 Okay, we are live this morning. Just for a moment, we just want to say a happy St. Patrick's Day. You'll notice I got a green hat and I think that Senator Chittendon has a green hat. Others have green on so Senator Kitchell, you have green on this morning. I'm not going to have anything on. I just want to tell everyone this morning, I sent this to the governor governor this morning and he texts back right away and he said, just when I thought everything was it was as worse. Okay, welcome everyone. It's Wednesday morning and we are going to get started and we have an issue from a transportation equity and inclusion. Michelle boom hour will lead us off and with that Michelle I think we'll turn it over to you. Thank you very much Senator for the record I'm Michelle boom hour I'm the director of policy planning and intermodal development for the Vermont agency of transportation. I'm here with many partners this morning from AOT and across state government joining me are Susanna Davis who is the director of racial equity and the chair of the governor's task force on racial equity racial equality excuse me. We also have Lori Valburn our chief of civil rights and labor compliance Christine Hetzel, our organizational development director, Colleen Montague who is with our VP trans training center and soon to be joining our civil rights group. Mike Smith our operations director from DMV. And Gamal our division director for finance and administration and and Gamal our highway division director and chief engineer. And we are going to be walking you through our efforts of historic proportions which are significant that we have engaged with over the years on equity and inclusion. We're talking about some of the efforts that we will have going forward to expand our base and to broaden our footprint in terms of how we assure that the agency of transportation is delivering services in an equitable and inclusive manner, and also accommodating service in such a manner as well. But I'd like to start by turning it over to Susanna who is just going to talk about the framework at the statewide level and how all agencies of state government are pulling in this direction. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right ahead. All right. Thank you. When I started this. No, I wouldn't see it. So, at the state, we are taking a very overarching view of racial equity. It's something that has to be accomplished and pursued across the enterprise because racial inequities exist in almost all of the work that we do and almost every sector that there is whether it's housing, education, criminal justice, business, et cetera. So racial equity is something that's being built into policy, not just the AOT, not just in AOA, but across the enterprise. And that's really important because what it requires of us is a certain level of uniformity of policy, right, that a person who's a resident or a visitor to Vermont can go to any agency for any reason and receive roughly the same level, kind, and an equality of treatment and services, and that their outcomes are not going to be determined or influenced by race or ethnicity because that's what racial equity is, right? It's not saying we've got to treat everybody exactly the same in all circumstances. Rather, it's saying whether people's outcomes are good or bad, race shouldn't be a factor in that. And that's a really important distinction. So for the state, some of the things that we're doing are some of the things that we have done are to include racial and social equity into our strategic planning. One of the ways that we do that is by conducting EIAs, that's equity impact assessment. It's a tool that we rolled out last year, we're using it now very actively during the legislative session. And what it does is it's basically a questionnaire that accompanies any budget or policy proposal that comes out of the executive agencies. And the reason that we use EIAs and they're used across the nation in many jurisdictions, very sound, well tested, well received and extremely informative. And the reason we do them is because it ensures that we're asking ourselves the right questions before we roll out a policy that could have unintended consequences for different demographic groups. Now, we put it out under the guise of racial equity, but in reality it actually serves a lot of historically marginalized populations. The LGBTQIA plus population, people living with disabilities, people experiencing poverty, people experiencing homelessness, et cetera. So it's a very well rounded overarching tool that helps us to evaluate the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens of our policies. So that's something that we're doing at a broad level. Other things include expanding and improving our data collection. We're a little bit inconsistent when it comes to race data collection. Some folks are using the Census Bureau categories of race, which many of us people of color don't like, by the way. And others are just using kind of a different list and it creates a little bit of inconsistency, which makes it hard for us to compare data across the enterprise if it's being collected differently. So our data collection strategy is going to be improved. And one of the ways that we can help that is by supporting some of the other proposals on the table, which includes staffing for the racial equity office, which would allow for more data and policy analysis. Some of the other things that we are working on include having equity liaisons in every agency or department, which I think is going to be featured in today's presentation. So just having a person who can be the point person or a point person in a given agency's department for equity is important. I think a lot of people assume that this work sits with and lives with one person or one agency. But again, if we know that there's disparities in every sector, we got to have eyes on it in every sector. And so that's another thing that we rolled out so far as well. And then there are some things that are a little bit more specific to AOT or agencies like AOT, because AOT, unlike many of our other agencies have a lot of federal requirements they've got to meet. And many of those federal requirements do hinge on equity provisions. And so you're going to see in today's presentation and of course you members of the committee already know AOT is one of the agencies at the state level that tends to be further ahead on equity work, largely because of the need for compliance with these federal regulations. And so because of that, I think that AOT is well situated not only to serve as a model for some of our other agencies and departments around the state, but also has a good eye toward how state infrastructure and I mean physical infrastructure, spatial infrastructure and service infrastructure, all three of those. How those various levels of infrastructure can must be used, not just to accomplish the technical goal of getting, you know, people in cars from A to B, but also the overarching and ongoing goal of ensuring that we're doing so in a way that doesn't create disparities in the benefits and burdens that we create. In transit, what that means generally is things like, are we putting health deleterious infrastructure items in neighborhoods that tend to be prominent with people of color? Are we putting health promoting items in neighborhoods that tend to be absolute or largely white? Are we building, are we raising parks so that we can build superhighways through communities where a lot of seniors or youth tend to live? Or are we looking at where people need to go in terms of getting to work and how people commute shape up what that means for them? For example, if you're a person of color, statistically speaking, it's likely that you live in or near Chittenden County in Vermont, but that's not the case everywhere. You've got a lot of pockets of people of color who may live in areas that are underserved by transit systems. So how do we ensure that where you live, which is still often tied to your economic prospects, your job prospects, whether you were able to get a job or were passed over for it because you have a name that starts with an X, right? Whether where you live is impacting how you live or how far you have to go to earn your living. All of these things are interconnected and are all related to different levels of racial equity. So I'm going to stop there, but that's a little bit of an overview of what we're working on at the state level and some of the considerations that go into this work, especially as it relates to transit and transportation. Thank you very much. All right, at this time I'm going to share my screen. And we will head into the presentation. And I believe that Lori will be kicking us off. Well, thanks so much Michelle and good morning everyone. Thank you senators for inviting us in today to discuss this. It's a topic near and dear to my heart. And thank you as well to Susanna for the kind words but also for the amazing leadership that she is showing and leading the charge. This is such an exciting time. This isn't just a moment. This is a movement. So I wanted to share a little bit about what we have been doing at the agency of transportation in some cases for decades. In some cases, some of our newer initiatives. And we will head into the presentation. And I believe that Lori will be kicking us off. Well, thanks so much Michelle and good morning everyone. Thank you senators for inviting us in today to discuss this. It's a topic near and dear to my heart. And thank you as well to Susanna for the kind words but also for the amazing leadership that she is showing and leading the charge. This is such an exciting time. This isn't just a moment. This is a movement. So I wanted to share a little bit about what we have been doing at the agency of transportation in some cases for decades. In some cases, some of our newer initiatives as a background for what we are planning to do and already starting to implement in order to meet some of the goals and expectations that Susanna was talking about. So as she indicated, our agency has a head start on this. We have had for decades now a great incentive to build our programs, hopefully through an equity lens, and with the idea of ensuring non discrimination because that is the expectation. So our title six program is one of the prime examples of this and the title six program is intended to assure non discrimination and all of the benefits and services that we are providing to the public. This is something that has been baked into our culture for many years. We have the title six program takes its roots from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all the legislation and court decisions and executive orders that have come down since then. And it sort of serves as an umbrella for all of our other programming around equity inclusion, affirmative action, etc. So we have had and continue to have a pretty robust title six program. Every single year, Secretary Flynn issues new policy statements in this regard that get disseminated to our organization to all of our sub recipients posted on our website. We have made assurances to all of our federal funding partners that we are in fact going to administer all of our programs in a way that guarantees equity and inclusion. That being said, we obviously want to make sure that we're not just checking off boxes and so over the years we've tried to breathe some life into this program. And part of that means that we look at how we're where the challenges are and where the barriers are. So for example, limited English proficiency is something that we have certainly tried to tackle and provide an array of translation services and work with various organizations to make sure that everyone who's accessing our services, whether it's at a public participation meeting at the counter at a DMV or anywhere else is going to be able to participate and receive the same level of services as somebody who is native English speaking. That's easier said than done in some cases, and it requires a fair amount of research and mapping and all of those things. So we have a limited English proficiency plan, four step analysis and the like. The other thing that we've tried to make sure of is that this isn't something that's seen as just a program that the Civil Rights Office at the Agency of Transportation administers. So as Suzanna was referring to, when she described the equity liaisons that are now being established across the enterprise and state government. We also took that approach with our Title Six program when we have Title Six liaisons. This past year we reappointed or came up with new appointments for 29 different people who are sprinkled throughout our organization in all of the different departments and bureaus. And there are eyes in our ears. They help us to collect data. If there are any complaints that gets brought to our attention as well. So these are all sort of first steps and things that we feel are building a strong foundation for all the additional things that we want to tackle. Next slide please. Some of the programs that we already have in place I had when I had the pleasure of coming and joining you for presentation back in January. I had described a few of the programs that we have been administering using some of our funds from Federal Highway and our employment diversity and highway construction is one of them. It's one that we're particularly proud of because it really has made a difference in terms of making the highway construction industry accessible to people who would otherwise not have had an opportunity to enter and advance their careers. So this slide does describe some of the achievements that we made in the last fiscal year. It's a very robust program because we do a lot of partnering. We partner with a lot of community based organizations, advocacy groups to ensure that we're putting out the word that we have these opportunities. And the program itself has made a big difference as we take a snapshot each year of the demographics in the highway construction industry. We're looking to see the makeup, not only based upon gender and race but also based upon whether or people are advancing and we're pleased that people who entered the industry through this program maybe five or 10 years ago are now moving up the ladder and in some cases are even project superintendents and and for people. So we do provide an array of supportive services to make sure people get a good start in the industry. And then we provide case management services as well for folks that are working on our projects. Next slide please. Our disadvantaged business enterprise and small business programs we also discussed back in January but just a reminder. These are programs that every single state DOT is required to administer in order to remain eligible for a receipt of federal funding. But it is a program that also provides a lot of opportunities for businesses that are majority owned and controlled by women and by people of color to be able to make sure that they're getting a certain portion of all of the federal funding that's coming into the state. The program itself has been around for decades we continue to find ways to partner with other organizations so that we can actually deliver a lot of business development services to make sure that the firms in the program are getting access to government contracting in general and particularly to participating on our projects. So last year on the women and business minority business owners in the program accounted for almost 14% of all the federal fund funded projects that we awarded. Next slide please. This is an opportunity for us to talk about how we are already kind of developing and delivering the message to our workforce as well as to all our contractors and sub recipients. I think I mentioned when I was here in January that all state DOTs have been required to have a civil rights section by legislation going all the way back to 1975, but I will say that in some states they're not using their civil rights units to full potential, they're completely and exclusively focused on the external workforce, the highway construction industry and monitoring some sub recipients at our agency, our leadership and particularly our current leadership has always recognized that we bring value added and that the message has to start from within our organization. And so we've been really successful at getting a shift in thinking and culture within our organization due to a lot of training and policies that we've been able to implement over the years. And I have a wonderful team of folks that are expert at being able to find ways to encourage all of our agency to be part of this effort. It really does take a village. Next slide please. We also have recognized that we have an opportunity to be using equity and inclusion as part of our brand and part of our marketing and we make sure that this isn't something that we take away. But we have a process even in our hiring process where we attempt to bring on the next generation of our employees who are going to buy into our culture, which includes equity and inclusion concepts and a respectful workplace. So civil rights has been given an opportunity to assist all of our hiring managers with the interview and hiring process as well as the outreach and recruitment process. We also are given an opportunity to serve on a large number of different councils and boards I serve on some with Susanna and with other members of state government are that are working on the efforts that she's been describing. We've also been trying to make sure that we are planting seeds for the next generation, and that includes a very robust youth outreach program. And we continue to find ways that we can encourage a diverse group of students to be considering transportation and state government as their future careers. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Christine Hetzel, and I'm also happy to field any questions that folks have. Okay, any questions this time. Thank you very much appreciate it. Thank you. Good morning everyone for the record my name is Christine Hetzel and I'm the director of organizational development. I oversee the learning, occupational health and safety and strategic workforce issues for our agency as well as the municipalities through the Vermont local roads program. I'm going to be very brief today in the interest of time, but the VTrans training center really is responsible to create a learning culture across our organization and the municipalities. And I think that we can all agree. As it comes to diversity and inclusion as individuals as an organization as a state and as a culture. We all have a lot to learn, and it's a continuous learning cycle to learn more about the importance of this topic. So the VTTC has a mission to create a culture of workforce respect civility and inclusion throughout that workforce life cycle. And it really does start with our leadership. They are incredibly committed to role modeling civility and respect and it really starts with the tone that they set and then flows through to the AOT managers and supervisors through training through empowerment through the setting of standards and expectations. And I think it's very clear from applicant to employee sunset, the priority that we place on civility and respect. And so when we look at the employee life cycle that workforce life cycle, it starts with the way in which we recruit them. Luria was sharing so importantly, having civil rights, really strategizing and driving the way that we advertise and recruit for employees, how we onboard them, the devotion that we give to new employees, setting that expectation, giving those resources from the beginning, the training and the support, the way that we're onboarding supervisors setting those expectations are incredibly important to create the right environment and the right culture that signals behavior and learning. So employees and supervisors all across our agency have expectations set in their performance evaluations that require civility and respect diversity. And not only the ways in which you should not behave but almost more importantly the ways that you should behave and include people and embrace diversity and differences of all sorts and flavors and colors. And that's where the power of a strong team comes from, is from that diverse mindset and approach, all the way to how we off board people, when people decide to move from the agency, getting their feedback their understanding of how things when what we did well, what we still need to do, and that's incredibly important. Interestingly, we have a high percentage of employees that will leave state government and then return. So the way in which we sunset folks really has a direct correlation to their willingness to come back. Next slide please. So all of our programming is very strategic, all of the learning opportunities are strategic, and are very well aligned with civil rights. And so I think that Lori's team and my team partner continually, and we even trade staff back and forth. Interestingly enough, because we're also committed to this mission so whether it's the way in which we're training pre supervisors to become supervisors and to ensure their understanding of inclusivity, or it's the way that we are growing emerging the way that we're training supervisors how to hire and how to interview, whether it's strengths based coaching, or individual support that we're giving to employees such as their job shadowing rotation programs. All of this is meant to create a culture that that embraces diversity with respect but leverages it to the benefit of the citizens and to create a higher performing work team. And one item I just wanted to call out exclusively is the way that we have piloted decentralized reallocation with HR. We've built job series so that there are career pathways built into the system that are less bureaucratic that help people to move through different job series like a level one level two level three with preset standards that make it much less subjective that make it less about the individual and more about that individuals performance. In addition to that we have many other supporting processes in place the way that we contract and the clarity we have with our trainers about inclusivity and respect the way that we do competency mapping for interview committees, sometimes people can get stuck in ruts in the way that they ask questions, or in whom they think is the best fit, and these competency maps really expand their thinking, and challenge just moving pieces around and really challenge folks to take a step back and really think about the needs of the work group, and to broaden what type of employee could be successful in that role. And finally we have strategic workforce committees that we've chatted about in the past that flow from our strategic workforce plan that really give employees a voice throughout the, throughout the organization at every level to share their experiences with us, what type of programming they feel would support their further performance and promotion, and where we state may still have barriers so we've been doing a lot we're going to continue to do a lot to support this learning environment about civility and respect and inclusion, and we're on the continual life cycle. You'll be hearing more about some of our future plans as we move forward today. That's all I have I know that was quick and brave but I'm happy to take any questions. Any questions for Christine this morning. Great overview. Thank you very much. Okay, go right ahead. Good morning everybody Michael Smith director of operations for the Department of Motor Vehicles. I to will try and be brief but those of you that know me know that I struggle with that. So, from from the DMV's perspective we have with Google translate on our website to help translate pages into various different languages so individuals can gain access. We also translated the form description so that, you know, not only do they, they're able to see the form that they're after as well as understanding that this is the license application non driver registration form so on and so forth. We did this in consultation with the US Committee on refugees and immigrants from Vermont. So we now have our standard license learners permit exam available in 10 different languages. I won't list all the languages they are on the screen. And this does include audio for both those in the in the office taking the exam as well as those using our online testing module. So we began based on some legislation that happened I believe two years ago the new Americans legislation use of interpreters on road tests we piloted that in the Burlington office and had intended to expand that statewide. However, we get slowed down with the whole COVID pandemic. We'll hear more about that in one of the future slides. So we partnered with us CRI the US Committee on refugees to translate the license learner permit non driver and Vermont residency forms into the various languages that we have the tests in. We complete an annual review to assure that we have the most common languages over the last 10 year period. Next slide please. And I wish Commissioner Minowley was here because she loves saying this word that will be duo devices. These are in these are devices which are very simplistic and it has a screen on this side that that our staff are able to use and a screen that the individual on the other side that is deaf or hard of hearing and it allows them to communicate back and forth via typing almost like texting back and forth doesn't save any of the information is just a one one shot back and forth. And then we've got the offices that advertises the availability of interpreter services to provide assistance for transactions and communication with our staff. From roadside perspective. We've created some visitor cards in consultation with the Department of visor card sorry. We've partnered with the Department of disabilities agents and independent living as well as state police. And this is a way for individuals who are hard of hearing to advise officers of that to promote better communication. We use a contracted interpreter services for interactions at roadside. We also use that in the offices. We have a gender neutral option that is available on driver's licenses and ID cards. We also provide our license forms to clarify the applicants for driver privilege cards are not required to answer the questions in regards to citizenship. As that really has no bearing on that type of document. And I do believe that that is the end of my slide so if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Any questions for Mike this morning. Thank you Mike appreciate it. You're welcome. Next. My name is Wayne gamma and the division director for finance and administration. I will be able to gain this a little bit of speed here I think a few things that we're working on and I'm going to expand on is we have we because of the liaison group that was on I was talking about earlier. We've created a equity impact leadership committee. And with that we are going to expand that throughout our agency. And then we're going to be looking at policies procedures trainings practices with an equity inclusion and diversity lens. And one of the other things that that we've been doing is we've been working with our federal partners. Some of those partners include the FHWA, as well as AASHTO and NASHTO AASHTO is the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials and NASHTO is Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials. Last fall, NASHTO and AASHTO were actually working on a resolution addressing race equity diversity inclusion, and Vermont was given the opportunity to look and actually add to it, and Susanna wrote a piece and it was passed by NASHTO. And then it went nationally and voted on by AASHTO and it was also passed. So one of thanks Susanna for helping advance some of Vermont's also likes and wants, as well as the national groups. And also, we work with them to try to gather any and all information from across the country with other states and our peers. We also work with our tri-state groups, which New Hampshire and Maine are best practices for many others. The other thing that we're doing is we, as I said with the liaison piece, we are working, I'm sorry, sorry I lost where I was. So we're working and learning from other agencies, and we're sharing many ideas with them. As you heard earlier, we have done quite a bit over the last few years, but we need to continue to grow and do better. Many of the other agencies have things that we don't do or just starting to get engaged with. So we're learning from them and we're also giving and teaching some of the things that we're doing. And with that, I'm all done on my section and turn it over to Ann. Any questions? Okay, go ahead. Thanks. Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Ann Gamble. I'm the agency's chief engineer. Every year, our civil rights section does many equity and inclusion trainings, and we're going to continue to incorporate those topics and push them out to our staff and contracted partners. We'll work directly with the VTTC and civil rights staff to develop this training and implement it this year. We will review our AOT engaging the public guidance document and use it as a resource for the training. The VTTC hosts engaging your audience with finesse. And this will be specifically targeted to show staff how to assess the community being presented to to support inclusion. On the DMV side, we've expanded the use of interpreters for road tests. We have the necessary contracts in place for these services and our workforce safety guidance to allow for this activity moving forward in a safe and effective manner. Next slide. Our planning and engineering staff have developed a new project selection and prioritization process in conjunction with local governments and regional planning commissions. We are in the pilot phase and intend to incorporate an equity screening process in this pilot program. For projects that are farther along our staff will use the tools they've learned to use targeted engagement strategies to enforce, inform and enhance best practices. Through the VTTC and Vermont local roads training centers, we will provide the same training and resources to our municipal partners to further support diversity. Our project design staff will also work closely with civil rights in consideration of additional inclusionary language for future contracts. And I just wanted to bring to your attention to that both the DMV and VTTC have both added language interpreters on our websites. So to you, Michelle. Thank you, everyone. I'm very excited about this body of work. We're going to be expanding to include a technical advisory committee of staff and potentially external partners going forward. We're going to be conducting an in depth review of our agency wide programs and practices to assure that the most current tools and applications for equity awareness and inclusionary activities are incorporated into the core of our mission. The agency will basically implement the outcomes of this gap analysis throughout 2021. And we will base hope to have basically an agency equity work plan with a dashboard of activities to entice to complete this mission that we will outline for ourselves as we go forward. And I've been involved, Wayne mentioned AASHTO and NASTO, and I have been involved with their work over the past year in my role on the Transportation Policy Forum of AASHTO. And I can say that Vermont is pretty far ahead in terms of our efforts and we're excited to continue to move forward and share best practices with other states. So I know this has been a topic of concern for the legislature. Obviously for the governor's office for quite some time now. And we are very diligent in trying to find ways to assure that the agency is a leader in this in this realm, and I'm happy to take any questions or questions for the rest of the staff. Yeah, when we started off you said it would be a model for others and it certainly is a real I could good overview. Do you know if other agencies follow the same model, or they're all trying to do the same. Yes, all other agencies are moving forward with this type of framework everyone's got a little different twist on it right now but because of the leadership group that Suzan oversees these best practices are being shared across the enterprise. And I know that the agency of natural resources has a very active leadership team working on this and certainly all other agencies of state government are moving forward as well. Great. Good. Yeah, good presentation questions from any committee members this morning. I do have a comment. Last year, we had a couple of conversations and I guess maybe this is more than transportation but one concern was related to the nature of certain exams and I remember. Senator ash was very concerned, particularly with the state police, the way in which wording and so forth made a difference, and we were very pleased to see in fact I one of the new additions to our state police force I believe is always a Somali from Burlington area. And so part of the concern was how different words or requirements actually are problematic and the other which Mike reference in fact was something was brought up in transportation and that was having the ability to have a translator with you when you're taking your road test. And so my question becomes one of how how we sort of think and I think probably Susanna Davis office is really trying to help with that. It just makes me wonder how many other kinds of situations whether it's language use or the assumptions made about recruitment in the first place before you even get the eligible applicants are influencing the workforce or access to services and so it's a more general because several of the things that are referenced in fact were generated as a result of a legislator sort of picking up and following so that's fine but but it also needs to be done internally so I just want to raise that as something I think we need to all think about as we do our work every day has sort of an eye toward the extent to which we may without thinking about it have obstacles either to getting employment or to getting a particular service not necessarily a license but you know could be any kind service from any of the programs administered. So that was just one observation I wanted to make is that this is a start but I think it's and that's why I was glad when Susanna mentioned really one office isn't going to change state government and it's how to build that that sensitivity on that eye for does this make sense or are we creating an obstacle here it's really got to be developed throughout all of state government and that takes managers it takes staff it really is a collective effort but that's that's my only comment that I would like to offer as it relates to some of the discussion that we've had here in transportation. Anybody want to comment. If I make just to respond to the senator go right ahead. Thank you and thank you for the comment senator I completely agree and I think just expand a little bit. That's one of the reasons that we're sort of tackling racial equity and state government in and you can you can chop it up a million different ways but the way that I have found was useful is to look at three main categories. The first is how we are as an employer. Right so making sure that we're creating healthy work environments that are sincerely inclusive which doesn't just mean getting more brown people in the photo on the brochure. But really means meaningful inclusion appropriate emotional paths that are right so that's how we are as an employer. How we are in terms of our system and I'll get back to that in a moment and then how we are as a provider of services how are we interfacing with the public and what opportunities are people getting or being shut out of. And for the middle piece about systems that part is important because it really makes it both is focused on real transformative change not just technical change so I'll give you an example. You know we might say oh hey we're underrepresented in terms of our staff who are of color so next year let's just hire 19 brown people. And you know you could do that but is that addressing the hiring scheme itself that may be exclusive exclusionary. And so that's what we need to say systems not just pursuing individual work around and technical changes but really a transformative change that's going to help us get at those root causes so I completely agree with what you're saying and so much of it really does have to be a hand in hand effort right so for example if we're talking about language access one of the ways that you can build language access is to make sure that you know we have enough multilingual liaison in the school, which is sort of a pipeline to people being able to stay in Vermont and have longevity here, because they've been supported from early ages. So it is very much a multi tutorial approach I appreciate you saying that. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Any questions, comments, many one. Great overview this morning is really, really good, good knowledge and we understand exactly what's happening in the agency that's a. I'm glad to hear it's going throughout state government that's great, great news. Anything else anyone don't like that at this time. I'd just like to thank the committee for the opportunity to spend time on this topic and and to for us to have the opportunity to present our information. And as we go forward, we are always available for questions or input or suggestions you may have. So thanks. Thank you. Sounds like it's working well appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, I think that takes care of this portion this morning. We're going to take a break until 10am and our next item is at 10am.