 Welcome. We are now live today is August 25th, 2020. And this is the education committee in the Vermont House of Representatives. We are also joined by a member of appropriations representative Fagan. Thank you for joining us today. This week will be a review of the governor's recommended budget related to education that's pre K 12 as well as post secondary and the appropriation committee has asked us to review these budgets. And to get back to them next week so no small task. Today's focus will be on post secondary institutions tomorrow focus will be on pre K 12 commission aggression in yet. I don't see commission aggression quite yet. They still might be in the governor's address today. Okay, two one o'clock. He's our he's our first person so but I do see that he's on so we might. Oh, there he is. He's coming in. Okay. Is representative Gresham in now. I am here. Excellent. Thank you. So, welcome, Commissioner Gresham we are happy to have you join us today and we are going to start with funding of the Vermont State College system and particularly the bridge funding, and we'll later follow we were later here from UVM as well as a that the Association of Vermont independent colleges regarding to covert relief funds. And then we are also going to hear two updates from the two studies going forward. One is the Vermont forward task force and representative Jim Batista serves on that. We will hear from from the chancellor on that. We will also have an update on the select committee on the future of public higher education and Joyce Manchester from JFO is will be prepared to support us through that. And just a reminder that our own representative Kathleen James was appointed to that commission so thank you for committee so thanks for joining that. So, I would like to welcome Commissioner Gresham to help us better understand that the governor's proposal on the Vermont State Colleges with a particular emphasis on the bridge funding. Right. So, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the committee for giving me an audience. So I was going to work from the document that I believe was circulated to you earlier today. It was a general fund overview is the committee. Does the committee have access to that document or I can post it just a second. Thank you. What I was going to do and I know that this is not the time for a full general fund overview but I wanted to start there to give you an idea of kind of the financial situation we were sitting in. If you look at the document with the, the tables, the three color tables that show you kind of the progression from January when the governor submitted his budget. Which is FY 21 gov rec in blue to June 8 when we were kind of at the bottom or kind of the full flower of the pandemic to the restatement, which is what we submitted last week you kind of get a flow for revenue availability. The top line of this chart shows you what our current law revenue is. That's the what the emergency board accepts as consensus forecast. And you can see that in January of 21 we were looking at 1596 just shy of $1.6 billion of current law revenue. That now is at 1.413. So, you know, we're down about $182 million in revenue compensated somewhat by higher direct applications from some of our enterprise funds and special funds notably. We got a couple million more from liquor. I guess you guys are spending your spare time wisely. It's not like I'm claim property and from financial regulation and the like but you know that kind of the net of it is a fairly steep decline in our available revenue. Good news is, thanks to the moves that this body and the administration made in May and June of this spring, with a second budget adjustment, save a fair amount of general fund which fell to the bottom line. We did that not because we wanted to money to fall the bottom line we did it because, at the time, we didn't think we had the money to spend so we second budget adjustment saved us about $84 million. And then, happily and surprisingly in July when people paid their deferred taxes that were originally due in April, May and June, you'll remember the federal and state government deferred those until July. When people finally did pay their taxes to our surprise pleasant surprise, not only did they pay what was forecasted, they would pay but they paid more. So the net result of a second budget adjustment and higher tax revenues resulted in $130 million of surplus from fiscal 20. In addition, because we had essentially shut down good parts of our government in the last quarter of fiscal 20. That's a fairly steep amount of carry forward funds carry forward funds or funds that are unused. If we appropriate our department $100 and they only use $75, they have $25 at the end of the year available for carry forward. Every year that kind of typically will have somewhere between 15 to $25 million of carry forward. This year we had almost $60 million. Just to clarify for the committee that's carried forward from FY, from FY 20. That's correct. And so we would carry that forward into FY 21 and typically we allow departments to keep their carry forward funds they're oftentimes appropriations that haven't been spent because maybe a bill is late being sent out and thus paid. You know, maybe they've got certain grants that haven't gone out yet, but they intend to send out and say July or August. So this is usually a good reason why departments haven't spent all their appropriations in this region is to let them keep it. This year again in part because we closed down substantial parts of government. Stuff like for example, travel budgets were, you know, saved. That's not the kind of thing that they'll make up for in the new year. That's typically, you know, you don't travel twice because you didn't travel in the spring. So, you know, that kind of money stuff like the state parks opening late so they didn't hire employees as early normally do that kind of is basically saved. So what we did was we reverted roughly half of what we had available through carry forward. And that's another $28 million that too is one time. That's not permanent but we were able to put in about $158 million of one time money to help us balance the books. So our revenue situation, whereas it was quite compromised from what we started out with at the beginning of the year, turned out to be not quite as bad as we thought. Nonetheless, we were, you know, operating in a fairly constrained environment. So, you know, I just wanted to kind of lay out that framework and to get to kind of move to the state colleges. So what the governor in his general fund budget did was he provided for the normal operations of state government. He provided for a few extras when he could find some available cash, mostly from one time money that came in. But he also allocated in this budget, about $152 million of coronavirus relief fund. He provided money that is available in the fund. And is has kind of passed muster in terms of what is appropriate use based guidance what's appropriate use of the coronavirus relief fund. So this budget included about $152 million of coronavirus relief fund allocation based on the fact that there's just slightly under $200 million that has yet to be allocated. So we're going to go from page down to the third page in that document. See at the top it says CRF requests in general fund tier one appropriations $152 million. These are appropriations again that we put in the budget. You see the top line a CCD 130 million, $133 million. And this is to continue and in some cases, actually I think I don't know if it created new grant programs but I think it is to continue existing grant programs and add to them when money is available. So you see $133 million to go there you see a number of appropriations to human services DCF reach up department of corrections and the like, down the list. There are a lot of appropriations that we know qualify for COVID money. And, you know, we believe our good uses of money. A lot of those appropriations as you look down the list are to help fund government operations that are being substantially dedicated towards COVID relief. And virtually all of that below the a CCD line is to fund current operations where staff is dedicated to COVID, the human services allocations to reach up in particular are to deal with increasing caseloads and reach up as a result of the pandemic. So if you then thumb down to tier two, if flexibility, perhaps could have been a bit more artful in my labeling there. But these are allocations that the governor in his budget would make if provided additional flexibility from the US Treasury, keep in mind the Treasury is the one that sets the guidelines as to the use of the funds. The guidelines required expenses to be paid or uses of the fund to be exclusively for COVID related spending, couldn't replace budget items that were already in the budget. There was no supplantation it's called. And also, and how to be, it could not be revenue replacement. So, you know, if your revenues for example in our case are down 182 million dollars you couldn't just cut a check for 182 million dollars to the general fund. So there were certain restrictions. Oh, the final restriction which I think is important is that their money had to be spent by December 30 of this year. Now, all of these are, I would say, in play in terms of the guidelines that have been given. We've heard, as many of you probably have there's been endless, some would say ad nauseam discussions in DC about changing the flexibility about changing the time period when the money has to be spent about allowing for revenue and allowing for non COVID related expenses. All of these things are in play. But the reason that we put these appropriations in a tier two is that we believe they require some additional flexibility in the guidelines. So the first on that list, if we do have additional flexibility would be Vermont State Colleges, which at the moment were not convinced would would be eligible for Coronavirus Relief Fund but the governor, you know, didn't want to express his interest in providing that as a first stop if we are provided with additional flexibility $30 million. The other items there are also items that we believe may or may not apply but would if we had greater flexibility. So that's really the first, the first item that I bring to your attention that there was 30 million set aside in the budget if there is additional flexibility the money is there. If there is ethical money if people don't spend their appropriations, the money is there. But we would need kind of call it permission from the US Treasury to operate. You know I did want to point out as a side note, thinking about when we constructed this budget. I think members will be aware that we reached out to departments and actually originally we had asked departments to reduce their general fund by 5%. That was based on early guidance that we gave that came in the early part of I think was the first week of July was literally I think the week after the Q one budget passed, you know we went out had a few drinks, got a long sleep and then came right back in and issued budget instructions for the upcoming year. In those instructions, we were asking departments to take a 5% reduction because based on what we knew at the time, we didn't know that we would have the surplus that came in. We didn't know the extent of the revenue that we would have available. We thought that would be what we would need. Subsequently, as revenue came in and we kind of re re looked at where we stood we reduced that to 3% for departments. We did not ask the University of Vermont and Northern Vermont State Colleges to do the same, but you should know that we did ask virtually every other unit organization that receives state money to to take a 3% reduction from the University of Vermont Arts Council that includes my historical society that includes the Vermont Symphony, as well as a few month Humanities Council. So, we were pretty severe on that I mean these are not organizations bursting with money, some of them have other sources private donations and the like but none of them are living high in the hog and we didn't feel good about that but did believe that you know what asking agencies and departments to pull in their belts we thought it would be only fair, but we did know, you know and acknowledge the state colleges as well as University of Vermont were in pretty tough straits, and we just thought it would be unreasonable to ask them the same. You know I did want to point that out and the final comment I'll make and then be happy to take your questions is we are aware that there is a commission either studying or about to study the future of the state colleges. And we await their report. You know we hope to keep track of what they say, but we think it's an important thing and to the extent that their conclusions require buying from the governor and require appropriations we would be happy to I know that was a kind of a quick overview but I figured I would leave plenty of time for questions. Thank you. We'll open it up for questions. I think we're all well aware that there are. This is a pretty challenging time for businesses and some of them are not going to be existing. Some of them have already closed doors permanently and some are My question here for you is we also have a report that says that for the Vermont State Colleges needed 30 million and we've already we've I think appropriated five of that already. Are we putting the state colleges at a risk that might be might be more than the state can can bear. And is there a strategy that the governor has going forward to address the needs of them on state colleges during this time. Just to hold them together to get through this time. Is there a strategy that the governor is planning to put forward. Well I think the strategy that was put forward by the legislature which the governor agreed with was to put together a you know a group of wise men and women to study the issue and come out with recommendations. I think you know who better place than people who've been in the business and worked in that area to come out with recommendations. The governor will be one of the first people at the table to listen to what they have to say to consider options but we're you know we're not interested in front running that committee that is currently I think to be appointed to study the issue and to the extent as I said earlier to the extent that that requires appropriation and requires additional money to be put in. We would be happy to listen but at this point we're not willing to make that commitment until we have we see a plan. So I'm looking at this. So you say that there's about 200 million that we have sitting in the bank right now. That's correct. And you are looking at applying 152 million to tier one that you believe already meets criteria. That's correct. And if you end up in tier two you see that as we're not sure if that meets criteria. Yes. And if it can be proven that it does meet criteria. We would be very interested in that conversation. You know I want to be clear that we didn't put the state colleges there because we thought they were a second tier consideration. We're well aware of their financial challenges and they spoke to us and I think they spoke very articulate. We're aware of that. We're just simply not aware that we have federal money in this pool that is eligible to be put towards the state colleges but we're very happy to have the conversation if the legislature or you know if a bunch of smart people disagree with us. We're very happy to listen. I hope you'll stay while we hear from the Vermont State Colleges. You'll be able to stay. Thank you. Representative James. Thanks. Yeah, and I guess speaking not as one who has the answer yet but just having, you know, having read Dr pages report. I guess I just want to put a pitch in that I think finding an answer and finding this funding is is really vital. You know I think that Dr Page made a pretty strong case in his report to the JFO in June. You know and I'm just going to put a put a quick quote here that continued continued funding continued bridge funding for the state colleges, sends a timely powerful and much needed message that state leadership understands and supports the states needs and the critical role that the Vermont State College system plays in meeting this needs. So, I really hope that we can work together to find find an answer and find it quickly because I think that the reports coming from the select committee won't be coming until next spring and so I think that we're probably not going to be able to wait for an answer I think we're going to be able to I think we're going to have to find the funding now. And then, you know, work together to find a long term solution for the colleges, when the reports come do understood. Thank you. It's sort of in the sense of life supports while we find a cure. In the sense other other questions committee. Okay, then Commissioner aggression if you could stay with us for a little while I'm sure more will come up after we hear from the Vermont State colleges so we have Commissioner so that me who will speak to us. We have heard, we have heard the committee did attend a previous session with you but we did not actually have you in the same room with Commissioner aggression so following what what he says what. Tell us about the impact on the Vermont State colleges. Without this funding. If we don't get the funding will obviously have to take significant action and I would anticipate it would be action comparable to what was proposed back in the spring. We very much hope that won't be the case. We're looking to have a breathing space again to let the select committee and also our internal task force. We're going to go through the transformation of the Vermont State colleges I will say, I'm very encouraged because it's, it's apparent that there is strong recognition, I would say across the board including internally at the VSC that we do need to have transformative change. We've already undertaken steps to move in that direction, which I view as kind of the building blocks for whatever the, the, the final outcome is based on the legislative select committee in our internal space but we're already trying to take to heart the words of Jim Page with regard to not functioning as a federation and truly moving towards being a system because I think it will put us in a much better position than to be more nimble in making change when that change comes but again we do need the breathing space. The reality we're facing we've, we were obviously already facing structural challenges prior to covert hitting, and those were documented through the white paper that was put out last year by the chancellor, and we're addressed in Jim Page's report as well. And then when we had covert hit that obviously accelerated the financial changes we were in and again we're not alone I mean this is there are a lot of colleges and universities across the states where that weren't in as challenging a situation as we were that are now facing, you know significant financial peril due to due to covert but having covert hit while we were already looking at structural change that needed to happen. We ran out of runway. So really what we're looking for with this bridge funding is the runway to make the change that we know we need to make. What are some of the changes that you have what are some of the steps that you've taken. So we have already taken steps to develop a system wide budget. Historically, we're one entity, all our colleges are in one financial boat so to speak, but we didn't function as a system with regard to our budget so individual institutions would develop their own budgets they would estimate what their revenues would be their enrollments what their expenses would be. And at the end of the year we'd figure out sort of who who got it right and who didn't. But given that we are all in one financial boat, we're moving towards having a system wide budget will be working in a highly collaborative way with our colleges with the presidents and with their business officers, regarding the development of a system wide budget because if someone's making decisions at one institution that has an impact on the other institutions and I don't think that we were in a position to hold each other accountable that way before I don't think the board necessarily had the visibility that it needed to have into the budgeting process and the financial situation that we were in. So that's a pretty significant change that was passed by our board of trustees. A couple of weeks ago we had a meeting yesterday with our finance and facilities committee to lay out what that will look like this will be a transition to the creation of a system wide budget, but we've we've put those building blocks in place. I don't want to preempt what our chief academic office, Office of Yasmeen Zizla will be sharing with you later but our internal task force called a number of recommendations to our board of trustees and four of those resulted in charges back to me as the chancellor and to the colleges to address things and again the focus is on students making education more accessible for them. And those particular charges are things that we're moving forward with we're developing working groups to implement those changes so things. For example, getting rid of duplicate low enroll programs between our residential colleges increasing collaboration in operations between Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont. We're working up with a general general one set of general education requirements that's common across the system to facilitate the ability of students to transfer credits and to take credits at other institutions than the one they're enrolled in, and then also making some changes regarding the framework that we have, you know for for displaying our courses and making it again just easier for students to access education across the state. There are significant changes that we're working on we're working on a pretty tight timeline for that. Our focus is going to be on students what's in the best interest of students our current students our future students, and the other significant pieces the priorities of the state because we do exist for the benefit of Vermont, and we're hoping out of the legislative select committee that we will get additional guidance on what it is the state needs the Vermont State colleges to do because again we span a pretty significant spectrum from our Community College through our technical college to our traditional, you know for your residential colleges. So we, we do provide a lot of different options to students across the whole state. But as, as you understand I mean structurally that's been expensive to do and particularly with the demographic challenges that we're facing here in Vermont, given that so many of our students are Vermont based students so again, Yasmeen can discuss those in greater detail later on when she talks to you. When, when does the, when, at what point are you in financial peril. You have some money now you have some money appropriated you've got some tuition coming in. Where, where do things really start to become a challenge, the big challenge. I know what so we have on the call here as well we have Sharon Scott who's our chief financial officer and chief operational officer. And I know she answered that question for house appropriations but I think it's, it makes more sense for her to answer it I know what she said last time but I will let her answer that for you. Thank you. Well thank you very much for the question I really appreciate it. First of all, we are incredibly grateful for the actions that occurred a little bit earlier this summer. The fact that the state appropriation was issued for the first quarter in a single lump sum that we received the $5 million in bridge that we received the 12.515 million in cares act funding has allowed us to have a little bit of breathing room and with which to operate. We do also have the 22.758 million which we have not drawn in yet for the second round of care, CRF funding which is very helpful. But looking at those sorts of activities. We would be looking at later this fall as our likeliest activity where it would be more difficult. We are of course, still tabulating what that looks like. Many of our schools have not gotten through their at drop period. The Community College of Vermont has not yet started and NBU online has not yet started so we don't have a firm picture yet of what the fall looks like. So in the coming couple of weeks we will be pulling more of that information together for you but at the present time a rough estimate is later this fall in the November December timeframe. So there's some significant value in knowing now. Absolutely not the answer is because if we don't if we don't address this within the next month you're you're at that crunch time. That's why we're really grateful you're taking this up right now. The other the other challenges the message that it sends to students because again one of the challenges has been as long as our future is uncertain uncertainty translates to people hesitating to enroll so it these things are very much connected. Other questions. Representative Austin. There you are. Thank you very much for being here today. I guess, again, when I'm reading, you know the white paper and then when I'm reading through the Chronicle of higher education. This seems like a national issue in terms of the lid, you know, due to demographics and I think Sophie mentioned that looking demographically at Vermont and nationally. The small pool of tuition paying students going to post secondary state colleges. In the best case scenario. What, how many students or what percent of your budget would be tuition from students and what do you, you know, what were you anticipating pre COVID and what are you anticipating for maybe 2022 in terms of students that are coming. I mean historically, where we're very tuition dependent and approximately 78% of our revenue comes from students in the form of tuition, room and board and fees. So that's, you know, you know, we are very, very heavily dependent on our students so in order to cover costs to maintain campuses etc. So that's, that is a challenge and then so we have two issues with that one is affordability for students that that then becomes a barrier to students coming and the other is accessibility. So we want to make sure it was we move forward I think accessibility and affordability are going to be absolutely critical as we try to redefine what the Vermont State colleges is and how it operates, and a focus on affordability is going to be right up there, along with access. But obviously, that's, you know, that's, that's where the bulk of our revenue comes from. Thank you. Thanks. Oh, while we have commission regression still with us. This ties back into funding in the sense that there's a lot of competition for a shrinking pool of money. And then looking through the tier one appropriations I don't see any money being appropriated to the public school system. And my understanding is that, you know, the house had had indicated it wanted to set aside $100 million in case there was more money needed in talking with my own district and other districts. The need is going to be far greater than what was anticipated, I think back in March and April. And so I'm just, I guess I'd like I'm concerned about the competition for money. And if the public school system needs another 50 million. How we balance that with the need of the governor asking for 133 for commerce and community development alone. If you could comment a little bit on the decision to have no money out of the remaining 200 million for public education and how you see the competition for that money affecting what might be available tier two for the state colleges. Well, I think this conversation is all about competition for funds. So, you know, that's I think why I'm sitting here and why we're having this conversation. But it should illustrate that I mean not only does state colleges need money that but we're hearing that public schools need money. Anyone of you who lives in a village or a town knows that the businesses there need money. And anyone who, you know, lives or works or observes a hospital knows the hospitals need money. There's a few of the. So yes, this is all about competition. I would note that in that 152 million of CRF allocations to representative comments point there was no money there for pre K through 12. I think there are a number of reasons for that first as everyone is well aware. There was $50 million of pre K through 12 money for schools in each 961 I believe it was. Not all that went to districts six and a half of that million went to efficiency Vermont for HVAC systems million and a half went to independent schools a million went to supervisory unions for administrative. And $28 million in total went to local districts, add another $28 million from the federal government for S or money. So there's approximately $56 million that are going to local schools. If you ask them, they'll say, I don't know if that's enough. But if you ask them what is enough they'll also say, I don't know. So what I've heard this morning, or this afternoon from, you know, what I've just listened to we don't know how much is needed we know there's a need. I would not argue that but we don't know how much. So I think similarly with pre K through 12. I think we just last week sent out a survey to districts to let to let to help educate AoE about how much money they need, we don't know that yet. So, you know, the, whereas there are certain parts of our economy that we know there's a need, you know, we've seen it we felt it we've heard it. So I guess, you know, the allocation of funds, you know, is always going to be a question but we know there are certain needs and we don't know the size of the other needs so I guess what we've decided to do is allocate to where where we know with some certainty, what is needed. So we'll be looking at that again tomorrow and happy to have you join us again we will have the secretary and as well as his team to take a look at that as well as well as the superintendent I believe we have the superintendent said is that correct fell to tomorrow. So this is my intent to start a debate about public school versus I just, I just, I didn't see any money there. I've heard lots of need and I appreciate the candor of the answer thank you. Yes, and it's certainly a question and everyone's mind because we certainly had the understanding that there was 100 million that that the legislature had seen would be set aside to be held for educational needs. Madam Chair, if the superintendents involved Sue Seglowski, then yes we're in conversation about adding some people to the agenda tomorrow. Great. Yes, I did see that email so yes I think that it included the superintendent so. Thank you. Other questions for either Commissioner Gresham or, or the Chancellor regarding the Vermont State Colleges and the bridge funding. Oh great Jim, Jim Demarie. Sure. So question for Sophie. How much of your shortfall is due to a reduction of tuition. If you know you mean in the fact we have lower enrollments this fall. Yeah. I don't know that I know the answer to that Sharon may have a better answer but one of the challenges as she noted was, we're still in the very early stages of the semester so Castleton and Northern Vermont University started class last week. Vermont Tech I believe started yesterday. So part of it's going to be waiting to see whether students, the ones we have already that have have enrolled and registered will continue because some of them may change their minds. So we don't have final numbers yet will know better once we get into September in terms of our actual numbers. But we have had, you know, we don't have the same level of enrollment and of course, we have a significantly less as far as room and board goes because we do have a lot of students that are commuting or, or are, you know, going to be taking classes online so that's, that also has an impact on on our revenues. I don't know Sharon if you have anything additional to that. As of last week enrollments vary at our institution as a decline in enrollment of approximately 11% in the best case scenario to a decline in enrollment of about 23%. That's quite a significant variance. The Chancellor noted room and board is a significant portion of our revenue source. And again, we have participation in room and board. That's between 66% down from the prior year to about 45% down to the prior year. So they vary quite significantly, depending on the institution and the method by which they are choosing to teach students this fall. Great. Thank you. Other questions. Okay, I represent or Fagan did you have anything to add at this point. Not right now. Thank you. Our mission is not to find the money. This this committee's job is not to find the money are the focus of this committee is to provide a response to the appropriations committee on just our response to the governor's budget. And I think, given the amount of work we did last year on the, on the select committee and listening to the colleges it's an interest to this committee. I just want to make sure myself as an interest on my part to see that we provide the splint that the colleges need until we can get to the, until we can get them into surgery. And I appreciate the amount of work that they're doing and I really apologize for that analogy it's terrible and I hope nobody quotes it. I think just getting to the point that that we just need to see them through while we come up with the final solution. Thank you. We are going to hear from next we're going to hear from the UVM and the Vermont State colleges. You have a budget. You're on the budget. And also we're interested in hearing where you are with your, your CRF fund uses and needs. Thank you. Wendy. Wendy. Wendy. Kona in the room. I don't think she has arrived yet. Madam chair. Okay. We have, but we do have Susan stitely. So let's start with Susan, who represents the association of Vermont independent colleges to just give us an update on how things are going there. So welcome. Oh, thank you for inviting me today and for considering the private colleges. that the students are starting to come back on campus and testing is going relatively well. There are some cases, but there are few in number so far and quarantining is working well and isolating students. We have, just want to mention, we haven't had any COVID funding from the state, although there was legislation that ultimately said that in conjunction with the health department, if we can't find the funding for the various testing, it may be considered that there might be some funds for that. But of course we have many needs, like all the colleges, drop in enrollment, the testing costs, loss of students. And I'm just sort of trying to get a sense of the drop in enrollment, but there has been some. Students are just starting to come back on campus now over the next couple of weeks because they've been coming back in tears, but there is definitely significant losses. So we are one of the reasons, one of the key reasons why out of state students and people from out of state and young people moved to Vermont. So we are fulfilling that critical need of getting youth here into the state. So we are key to the industry. And you all know we've lost four colleges in the last couple years. And this situation could result in more colleges being lost, which hurts the Vermont students, the communities, and the state as well. Higher education in general is the third largest industry in the state in terms of wages and salaries. And we are the fourth largest industry in the state in terms of employment. So we are a huge sector. And I think we need to be thought of as a business and as an industry because we are vital to the economy as well as educators, which is of course our primary goal is to educate many different types of students. But I do feel we can't afford to lose any more colleges. So I am listening to the testimony and the different tiers. I'm wondering if the gear funding, the governor's emergency higher education funding, really funding, if that has all been allocated or if there's still funding left there as well, because certainly our institutions need some additional resources as well. Do we should aggression? Do you have that information? I believe he might have just left. Might have left. So definitely I'm hoping there is still funding there. You might, yeah, I know it's not your job to look for the funding, but we have losses, I'm just trying to get a sense and I haven't gotten census information from everyone, but actual loss of students in the fall, not every college has reported yet, but that's at 33 million dollars. The COVID testing and cleaning is probably gonna be around at least 5 million. So we have an, and some schools, SIT in the Brattleboro area, their students are international, so they are really struggling because they don't have students coming back to campus. All the other colleges are having students come back except for my College of Fine Arts and Goddard because they're low residency, so they're gonna be doing their programs online. So, and I haven't heard if they've lost any students or perhaps even gained some because they are online. And Vermont Law School is online as well, but about 40% of their students are in the community, have come back into the community and will be using the resources at the college. You said that the colleges are the fourth largest industry in the state. Is that just the private, it's just the independence? No, that's all higher at public. Yeah, and the same with the third largest industry with the wages and salaries as higher in general. Yeah, okay. I know many states have given, the gear funding has gone a portion of because it was specifically written to include the private sector, college sector in the gear money. It wasn't just for public and for K through 12 and other states have been allocating some of their funds to the private college sector. So I would ask that you do the same. You did have access through different economic grants, I believe? No, we didn't. The grants that came up all required a 50% loss in one month and that's not how colleges operate. So we weren't eligible to provide, apply to those grants. So when you're considering new grants, I certainly hope you expand them more to the nonprofit sector and make it not so restrictive. So that other institutes, colleges can apply for those grants as well. Thank you. I see that we have Richard Kate in the room. Are there any questions for Susan before we move on there? I think I'm seeing any. So welcome Richard Kate from the University of Vermont. Good afternoon. We are in the process of reviewing the governor's budget. I don't have that here, but my understanding is I think you were level funded. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. So can you just give us an update on where you are as well as any uses of COVID relief funds and expectations coming forward? Absolutely. I think you have the table that I would be referencing too. I don't know if you- Do you have that film? Yes, I believe so. I'll put it up in a second. Thank you. And Phil, you've got the second one that Wendy sent, right, the updated one. I believe this is the second one, but you can confirm in a second. Is that the right one? It is. Thank you. Thank you. And this is on our website as well. So if you're not seeing it. I'm trying to cordon off the COVID funding into segments here. The first set, as it says, is the money that you were good enough to give us for FY20. The vast majority of that was spent in terms of room refunds and meal rate funds to students. We did have expenses associated with additional compensation and leave and a few other things. We had just started to work on the expending money for technology. Of course, it was just a very short period of time there. So not a lot of time to encumber all those costs. The second section is in the FY21 allocation that you gave us, which we're working on now. We've expended about half, expended or encumbered about half of this money and it will all be spent out before December 30th. Bigger pieces here in terms of technology and hardware for remote instruction. A lot of purchases for sanitizer, plexiglass, gloves, masks and a wide variety of other things. Biggest piece, as you can see, is about $6 million for testing for this semester. We contracted with one firm to basically do testing of students before they arrive. So we wanted to maximize the possibility of catching anyone ahead of time before they got to campus. And then on the first day that they set foot on campus, testing begins weekly for students. If you're gonna excuse me for one second, I'm gonna close the window. You're probably gonna hear more of College Street here than you want to. I still- I'll interrupt for a second. Do we have this document posted? I'm trying to pull it up. It's on our website. If you look under today. There are two listed. It is the one that is listed as COVID table, expenditures tables, I believe. Okay. Under Wendy Kning's name. Okay, I'm all set. Thank you very much. Sorry for the interruption. And then another big piece is additional financial aid for this semester for students. And then some of the facilities modifications we've been doing in terms of everything from air handling to plexiglass installation and the like. You may recall that you also within this allocation gave us funding for what we are calling the office of engagement. The legislation calls at the University Business Resources Center. And so this is where the university was given the goal of expanding economic development and job creation and leveraging universities, people and program resources toward that end. This money, I will just a very quick explanation. In order to be efficient about this, we did not want to try to spend all this money in the six month period because we thought it would be wasteful. So basically what we're doing is actually expending the cash during a period on programs, expenses directly related to COVID and freeing up some of the universities funding so that we can spread the $2 million over a two year period. So we've developed a million dollar per year budget for each of two years. And that work has begun. The president has appointed Chris Coliba as a director, Professor Chris Coliba as director of the program and we're in a process of setting up the office now. And I didn't have a specific answer. The next two sections are related to a little more in the future for the second semester of this year. We could be spending as much as $12 million. Again, for very similar categories, the testing would need to continue financial aid more modest amount for technology but we'll continue to buy equipment and supplies. So this, we expect these expenses to continue obviously throughout the year. And lastly is, just to give you some idea of some of the revenue shortfalls we've had. As you know, the CARES Act funding is not to be directed necessarily to revenue shortfalls but I thought it would give you some sense of what we're dealing with. We have reduced the density in the residence halls by eliminating triple rooms. So that means about $3 million reduction in revenue there because of COVID and we've ended up with more scholarship eligibility on a part of returning students about $4.5 million. And then we've also reserved some beds for isolation should we need them. So these again are beds we can't rent out to students as we normally would, a couple of million dollars there. Some decline in enrollment, we really won't know exactly where we stand on enrollment until about the first week of September after everyone's here and they've made their decisions because even as students are arriving here right now as I speak, there's still that, what we call a melt where some students are lost in that two week period where they don't decide not to stay. And then there's another piece here in terms of lost revenue, especially from athletics and also conference events. So I don't know if you, I can go on on other topics but just I don't know if you have any questions on this at all. And personally, I haven't done the arithmetic here but I'm just trying to sort out the table that you've given us. So if we look at the first section, actual COVID relief funds appropriated to you through CRF funding through the legislature, it was 8.6, 8.7 million, is that correct? That's correct and it's been suspended. And there was an expectation that this would take you through FY21, is that what you're... No, no, the first section we had to spend by June 30th. By June 30th, okay. The second section is the money you gave us for this fiscal year, but it has to be spent by December 30th. So this 19.3 million, did we provide CRF funding to you at that amount? Yes, that's correct. Yes. Okay. And then, so that's supposed to take you through December 30th. Then we get to the... And that's the... So then these are the projected expenses for the second semester that at this point in time we actually do not have access to those funds because the funds are supposed to end December 30th. So that's the 12 million there. I love the term de-densifying. That's a definitely COVID related word. I'm just trying to figure out where the 12 and the 21... Well, yeah, the 12 are expenses that we expect to incur. The last table is really examples of revenue that we are not going to get over the course of the entire year. Okay. So basically what we're saying is those are additional challenges. And what we have done in the development of our budget is to reduce allocations to all the units and to try to address some of that revenue loss. Okay, thank you. Questions, Representative Austin. Just in the last category, the induced revenue shortfalls, could those be considered in terms of if we had additional or could we use CRF funding for that? Even though you're making up revenue shortfalls it's due to COVID. So I'm assuming we could use COVID funding if we had it or allocated it to that group, that 21.2 million, is that correct? The need is certainly there. I won't speak to legislative counsel's interpretation of whether or not the CARES Act money can be used directly for that or not, but it certainly is all COVID related. Okay, thank you. Okay. So you are looking forward and we're still waiting to see what happens with Congress and waiting to see what happens with the election and a whole bunch of other things that we probably can't answer for you at this point. Wendy, did you have anything to add? No, I think that Richard has done a great job of covering this. If anybody has any other questions related to anything with UVM and I can answer them, I'm happy to do that. How's it going? Students are coming back and I'm pretty excited about the fact that that is happening. Houston, we have a problem. All of you know that we have a very aggressive testing regimen that I think is really helping us to do this safely, especially having pre-test of students being tested before they come to campus, in addition to the day zero, day seven and then weekly testing regimen. So we're feeling cautiously optimistic and as you all can imagine that being the university, when we have students back on campus, we all feel better there. We want them to be learning and doing what they're supposed to do. So we're happy about that. Thank you, Representative Collin. Thanks. So as Kate pointed out, there is no CRF money left. Because Richard Kate said, you basically are unable to expend any more money than what we've given you by December 31st, which is the deadline or December 20th, whatever, I can't remember. But you got a $12 million additional costs and a $21 million loss in revenue. Can you put that in the bigger picture of the UVM budget? What that all means if there's no money to make up for any of that coming from the legislature? Basically what we've done is, in addition to the fact that you, and I do want to express our appreciation for the funding you've given us. After taking that into consideration, we've had to reduce the overall budget by about 5% in order to address what we project to be our lost revenue and our added expenses that won't be covered by the CARES Act funding. I know there's incredible sadness about the childcare program. Yes. That was cut. We certainly acknowledge that we are working on other alternatives, but it's just a, we've had to deal with a large number of program reductions in many areas in order to address the need. Okay, any other questions, comments? If not, then we will move on and get an update on the two committees who are looking at higher ed in the future. And we have Jesbeen Zeissler here who will speak to us, provide an update on the Vermont State College's forward task force. And again, Dylan, you are on this committee. So if you have anything to add, please do. So welcome. Great, thank you very much for having me today. I'm going to go ahead and show my screen. I think that's, or maybe Phil, you can put up the slides. Yeah, I'll put them up for you, Jesbeen. Okay, great, thank you. Yeah, and while Phil is getting started, a particular thank you to Representative Gian Battista. He was a wonderful part of the task force. This was our internal task force. And it was designed to be a representative group. I would say the group had some really hard conversations but also some really optimistic and forward looking conversations that was the direct charge from the board to us to really come up with recommendations on what we can do now to take action. If you want to go ahead, Phil, to the next slide. This is really the guiding vision of the task force in this work to highlight a few things for the committee. Our focus has been just laser focus on students and high quality education that's accessible and affordable. I think the range of conversations our task force had, we really recognize the diversity of students that our system serves and realizing that we need to design for that future, reimagine a future for the system. That's robust, that's sustainable and come up with some creative ways to serve this breadth of students. You can go ahead to the next slide, Phil. In addition, the task force was specifically charged to really be the point of taking in information from a lot of other groups and listening to other groups. The task force reviewed the speaker's idea bank. For example, we've had a labor task force in our system put forward a proposal that the forward task force certainly looked at very carefully. There are other community groups that representatives may have heard from like the VSCS Thrive and others. And we've been constantly seeking additional input. But I wanted to share with the committee today results of a survey that we conducted to really get as broad-based a set of input as we could. And so this first result on the survey, we were asking, and we had 2,400 Vermonters, both our internal communities and external complete the survey in five days. That represents about 400 hours of Vermonters time to do this. The priorities, when you compare some of our external stakeholders that we targeted, and that included school counselors and workforce development partners and our own internal constituents, we really had pretty strong agreement about what the priorities are for our system. Affordability, access and strong student support is really what's underneath all of those first access concepts. So those were the priorities. Phil, if you want to go ahead to the next slide. We specifically asked survey respondents who identified as being part of our workforce partners about their perceptions of our graduates. 91% said they're very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with our graduates. So very little dissatisfaction with our graduates. And that was good news to us. I think like much of higher ed, need for more hands-on, more communication is always part of it, what people look for. Likewise, school counselor perceptions, we found that Vermonters know the Vermont State Colleges system, they know why it benefits our students. Students choose us for affordability, for the proximity to home, for the small welcoming communities we have in all sorts of ways across our system. And students who aren't choosing us are looking for something different is what our school counselors told us. Thanks, Phil, keep going. And then just to tease out, specific to our student population, and I will say that our survey results, really generally speaking, we had representation from all of our colleges and students answering the survey. And affordability and access again, were student top priorities as well. So that was an important piece that the task force took into account in developing its recommendations. The four that you already heard, Sophie, preview for you, yeah, that's fine, Phil, you can keep going. I'm gonna share with you the four recommendations that are now moving forward, our board approved these for action. The first recommendation is really about improving affordability and preserving access to high quality programs for students. And it's focused on Castleton and Northern Vermont University, recognizing that academic programs there, there's a substantial degree of overlap in the academic programs offered. And so our next step, we're in the process of convening a task force to look at this and develop a way to evaluate these, to think in new and different ways about how to preserve student access to these programs. And finally, I will say with all this work that our group has had a real sense of urgency about the need to move forward and about the need to have clear answers for students as we go into the next academic year about what our priorities are. So this is the first recommendation. The second one is also about, really about an access expansion and operational efficiencies. And it's focused on the community college of Vermont and Vermont Tech. They already do, you've probably heard many times, a lot of the synergies between those two institutions, I'll highlight a few. They already utilize a single library between the two institutions and they already work very closely together to deliver really critical workforce development programs such as the nursing pathway. They kind of go hand in hand together to build out programs in that area. So this recommendation is really to build on that good work and come up with the next steps and next opportunities to do some of that expansion and look for some of that operational synergy. And then finally, the final two recommendations are really about increasing flexibility for students and recognizing one of the things that was a real theme in the survey results from students was they recognized that, hey, we can learn on Zoom, we can learn online for a lot of us that helps us balance work and family and school. Certainly there are students who are also saying, and I really want to talk to my peers in person, but this layer of flexibility that some online delivery offers is really about these recommendations as well as understanding that our students are moving within the system quite a bit and so getting crystal clear about a general education program core that a student can count on whether they've been an early college student in one location, whether they've come in and done a one year certificate program that had some general education embedded in it, that student has the confidence to know that that's part of their general education requirement wherever they go. So those are the pieces there. And then as well as sort of showing students much more clearly the range of online offerings and making that much more accessible for all kinds of students to access. And with that, Phil, I think you can go on to the final slide. So we said we are convening these working groups. I think we have a strong commitment to an inclusive, transparent process around representation and communication in that work. We are expecting to leverage some of the CRF funds that we've already targeted where it's appropriate to support some of the doing this work with facilitation and additional consulting. And we've set very ambitious timelines for this fall to do the work. And with that, I will pause for any questions or Dylan jumping. What did I miss? You're muted, Kate. I can't believe I need that reminder, but I do. Thank you. Dylan, do you have something that you'd like to add at this point? I'll just be very brief. I think that was a very good presentation. But just to acknowledge that this is very challenging work and that each of the campus communities is under a lot of stress. And so with the backdrop of what we've heard about the real fundamental piece of funding our state colleges system, we really need to understand the human toll that it's been taking the last six months. It's been very challenging. Our higher education institutions have adapted very quickly. And I just was very impressed by the commitment of all the stakeholders on the task force. And there were many from different communities be it employees or administrators. There was a student representative and all of them came to this all in the shared spirit of ensuring that the VSC's future is very bright. So I just really wanna thank everyone and acknowledge their good work. Certainly they put in a lot of time and this will be a very difficult transition. And they are partners in that. So to the extent we can be partners and support our state colleges, I think that's a very good policy for the state of Vermont. Thank you. Representative Austin and then Representative Conlon. Just wanna quickly say thank you so much for that survey, for the information that was extremely helpful. And especially to hear the amount of student voice coming through on that survey was really good to hear. So thank you very much for that. Representative Conlon. Thanks. I think when you say you've put forth an ambitious schedule, the deadlines of October 1st, that's understating it. I like the link between Vermont Tech and CCV and try to go with co-located spaces. CCV already co-locates in some cases at technical centers across the state. And I didn't know if technical centers were part of the conversation as you looked at VTC and CCV in theirs. Or if that was just sort of a bite too big to take in all the work that you're doing. I will say that from the task force's perspective, it was really focused on what can we get our arms around. I appreciate the broader spirit of that question. I think in increasing the collaboration of Vermont Tech and CCV on program delivery, clearly there is opportunity there for how they might deliver programs in other locations. They're doing programming in Central Vermont Medical Center. So do you do it in a tech center? Do you do it in an employer base? There's just, I think we need to think nimbly and creatively. Representative James. Yeah, just a scheduling question. I think I missed, when is your final report due? What was the calendar after here? Thanks. I think at this point, the task force delivered recommendation to the board that the board took action on immediately. So we are waiting for further direction at this point if there's more work the task force needs to do. But I think we've got a lot of, you know, the select committee's work and so I'll. Gotcha, so VSC forward, maybe that's that. I would just add in on that is that the task force, the VSC forward task force met twice a week since it was created at the beginning of June. It took an enormous amount of time and effort from very, very busy people. So they're kind of taking a little breather right now. The board of trustees will be coming together in September at their upcoming meeting to really focus on what are the priorities that the board of trustees has for the Vermont state colleges moving forward. And we anticipate coming out of that, that there will be further direction to the VSC forward task force. So they're taking a well needed break here with the start of the semester, but they had, as I understand it from Yasmin, they had expressed their willingness to continue to wrestle with some of these really challenging issues and to continue to be a resource for the board moving forward. So they are still, they haven't been disbanded as yet. Yeah, that's right. That's great, thanks. Representative Hagin. Thank you. Sophie, can you remind us I've heard three different numbers. What is the total amount of bridge funding necessary? Not in addition, not taking into account what we've already provided, but what is the total amount of bridge funding necessary, please? Right now it's 23.8 million. Okay. And we did share with, I know many of you were on the meeting that we had last week with House Appropriations. We did provide to fill a copy, essentially of the same presentation to you as well. And that sets forth what we've already received and then how we're calculating that 23.8. And I'm more than happy to go through that if you want, but hopefully that will be part of your materials too. Well, because our committee was actually present at that meeting, I'm going to see if we can pull that over to our website as well. And I'll see if I can find that for you. I mean, I think we sent it to Phil earlier today, just with a cover slide on that was specific to this committee, but it's essentially the same presentation that we provided last week, but it has the breakdown on the last couple of slides. Right. Thank you. Is that the one I received from Sharon? That's right. Thanks, Phil. Then that one is up on our website. Okay, great. Thank you, Phil. So I want to turn now to Joyce Manchester who's been working with the Select Group. And she's just going to provide us an update on where they are, where it's going, anything that you can give us Joyce to have a better understanding of the status of the select committee. And there's also going to be a question, I think, for us, is there something that we need to do as changes to that come forward? And Jim is in the room, I believe, our Ledge Council, if there are things that we should be attending to in legislation. Sure. Thank you very much. As you know, I'm Joyce Manchester with the Joint Fiscal Office. I'm not a member of the committee. I'm simply helping the committee as a representative of JFO. So I'd like to start with the document that looks at the background on the Select Committee. Phil, if you could put that up, please. Yes. So this document is really just stealing from the JFO website devoted to the Select Committee on the Future of Public Higher Education in Vermont. And I wanted to be sure that each of you had easy access to that webpage because the webpage will contain meeting notices, all the public meetings that will come in the future and also the agendas for those meetings, any background information for the committee and so forth. So starting at the top, as you know, Act 120, passed by the General Assembly last spring, created the Select Committee. The JFO webpage link is right there for you. So you can click on that and get to the latest information on the Select Committee. The webpage includes the legislation. So you can read that in all of its glory. And see exactly what it is that you want the Select Committee to do. The webpage also has some featured resources. So I've highlighted three of those here. You can read the request for proposals that JFO issued back on June 30th. So this was looking for a consulting group to help the Select Committee in its work. Lots of data analysis, lots of process work, lots of working with stakeholders and trying to come to consensus in terms of recommendations and the final report. I've also listed here the report on funding for the Vermont State Colleges System that was published on June 9th by Jim Page, former Chancellor of the University of Maine System. You all are familiar with that. And also the treasurer's Vermont State Colleges final report. So so that's just meant to be a handy list of resources for you all to access at any point now or in the future. Thank you for that. Sure. So let me say a few words about what's happened with choosing the consultant. So when we issued the request for proposals back at the end of June, we were looking at a timeframe that would request the final report from the Select Committee by the end of December of 2021. And as the Select Committee got together for the first I'm sorry, I have to back up only five members of the Select Committee are on the steering group and the steering group was tasked with choosing the consultant who would help the full Select Committee. So most of the work to date has been done by the steering group. Just those five individuals in in trying to get to a clear picture of what it is that we wanted the consultant to do and on what timeframe. So in thinking through the timeframe, the steering group came to the conclusion with a little bit of prodding by Jim Page and others, came to the conclusion that it would really be better to have the final report by the spring of 2021. And there are lots of reasons for that. But one reason is that the legislature will still be in session and could actually take action on some of the recommendations. A second reason is that the colleges and universities will still be in session. And so they could actually think about it and perhaps start to think through some of the recommendations that might be made. And finally, we think that it could save the state another year's worth of bridge funding, because if we can implement some of those proposals prior to the fall semester of 2021, it means that there could be some cost savings in 2021 that otherwise would be foregone. So there are lots of good reasons to move up the schedule. So we are working with some of the consulting groups in order to be sure that they can abide by that schedule. But we are now thinking firmly that the final report will be due in April of 2021. Any questions about that? Oh, yes. And I should mention that the legislation does say on or before December 2021. And so according to the Legislative Council, thank you very much, Jim Demeray. We do not need to change the legislation. We are covered there. Great. And any questions about all that? OK, of course, I saw a question after who could you tell us the members of the steering committee? Yes. So the next document that's available on your website and that Bill will put up on the screen. I hope. Thank you. Great. Right. So here are all the members on the select committee. And you can see that those names with asterisks are also on the steering committee. So I'll just run through the names on the select committee and a note who is also on the steering committee. So Joyce Judy was selected as chair of the select committee. And she's also functioning as chair of the steering committee, which I'm sorry, steering group, which makes sense. She's president of Community College of Vermont. Briar Alpert is a member of the University of Vermont Board of Trustees. He was previously president and CEO of Biotech. He's also on the steering group. Just this morning, we got notice that Senator Barouf has been named to the select committee. So as you know, he's also Professor of English at BVM. Heather Boucher, Deputy Secretary at the Vermont Agency of Education, also on the steering group. Sarah Buxton, Director of Workforce Development at the Vermont Department of Labor, also on the steering group. Megan Kluver is a Vermont State Colleges' trustee and her full-time job is with Delight Consulting in the global higher education practice. She's also on the steering group. Daniel Daley is Associate Professor of Math and Computer Science at NVU-Linden. Dr. Garamella from University of Vermont. He's the president. Scott Giles or Giles, I'm not sure which president of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. And as you know, Kathleen James, your very own, is a member of the select committee. Devin Tingle is a student at Vermont Technical College. Jeff Weld is an alumnus of Castleton University and works with Cassella Waste Systems, Inc. And finally, Sophie Zatny, Chancellor at PSCF, is also a member. We have two more members who have not yet been named. The steering, oh, I messed up on this on this page. It should say the steering group. Very confusing to have the select committee and the steering group. The steering group is tasked with naming two representatives from the business community, and they simply have not done that yet. But it's definitely on their list of things to do. So that will be 15 members that will complete the select committee. Thank you very much. Questions for Kathleen, do you have anything to add at this point as our as our House member at this point? No, that was very that was very thorough. Thank you. Any questions going forward at this point? So to to Jim Demeray, you don't see at this point that there's anything that we need to respond to. I believe Jim had to jump off. OK. Follow up with him later. Thank you very much. This was an important committee to our to our committee. So we appreciate hearing the status of that. Sure. With that, are there any additional questions? And I'm going to ask Peter Fagan as a representative of the Appropriations Committee to help guide us through what it is appropriations will be looking for and what they what they would like from our committee. Thank you, Representative Webb. So right now we are working through the budget, both the dollars and the language that pertains to it as has been recommended by the administration. It is not a three quarter year budget. It is the budget document is the whole budget year and it will take precedence over the one quarter year budget that had previously been passed where appropriate. Otherwise it would get very confusing very quickly. So we by perhaps the end of this week, I doubt it, but early next week, the numbers should come in, should start firming up. We have yet to make decisions on numbers. We have two public as you as you all heard on the floor today, we had two public hearings scheduled for later on this week. We do not make final decisions on on pieces of the budget until after that. So we are attempting to figure out the grid funding for this. The colleges are level funded from from year to year right now as is I'm trying to think here pretty much everything. I'm not going to say everything is level funded, but pretty much everything is level funded year to year or reduced correction reduced actually from year to year and trying to find the bridge fund is the is the big challenge to this. As you've heard they need an additional $23.8 million beyond the $12.5 million that they have already received for bridge funding and that 12.5 does include seven and a half million of CRF money for bridge funding. So there's there are questions there, but that's where we are. So what we're going to be asking of you folks is when we can finally, and I'll be obviously part and parcel of this, when we finally ascertain how we're going to do this bridge funding, I'll come in and do a presentation of that. And we'll be asking for your approval thereof. And then we'll move forward. Okay, so then we're waiting for you rather than you're waiting for us. Is that what you're saying? Well, at this point in time, because it's it's you'd be saying yes to a to a to a dollar sign and a bunch of blanks, you know, so I do not see how it could be anything other than that. Thank you. I wish it was different. We appreciate the clarity. So we don't have to start looking under that couch cushions. No, not not yet, but if you do want to have some ice cream or some lemonade sales, that would be helpful. Excellent. Any questions there for folks? Representative Austin. Yes, this, this might be for Peter. I was looking at the projected report from JFO. And it looks like 2021 is going to be rough. 2022 is going to be rougher, but it looks like 2023 is like things really look much more on the upswing. Is that accurate? And I'm just wondering if, you know, how to look at this process as opposed to a one year process, maybe like a phasing process to sustain things for a while until we get to 2023. Is that, is that accurate? That's accurate. And that's actually a good way to looking at it. The projections that you have seen are all based upon and our emergency board, which perhaps have heard e-board approved revenue forecast and they met July something. I was watching, I can't remember the day, but they approved this revenue forecast. The revenue forecast are done by two economists, Tom Cabet, our economist and then the administration's economists and they get together and do a agreement. And this is based upon that agreement. The variable here is what is the economy going to do? How much of a COVID boomerang will we have? How will that impact the economy? There are so many unknowns at this point in time. Your comment about, that I would paraphrase by saying, let's hang on and get through this. And then we can start, you know, to poke our head above, above the ground and move, and move out from there. So hopefully I answered your question without too many words. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Kate, you're, you're, you're, you're, there you go. Just wanted to let the folks know that I'd been in conversation with the, with AVIC and with UVM and the state colleges regarding the request for legislation related to dealing with their liability issues. We've taken a look at that. I've spoken with a member of judiciary. For the most part. I included a meeting with representatives. Coupoli and Conlon, and we invited in also representative. Martin LaLonde. And the context just seemed to be more about legal liability than it was about education and felt a little bit beyond the scope of our, our committee. We have would have a steep learning curve and understanding things like willful misconduct and gross, gross negligence. And so we, I am in conversation with the other judiciary committee to see if they would be willing to take that over rather than trying to bring that into our committee where the learning curve is just too steep. So anything else? Tomorrow we will hear from, we will be doing a similar in the investigation. Only this time the switch will be to pre K 12. We'll be looking at the, uh, educate the agency of education budget. Um, also inviting in, um, members from the group that we, we affectionately call the V's who represent the educational associations to participate in that. I believe they are going to have some requests going forward. I believe the agency also has some requests for legislation going forward. So we will begin to have that conversation, but primarily that the most important thing that, that we can do right now is just be prepared. Um, to respond quickly to, uh, the, the appropriations committee. Um, that's our primary reason for being back and everything else is secondary. Um, so, um, I think that's a really cool idea. Even really cool, great ideas. So with that, I think there's an option that for the first, we will, we will end, uh, early unless there's anything else. Any other questions or thoughts going forward for this group? Okay. Just a question about, um, support for the state colleges, uh, uh, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if there's a letter or memo from us right now that says, Hey, we want you to move forward with this. We should just wait for you to come to us with a proposal. Yes. Cause right now I really don't have anything that, that, that I can release. I'm working on something. Um, but. Until I get some agreements here. Um, better off to, to not, I have talked to your, your chair. Um, I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. When I can come in with it, this is what we think we need to do. Then, then we can go forward with that. Thanks. Bearing in mind at the moment, the recommendation is zero. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then the other thing is we won't need a letter. Um, I can take back verbal. Uh, we're going to be very, you know, very quick here. We don't need to try anything down with letters or somebody can send an email. Anything else. Okay. Then with that, um, we can. Go off loan.