 Go ahead and call the meeting to order here right on time here. They're on the record. Thank you, Salami, for coming on this wintery morning. I, myself, just returned from Antarctica, where it's summer. But it's pretty much like this. Actually, it's warmer than it is today. And I will tell you that American Airlines really treats Antarctica as the end of the world. It's very difficult to get there and really hard to come back. But I'm glad that I'm here. It's always good to come home. So anyway, thank you all. And let's start with, yes, so we have the special testimony. Because I was gone, we had some communication problems about that, so I apologize to Katie. But she is going to testify to us or give us kind of an overview of some concerns about special ed that she wanted to call our attention. But the other people that she was trying to get to testify will not be with us today. So Katie, I will turn it over to you. All good. Thank you, Senator Ingram, for having the time today on our agenda to talk about special ed and the impact that it can have on families, especially those living in poverty here in Vermont. I myself am a family that navigates and struggles with poverty here in Vermont. And despite a lot of really hard work by my husband and myself, who both work, we continue to struggle. And one of the things that really became apparent to me this year listening to testimony here is that it is really helpful to get the human aspect of it and how that actually looks perfectly. So today, I want to give you a little bit of my experience, both as a parent and also as a parent advocate. In the last year here in Vermont, I have decided to take on more of a active role as a parent advocate in special education. And in March, I made a public comment at my son's. I have three kids. That's probably back up, I have three kids. My daughter's 14 and she has no special needs, but has two younger brothers with some challenging special needs that take a lot of our attention and time to help them navigate the world, whether that's with medical providers, with other kinds of providers, and also a special education. I have a 12-year-old son who's in seventh grade and has been on an IEP since kindergarten. And I have a six-year-old son who is now in first grade and has also been on IEP since he started school. My experience after I made a public comment in March was really unexpected. Since March, I've had over 100 families in Vermont who have contacted me about their experiences in special education looking for help. A large majority of them were from my school district, about 51 of them, I think. The rest of them are for many districts across the state. I've attended meetings and supported families now in 17 different schools. Most of them are in Chittenden County, but throughout some of the southern counties, as well as Grand Isle County. It was really hard, I think, at first to hear a lot of the experiences and not immediately assume that there were other faces that someone could look for help. I immediately referred people to Vermont Family Network or to Legal Aid or to any of those agencies that can and usually are able to support families. Of the families that contacted me, about 75% of them had already made those contacts and were not able to get support, whether it was because the agencies already had a pretty full caseload and they just weren't gonna be able to meet that family's needs in the timeline that they needed or they didn't have the resources to take on the level of complexity that the families were dealing with. All of those families are families that are dealing with poverty and would not be able to afford a lawyer or an advocate on their own if they were paying out of pocket. When my family and I were struggling, this was a few years ago, but we were going through a complaint against my son's school for not providing three months of services in the IED. And as we went through that process, it was great to see the people who did step up. There are many amazing people in our education system and there are many amazing and passionate people who are fighting every day for our kids. Unfortunately, sometimes there are systematic gaps where families seem to fall through the cracks, not because people want them to, but just because sometimes it's hard to see the level of need. And sometimes it's really easy for people who haven't experienced this system to not hear how important and impacting it is on families. When you are living in poverty, you're worried about whether or not you can keep a roof over your family's head. Whether or not you're gonna be able to feed your kids and provide them with all of the meals that they need without having to go to the food shelf or to call somebody to see if you can get some support. And a lot of times when you're struggling in poverty, you're also struggling with an inability to access healthcare or other services that are really important. So you're jumping through a lot of different hoops to try and meet the requirements of every program that you're accessing. So that might be meetings, that might be providing a lot of paperwork or filling out papers. And that might seem really easy, but when you're thinking about whether or not your children are able to even attend school because there are so many challenges and you're getting 25 calls a week about something going on at the school, whether it's minor or not, that's really hard to work. And it's really hard when you don't have the job security to be taking the time off, to drop everything and help navigate things at school. And it was really surprising to me to see the impact that that can have on families in poverty because if you're choosing between your children's future and their education and maybe your medications, if you're disabled and you don't have adequate health coverage yourself, and it comes down to getting to pay for your child's field trip or getting to pay for something they need to be able to go to school, a lot of families are having to make the choice to not pay for their medication or they're having to make the choice to call out a work knowing that they don't have the benefits to provide them with paid leave or oftentimes knowing they're putting their job at risk to make sure that their children are able to have an education. A large number of the families that I've supported or communicated with don't need a lawyer. They don't need somebody who's going to come in and fix everything and do everything for them. They really need somebody who's going to explain to them what their rights are, what the process is, what the avenues to navigate anytime there's a dispute without having to have somebody do it for them. A lot of these families don't understand what their rights are as parents and so therefore it creates a lot of tension between them and the school districts because the school districts are doing their best but when they have all of the families to support it's very easy for things to get lost in translation for lack of a better word. I was very surprised to when I looked at the numbers of the families I've been communicating with and when I thought of my own to hear some of the amounts of wages that were lost in IUP meetings or navigating school districts and I was also really surprised to hear the amount of trauma that a lot of these parents and families are dealing with as a result of their experiences. When you as a parent walk into an IUP meeting or into a meeting with all of your son's providers and you're the only one in the room that doesn't work for the school district and there's eight, nine people at that table with you. It is really intimidating and unfortunately there are times where despite the best interest and best efforts of everybody at the table, communication breaks down and when push comes to shove as a parent you do not really have a ton of say in that process and unfortunately a lot of times it seems like parent voices are being lost. Parents are having to choose which conversations they can focus on because they don't have the ability to take on everything that needs to happen. There are a lot of parents who have learned the regulations and processes and what should be in an IUP and what progress monitoring looks like so that they themselves can be that advocate but unfortunately that comes out of cost. We talk a lot in here about generational poverty and how we can help parents better their situations and get on their own two feet and be financially stable but if you are in five, six meetings a week whether that's an IUP meeting or meeting with the behavioral team or meeting with the nursing team or meeting with the math specialists and then you have to also get your child to whatever outside providers they might be engaging with and you also have to worry about making sure you can pay your bills and that there's food on the table and still get time with your kids. There's not a lot of time to go to school or to worry about whether or not you should think about going back to school so that you can have a better job so that you can have better benefits. If you as a parent are in a position where you're doing your best for your child and you're really thinking about their future their education is important. Most parents I've spoken to will put their children's education above all else so that their children can have a chance to not be living in poverty. And when they do that, that is when they lose their jobs they lose their insurance because they're missing appointments because they're dealing with school stuff so that their kid can be in school because they're worried if their child isn't in school they're gonna get sent to truancy court because there's a law saying your kid has to be there. It's a double-edged sword and everybody in the system is trying their best but we really do need more funding in Vermont for support for parents in navigating the education system. Vermont Family Network is an amazing agency that does really amazing work and over the last several years their ability to support families has continued to decline because their funding doesn't allow them to attend meetings in person. It doesn't allow them to be as hands-on and involved as they used to be so the parents that they used to be able to support are no longer actually getting that support from them. Oftentimes it can be weeks before somebody's able to get back to them and have viewed the documents and by that time things are getting really tricky and a lot of times parents are having to decide where they're focusing their energies and it is hard to figure out which battle you should pick on what day. I would encourage our council to continue to engage in the conversation around special education not just around accessing support for parent advocates which in this last year the Vermont Developmental Disability Council actually provided 11 people with scholarships to take a special ed advocacy course and I was lucky enough to be one of those and it was really amazing to be able to learn more about what's happening nationally but it was also really hard to hear how far behind Vermont is in a lot of areas around child find identifying the children who have disabilities and need to be evaluated around adequate evaluations making sure that evaluations are being done in a timely manner being done by qualified professionals and being done in a way that is transparent and accurate. It was also really surprising to hear that Vermont is pretty far behind in terms of the way that we're supporting the families with specific learning disabilities and requiring families to wait until their children are significantly behind or significantly delayed in areas to be able to adequately access those supports and services which is not the way a lot of other states do it in many other states that is not a gate that families have to navigate. It would be very helpful to families who are living in poverty who don't have the money to hire a lawyer or to hire an independent evaluator so that they can be sure their evaluations are accurate to be able to access support whether it's parent advocates whether it's increasing access of Vermont family network or legal aid or anywhere. I think it's just important for us to think about this conversation because unfortunately it is really uncomfortable to talk about for a lot of reasons. It is hard to talk about the systematic areas where we're maybe dropping the ball for these disabled children but if we're not willing to engage in the conversation and start addressing the trauma that these families are going through for their children we are only going to continue to see these families struggle in poverty and for the generational poverty system cycle to continue. I think that's all I wanna say today. I apologize that it's not more thought out. I definitely just wanted to give you guys a bit more of a perspective from a parent who has spent a lot of time really learning the system and I myself am still struggling. This past week I intentionally wrote down how many communications or how many hours I spent navigating for my own two children. So I had more than 27 phone calls. I spent more than 15 hours either in meetings on the phone or reviewing documents in just one week for my two children on top of being disabled and working full time. It is not reasonable to expect families to do that on their own, especially families who are struggling with getting their basic needs met and those who don't have the education to do so. And I think that the more that we can provide families with resources and support and also school districts, school districts are doing the best that they can and maybe just need a little bit more support from either the agency of education or our elected officials or maybe the agency of human services would also be a good place to look at the impact that trauma is having on families living in poverty. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kate. Appreciate your perspective. Question from Representative Coopley. Kate, special ed advisory course, who was, was that out of the agency or is that something that some other organization had? So the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council made the decision to put some funding in their budget for special ed advocates. And there is a national organization called the Council of Practicing and for Parent and Practicing Attorneys. And they have actually created what is and I'm thankfully in seat two now. So I'm taking the full year intensive. It's a national class. It's online and it meets weekly and it is actually what they're working on for the professional regulation of special ed advocates nationally, but it is a national course through the COPA agency that the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council decided to fund. Go ahead, there is a budget line item for them. They are funded through human services. And I'm just trying to think of which budget I think they might, you know, they have their own. I mean, it's dedicated in law exactly who should serve on that advisory council. Families and parents and children and that type of thing. But it's, that's not. That's not, that's not, that's not, that's not. Do you think it is important to have an advisory council on special ed that is functioning under? I do think it's important to note about that, that there are a large number of parents who have submitted applications and shown interest in being a part of that, that aren't even getting responded to. There are some issues with it that we're trying to, that the past couple of years we've tried to amend and make sure that the state's following the rules according to the federal, according to the law that we have. So this course was something that the Developmental Disability Council spent some time looking at avenues to get more parents educated and informed. This is the first time that Vermont had actually had a cohort. There was 11 of us that took the first seat and I'm actually the first Vermont to take the second one. Thanks. You mentioned one entity that helps, that they just needed, who did you say was? Vermont Family Network? Yeah, yeah okay. With them not familiar, they do good work. Are you just saying that we just need to give them more money? They, they have had a decrease in funding where they've been level funded and they're not able to have the staff on site that is able to attend meetings or provide the supports that they were able to provide several years ago. So that's simple, unfortunately, simple but not easy. Exactly. Yeah. My second question, do the family of parent child centers provide any help for people in your situation? So they provide a certain level of help but unfortunately, again, there's another agency that has a large amount of families who are seeking their support and very limited resources. They tend to refer people to Vermont Family Network or Legal Aid and I myself who have, I worked at Vermont Family Network, have a lot of interaction with Vermont Family Network often find that they aren't able to help because of the level of complexity and with Legal Aid, every time that I've contacted them or supported a family contacting them, the response has been that it's not something that they can take on right now and usually that's the end of the conversation. Your concerns with the education system, are you talking about kids having needing particular kinds of approaches to their education that they're just not getting or is it more subtle than that? I would advocate from my experience that there are a large number of compliance issues whether they are intentional or unintentional, the IDA is not always followed. I actually had a reading specialist tell me that they don't know what IDA is but they don't follow that in their district. And that's the law, right? Yes, yes. And that's what I would say a reading specialist who is also a part of the special education field would need to have the knowledge of what the IDA expectation is in order to actually be able to provide students with IUP services. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to add, I think Vermont Family Network specifically serves Chittin and County. They serve the state-wide. And that state-wide. Vermont Federation of Families is another partner organization to that that also has parent. It does the same work and it's statewide. And it used to have peer navigators in every county but lost that funding a number of years ago and hasn't been able to get it back. So basically it's volunteers now and it's very small. And again, even when you have a lot of really passionate qualified volunteers or staff, unfortunately they're limited by their time and their ability to serve more families because they only have a limited amount of time. Yes, right. Did you have a question? No. Oh, I'm sorry. So Mayo says thank you. There are clear guidelines. If people are not complying to special ed law and regulations and the agency of education would support those. I mean, they should be supporting those. They should. And there should be a system for reporting issues like you had with that person saying that in that district. And Help Me Grow could also be another resource if VFN, I think they can't go to meetings but they could talk about your rights and refer you to information. Unfortunately, that then puts the expectation on a family to be able to navigate that. And when you're thinking about families who may not have an education level themselves, that is a bit, I've done it. I've gone through the administrative complaint process. I've contacted the AOE countless times and most often you get a response, unfortunately, that just tells you to contact another person or provides you with a link with information you already know but doesn't necessarily address it. I can't tell you how many times I've contacted the AOE and provided them with documentation showing that there is something going on and a family needs help and ask them where to go. And I got told that there was nothing that they could do or at other times didn't even get responded to. So yes, there are many great systems in place and there are many great agencies doing a lot of great work. Unfortunately, I think one of the areas that we do need to look at is accountability and transparency and ensuring that the services that are being provided and paid for already by the state are actually quality services and that they are what the children need and not just what is the norm for that district or that agency. Just the short story to punctuate what Katie is saying. I know a family very well in the southern part of the state whose son needed special education services and not really, it wasn't any behavioral issues, it was some specialized services and literally they were told that in order to get those services, you need to give your child up and sign over to the state custody. And she had no assistance or parent advocate and she did that. And for years this then was navigating the DCF system and unfortunately her son was abused and the trauma that it caused that whole family because she didn't have anybody there to help her understand. She had limited education but was a mom just trying to do what she was supposed to do for her child and that's what she was told by the education system. And if you're a new American and you don't even have a release in your language and you don't understand it, you're just signing things so that you can access those services, that must be very scary because you could be signing anything and not know it and there are a large number of families who because they think it is the best interest will just sign whatever they need to because they wanna help their kids. When we were really struggling with my son and we filed a complaint and we did everything right, what ended up happening was the principal in that school started calling my landlord to check to see if we still had a lease when he knew our housing was gonna be in jeopardy and actually sent a police officer when I was in the hospital to my house and that police officer talked to my landlord and talked to my neighbors which is a violation of McKinney-Vento and because of all of that my landlord ended up wanting to evict us and we were luckily able to maintain for the remainder of the school year because of those actions my family ended up homeless for two and a half years all because we filed a legitimate complaint in the proper channels and there was no one I called every lawyer's office, I called every agency I met with the governor and many representatives in the state house and there was no one that would help me. So unfortunately there are many areas where families are falling through the cracks despite the best efforts and when it is not of their doing. I just wanted to go back, Katie, thank you so much for sharing your story. First of all, I know this has been quite a road for you. I just wanna go back to something that you're saying about the Vermont Family Network and what I understand is the sort of peer navigation and that kind of peer support system is what you're talking about when I think about the potential for trauma exposure and the complexities of toxic stress in households where there are all of these numerous issues facing them, poverty, special needs, all of those things. I'm thinking about that challenge the challenge that it is to keep your executive functioning online, right? And so there are times when it sounds like what you're saying is there is a definite need for someone else to kind of step in and help help with that navigation, partner with you in that navigation, not make decisions but to be someone who's that clearer thinker when you're just, when you're just keeping with all of that toxic stress. And so I guess my question to you would be then if it's sort of on the weight of, because some of the answers are simple but not easy, where would you place the weight of the resources? Would you wanna see that more in peer navigation? Would you wanna see it more with the programs, beefing up the programs? I know that ideally it's all of the above, right? But I'm just saying like, if you had to have somebody who said to you like, Katie, where do you weight the importance, you know? Like what are you, you know? I think that, like you said, all of them would be the answer. Myself, I was diagnosed with PTSD because of the issues that I had with my son in school and it has definitely been a hard road to figure out how to deal with my own trauma and what I've learned from that is it makes me much more compassionate, empathetic and able to sit next to somebody else in an IMP meeting who I know has gone through similar trauma and see them completely triggered and unable to even be engaged in the conversation because in that moment they are stuck in the trauma that they've experienced, whether that is going into all of these meetings and having the school in a sense push back and maybe question your parenting or take your children or call PCF and make calls to DCF. I've had false claims made against me after my complaints. So there's a level of fear for a lot of the parents and having somebody who has been there and navigated it that can say, hey, I'm here, you're not alone. And I actually support a parent who is dealing with this right now. And one of the best things she said to me was when you tap and just let me know that you're sitting next to me, it brings me back in the room and having another parent who's there, who's a peer advocate and can say, hey, can we take a minute and actually step out with the parent, give them a minute to regain composure and to empower them to come back in the room and not be stuck in that trauma but be present in the conversation where it is. I would say that peer support and training for those peer advocates and that support around both trauma and the process and being a quality advocate at the same time is important. That would be an area where I would see as a new work focus. In terms of what Katie's talking about in the peer navigation, both from our federation families and my family network, our members of my coalition disability rights and in our platform. And again, this year, we have two sections that deal with increasing funding and peer navigation. So I'll send those along to the council so you can see what we're talking about in a couple of different ways that peer navigation works to assist families. I think it is also important to just mention that a number of families who are navigating children with disabilities also at times have disabilities of their own like myself, whether that's a physical disability or whether that might be their own dyslexia or other learning disability that impacts their ability to understand what's happening or when they're handed a ton of documents at the IEP meeting that they're supposed to be discussing those documents in they're not able to be engaged and effective. And I would say they don't have their parental rights being met because they're not prepared for that meeting because they can't possibly be expected to read those documents in that moment and understand them quickly enough to engage in the conversation. You have the last question. So regardless of this council is one avenue of action or at least support, but you have four of us up here regardless of where we go. We are very much engaged in this and I'm very familiar with Vermont Family Network and they've empowered me who my oldest son who's now 41 plus, I walk out of a informational meeting when he was in, I don't know, kindergarten that I did discover what that information meant for teaching a parent, what their rights are. I walked out of there feeling like Rocky, you know, this. So I. So I. So I. So I. So I. So I. So I. So I. So I can attest to the power of the empowerment and so you've got many up who will not forget what you've said today. Thank you. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Yes. All right. I appreciate that. Rocky playing in my. That's right. Okay, so moving on, we're going to review the minutes of our last meeting. So we're actually, it's actually October minutes. Yeah, October. It's the third document of your package. It says, I'm strapped with October 2014, 2019 on the compliment. The caveat to your minutes that I wrote was that I was not here. So. I'm not even going to was covering for the services supervisor. I did the standard minutes for this committee for this council and that I hyper await committee testimony to the website where it exists with this one. It was a little bit different because there were so many witnesses with so many different documents that this would have been a mess of hyperlinks. So what I did was I referenced and if you can see on the screen really quick, what I basically did was each of those hyperlinks references this and goes to this. And so then you can say, okay, here's all the stuff that Auburn Waterson presented and here's Erhard. And that was the easiest way I could do it versus person by person documental documents. The second caveat that I need your help with is the attendance. And I did not communicate to her that she was supposed to take attendance of who was here and who was not. So I left it the same as the meeting before that and I would welcome any corrections that anyone on the council has. That was good. Do you see your name and were you actually here? And if you don't see your name and you are here. Check your calendar. We're members of the society. You're in the other way. I'll pass that out and I'll update you as you do. I also wasn't there. So Stacy was not here? No, I don't think so. It's right here. It's right here. Okay. I think I was here. I think I was here. I passed around the signage. And Mike, I was here. No, not Laura Bernard, but I was here. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right, so I would accept a motion to approve the minutes for those changes. So moved. Else second. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed to no. All right. The minutes are approved. Thank you. I'm going to ask my partner in the room, Katie, if you'd like to come up and we can go over some of the notes from the offsite meeting in Rutland. It's the fourth document in your packet. It's three full pages. And this is a compilation of the big pieces of paper I was jotting notes furiously on. Listening back to the audio from the meeting and the handwritten notes that were submitted. So this is a compilation of those and there's much room for mixing things up and there are a massive freeze review of them. And let me know if there are changes to be made. So I understand that you did a great job pulling all these documents together. And my only role was trying to read through to some that just didn't make sense or maybe I thought we shifted in terms of what category they were in. So take a look and see if you want to move into the different categories or something doesn't quite make sense. We were doing a little bit of guessing and we were trying to piece the conversation back together. And during the time that the state house was completely closed and we were offsite working people on this process. Yeah, that always helps. Can I just ask a good question? The order, is there some sort of, should I read something into that that that may have had more? Okay, just your. That is, I think the order was the big pieces of paper kind of copying as they went, yeah, yeah. Should there be an order? That's a good question for the council. Well, this is what people said. This is not for us to say. It might be helpful to know how many of the groups because if all of the groups identified one category as a challenge that might make it something that would be a priority. I don't think anybody disagreed with it. It would be tough to do. That would be a really tough thing to do. I hear you. We didn't identify each group and that was one of the big things. I was just going and then there was things on the sides. Yeah. Yeah, that would be different. Would it be safe to say on the wrap up priorities that that was a more focused, that's the whole thing kind of ranking. That third page, yes. Yes. Under unexpected cost, the staff at the bottom of the second page, that encode's not about me without me. It's really nothing about me without me. Nothing. Okay. I think that was just a short hand. Proper list. Nothing about me. Nothing about us without us. Yeah, yeah. Nothing about us without us. So me should be changed to us? Or no. That's more common. That's more common, yeah. That people won't recognize. Yeah. No, nothing about us without us. Yeah, I see two typos, mysterious T's at the end. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's too cool to set it up. It's very casual. Right. It's very casual. Any other comments from the press for changes? Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's not easy to pull together. It was a good meeting. It was good too. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun. Yes. It's been turned out too. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Yeah, thanks to, specifically, and Tom. I can't take all of this. I can't take all of this, but. Oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah. It's all about the relationship and your smile. That's right. The Roman folks were very welcome. They were. Yeah, that was really great, yeah. Good. All right. Do we consider these minutes, then? Maybe you bring it, or are they just? I think we're going to treat them as minutes, at least, or minutes have to be included as part of the recommendations when we're filed. So I was going to include that as minutes. It's very off site. Is that going to add a header to it? That would be a challenge. The date, and the location, and things like that. It's kind of blank right now, but I'm going to add in a header. It's similar to our previous one. They're going to shoot me out members who were present, at least. I can. I don't know. I'm going to tell you now who is present. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or we could send a sign-out sheet around for the November meeting. Sign in sheet, and if you were there, just sign your name, and then make a change. Okay. Mm-hmm. Do you have that? Or do you just? Yeah, right now. We have it. Yeah. We can do that. So with those changes, I will make during this meeting. Okay. Okay, great. So, yes, can we have a motion? I'll make a motion that we accept those as our November meetings with the adjustment. Sure. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed to say no. Okay. The mechanism I'll use is I'll send an agenda around, separate agendas as attendance at Rutland, and just cross your name out if you weren't there, and we'll go from there. Oh. Okay. Check if we was there. Yeah, check if you were there. Yeah? Yep, yep. I think that's all I had on this one. Thank you for what you do, folks. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. All right, so thank you, Katie. So we'll follow the kind of format here that we have listed, and that means people will walk us through what our charge is, and what we reported in 2014. I always have paper and shuffling and moving. It's an occupational hazard. I didn't see anybody else. Walking in from the parking lot, like I've got a backpack and shoes and lunch, and her, you know, and I'm dragging things, and I look over the Senate, not the new Senator, but some of them are just a phone and they're like, what am I doing wrong? That's what staff is for. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. We don't have any of. Staff takes care of the details. I'm moving in every day. I'm a big picture guy. Okay, I need you, Katie. Sorry, Katie. Okay, please. So our task for today is coming up with the end of year recommendations. So I thought before we move forward, it would help to just take a step back and look at what we're required to do statutory life. So act 207, subsection D, specified what the work products are. So first what I just referenced is the compilation of minutes. And I don't think that was actually done last year. But what I plan to do is to just add an appendixy onto our recommendations with the reports that are the minutes attached. So that information is all together. But by January 1st of each year, the council is to submit its compilation of meeting minutes from the previous calendar year that summarizes the advisory council's activities. So we have them all finished. We just have to reference them to the recommendations. Part two, oops, I'm sorry. Part two is the recommendations. So that will probably be what we're most focused on this morning. But by January 1st, the council is to submit a list of policy recommendations and legislative priorities from the previous calendar year to the general assembly to the appropriate state agency or organization that are aimed at reducing incidences or mitigating the effects of childhood poverty. So this is a change from the previous council where there was a full blown report and this has been limited to policy recommendations, a list of policy recommendations. And then the third subsection is legislation and we've passed the introduction deadline at this point for both the House and Senate. So at this point, that's irrelevant unless a whole committee was interested in introducing a bill. So that is the charge. And if it's helpful to folks to look at last year's report while we're moving through, I might put that back up so we could just take a look at what we had, the different categories and work from there. Yes. That's useful. That's a good idea. Okay. I also took the first two pages of the act and put it in your back, it's what would be the charge. Okay, 207. Okay, great, thank you. So I don't think we really need to walk through this but there is just a statement purpose and authority so that would remain the same as your statutory charge hasn't changed. And then there's just right into the recommendations and the recommendations were grouped together by subject areas. So there were recommendations on childcare and early learning after school and summer programs, several recommendations on affordable housing, economic empowerment and employment supports, trauma and family supports. And then last year you had to come up with benchmarks. You don't have to do that this year. That was a one-year, yeah, that was just a year one project. So that doesn't have to happen. So that's last year's report and I know that several folks submitted recommendation suggestions already. So I think those are most of online as well. Great. Thank you very much. Any questions? All righty. So I was thinking we would just go through section by section and yeah, please stay there. And modify or, well, some of these may have been sort of met, right? So you can probably help us figure out if some of them have been achieved. Yeah, and then add everyone's, does that sound like a procedure? So the very first section is childcare and early learning. The advisory, there were these three recommendations, increasing childcare provider reimbursement rates. And then the childcare financial assistance program to the most current available market rates. Supporting and expansion of workforce incentives, including educational support for childcare providers and expanding eligibility within the UCCF. Is there a copy of that? Oh, we can give you a link. Can you just point us to the link? Yep, it's right on, go back to this page. So it's final report 2018 at the under additional information. Are you on the page for today's date? Well, who knows? I don't know, I'm sorry. She's got it out for that right now. She's got it out for that on December 19th. Yes, I'm on right there. Thank you very much. Oh, just final report. I can do it when we get to the section, but the title that you have is Reach Up Recommendations. Those are not recommendations Actually, I submitted the Reach Up Report from January because there's a section in that I wanted the council to take a look at when we get to the Empowerment, Economic Empowerment section. I'll change the title of that. Yeah, just the title, recommendations. Of this camera? No, no, that's why I want to change the title of that. What I submitted was the Reach Up Report, the evaluation of Reach Up that was due to the legislature in January of 2019 because there's a section in there about financial capabilities I wanted to talk about when we get to the Economic Empowerment. Yes. And I think the council should have that because there's other good things in that report you might want to look at. Oh yeah. Yes. So since this was in our committee this year in Human Services and since we, in your committee, we made a significant progress on this this year. However, I would keep it as a continuing recommendation. We are not yet at current available market rates. We are closing in on that. We have one time supports for workforce incentives and professional development but we don't have ongoing support for that and we did expand eligibility but it's, we're again in process, the Child Care Financial Assistance Program. You know, it's really in year one of a five year change process and so I would recommend that we update this to be reflective of the legislation and the budget that passed but that we keep it as a recommendation. Yeah. So it's very similar. Thank you representative because I had said well, the most current available market rate we're not there. We did make movement so that still makes sense to me that we wouldn't, we still need to make movement for that most current and it's good that you reminded us that it was one time money all those other two but yeah, all of those are still in flex and that we were one year of a five year step. We do want to acknowledge what has been achieved. Yes. Because otherwise that becomes a response. Yes. So that we've come this far we need to go for this. Right. Yeah. So does that tell me, Katie? Yep. Can I just have one question or ask one question? So one thing that we didn't put in there is about accessibility. So increasing access to and arguably increasing the assistance through CFAP increases access but I'm actually talking about increasing the actual numbers of childcare providers and numbers of spaces for children in childcare and we are doing a lot of active work on that and it seems odd to leave it off. I mean, last year we didn't put it on. I don't know why, but so I guess I would amend my recommendation to add that as a DSD. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. Do you need to specify how we would do that? Like repayment of student loans or? Well, what I was really thinking there is that we just put out 1.4 million in its partnership actually in public-private partnership. So we've put some one-time dollars legislatively into it but also the, no, I'm gonna forget the acronym but there's private philanthropy money that's already gone into that as well. Let's grow kids. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they're funding people. Right. I know. He's looking over there at me. I can't think of that. So what we're talking about is increasing the actual capacity and the number of spaces available and so it's infrastructure really. Okay. They could have had a union. They really child. I don't know if it was here. That's super fast. Um. Okay. No, it don't need 10 seconds of whiteness. I know. We've been under the right. That was before I was old. All right. Any other, just that it remains one of the top things from the off-site meeting, the child care, it's really important so it should stay on. Yeah. If you think it's not important to the economy as well, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston was here about 10 days ago and was really stressing. They've taken this up as a major issue for increasing workforce and the support to the economy in our whole region. As they've identified as a priority. Yeah. One thing we heard about at the public hearing was access for second and third shift. I don't know if there's any way to put variation in the timeframe because I know typically it's just that kind of daytime spaces. That's especially true given the importance of tourism in our state. A lot of people work in the ski areas in the evening. Nursing. Yeah. Yeah. Restaurant. I think it's the time I want to. Absolutely. Increasing access. It's the restaurant. Now where is it? I don't know. Okay, great. Yeah, thank you. All right, well then if everybody's satisfied with those changes, we can move on to number two. All right. After school and summer programs. And so there's one emerging recommendation to increase investments in after school and summer programs to expand high quality programs and increase statewide access. Have we made progress? Yeah. Here we are. Did we? Oh no, the childcare. The, when we were talking about childcare that included after school programs for those age cohorts, I can't tell you exactly how much it's gone to after school programs, but it included that group. So I could, so I've been, you know, they, after school had as it indicates here in the second paragraph of this report, you know, they had some, they had some boost in 17, 18. I think in the 18, the representative would have said it may have been underneath the cohort of the childcare, but not a whole lot that I can think of happened directly for them, other than the fact that they were working and engaging with the supports that we had already just given them. So I would like to see that continue to be a priority within our council only, well, for two reasons. Number one, because there's a lot of discussion in the federal level that it's been cut from the president's recommended budget. And for the strength of our Senate and congressional people, it's been reinstated in the past, but I don't know where that's going to go. And so that's something to really worth watching. And I don't know if that's another time, but there's something else that I've been working with that I thought fit well within the after school cohort because I know that, remember a couple of years ago, people have been out here, we have the youth rights. They met youth across the straight state, met in Randolph on their own with some support to come up with this sort of bill of youth rights or rights declaration of youth rights that we included not last year, but the year before in our referencing. And there's maybe a mechanism that I've been working on with having heard from both Canada and really not like Helsinki students that the whole country of Canada has passed this youth voice act that encompasses their ability to have a voice, a structured voice that comes into decisions that are being made within their state government and well in this case would be state government that they wanna have a voice in. So I had checked with people that I will be introducing or working on a bill to see how to structure that. So I was hoping that maybe we could offer it as something that we could support under the after school point. And I don't think we passed it out, but it's only one, two sentences, rather run on, but can I just read it? And then is that okay? And then I just wanted to see if it would work in there or not. It was just yesterday that I really worked on it with some people, but it would say that youth people, youth people, young people. Youths, youths, youths, youths. They live in, it's all right. Young people are problem solvers who are eager to be engaged in making our state stronger, healthier and happier place to live. Vermont youths have collectively written a youth declaration of rights that we should recognize. Vermont should commit to requiring collecting meaningful input and feedback from our young people, especially on policies that affect them. So I was hoping that we could maybe insert that and I offer that as a possibility. Great, yes, thank you. So not really changing the, I mean, leaving, leaving or changing, but I think that is a. Right. Can I ask a question? Yes. I'll represent it, Lanford. So this referred to the $600,000 in the tobacco settlement funding. And honestly, the tobacco settlement funding went through so many different changes last year. Can you confirm whether or not this stayed? Can anybody hear legislatively confirm whether or not this stayed? Cause I can't. No, I'm not, yes. I think there's somebody here but I believe it was over a three year period and it wasn't taken away. Okay. Yeah, we'll, or can you maybe, yeah. So it was one time money, you're correct, it was through tobacco settlement. It was allocated over two years and the grants have been already put out. There was two and a half million dollars in requests and $600,000 for granted. Okay. This one came out. Yes, yeah. If it didn't actually go out it would have been right. And so do we, maybe we should... Update the section you're saying that. Yeah. And so, can I ask Amy a question? Yeah. Did you say there were two and a half million dollars worth of requests? So that just sort of aligns with the two and a half million shown by the after school council? We can provide details if you want to. I just feel like we should update. Update. Is that correct? No. No? Okay. Okay, good, I'm glad I asked. So what? Well, it says we allocated it and so I guess we should say that we made grants to however many organizations and Amy can give you the details. Yeah. So we can insert after that what the report was going to be about. And then we can just give some details as to what happened. So keep the first sentence and then just have some description. And then do you want something above the 2.500 requests or no? I think showing what the need is is part of what we should do. Yeah. That would be good, yeah. So I'll get that for you. Yes, thank you. Okay. And then, so then how do people feel about representative Lampers edition about voices for other people? Yeah, thank you. That's good too. Okay. May I take that from you? Oh no! Oh my God! Okay, any other additions or changes? Okay, great. So we will move on to section 3, which is affordable housing. We made three recommendations here. The three-legged stool, increasing capital investments to reduce the shortage of affordable housing in Vermont. For example, by providing full-status or re-funding for the BHCB. Second, increasing rental assistance and other housing-related financial supports. For example, increasing funding for the Vermont Rental Subsidy and Housing Opportunity Grant Program. And third, expanding investments in sports services to increase housing retention for families. For example, by increasing funding for family supportive housing. So these are kind of the three standard overall recommendations in this area. Kind of looking in the air hard. And if there's anything you want to add or take on that? I'll just note, so thanks again for taking testimony on housing. And I think I'd add to the title Affordable Housing and Homelessness, Family Homelessness. Yeah. In case we had some compelling testimony both on the family supportive housing program and its outcomes, its positive outcomes from Emily Higgins at OEO as well as the positive outcomes from the HOP or Housing Opportunity Grant Program. I think these can remain pretty much as is. We provided a fair amount of data points and outcomes that may update some of the narrative that comes after the recommendations that's supportive. Happy to work with Katie to highlight some of those but they're all on the October meeting website. So the only thing I might add to this is just to put a finer point on it, you heard from Ellen Hender at the Upper Valley Haven about the positive outcomes and the need for more money for family supportive housing. And I would just say that that's probably one of our, that and the HOP program are two of our highest priorities for homeless families and alleviating that this year. And I'll just also add on the HOP program, one thing that did not maybe receive as much attention and I know Sandy has talked about this in the past but one of the recommendations we relate is to increase rental or re-reach assistance which flows often through the HOP program to help kind of go upstream and help prevent evictions to begin with for families that are having financial difficulties and for whom a month or two or possibly three months of rental or re-ears might actually prevent the spiraling downwards into homelessness. So I would maybe just say we can put a finer point on the HOP and family supportive housing based on the testimony that we heard. Again, happy to work with Katie on the kind of narrative the need statement. Maybe one other thing, we did hear testimony from 211 about the safety net and loss of the 24-7 that's since been restored at least through April for emergency housing and then only from till the end of the fiscal year for the rest of their resource and referral services and I guess I would recommend putting in something about 211 and fully funding 211's 24-7 services for the next fiscal year since that's gonna be up for discussion this winter. Thank you, so there's a Dean here? Yes. One thing that I agree with that error and that recommendation and it's not that we direct people what to do but through the Halloween flood it was clear that they were directing people to 211 which they immediately put back to 24 hours somehow. So it seems like it shouldn't just be incumbent upon the agency human services and wherever that funding comes from it should be collaborative. So ANR or Vermont Emergency Management it should be a more comprehensive and therefore maybe more doable to get that to an ongoing 24-7 but that wasn't really my comment. My other comment was around the housing vouchers and the supportive services and it feels like we should make a statement here about the lack of something more concrete since we know how many housing vouchers gone unused because of the lack of supportive services. So there is a special, so there is a report that came out that was required on special needs and specialized vouchers that has a series of recommendations in there. One that I want to point out in particular is that that report actually suggests that Vermont Rental Subsidy be considered more flexibly instead of just increasing funding or to do Vermont Rental Subsidy as temporary rental assistance to consider. Vermont Rental Subsidy largely supports reach-up families. At this point in time, I think it's almost 100% reach-up families because of the way that program is structured and the legislative report suggests looking at ways that that funding can be used more flexibly to support reach-up families who are homeless and I think in an effort to address maybe some of the imbalance between services and subsidy. So that might be, what's in that report is different than this recommendation so that might be one thing to consider but that report also has the series of recommendations in it. So Sarah, can I just close, people who had, and while our illustrious chair was traveling the world, I was trying to gather or might, well anyway, people who would respond from our council with ideas and so I tried to keep it in one and then Sarah, I did, you sent an email with an ask or at least to take a look at with the specialized housing voucher group report and she had indicated thank you for saying what page it was on. It's a long report. It's a long report. She said on age 30, number two, and like dialed me, dialed it right in. So I printed it and so I was looking at you because that was one of the many recommendations that are within this report that you had suggested maybe it might be something that fit in our world. So the language is here, right? And it's number two. Number two. Which is consider increased flexibility in the way the Vermont rental subsidy is used to support housing stability, stability to families, of families receiving reach up. Currently, VRs is an important housing resource that predominantly serves reach up families experiencing homelessness. Maintaining this resource to support permanent housing stability for reach up families is critically important at the same time considering the increased availability of federal rapid rehousing assistance. It may be helpful to consider more flexible options for the use of these funds to support housing stability for reach up families. It's kind of a lot. Would you, do you want to maybe care that down or? We can get that started. Yeah, I'm sure if you just use the first sense of it. Yeah. Okay. Right. Flexibility is the most important thing for sensitive reach up families. All right. So I'm going to clear that right off from that first sentence. Okay. Is there, is there another one? It also speaks to families for housing, which as you know, we testified is only in seven counties currently. Yep. And it needs to be state like for folks on the council, you may recall we briefly referenced this report. It was not out yet at the October meeting. And then we met in Rutland in November or so weren't able to get a report. It would have been nice to get an overview from Alison Hart in Secretary's office on that. So if I'm looking at it, that's number five. Yes. Of the, of the five recommendations what you're referencing is number five. Expand family supportive housing. Yep, it's number five. Two, okay. I mean, it's worth, family supportive housing is a strong program that agency and the department supported. This is a recommendation that was not unanimous from the work group. That's the little answers. Yes. That's the answer. Just as a note, as a sign of the, the work group included members, many officials from the administration on it. So that was one of the reasons why some of the recommendations couldn't be that related to budget couldn't be unanimous. We understand. Okay. At the public hearing we did hear some feedback around the education of homeless children and keeping them in school. And if we're gonna be making this affordable housing and family homelessness, I don't know if there is anything that the council might want to note about the education aspect of homeless children. I wonder, is this the best, is this the best place? I'm not sure. Yeah. The only, I mean, maybe under five trauma families. Or, that would be, would it be there? I think that it would work in either one. If we're adding the family homelessness to that category, I think it would probably feel better to have it under that as opposed to trauma, just because it is directly dealing with homelessness. But I think it could go in either category. We only have two over in that one. Yeah. It might stand out a little bit more in five is what I'm trying to put into it. I've listened to the family supportive housing help, help homeless families stay in the school district. Maybe not, maybe that's not one of the services. No, it's not specifically designed to help people stay in the school district, it's just, it's just- But if that's one of the issues, they would be trying to maintain the family in the house. In housing. Yes, yes. I would take the kid in the school district. And unfortunately that they would need to be able to access family supportive housing for that to impact them and then think up as we just heard because it's not in every county that wouldn't necessarily be something that would alleviate that I think. To just put it in context, at this moment in time there are probably about 300 homeless families in Vermont and family supportive housing service families who were homeless, right? But families for housing caseload at this moment in time is about 150 families. So it's not to scale, I think it's the point that stood in our hearts racing and others were racing. In my experience in the program was that it was very focused on your housing and your access to staying in housing and keeping them in housing. And the conversation around the education piece was more around giving you the number for places you could call that might potentially be able to help you. So when I see family supportive housing, what comes to mind is Harbor Place for me. And am I getting that wrong? Yes. Wrong. Not totally, okay, so I'm thinking that this is. Harbor Place is essentially a non-profit motel operated by the Schengen Housing Trust that has a contract with the Department for Children and Families to use that as a really affordable motel choice for folks who need emergency housing in Chinning County. Family supportive housing identifies families within a community who are homeless and helps place them into housing and provides long-term support services for them in permanent housing. So it's just a different part of the program. I think of the services that are there that isn't just the hotel. That was what was in the tractor. It was the wraparound when I think of the supportive services is that within that scope they're not just at a hotel, they're there and there's somebody there for employment and there's people there to assist. There's certainly more support at Harbor Place than there would be. Running the motel where someone is in the motel thanks to a general systems temporary housing voucher, motel voucher. It is very different that way and people often graduate from Harbor Place into Schengen Housing Trust housing or other housing opportunities. But family supportive housing is more like what you heard from Ellen in October. A family that she supported in the program at the upper valley in the Harbor. I appreciate you setting me straight, because I don't want to have a miscarriage. Could I give just a quick review of what are the differences? What kind of services, if family is in a motel with a voucher? That's all they get. Or do they get other attention? Can I feel that since we administer those programs? So the services at Harbor Place are to be services around housing search and placement, around applying and finding for housing, around identifying what are your barriers to getting into housing and trying to address those barriers quickly. Around getting connected to mainstream services like employment or mental health or substance use or whatever individualized issues are, getting those connections made. Those would be the kind of services that would be in place when people are in emergency housing or emergency shelter like Harbor Place or shelter. Family supportive housing is gonna do some of the work to get people housed, which is a little bit of that same housing mitigation work and to get people connected to arrange the services. But then they're gonna provide long-term support services, individualized, intensive, home-based case management for families in that permanent housing. So that family gets leased up in housing. They may have experienced homelessness. Other times they may got a lot of things going on. They're getting stabilized. They're gonna meet with them weekly, if not more. They're gonna follow up and help coordinate and connect them to other services. They're gonna liaise on with the landlord in an ongoing way. So it's different kind of services. It's not transition services. It's a longer term services. And NECA actually administers family supportive housing. But by contrast, the family that just gets a voucher and goes into a motel, they get none of that? In a motel other than Harbor Place? Yeah, yeah. Now there are other families in motels do access housing navigation support. There's limits to what's available in communities, but. So family supportive housing is a different program than just housing navigation. So in our agency, that person, the case manager does everything that the family identifies that they need to support in. And I don't think it's like a one size fits all program. It's really individualized for that family's needs. So we do a lot of advocacy for families in schools. We help parents do nighttime routines. We offer individual and group financial literacy classes and parenting, coaching. So it's really designed around what those families on that caseload need. And it's not limited to housing. No one just gets a voucher and the address of the motel and we say good luck. No, they could be a motel, they're not. And it's more individualized because the goal is to keep people of house and families together. I would also say that the family supportive housing program is someone who's utilized it. They do a really great job of preparing relationships with service providers. Because a lot of times I don't work and we had a lot of difficult relationships prior to that. And so that person really helped us repair those relationships and build trust in systems and in providers, as well as the financial literacy piece was a huge step. Really helping to understand how to budget. Really helping to understand how to effectively budget and how to come back from maybe going out and buying something that you didn't need but maybe had, we all have those things. Maybe it's a couple books from the bookstore, whatever that is, but really working through that with you in the moment as you're going through it so that you're not alone in it and you don't end up back in that spiral where things are out of control and you aren't able to access support. So it's really about building that trust and ensuring that you feel comfortable talking to your provider and letting them know where your struggles are so that they can help you in real time with the struggles as they're happening. So well, you know, I've come in here after three days in budget adjustment so I've really, so we've been upstairs and so we've heard a request to adjust the budget and to say for the hotel vouchers because there are 16,000 nights so far this year and we haven't even gotten into where and they're predicting a potential 25,000 more nights between now and the end of fiscal year 20, which is still hot. So they're asking for an additional from what we already funded last year, an additional 1.6, 1.9, $2 million just to get readjusted. So there's something going on again even of all the supports that we've put into place, right? That there's that many hotel vouchers. I mean, we need to do it but it's an indicator of where the system needs to be built on the other side stronger. I think part of it is limited bed space and shelters. I know that in Burlington as at the low barrier shelter we're turning away anywhere from six to 10 people every night and those are people who can't access 211 for a number of reasons and so I think that is very likely to continue to increase. And 211 was recommended to be fully funded in budget adjustment for the rest of this year. So I'm going to make a very bad assumption that if the agencies are coming in with the $162,000 ask to fund 211, 247 for the rest of 20 that when I see the budget in January, it should be fully funded and I think we brought enough attention to it. May I just build on that? I did attach a letter, or I did send a letter tonight, okay, great. And just to clarify, the 211 is funded through April for the 247. What their business plan is, is to be able to build capacity within the state of Vermont to provide the 365 247 service ongoing. That might cost a little bit more in the initial two years but right now rather than contracting out to these external contractors which their performance is not what we can deliver in Vermont and we can talk to Mary Ellen more about that but that we're kind of, our money isn't going, we could better spend that money by employing people in Vermont by building our contact center and then we would get the contract from the other New England states and other states and we would potentially bring revenue in but it might take a year or two to bring that revenue into offset the cost and I believe that was for that plan to AHS but I really appreciate your comments representative with that. It is, it's all of us, it's the whole state so should this be more of a cross agency or a cross sector funding for 211 because there's many, many programs in the health department included that utilize their services and it is essential and I feel like this business model needs more voice and more discussion. And the other thing I'll say is I just think Katie's right about including the homelessness and supports for kids even if there's a lot under here because I think the schools are sound to have an educational liaison or somebody that will do a little visits and kids are homeless and I think it is a homelessness topic. So let me just summarize what I heard while we're at it, I want to say something. I just summarized what Katie, what I think I do. One addition of representative Lanter's point about the motel voucher overage and the budget adjustment request. So one of the things that's happening in addition to shelters, one of the reasons that shelters are full all the time is because it's hard to graduate folks out of shelter into permanent housing. If one of the data points that we provided came from Sarah's hot report is that the average length of stay, the average length of stay in a shelter in Vermont is 52 days. Again, this year it's the second year in a row where it's been the longest, longest shelter stay, longest average shelter stay over the last 18 years. And that's an indicator of how backed up the system is because there's not enough affordable housing for people to go to. And so that gets back to the first point of we also need more affordable housing to deal with that shortage so that people with supports that are needed and with a voucher, if we can get it from the federal government or from a state program, together with a voucher and the support services, there needs to be more affordable housing for them to go to as well. Right, okay. Okay, so let me take a stab at summarizing what we have said in terms of what we would put in our recommendations. So we would keep the three that we already have and then we would add a fourth one that would encourage a flexible use of Vermont rental subsidies for reach up families and reference the report of the committee. We would add one that would recommend a more comprehensive cross-sectoral funding for the 211 program to make it 365-247 and then we would add one that would recommend education support to full homeless children. Is that? What about the number five in the HHS report, was that? This one expanded family support of housing. It's actually in there already that you have it in there. Yes, it's in there. Yeah, that's number, that's C. Yeah, okay, that's C. Okay, yeah, thank you. Good. All right, is that a fair summary of what we said? The only additional thing was adding homelessness to the title. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, homelessness. So, Katie, I don't know if Katie's gonna have a chance to look at the report, but recommendation number four is very specific also in that report and it's broader, but it references the Housing Opportunity Grant Program. And again, it wasn't one of the unanimous recommendations, but it was a strong recommendation for those of us who are not, you know, not administration officials, invest additional funding for housing case management services and retention via the Department of Children and Families Housing Opportunity Grant Program. So, I think those two four and five go in that report go together. One is for HOP and the other is for HOP. It kind of goes with the original, that three B references HOP. So in the original one, it's, the only reason I cited it is because it has this, I think kind of an overarching statement about investing additional funding for housing case management services and retention, that sort of over. Maybe we can just reference the report. Yeah, or just include a case management. Yeah, include a case management. That's what's provided both through HOP and through Family Support Housing. Sort of binding something together. With a link. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments about the second? We're trekking along here. All right, let us move on to section number four, which is economic empowerment and employment supports. And a number of recommendations. A, increasing the minimum wage in Vermont alongside corresponding adjustments and benefits eligibility to avoid a net loss to beneficiaries. B, the adoption of paid family and mental leave legislation. C, increasing funding for economic programs that create jobs and build savings and assets. For example, the micro business development program and the Vermont match savings program. D, investing in workforce training and financial literacy education. E, supporting transportation related public initiatives including increasing public transportation options, increasing access to reliable and affordable vehicles and providing license fee and fine remediation assistance. And F, increasing reach up financial assistance for households to 100% of their basic needs based on the current cost of living with automatic increases for inflation. And G, reversing the reduction in reach up grant amounts for households where an adult with a disability is receiving supplemental security protection. Okay, let's go one by one, shall we? There's a lot here. And I can just say that we heard from Karen and Karen provided a really nice, she's got several good, so she can speak to her audience. So I'm gonna pass this out. Okay, that's about reach ups, basically right here. These are, well, it's about reach up in all of the economic, but Amy, you want to go to the reach up. I've just read the voices thing and I think they make some good suggestions for tweaking the language. Sorry, it's not in color, so you can't see the changes, but they're very brief. I'm also passing out in addition to some of the recommended changes, I'm passing out a one page excerpt from the reach up report that I put near that talks about financial capabilities, financial future programs of the reach up participants. And I'm also passing out the testimony from Travis Pullin about the volunteer income tax assistance program. So what I'm suggesting is in the economic empowerment employment, I just sent this to Katie and Diane, I did not send this to you, because I didn't want to send you out of town, sorry. And I didn't send this specifically to Mike separately, so I believe that I just don't have it on this computer. So I absolutely continue the minimum wage and I think the voices has some language on that. Adoption of paid family leave, voices has some language on that. In item C, in terms of increasing funding for economic programs, I suggested adding the word increased base funding because for the past three years, we have increased funding in micro business, but that's always been a one time. And so I think it's important for people to administer those programs to be able to count on that money in the base. And we have had it in the base at one point in time that either the house puts in, the senate takes it out or something like that. So we absolutely appreciate the extra $100,000 that has been in for micro business and the addition to the IDAs. But that should be something that should be in the base if folks are willing to go along with that. In section D, investing in workforce training and financial literacy education, I am proposing adding in between training and the financial literacy education is adding financial capability programs that is different than the financial literacy curriculum that is taught in the education system. And that's something that's part and parcel of every economic program, whether it's teaching people how to save, whether it's teaching them how to repair their credit, but it's just a number of financial education and capabilities for adults, for programs that work part and parcel with trying to get them to financial security. And that one page excerpt talks about the financial futures program for reach of participants that has been really, really successful. So I'm just adding financial capability because it is different from financial literacy education curriculum. E is fine. I am suggesting adding one section to support funding for tax preparation programs for low income. For example, the volunteer income tax assistance program. You'll see in that report from Travis where the state through OEO did give the community action agencies and the people that administered the income tax assistance program additional monies to do that. I mean, this is a program that saves low income tax payers upwards of $80 million in tax credits and assistance tax rebates. And that money was provided through OEO was discretionary money. It's not necessarily gonna be there again or maybe Sierra can speak to that. But I just think this is something we should hopefully have even the tax department or someone in state government take a look at. They operate on a very minimal, less than $50,000 grant from the federal government. And what this program does with the volunteers and doing all that is just tremendous for low income folks and they certainly can use more resources. And I moved the reach up to item G and I was hoping that voices would recommend there's been a couple of groups that I've been meeting about reach up changes. And as you know, that we did do some significant changes last year, but in voices under reach up in that document that they sent out, first they were right. So they are suggesting the language I think increased cash assistance to Vermont's most vulnerable families to the current basic needs standard and eliminate the $77 a month penalty for families with an adult who has a disability. You should change that language to with disabilities instead of disabled. So we certainly would, I certainly support that language. It recognizes what we have done in the legislature with that, especially eliminating the $77 a month that it is something that this policy has never should have been passed again with it, but it was originally 125 deduction and people's reach up benefit because they were receiving some disability income. We have finally used that to 77, which means that those families unfortunately don't get the benefit of the increase, kind of brings them with par with what they received before. They don't get the benefit of the increase in reach of assistance while that tax still remains. So that would be my recommendation. I don't know if Amy wants to add anything to the reach up piece. No, I think you covered it well. Starting with the we propose would probably be the language that we would choose along with that top part. Oh, just to pay to me that, yeah, the language that voices suggest is great for each of those. I think it more defines. So on that very top, this, this song visually, this top to replace for H. But we'll be replacing G, but also they have changed the new H if we followed your other, yeah. They have changes in family and medical leave insurance. They suggest, they suggest some, just a different line for family and medical leave. They say provide economic support and job security to families facing a serious illness or a bond with a new child. And that can go under B, the adoption of paid family leave. Okay. And I'm gonna take the main idea. We also suggest using a supplemental poverty measure and coming up with a more specific one, if possible. I don't know if that fits into this section as much, but just a better indicator of the balance of services and need gives a better picture of how families are able to make an allegation. Okay, and yes. One of the things I liked about the language from the last recommendation was that it said, increasing reach of financial assistance for households to 100% of their basic needs, just because I like that it's making clear that we're eliminating the rate of reduction. So we both wanna eliminate the rate of reduction and increase the basic needs budget so that it's the current budget. So I just would like to have that 100% of needs in there. That's the current act. And that's the current. That's what's in the, that was, what was in the, yeah, the laws. What is, what's that point of perspective? At the public hearing this year and last year, we heard a lot about the benefit cliff and the struggle that folks who are living with a disability are having with trying to return to the workforce. And so I just wonder if there is anything or any language that we might wanna consider, including around either the benefit cliff or supporting increasing opportunities and access. For disabled folks to return to the workforce. And while A does reference the benefits with trying to raise mental health value. So I think part of the benefit cliff is also losing all of your disability or your supplemental income when you're just going back into the workforce, especially because that could mean that if it doesn't work out for you or if for some reason you can't maintain that hours, you would not have the financial security. And with, at, unless you're in that ticket to work program you have to go back through the disability process or potentially get involved in a process to ensure that you have that stability again. So there's some things that are federal that can't change and there's other things that are from on base, which might be tenant. And we have increased. We've allowed you to earn an extra $50, I think in the last couple of years before your reach up benefits get up but maybe you wanna look at increasing that again, I think. Yeah, that is relating to what you just said, Karen, in terms of what we have done. I think it's in court, especially since this is the second year of the biennium to reflect the action that was taken in the first year. So things about like the SSI. Yeah, that's why I liked what voices said because they recognized that it was reduced and we did have an increase in reach up. You did in reach up. I just think we should put them, like we're doing with childcare, put what we do. Yeah, yeah. I think we're rotating on that too. Okay, so the other thing I would like to see is with regard to increasing the minimum wage, if we could say increasing the minimum wage so that it's consistent with a livable wage. The concern being that if we say increase it to 15 by whatever, 20, 30, it's not, we won't get there, right? And I have another thought about that. Well, I guess I would also say increase the minimum wage for all workers so that that would be my suggestion so that we don't eliminate, we don't exclude high school workers and tipped wages. Yeah, because in A, it doesn't, it's implied that it's everybody. Increase minimum wage in Vermont alongside the adjustment, right? So in terms of putting, recognizing what the legislature, do you wanna do that in the actual recommendation or do you just wanna put it in some of the stuff explaining as saying that the legislature increased reach up to, by such and such an amount and reduce the reduction to 77? Do you wanna just say that in the body? And do you wanna put it in? Yeah, I think I'd say the pattern is to do it in the narrative. But you're hard to do. Yeah, just, it was one of our priorities as well to look at the income disregard and also the asset limits, which was another factor that the general assembly has increased the amount of assets that someone can have who's on reach up over the last few years. So the two kind of go hand in hand. I would urge putting both of those into. So are you saying increase the income disregard or examine it or? I think continuing to increase the income disregard, which helps with the benefit clips issue. Okay, so you might have to summarize what we've said here. Well, I think we could go off of what Karen passed out to us, do we? So A and B, well, B, I think with recommendation was to change the language to the voices language regarding family medical leave. So, you just add that to adoption of the family. I think you can keep the adoption of paid family leave and medical leave legislation, which provides economic support and job security for families facing, you know, just add it to it. And then C, we add work base funding. D, we add financial capability programs. E is the same. Be a new F regarding tax preparation programs. Yep. G would be the old F. Yeah, would be the old F. With, we're okay with? Yeah. I think we're okay with. I don't know if that's the voices language. When the voices language. We're not going to start reading those. Added, but Sandy wanted to keep the 100%. Yeah. And now we're just going to start. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Okay, so the new G, what was previously F, would read increased cash assistance to Vermont's most vulnerable families to 100% of the basic needs and eliminate the $77 monthly penalty for families with an adult who has a disability. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. And I was a little bit confused on A. I think I heard changes along the lines of increasing the minimum wage for all workers for Vermont to be consistent with the wage alongside corresponding adjustments and benefit eligibility to avoid a net loss to benefits, including loss of disability benefits. Is that accurate? Yeah. It was more so the region, right? Yeah. I think not that last part, but the risk would you say the rest is fine. Okay. Should we put, just somehow put the term benefits cliff in there so that's, that's what we're addressing. Right. Why don't we just say that? So avoid the net loss of benefits. Yeah, cause people know the term benefits cliff. That makes sense to them. Okay. So to avoid perpetuating the benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay. All right, quick. And then the H, so what used to be G is now H reversing reduction and reach up grand amounts of, oh no, but no, we've already covered that. We've already covered that $77, but then air hard wanted to have an H, which was. Well, it could be far to reach up. Yeah. It's a subset of the reach up piece. Yeah. So we could, so H is then included in the income disregard and assets limit. That's going to be the, well, that makes G awfully unwieldy, I think. Can we make this everyone? I don't see any H, am I missing something? No, it should be. It should be. It should be. When you got two Gs, you actually got two Gs. I moved on. I moved on. You crossed up the G and I made it an H. An H. You bumped in that. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Okay. So does that change? You're right. The apple that I just mentioned. Yeah. The model changed the apple. That's hard. But we know these anyway. Yeah. Okay. Just closing on the minimum wage. So part of the whole issue around minimum wage as well. And one of the things that, I think that became potentially problematic last year in the passage was the issue of non-profits and others that provide social services, especially to folks with disabilities and the pay for them. And if we do raise to a $15 an hour minimum wage, there's a potential there that some organizations that are state funded are currently not able to provide that. We all heard testimony from nursing homes, from community care homes, from various providers. So I think we should probably add a statement in there that the state of Vermont should pay all of its workers a little wage without sacrificing the quality of or access to social services. And maybe also include workers that, it's not just the state of Vermont, it's also the non-profits that are providing essential services. I don't disagree with you at all on that, having been, but I'm just, of this being the poverty piece, we might be just drifting off into a little different zone and that the minimum wage and its impacts in those in poverty and strengthening families, I was just gonna stay in that. Not that I disagree with that. I understand that the first folks in poverty receive some of those services and you don't want those services to be impacted. Well, maybe that would be something for the narrative. Yeah, let's not, you know that a little bit. That we recognize that the increase is going to go beyond, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And people in the RAC for Work Committee. And people in poverty provide some of those services as well. Yeah. Just to, so it's not gonna benefit them if their hours get reduced. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Good point. All right. Okay, are we all satisfied with that? Thanks, John. Yes, thank you Karen. That was very helpful to have it written. Okay, moving on to number five, trauma and family supports. Two recommendations to support and monitor the implementation of the Agency of Human Services Act 43 Childhood Trauma Response Plan. And secondly, to support increased funding for parent child centers and their two-generated approach supporting the five protective factors. I do think we may, So it's not, we have all the burdens. We have all the burdens, we have all the burdens. So Act 204, passed in 2018, was what followed Act 43. And the response to, the response plan included a response to Act 43 and included Act 204, which formed the role that I'm in. So I don't know if we wanna reference Act 204 in there, Katie, or not, but that might clarify some of that. There are two pieces of legislation to look at in addressing trauma through the Agency. And then I would just say that I didn't get a chance to report verbally to you all, but I did send to you a slide deck that won't make sense because I didn't send you all my notes with it and I wasn't able to present on it. But it was a quick sort of, there's only one slide of accomplishments and that's not even half of what's happened since I've been there, but, and then what else is included under my name, like Mike said, you're putting the documents under our names is Act 204, Act 43, and the response plan. They're all there as well as the Agency's trauma policy so that you can see that there as well. And then my little four slide deck because I knew I was only gonna have like 15 minutes or whatever to talk to you all. So that's all, that should all be under my name, I believe. So what's really neat on that note is if you go to witness in the main page, where you are on the advisory council child property, it goes down through when you click on it. So I'm just looking. 204 is there, so 43 is not there. Cause the document about trauma, that's the AHS trauma important services policy. That's what that is. That's over here on the side. Oh, there you go, there you go. And these three are just static on the page all the time. So, so. And then the report is my slide deck, which is just really small. Which has some of the accomplishments since I've been there. So, so then that was for change ages, support monitor that the two pieces of legislation. I'd be happy to give a more detailed report at some point in the future. Like going down through that response plan, so you have a better understanding of what the agency is working on. Going forward, I just do want to say that I've had a preliminary conversation with the secretary about developing a statewide table that would map and strategize what the state is doing across Vermont with regard to trauma and these things. And so, I'm looking at sort of garnering support for the development of that table to make sure that we have right now a really clear view of what is happening, where the gaps in services, where the gaps in services are to address trauma and resilience in families, children and families. Specifically because Act 204, in Act 204 the General Assembly really stated support for a public health approach to address childhood adversity and toxic stress in families across Vermont. And so, it's hard to do that without knowing what's out there. And then the need is to assess the overlaps and gaps, the duplications and then be able to coordinate through evaluation and supporting the current state of the workforce that's doing the work around trauma and resilience as well. So, my hope is to create that cross sector table statewide with statewide leadership and to do that work. So, I just wanted to give you that forward momentum part. So, would you say support? So, how would you update those two? Yes, that A and B, two, we've got. Well, these are all a lot of things. Yeah, these are all things. I can give Katie some language for both, but the first one, let me go back to- But we need a little bit of a hint so we can- Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, that's the first one. Support according to the implementation of the Agency of Human Services Act 43, Child to Trauma Response Plan. I think that's still what it's called. It's in the requirements of Act 204? Yeah, in meeting the requirements of Act 204. Yeah, that'd be great. And then, I don't know if you want it. I don't, I've just threw that out there where I'm going in the future with that statewide table. Is that in the requirements of Act 204? No. I don't have any idea of it. That's just something I'm doing. As part of my role, Act 204 requires a public health approach to address these things across Vermont. And so my response to that is we need a statewide table to establish this in this way, you know. So that's part of the Act 204 purpose of that act. So I don't know- Should we state that or not? It seems too specific to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. You might be hearing it as a narrative. It's more of a, you know, reported to you about like the future response to Act 204. It would probably come out if we said, hey, we need to know more about Act 204. That would come out as a part of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Great, okay. Thank you, Auburn. It's important. Yes, here. Do we want to add either here or under the education piece, something about monitoring the special ed stuff or looking at the peer navigation assistance for families with disabilities or something like that. Recognizing what Katie said or I don't know if you just want to monitor it or if we want to look at- Well, we have a whole new special ed law that is, you know, in the process of being enacted. I mean, you know, well, you're an education person. You say what we're doing and not what I am doing. Yes, yes, there you go, you guys. I think the other advisory board with special ed is reviewing Act 173, which is a funding mechanism and it kind of really changes the program of special education. It feels like it gets to some of what Katie was talking about in terms of being able to intervene earlier without having to- Well, it does. It will definitely get to service delivery, for sure. Yes, yes. But I think- Well, I think the funding is an issue as we speak, right? Is it one-seventh? The funding will open up service delivery. Yes. It looks different, but I think that there's a gap with, I think it's both in what we've talked about with peer navigation and training and funding for, you know, from out federation families with family network, but I think it's also how do we get the training for special educators, right? Those teams are trained. The training that happens in school is for teachers to work with children. It's not for teachers to work with families. So I think it's a kind of a parallel and who does, in whose role is that? Is it, you know, collaboration with agencies, with human services and special educators? I think that speaks to kind of going at a problem from both sides because I think sending trained advocates and loaded for a bear against our school administrator. It's not really a good setup for success. That's part of it, you know, at one-seventy-three again is having, having license for special educators. Sort of. So it's about expanding services that can be provided by lots of different people in schools. So can I, can I just, I was gonna offer, okay, but I don't have the license to your from Katie and then we'll have you offer. I would just following up on what Karen said, maybe ask the council to consider if there's any language around recognizing the impact or the trauma that families are navigating. And I don't know the language we wanna use, but it is definitely something that is a growing challenge for families in poverty in Vermont in navigating it, whether the funding comes through, whether we make all these great changes, that the trauma is still there and the impact on families in poverty and their ability to have financial stability and the resilience of both the parents and the kids, I think are, are important aspects of that conversation. And so perhaps. So yeah. So I was like, I was just trying to remember when we didn't wanna like totally duplicate everything that was happening. There was a summer study that was on the, remember the minimum wage bill, you know, like our poverty council cared about a great deal and especially what was gonna come out of it. We didn't have to replicate everything in our world. So I'm thinking that that might be a path that we could go with. What was it? The Education and the Advisory Council for Act 173 that we would want to make sure that we are aware of and keep ourselves informed over the year, right? We don't have to replicate what's going on in there. I've been to at least three of their meetings. At State Board, we've taken testimony from them every month. It's really, Act 173 is really about funding. It's not an expanding service. It is not about. So I would recommend that on C, we recognize that, you know, the impact on families, you know, experience, well, HDSP said they need to recognize that this is an issue for keeping their children in school. How do we word that? I think it might be, I don't know how you want to word it, but I think the importance of recognizing the impact on the family unit as a whole in the trauma piece of it because they do think that one, it impacts the kids ability to be in school consistently, but it's also impacting parents ability to stay in work and to have their income and be able to provide for the basic needs of their families. How about if we make a little more positive statement and say that we support improvements in peer-to-peer navigation and training for teachers to mitigate the trauma. However you want to perpetrate it all. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's nice, thank you. Yeah, how about Katie's thinking about assisting families? Yeah, and then family network as well. Vermont family network is. So that the peer, that the navigation can assist not only with the training of the teachers, but also with the families, especially both with disabilities. Yeah, it's like, even back in the report, like we didn't want to name a place, but we did say, you know, where we had increasing rental support, for example, increasing funding for, and there's like for example, increasing funding for the Vermont family network would be an example of where to. Out with that, am I right on that? Yeah, all right. I think there's a number of agencies, Vermont family is federated to, I can't. Yes, thank you, there's a number of them that do support it, but Vermont family network is definitely one that would be the primary in the state around the education. Yeah, I don't know if you want to mention them specifically, I think you want to talk about what the issue is that you're trying to adjust as assistance for families and providing the work that's not in the field. Yeah, yeah. So I think that that makes some sense. I want to, I'm not weighing in on the recommendation per se, but I just want to add that families experiencing the complexity of trauma and trauma exposure and toxic stress in general benefit from peer navigation, peer supports. So, and I'm saying across the board, not just families with special needs, but families with foster children, foster care children, families experiencing that complexity. So just taking it up even a higher level, just to acknowledge the benefit of that kind of shared connection, right? Which we know is a protective factor, builds a protective factor and builds resilience in those families. That might be good, and I think that's the key is the peer navigation for the families either experiencing poverty or with disabilities or anything. Foster care, any kind of complex trauma. Okay, so that's adding one, but let's go back to being, yeah, so support increased funding for parent-child centers. And the five years that you've had. Is that something we just wanted to say? This is where we would have a difficult time, I think trying to elaborate what exactly was done last year, it was, because we, we took away and we gave back, and then we took away with the left hand and gave back to the right hand. Yeah, so I don't know exactly how it's, I don't, and the net was, what was the net? The net was the net was the minus, was it under, yeah that's what I know. 200k loss? 300, yeah, so, yeah. So, we should keep this in the room. So, yeah, I feel like we need to, yeah, I mean in the narrative we might say something about what happened. Is all the stuff of shifting reach up guidance to the. Yes, that was part of it. Yeah, that was the case manager's. Is that a feta-complete now, is that, because that confused things also. It did. Oh, the case management. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was in the budget bill. Both that and that. That case manager reports out, right? Do I read this regularly at this point? The damage is done on that. I thought that was a bad idea, but that it's a feta-complete. Or do we want to give the case management back to the very child centers? I think they need money. I don't want to go to that level center. We would like them back. Yeah. That could be, that could be read into the supporting increased funding. Yeah. I think so, okay. They need that to, as you know. Yeah. I'm talking out of the way over there. Okay, we're. So is that okay then? This final. All right, so just trying to think, we've given a cake, McLean, quite a task here. So we need to see, you know, the final version before we sign off on it. I can do, you think we can do that by email? Should we meet again in January? What? Madam chair, before we go there, can I ask a question? Are we going to do any kind of, you know, our benchmarks that we set? Are we going to report on the benchmarks? We don't. We don't need to. I know we don't need to. I heard you earlier. We just want to send them and then we're going to wait to 2023 to report on them? Yeah. I actually here, we're going to do it at the halfway point. So five years and 10 years. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we'll just wait to see if we're making any progress for five years. Okay. Well, maybe we, you know, we can- Progress is slow is- Maybe not. So I would say, yeah. I guess we'll wait till next year. Next year. That's not a hearing. That's not a hearing. That's not a hearing. That's not a hearing. So how do you feel about, do you want to take a look by email or do you want to know where we're going to meet? Last year we met in early January, just to review this. I don't know if email is going to do it. Yeah, that seems like- I don't know if legally we could do it. Or- I don't know if it matters either way. It's due January 1st. Yeah, so we don't have to- Last year we missed that deadline last year. Right, so we, yeah. It's a long period of time. It's a very long period of time. How come it's due the 1st? Usually they may be one of the least of 50. If you want to make that decision. Yeah, they're right. All right. Everybody's scared of you. Everybody's scared of you. Everybody's scared of you. Yeah, I was going to the church, right? I mean- I'm going to make that change in the on-draw. Yeah, so, yeah. But otherwise it's- We have to change that in legislation. Yeah, yeah. So what would be- It is a really cool- It's so cool to be here right now. I think that's all right, but it's to get my bill right. So we have to- But let's talk about a meeting. Let's talk about it. Yes, yes. I wanted to point out that, you know, the 1st week, there's very little to actually do. It's a good time to get some work done. It's a good time to do it. It's very ceremonial. That's awesome. That's true. Yeah, so we started on the 7th. So we're in the building already. It's just- Yeah, it's just like what time and- What could we meet on the 6th? With four in front of people? No, I have a- I'll do- I'll do- I'll do- I'll do- I'll do- I'll do- Sorry, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You know what it is? It's going to be security. They tend to take on security. But it's just a regular community. It's the security in the building. Well, what about the eight? There's house natural resources. What if we do that? Okay. It'll be in time, squeeze. Well, how about Wednesday, eight? Wednesday the eight? At noon? No. Some people? No? Okay. No? No. Would you like to be in here? Yeah, Wednesday, eight at noon. Some people can't make it though. I'm not a good member of that. So, scheduling wise, the eight. This room is used at noon and in the morning. So, if you did from eight to nine. So, if you did something between nine at noon or after one p.m. I can reserve this room. We don't know where we're doing in committees. Who could you have the floor passing make family leave at that moment? No, I don't. I don't know. I mean, those are bold. Yeah. At noon, they're switching what had been the house natural resources into Ethan Allen. So, house natural is now a free committee room. Okay. Right. Yeah. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. So, do you have one more guest list? Okay. All right. So, how is natural resources, Thursday? I absolutely love it. I have the request, too. And so, there are just reminder. There are voting members and non-voting members. So, if you're a non-voting member then, you have nothing to change about their court. How long would you like your reserves room for? An hour. On the 8th and the 9th? The 9th. So it's on the Thursday of the 9th at noon. House Natural Resources. And then if it's staying for the state or the states? Okay. And I was told there was a press conference right outside our door. If it's still happening, you can bill carefully. If it's still happening, you'll have to go somewhere else. Go another way. Yeah, photo ball on the press. Just one last request. So folks who did submit something to Representative Lanfeer, could that get posted? Yes, yes. So let's make sure all those things. So I got Karen, Sarah, go Karen. I'm Janet and Mike. That was the four. I just sent you the wage leverage. He makes sure Mike gets all four. I know you've got them, but you won't know which one. All right. Thank you all. Appreciate all your hard work. Happy holidays. Yeah. Happy holidays. We'll see you in January.