 Morning, everybody. This is the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee. We're meeting on Friday, the 28th of August, and we appreciate you being here. It's good to see everyone. What we are working on right now, it has to do directly with our budget, as well as any COVID related issues. And so we had a nice conversation on Wednesday. We're going to continue that conversation for a little bit and then move with Diane Botfeld and then move to agriculture. And there have been some questions that have come up. People have emailed me. And so we're going to be trying to figure out how some of this might figure in terms of I also had an early morning conversation with Chip Conquest. As we try to figure out to how we make our recommendations to the Appropriations Committee by Wednesday, well, by the end of business on Wednesday. And if we are going to potentially make some small changes to the parameters of the grant programs, where exactly that might come into play. And whether that happens in the actual budget, or if commerce, I did not have a chance to talk to Charlie Kimball this morning. But I'm going to consult the consult Charlie and Mike Marcotte as we try and figure this out. So with that, Diane, thank you so much for being with us again today. I have had, I heard one recommendation from the committee on Wednesday today and Rodney recommended that we potentially increase or recommend that money for working lands be increased to what it was or as much as we could Well, Rodney, I don't want to speak for you, but I would as much as they could possibly come up with. Do you want to say something. Well, I just given the times and what's happening in the dairy industry. I see a need for more funding. That would go through the work and lands initiative. As time goes on. I mean, you know, just myself, you know, I mean, I got some things ideas and mine that I might do. But the one, not something that would sort of happen later this fall or probably through the winter. And, you know, and I'm sure others are in the same boat. They're trying to switch their commodity. They want to produce. You know, we're not getting much. For me anyways, but you know, I stopped milking cows. I'll probably get a little bit from the one month. No, maybe. But I won't get anything else. I'll try to apply them for. Well, the initial PPP P plan didn't cover self-employed. And then I tried to file. I was going to file for the business grant that did. Cover self-employed. However. If you're a white male owner, you're not eligible. For that grant. So, you know, there's not really. The people that stopped milking cows. Kind of caught in the middle of this whole pandemic and not really getting any. Significant out financially. So, you know, maybe. I can just foresee a little more need for working lands. Later in the year or springtime. So, you know, I don't know what people might end up trying to do. So you don't put the land on the market. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Rodney. Diane, do you want to respond to that at all? Well, the, the base funding is still in the budget of 594,000. From general funds that is still there. As you know, we withdrew the one time potential funding of 750,000. That request with withdrawn. So, you know, we support the governor's budget has submitted, but if there were further grant funds to expend, we have the ability and process to do so in the working lands. If that did occur. Okay. Can I ask a question? Yeah. So if all the funds don't get dispersed in. You know, the, the, the, the, the, the area assistance program. Cause I know some farmers. I don't even go to sign up cause they don't think they'll. Getting up to say so. And, and I, I don't, I try to encourage them to sign up. But anyways. Is there any way that any of that fund can be diverted to anything but unemployment. That is all in statute. So that is. I think we have to go back and look state statute. I believe the secretary has some ability to, and that was to move non-dairy working lands funds back into dairy. So I do not believe there's any mechanism to, to move unspent dairy funds into anything else at this point in statute. Yes. There was that overall cares act. And that's not for the state. Overall, I believe not if everything, and this is where there's been a lot of different gyrations on this. And maybe Michael Grady has a better handle on this, but overall, if it's not expended by the 20th of December, then funds go to unemployment, but that is, there's a lot of different bills out there and a lot of different state bills and a lot of different dates in there. So I don't want to be the one quoted as that's the final date. So maybe Michael Grady has a better handle on all those different gyrations. I know in the dairy and the non-dairy working lands, we have to, we have a deadline of the 30th of September to accept applications and processing those applications will, depending on the quality, you know, when we go back out and say something's incomplete and somebody brings it back to us and we give them three tries to get it right on the incomplete aspect. And so, you know, there's a week between each one of those, so at least potentially three weeks and then another potentially week and a half to two weeks to process it through to the check. So we think if September 30th is maintained as the deadline, we'll wrap everything up. By November 15th at the latest, all monies out the door checks written. And so depending on, it's all this question of timeline of, you know, if you as legislators choose to extend deadlines, if you choose to put language in of, you know, where the money goes if it's not spent, but the hard and fast for all of this CARES Act money is expended by December 30th by the feds, or they start taking it back. That one I know for sure. So there isn't a way to extend it unless something happens in Washington DC to extend beyond December 30th. So there's a lot of deadline dates resting on either Vermont legislature or feds around these expenditures of these funds. So I think the internally, the money that is with the working lands, the 594,000 is general fund money to be expended within fiscal year 21, which goes until June 30th, 2021. Okay. Mike, I saw your hand up. Did you want to comment? First, I think everything that Diane said is accurate. Okay. Senate AG has been discussing similar questions. One of the things that they will look at is language that allows the secretary to reallocate unexpended money in any of the three funds, dairy assistance, non-dairy or working lands, one or more of the other programs where there is increased demand. So Representative Graham, for example, if not all of the dairy assistance money is used because some farmers just aren't going to apply, the secretary would have the ability to reallocate that money to working lands or to the non-dairy program. So that's an option that Senate AG is looking to put on the table and they'll probably look at language on that, either by the end of today or early next week. Okay. Pardon me, Matt. Go ahead, Diane. Representative Graham, I know we've heard from some farms that they're not going to apply. It's extremely disappointing. Even the organic dairies are receiving payments. They're changing price back to January, but they're not going to apply. So if you look at the organic price through July, their organic price declines, even if it's based on their component levels, because some are grazing less butter fat, less protein, that price is declining, they can claim that decline. And if they did choose to use the USDA programs, those end in June. So July price, August price, that will provide them a payment. So that's an optional dairy, but there are, there's money there. And also if they had to do anything related to COVID, you know, mass or more sanitizing, whatever, any, any of those things, or if something changed, you know, the, the. Bedding was one thing we know because, you know, Sam's on about early on closure of mills for sawdust. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of high spike in there for a while. It may not be there now, but because the borders for trade is open back up, sawdust can come in. But even the plastic products, you know, the bail wrap, the silo, the bunker covers all the, that plastic comes out of China. And there were some either delays or expense there. So there's things that they can, can claim that. You know, they have to do a little bit of work. You know, you can get up to $34,000 if you wanted to take the time. If you have to spend four hours, $34,000, is that worth it to you? Wow. So he's going to apply, I think, but that's kind of this question of people feel it's beyond hard. I hope, I hope we're trying so hard to get that message out that there is help for you. The farm viability program, you know, you know, they're doing a lot of work. They're doing a lot of work. And I think, you know, I just see like testified yesterday over 250 contacts, they're helping people to get this done. So this whole, this, this it's concerning of there's no money there for me and it's too hard. And those both are myths. They're not true. There's money there and there's help. If you feel it's too hard or you don't have the computer skills, there's help there. So I, I. You know, I don't know if it's going to be as if you're not going to. And I, and I caution you. Caution you heavily of. Of how that's messaged. Because, oh, legislatures going to change the date. Well, it didn't happen. If it doesn't, I have confidence in how you get your work done. But if we have somebody contact us on October one, and nothing's happened legislatively and like, oh, they were going to change the date. Well, they didn't. We're done. That's what the law says right now. We're going to move to September 30th. So unless it's changed legislatively, we're still moving forward under September 30th. Okay, Rodney, I see your hand up. Did you have an additional question or. Well, the problem was extending the deadline or. Moving the money to just to move the money to a different program. We still have to meet the federal deadline. And by the end of December. So, you know, it takes a while to get these applications done. No matter how, I mean, the dairy power of this application is pretty easy, but. The rest of it's not so, so easy. It's a little more confusing on what expenses can be used and what can't. But if you move, if you wait till October or something or until November to. Decide to get extra money and move it to another program. There's no time to get an application done. Unless you've sent it in beforehand and. And. You did that program and a lot of money and then kind of extra, I guess it could be done. So, you know, we can extend the deadlines for these applications out much. I don't think. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Any Mike, Mike has his hand up. Mike, do you have a comment? No, I was just waving to my wife. I'm sorry. So the, so the madam chair of the agency. If it were just to extend as, as representative Graham said, just to extend the deadline on existing applications, no specific changes to the application. We could go as far as November 15th. We could go as far as November 15th. We could go as far as November 15th. We could go as far as November 15th. Our, our application is, is in a way, backward looking of expenditures costs that have been incurred. So there are, our reporting is such that the losses have already incurred the check that was received by farmers. Pays past deaths, so to speak. So we're confident that we could get the checks out. So we're confident that we could get the checks out. And then, you know, the expectation is already expended because it's for past harm. But that does cut it close. If you're, if the question is, the money wasn't expended, we'll, we'll move it to somewhere else. Those, those are all. A lot of moving parts to come together. If you, if you are doing, if you choose to do something legislatively that wholesale changes. Eligibility requirements or. I don't know what that would be, but if you wholesale change the application, other than just extending what exists, that will take some time to fix the application, send it back out, all those kinds of things. So it depends on what is occurring for those time timeframe. So be very glad to interact with you all if you're, if you're posing something changes to the application or just extending deadlines, glad to have those conversations. Okay, I have a couple of hands up. Vicki and then John O'Brien. I just had a question, something Rodney just said in passing. He said white male owner was not eligible. What grant is that? Or what, what was that? I don't remember anything about that. I believe Vicki that there was. There was a pot of money set aside for women owned. Businesses and minority owned businesses. I don't really know the details on that because we did not as a committee work on that. But I also know that there were other. Other pots of money for businesses and I don't know if Rodney would have qualified for one of those through a CCD. So. I don't know if anybody on here, Mike or, or Diane could comment on that. But there were two pots of money that I'm aware of. The one I was talking about came out of commerce committee. But yeah, you know, I just thought it was kind of funny. And these times when we're talking about, well, we got to get on our business. We'll talk about that later. Okay. Mike, did you want to say something? I think I'll pass at this point. Okay. All right. So. I think to sort of why, you know, kind of wind this back down. I, you know, the original. The original thought was to increase, recommend to appropriations that the, if at all possible. Oh, I'm sorry, John, before I do this little thing, why don't you ask your question? Thank you, Carolyn. Diane, I just had a couple of specific dairy farmer questions. Dairy farm in Tundridge sold their cows and stopped shipping milk sometime April, I think. And a dairy farm in Royalton, right around March, April, that the farmer retired and the people who used to milk his cows took over. And so how, how do these, these grants deal with, with those sort of transitional farms? You and statute covered the went out of business after March 1st. You requested they needed a good faith plan. To either come back into daring or continue another, some other form of agriculture. So there's a series of questions there of what are you doing next drop down menus of a chance to type in other, you know, that kind of kind of thing, what are you doing next? And then they can claim the change in price back to January for March and April. And then there's no more milk to claim on, and then any other economic harm. The thing about this application is that you can, in the other economic harm section, claim those changes for the farm that you just mentioned, that ended shipping in April, if, or I think the representative from Franklin County, I'm sorry. I'm not remembering names this morning mentioned the dairy farmer who is, is choosing to add processing equipment. Those expenses and those changes to the operation can be claimed in other economic harm. So if the person going out of business and April milking cows chose to shift to vegetable production and now they need a farm stand and now they need, you know, boxes and they need packaging and all of those things could be claimed. It doesn't have to be very specific. But the real issue is, is this new enterprise going to be under the same tax identification number? So if I have, I'm a sole proprietor, I use my social security number and I have five different enterprises active on my farm. I do maple, I do farm stand, I used to milk cows. So I'm not doing that anymore, but now I'm doing lumber, but it's all under one tax ID. All of those things could be claimed in the dairy application because it's a change in the, or it's part of the business as a whole. But if I did have my dairy operation under Diane's dairy LLC with a tax ID number and maple was Diane's maple LLC with a different tax ID number, the dairy application was one I could apply for the non-dairy working lands or an ACCB grant with this whole different LLC. So these business structures become important within this and we've tried to address that on our website under the FAQ. So it's not just in the example you gave of someone going out of business. If they're changing their agricultural operation and there's expenses associated with that, they went out of dairy because of COVID. Now we're pivoting to farm stand. I'm going to now do sheep. Whatever that pivot is, some of those expenses of standing up that different enterprise can be claimed within the other economic harm in our application. The example you gave of someone passing away and that change in ownership, that one's pretty specific. And I think we're trying to work our way through that. It's all, you know, it's in that case, it's all about documentation. And what was that relationship back in January? Because the January information is under one name. And the, you know, it's under one name, but it's under one name. And so the person has passed away in the folks that were working there. Now I have the ownership and it's under a totally do name. We're trying to figure out the legalities of that. How does that work? I mean, that's, that's a totally illegal question of. You know, it was there any. Was there any documentation that said the folks that were milking the cows had any form of ownership or, or at least to own or anything, that we can document? So we're looking, we're digging, we're digging hard on that one to find a way. But if someone stepped forward, you know, outside of this, someone passing away, if I wanted to start a dairy farm today and start milking cows, the eligibility goes back to actively milking cows as of March 1st. And are you actively milking cows today? So in that example, if I started today and wanted to make a claim, I was not actually milking cows in March and not eligible. So that's how the statute was written. So, so there's some nuance of course, and that we are looking at that situation where, you know, the owner passed away, but the folks who were doing the physical milking on the farm have now taken over. We're trying to find a way to legally make all these connections and make it happen. But we have to have enough legal documentation to make our internal council happy and also to make sure we're not running a foul of the requirements of the CARES Act. So we're looking, I don't have an answer yet, but we're digging. Okay. Thanks, Diane. Diane, if somebody like Rodney wanted help, I'm going through this myself to help, but if somebody wanted help with an application, who should they contact? Um, on our website is the specific phone number, et cetera, but it's the farm viability program, Mariah, Mariah, and they have an online, of course, application as well. You can make a phone call or you can and ask for help online. And then they're assigning their service providers based on location and I don't believe anybody's going out, sitting elbow to elbow due to COVID. They utilize phone. They utilize email to, to help people through the application. So they do have the capability to, if, you know, I, I'm a farmer and I have absolutely no computer. I don't do any of that. Then they will, they will submit on their computer. The actual application and the farmer attests the, you know, it's a very close interaction between the farmer and the. Service provider, but we think those are less than 10. So they have some former computer, some form of access to the worldwide web and, and getting this done. So they are, they are the ones helping directly. In some cases we've heard that loan officers through Yankee farm credit, if they're a borrower at that bank and, or one of the banks or financiers up in Franklin County, Ag Ventures is helping their clients fill out. So there's some independent outside of VHCB farm viability, but farm viability is the one that's available to everyone. Okay. Thanks. And then now I'm going to switch, sort of switch topic a little bit and that is if, if we were to request that approves, if they could find more money to add to working lands, could the agency or the working lands. The board actually handle that. So I think that's a, that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Because we know at this point, it's in for $594,000, which has been historically the base. We were hoping to bring it up a little bit. But we also know that there is now, I believe three, five million additional dollars. That are COVID related. So will those COVID, related grants have to meet all the requirements of the federal government as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong, anybody. So will those grants be tracked in the same way that the typical working lands grants are, or they just you get handed the money and that's it. Yeah, they are not typical representative parties. They are not typical working lands grants at all. It's a truncated process. It's not a, they are not, they're not forward looking. The traditional working land grants are you are planning to do what I need a grant to help me get to this. Yeah. Current CARES Act grants are, I have had this economic harm in the past. So, or I have, I have changed my business because of COVID to do this, but they're not forward looking. So if September 30th is, you know, on our horizon now, if we got an application that said for the working lands in November, I'm going to do this. The answer would be no. On the CARES Act money, no. The 594,000 is all the typical, the working lands board is not involved. They were involved in setting up and having a conversation about how the funds would go out and what was eligible and what was not, but the day to day approval of those CARES Act working lands monies is not at the board. Okay. Vita is doing the first review of the agency's finalizing the second review. So the 594,000 typical process with the working lands board. And they were prepared if in the former budget presentation with the additional one time of 750,000, the board was prepared to manage that level of funding, 594 plus 750,000. So they are, the board is active, prepared. They're not involved in the CARES Act funding past the, the preliminary work on that. So yes, they would have that capacity. Okay. Michael Grady. I agree with almost everything that Diane said. I do think that there is some opportunity for prospective economic harm. If you can show that you're going to have, if you apply, say tomorrow, but you can show you're going to have prospective economic harm. Three weeks from now. I still think that qualifies because the, the timeframe for showing economic harm is between March 1st and December 1st. So, so you have an opportunity if you can show. Validly into the agencies that meets the agency standards that you're going to have prospective economic harm, I think that that would still qualify. That is correct, but we would be sending it back to, as incomplete until they could verify that they had the economic harm. We're not very, yeah, but the, the issue being on that perspective out in the future. We have, we have a, we have a framework for that. It's called the cares act. It opens, it opens us and the farmer up to audits if we go out into the future. And we've tried very, very hard to avoid that. Of being very backward looking versus forward. So yes, if an applicant did do that. And they said the harm was going to occur. Some time within the timeframe of September 30th. have to document that it did occur and then yes, but reaching out into November, December, with a September 30th deadline, we would deny that line item. Okay, thank you. John O'Brien has his hand up. John? Our agritourism community, were they eligible for working lands grants or would they mostly apply through ACCD relief? You're muted, Diane. Those are truly up to the individual. We're not, the agency has been very cautious about saying, well, you should go over to this grant. This one's better. So the applicant needs to do some research and that is where farm viability with their business advising could be helpful. Of which is the best place for you apply? Would you get more out of ACCD than the ones at the ag level? That's, those are some individual decisions. The agency, because we're involved in the final level of review, does not wanna be the one saying, you should go to this grant versus that grant because we might be wrong. So we leave that up to the applicant to make that choice and do not, the agency doesn't make those type of recommendations, but farm viability with their business advising has been involved in those discussions with applicants of where's the best place to apply. Okay, thanks. Sam Lincoln, your hand is up. Thank you. And I don't wanna muddy the water on the discussion on working lands, but I just wanted to, as you're talking about the budget for that, as I'm the designee for Krishna Snyder on that board. And when talking about the governor's recommend of the 594, we've found the past couple of years, we increased the grant cap, the maximum dollar amount that a business could receive, particularly to address the low grade forest products processing capacity in the state. And so there's a maximum grant available of $150,000 per business that can demonstrate that they have commitments from businesses up and down the supply chain around them. And that is, we're starting to see the results of that, those larger investments with mills doubling capacity or firewood operations doubling capacity or growing and investing. And so with 594 available there and potentially a couple of $150,000 grants and there are dairies eligible for that too, for processing with the same type of parameter that they're gonna add capacity and value in the rural economy. So as I, again, I don't wanna, Diane's here, the agency of Ag is the home of that and I don't wanna step on their toes, but I just wanna mention that as you start talking about allocations and how to use that money and things like that, there's a very important forestry component to that as well that's been working well. Yeah, well, that's good to hear, Sam. And I think it might be one of the concerns about knocking the amount back to $594,000, although I understand that you support the governor's budget as presented. And I wanna thank the forestry people on here for your patience. I have a couple more things in a follow-up for Diane. Well, one's a follow-up and one is a new item and I'm just looking for advice as to where to go with this, but I had an email from Andrea Stander after our last meeting and she was referring to the flow chart and Diane, you said that somebody is not necessarily made eligible because they had a net profit between March 1st and August 1st. And I know this is an issue for a bunch of people. And she said, if you carefully examine the flow chart, you'll see that someone only continues to be eligible if they did have a profit, only if they have at least one W2 employee and this could effectively be a barrier for small sole proprietor farms, many of whom may have done well for a few months but had enormous COVID expenses and continue to struggle due to the general economic downturn. So it's something, I'm not quite sure how we fix that one. I don't know if the Senate is working on that, Michael Grady, in terms of what, if they're going to, I don't wanna use the word tinker, but make small changes to the parameters and the requirements of the application. But it's something that I know is of concern. And if you have a $1 net profit, is that going to kick you out when you're looking at potential problems in down the road, September, October? So Mike, how's the Senate's work? So Senate, I did discuss removing that area. The Willard testified as Diana kind of supported that if you're gonna make changes to the application, it needs to be done now because there are already applications coming in. The agency wants to be able to review them in a timely manner. They can't kind of wait around for a long time because of some of the other conditions on the CARES Act money. So if you wanna make that change, you likely need to make it quickly. Okay, thanks, Mike. Representative Partridge, yes, it is correct that moving through the flow chart moves people into a different funding bucket. The one that's online is generalized, but the H966 funds are under ACCT and they have the ACCD requirements. So those are different than S351 were and H961. So that is why not having any employees on the W2 is an issue. So that because of the funding stream that that pushes people into. So that is one of the areas of concern because the requirements of the funding that went to ACCD for working lands, 2.5 million has different requirements than the S351. So trying to find a way to have everybody get funding, but yes, there are times when you can't be, you can't have zero W2 employees and get the ACCD funding, I believe. And that may be changing. So there's changes going on a foot in the ACCD world, but that is why, yes, that is true. If you are shuffled off that branch of the flow diagram, it is possible to become ineligible, that is true. Okay, so the recommendation would probably be for anybody who's interested in applying to contact the Farm Viability Program, go on your website, look for those links and contacts and to connect with those folks because they're gonna be helping. And I think one other item on the changing the application, we built these applications based on a scope of work. And the funding to build all these applications went through the CARES Act through ADS who pays the software company. If there are gonna be changes that are outside of our scope of work, there's no more money at ADS, the agency's budget would have to pick that up. So if you're gonna start throwing, well, if we change this, do you have to pay for it? We would have to go back to the software company and say, this is what needs to be changed. Is it still within our scope of work? Or is it outside of that? And now we're gonna have to pay. The other aspect around changing the application, yes, soon, please do it soon. But if something is happening with Sam's Forestry application or an ACC application or all these other things that are occurring, we're put in line of when we get our application done. So you could say, oh, did it today? Diane, go change that application. Software company may come back and say, oh, we got five other people in front of you. You're gonna wait until we can get to yours. So there's a lot of moving parts here and it's not just as simple, oh, you know, House and Senate Ag agreed, the full Senate agreed, the full House agreed, it's done. Then there may be a series of weeks before we can get our application changed because the same thing happened to Sam, same thing happened to ACC. So we may be put in line and it's not an immediate fix, depending on the extent of it, you know, extending a deadline, yep, changing a cap, probably not a problem, but when you start digging into this, if you look at this flow chart, the logic and the questions to move through that flow chart, pulling out one peg is like pulling out a stick in that game where it all collapses. So it's, we would have to go back to the software provider and have those questions of how long it will take to fix. And I think one other thing to consider is that there are a little over a hundred people in process of an application for the non-dairy working lands right now. If you choose to make a change and we start awarding money, if the initial award were the house bills, the maximum is 50,000. Senate bill, the maximum is 20. If they went through this process and got the $50,000 and you changed the parameters and they really only now should have got 20, do we have to go back and get the 30,000 back from the farmer? So that's kind of a question of the overall fairness of what this happens to the ones that are in process right now, or do we have to stop? I mean, that's kind of this question because right now we know the deadline is the 30th and we're working toward that deadline, nothing has changed. But if we get into this, you know, we're gonna start approving applications that are ready next week and writing checks for the non-dairy working lands. And so if something occurs in the legislature that changes that and we've paid somebody too much, do we have to go back and get the money back? I mean, these are the fairness and equity kind of questions of, oh, I shouldn't have applied first, but it was first come, first serve. So just keep that in your mind as you think about these changes of how does this work overall for those who may have jumped in and applied right away versus those that may be waiting. So I'm not predicting gloom and doom, I'm just wanting to think all of it through before you make a change. Right, and again, you know, I know that we actually dumped quite a task or three or four in your labs and we really appreciate the hard work you've all done to make it happen. So I guess my last question has to do with them and I'm just really looking for guidance. I had an email from Betsy Rosenbluth regarding the FY21 Farm to School budget. And she said, we know that we need $500,000 annually in the Farm to School and Early Education Program. We also know this is a most difficult year and that it will take quite a while to recover from the pandemic. For the FY21 budget, we are asking you to support the Governor's request for funding for Farm to School to keep the program going. This is $50,000 less than the program had the last several years. We are also asking that you please consider adding an additional $100,000 to the Farm to School grant program from the Coronavirus Relief Fund funding for equipment and supplies for schools and early childhood programs to respond to the demands placed on them from the pandemic. This would include equipment materials and supplies for school nutrition programs and classrooms, including improvements for outdoor learning spaces, equipment for processing, packaging, storing and serving meals safely, for instance, meal carts or vacuum sealers, learning kits for remote classes, et cetera. So any advice regarding that is that a request we might put into our message to a probe or how might that work? So our base funding for the Farm to School, Farm to School and Universal Meals were combined in our budget, so 171,875. It's been no change to that. The reference they're making of $50,000 less is one time funding. So they count that one time funding as if the agency cut it and we did not. So we are level funded and the general fund for Universal Meals Food Farm to School. So we have 171,875. The potential of CARES Act funds, we'd have to make the determination eligibility or not of what they're requesting. I don't, first blush, don't specifically see any issues. It would be standing up another program for them and the timing issues come into play. Can they expend these? Can schools expend these funds? Can we get them out the door? Can we expend them in a timely manner prior to the end of the calendar year? So that potential is there. If it's CARES Act funds and then within the agencies or the state's budget funding for that, there's always, it's always a very important program and we'd leave that up to you as legislators of the support for that program or not. Okay, so it would be maybe our recommendation going to the Appropriations Committee. Sure, that would be one way, yes. And I think in your budget meeting earlier this week, I had my technical difficulties with my computer quitting. So the question at that point was the two plus two program and I have provided you that information for FY21. If all students continue enrollment, we will be short about 51,000 to be able to cover all the scholarships. The plan, the expectation is full enrollment, five seniors, five juniors, five sophomores and five freshmen, unknown currently about the COVID impact and our kids gonna continue to be enrolled or not, but that is the expectation full enrollment and 51,000 short. Okay, thank you, Diane. So what if everybody enrolls and we're 51,000 short? What happens then? We would reduce scholarship amount across the board. Okay. Equally between all students. Okay, all right, thanks. But we'd wanna communicate that fairly soon. Yes, right, right. All right, that's all I have for you, Diane. I'm wondering if the committee members have any additional questions for Diane at this point or shall we move on to forestry? Madam chair, there was one more item that has been brought up, I know by Vermont Housing Conservation Board, the 75,000 that was for their grant writer to assist towns and individuals to apply for grants. That it was one time funding, even though it's been one time over a course of several years, that is not in our current budget and that was 75,000. So that is not in our budget at this point because it was one time funding. Okay, all right, thanks for that. Vicki had her hand up. Vicki, do you still have your hand up? I just quickly wanted to ask Diane, where did that 51,000 shortfall happen or why? Was it COVID somehow? What happened there? No, it's not COVID. We've been working for years to get to full enrollment. Last year we were off by one. We had 19 students out of a possible 20. This year we have all 20 and the potential tuition increase. Our base funding for the two plus two program is 170,000 and $222. We've had some carry forward in past years. The expected tuition for all 20 students would be 241,000. We have 20,000 and carry forward, which would make us 190,337 dollars and we have a expected bill of 241,000. So it's just the full enrollment with all the students and the continued increase in tuition. So our base funding is not keeping pace with the growth in tuition. In the past we had a lot of carry forward because we didn't have full enrollment, but now it is catching up to us. So the overall program now for two plus two with full enrollment is really getting close to $250,000 and our base is 170. Okay. Thank you. Thanks Diane. Do you have that memorized or is that written in front of you? You can't see me pull up different spreadsheets. So this is what it's like to sit in front of you all in committee and you're all looking at your computer and we're sitting there with no computer and testifying. So now that the tables are turned, I can look at my computer screen and testify at the same time. This is nice turn around. It looks really, it looks like you're just memorizing all that. I'm glad to know that your computer is potentially working again Diane. Yes, I'm back in business. So good. So Sharon Fogart has her hand up and Sharon I'm gonna let you ask a question and then I think we need to cut this off and move to our forestry portion. So go ahead. Thank you. Diane, is that position that's cut, is that going to impair the ability to help applicants with the grants that are coming through on CARES money? Has that position kind of folded in to help support all the grants that are coming through for the federal funds? What position are you referring to? The one you just said was cut that $75,000. Oh, okay. That is not a position. That's a pass through of funds from the state to the farm viability program. They provide the services. We are the pass through entity from the state to get the money out to VHCB. Okay, and is the services that they're providing, that's, I think, I thought you said that that was a position there. I believe it may be a position at Farm Viability. I'd have to go determine that 100%, but that is the work that they're doing specifically with towns to access all the federal grants. They've been very successful. I would encourage you to have a ceiling in or someone from the Farm Viability program. It's been a very successful program, but because it is one-time funds and has been since the start, people seem surprised that it's not in our agency budget, but when you folks at the legislature give us one-time funds, it's one time. It does not go on to our base budget. I guess my concern is if these funds are helping keep up with applications for the CARES Act money, I would hate to. That's not the use of those funds. Okay. That is not the use of those funds. Okay, thank you. All right, everybody. I'm going to, I think that we need to move on to the forestry portion. Diane, I really thank you for your presence here today and for all your brain trust of the answers. And you're welcome to hang on or you're welcome to head out as well. So it's up to you. I'm hoping to go in and approve for payment several dairy applications. So I will exit, but thank you very much for having me this morning. Thanks for all your hard work. All right. Folks, let's turn to the forestry budget. We had heard some points about some money, Maida had some questions. Thank you, Maida, so much for joining us today on our Zoom call. And so I'm going to turn this over to Commissioner Snyder and he can talk to us a little bit about that and then maybe say a few words or delegate somebody else to say a few words about the COVID related, the coronavirus related relief package and how that's going for foresters, loggers, et cetera. Great. Thanks, Madam Chair. Good morning everyone. For the record, Michael Snyder, Commissioner Forrest Parks and Recreation. I also have along here, Deputy Sam Lincoln and our financial manager, the Kristen Freeman. So please welcome them as well. It's good to see you all. I hope you all had a good, got to enjoy some good Vermont summer here in the interim. And Madam Chair, so my expectation here from you is that you would again, like to hear a little bit about the budget and the grant, the forest economy stabilization grants given that you've just been kind of in the grant mode, you want to start with that and then we'll switch to the budget. What's your preference? We're prepared to do it all. Either way, I don't know if Mata has some time constraints. I know she had questions about, I think it was $71,000. So I want to make sure her questions get answered. Maybe she's already gotten them answered, but it would be helpful for us to know too. Mata, did you want to say something? Just whatever you want to do, Madam Chair, is fine by me. My chair has given me the wherewithal to be here for as long as you would like and as long as I need. Okay, great. Thanks so much. All right, Michael, you can go ahead and do whatever, you know, however you'd like to do this, set this up. Okay, thanks for that, Representative Telsen. And I just alert you, I'm having difficulties apparently. I've never experienced this before with my setup, but I'm having sort of connectivity issues. So I have turned off my video. If that's a problem for you, you don't, you know, let me know, but it seems to be helping the audio to just go with audio. So given that Deputy Lincoln has to be elsewhere, I would then suggest we start with these forced economy stabilization grants. And I would, you know, because I'd like to have Sam run you through that. He's prepared to do so. And I'd simply want to introduce it by saying, this has been really important. We're really grateful for the sector-specific assistance, the $5 million to stand up a program, and that Sam deserves an enormous amount of credit. This has been incredibly difficult, complex. He will be the first to tell you it's a team, and it is, and we've got a lot of help, but he's really done an incredible job with a complex project. And so I'm gonna shut up and let him tell you what's going on and how it's gone. Sam, you ready to go? Thank you. I am, thank you. Hello, everyone. Sam Lincoln, Deputy Commissioner and Department of Forest Parks and Recreation for the record. So the Vermont Forest Economy Stabilization Grant. We all talked, I think we gave you a few reports in June about the situation in the forest economy and we've since stood up a program and I'll give you a quick history about why and where we're at with applications and some changes we've made since the bill passed or some adjustments we've made as we've moved along and implemented the program. So when the pandemic hit, the forest economy was designated as essential. Many, most businesses in the forest economy were designated as essential because of their production of paper goods, medical supplies for use in hospitals, tissue paper, food packaging, takeout packaging, home and business heating fuel, electrical power for the grid, sawdust, dairy farms. There was an enormous demand on those businesses and as shifts happened throughout the national, excuse me, in global economy, it was clear that those businesses needed to operate to keep goods and services flowing to the public. With that though, there came the shutdown of many offices, schools, homes, businesses, people started using far less paper and that continues today and we've seen the shutdown of major paper mills in the region that produce a lot of the forests here are well-suited to produce wood that is used in printing paper, white paper that you all have in those boxes and next to your printers and we have warehouses at paper mills full of millions of tons of paper in the region. We have paper mills in the region that still have wood stacked up that they bought last winter, that they have not used. They are eking along, trying to keep their people employed, trying to keep the supply chain that supplies them employed. We've also seen some incredibly strong demand on other parts of the forest economy, anything to do with home gardening. There's been a boom in these victory gardens, if you will, lumber at small saw mills to build raised beds. There's been anything to do with tool handles which is actually eating a lot of ash logs that the true temper mill in the region produces for Ames True Temper, they make tool handles. People staying at home, doing home improvement projects with extra unemployment money in their paychecks and things like that have spent a lot of money on home improvements and as the Canadian economy and the border was shut down and things like that. We've also seen a huge, there was a shutdown of the supply chain and now we're seeing sometimes up to a two month delay and things like pressure-treated lumber and the local supply chain hasn't caught back up yet. So we're seeing a real whiplash in certain places and a lot of firewood demand as well as people see burning wood as energy security and they either stayed home and burned up all their wood pile at spring while they were home and bought their wood again for next winter not knowing what the circumstances would be and that's still occurring. We're still seeing very strong demand there. So in all that, the supply chain experienced, even though they were designated essential there was a real loss of revenue and business as this all occurred. The program was set up by Act 138, S351 and businesses were, we set up the program that businesses that had experienced could demonstrate revenue loss of between $5,000 and $100,000 in certain categories in the supply chain were eligible for revenue loss compensation directory reimbursement. A few things that we did a little differently than some of the other programs is that we did, we learned that doing, mirroring what ACCD has done wasn't necessarily gonna work for our program which was how we thought we would set it up for simplicity and consistency but we did a five month window of revenue loss comparison from March through July of this year to last year and if the business experienced $5,000 or more in revenue loss up to $100,000 they could receive that directory reimbursement. The issue with doing, for us with doing 10% of 2019 revenues which some of these other programs do is that that doesn't correlate directly to what they may have lost and that, and as Diane Bothell recently said in her testimony, there's this concern that we've learned a lot about of going back and having to audit businesses and possibly claw back money. If they didn't experience revenue loss greater than the grant they got we would have to go back and bring trying to claw those funds back. So we did a dollar for dollar if they demonstrated revenue loss for a certain time period, we did not look forward at all because of the concern if they have a turnaround and quarter four that we did not wanna have to go back and potentially ask for that money back in those businesses. So if they've demonstrated revenue loss they're eligible for those past months. Just to give you some quick statistics on where we're at we have had right now we have 60 applications that have been submitted and are reviewed and recommended for approval and pending payment. In those 60 applications there's $3.1 million of economic harm. Applications that were submitted and still under review is another half a million dollars. By type we've had 32 logging contractors, 24 wood manufacturers or crafters and those are furniture and other types of businesses. Seven wood processors, which are sawmills and fuelwood producers and eight trucking enterprises and two consulting forestry businesses. Those have come from 13 of the 14 counties in the state the average eligible grant size is $49,125 for our applicants. Average number of employees per business is six and the average annual gross sales of those applicants is a million, 23, $867. So those businesses are, we see a wide range everything from the sole proprietor. We also, we made sole proprietors eligible, which was critical to the small family businesses in the rural economy. And we also are seeing businesses with up to 60, 70, 80 employees applying as well. I think the average, when I ran the averages yesterday we're looking at the average grant is about 5% of the gross sales of these businesses. So it's helpful to many of them, that have high capital payments. They have a large expenses to run these businesses when particularly if they're idled even for one month it can really snowball quickly. And so this amount has, I think going to be very helpful for them but the situation essentially is ongoing. The application eligibility date ended on July 31st. We're processing applications until September 4th to give people plenty of time to apply, get their book work in order and things like that. But this is an ongoing situation for sure. We have heard, we've as the agency of AG the Fire and Enforcement Ability Program has been a great helpful partner with technical service providers. We have people that are great business operators. They know the right way to get trees marked or harvested or trucked to a mill or milled or manufactured but they're not necessarily experts in financial statements. And so the Fire and Enforcement Ability Program has been helpful with that. We've had a technical assistance line at the department and we've been able to quickly get people right through the system. Anybody who's had any issues has been helped and we've been able to make it work. The one, I think also looking forward at the rest of this calendar year and in consideration of your work looking ahead is that again, this is an evolving situation with the loss of the paper mills and demand suppressed for that wood. I think, I don't know where all the relief funding will go but there's certainly going to be an ongoing need until businesses and schools, institutions, government buildings reopen and are using paper at the rate that they were before but I suspect it's a long-term change with people realizing that they can work from home electronically without pressing print on various things. But the world also has strong demand for renewable paper products, packaging products and things like that. So it's gonna have to have time to sort itself out but we are, I think I said the same thing the last time we were here, we're at a point of real vulnerability in the forests of Vermont and the forest economy supply chain with a handful of paper mills buying about 16% of the annual harvest from the state and that are operated by globally owned companies and things which in some respects provide strength and strong markets and things like that but at other times, one of those mills, one decision by a corporate board of directors to reduce production at a mill or close a mill is having a major impact on the Vermont forest economy supply chain. And so the investments as we were talking about like with working lands, we've heard from a number of past recipients of those funds that are growing their mills, their sustainability of their operation, the process would creating more markets back home here in Vermont. And we're hearing from people now that the relief funds, the CARES Act money is not really meant for project-based things in terms of the grants to the private sector. It's more based on lost revenue but we're hearing from people that have projects. They want to expand and grow businesses. They see opportunity and we need to. We need to grow the capacity to use the slow grade wood in the state and particularly for right now the demand is on the energy side. So Sam, could I interrupt you just very briefly? And this is a really fantastic report but what I hear you saying is that there's potentially a need for larger infrastructure investment and that if, you know, and I don't know how much it's cost to set up a sawmill but it seems like if we're gonna be cutting back the working lands grant money to $594,000 that, you know, the $100, $150,000 grants to make an investment in something like a sawmill would probably be difficult. That's correct. Yeah, okay. So we can file that little tidbit away. All right, I'm sorry to interrupt but I actually, when you were giving a list of the folks who had applied, I was busy writing and you said seven processors, eight truckers, two foresters and then who, what were the other categories? 32 logging contractors. Okay. 24 wood manufacturers and crafters. Okay, great. And so, yeah, in that group, if I could go back to that. Again, we found businesses that they were designated as essential and they found a way, you know, some of them with five, 10, 20 employees they found a way to move forward and be creative and innovative about how they did things and there's one business in particular that I can think of that they actually gained in revenue but they did it at cutting profits and renting new machinery to do new work and take on new jobs. So their revenue grew but their profit was down significantly. And so they were ineligible for our program. You know, and we've had a few other experiences where again, businesses that are their diversity was adversity in this application. We made it so that they were, they needed to be 50% or more forced products, business revenue in 2019, which is what we interpreted the statute to be. And there are people that have other businesses that may have had more than 50% of their revenue from a side, an excavating enterprise or something else that they did in 2019 that made them ineligible. We have some large, well-known wood manufacturers in the state that are not based, that are not located in the state of Vermont that made them ineligible. You know, their headquarters is out of state and things like that. So we've done some good work and we feel very good that we've been able to process these applications quickly. The payments are gonna go out within two weeks. But there's people we didn't catch. There's businesses that we are not able to help. And again, particularly we're thinking of those ones that have a lot of strength in their management capability and innovativeness, innovation and that we're just under the wire and we weren't able to help. So, and I'm sure you'll hear a lot of that but it certainly happened in the forest economy and people are, there's lots of new things going on, people doing new service work for landowners and things but it's gotta be profitable for these people to sustain these major investments that they have. So, Mike is here, good. Sam, I see two hands up but I just wanna clarify, it sounds to me like you have, there have been, and in terms of money, $3.6 million in applications, 3.1 has gone out and a half a million is still under review. Do you see a way to, I mean, Diane pointed out the problem of tweaking the language other than a date change or something like that. Do you see some small tweaks that could be made to maybe bring some of those folks in who were industrious and as Vermonters are found a way to make ends meet or make do and keep people busy and all of that sort of thing. Do you see a way to do that? I think it's possible. And probably the, and as Diane alluded to, there's an enormous amount of backend work that goes on with the software developers that they make it look so easy on the application side that there's an enormous amount of work into each one of those things. But if anything, I think that we could take away, possibly just remove some questions and maybe the logic wouldn't be affected too much. But I guess we'd have to find out if any of the changes we made were compliant with the federal eligibility standards and then what the impact would be on the software and application logic and things like that. The other piece of that is our program, the grants, the funding that we have reverts back to the agency of commerce on September 15th, which is 17, 18 days away. And so we're on trajectory to spend as much of this as we can on forced economy businesses by then. And I don't know, I guess we'd have to figure that out and get back to understand what changes we think we could make that would do that and whether or not those people could get their applications in in time. And if we change, move the date, there's a number of things to be figured out there. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I think speed is of the essence here, as Diane said, anything we do, we have to do quickly. And I'm not quite sure what form that would take, whether it would be in the appropriations bill, whether it would be something that we tag on to whatever the Senate is working on. So, and yeah, it's complicated, but I think that it has to move quickly if we're gonna do it. We can, what's this today, Friday already? I think we could have at least conceptually something organized by the, by early next week. I don't think that would be cool. So our recommendations have to go out to approach by the end of business on Wednesday because they wanna do the final work on Friday and I don't wanna bollocks them up. So at any rate, we can be in touch about that. John O'Brien's hand up is up and then Rodney's is up. So, John, you wanna go ahead? Thank you. This may be going down a rabbit hole, but I remember either in an all house caucus or an email thread, Kitty Toll and a couple of other representatives talking about how the window to apply for the forestry CRF funds came during a period when loggers weren't doing much business, much season sort of end of winter, I think. And so a lot of them felt that it was just sort of badly timed or they wish it was at another, maybe a longer period when they started up again. Was there anything to that or? So 22 issues, mud season during March, April, early May is typically a time when depending on where in the state they are and the soil types are working on, the operations are shut down. So the revenue loss may not have been experienced during that time, which they would see in the future months, if those five months were moved a little bit around the calendar, if you will. The other thing was that 2019, it was extremely wet in April, May and June of 2019. So many logging, there's actually logging operations and they're showing positive revenue in a revenue comparison with 2019, even though they've experienced really bad months in 2020, it was better than what they had, they dealt with in the weather of 2019. And so they're sort of throwing their hands up in frustration because they're just having two piggyback years of really bad five to six months of the year. So that was something that we had talked about is, it was a concern, but at the same time, we haven't heard from a huge number of applicants that that was an issue for, but we don't know who we haven't heard from, who saw it and said, this isn't gonna work for me. But I think the thing that we, opening again is the situation has been evolving and getting worse for some businesses the month, we did March through July because August, nobody hit, when we opened our applications, it was the fifth of August and no one had experienced revenue loss in August yet and we didn't know if the funds would be expended quickly. So we can open, we can potentially open back up at August in for new applicants that they could apply as one possibility that we could do so that it gives them a little more of their typical operating season in which they would be eligible for. But again, without a date change to extend the deadline or things like that, we'd be looking at four days, they'd have four days to get their books in order for August, particularly for accrual businesses that need to get their books finalized for the month and things like that. That could be tricky, but we could certainly again with a date, let's say a date change could make something like that work. So, great, thanks, Sam. Okay, Rodney has his hand up and then John Bartholomew. So Rodney, why don't you go ahead? That was a little different subject. Sam, thank you for, you've got a guy, I'd tell him to look at that treat us more and so thank you. Perfect. That's it? That was quick. That was easy. All right, John Bartholomew, go ahead. I've actually been hearing a lot about the availability of pressure-treated lumber and you had mentioned that. I'm curious, is that related to everyone's home? So they're doing home projects and there are more people using it or is it some kind of a disruption in the supply chain and when do we think it might be more normal? Well, I'm hearing about this more, let's say outside my FPR life, from my friends who are contractors and builders or people doing home improvement projects that they're looking at up to eight weeks before they can get pressure-treated lumber delivered. So I think it's a combination of the two situations you asked about is that there's demand because it seems to be a lot of home renovation and construction going on anecdotally. I don't have those numbers, how that works in the state. But, and then the supply chain is generally what we're hearing is the supply chain got emptied out as mills, particularly the Canadian mills were not designated as essential immediately. And so that created a real break in the supply chain overall of lumber available in the country. And as things restarted, it just took time to get, it's taking time, it hasn't been accomplished yet but to refill the supply chain. And we're still hearing about nationally tissue paper issues and things like that that are still, everything is still very much a just-in-time delivery and paper tissue is very bulky and they don't, companies, corporations don't want to build big warehouses to store those kind of things. So it's all very much made and delivered on demand. And when there's a run on a product, they get used up very quickly. Good. All right, Rodney, your hand is still up. Did you have another question or did you just not lower it? Just to lower. By my one correction, I wanted to offer the chair on the numbers that you had the numbers that I, I want to just make sure I clarify the numbers. So right now we have recommended for approval a little over 3.1 million. Under view five, a little over 500,000. Okay. And so combined total, that's the 3.6. So those are applications that are either, like I said, recommended for approval or they're in the system and we're working out problems with documentation or things like that. There's another, about another, there's 54 in the system that have registered started applications, but have not pushed the button and fully submitted them yet. Okay. So maybe your whole 1.4 million could be, you know, the additional 1.4 million could be, well, maybe not completely, I'm not going to do math on the fly here, but you might be approaching your $5 million cap, right? Well, and Vita, you know, the Vita fees, Vita has been a, I didn't mention them, they've done all the reviews for us and their fees are going to come out of that. And we're being cautious to make sure we don't overspend and we're looking at that $5 million as though as if Vita was going to expend all of the, everything they were eligible for, just to make sure we don't run into some situation where we've approved the notified grantees that they're going to get a grant and then we find out that we don't have any money. So we're sort of holding that in reserve. And that was a source of concern, as I recall, Vita was asking for 10% for fees. And what did we settle on, five or seven? Five to eight, I believe is what it is. Okay. We're still working with Vita on that. They've again been an enormous help to us in setting this up and implementing it. And we're still working that out because they're doing reviews for all the other programs too. So we're getting that finished as quickly as we can. One other important thing that I did not mention that I think is really important in all this is the, some of these businesses, there are a handful of businesses in our applications that are wood manufacturers that originally did not think they were gonna be eligible for our program and they applied with ACCD and they maxed out their $50,000 ACCD grant with ACCD. But when they demonstrated, some of them demonstrated many hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue loss and they meet our eligibility standards. And the way that that's been handled is that they can apply for a forestry grant and let's say they're eligible, they've showed $120,000 revenue loss. And so that means they're eligible for $100,000 forestry grant. We're deducting that 50,000 they already got from ACCD out of that. So there's no duplication. We learned that when we all were meeting in June and talking about this, the double dipping concept came up. It was talked about a lot. And there's a difference between double dipping and duplicated compensation. And so we have made sure that they may be applying it and being awarded from two programs, but they're demonstrating that they've experienced that dollar for dollar revenue loss to the business. So we have a handful of wood manufacturers that fell into that category. And that's how we're handling it. We're documenting those carefully. Great, Sam, thanks. Thank you all. All right. Now, John has his actual hand up, John. Oh, just a quick follow-up on what you were asking about, Carolyn, was we heard yesterday that AAFM is gonna get to stand up their granting programs 1.3 to 1.5 million. And I was wondering if there was any sort of backfill from the CARES funds for FPR along those lines? Is that a question for me, Representative O'Brien? Yeah. I guess I'm not sure what you mean by that they're getting that money to stand those programs up. Do you mean for their budget, for staff time? Right, exactly. I don't know. I'm gonna turn to the commissioner and ask if he knows the answer to that. I may be missing something, but not to my knowledge. That's a nice idea. I'm interested, but I know of no such back funding to support our standing up of this stuff. We're just doing it. So that's an interesting point, John. So not, you know, in particular, the ag development folks have been spending many of their hours on getting these programs up and running. And they are able to basically save money in terms of their general fund costs. They're meeting their required cut to the budget by backfilling basically with COVID money because the staff is spending so much time standing up these COVID related programs. Well, we certainly have the latter. Staff, Sam, leading it, but other staff as well, a significant amount of time this summer has been spent in doing that, standing up the program. So we have that and can document that, but our understanding has been this money's ineligible. It's not our salaries and our costs for operating things that are already in our budget. That's not eligible for this funding. So that's a big surprise to me. And if I've missed a chance, man, that's really important. And I'm glad that Representative Townsend may be hearing this, that if there's a way, we need to look at that because that's not our understanding at all. And these folks have just dropped everything to some extent and had to just add this to an existing portfolio of important priority work. So this has been a massive undertaking and we're just covering it, just eating it. So maybe you want, how much were you asked to cut from your budget? Well, we have a 3% general fund target. Now I'll walk you through that here in a moment, but that's the general fund target in the restatement that I'm about to explain to you and what it looks like in our budget and our operations. Okay. Carolyn, did we ever find out what the source of those CARES funds for AAFM was for the backfill? I don't know off the top of my head, no. So, and Michael Snyder, you could potentially check with Diane Rothfeld about all of this as well. We'll follow up for sure. Thank you. Thanks, Representative O'Brien, for even noticing it. Again, I'd really like to know what's up with this and if it's possible, because that would be significant. Yeah, I think actually on our webpage, I'm not gonna be able to find it now on the fly, but on our webpage is from Wednesday, is the agriculture AAFM's presentation to us and that was included. So you might take a look at that. Sam, did you wanna say something? Did you know anything else? No, I'm all set, thank you. Okay, so I'm gonna just say Vicki has her hand up and I'd like to let Vicki go ahead and then maybe Michael, you can proceed with what you wanted to say. I just had a brief thought and a question, Carolyn, and maybe for Linda Lehman, for our newest member on the committee, sometimes when you come on a committee and you hear all these acronyms, you're like, what, what was that one? I'm sure our new representative is well aware of numerous entities, but there's even a few I had to stop and go, wait, what was that again? I just wondered if Linda could email us, I know we were given a sheet of acronyms, but I just wondered if that would be available and for review and for our newest member. That's a great idea, Vicki, and I don't know if Cynthia has anything she wants to say about it. She has been in the house for a long, long time and she has served on a number of committees. So she probably has a pretty good idea of what they are, but that's a really good point. Okay, thanks. So if you do look on our website, Wednesday, August 26th, Diane Botfeld's FY21 budget request second time. Presentation is there and you will see, I think it's on the fourth slide, 1.5, a little bit more, but 1.5 million dollars use of CARES Act funding. The agency has documented 1.5 million dollars in CARES Act funding needs at the agency of Ag. These funds will be used to offset general fund expenditures across four of the six appropriations at the agency. Funds will be specifically used for PPE, offset for COVID related leave, employee time dedicated to the administration implementation and financial review and maintenance of the COVID agricultural assistance programs. Wow. The earlier parts make sense, but that last one, that's a game changer and it's news to me. You might want to take a look at that. Certainly will, Madam Chair, thanks. Yep. I don't know. Perhaps Michael Grady might know anything about this. Mike, do you have anything to add? No, I don't, frankly. Is there a surprise to you as well, Mike? Is it sad? Caroline, could you repeat that last line, that last item? Sure. Funds will be specifically used for PPE, offset for COVID related leave, employee time dedicated to the administration implementation and financial review and maintenance of the COVID agricultural assistance programs. Yeah, I haven't heard that. Where are you getting that from? This is on the presentation that Diane made on Wednesday and it's on our website. That's the FY21 budget request. And I think it's under, let me just go back and see if I can find the exact. Oh, it's the 1.5 million. Yeah. Right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, so I do know what that is. They're basically all the additional time and all the additional equipment that the agency is expending in response to the pandemic does qualify for potentially qualifies for CARES Act funding. So that's what they're budgeting. I just, the way that it's summarized there is a little confusing. Anyway, what was intimated to us was that those are not eligible costs. There is an allowance for the Salesforce application development, the software that that's eligible, but like staff time and PPE and all that, that's one thing. But there's been no offset presented as eligible for our time in responding. So I will indeed look into it. I hope, I hope we just were wrong and that maybe we can find a way. That's significant. Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you. Sure. Did you want to go ahead, Michael? I sure can, if you guys are set with Sam and the grant program update. Yes. Thank you. We'll pivot to our restatement of the governor's recommend for FY 21. And I'm happy to give you every last bit of detail as representative Townsend knows, we do that in an approach, but I think it would be helpful, Madam Chair, just to have a sense given your time and your interest in everything you have to do, what would be the most helpful? I can give a big overview. Do you need the background on how we're built and what are our five appropriations? You just want to see the changes. Do you want to drill into anything in particular? I can go any number of ways, but I want it to work for you guys. Well, I think that this all came about because there was a question on the part of representative Townsend regarding a certain change. And I'm not sure how far into this we want to drill, but I'm just wondering if Maida has gotten her answer so that she's satisfied with what's happening. And Maida, do you want to say a word about that? Well, my word, I'm feeling quite a heavy load that my having posed an issue with you, Carol, and resulted in everyone needing to come together here. But I have to say, first of all, please, thank you so much for having me here. And I have gleaned so much very useful information for when we're doing our conversations in appropriations. I'm talking about with regard to the working lands piece, the two plus two farm to school. And we do have that $75,000 grant writer. That's a very key little, it's a tiny amount of money in the big picture, but very key piece. And then all of this with regards to the stabilization grants just really, really helpful. So thank you. My question is with regard to what on the face of it in the big picture is a tiny amount of money, but we understand in appropriations that the department supports the restate the restatement Gov rec budget. We understand that and respect that. There are some of us on the committee, if not the entire committee, who are somewhat like dogs with a bone, not willing to let loose of something once we've sunk our teeth into it. Last March, before the state house shut down and our first try at the FY 21 budget was shut down one day away from having completed it. We were trying to locate the committee appropriations. We were trying to locate 280,000 additional dollars to help with parks, the state parks component of FPR, specifically to help with regard to support for seasonal workers, the interpretive program and contracted maintenance. And when we were looking at the restated FY 21 budget, we were asking ourselves whether or not this issue still existed was there, for instance, still a use for the $280,000 that we had been looking at in March, which was not part of the Gov rec at that point in time. This was an initiative which we on appropriations were interested in. So was there still this need from our perspective for 280,000 additional dollars or not? So it's at present my understanding that no, 280,000 additional dollars is not an issue because we've had the visit from the virus and that has changed the world. Whereas I don't know if I understand correctly or not, but I have the impression that $71,000 could still be put to use making a difference for seasonal workers going into the spring. This is, we're not talking CRF money, we're talking GF, the General Fund. The 71,000 would be the total of some support for the seasonal workers, steps and COLA in the spring. To restore the interpretive program, it's five to six people, which had to be, which did not appear, was not included in the original GOVRAC. The interpretive program being the employees who help people understand what you're looking at when they visit the parks. And then the third piece was contracted maintenance that there's still a good use for that, we think, in that there may well be some, there are trees perhaps that are in bad shape that we need help taking care of. So, and we think the amount that would be useful is 71,000 and just trying to figure out if that is indeed the case and if your committee would be thinking that that would be a good effort, it doesn't mean it could happen that we find that money because I do have to underscore every penny that we take, that we can find in general fund, we have to balance against a commitment which we have made to the Vermont State College system. I just need to lay that right out there because that's a huge pressure that we're committed to. But I think that is the issue, Madam Chair, excuse me, sorry. Carolyn is fine, actually, Meda. And so in the context of the meeting here, I apologize for folks, I hope you have found this meeting very, very useful and helpful, but we haven't talked to the parks. And I did ask the Chair of Natural Resources if I should be talking with them about this and she pointed me to you. So I don't know if I'm a little hot potato on this or something, but here we are. Well, I think it's really valuable to have the conversation. I so appreciate that Kitty gave you permission to be with us today because I think it, the discussion has been good and you, I know you're very detail-oriented and so I feel that this has all been really positive. So I'm wondering, Michael Snyder, if you wanted to comment on this, I see your face has gone away and maybe even your whole self. Sam, are you still there? Can you see, our Kristen is here. I think Michael dropped off, probably connection issues. Looks like he's just back. There he is, he's back. All right, Michael, I don't know if you heard what I said, because I think you went away, but anyway. Do you want to comment on made as, go ahead. Are you able to hear me? I'll view. Yes. Really apologize. I figured just unhooking and re-hooking might solve it. Yes, this is thanks, Representative Townsend. And this is, I can explain. So going back to when we originally sent in the 21 budget recommend from the administration, our part of that, you know, it was a different world. And we had significant pressures and we had cooked up an approach to try to meet those pressures that involved, you know, the contracted services. We said, well, there's $50,000 of that, that we'll just have our own people do some of that work. That was, she's mentioning hazard trees and campgrounds. We have to manage those and so mitigate the risk to people, et cetera. That whereas we don't have to with a seasonal workforce, 400 some seasonals that help us manage the parks. We don't have to, but we have developed a tradition and it's part of our secret sauce, if you will, of the success in the parks is to cultivate a high level seasonal workforce. Part of that is to provide them steps and colas that, again, we don't have to, but it's been helpful to attract and retain high quality seasonal workers. So we said, you know what? That's just a luxury we can't afford this year. So we've proposed to freeze those steps and colas. And we do have these very important seasonal employees who are naturalists, interpreters in the parks to help. And it's very popular with families and guests when they come to the parks to take advantage of that. We didn't like doing it, but again, it's important. It's helpful, but it's not core operations. And we were in a significant, you know, pressure situation. So we had proposed that package of expenditure cuts in the parks to meet the pressures that we were facing. And we explained that and the committee was really great in their support and understanding of it. And that added up to about $280,000 in expense cuts that we were proposing for those reasons. And the committee was wonderful about trying to find a way to help us with that. Though we were clear that we weren't requesting it. We were good with the governor's recommend and supported it. And so, but here we are coming through with the restatement and the world has changed. And so significant changes, including we didn't operate the parks until June 26th. We weren't able to open as we would in late April and May traditionally. And so we're at, we know that's going to hurt us, our bottom line in revenues, that'll come back to Roost in 22. But the upside in 21 is that there was a, we didn't have to pay people. We didn't have operating expenses. So some of our expenses changed in the end of 20. So we were in a better position. In addition, we had new information from the USDA Forest Service and our federal allocations that whereas we had proposed, I think a $40,000, was it 40,000 Kristen, a reduction in federal? In this, now we have new federal advice that indicates it's a better picture for us with our federal assistance. And we're able to project in the restatement and increase in federal funds. I'm simply indicating a couple of different areas that changed with regard to expenses and projected revenues, such that in the restatement, we didn't have to put those forward to the same extent. And now what Representative Townsend is referring to is in talking with us, she, you know, drilling into it. She is good with the details. The oddity that emerges here is that we operate this complex little business enterprise within state government, the state park system. It operates over two fiscal years. Our operating system season spans two fiscal years and it gets complicated when trying to project an account. But we're looking ahead in 21. We have several months in 21. The last couple of months of 21 next spring will be the next operating system season. And so, yes, we have not budgeted for that in this proposal, but I think what Representative Townsend is referring to is $71,000 could help with about $12,000 to reinstate the interpreters for that period. $34,000 would allow us to provide those step increases, those pay increases to the seasonal workforce in the spring of 21, calendar 21. And about half of that contracted maintenance, maybe that $25,000, we could do some of that contracted work instead of having our folks do it. That adds up to the 71,000 that Representative Townsend is suggesting they could find to help us restore. So I hope that makes sense, that explains where we were, how we got to where we are now and Representative Townsend's interest in trying to help us with a portion of that back in the last quarter, if you will, of the fiscal 21, which will be calendar 21, the spring when we begin our operating season again. I'll pause there. Let me just ask Kristen Freeman, our amazing financial manager. If you wanna correct anything I said there or add anything, Kristen, we're good. We're good, I'll accurate. Thank you. And now I'll just open it up. Does that make some sense? And does that help with the level setting here of the issues? It does, Michael, what was that? I think the last figure you gave was $25,000 for what? Contracted services, in particular, the hazard tree mitigation work. Okay, thanks. That keep people safe in campgrounds when keeping trees alive in campsites can be a real challenge. And so we have to, we monitor that very carefully. We don't want trees falling on tents and leantos and campers. Okay, so I guess my next question is, Mita, what do you need from us? Do you need us to recommend that that $71,000 be found or what's needed here? Well, your recommendations to appropriations do, of course, need to reflect what your committee feels is appropriate. We would certainly welcome a recommendation. I think that's fair to say that we would welcome a recommendation that we look for the 71,000 if indeed you folks believe that that's a legitimate search. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I didn't mean to presume the will of the committee. It's just, I'm trying to figure out what it is that you need to move this forward. And John O'Brien's hand is up. Mita, if you want to respond to what I just said, that's fine. Sure, very succinctly. You'll be giving us your recommendations by the end of the day next Wednesday. Correct. Correct. And we would not be at a verse to seeing the 71,000 there recommended if that's how the committee sees it. You know that we on appropriations do our level best to be sensitive, to be very careful about being respectful to any recommendations brought to us by the policy committees. And if a policy committee recommends something, we do our darndest to carry through on it. If they do not recommend it well, then even if we think it's something important, we may well more easily put it to the side. Okay, thanks for that. That's helpful. John O'Brien your hand is up. Why don't you go ahead? I was just trying to get these numbers in my head. So Michael, originally there was a state park systems budget for the pre COVID budget, we'll call it. And then at some point you needed to cut 280,000 from that and then give it. Sorry, no, the pre COVID budget, the original presented governor's recommend for FPR for 21, which was presented last winter, that included about $280,000 of reductions, cuts to what we had to make up some, you know, to deal with the upward pressures in our budget. So that was what we had originally presented. And that's originally back in February, March with the committee was working to say, well, you know, maybe we'd like to, we don't really, I think they basically said, we're worried about this. We don't want you to do that. And that's important stuff you're cutting. And, you know, that was fair. And again, I appreciate that level of interest and support even while that was our recommend. So that was what was then. And then the pre COVID, so that's the 280. Then a bunch of things changed, including some of our, you know, our operating and therefore our expenses. We got better news from the feds. And internally we've been working on a realignment in our forestry division that results in some savings. So we just said, okay, in fairness this summer, as we relook at this, the world has changed and we're gonna change too. So our new proposal doesn't have that same level of cuts that the 280, it's more like 71,000, I guess you could say in these areas, fair enough. And that's what the committee is now saying, well, maybe continuing their interest in sort of filling those holes, they're looking to fill that hole, even though, you know, it's a smaller hole, if you will, and we've found other ways. So that the restatement is not just cutting, it's a rejiggering of how we're gonna make the cuts. Is that helpful, Representative O'Brien? Yes, so essentially, with your rejiggering, and if we got you 71,000, you would more or less be level funded with last year's fiscal budget. No, we have an overall, we have a 3% general fund reduction that equates to just about $300,000 overall in general fund and- For FPR, just the state park system. No, that's overall for FPR. And the parks, we are also going into, we are proposing to go into the parks fund, a special fund. Maybe I just to take an additional sum of parks fund money to use to balance our budget now. I should back out and just remember that parks appropriation, which is about $12 million for our operating costs, that is fueled by gate receipts, sales of services within the parks, firewood, ice, mugs, merchandise, rentals of kayaks and canoes, that sort of thing. And that's to the tune of about 8 million that we grow ourselves of the 12. And then we have about 3 million or plus or minus a bit each year from our ski leases of seven ski areas that lease land from us. And then 5% of it is general fund. And so all those proceeds plus timber that we harvest on park lands or special use permits and telecommunications licenses, those all go into the parks fund. And that's what we use to operate the parks principally with those sources plus some general fund help. This year we're proposing to hit that fund extra hard just to kind of work our way through. We like to maintain a buffer in that parks fund, a fund balance of several hundred thousand dollars because we don't control the weather. Now we're learning there's many other things we don't control. So ski leases are weather dependent, those payments as well as visitation to the parks. And so we need to be nimble through two, an operating season that spans two fiscal years to have that buffer. And so we are admitting that this is dangerous and we're concerned especially with our reduction revenues this year for reduced park season and reduced offerings in the parks and not having so many out of state visitors come to enjoy the parks. So we're concerned about where the fund goes but that's what the fund is for and that's what we're proposing to use it. I hope that's the helpful overview and resetting here. Yes, Barry. So that back to the 71 then is that's what you recommend to cut or you could cut if you tightened your belt but we could restore that. Right. I mean, it's a little complicated. Basically, yes. And again, I need to be careful here. I am not proposing that. We are proposing the governor's recommend and you all accept and understand that. And but we would only need the 71,000 knot that the 280 remember because it's too late in the season to apply those steps and colas to our seasonal workforce. So it's really not applicable at this point. And so that's where it would come in is on the back end of the season if I have that right. Kristen, would you knot an agreement or correct me there? Not sure. I can't see. She's frozen. Okay. And muted. Kristen, if you can hear, you're frozen and you're also muted. So, okay, she just went away. Maybe she'll try and get back on. So what I'm trying to explain is that whereas that was then, now we're so far into the operating season, we can't apply the, it doesn't make sense to apply the steps and colas. And because of COVID, we didn't offer the interpreter program this year because it's just not, there's many things that we scaled back on in the parks. We're thrilled that they're open and people are using them, but that's very much a different operating season. So for those reasons, it would be the 71,000 would be to allow those things in the first few months of the park season at the end of fiscal 21. Does that help? Okay. Yep. Super helpful. Thank you, Michael. Gotcha. All right. Any other questions for Michael? Okay. I see hands up. Meada. I just wanted to share with the committee in case you're wondering why we are so in appropriations, so wed to our intense support for the state parks. I hope everyone understood what the commissioner said with regard to the funds which run our state park system, our whole state park system is heavily dependent on that parks fund. It's very small, the amount in general fund money. So where we can, we'd like to try and support why? Because from our perspective, our state park system is one of the very, very important jewels in the jewels in Vermont's crown. Our state parks are a statement of who and what we are. So we try to do what we can in the little bit of GF that we can. I would agree with you Meada. The parks are wonderful. I really appreciate that we do. And to underscore it, it's really important and it's quite a little deal we have going here. And I think what we're seeing this year is it's even more important that what the parks are providing and beyond that value proposition, that the social good that comes from the parks and the Vermont brand of our parks, it's also been tagged at $90 million in associated spending from that one million visitors a year. So in addition to the eight plus million that we generate directly in that operation, there's, we've had a study, a UVM study suggests about a little more than $90 million annually in related spending to that park's visitation. And that's a lot in rural, there's a state park near every one of you and throughout Vermont, there's 55 developed state parks. And in local communities, we know they're very important as that little economic driver. So not only health and wellness, family togetherness, environmental connectedness, there's a significant economic impact in from a return on this investment. So I'll get off my soapbox, but representative Townsend got me going there and it's good stuff. And we appreciate that you recognize it. Well, we do Michael and we really appreciate everybody's work. You said that the parks opened in June, was it the 6th or the 26th? Is when we open, remember the 55 parks, most of them open around traditionally on Memorial Day, but about I think a 15 or 20 maybe open earlier than that. We have a few on the Connecticut River and others that we want to get people out early. So they open early. So that was a significant reduction in our season, but it wasn't just a temporal shrinking. We also chose, as we figured out how to operate safely in the COVID world, we decided we could not responsibly open with cabins and cottages, which are some of our most popular and sort of best revenue generating in our overnight portfolio. So we did not offer just lean tos and tents and that's significant and we started at reduced capacity, the density if you will. So there was not only a shortened season, but we reduced what we were offering. We closed playgrounds. We closed any of our pavilions that are not open air pavilions. So those are rentals. There's a lot that we didn't do. We just did the core operations of lean tos and tent sites, but no interpreters. We didn't even sell ice in some parks if there was some local provider of ice. We've provided firewood and that was it, which is not our normal model. So now, again, looking ahead to 22, we have to keep an eye out that the revenues are down. We caught a break because some of our expenses were down because we had this reduced operating, but our revenues are down as well. And we also need to keep an eye on what the ski season will bring. We're not sure what it will look like at our seven ski area partners and their ability. I think we're fine for 21, but because of the nature of the timing of the payments, but 22 this winter season, that's gonna be important too. I think my bottom line message here is you still have time to go to the parks, tell your friends and neighbors, visit the parks. And every bit helps. Yeah, yeah. All right, made his hand is up and John's is, and it is after 1030, which is typically our time to depart, but I'll let these two questions be asked and answered. And then we'll talk a little bit about next week because we may need more time to meet to come to our agreement. So, Mayda, do you wanna ask your question? I just lowered my hand. I forgot to take it down. Sorry. Oh, okay. John. Michael, well, one quick aside, Emily and I visited your newest state park, Teconic Ramble on Monday, which was awesome. Fantastic. Yeah, I'm glad you did. Did you get around up into the woods or just down to the Zen Garden? No, we went up Mount Zion. It was wonderful. Nice. Fantastic. But a question, you've described the state park system sort of as a mini business within government. It is indeed. Are there any federal COVID relief dollars for your economic harm within that business? I know government's not really eligible, but in this case, it seems like it would be totally appropriate. Good question. And for sure, but not for lost revenues. We had received a million, 1.3 million for PPE and some infrastructure changes to allow us to, it was very helpful to buy supplies for sanitization, for Portalettes. We had to change our whole operating to deal with COVID. So we got 1.3 million in the Supplemental Budget Adjustment Act that has been very helpful as CARES Act money for PPE, sanitization, et cetera, not lost revenues. And now, along with the Forest Economy Stabilization Grants, the Outdoor Recreation Business Grants, we also got in that round, as you guys finished up earlier this summer, $3 million of CARES Act funding for additional COVID response on public lands, state lands. So forests, parks and wildlife management areas and fishing accesses to do, to recover from damage when we weren't open. There were a lot of people using and there was significant damage, whether it was torn up lawns and soft ground or litter, a variety of things that are a little disappointing to reflect on our fellow humans. But there was some recovery and then additional signage and guidance for COVID precautions, et cetera. So we are now beginning, we have between us official wildlife that $3 million of projects contracted out across state lands. But again, some of which will be applied in parks, but it doesn't help in any way. It's not eligible to cover the lost revenues that are significant. One last piece is that we made a request and Representative Townsend could speak to this. They were very helpful that we made a request that we had to refund, if you think about how we book reservations for the parks, we're booking now for next summer. So we had a lot of money come in for reservations from April, May and most of June that we couldn't honor. So though we didn't have to, we refunded. We made all those reservations whole. We told people, you have a choice, we'll cut you a check, we'll give you a credit to come back and we hope you will or you could donate it. And that originally we had put in for about $800,000 in refunds that was approved through CARES funding. And now we've made a subsequent request for the rest of what we've realized is through a total of about 1.3 million in refunds that we'd love to be able to recover. And that would go a long way to helping this budget that we're talking about. My understanding now is that it's in question as to whether refunds are actually eligible or are they, is it seen in an accounting sense as unactuated revenues, I guess is what they called it something to that. And I think it's in question right now. So that piece of refunds is another one to be aware of. And whereas for our time, it looked very positive that we were gonna get CARES Act funding to cover those. My sense is now it's being seen as, no, that's revenue, lost revenue and that's not eligible. So that's the total package there, John, I'm sorry, Representative O'Brien on, are we, is there funding help? It's been very helpful for COVID kind of precautions and sanitization, which is really key. But not for operations or for lost revenues. Okay, Vicki's hand is up and now this really has to be the last question. Yeah, thank you for just taking this last spot. So Michael, I'm just curious about the advertising for state parks that you might normally do in a normal year to get people to come into the state. How did you adjust advertising or did you need to? I appreciate the question because it's really important and it's one of the elements of our success. As I'd like to add this, you should know in 10 years, the last 10 years, we have seen a 40, over a 40% increase in visitation to the parks. And that's with zero marketing money. We do a lot of marketing, it's creative, it's innovative and it is cheap. And I'm really proud of it. But so like we do barter with VPR, you'll hear they use, we give them some access to some, they can give premiums to their supporters of park passes. They give us great billing on their prime time Vermont State Parks, right? We have a variety of approaches. We do really well, our team, it's not me, our sales and marketing folks on social media. Tens of thousands of followers, it's extremely positive. And so we do it, we're keeping at it, we're changing the message slightly to reflect the health precautions, but it's not a budgetary concern. There is interest, you'll see elsewhere in the administration's budget, there have been proposals for marketing and tourism and marketing for hunting and fishing, for state parks and outdoor recreation. So there are some elsewhere in the budget proposals for some marketing. And we'd love to partner with Fish and Wildlife and tourism and marketing to enhance our marketing. But to your basic point, no, it's not been, we're continuing to do it, but it's in as much as we don't have a budget for it, there isn't a budget implication here in the COVID world. Thank you, Mike. You bet. Good job. All right, everybody. I think this has been a really good meeting. I see some questions that we will need to discuss and answer. And I think I'm looking at action steps at this point. So I think one of the things we need to know from you, Michael and Sam are, if there are any tweaks to the forest stabilization grants, forest economy stabilization grants, are there any tweaks to that that you want because they have to happen quickly? Committee, we have to discuss working lands and that there be additional money if it's available for the working lands grants. We've heard, I know that everybody's, I'm hearing, I'm looking, I'm seeing that my internet connection is unstable. I don't know if you all can hear me. Can you hear me? Moment. I'm gonna stop my video. Maybe that'll make things better. So we need to talk about that. I don't think we would come up with a number, but we've heard and we understanding that both agencies or the department and the agency are supporting the governor's recommend as presented. We would potentially request that they add more money to working lands because it's down at 594, 594,000. And we've heard that there's a need for, we've heard from Rodney that there's a potential need for more money for agriculture. And we've heard that there might be some more investments in infrastructure for our forest products industry. And then we also need to discuss the $71,000 that we've just been talking about for the parks. So there may be other things that we need to discuss. And I'd really like you to, I might not just be thinking about it at the moment, but please email me if there's something you wanna discuss. Linda suggested that maybe we would need to meet Tuesday morning as well. I don't know if that's a possibility for you all, but I think we need to have some committee discussion. I really want to be very prompt with providing approves with our recommendation and by close up business on Wednesday. So, you know, if you are available, that would be great Tuesday morning. I'm not sure about if we could find a slot to do that, but I suspect that Linda might be working on that as we speak. So any other things or responses to what I've just said, any other things you wanna talk about? All right, I'm not seeing any hands. So why don't we end this meeting today? I really wanna thank everybody for participating. I think this has been really, really helpful as we try and pull things together. And we'll potentially see you Tuesday morning. Definitely Wednesday morning at 8.30. So thanks everybody and Linda, you can take us off.