 Good afternoon everybody thank you for coming together on such a quick notice, but we wanted to take some time to brief you and on the work that has been undertaken by a special work committee that was put together by the pro tem. In addition to the members of the Appropriations Committee were joined by the other senators who were part of the work group with me and that includes Senator McNeil, Senator Hooker and Senator Pearson. One of the concerns that has been articulated to many legislators, whether it's House or Senate, is the impact of the not only the federal benefits flowing down, but also the impact of the essential workers who are at risk of exposure to the COVID virus who actually could end up financially in a worse place by working than people who are on unemployment and getting that special federal benefit of 600 a week, assuming they can get through the UI system to get their payments flowing. So the group that was put together was to look at those essential workers. I don't know what the, it shows hazardous pay, we are, I just want to say that's really not the right term for what we're going to be talking about today and presenting. But the committee spent time and try to answer three questions, who would be eligible, what would be the parameters, what would be the benefit and how could it be administered. So the document that has been sent out really is trying to put in context the who, which would be what employers and those were identified by Damien by crosswalking a lot of the work that has been done by the administration to identify essential employers. And so this is the list that we came up with. And then we went to the criteria that the employee would have to meet so there are certain conditions and certain employees that were not part of our estimate of who might be eligible. So we know that, for example, state employees have had a special pay negotiations, we know federal employees, postal employees, we also want to make sure that we're talking about individuals who are working in an environment where they are at greater risk of exposure. So if somebody is working totally remotely, then that test is not met. So we wanted to go through with you the who, the what is not out ready for really discussion with a great deal of specificity. I will tell you that the recommendation of the work committee is that we not attempt to do anything very complicated, but actually do a grant financial grant in an amount yet to be determined at the completion of a month of employment. So that would be starting in April, and then May and June, April, May, June, July. And this, we have checked, if we did a grant, it would be subject to income consideration for the food stamp program, but for other benefits, it would not. A grant would be subject to income tax, but because it's not a wage, it's not getting into it. Some of the labor requirements that there, those deductions would not occur. So we are thinking that the easiest way and the simplest way to disperse something would be in the form of a monthly grant that would be differentiated between whether you work full time or part time with a minimum amount of pay with a minimum amount of hours work in the course of a month. So, and then the last part was how, and we are fully cognizant of the pressure on state government right now in terms of setting up any particular program. We certainly aren't going to look to the Department of Labor that is already struggling with the requirements and the Workload Associate Administration of the UI program. So what we were thinking, although this is subject to this, you know, further discussion would be to look at having these monthly payments made by companies that do payroll services. It would be an employer based approach where the employer would have to be a covered employer, and then the employee would have to meet the criteria that we have out here on this document. And at the end of the month, the employer would provide the necessary information and certify that the employees that they are submitting a request for meet the criteria. So it would be something that might take a little time to set up, but for some people we've been concerned about those employees on the front line who are there checking out the grocery stock in the shelves are, you know, experiencing significant risk of exposure. The other groups have been people that might be providing care and services because of individuals need them for health reasons. And so the list is an attempt to try to define who would get the benefit and then how it would go out. So why don't we, if we could with just that in mind, we don't want to, obviously we're not going to be making a lot of decisions, but today this is more just sort of getting our thinking and our concept out to you is what we have here for a covered employer that has been identified. The other, so the, that would be the first and then looking at the criteria for the employee. And we can go through Damien put this together. A pharmacy and a grocery store a pharmacy, a retailer. And we know that this gets into gradations because some retailers actually all you do is they have a table in front of the door and you call ahead and they're the person, the customer doesn't go into the into the establishment at all. So that was to try to quantify that that risk that the employment setting presents. So wholesale distributor, many distributors are out stocking the shelves in stores. And so this is just a matter of who's the covered employer, but the next test is the nature of the work the employee is an exposure the employees would be experiencing trash collection janitorial services assisted living nursing home residential care, a therapeutic community residents, healthcare facility or physicians office. And the list goes on I I suppose I don't need to read them to you. And so we would like you to look at them and see if you think that they're, we have identified the universe of covered employers. I would just indicate that we have had some preliminary conversations with the agency of human services and as you know, for those of you that are on health committees, the whole question of how to address the higher salary needs of the designated agencies and the specialized agencies is under development by the agency so we've got to do some alignment with the work that has gone on, will be completed by the agency because we're talking in both cases, the you the funding stream of that covered response money that is coming into the state so if there's a another path and something that is equally expeditious to move out compensation for these essential workers. That certainly is a topic of discussion. So with that, I guess I would ask members of the work group to fill in in any way that I might not have covered. So, Cheryl's got her hand up and you need to unmute. There is a cap on the wage on this of $20. So that's an important factor, I think in this program. And I think that that was the criteria. Isn't that one of the listed. It's done. Yeah. So I'm thinking about other workers through a chess that may have higher salaries, it might have. This could clarify that to a certain extent. Um, other. Chris, are you on. Yeah, I'm here Jane. A couple of thoughts. You mentioned the tension that obviously we need these workers to stay at work, but I want to just put a finer point on that the feds by giving folks 600 bucks a week on top of the UI benefit. Everybody needs to recognize that's $15 an hour for a full time worker so it does create this really upside down incentive and and that's part of what we're going after. And part of it is a recognition that if the folks stocking grocery shelves and help me is check out and caring for home care workers or for people in nursing homes, etc. If they all stopped working, we'd be in deep, deep trouble. Plus we would see a lot of pressure on the UI fund. So there's a couple of those dynamics. And also, I think explored and want to express that different workers in this that we're talking about, maybe getting covered and getting some kind of boost and pay elsewhere through federal programs through hospitals, whatever. I think the concept is a blanket. You know, this is not meant to be in addition to that but if you're not otherwise covered or some nuance there. We also do recognize because the feds have basically created this dynamic with the boost to the UI payments. There's some some possibility, maybe a likelihood that the feds would themselves do something like this. We want to be ready and out in front of that, if possible, but obviously would be more than happy to have this, this concept supplanted by something the feds are doing and help us reserve money for other challenges. So some of the dynamics that we've been tossing around so far. Do you have any comment? Yes, this benefit is not only for the employees with an increase of pay, but it's also a benefit for the employer to keep their employees working and making it available for to accommodate their customers. So it's kind of like a win-win right now if all this works and we still have some fine tuning to do on this but the concept I think is a great idea. Okay. Thank you. Cheryl. I think also it's something that we want to do quickly so that we can put money into the pockets of Vermonters. If the feds come out with something else, then our program would be either discontinued or continued only for those people who aren't covered under the federal program, but just to get some money into the pockets of Vermonters as quickly as possible. And that led to another consideration, and that is moving swiftly sometimes means you have to give greater weight to simplicity. So we, we had to weigh that out and some of the things that might have been desirable like creating steps, you know, in terms of indexing benefits to wages. Just, just wasn't possible. So we were proposing that we just differentiate based on full time part time work, but we would say that we talked about a whole lot of things well what if an employer did this or whatever, and it just became so complicated to anticipate all those different permutations, and even, you know, whatever we end up with. There's it would not. We could not begin to move up to that federal six, 600 a week, which interestingly enough, you get whether you work, whether you were part time or full time regardless of your, your benefits so it makes it. Makes it kind of a pretty high bar. Can you hear me. Yes, Tim. Yep, thank you. And thanks for the work you've done as a group to develop this concept and want to acknowledge that you have had discussions with preliminary discussions with House counterparts and members of the administration so we're trying to get the concept as far along as possible and then worry about the kind of details in a way later. The issue that you brought up Jane about the mental health agencies and others. I think it's great news that the administration is planning to provide them additional compensation for the work they've been doing. And in a way it's unsurprising we've been asking them to be ready to accommodate them. And so it's not a big announcement, it's more of like a catching up to what I think we all knew was going to be the ultimate end state. So the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, who has a, a ask for forgiveness approach generally in his relationship to the federal government decided that the New Hampshire General Fund was going to send checks to long term care employees, and then get reimbursed later from the federal money that's coming to New Hampshire. So in terms of the speed with which we could work if the administration and the legislature is on board I'm actually confident we could find administrative mechanisms that might be very speedy. Of course it does require some sense that we can then backfill the money, possibly later using the federal money which I think is the intent in the first place. But I want to put a fine point on the issue of retail employees in particular and some of the others who are in your categories. The federal government is likely to provide resources to the groups that always provides resources to which is police fire ambulance, all of which is important hospital employees, and residential care of course because the extraordinary conditions that we now are going to be on many states lists of people who deserve recognition. It is precisely those who never get anything that I think is really important about being on this list. And some will say well what about why don't their employers pick up the tab. And frankly if someone can find a way to do that, and the administration will agree I'll be all for it, but we have to operate under the assumption, they're not going to get any money from their, the large employers in the supermarket chains giving a buck or two bucks an hour. When they're making out really quite well right now, in terms of the volume of sales. That's where I'm really glad that you guys have stepped up because role of government is effectively to be the voice for those people who are not organized and don't have any economic influence. So, it'll be tempting for people to say they're the ones we shouldn't do because we should let their employers take care of them. But if we have no reason to believe the employers will take care of them that's where we're needed so thank you for for doing that. Okay, that that is important because we want to make it very clear this grant goes to the employee directly. That is our plan. It differentiates between how employees are treated by individual employers regardless of whatever gets into a lot of complexity and so we have had some discussion about maybe like the feds due to us that there's a non supplantation that if in fact an employee has been given a dollar increase an hour or whatever that would continue that this is not intended to replace it. Alice you had a question. I was just wondering, could you have somebody put the, the issue like on the screen we couldn't see who was not included it cut it off there so if Chrissy could show that again we didn't see that part of the program there. Okay. Is it also someplace we can look at it on our own phone here so we can see. Yes, it was, it was sent out. Oh, okay. So, it was emailed out just a little bit ago, it to us. Okay, but you can. So you'll have it to look at because obviously you. This is something that you're just hearing about the first time and you want to have a chance to look at what is here, but now that you've seen it did you have a question Alice. I didn't really have a chance to see it. Oh, okay. I'm going to share the screen with y'all and you tell me what you, what you'd like to see for who is not covered that section covered. Oh, I was down below that below. I saw something says who is not covered said something about public. Federal people covered under the fence. Not include or independent contractors. Okay, here right there covered employees does not include the state. Yeah. Okay, we just leave that there for a second because part of it's covered up by persons who are on the, on this call. Oh, okay. So we did not include and I think this gets back to center ashes comment about, you know, other methods by which certain employees get will be recognized financially and that is, because the states already negotiated a special agreement. And so the federal government we didn't get into postal employees. This really was to look at those individual individual employees who are not in those governmental roles. So the aris aris solutions I can't see that whole thing. So can you just tell me what that is about our solutions is the payroll service. That pays the money for the personal care providers that where the individual beneficiary makes the arrangement and the provider bill sometimes they serve two or three individuals, and then they bill aris and are paid through that payroll mechanism it's something that's been put in place for years. And it's used a lot by aging and independent living programs. Are they they are included I can't tell that from this. Are they. Yes, what we're saying is that those employees, even though the employer is technically the better the individual getting the care. We're not getting into that. We're just saying if they're errors pay they're covered employee. Okay, great. Thanks. Other questions. I can't see anybody because the screen. I'm sorry, my screen is, I don't have the bandwidth for this thing today. I couldn't see anybody because the piece of paper was on the screen. Oh, okay. My question is about the cap of $20 an hour. It seems somewhat probably sounds good but it seems low it's about 40,000 a year income. And is there a reason why it's that at that rate and not like 25 or something higher or I think you're going to get into some of the same stuff. I don't know how much you're saving by the getting those hourly rates that low. Anything that we do can be altered. So if you want to move up on a higher wage, you either put in more money, or you look at the overall benefit. So we just for the purposes of the work that we did and I've just said everything go blank. Okay. So that can be negotiated. We actually, depending on what you use for a monthly benefit. It can be just calculated out. So it's, it was, it was just done when we were trying to set up what what would be how big the bread box would be. Yeah. I understand. I mean, it just creates a cliff and I'm not sure that's the right place to put the cliff. Yeah. And I understand why you do a cap because you, you know, you certainly don't want to give it to somebody making 90 grand a year. So those are that gets into what we set for parameters and how much the total cost of this would be the assumption is well obviously funding this would be using the federal COVID-19 money that's coming down. We believe from everything we know that this would be a permissible use. So, Bobby. Yeah, the $20 cap is that if you were earning say 15 right now, would it would it mean you'd only get $5 or No, no, no. No, an eligible employee would be one whose base salary hourly salary is $20 or less. So the gets back to my earlier comment of what the committee struggled with and that is, well, wouldn't it be nice to index the benefit, according to how much the person earned so the lower wage would get more, but that just turned to be hugely complicated. So that was just sort of if you're under that hourly wage. We also said base wage, we did not attempt to get in sometimes with people being out etc. You may have overtime. The last thing you wanted to kick somebody off from a benefit because they maybe they're doing a double shift or something so we we index it to the to the base hourly wage for that reason. And it's based on either full time or part time. And that goes to what Jane was saying about not being able to do steps and stuff and keeping it simple. So, can you give us an example say as somebody making $12 an hour, which is a little above the minimum but say $12. What would they get out of the stimulus money. Well, what we're talking about is a monthly grant. So you can decide what you want for that monthly grant to be. If you wanted to say, for example, let's make it 200 a week $800 a month. That's what you would get for full time. So it is not, it's not attempting to be paid through your hourly wage, it would just simply be a one time monthly payment for every month you work in in this covered employer situation and you're a covered employee so if you worked every month and full time, then you'd get that same grand amount paid hopefully the month following the month of completion you have to have completed the work of that month before payment and the employer would then submit the necessary information for processing. So it's a grand it's a flat amount. Yes, Chris, you're muted. Yeah, I guess, you know, going back to what Jane said at the outset, we tried to explore who what and how. And so there are levers in all of those you could reduce the universe of people, you could expand the universe of people you could increase the amount of money you could reduce the amount of money. And now, you know, I think we will all agree we'll try to do it as in the fastest way possible. But these concepts are, you know, baked into the based on the principles that we've articulated and I think all of us agree, really important to advance in some way. Other comments. Tim you're back. Damian do you. Thank you for joining us and I do have, I do, I would just say that it, all of the ability to do something in a timely basis is really dependent on the administration and working collaboratively with us and so it's obviously good news that they're signaling to the people who are under the desk contracts that they're going to provide additional compensation there. And we're kind of waiting to hear back about their general sense of the presentation you've just heard. So I just want to like that. Yeah, that's important. Thanks. Did the committee, getting back to eligibility that right now we have a list of those who are eligible and lists always carry the possibility that anything not on the list is cut out. Did the committee consider a broader definition of eligibility a set of criteria, rather than than the list. Are you talking about the list of eligible employers. Yeah, yeah. That was trying to align it with what the administration had identified as essential employers. So we were not not starting from scratch there we were just building and Damian if you're on maybe you can expand on that. So yeah, the list was generally based on the list of essential employers that the administration had put out and then refined by thinking about those employers where person to person contact with members of the general public. Or with patients or residents of a long term care home is going to be a part of their daily job, as opposed to a job which may be essential but where you'll be able to find something saying and not have that sort of in person close contact with others. So that that was where we started narrowed the list down. And then if you, you look at the people employee language, this is where you get into the more, more of the criteria that you're talking about Senator McCormick, where we're talking about what are what are the actual functions of those jobs so for example. Let's imagine that I'm an employee of a grocery store, but I work as a bookkeeper and I'm able to work remotely and I never have contact versus someone who works on the frontline and is being 500 customers a day. It's a very different level of risk. And so with the eligibility criteria there that the working group was trying to recognize those jobs within the jobs that are sort of being told to continue working here and which are essential to sort of maintaining some very crucial functions of our economy in our daily life. To look at those folks who are putting themselves at the greatest risk. You know, someone like me, I'm able to work from home every day even though I'm continuing to work so I'm, I'm at literally zero risk. If I don't go out and walk the dog every day. So the, you know, this is really looking at those folks who don't have a choice because their job is of the nature. And I think that gets to your question about the generalized criteria. And then obviously, you know, we're dealing with a finite pool of money and and the need to be able to set up this program as quickly as possible. So the other part, for example, we struggled with. And that is, well, how should we define what would be risk of exposure. Well that got really complicated. And so we try to address that by defining who is an eligible employer, and then adding criteria. That we thought made sense and but we ultimately it will be the employer who using what is done in judicial matters and that is a reasonable person test is basically to say the work this person does. And the interaction with the public in as my as the employer, I certify that I believe this person's work duties qualify him or her for the benefit. If I make. Okay, and then Bobby and then Tim. Okay. I don't have any particular class of employers or employees in mind, but just in general the idea that we may potentially have overlooked someone by an analogy. I think it was James Madison who opposed writing a bill of rights, because he said, if we have a list of rights and anything not on the list is not a right, which is why where the ninth amendment came from which explicitly says the fact that there's a list doesn't preclude I think we might want to do some kind of protective language that way, something along the lines of shall include but not be limited to, or any other function deemed by whoever we empower with that as as meeting the criteria. Just to make sure we haven't cut someone out inadvertently. So we can put that on the list of figure out how that might be done. This gets into some other areas of, you know, how you stand a program up who's going to make that determination whether that employer should or should not be in or out of the list. So that gets in on the what we were weighing out with complexity. But that's certainly a valid concern Bobby. Yeah, I just, is this going to cover the entire state of Vermont. I think I'm asking that is in Essex County present. There's, you know, no, no cases up there and I want, I want but of course people are there and, you know, serve in working and in senior housing and places like that. So are they going to be covered. Everybody is covered, regardless of whether there's been the whole purpose is recognizing the nature of their work potentially puts them at risk, whether there's been an identified case or not because there may not be one today but certainly there is a potential next week or something so absolutely it's quite wide. Yeah, and it's not indexed to, well you work in an area where there's been a positive test or whatever it is just a matter of at risk. Okay, Dick, you're muted right now. I'm trying to, I'm unmuted now. Oh, okay. I want to. I had a lot of questions and everybody does but I want to thank you all for doing this because I, the quicker we can get this done the better off for everybody there will be always a few unintended consequences. So maybe this one or that one that's not included or this one or that one that is that it might be a bit unfair. But whether we end up at $20 or whatever. I think the quicker we do this the better off it is for everybody because I think it's right now I was just on before we got here. I was on a call with the local Chamber of Commerce I said it was MSNBC but it really wasn't it was on the local team and one of the questions was about the $600 and how people that are necessary are kind of getting hurt in this whole thing. And should they be going to work and then coming back and maybe infecting their family when other their neighbors not going out to work and is getting 600 bucks so the quicker we get this out to these people the better. And so I want to thank the committee for doing this. Thank you. Thank you. Tim. I wonder if the work group contemplated, you know, obviously, the nature of any effort to help anybody at this point is all timing based. There's a lot of timing elements, especially one of the original considerations about keeping people at work. Was there any thought about passing sort of a directive to the executive branch, ie provide a benefit of this total and ensure that people are going to get it in one way or another, whether it's through a check to be reimbursed by the federal money or by a requirement of the employer and you just go ahead and get it done rather than coming up with maybe the more complete program approach from through the legislative process. We talked about how much we wanted to specify in anything that would end up in a bill and try to say that's something that can be done administrative to default sort of who's in and what they get to the administration and just a pot of money. We, we did not talk about the reason I ask the issue of like a vendor who would help get all the work done which I totally understand the logic. And it's just a matter of whether we would want to be that specific about the manner in which it would be administered versus letting the administration choose the path that would work and be easiest from their point of view. Which in the end was to just give us authority to do sole source contracting so they find somebody, move it out. So we tried to with those operational details, not attempt to prescribe them but say, just like, what about fair hearings what about a call center what about this what about that. We identified it we said that's really something that gets operational and we didn't want to get into that level of prescription. But in terms of trying to define who we wanted to help, making sure what our goal was and putting parameters around that. I guess we felt that that was something that the legislature should attempt to articulate. Other comments. This is a lot of it. Chris is trying to get his hand in there. Well and Cheryl's had her hand up Cheryl, I just wanted to comment on this question where you. Okay, the, by the way, staff was incredible and very, very helpful chewing on all the numbers and Joyce Manchester went so far as to reach out to some potential vendors to help us understand the nature of it. I'll say from my point of view, my presumption was that sort of roughly at this point. The administration would engage with the committee to hammer through some of these details and be obviously myself anyway, I don't have a strong feeling of how it should be administered. We were trying to give it our strongest outline and then assume that the people who would be implementing it would come in with their own points of view and help shape it that way. There is also one other detail that I've wanted that something Senator star said reminded me. There is, as we've said a few times of presumption that this is an benefit for employees, except that the money goes to employees. And so one of the interesting dynamics is well what happens if a resident is resident of New York or New Hampshire Massachusetts, but they work in Vermont business. So our working assumption is that they would qualify that they are vital to keeping those businesses afloat. And just as a little example of something we wrestled through and and came back to the principle of this is a benefit for employers with the benefit flowing to employees. Amen. I'm a lot of what Chris was just saying and I'm just kind of wondering as far as the implementation of this, you know with what's going on with all of the other programs in the administration. Would it be advisable to put this on them now, would it make it that much faster on. I don't know how that would work but that was. The program itself, then I don't think we've mentioned is that it isn't mandatory it's voluntary on the employer. So, we're hoping to make this as simple as possible, and get things out the door quickly. And that we want to make that clear we taught that was another policy choice that we had. But as you can see, the way it set up is the employer is going to have to provide. It's an employer based program in terms of providing the information and so forth. So, you know, somebody had just a couple employees they may say gee I don't want to go through all that I just assume make it up in some other way to my employees so we didn't want to make it a mandatory, we wanted to have have it attractive enough so employers would want to do it for their employees but there might be times when that just doesn't make sense. So, the other thing is, we're going to have to be done about five of two because we've got some of us have got to move to another call. We want to take any other questions or we'll be scheduling more time than the other thing I did want to mention is we have had, I have had some discussion with secretary Smith. There may be categories of employees that in fact they, they, we may be able to use the payment mechanism that's already in place it would be very expeditious it would save us money. There may be groups of employees that, in fact, would get a benefit and a salary increase, but we would be using a different stream and I'm kind of agnostic about what payment structure we use as long as there's a comparable benefit going out to similarly situated employees depending, regardless of where they happen to work. So I just wanted to let you know that that those discussions have have started already. Bobby. Yeah, so there's going to be a list of all the different types of employers that can send in their employees names with addresses and things like that. Our vendor will send the check directly to the employee or is that the way you envision it working. To a large extent the check would go to the employee but there's some discussion Dan Smith raised it, it might be easier if the checks for all the employees for that one employer get mailed to the work site. And get into that level of detail of what makes sense. I would, I would, I would agree with that plus it, you know, it may settle employees down a bit to working for a certain employer and keep them. They are working because they know at the end of the month or the beginning of the next next month, they're going to be getting that check from that employer. Yeah, that, that's an important point Bobby because any of this is going to take a little time but if we can get the word out to employees and employers that this in fact will be coming. And they know it and it's a grant and because it's not sort of in an hourly wage it will be a check that is of some substance. That the knowing that that's going to happen gives people sort of a different feeling about the work that they're doing. Yeah, so we need to, if, if once we move this out make it happen we got to we've got to get the message out. So Tim. Yeah, sorry. So knowing that the governor is helpfully kind of issued a challenge to his Department of Labor about if they don't meet certain performance by Saturday night then the next day the treasurer will send just direct checks to people whose names have been somehow populating the Department of Labor spreadsheet or or something. Is there also is there because we have unfortunately because the time it takes to get to the finish line with an idea like this. Is it worth talking to the treasurer and saying if the employer gives it directly to you, you cut the checks the treasurer's office I mean they're busy like everyone but their workload hasn't changed any more than most businesses so would seem to have the capacity to, if they can send out tens of thousands of checks on a very short bit of notice for unemployment purposes, perhaps that this could just be extended as a additional activity from the treasurer's office. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying they can I'm saying maybe it's something that the work group could broach with. The treasurer herself. Yeah, that was something that just emerged today as I said we're agnostic about the payment structure. I just in the interest of in the interest of having the options on the table as quickly as possible it seems that maybe this afternoon some member of the work group could be the treasurer's could be designated to reach out to them and see whether this could be added to that obviously it's not ready in the same timeframe as the unemployment piece, but if sometime next week we heard that the governor's team and the house and Senate could all converge on the contours of it, it could accelerate dramatically the ability to get checks out, because I'm getting worried I think we all are that people will start being back at work before they ever get a penny of acknowledgement, not just for this group but even unemployed people so any option that might be available to for any option because of the whole goal is to keep it simple and to keep it responsive. So, but the way we're setting it up is not on a weekly basis it's a monthly so the first month would be April so hopefully we can explore any options that people throw out. And I guess let me see. I don't know who's on the line but I thought he was. I think I heard him, saw him, heard him and saw him. Is it your hand up Chris that you could pursue that with the treasurer's office? Sure I'm happy to. I'm wondering about the timing of this, knowing that the house may meet next Friday, if we could get this passed by the Senate, so that they could act on it, you know, rather than having it treated, it is kind of timely because so the quicker we can get it acted on the better so I hopefully we can iron out anything and meet on it so that if they are in fact meeting on Friday to actually vote, they could do that. Okay, yeah. That's something I guess we'll put on the pro tem's list. But we've got to get something out. We have our own internal process and vote that would have to happen and it, you know, be up to us to decide how far we go before kind of uniform agreement on it. But we can act quickly. I mean we could always, we could meet as soon as Tuesday, we could meet as soon as Wednesday, Monday, whatever. And I guess the question is, for us, Damien can, you know, he's been putting in place a draft for us to consider so that we can move pretty quickly so we need to set up another time for this committee. This combined committee here to meet, and we can send out a notice. Damien. Are you on? I am, I'm still here. I can't, I don't know where you are on my screen. Oh, there, there you are right there. So, okay, so we can try to put forward, and then just sort of X, X some of the, you know, some of the areas where we need to make a decision in terms of money, the month, you know, the grant amount, etc. And then maybe we can have a draft. When are people available to meet again? Monday. Monday afternoon. We've got joint fiscal. Monday. I think we just scheduled joint fiscal, didn't we, Tim, for Joint fiscal. We can do, I don't see what Dick saying it's at two o'clock now. Yeah, two o'clock because we had to change it because we're meeting and we're in session. So if we're doing that at two, we could meet at noon or 1230 or. 330. How about noon? No, no, okay. We're on the special committee or all the committee. Is that a prop chain or your special? No, it's our combined thinking. It will be a process in our work group. Will we be off the floor then you think. It depends how our voting process unfolds. Not at Pearson wants roll call. How about 1215. And Pearson gets 15. Okay. We're on the special committee. Way is down. Okay. 1215. Chrissy, I hope you're on. Set it up. I am on and I will set it up. Okay, thank you. And then Tim and I are going to our next gig. Thank you, everybody. I know it's Friday afternoon and. Everybody's. No such thing as days anymore. No, no, you're right. I just wanted to say, I know it's a lot for the special committee for all the work. You know, I just want to say, I know a purpose hasn't met, but I've tried to say we were going to meet when we have something of that action that we need to take and we have information. So this is kind of our first. First get together for a while, but thank you everybody for being available on such short notice. Thanks.