 Good morning. This is Houseways Amines and it is September 22nd, Tuesday. And we hope it is the last week of the session. That's certainly my hope. We are going to start our morning with information from Graham and from Abby. And we're going to start our morning with information from the committee on the various tax. Provisions that were dropped into the budget. Actually quite a number of them. And I wanted to get the committee briefed on what those were. And then we will talk about a plan. To take those items out of the budget. And the. And then we will talk about the changes that we would make to the miscellaneous tax bill, which is currently on the calendar, Robin. And I have talked some about a proposal that she's going to put on the table. That will hopefully move us forward. So that's, that's our plan for this morning. And, but I wanted to start just with information about what's in the tax bill so that people know sort of what. What's in front of us. So pretty, and it's not unheard of, but it's unusual to have tax policy in the, in the budget. My, my view is that that is a mistake. And so a risky road to go down. At some point, the budget will be the only bill that matters in the legislature. And I think that would be a problem, frankly, for, for the institution. So, so we will start Abby. And let me ask the committee if anybody has any announcements before we start. Don't see anything. People in a minute. So Graham and Abby, I don't know which of you wants to begin. So I'll let you. Maybe, maybe, Abby, you're, you're, we're both on. Okay. Which, which of you would want to start, maybe Abby just in terms of the language that's been there. Sure. Great. That was for the record, Abby Shepherd office of legislative council. What was put in here was taken out of the miscellaneous tax bill, some of the provisions that you have seen. And that are, we're on the calendar last week. So there, there is the TIF language. And then there's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the sections that extend the debt and currents period. There are also the provisions. There are two sections for the VHIP, the VSEC changes, both what was voted initially out of the house. Relating to the tax credit. Also the, what came in from the Senate, which is the financial advisor sponsored. 529 plans. That's all in the budget. As it's in the house right now. All right. Thanks for that. Thanks, Lauren. Added to this. That was from the miscellaneous tax bill. Are the annual link up sections and those effective dates. As well as one provision. That was recommended by the department of taxes relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is for tax year or 2016 refund requests because there's a statute of limitations. federal extension. It didn't apply to request for refunds in Vermont. So that extension is added into the budget. So anyone now, although the the time period is past, it would have been by July 15. The Department of taxes and believe some senators were testifying that there have been taxpayers who have specifically asked for this who are concerned about this passing, which is why they decided to make sure that it was included in the budget. So those are and then yes, so that's all of those provisions and I could could show you that language if you wished and then I also have other language for Rept Chi. Whenever you're ready to hear about that. Okay, Graham, anything to add on that? Just one thing I'm trying to remember if this was in the House budget, but there is a provision in the Senate budget, which adds a $1 increase in the downtown tax credits and I can't and I'm imagining that's just a placeholder for her potential expansion, but that is also in the Senate budget as well, in addition to what Abby has mentioned, but I do not have anything else to add in terms of what was added to the budget, the fiscal stuff, fiscal information associated with these provisions the committee has seen before. So there's somebody screaming. Is that your scream? That's my toddler. Yes, we're having a tough morning here. Oh dear. So I want to just quickly talk about the downtown tax credits. If you'll remember, we ended up at a $400,000 increase, $2.6 million to $3 million. That didn't go in our miscellaneous tax bill. It didn't go in because I thought that it was in the budget. This was Kitty and me miscommunicating. Kitty said we have the money in the budget and I'm thinking that means she has the language and she's assuming I have it in the miscellaneous tax bill. Long story, it ended up in the budget in the Senate. To me, that is I just got a note from Scott that is having difficulties with the internet, but we'll be on soon. The change in the amount of the downtown tax credit to me is more like an appropriation, not a policy change. We didn't change any of the parameters of the program. So I don't see that as doing tax policy in the budget, although that provision could have gone easily in miscellaneous tax or in the budget. It's ended up in the budget because it has a budget impact. It doesn't have a policy impact. That to me is a slightly different issue than putting things like the annual link up, the COVID refund request, the VSEC language and the TIF language in the budget, which are clearly tax policy. We have the miscellaneous tax bill on the calendar and it's obviously there are issues in there that are making it problematic in terms of particularly our relationship with the Senate. So Robin has prepared a possible substitute amendment that she is going to introduce. I don't know if she's going to go through it or Abby is going to go through it, but that's what we're looking at this morning. And let me go ahead and let her do that and then we'll have full committee discussion about what our next steps are. And ultimately we'll have a vote even though we don't actually still have the bill. So we're going to have to figure out how to move forward. But that's just a procedural kind of question. We'll figure that one out. So Robin. Thanks, I'll just tee it up and then let Abby go through the amendment. So what we did was to basically take things back out of the budget that were in our miscellaneous tax bill and put them back in our miscellaneous tax bill. So the TIF language that the Senate put in the budget is back in a miscellaneous tax bill. We eliminated the pre-written software tax from this amendment that I'm proposing. So we have few controversial items at the end of the session. We kept in all the VSEC language that as we passed out of ways and means but we took out the financial advisor piece because that was that was a separate piece. And then we kept in the annual link-ups and the tax year 2016 refund if I have that right. So I think those are the big items and maybe we'll have Abby go through the amendment, the proposed amendment. Right. And so the way they so if if if depending on whether the committee endorses this particular path the path that we're on is that we would propose a sub it wouldn't be from the committee it would be from individuals because we don't have possession of the bill but we would be proposing a substitute amendment concur with amendments. So all the stuff that's in the Senate bill that was in our original miscellaneous tax bill as the Senate returned it to us would be included and we'll take time just to make sure that everybody understands what's going on. So so Abby you go ahead and go through the language for us and we'll before we actually vote on something we'll be sure everybody understands what's in and what's out. Great. Okay so as Rep Shai just mentioned there are a few sort of larger pieces that are moving but there are also a few smaller pieces that were in the committee proposal of concurring with amendment. Those are again showing up here so in the very first instance there is this report from the Department of Taxes that is still included with social scroll down. This is the February 1st deadline that again was put in the committee's proposal of amendment so that has not changed. The second instance of amendment as we scroll down is also not changed from what the committee proposed so it adds back the use tax safe harbor and this is the language that was voted out of the house originally when the bill passed over and if you scroll down to the third instance of amendment it's more of a technical cleanup because the paper bag exemption from sales tax was enacted in another bill it's just being deleted from the bill as proposed by the Senate. The fourth instance of amendment deals with the VSAC changes so it removes the financial advisor sponsored plans and adds back the language again that passed out of the house which amends the 529 plan tax credit and it syncs up to a few different allowable distributions that are allowed at the federal level. Again this is what was passed out of the house. The fifth instance and I'm sorry in section 19a where it says deleted that takes out the financial advisor sponsored by 29 plans because that was added by the Senate and then the fifth instance of amendment again it's a little more technical it's cleaning up the bill because the July 15th extension to August 15th deadline for the official state revenue estimate that deadline was passed so it's a moot point and section 27 is also deleted because it was amending in a technical issue where there was a section that was inadvertently repealed and that would have been affected July 1st so it was again moot with the dating and the timing and no longer works. So those two sections are removed from the bill. Lastly the sixth instance of amendment strikes out the effective dates and adds in the TIF language again this is the same language that was included in the committee proposal so this extends I believe by one year the period for incurring debt and these TIF districts so we can scroll down there are two sections that amend the deadline for incurring debt. Keep scrolling and then the final it's not a separate instance of amendment but the last new section being added into the bill is section 31 which is the effective dates so they're all being listed again because it no longer includes the sales tax exemption for paper bags as passed out of the Senate and it no longer includes the pre-written computer software. So this is more just a true up and if you scroll down a little bit further you see there's the annual link up effective date and then that's those are all of the genius. All right so let me see where people are if there are questions for Abby or for Robin. I'll give people a minute. So the plan is that the budget will no longer include the tax policy changes and will move the miscellaneous tax bill along the lines of what Robin has proposed assuming that the committee endorses that. Questions anyone has? Robin do you want to make this? Oh Pat go ahead. So just so I'm clear totally clear on this we Robin is amending the budget as it came back from the Senate or is she amending our miscellaneous tax bill? The miscellaneous tax bill. Okay so we have an amendment on the calendar and your motion will be to I think what will happen is that she just won't offer the amendment that's on the calendar and instead she'll offer this I don't think it's done it I don't think it'll technically be a substitute that we have to vote to substitute because our amendment's never actually been offered but that's a procedural thing that the speaker said she would work out with the house clerk so that we end up with a house vote on this proposal that Abby's just been through. Okay and where who pulls the tax provisions out of the budget that came back from the Senate uprobes? Yes. And so that's a whole separate ball game they have to they're not concurring and whatever. Exactly there are a number of other issues many other issues that are so I think the discussion yesterday and actually it applies to this bill as well is do we go to a conference committee on the budget or is there a concur with the amendment on the budget and I don't know that that has been settled that was a discussion I had with the speaker yesterday about the miscellaneous tax bill as well is would a better avenue be a conference committee or a substitute concur with amendment and I think given the timeframe we felt that the concur with amendment would be a better way to go but you know that's this part of why we're sitting here sort of sitting here together is to have that discussion. Okay and one one further with with Robin's amendment and pulling the cloud tax which I have issues with yeah and the rest of it are there I don't see any other actual raising of taxes anywhere in this bill serious. No the use tax gives some tax back the use change in the use tax table right not a lot but it's it's not nothing it's about 750,000 I think I remember correctly and I don't there's nothing else that I'm aware of unless I'm missing something. Yeah I didn't okay thanks. Okay Robin thanks actually those were really helpful questions for us all to go over and for me too so just to also just say we're not we're not amending the amendment we passed we're replacing that old amendment with a new amendment so yeah so that amendment will either be never offered or we'll do a substitute for it so that we will not vote on the amendment that's on the floor right and at some point if this goes the way we think it may go somebody will tell me what I'm supposed to say. Right yeah I don't I don't know what that is yet so yeah although I thought what I want to do is before we finish with this this morning is get the committee on record on the substitute and then the question would be do we add our names on a floor amendment or does Robin offer it and explain that we've supported it or whatever she's not going to offer it if we don't support it so but that's one of the factors in the committee. Do you want to motion then to adopt a substitute? That would be probably a good time to do that yeah point of order Robin do we see if we want more names on it before we do it or first question is does the committee endorse it and then then we can have a second conversation about whether we add our names to it. Thank you. I'll move that we endorse it then Madam Chair. Okay is there a second to that? Second. Okay moved and seconded that we endorse the amendment that Robin has presented and with Abby's assistance is there more discussion? Is that Bill that was the second I wasn't looking at yeah I thought I heard your voice thank you. George. Yeah I think I need to to say although you've all heard it before I'm very disappointed that the cloud tax is not here and I'm very disappointed that the camp on tax removal is not here in our in our amendment I think I understand why that is but still I'm disappointed. Emily. I'm also disappointed about the pre-written software but one of the nice things about the session going on forever is that I know that my next opportunity is so close at hand just a couple months away. I really like the idea of expanding the number of names on this I think it's less confusing for folks on the floor if we do that. Yeah I agree. Anyone else want to weigh in? Has Joey been able to join us? Janet I'm here I'm here on the phone. Okay good did you get to hear the discussion or do we need to update you before we vote? I just maybe two sentences because I was struggling to get on. Okay and same for you Scott I don't know how long you've been on I know you've been trying to trying to connect so the headline I guess is that the senate put several provisions out of our miscellaneous tax bill into the budget we've had discussions with the budget companies and the speaker about removing those sections from the budget and what we're doing is Robin has put a proposal it's basically a substitute concur with amendment on the table and that's what we've had presented and it would include the TIF language it does not include the the financial advisor VSAC language but it includes the there's some other tax credit language that we had in our house pass bill on VSAC it includes the annual link up and the COVID refund requests and the use tax table whether or not it's Robin so so it would what we would do is we wouldn't offer the amendment that's on the calendar which includes the cloud tax the substitute would not include the cloud tax I know some of us are disappointed in that but this is the world that we're in and we're trying to adjourn this week so we're I guess recognizing when we need to band and so the motion at the moment is for the committee to endorse the amendment that Robin has presented and okay thank you thank you for the update I think I get the picture thank you uh Scott has a question um not a question just a comment I was able to log on shortly after you started so I heard everything I understand everything um and I echo George's sentiments um but um I can see you I can see everything I can hear I you just can't see me okay we see the baseball field so we know you're here that's the important part baseball right um so we have a motion and a second um and I want to be sure everybody's questions are answered before we vote so um looking around again I don't see any other questions so the motion is to endorse the amendment that um Robin has presented uh it's been seconded and the people are ready Robin let you call the roll um just one quick question before I decide which column to put this in are we going to have another vote after this or is this the vote this is the vote perfect thank you all right representative Anthony yes representative Beck yes representative Brennan representative Brennan is on mute yes thank you representative Dunovan yes thank you representative cornhizer yes representative Maslin yep representative shy is a yes representative Till yes representative young is not here I don't think no representative Canfield yes representative Ansel yes 10-0-1 so then my question for the committee um is there anyone who does not want their name on this substitute amendment because um ideally we would just put all the names on since we voted but I don't want to I don't want to do that if somebody doesn't want their name on there so we're all okay some signal George I I just think we shouldn't put Sam's name on I'm without getting in touch with him his name won't go on right yeah thank you so that's agreeable with everybody okay good uh so that's what we'll do Robin I'm going to list you first um and then the rest of us will do alphabetical um and because you're the one who's going to offer it and we'll figure out the mechanics of offering it um uh soon yeah um I think the house floor is going to be uh a tough morning um from what I understand so this probably won't come up until the afternoon that's good right arrange my notes yeah uh thank you everyone um and uh I think we're on ed finance now and mark is that right mark are you with us or are you there you are you're muted though okay can you hear me now we can I see that Sam has joined us as well Sam we just did a vote on um a substitute on the miscellaneous tax bill um and I think rather than uh stop now and briefing everyone's heard my explanation three times now so um maybe what I'll do is is we'll Robin or I will give you a call let you know what we're doing um and if you want to have your name added to the amendment you can at that point okay sounds good okay um mark okay good morning everybody um I had three things um I wanted to touch on with you this morning um one is the um education policy provisions that the senate's recommending and the difference between the house and there's a couple of those you may be interested in because they're they're sort of policy but they're also sort of um fiscal issues um so in the um in the house um version of the budget there's a provision in there for setting the school year um and for teacher endorsements I don't know a lot about those but those are just two provisions that came back there was also a provision in there on allowing Australian ballots the senate um sent that provision to the gov gov ops and gov ops and they're they're debating that this morning but that was taken out but um it's likely to go other than those three things the senate then added four additional provisions that the house didn't have um one of them dealt with ADM and I'll come back to that one dealt with the transportation formula one dealt with pre-k endorsements and one dealt with an after school task force the two that you're probably interested in are the ADM and transportation provisions um the senate adopted um the ADM provision as recommended by the secretary of education and that simply says that your ADM count for this year shall not be lower than it was last year so if you're if you're growing you get the count of students if you're shrinking you get to maintain your ADM from the previous year we've talked about this before it's it's a zero some game but it'll get the argument this that it'll provide some stability for districts that are losing kids this year your homeschooling and other other reasons Emily has a question um I'm still not sure what's um to be done with folks who are gaining significant numbers of students I know that is happening in some districts and so I appreciate um that we're compensating for the drop but I think we still haven't um we're down to the wire and we haven't found a solution for those folks so if if you're if you're an operating district and you're gaining kids you're going to get to count those kids in your ADM count if you're a non-operating district you're right those kids could come in and create an additional cost for the district um one possibility that's been suggested there is that those districts may be eligible to apply for a CRF reimbursement for costs of kids who have come into the district from New York and Massachusetts as a result of wanting to relocate because of the coronavirus but other than that right now there's no provision to address that um under current law if they ran a deficit or had to borrow that money would carry forward into FY 23 and they would then be able to um have their tax rate calculated based on you know the additional kids they're sending out so um other than that is there CRF funding available I mean I appreciate the um magic of making that logically possible but um is there a over that in a minute but there is CRF money that the Senate added a significant amount of um money for K through 12 out of the state CRF allocation okay the one other provision on the policy bill that you might be interested in is the Senate added um some language that would allow districts to use to apply for CRF funding if they had transportation costs related to providing meals and those kind of things and they weren't reimbursed um with CRF funds if they have the cost and the cost is not reimbursed by CRF funds then they could add that to the transportation um aid the transportation aid that they would receive since that lags a couple years it's not a fiscal 22 issue it's it's beyond 22 but it's just a it's a safeguard that just indicates the schools that if for some reason they weren't able to get CRF money for this then they could add it to the transportation um aid that they would get in the future years is that something that's coming up in in particular districts or is that system-wide I don't know I wasn't I wasn't in Senate education when they adopted it but like I could find out what the reason for it is curious yeah yeah yeah Peter um I like Emily had advanced a worry based on a letter I think we all got from Wyndham County Supervisory District and it was about an unanticipated increase in domiciled uh students who obviously deserve an education in from funded from the town of residence in my case I was worried about the comment in that document in that letter which essentially said but this particular or one of the schools in this particular supervisory district does not run its own schools at tuitions so that for every additional student it has to write an additional check to whomever relationship essentially discharges the uh the obligation to educate those students and I just I just want to be sure everything that mark said in terms of being able to account for that surprise also pertains to uh towns that tuition their students as opposed to run their own schools thanks mark did you get through the yeah that's that's the ball sort of stuff yeah those are the policy two parts um so i should you have the um spreadsheet that um chloe sent to you yesterday yes i have allocations yes i'll pull that up okay okay so there's nothing we're gonna look at yeah this is just uh this is a um this is not my sheet so I may be a little bit slower than normal working through this but um this is a sheet that uh attempts to show um how the crf allocations for k through 12 differ between the house and the senate so in the first column q1 budget that's that's the amounts that you approved um earlier in this session the 50 million dollars um when the house took this up more recently you the house added 32.4 million dollars and that was based on the best information about costs reimbursable costs that we had at that time um the senate had better information and um it became clear that schools were going to have more um more crf eligible costs that um this money could be used for so the senate added about another 20 million dollars um to what the house um has previously approved so the senate is up by 53 million dollars compared to the um houses 32.4 so that that's basically the headline um if you look at the individual line items um and it's a little bit confusing going on in here because the money's moving around a little bit but um on efficiency Vermont the house um added five million dollars to what you had previously appropriated the senate bumped out I'm gonna stop you because I lost you a little ways back and I'm I don't know if everyone else did but I did you said that the uh you used the senate figure and then you referred to the house figure of 32.4 and I can't find the 32.4 on here um it's the different if you look at the total line I have to subtract to get it yes so it's a 2.4 okay well that you lost me I'm looking I'm looking trying to find my place and I couldn't find anything out she said okay stop me anytime we go through I had a little bit of trouble with this sheet because the columns don't actually add up the way it's shown well okay so let's let's let's go through it slowly so that we understand what it is um I'm sorry let's do it again let's do because um I know people will have questions about what's available okay okay so in in the q1 budget which is what you already passed yeah you had basically six and a half million dollars for efficiency Vermont and another 41 million dollars yeah available for k through 12 okay dependent schools received a million and a half and there was accounting and technical assistance for a million so you provided out of the out of the state CRF allocation there was 50 million dollars the house then took up the bill more recently and because of the increase in the demand that we were able to identify you increase the appropriation for efficiency Vermont by five million dollars to 11 five okay yeah then the amount available to schools increased from 41 million to 68.4 million that's that is the increase for the amount of money that's available for basically k through 12 and independent schools and accounting and technical assistance the confusion comes in on this sheet for me a little bit on the summer meals and the meals equipment what happened there was that the 12 million dollars that had been appropriated in the q1 budget got out too late for the schools to be able to utilize it so they actually only ended up using 2.2 million we were then informed by AOE that even though they couldn't use the money for the purpose that you would initially appropriated it for they could use four million dollars for um meal service equipment so up to four million dollars was carved out of that and made available so those those two those two rows don't add up in the totals they're sort of separated out out to the side um then um you maintain the amount of money that was going to independent schools at one and a half million dollars and you maintain the amount for uh technical assistance at one million dollars so overall the increase was about 32.4 million dollars and that's where it was left when you guys finished with it and the 32.4 is the difference between 82.4 and 50 that was yeah all right I missed okay thank you yes all right so then if you move over to the senate call really based on new information that was available when they had this bill they added another two million dollars on top of the five million dollars that the house had added for um HVAC systems yeah um efficiency Vermont's thinks they're going to be able to use up all that money within the time frame there's probably a lot more demand than that out there but projects might not be able to be finished by December 30th so they have extra money and there's some other funds available that might be able to help with that in the future then for K through 12 schools um there's an additional they basically all together it's an additional 88.3 they reduced the amount of money going to independent schools from a million and a half to 1.2 and that was based on the submissions that AOE has received which added up to 1.17 so the senate reduced that amount by 300 thousand dollars and it also eliminated the amount going to accounting and technical assistance because AOE indicated that it hadn't been used and it wasn't necessary so for for the total then it's 103 minus that 50 which means that the senate added 53 million compared to the 32.4 that the house added um so the amount available for and one of the things we've been focusing on is how much is actually available for reimbursements for K through 12 that amount's broken out in this very bottom line which indicates that there's 62.2 million dollars available all together for K through 12 reimbursements and the senate version is 82.1 million dollars and that's currently available um has not gone out to schools at this point is that right it has not gone up to schools yet that's correct so that could that can bring if everybody's okay on this then that brings me to the last issue which is the issue around the reimbursements so okay so um the the state's CRF allocation going to K through 12 was intended to reimburse them for any CRF eligible costs so that there any COVID related costs that they are going to incur up until December 30th within that within that within that pot of money that is CRF eligible spending they basically break down into two types of costs one type of cost is just the new cost that the districts are facing they were never budgeted there are new CRF costs for PPE or whatever they've spent it on that's in one bucket the other bucket is costs that they may have previously budgeted for so if they were going to get reimbursement from the CRF bunch of those costs they've already budgeted for it they're essentially getting covered they're having that cost covered twice so the idea was that to the extent that districts identify those costs that amount could be used to reduce the education payment this year and help reduce the 66 million deficit in the education fund can you give a couple examples of what those costs might be um they could be cost related you might have had somebody on payroll that was doing a task that was no longer necessary once schools went remote that person could have been you know redirected to another task so they're still receiving their pay they were included in the budget initially but now that person's salary may be eligible for a CRF reimbursement if the district gets that reimbursement they're up so if they then had that amount reduced from their education payment they're whole and the education fund would receive a benefit the other costs are just new things that came up for PPE or you know the cost of reconfiguring classrooms or all those kinds of things that the districts could not have anticipated initially and and those costs would be you know just submitted and and reimbursed out of this fund now the the business managers took a look at this and they had they had some problems with it first of all the total amount of money that had been appropriated by the house didn't look like it was going to be sufficient to fully reimburse them for their CRF eligible costs the senate addressed that by adding the additional money the additional 20 million dollars out of the state's allocation for this purpose the second thing they did was they said that to the extent that any of this recapture takes place through the education payment it will only be done for previously budgeted costs now if it had worked the other way and you had had a um proration of new costs the district would have expended say a hundred thousand dollars for these new costs if we came in and prorated that to say 80,000 the district would have been short 20,000 dollars so the senate said that they're not going to do any proration on new CRF eligible costs to the extent that any proration would happen it would happen on the previously budgeted costs and that means that if the district didn't get fully reimbursed for its previously budgeted costs we'd only subtract the smaller amount from the red payment so they again would be held held harmless i'm seeing confusion everybody following sorry mark can you do that again i'm so sorry no it's it's confusing there's a lot of parts so say say you had a previously budgeted expenditure for a hundred thousand dollars and we were only able to reimburse you for 80 thousand dollars of that cost because there were insufficient funds then we would only reduce your education payment by the 80 thousand dollars not the full hundred because that that would that would end up penalizing you right the idea was to make districts whole but capture as much federal money for the education fund as we can yes that that that's the framework that we're talking about that's the framework and the additional language that the senate added provides assurances that that will happen because it separated out the previously budgeted costs from the new costs however however um right well i don't actually know where we are right now as of at least yesterday um the um we got some communications from natin labry who works with nasboe and he indicated that they were they were still a little bit uncertain as to whether they should actually submit their previously budgeted costs and they wanted some kind of a guarantee that to the extent that any of these funds were clawed back by the federal government down the line subsequent to audit that they wouldn't be affected by that directly um we had people in our office take a look at the federal guidelines we think that the that if that were to happen it's the state that's on the hook and not the not the school districts so i'm not sure it's a valid concern um but that that's where things stood as of as of yesterday now to the extent that school districts don't submit their previously budgeted costs reimbursement then there wouldn't be an ability to recapture any of that money through the education payment uh jim and peter thanks so mark you've showed how we can free up 62 or 82 or whatever a million for um for for schools do we know that they can use that do they have a plan is that going to go out the door on time um yeah i think i think districts are going to be able to use all of the money that that the senate has appropriated for this purpose right but again i just want to make clear that it's not it's not the 62 million or the 82 million that comes off of the um education fund deficit it's only a portion of that money that was previously budgeted so a lot of that money will go out to cover new costs and have no impact on the ed fund okay very good thank you and to go back to our concern um to the extent we can capture federal money for the education fund we can keep property tax rates and other taxes as low as possible to the extent we can't capture that money we continue to have significant pressure in the education fund so which is sort of our committee's interest in all this i mean other than the fact that we all represent schools um peter uh just to go back um to the budgeted that you intend to accommodate switching federal money for uh ed fund money i remember at least one set of guidelines which explicitly said uh retasking someone who's already budgeted would not be eligible um and maybe i'm confusing that set of guidelines with your discussion the funds that you think are still eligible uh to be state funds that can be substituted with federal funds but i was a little worried about the already budgeted retasking kind of comment in light of what i think i read this would be a couple three months ago unless the guidelines have changed is there some reassurance because as you say it's a state risk uh for the clawback yeah i think if it wasn't crf eligible it wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't be it wouldn't be receiving any of the any of the 80 the way so it has to be crf eligible first and then the question becomes then it was it previously budgeted or is it a new cost so if it doesn't meet the initial threshold then it's not going to affect this are there any other questions so mark the the um if this is actually a problem and whether there is something that we can or should do about it um i i can follow up later today with nathan and find out where they were when we when we last met with them they were going to send a letter to the appropriations committees making a request that some additional language be added to the budget to provide this assurance the problem with that is there are a lot of entities out there non-profits and all kinds of entities that are receiving crf money and if you open the door to um this kind of language it could it it could be difficult to contain it um and on top of that again the reading and our opposite least is that um it's the state not the districts that will be eligible for any disallowed use of the crf money so we're we're thinking it's they're covered and i think it's just a case of communicating that to them and finding out that they agree to that yeah janna can i ask a market question of course yeah um mark how do schools go around to access the h-factor money from efficiency vermont is that is that and and how did that figure get arrived at um the the senate's figure which was two million higher than what you had appropriate it was based on um interest expressed by school districts to efficiency vermont i think there were 300 schools that expressed interest in participating and those those that efficiency vermont thought would be able to get into the december 30th wire would be covered with the 13.5 million okay um other questions anyone has um did you go you went over the adm language yeah it's it's just a language that you looked at earlier that was proposed by the secretary of administration so it's a simpler version of um what you were looking at but um and that's temporary is that time limited or is that uh indefinite i'm sorry i'm sorry i dropped dropped my thought um sorry uh is that time that's time by its terms it's time limited right what is the adm language oh yes it's just it's just for this year and the other thing to keep in mind is it's two-year average so it only has a half it has a half of an impact in 22 and then another half in 23 so it's spread out so it unless there's a small district that has a you know an unusual impact on the budget it's not going to have that big an impact on people and we have and we haven't dealt with the ups that side well the the operating ups are taken care of it's the non-operating ups um can you help me remember we had a fund for town borrowing um that passed at some point in whatever time has become um is that available for school districts to borrow from as well if they run into trouble i'll have to check to be absolutely sure but um my recollection is that that fund wasn't tapped at all and the money's been reallocated okay it doesn't exist but i should on the second i know none of it was tapped i'm not sure what the status of the reuse of it was i know that that was the intent at one point yeah that was something we built because people were anxious rightly um and it turns out they didn't need it um but that it makes sense so things felt very uncertain at that period i guess i'm worried that people are about to be anxious again yeah um so in terms of timing mark i'm i think you can just help me sort of remember these things um we've done fixes for the kinds the kind of situation that wind hall is in um in the past but if we have we we've done them in that school year is that right i guess my question is when we come back um it's there's still time to respond to that when we have better information about it or or not well yeah i mean just you haven't the the yields and the tax rates aren't finally set until june 30th so i think all you always have the opportunity to make changes um once you come back in january well we've done them i think we've done them for wind hall if i remember correctly right it turns out really assured what their tax rates going to be until after june 30th when they get notification from aoe and the yield exchange in past years whatever until the last day of session so i realized that you know people are the anxiety level is higher generally because of the situation that schools are in so that's a that's a um where's that may have been all right in another year may not feel quite as all right right now and the fact that we're in session at the moment um it makes it more difficult because here we are okay um anyone else have any questions for mark we've jumped around a little bit who's my fault my wasn't around somewhere um anyone have any other questions for mark you'll let us know what happens um on the the um crf eligible you know the i don't know i try to avoid using the word claw back but that's basically what we're talking about whether um whether they'll be um whether we'll get over this particular bump we will okay and um so if nobody else has any questions i think we're going to have a little bit of a break before we go on the floor ken um because i think we're done sam i don't know whether you had a chance to look at the draft but you'll get in touch with robin and abby if you want to add your name to that okay okay um and robin you have everything that you need from us but you need help from the clerk's office to know how to proceed with it is that right i think so once i have uh once i chat with sam i'll know whether that we need to add his name and then i'll send that off to the clerk and figure out what we're supposed to do from there okay very good okay thank you everybody um and you know i just don't know very much ahead of time what work we have to do so um so hold the time tomorrow um and if we don't need it i'll let you know as early as early as i can um i'll let you know one way the other as early as i can sometimes some something may end up in our committee possible we'll have to regroup at some point today in which case just be prepared george and bill um so do we you want to hold it 8 30 tomorrow morning or nine i think it's nine tomorrow is it right sorsha i have 8 30 8 30 hold it because you guys are on the floor at 10 so depending on what okay yeah yeah hold that 8 30 and then um if it's something small we'll do it at nine um and i had another question was that the same question bill yes it was yeah okay good thank you everybody see you soon thank you