 This is Houseways Mains. It is September 15th and Tuesday. And we are meeting on H954, which is the miscellaneous tax bill. We've been over the bill in various forms many times. And in the last week or so, we've tentatively agreed to add some substantive changes to it. Abby is here this morning to walk us through those. My hope is that this morning we will vote on our proposed amendments and they're gonna be, because we have possession of the bill, these are gonna be concurring with an amendment. So that's the format. If we're successful in doing that, they'll go on notice, I don't know if they go on notice today or tomorrow, but I believe the plan is to have them up for action on Thursday and Friday, but we're gonna be as flexible as we can because that's the world we're in. Before we start, does anyone on the committee have any announcements or anything they wanna say or ask about other than good morning? All right, good. So Abby, why don't you get us started? And Robin, you guide this as much as you like. So in terms of making sure that the information gets out there. Okay. Great, good morning. Sorcha, there she goes. Thank you, Sorcha. Why don't we start with the actual language? If that's okay, I think that would be the most useful. There is a side-by-side that's available on the webpage, but I think that this is actually the quickest way to run through the changes. So this new draft 1.4 dated 9-11-2020 makes a few instances of amendment. Most of these, I believe almost all of these at this point, the committee has seen. Last week we went over this first instance if you could scroll down, Sorcha, thank you. This is moving the billing and collection of the property tax to the state. It is a change from what was passed in the house rather than requiring the Department of Taxes to submit an implementation plan. Instead, this is a study, a report studying potential approaches to transitioning the responsibility rather than saying, how is this going to happen? Tell us step-by-step. So it's also been pushed back to March 15th of 2021. In the second instance of amendment, this was seen last week. This reinserts the language that was passed by the house for the use tax safe harbor reporting. So this is identical language to what was voted out of the house before the bill went to the Senate. The Senate did remove this and put in a reporting requirement instead. So that's been removed and the house language has been reinserted. You can scroll down unless there are any questions. I don't see any. All right, the third instance of amendment is actually the meat of this concurrence with proposals of amendment. It removes a section that was added by the Senate to create a sales tax exemption for paper bags. That is removed in this language because it was already passed in the bill back in June. And this now inserts what colloquially is referred to as cloud tax. So it's imposing sales and use tax on vendor hosted pre-written computer software. So software as a service and it removes the existing session law exemption for pre-written computer software access remotely. It adds in a new definition, vendor hosted pre-written computer software which is based on a Rhode Island definition because that's a streamlined agreement state that already imposes tax on these services. So it's something that vendors are already used to collecting if they're selling in Rhode Island. I'm sorry, George has a question. George? Yeah, I'm sorry. My question was way back on the very first point that you made and that was pushing the report on the state collecting property taxes. Why are we pushing it back to March 15th of 2021? Why not getting it in January? So we would have time to act on it. If I may, I refer to Representative Shai. That was our discussion that she had indicated March 15th would be enough time to give the department time to write the report. And then that might, that is right around crossover. So it may not be actionable at that time but it would serve you for that question. Robin? I'm not sure I have a whole lot more to add. We had originally passed this back on May 22nd and the Senate took it out entirely and just wanted, I've been thinking about the cloud, not about this one, so I've got to go back. They didn't want anything. And so this was kind of a way of softening our position and moving a little bit closer to the Senate without. I understand making it a report rather than, making it a study rather than an implementation plan. I just sort of feel like it would be nice to have it get the information back at a point that we could actually do something with it in 2021. Right, so let's delay it a year but it's probably part of the biennium. If we had passed it in May or June, that's different than passing it at the end of September. So I think we were trying to give them a little bit more time to get themselves organized. So what about February 1st? Does that help? I think so. Yeah. I think that would give us time before crossover to do something with it. I don't know, Robert, if you think that's adequate time for them or not, but... I think it's a show of understanding. That would be fine. I would be fine with that. I would just say by March, they are so deep into stuff that they aren't going to be working on this report come March, you know, as we approach March. Right. My guess is they will have that written. If we ask them to write it, it'll get written before January. Just because of... And certainly before February 1st. Right. Because of tax kinds of issues. So anyway, is February 1st agreeable with people? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. All right. Robin, your hand is still up. Are you... I have a question on something. Yes, I did. Where did I have my question? Oh, I know what it was. Abby, on the pre-written software and using the Rhode Island definition, which I think is great and it ensures that we're not an outlier art. Is Rhode Island the only one near us that is using this definition? Is Rhode Island sort of one among many? Do we have a sense of that? Yes, let me pull up my research. Sorry, I don't know off the top of my head. I did back in January when Graham and I were presenting on this, we did look at all of the other states. So I'm just looking quickly over my list. I had focused primarily on full streamlined states. In terms of what's close by, not seeing other, sorry, I'm just looking for other New England states. Ohio is another streamlined state and they do tax this, but I'm not sure about their definition. I'd have to go back and check. Wash, I believe Washington state, it also had a very similar definition and they are also a streamlined state. But in terms of New England states, it looks like most of them are actually exempting this currently. Okay, and does New York state, is that the same with New York state also? Sorry, I'm just looking through. Oh, no, New York is not a streamlined state. It's not a full New York. They're definitely not streamlined, right? But they do tax it. Okay, that's correct. I just want to get a general sense. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Keep moving through. So in sections, so the third instance of amendment inserts for new sections. So there's the definition section. There are two sections imposing sales tax and then use tax on pre-written computer software. Scroll down. Thank you, Sorcia. And then section 10D repeals the existing session law, which was exempting pre-written software that's accessed remotely. So those are the four sections that would tax pre-written computer software. The next instance of amendment is more of a cleanup for what passed out of the Senate and is no longer relevant because of timing issues. So that's deleting the official state revenue estimate that was due in August that the deadline is passed. And it's also deleting a technical fix that will need to be dealt with next session, but it doesn't need to be dealt with here. The way the language was drafted, it doesn't do anything the way the Senate passed it at this point just because of the timing. In the fifth instance of amendment, this changes all of, or sorry, this removes the existing effective date and adds in the tax increment financing district sections that you saw with Becky Wasserman. So this is the language that you've already seen. It adds in section 29 and section 30 and it extends the dates for incurring debt. And there's the second section that deals with the Burlington Waterfront to have same thing that it is now dealt with in section 29 for the extension of the date and it strikes existing statute relating to an extension. So it's more cleanup in the second section. And this final section 31 is a new section but it's still the effective date. So it's just lining them up with how the bill is now drafted. It puts back in the use tax safe harbor effective date. It is still retroactive to January 1st of this year. It adds in the prewritten computer software effective date which would take place January 1st. So the first revenue would be received from those transactions on, I believe it's February 25th. So it's always a month later and then it keeps the other effective dates that were in the bill as passed the Senate. And I can walk through though. There's the universal service charge, the annual link up and some retroactive refunds for amending the statute of limitations for personal income tax. So that's the end of the amendments that have been discussed in committee. Again, this is drafted now as a committee bill because the bill was committed to ways and means. As a committee amendment. So it's, and I don't know how I happened to find it but I found my folder with all the other sections in the bill. Just to remind people that what we passed all these many of them very technical sections way back and the Senate, most of them. So this bill, once we concur with amendments has all those sections in it. We're not going to go over them again unless somebody on the committee wants Abby to do that. And if you do, we'll make time to do it. But I just want to remind everybody that I don't remember how many sections this bill has in all 30, 30 substantive sections. So there's lots of other pieces in it. I just, I tend to forget. So I just want people to remember that. Robin and then Pat. Thank you. Oh, so VSAC is not in here as an instance of amendment because we are keeping the language that the Senate did but it's a change from the House perspective from what we had in there. Exactly. So we're agreeing with their amendments and doing further amendments. Right, so I should probably be mentioning that particular Senate amendment or not. Oh yeah, and the House has never voted on it. Right. Yeah, right. Were there any other big ones from the Senate that I need to be sure? Probably, probably. But let me get to Pat's question first and then, yeah, Pat. So thank you. I got called away for a second so I think I might have missed it but in regards to the cloud tax. Yeah. Just a refresher, refresh my memory. Did we pass that out of our committee without that, correct? We were gonna, at that, on March 13th which was when we left the building, we were gonna put it in a property tax rate setting bill. So we had sort of tentatively agreed on it but we weren't gonna put it in the miscellaneous tax bill as it turned out during the June session, you know, when our pandemic won. We passed a property tax bill and we were focused entirely on making sure that those rates were set and didn't wanna add anything to it that might create issues. And so we didn't put the cloud in at that point. There was some discussion and committee about putting it in but we decided not to, yeah. So we didn't actually vote it out in either bill until now if we do it now. Okay. So we were ready to do it. So it did get, we did have quite a lot of testimony on it. Yeah, sorry to call. Yeah, so. I just, just so you know, I mean, I was opposed to that then and I did support this bill and I don't think I can with that in there. Only because I've, well, I disagree with it for one thing and I have some folks out here who are really opposed to it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and, you know, we're gonna do, as we do two votes, we're gonna vote on the package of amendments and then we're gonna vote on the bill as amended, which we'll have among other things the VSEC language in it and the TIF language in it. So this, or whatever, for whatever that means. So Robin, you asked about other issues. We can, I can ask Abby to go through those if the committee would like to listen to it. That's really a question for everybody on the committee. To some extent you need it for preparing for the caucus and for the floor, but I wanna be sure that the committee would like to all hear all that. I don't know if there's a lot or just. The big things, they took the state administration implementation plan out. They took the use text table out. They added the VSEC language in. Those are the three that I'm most aware of. And we've amended some of their amendments for the post. So unless there are others, but we already know about them, then ones that we haven't talked about. Abby, were there others that I haven't mentioned? Tampont text. Tampont text. That did not make its way into this bill now. The others are smaller changes like the sales and use tax exemption. There was, there were some changes added in for judiciary fees, but again, they're very small impacts. Those were the biggest changes that were added in. There is the change to the removing the interest rate for personal income tax. So removes or for underpayment of taxes, they removed the higher interest rate for underpayment compared to when the state is owing interest. So that's, that's another change. If you want me to run through all of the changes, I can go through the section by section. It's probably the easiest way to see it or side by side. I'm sorry. Is that something the committee would like to run through? I'm happy to do it. I just want to be sure people want to hear it and tell. And if not, I can chat with Abby later. So it's up to everybody else. Somebody on the committee would like to hear that. No, I have one head shake there. That's Scott. Well, it's posted. Is that right? The section by section. How many sections are in it? The side. There are 31 with the new affected dates because of the addition of the TIF language. Well, if somebody would like Abby to do it, then please speak up. And otherwise, we won't. We also need to do the fiscal note. So I want to give a chance for that. Any other questions for Abby? Graham, I know you're here. See you there. I'm on here. So I've set a fiscal note to Sorcia on this proposal of amendment. Sorry for the record. I'm Graham Campbell at work at the drink fiscal office and presenting a fiscal note on the house of proposal of amendment for H 954, the miscellaneous tax bill. And by and large, there are two revenue sections in this bill made a revenue section. The first section eight, which is the, the changing of the use tax, safe harbor table. We estimate in fiscal 21, this will reduce sales tax revenues by $775,000. And the majority of that revenue loss is just to change the table itself. And then about 20, 30,000 of it is the provision that sort of excludes those with AGI under 20,000 from using the table. The estimate this year, the estimate is based upon data from tax year 2019, which based upon information from the tax department has been a lower year for use tax collections than in the past. And we expect it to be a lower year for use tax collections, even though the data is not quite complete. And this is because we think that people are more aware of the fact that remote sales are being charged sales tax because of the way of hair decision. And also because vendors like Amazon and Walmart are collecting sales tax on their remote sales. So the more that people become aware of those, that situation, the less likely we are to collect use tax. So by changing the table in a time when people are becoming more aware of likely they don't always much use tax leads to a smaller revenue loss than what would otherwise have occurred. Set $775,000 and then the other, then that's the sales tax and therefore it affects the education fund. And then the second revenue piece here is the addition of the repeal, the Session Law Exemption Force vendor hosted pre-written software. And because of the effective date in January, 2021, we estimate that it'll raise $2.7 million in 21, $7.6 million in 22. And then growing all the way up to nine and a half million in just about 24. So as I've said in this community before, this sort of highlights the fast growth of this type of software. And that is what we see in the data every single year. And so we anticipate that this is going to grow pretty swiftly. And because it's a sales tax, it will benefit the state's education fund. There are two other minor potential fiscal things in this bill, the first is in section six. And this is the increasing property tax hearing officers per dean. We project that would have minimal fiscal impact of about $30,000 or less. That's a general fund expense. And then finally, I put a note here on section 29, which is the TIF language. We don't expect immediate fiscal impact on the education fund from this, but as was discussed in committee to the extent that the delay in debt incurring leads to a delay in the projects, it could lead for a municipality of less time to collect tax increment on any projects that are built. And so to the extent that that puts pressure on the municipality, it is possible that down the road, a delay in debt and a delay in projects might have a fiscal impact. But we need a term, no impact of the education fund of this provision. So with that, I can take any questions although those committees chewed on a lot of these proposals. Let me see if there's any questions. I'll give people a minute here. Joey. I just wanted, Sam mentioned that he was gonna have an amendment on VSEC, but we didn't do anything with that, did we? Or did he offer any amendment on that? No, I just sent him a text. He's not here because he's sick, but he and I had exchanged texts last night and this morning, and I think he had decided not to offer it. VSEC had some concerns about sort of tying their hands. No, I was hoping that it was not gonna be included. So I'm pleased that he's not offering it. Thank you. And I just sent him a note asking him, is it okay if I say that he's not offering it? And I haven't heard back, but that's what he had told me last night was that he wasn't going to. So the language exists, I think Abby wrote it and I think it went to everybody, but he wasn't gonna put it out there. I think the message got through to VSEC that we would like this money used for particularly at-risk kids or first-time college student, whatever the various groups are. I think they understand that, but I think it's so tentative about whether they actually do this and what the profits are gonna be that they'd like to keep some flexibility. And Tom Little's available if we wanted to hear from him, but I said I didn't think we needed to. Okay, with everybody. Bill, can't feel. Yeah, Jenna, we had a note today from Tom Little. Right. He talked about reporting back to us or keeping us up to date. Yeah, which they come in pretty much every year for something and so we'll have a chance to ask about this. I didn't prepare language on their reporting in partly because we can ask for the report anyway and if they don't go into this, there won't be anything to report about. So anyway, we couldn't add language. It didn't seem important to me to do it. I felt fine just relying on our relationship with them. Are there any other questions that are out there? Is somebody ready to make a motion on these amendments? Happy to move it if nobody else wants to. Okay, so this would be the package of amendments. Is that right? That's the motion. Yes. And is there a second to that? Second. Okay. So it's been moved and seconded that the Ways and Means Committee amend our proposed amendments to the bill as Abby went over with us. And this is this eight page document with, I don't know, looking to see how many amendments there are, a number of them. Madam Chair. Yes. May I just inquire whether the committee wanted to change the reporting date to February 1st? Yeah, forever. All right. So that includes the February 1st reporting. It does. It is now draft 1.5 with today's date. Perfect. Okay. So it's been moved and seconded that we approve draft 1.5 with the changed effective date. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Give people a minute here, George. I would just say that I had understood the Senate proposal amendment included the tamp on tax. And I have to say that I'm rather disappointed that it is not in here. I'm, you know, having a little trouble with the whole thing with it not being in there. It didn't get in this version. I think it had a little bit of discussion in the Senate, but it's not in there. Bill. I'm going to be voting no on the package because of the cloud. Okay. Any other comments that people want to make? Okay, Robin, you, I'll call the roll and remind people we'll have two votes. We'll have a vote on the package of amendments. Then we'll have a vote on the bill because we have a position on the bill. You know that. This is on the amendments. Right. Okay. So I will start. Representative Anthony. Yes. Representative Beck. Yes. Representative Brennan. No. Representative Donovan. Yes. Representative Kornheiser. Yes. Representative Maslund. Yes. Representative Shy is yes. Representative Till. Yes. Representative Young is absent. Representative Canfield. No. Representative Ansel. Yes. Okay. So that looks like eight to one. Okay. Now I made a motion on the bill. Moved. Okay. Moved by Jim Maslund. Second. Second. Leader. Discussion. All right, just writing down. Social will be happy. Okay. So we're voting the bill out. Representative Anthony. Yes. Representative Beck. I had asked three. Representative Brennan. No. Representative Donovan. Yes. Representative Kornheiser. Yes. Representative Maslund. Yes. Representative Shy is yes. Representative Till. Yes. Representative Young is absent. Representative Canfield. Yes. And Representative Ansel. Yes. So that looks like nine one one. Right. Yep. Okay. Robin, I'm asking you to report it. Thank you, everybody. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we have a few amendments on the floor. This is a miscellaneous tax bill. So I don't think our work is done, but that's okay. Being interesting. So I'm trying to remember who Abby is at you who has the language on the education finance. Yes, I do. And I haven't, if you want to refresh your screen, you'll be able to see the document on the committee page. Excellent. Okay. Socia, would you mind pulling that up or do you want me to share my screen? So Madam Chair, would you like me to summarize the language? Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. The way it's currently drafted, it doesn't have any lead in language. I can draft it as a committee proposal, a committee bill. This deals with the fiscal year 22 property tax rate letter that the commissioner of taxes issued on every December 1st. And it addresses any projected education fund deficit for the current fiscal year 21. This language was seen not the first subsection, but part of this language was seen in your joint meeting with House Education last week. So what's been added here is the first subsection A that has the findings and the purpose to give it more context. The first sentence explains that there is this December 1st letter under Vermont statute that requires the commissioner to calculate and recommend property tax rates for the upcoming fiscal year. And within the calculation for making that recommendation, the commissioner has to take into account any projected current year deficit as well as the requirement under statute to keep the stabilization reserve at 5%. The Act 122 that the general assembly passed back in June expressed a somewhat contrary intent, which was to address any projected ed fund deficit by using federal funds and this list of actions to reduce the burden that's placed on schools, school districts to impact the tax rates through their budgeting process. So this makes it very clear what the intention of Act 122 and this new language is. It's really to not withstand current statute where the commissioner's recommending rates that would otherwise use the stabilization reserve and have to address the deficit through tax rates. So that's the first subsection A. So if you scroll down and switch a little bit further, the second page sets out subsection B, which was seen last week and it requires the commissioner of taxes in making the recommendations for the December 1st letter for fiscal year 22 to disregard a projected deficit for fiscal year 21. And to assume that the stabilization reserve is maintained at its rate that is currently, the current rate or amount at or before omitting or issuing the December 1st letter. So it's to not withstandings of current law and how the commissioners issuing tax rates for the upcoming year. I can take questions. I hope that wasn't too confusing. I will admit that I don't understand that language. So I'm hoping that somebody who's reporting this does, I couldn't possibly explain that. The part I don't understand is the language about maintaining the stabilization reserve. But as long as other people understand it, Scott, you understand it. George, you understand it. No. I'm trying to take a close look at it right now and I can't seem to find it anywhere in the documents. Mark, do you want to explain it to us again or Abby? Yeah, I would like to jump in it because I think there's a little bit of inconsistency here and I want to make sure the committee's intent is being reflected in the language. Yeah, well, maybe that's why I don't understand it. Okay, so in Act 122, you list several ways of addressing any projected deficit in the education fund. And in that language, number three option there is to draw down the stabilization reserve. And I'm not sure you want to do that because the deficit that we're carrying on the education fund outlook right now is $66.4 million, but that includes a full stabilization reserve, okay? So if the stabilization reserve were drawn down, then the deficit in the education fund is only $28 million. So what I'm concerned about is the administration could say, okay, we're not going to include that $28 million deficit in the FY22 property tax rates, but you would then be going at FY22 with an empty stabilization reserve, which would then require them to bring that up by $38 million on the property tax. So I'm thinking you're trying to prohibit both things. You want a full stabilization reserve and you don't want that to be filled with property tax money and you don't want the deficit to be addressed with property tax money. So I'm not sure drafting-wise how to address that. I think that the language works, but there is that inconsistency between 122 and what you're proposing here. And it may work, but if we're having trouble understanding it here a month from now, two months from now, who knows what people are gonna say it means. Can I show you in the balance sheet? Because I think it'll make it clear to people if we can just look at the bottom line of the balance sheet. So I said, do you have it available? Because I have it on my screen. I could pop up, if you don't. I just made you a co-host. I don't have the balance sheet. Matt, do you want to jump in or do you want to wait for him to explain that? Well, I just need to read the rest of it a little more closely, I think, but I'm just wondering is everything after line nine just confusing the whole subject? If we just had the first nine lines in there, doesn't that do the trick? Nine lines, no. I mean, you have to, the commissioner shall what? Well, I'm just looking at this, I'm looking at this draft 1.4. What page are you on? Page one. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm on page two. Okay, sorry. And I'm on page one and I'm reading through line nine where it ends 16 BSA, 40, 26, at 5%. Do we need anything after that? Yeah. So that was partly my suggestion to put in the reference to app 122. I'm not wed to it, but I was wanting to, I guess what I was thinking is that we passed a law app 122, which laid out those seven strategies and that what, the way I was thinking about it is that the changes that we're trying to make in the December 1st letter are in some ways trying to incorporate the thinking in 122 so that we don't end up in a situation where we pass a law at 122 and then we leave an effective statute that sort of seems to counter it or disregard it. So maybe it would be right. I may have complicated it by adding that in. Yeah, I guess all you always thought of it is that we have this statutory language that drives the December 1 tax letter and we hold the administration to that with this clarification that they have to do it at 5%. And then all of those other things that included the reserve fund and all those other mechanisms, that's for the legislature after the tax letter comes out. However, we don't wanna let the administration use those seven mechanisms to monkey around it with the tax letter. The tax letter comes out, it is what it is. And then we have those seven mechanisms at our disposal working with the treasurer, maybe others to deal with the aftermath of the December 1 tax letter. I think the hope here was to not create a panic with the December 1 letter was to sort of get ahead of that. But maybe we're making things worse. George and then Robin. Yeah, Scott, you're not talking about stopping after line nine of page one. Yes, yes. Well, that just tells, I mean, that says he needs to include to cover in his letter. He needs to include the deficit enough to cover the deficit. That's exactly the opposite of what we want. Well, it must calculate tax rates in an amount sufficient to cover any projected fiscal year 2021 deficit. That's exactly what we're trying to avoid in the first line nine knot. But if, okay, I see your point there, George, but if we, I mean, we're giving that it's going to be up to the tax commissioner to decide how to deal with that deficit. And that's what we're trying to avoid, right? Well, this says if you do took just the first nine lines, it says he needs to include the, to calculate the tax rates at an amount sufficient to cover the projected deficit from 2021. I mean, nine, nine. The first nine lines tells him to do exactly what we don't want. That's just to your point. Oh, yeah, I see. I missed that number. Yeah, I see your point. That section actually restates current law. Yeah, exactly. And the current law is the problem, right? Right. Robin, you've been trying to get in. Okay, that was the part that I was going to say is that if that's all we're going to do, we don't need this bill because it's already current law. So that was my comment, thanks. So we're back to this conundrum where we're saying sort of inconsistent things. Am I concerned? I don't mind that so much, but I mind the fact that we're saying them in ways that nobody will understand. Right. Be consistent, be clear. I think that the language as it's drafted works, but maybe we could clean it up and make it a little bit easier to explain. I mean, it's a problem. I don't know how to get around because there's the interaction between the Stabilization Reserve and the deficit. And to try to nail them both down requires both of those subsections. So this is probably a bad idea, but so what we want is we want the December 1st letter to be written without taking into account the projected deficit and this question without taking into account the stabilization reserve. Is that basically what we're saying? What I'm saying is that the administration could read that language now and say that the deficit is actually 28 million, not 66 million dollars. And that's because they would have drawn the Stabilization Reserve down in 21. And that means going forward into 22, you'd have an empty Stabilization Reserve and a small deficit. So the portion of it that would have to be replaced in the Stabilization Reserve is 38 million dollars on the property tax. So in order to avoid that, the language says that regardless of how you interpret that deficit, it's going to be 64 million dollars that you're not going to raise on the property tax. Whether you call it a Stabilization Reserve or a deficit, we've got it covered so that you can't use any of that money. You can't add any of that money to the property tax bill. And I agree it's confusing. I've been acting over it because it's awkwardly laid out in the bill, I think, unavoidably because of this interaction between deficit and reserve, Stabilization Reserve. I mean, at the end of the day, we want them to do a property tax rate letter that reflects student count spending. Non-property tax revenues, non-property tax revenues, all those kinds of things. And we're trying to get there and that's tough. Let's see, Peter, Robin, George, Scott. There you go. Peter, Robin. Maybe it's naive. I don't, why can't you, in session law, that is just for this round, say something like notwithstanding the VSA obligation that statute places on the secretary, that it's the decision of the legislator branch that a letter should reflect no deficit. It should be predicated on the no carrying of deficit and a full reserve fund. And just let it go with that. Isn't that, can't you just do it directly? I think that's what this does. Okay. But like you said, it's so complicated. I'm not sure people will get hung up on the words. Yeah, Robin. I think I'm going in a similar kind of direction as Peter did, but just thinking about the first nine lines instead of restating what we do. Which nine? The first one, first line, nines that Scott had referred to, whether we just do something that instead of saying that, that they must calculate the tax excluding, without consideration of the deficit and while maintaining the stabilization reserve. I'm still, I'm not a lawyer either, but I'm just trying to get it shorter if there's some way to make it one or two paragraphs instead of the lengthy thing that it is, whether we could do something in that, within that top section. I like all that first page stuff. Because if you read it, you'd actually know what it meant. But that was because I asked to have it go in there. So it doesn't mean it's right. George, Scott, and Jim. Yeah, I was going the same way. I mean, I also like that first page stuff there. So people kind of understand the playing field that we're on before we make changes. So that, you know, I don't have any problems with that first paragraph being there. But then I think, you know, then we need to go on to just simply not withstand that and saying that, say that they should not consider the deficit when they're setting the rates, nor should they utilize money from the reserves when they calculate the rates. Scott, Jim, Emily. Yeah, so after having a chance to read through this in detail, I mean, I would feel comfortable explaining this to somebody on the floor. I think I could boil it down and it's something that was understandable. But as I look at, you know, the first nine lines I think are fine. And I think section B and subset section one and two are fine. It's those lines in between that I think it's, what it is is that there's, there's something. Oops, sorry. There's something here. That is my big bell. That'll teach you to argue with me. Yeah, I think what's confusing here is that in A, it starts off telling the commissioner what they must, the commissioner must do. And then it goes into this, you know, lengthy like justification for why, and then it goes back to, you know, with some action that has to occur. And I think that's what kind of for a reader, a casual reader just trying to get through this the first time it kind of, it kind of messes it up. Jen, Emily, and George. Yeah, generally I think I like Peter's approach, approach as modified by George. We've got two issues I think. One is getting the language so that it works. And the other one is so people can understand it. And there is a benefit I think to having the notwithstanding language that George suggested so that it makes it clear what we intend to do because it'll be wonderful for Scott to explain it on the floor so that people in the chamber understand it. But then, you know, several weeks from now down the road, we wanna be able to explain it in plain English to people out there. So that's where I am at this point. That's where the point works. Yeah, am I worried? Yep, Emily. I am not concerned about the lay of public reading this because I don't think they generally bother with that. I am concerned about the administration creating intention where they wanted it and not where we want it. And so what Mark explained, it seems to me like a little extra on that just that very final paragraph starting on line 12 to be clearer about what we mean by the stabilization reserve would make sense. But I've seen Abby try to jump in a few times and I wonder if she has any ideas. I don't know if Abby can raise her hand. Yes, she can. Abby. Sure, I think that everyone is making points that I was struggling with while trying to draft it and put it together. And I tried to, I think you've all laid it out as you're reading through it again just to lay out what current law says, what the commissioner has to do already, what Act 122 was saying, and then what this language, that's kind of the first subsection when I was walking through. But parts of it could be removed. The whole first subsection is really just setting the context. The second subsection on page two, subsection B does what is being discussed as this is what we really need to be making clear is the directive from the General Assembly. I just want to point out that what may be confusing about B2 on the second page is that it's whatever the Civilization Reserve amount is at the time of making the December 1st letter. And I can maybe rework the wording there so that it's neither the 5% nor a full drawdown. Yeah. So that's what it currently says. I just wanted to. There's no middle ground in it. Yeah, go back to why we're doing this in the first place. We're trying to let school boards know that we don't want to see a December 1st letter that says there's going to be a 20 cent property tax increase. That's really what we're trying to do here. And we want school boards to be reassured that we're paying attention to that and that it's not our intention to have a 20 cent property tax increase this year any more than we did for the coming fiscal year, any more than we did for the current fiscal year. And we also want to be sure having communicated that to the school boards that we've set in place a process for this December 1st letter to reflect that intention that that's really what we're trying to accomplish. So I think it's important that we do something. I'm content to have it written any way the committee accomplishes those goals. So I don't want to lose sight of those goals. I don't want to get so tied up in the words that we lose sight of what it is we're trying to do here. Mark, you're trying to jump in. Yeah, I just want to say it seems like there's two issues. One issue is the difficulty of explaining this on the floor. And the other issue is how would the administration interpret this language? It seems on the second point, would it be possible to ask the tax department how they would read this? Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. I mean, that would clarify at least you'd know that your intent is going to be followed to the issue about explaining it on the floor. I don't know exactly how many people pay really close, close attention to what's in there. But anyways, so the second part of the problem maybe dealt with just by talking to somebody over in tax. Yeah, right, that's a great idea. And I don't know whether we, they haven't seen the language Abby or they've seen it only if they've bothered to look. Yeah, so Sorsha, could you send it to Craig Bolio? Yes, I will. So I don't know whether we'll be able to do that this morning. But the other thing is that it's helpful for us to all be talking about what it's, how we read it because that will help whoever reports it be able to explain it and sort of anticipate what some of the issues are. Other suggestions or ideas? That's, Scott, do you wanna see a redraft along the lines of what you were talking about? I'd like to see a redraft based on the conversation between Abby and Craig, I think is more important right now. That sounds fine. I wasn't my plan to vote this out today. I would like, I think to finish with it tomorrow if we can. And so we'll communicate with tax. I also wanna be sure that superintendents and school boards, they've seen it. I wanna give them a chance to testify on it as well. So we'll do that tomorrow. Anything else? Sounds like we have a plan. Thank you, Mark, good idea. And I think I'll see everybody on the floor at 10. And Robin, if you need assistance as you do the caucus of the whole, we'll be there right behind you. I'm counting on it, thanks. Good, okay, thank you everybody. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll vote tomorrow, we will meet tomorrow because we didn't finish, we need more work on this. Okay.