for them, but helping them through the steps of getting that Gmail set up. And then the online communications, we'll talk a little bit more here in a minute about the different things that you would need to have on site to be able to do all these things. And then we, having a whole new group of people being able to come into the library and use our resources, maybe they haven't been in the library before and it's a way to reach out to a new community. And also it's just really supporting our communities, which we should be, which we all are doing. And for years and years, libraries have been a place, it's always a huge ordeal, or a huge thing in the spring of providing the tax forms, which I know that has changed over the years, but historically files of tax forms and people now go to the library to get all your paper that you need to then take home and use to get all your tax forms. That is all available online now. But so libraries have kind of have a shift shifted now they still can provide the tax forms but they'll just like help you print them out. Right. As opposed to having stacks of paper like we used to. Yes. So this is just an extension of that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So these are going to be the questions or tasks that would be expected of the library staff that would be there. So one of the main things is that we have to have a computer that public the public can use. It will need a working camera on the computer and whether or not that's something that's in the computer or the computer I'm on right now actually it's, I mean, there's obviously a webcam, but it's just plugged into a USB. I don't actually have a webcam on my computer. Yeah. So they don't cost very much. So that would be a way around. You don't need an entire, you know, computer system that has has one built in working microphone on the computer. Again, a lot of headphones and you can get a pair and then we can we just clean them in between each patron use access to the internet. And the ability to scan documents and I, I'm not sure how, how easy or hard that is in other in other areas. Here we do have a just a regular scanner that's attached to the computer where you just do one page at a time. Our copier also can work as a scanner. And so we just put put everything in there and it just and we can scan to a USB that we then take to a computer so either of those would work. So the question ahead is like, does the scanner have to be at the same computer that you're doing this on, but not if you have one that can put it onto the USB just move the flash drive over. Correct. And that is something we do several times a day. So it works, it works really well. It's actually it's it's scanners and libraries have been will hit or miss over the years. But I do know that we've just recently been giving out grants to libraries. From last year and many libraries are now getting a combo copier printer scanner, all one machine. Excellent. Yep. So more it's becoming more prevalent before it was a special device for scanning things and it cost a lot of money and it was a big deal but now you get one thing that does all of it. And we gave grants to multiple libraries this year to get those. So, oh that's amazing. All right. So think about that anybody else who wants them look for grants. Yeah, it's super slick we that is what we have. I think just a few years ago is when we finally got them at all of the branches here in Omaha, and they it's, yeah, it's fantastic. It works really well. And then the last thing would just be a private room or just some area where they'd be able to kind of shield themselves off as they are having that Google Meet session with a tax preparer so that they can have a little bit of privacy. And then, if you don't have some of these things definitely refer the taxpayer to the nearest to the nearest library that might be able to help them. But yeah, I, it's been nothing but wonderful for our community so I'm really hoping that it's something that the rest of the state can start working on and take on. Yeah, I think a lot of this is something that libraries may all have in some way, maybe not a camera microphone microphones maybe or headsets because I know there's been a lot of like listening on computers but the camera is a different one. And I think that they don't cost much USB plug and play the private room, depending on the size of library some places do not have like a meeting room or study rooms. You could designate an office or like I said just some area that's because you know secure information. So here, one of our libraries using the American Rescue Plan Act, I'm just giving ideas for libraries about how they can handle this. They applied for a grant to get a modular room. It's it's it's kind of like a phone booth size thing and it's just you know you put the pieces together kind of you build a little room in a corner of your library. It's like rooms.com. I believe is when they used and so it's just you know, put together these walls has a little table and chair in there you can put a computer in if you want to, and have if you don't have like a separate meeting room and you don't of course have the money to build a unit, you know, an actual room with walls and doors, these little modular rooms that you can just set up and then move around the library if you want to or just find a corner where it fits. And that's something definitely look for grants for getting one of those that do cost a bit of money I think it was $2,000, but grants available for that too so if you don't have a separate room, look into things like that these modular rooms that you can build and have these pieces in your library. Fantastic. Are there any questions for me on from my standpoint or otherwise I'm going to hand it back over to Betty. I don't know, let's see, let's see, let's see anybody do anybody just have any questions for Katie you know for the she's the librarian has been working on this for the last couple years so get your questions and for her about how the library would handle this was anything you're wondering about. We do have one question that I know I'm sure you can answer, and I don't work. Call it Richard had mentioned earlier is this a free service. Yes it is, which is, which is the amazing thing and why I think it's a perfect fit for for our libraries. Right. And like Richard the beginning it's it's from ARP, but anyone can use it. It's not restricted there's no age restrictions or income restrictions. It's not like for only low income people or only people over a certain age or anything there's none of those. It's obviously, you know, trying to help people who are older who need this assistance, but it's not restricted to only them. Absolutely. All right well I don't see any questions right now if you but if they do come in now have you come back over yeah so yeah type in your questions do you see them oh wait wait of course something just typed in. We're typing have to wait for it to pop up finished so okay hang on a sec. Oh that's a good question. If scanning the documents are done on a main computer, can the staff then send those to a person's Gmail account rather than putting my flash drive can you. Would that be okay to then like email it to just the person. Yeah if that's if you and your staff feel comfortable doing that. Then absolutely. And then they have it on the computer. As long as there's a way for your library to be able to to get the documents to them in a safe and secure way that everybody's comfortable with them. Absolutely. And then on the computer where they're doing the tax work with the tax preparer, they'd be able to download them and get them. Well just use that Gmail account to get them just forward them on to forward them on. Yeah. That's perfect. Yes, absolutely. Good question. Yeah. All right, I'm going to hand it back over to buddy. Thank you. Because it is ultimately what needs to be done it needs to be emailed to the tax preparer so that's actually a perfect way to do it. Hi there. Hi, so. What we need to talk about are some of the questions and tasks that we need to ask of the taxpayer and you of course. The very most important part of this is that email. If they can't get an email, we can't help them. Now, if they can go through somebody else's email and they feel that that's okay. You know, privacy is very important to us. But so we would ask that you create a Gmail if they don't have one and make sure that the taxpayer writes down that email address and saves that password. Oh yes, libraries deal with that every day. Right. And those passwords, you know, I have a two sided spreadsheet for all the passwords that I need for my different agencies. Yeah. And, of course, that they, they save their Google account login information to. So, in order to make the appointment we have different ways of doing this. Now I know we only show one here on the slide and that's www ARP foundation dot org slash tax aid. Well, there's another easier. Website that you can go to and it's just a ARP dot org slash tax aid. And then also, if you want to have them call the United Way information service and all they have to do is dial 211 across, you know, the whole state of Nebraska and they can ask them. If they could sign up for a ARP Nebraska virtual site and set up an appointment for them. And the last resort is, we do have a specific phone number that they can leave a message and then someone will get back to them and that is, if you want to write this down 4028854816. And they would help them. They would get a call back they won't it won't be answered they'll get a call back, and they could set up an appointment for them. We talked about how Katie talked about how they need a safe location, and you're going to help them with the login and everything that I go backwards. No, I should be here. Yeah, I'm on nine. Okay. The only thing that. So what happens is that once they have done the Google meet, and we've uploaded their documents, everything goes securely into what we call the customer portal link. And that is our software is called tax layer. And that is where all their documents will be will be sent to, and then the prepare can use those documents to prepare the return. So everything is very secure. And again, that's in tax layer, not out in the cyberspace somewhere. And back to Katie. Some of the common questions that we would, we would expect from the taxpayer to come into the librarian would just be that uploading and scanning the documents so we've already talked about that about how if there's a way to be able to scan scan into them. And then just help them complete or if they need help, because oftentimes, even if you've got the scanning portion, they're going to need help uploading it as well or figuring out where, where to click. And then just make sure that they get all their tax documents in that you have scanned, and then help them by printing a copy. If you're able to do for free great. Otherwise, whatever you possibly charge for for printing. So this is a free service but you don't have to stick to free of that something that your library has their own rules about the printing. Right, because they will also receive a, I mean they'll have that electronic copy so if they don't need it printed out they don't need to. So, they will still be provided a free copy just if they want to print it out for their records. Definitely, I mean follow your own, your own policies for for printing. And scanning. What about you were talking about you just mentioned that we're, they are very concerned with privacy you want to make sure everyone is private but with scanning. If you're scanning these documents are they being saved somewhere on the library's computer still or is that something that then you would delete after a session or helping someone. It would be deleted after every session or if they're using a library USB to take from the scanner and put it onto a computer, completely erasing that USB after they're done. So yes definitely deleting everything off of the library computers or the library software or not software but the library USBs. We should be yeah we should not be keeping any records. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. So the benefits like I said earlier increased traffic we might see people that we haven't seen before. We can promote our other library services, our other, you know, book clubs or programs or things that you're doing for the community. It's a different it's just another way to be able to promote that. And also just being able to help increase that technology education. I said earlier every everything is going towards online so just in any way we can get the public more and more comfortable with using technology. It's, it's a great service to to our patrons. Okay, yeah. Excellent. Okay. Sorry last slide here. So online orientation for library staff would happen. February 2023 any questions that you have. Could be answered at that point. And then the filing season starts on February 1 or today, February 1. And filing season, filing season ends on April 18. But I believe that the last time that they're taking any appointments is going to be on April 14. Because they need those couple extra days so that they can look at all the documents, get it prepared, go to the quality reviewer, and then come back to the, to the taxpayer so. They did and it's made it on time. Yeah, correct. So because April 15 pause on the Saturday the actual tax deadline for everyone is to Tuesday. Okay. Yep. So this online orientation for library staff is this something. If they were to get involved, they would reach out to set up that training or is that something that's scheduled and they attend whenever it's been set. Does that make sense. Yeah, no, that that does make sense. So I would, I would definitely say you can reach out to me the, I think the online orientation that was those this. Yeah, just letting everybody know about the know about it but if you have any questions at all, especially from the library standpoint, please feel free to reach out to me I'd be more than happy to talk with with anybody or everybody and answer whatever questions. You might have. Okay, so the orientation term of this session we're doing right now. Is your online orientation. Okay, which is great because this will be saved and love recording available for anyone who wasn't here to be able to join us today so perfect. Yeah. Yep. So. Okay. What. No, just if there are any questions we'd be more than happy to, to answer them at this point. Sure, sure. Yeah. If I would put my information into the chat with that go to everybody or I can get it out there. Yes. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. All right, I'll get that in here. So, yeah, so yeah anybody have any questions go ahead and get them typed in we've got plenty of time to answer any questions go through any processes or anything you want to know more about. Like I said this is the orientation to this to trying to get libraries on board to be more locations to be offering this service to helping libraries or to help taxpayers use the virtual surface that service. Yeah, and 885. Okay, so I was just told that the librarians have any questions for the tax aid side of it that phone number that Betty provided earlier the 402, 885. 48164816 librarians can also call that if you have any questions. And then one of the tax preparers would get back to you and answer any questions you might have if you have something from from their side of it. Sure, great. All right. Ah, we do have a question. I think I did see it in a previous slide but it wasn't really went into it very deeply. Are there any advertising and promotional materials that we could get I think there was something about posters so what would be provided to libraries to help promote this. Yes, we, there are posters that we have. Would you be able to send them out to libraries. And send them out the information about the virtual system. Yep. Distribution email or something I can send that to or individually. So we could send it out. They said, so they could send it out digitally. And yet they're the posters have already been made because we've got them up here here at Abraham so. And then libraries and digital copy and they can print out themselves. Correct, like a flyer type size thing. Okay, anything bigger than that that's available or are you just doing the. I believe so there's also one that's legal sized. Okay, but but yeah, it's nothing, nothing larger. You don't need a special site like giant printer or something to print out any of the stuff I guess is the question. Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, no, the majority of it is is just regular flyer sized. Okay. All right, awesome. Yeah, that would be definitely be helpful. So the particular service that we're talking about here is the virtual. Virtual. Yep. Just because there aren't a lot of tax sites outside of Omaha and Lincoln. In person ones because there aren't enough volunteers so if through this in some of the more rural areas if there are people that are like, ooh, I'd want to help with that. I mean, they definitely if they had the volunteers, they would have more sites. Sure. Yeah. So maybe if you know somebody might want to volunteer and people also reach out to them. People yeah because that was one of the questions is what about any in person button that's the whole problem. That's the whole issue. That's the whole issue. Yeah, yeah. They don't do the in person workshops or trainings because there aren't the people across the state. There aren't the volunteers that are able to do it. So do you know how many volunteers are there doing this through. Oh, that's a good question. How many volunteers are there that are helping. There's about 200. Oh, wow. Get them started. Yeah, not everyone is a tax tax preparer. They're greeters that that greet them and get the. Yeah, people to talk to him over the phone and making appointments and stuff like that. It's not just, it's not just if you have tax information background. Anybody, anybody. People get them set up and then they pass you on to people with like Betty the IRS experience and knowledge and visual training on that. Nice. Yeah. All right. Other questions we have go ahead and type in more questions if you have them. I think anything that I had. Oh, I was looking on I we do I was looking to see we do have. From the session page for today's show I did link to the Nebraska's AARP page just the general one, and there is right there on the front page and kind of an article of there's about get tax help from AARP Foundation tax aid that actually gets you the phone number and that 211 number for the way to get set up with. And it does say your local library may also be able to help you set up an appointment. And it does have a link to that tax aid from the AARP foundation website that Betty mentioned earlier as well. So you'll be able to quickly get to all that information from the session page for today's show as well. I'll also mention these slides will be available as well. When we're done here Katie you can email them to me if you're willing to share if they really to share these. We sometimes do if it's available when the recording is available have the slides as well so you'll have see all those links and all the information and everything you might need as a library to get started in doing this at your library. I can also see if I can get the digital file. For the flyer. So it can just all be. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, that can be. Yeah, we can put that up there with the record on the archive page to absolutely. We can put anything up that's useful. Yeah. All right. Okay question here I'm not sure. So, I'm just going to read this is kind of confusing to me but we'll see it says can the library promote this service in addition to the flyers provided. I guess you just mean like talking it up to the page. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the whole point of the virtual to just try and reach a lot more people than what they're able to reach right now. Yeah, he says, Oh, okay, he clarified with it with their own flyers, like maybe as part of like you said, here's what you said, this would be a good thing for the library because we can help promote other things too so yes you can put this on a flyer with your own flyer that you make up of here's all the things the library does or here's something we're doing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Not like required to use theirs but they're probably very nicely done and have that the information you need. But it's okay to also like incorporated into something the library's absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So that you can get two for one and make sure you get all the libraries as well. Get the news out however. So for library wanted to start doing this. And you'll become an official so is there somewhere that lists officially where which libraries are a place to go for this like is there like a look at my local location. No, I'm not yet, since this is the first year that we're really reaching out to other libraries to see if they they want to I can definitely, we can definitely talk about that. If there's for future years yeah if there's something that. So is Omaha where they started this as a kind of a pilot project I guess for here in Nebraska. Kind of a little bit. Rich and I just have such a really good working relationship. And I just appreciate this service so much for patrons that my my enthusiasm. Yeah, because it's something that they every foundation's been offering and now we're just trying to get libraries to help make it more. Yeah. So last year was the first year for the virtual, I believe. So yeah this it really is just a it's a new. Yeah it's a brand new program. Okay, great yeah. So if I want to get involved in doing this, should they contact air P or contact you Katie, what's the best starting point for a library saying I want to officially be one of these locations. I don't know I'm actually going to, I think I'm going to pass that question off. As I understand the question. The question is, will there be a list promulgated that list libraries that have all the resources and have been indoctrinated and are ready to go out and do that. Is that correct. Well that's one question I was wondering is there somewhere where a person could look and see is my library providing this service. We can certainly make such a list and put that out. What we're saying right now is, you know, if you can't come to an in person site. Please check with your local library, and we aren't any more specific than that and I know anecdotally of one instance where relative of somebody who lived out, I believe by North Platte, tried to go to the local library and they didn't know what he was talking about. Because we haven't, you know, put this out until today. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So if a library did want to become on the official sites to do this. They, who should they reach out where should they reach out to for a library to become like official is that you, a or P Katie, where's the best place for a library to officially become I don't want to volunteer Katie for more work because she's already done so much for us already but she's a great point of contact and she's here all the time. The official a or P things are. All right, I'm glad she bought into that. I could give you a number but most of our numbers are Google Voice numbers for security reasons and confidentiality, and they're not monitored so somebody calls and they can leave a message and hope that we get back to them at some point because we have to go in, you know, to the software to actually see it. Katie is willing and apparently she apparently she is. She could be a point of contact because I suspect most of your members already have her information and I will be seeing her regularly between now and April 13. So, I think that would be a good place to go. So, we'll tell libraries. Yeah, if you want to be part of this contact Katie at Omaha, and she'll get them connected with you to make it official that you are one of these sites and get all the information that a library needs. Correct. Yeah. There's also that phone number that was given out before the 4028854816 Betty that number you gave out is your Google Voice number. Okay that's a Google Voice number every site in Nebraska has an assigned Google Voice number our national set that up, and it's specifically more secure than if you and I went out and started a Google Voice, it wouldn't be as secure as the setup they have it's a commercial type thing so every site in Nebraska has an assigned number they all start with 402, even if they're out west. And, but again, we have to go open up software go in see that there's a message and then respond to it. And we do have a question or just clarification. They do not need to be a RP members to to use this service correct. Absolutely not. That is not a requirement at all and I might just emphasize a little bit a RP foundation is the sponsor of the tax aid program. So there may be some. Some people may have a bad feel about a RP in some of the positions it's taken but the tax aid foundation is underneath the a just of a RP, but it is independent, and it is solely devoted to doing tax preparation for elderly and low income people. So that's their but they're not required to be as well. I'm sorry I didn't answer your question they are not required to be members at all we'll anybody in the public and we serve anything from 14 year olds that got their first job and want to get their withholding back all the way up to sentinarians who we have a couple people that are over 100 so we do the gamut. We don't have an official income limit, but and it's rarely a problem. Most of the people we see are, you know, within our scope that's well put. And, but we do have we've had situations where somebody came in with a lot of money and wanted us to do their return and in most cases they're out of scope. Our, we're trained on certain aspects of the tax law. There are aspects we are not trained in and therefore we don't. We are not able to do returns for them, but there's no published. If you make over 100,000 we're not going to see you. But if you do you'll probably get referred say you know you really need an actual accountant. You need your own CPA or something because this is beyond what we. That would be done in the case of a virtual and that very first contact when we reach out to contact them. There are questions that are asked then concerning whether they're in our scope of training or not. And so we would at that point we would be able to identify folks that we couldn't help. It makes sense. Yes. All right. Let's do this here. So I have sent out on the questions and chat Katie's email address at Omaha Public Library. It's also something anybody can find online, you know, my staff. But, you know, K loft grand at Omaha library dot org. So definitely you can reach out to her with any questions and to become one of these official sites get all the resources you need get connected with rich and Betty and whoever else is going to be doing the volunteering for this and doing this text prep. Anybody have any other questions we still got a little bit of time left if you do have anything else you want to ask, or if there's anything else that Richard Betty or Katie, you all want to share as kind of like a final words, or today. I think this is a great service I'm glad that it's out there for everyone I know. Taxes are horrible and annoying and can be very stressful for people for me to. And having someone you somewhere you can go to and as I said earlier I think when Katie was on libraries have been doing providing help to live to patrons, people coming in to get tax forms for years. Piles of paper and all the paper packs forms, and it's gone virtual now and libraries have to have switch gears to doing that and providing okay go here and print out your forms. I think this is a great just addition to that that libraries have already in many communities already known as the place to go to at least get the paper or get the forms and shouldn't be very hard to add this as not only can you get the form but you can get some actual help from someone and we'll get you to those people. We will definitely promote this a lot. I don't see any other last minute desperate questions coming in. Do you want to share Richard if you want to see if Katie or Betty have anything else they want to say. I think we've covered things very well and I just want to express my personal and organizational appreciation to Katie. Thank you to the library libraries across Nebraska for being interested in this working with you folks has just been an absolute pleasure and the staff. You're all very motivated to help your patrons, and it's a pleasure to work with such people. One last thing if I may, I want to point out that if somebody expresses interest in becoming a volunteer. You do not have to be a CPA and accountant or whatever a lawyer to be a preparer. I was an airline pilot for kind of allowed I don't know. So, as long as you're trainable, we can take, we can take volunteers I barely made that cut, but that's all I have to say and I want to thank you very much for giving us this voice to your community. I think you do great. Yeah, so yeah, anybody who wants to volunteer and do this, they would appreciate the help reach out to the ARP foundation, Nebraska, and like I said, we've got a link to the page there so that could definitely get you connected with them. All right, I think I will anything else. Just a minute Betty had something here just a minute. Absolutely. Hi there. I just want to mention that all our appointments are scheduled for either a Wednesday or Friday from 10th or two. So those are the days that you might want to, you know, block time off. That's just for the initial appointment. And, and it's really up to the counselor and the taxpayer when they're going to do the Google meet, because that would be a second contact. But the first contact is Tental to Wednesdays and Fridays. Okay, so that's just to get started. And then after that it could be any time that works for the preparer for the two of them right and and the library of course yeah, if they're helping me that way. Yeah. Thanks libraries at evening hours and weekend hours sometimes. Okay. You're welcome. Okay. All right, any last words before I wrap things up here. Anybody have any last minute desperate questions you want to ask get them in. But you can also always reach out to Katie at any time. Any questions coming in now anything that you want to say Katie before I do my wrap up here. No it's okay it's great to see I don't know who else here but hello. If I know you hi. Awesome. All right. So I think we will wrap things up. Thank you so much, Katie tell her tell rich and Betty thank you. I'm going to pull presenter control back to my screen and do my wrap up but you can just hold on here. There it is. Okay. All right so as I mentioned I do have the link here that goes to. This goes to the ARP main page for Nebraska. Let's try this. There we go. Of course. And they do have the right over here get tax help from ARP foundation tax aid. And so that will have the basic info and the phone number to call getting started the tax aid dot ARP foundation dot org and your local library may be able to help you. So we do have that link right in there in the session page for you to get more information. So that will wrap it up for today's show. Thank you again, rich and Betty and Katie, and thank you everyone for attending the show is is being recorded right now and I'm just going to go back to our main encompass live page here and these are upcoming shows are archives link to archives is right at the bottom of the screen here. This is all of our recordings, most recent one at the top of the list. So today's recording will be there should be up by the end of the day tomorrow at the very latest. Everyone who attended today's show and registered for today's show will get an email from me letting you know when it's available. We also have a Facebook page that we post to and come for encompass live we linked to that. So you can see that we have a lot of remote out here you can see we do reminder to log in, meet speakers for announcements, when recordings of shows are available. So we will post this for here as well and we do use the hashtag and we have a live little abbreviation on Twitter and Instagram. So if you like to use any of those social media things you can get access to us there and see what we're doing and or on our mailing list that we have through the library commission. These are our show archives I'm going to show you here there is a search feature if you want to look for any topic we've had an encompass live see if we've done a show about something. So search the full show archive or the most recent 12 months. If you want to be, and that is because this is our full show archive and I'm not going to go all the way to the bottom the screen because it's a huge page. Going back to when encompass live premiered, which was in January 2009. So we're at the beginning of our 15th year of encompass live. Oh my gosh. So just do pay attention to the original broadcast date of anything in these archives. Many of the months, much of the information will stand the test of time is still be good useful, but things will be old some things will become old outdated resources may have changed drastically. Links may no longer work. People may not work at the same library that they presented on 10 years ago. So just pay attention to that when you are watching any of our guys, but we will always keep them here somewhere we have as long as we have somewhere to keep them available we use YouTube right now. Like librarians do we keep things for historical purposes will always have all of our recordings up there for anyone to watch. So that's today show and next week I hope you'll join us when we were talking about accessibility and not just for patrons internal documentation documentation for everyone. You know we've got libraries we do a lot of work with making sure our libraries are accessible to our patrons but what about us as well in the staff so we'll be talking about that and next week. Also I want to remind everyone here at the Nebraska Library Commission we do host this I do host this encompass live show, but we also do our annual conference big talk from small libraries. This is where all the presenters are from libraries with an FTE of 10,000 or less. So all of our smallest libraries across the country presenting on different topics. The conference is the last Friday in February so it's coming up February 24. And the schedule is up and registration is open so please do register see look at our schedule and see if there's what topics maybe of interest to you it's an all day conference. The whole day is recorded it's done throughout go to webinar like we're doing today. And so if you cannot are available the whole day to watch everything it will be available in our previous conferences. So please do register and spread the word about big talk from small libraries. So sign up for that and set up for anywhere other upcoming encompass live shows. So thank you everybody for being here with us this morning. Thank you, Katie rich and Betty and hopefully we'll see you all on a future episode of encompass live. Bye bye.