 Welcome back. Thank you. We got five whole minutes off. This committee is not health and welfare. This committee is finance and we are at this point think we may have some COVID relief money that can be used for broadband for telemedicine and so but it's got to be up and running by the end of December so we're looking for in your experience is there a cluster is there a particular area is there a lack of connection anything that we could hopefully put together a very compressed project or maybe four or five small projects that could be up and running by the end of the year. If our consultants who will be in hopefully by the end of the week first and next week with their recommendations for the use of broadband and CFR money so I'm going to start with Helen Laban and I don't yeah Helen just introduce yourself. I feel like it's old home day because this is my morning but the rest of the committee is not health and welfare so just tell them who you are and the floor is yours. Great thank you and thank you for giving us the chance to talk about this subject in this committee. So I'm Helen Laban. I'm the Vermont Public Policy Director for By State Primary Care Association. I also 10 years ago ran the Evermont Community Broadband Program with ARA funding to do broadband deployment and close the digital divide in rural communities so it really feels like old home day to me because this is what I was talking about 10 years ago. So some things have changed some things stay the same and I have been nominated to be the one who talks about that very specific overlap of telemedicine broadband infrastructure and CRF funding as it affects healthcare systems in Vermont so I'll give that and then turn over to the other folks to talk a little bit more about how telemedicine is working and just in a short answer to your the questions you have posed there's good news and there's bad news that the bad news is that for telemedicine during COVID-19 we are really talking about reaching every residential address in Vermont and as we know from past broadband work that means that there are places popping up all over the state in every town that don't have adequate infrastructure so that's the bad news there. The good news is that there are many very clever people in Vermont who can get access out to those locations so we do think it's possible to do with this funding and we can make that difference. Just quickly on the telemedicine this was something that we were moving towards slowly in Vermont prior to COVID-19 and it became something that we embraced very very quickly overnight across all different provider types all over the state I know for my federally qualified health centers they went in 90% remote visits overnight from virtually none that's eased back some now but it hasn't eased back entirely and nor will it ever as part of COVID-19 response and you know that that's because the direction is still to minimize unnecessary in-person visits we're still redoing our physical spaces to have social distancing so that limits the number of patients we can see at any given time in person. Patient acceptance has changed I mean how many of us are going to agree it's in a crowded waiting room during flu season ever again after this patients just won't so we know we have to deliver telehealth and of course we're always preparing in case there's another spike another wave where we have to shut down to more strict stay-at-home orders and and more severely restrict those patient visits so that means that we do need to be able to get telemedicine out to all residential addresses and often now those residential addresses also have clinicians who are working from home um reaching their patients and I should say I in these remarks I'm speaking specifically about residential obviously facilities larger facilities will have greater broadband needs but I'm looking at the deployment to households and to residences right now um Helen who is just by by state primary care represent we represent the federally qualified health centers uh ppn and uh planned parenthood of northern new england free clinics and a heck although I am speaking here on behalf of the provider coalition that submitted a letter so I'm speaking more broadly okay yeah okay though I I would love to go down the rabbit hole of fqhcs at any time but now I'm speaking more broadly than that all right yeah um so then obviously we have been delivering these remote cares even without broadband to every residence and we have a couple of workarounds available within the health system for that we have audio only codes that are being reimbursed um we also have folks connecting to hot spots but obviously in medical care there's oftentimes that you need to see things you need that visual component and um often doing those visual exams in a public hot spot for reasons you can imagine is not I would see that is highly undesirable exactly so while we do have some bridging options here what we really need is is broadband at the home that that folks can get that that connection um and so when we look at what what counts is people being able to access telemedicine from home telemedicine telehealth can encompass a wide range of things but there are national standards around this so when we look at the speed and the capacity we need what we're looking at is the speed to have a stable audio visual um conference using a platform like zoom which was actually a that's a pre-covid 19 thing that's a standard platform to use for these visits and for the clinician to be able to run their record keeping platform at the same time so they can take notes and fill out the medical record so we know you know what we use to see what's adequate capacity uh it gets a little murky when you look at the national standards so the um FCC does have a standard for what counts as adequate telemedicine capacity that's for one um we reject that as being way much too slow that's not a that's not a popular FCC position right now um there's another group called t-tech the telehealth technology assessment center which is the nationally funded group to assess technology their estimate I would say also airs on the slow side at 8 2 for being adequate for that basic telemedicine access 8 2 yeah we would say that especially during COVID-19 when you have demands on the household use of broadband 25 3 would be the minimum threshold we'd be looking at to build out to residential areas and and we think that that would in fact be adequate and again when I say we I'm speaking for the provider group we did pull everyone on the adequacy of 25 3 um I now I understand that that's a controversial speed in Vermont that does have a economic development goal of 100 symmetrical uh so I I recognize that um but in terms of the very specific question of what we need to get to residences to access telmes and adequately during COVID-19 uh we would say 25 3 is the answer for that and frankly we we needed it yesterday right so we would put a high emphasis on technology neutral get the job done um get us the access that we need to reach our patients okay um and I would just say in addition to this something that I know you know but I I I do want to note that it's not just a question of the broadband infrastructure right people need to be able to afford that connection they need the equipment to connect and they need the basic digital literacy to make those connections so of course um it is a necessary but not sufficient answer to have this broadband deployed to all these households so you know as we discuss it among uh providers we also talk about those other elements of what constitutes true access to broadband and to telemedicine um and that's the the short summary of of telemedicine and broadband infrastructure and and what we need we need 25 3 to every residence um now instantly if you if you could do that but we do feel that this is crucial in the COVID-19 response okay um committee any questions for Helen at this point okay thank you thank you all right Todd Young there you are unmute my you guys hear me yes I um I did submit some um slides but I don't have permissions to to present them um but I don't have permission what's that we now have permission okay let me just faith is all powerful there you go so um let me just bring up so um thank you for for the invite to discuss this topic I'm Todd Young and the network director for telehealth services for university health network um what I thought I do just give you a brief update of of telehealth status at UVM health network and then uh some some of the assessments that we've done with both providers and patients uh with our rollout to kind of really feed into some of the testimony that Helen Helen just shared um hey you know our response to telehealth was very much like what Helen just said um we we went from a small program at all our facilities before COVID but what we ended up doing in March April May is is we have deployed at deployed at every department over 100 departments um mostly in our inventory clinics but with some patient workflows as well um and just about every specialty and every provider type you can imagine anywhere from primary care all the way to to um ophthalmology and we've gone from having about 150 telehealth platform users to about 3000 platform uh users with both providers and staff in that timeframe uh this just a quick peek at looking what our volumes were uh in the beginning of March all the way up to to the end of May and you can see that we're north most north of a thousand every day but then some days you know we're north of 2000 visits in one day with telehealth and we were averaging we were averaging about 60 a week prior to COVID um so pretty dramatic there um so the good news is we are reaching a lot of a lot of patients but the bad news is we're not reaching all our patients and that's why we're here today and one of the things that that we've done post our our rapid rollout as we called it internally is we've we've been working hard around of this assessment of what what is the user experience of telehealth um both our patients and our provider's perspective and um and this is some directory that's gotten and patients are you know having you know patients that don't have connections within or or network within their homes are driving to locations around the community to to get um to get care and this may be driving to a lows this may be driving to one of our facilities that there's broad broadcasting uh guest networks and this is even prevalent in Chittin County, Milton, Essex, other places we literally have supervisors in some of our offices directing patients to go to places where they know that we have network um um but this is a bigger case in central Vermont and you know some of our other um lion areas. Is this going to a hot spot or is this yeah they're literally driving to to places where they know that that there are guest networks and doing the uh the visits within their cars with their portal uh portable devices which is you know very creative but you know not the best best circumstance um especially you know when you think about pediatrics or something where you know a patient is a family member is trying to connect a patient of a child or what have you yeah that you know we have frequent um situations with unstable networks so people not meeting that 25 three um threshold that Helen was describing and you know that affects the quality of care um and then many patients are not you know we get a lot of feedback from the patients that they're not able to afford broadband or mobile data plans to to get care on the provider side a lot of feedback focusing around you know the time the technical assistance um to deal with these types of issues with with patients and then really interferes with their time to be focused on care um and then the really bad side effect is if if we get into a unstable situation with a with a patient um providers will quickly transition to phone whenever they have a technical issue and you know again that's a quality of care issue for for those patients then um you know a lot of our providers and their staff um have had to practice remotely and broadband doesn't just affect our patients and access to that really affects our providers um and where they live and they may even have they have the means um to pay for broadband but they may not have the ability to have it in their homes um due to you know the situation we have a vermont and then a lot of comments for from providers with the frustration um that um that patients um of uh you know low-income Vermonters not having the ability to get uh to get network and therefore we have you know really a um a social economic and inequality issue for for our patients so you know those are you know those are the challenges that have been uh faced up to us and you know to your chairman um coming to your your question you know what what what kind of things can we do by the end of the year um I agree with how in getting as much broadband or connectivity up to the homes but um there are other strategies that also can um can be thought of and and that would be to sponsor some some projects around getting network into community places where or where we could have some private visits that may not be a medical facility it could be at town town municipal offices it could be at libraries it could be you know places where we could put infrastructure out there for private places um to get care uh outs when when when network isn't available so that we don't have patients driving all around towns uh to to find network um that might be one way to spend some money so that's um that's my testimony all right thank you questions committee all right now I can see you thank you uh Sandra Pearson has a question there you go hi hi thanks I I'm just curious if um for you or others do you bill uh a telehealth console just as if you walked into the office or maybe you're not the right one to ask that Todd but I'm curious about that we do um thank god for for some changes in policy in the front end of the covid crisis that um a lot of the the billing inequities were were adjusted um for fee for service type um uh services so we are billing at par um right now um through uh through some of the changes that were made um by by CMS and our private payers and and senator Cummings will know that I I could talk for the next two hours on that particular question it does depend a by provider type um Vermont has parity payment for things that are equivalent in in-person service so it's the equivalent of an in-person service and it's the same payment there are other telehealth codes again to other things that that aren't the equivalent but that's not really what we're talking about here we're talking about equivalent services all I can say is that this has been the subject of uh intense discussion in health and welfare we we made a lot of concessions in the emergency bill that we did the last day that really moved this forward during the emergency but the question is when you know how long will it be after the emergency before people and um telehealth seems to be less iffy than telephone only and should those um calls still be you know paid and at what level should they be paid uh so Jen is here but we well I'm glad you're still under intense discussion my kid had a a consult with her ear doctor by telephone so yeah our phones aren't that special you can't look down their ear it's hard to argue that it's equivalent but it seemed to be billed like an office visit like so I was just curious so that's basically the practice but but you guys in health and welfare are chewing on that looking at it ear aches was always something I would have just loved to have been able to call in especially when you get them once a month Best Buy does offer a home otoscope that you can use connected to your phone to look in your child's ear just if you're in the market for it go and put that out there there you go it's getting the penicillin at midnight I always had great sympathy for people going to the emergency room with an earache in a kid because they cry a lot at midnight okay um um so any questions for Todd young if not we're going on to Devin and Devin is here hello Devin Green Vermont Association of hospitals and health systems um I don't need to add too much more to what Helen and Todd said we fully support it our hospitals have been utilizing telehealth a whole lot more as well as the telephone only um and I would say that we are pursuing the telephone only because of the broadband issue so we want to ensure that folks continue to get care and all of this we realize that there is a disparity um for people who are more rural or who are low income and so we want to ensure that they still get their care but a better more high quality care can be given to folks if everyone had um affordable broadband so we definitely support Helen's proposal of affordable broadband for everyone and in terms of looking for places where it's needed um you know we can try to give you more specific information but certainly the northeast kingdom certainly areas of southern Vermont central Vermont as Todd mentioned um and we're happy to follow you follow up on more specifics but I would just say that all providers whether it's a one shop therapist a one person therapist calling from their home um to our hospitals are really in need of a better broadband to get that high quality telehealth out to folks um and I think the other thing that's important to know is that there are a whole lot of healthcare workers who want to get out of cities right now and move into Vermont and we have um a workforce issue and we could use those healthcare workers but their partners need broadband and um that would be helpful as well the workforce arena okay any questions for Devin all right so Jill is next good afternoon good afternoon thank so I also um only have a few things to add I uh I think Helen and Todd did a great job of outlining the concerns um just to put a little bit of a fine point on it from the home health perspective our patients obviously can't drive around to go to hot spots so the only way we can take care of them is at home and um and we have been doing that so for home health a lot of what we've done is what we are calling blended episodes where we might provide some care to an individual in person because it's really necessary there's no other way to provide lots of types of care but to the extent that there are follow-up visits or check-ins that we can do remotely we're doing those remotely and so that's really how it's worked um for telehealth for home health we were pretty well set up for it in the sense that all of our nurses already have and therapists have their own laptops or or um iPads that's actually different than many physician practices we were already ready for that piece of it um in terms of the reimbursement just to get to Senator Pearson's question um Medicare actually strongly penalizes us for doing those blended episodes unlike most provider types they have not figured out a way to pay us um so that remains a ongoing federal frustration Vermont has done a nice job of uh working it out for us so there's really nothing we can do here in Vermont um about that but wanted the committee to know that um glad my internet is holding up we're at five one here in Middlesex Vermont on a regular basis so would you like would you like 20 I have mentioned uh your that you would probably relish 25-3 25-3 would change our lives the fortnight around here would be unbelievable the irony of this is I'm broadcasting from Charleston Vermont today in up in the M.E.K. and I have 20 three years so wow yeah yeah Jill's up the road from the state house yep three three and a half miles from the state house yeah I think yeah I think that's I think that's all all my comments I don't want to belabor the point I think we've yeah we're all pretty much on the same page okay any questions for Jill okay Laura Pelosi good afternoon thank you I'm here today for the Vermont Health Care Association which represents the long-term care facilities nursing homes residential care homes and assisted living residences and I'm broadcasting from Waterbury Center where I just got an upgrade to seven three so I drop in and out what are you 10 miles from the state house just about so um so you know it's been really important for um long-term care facilities to have access to telehealth services for their residents in this COVID environment just to kind of set the playing field for the committee members the way it typically works is if you're a nursing home resident or you live in a residential care home or an assisted living and you have to have an appointment with your primary care physician or a specialist for the most part you are leaving your long-term care facility and going to that physician or specialist's office um in this world of COVID what we know is that our long-term care facilities are probably the most success susceptible to entry of this virus and anything that we can do to minimize the amount of exposures that our residents have by having to leave the building to obtain medical and health care services is really important so we know that there are facilities out there who do not have good internet access who've tried really hard in this COVID environment to do a lot more telehealth and that's been really challenging um based on the information I have right now it's pretty clear that our nursing home in northfield uh Barton Glover we've got residential care homes in Derby line none of them have very good access to internet at this point in time our nursing facility in Greensboro apparently there's fiber that is available on the main street but it's a relatively expensive connection for them to try to tap into that service and we're talking about providers who rely very heavily on Medicaid 60 to 70 percent of their utilization is is Medicaid we've also heard of some issues in Bennington County and Rutland County as well so we've got 170 long-term care facilities that span the state so any help that you could provide in helping them increase and improve their access would greatly benefit the residents of those facilities okay other questions and the north field facility is within 10 miles of the state capital yes is in the village of northfield uh mail healthcare yeah right right behind the uh norwich football yes yeah yeah yeah i don't i think they merged the village in the town senator a couple years ago yeah okay sorry but it's practically downtown right yes right practically on the university on the university campus yeah any kind of telephone there was no cell service in northfield i think they have limited cell service now one one provider um i've had to drive to the town offices to get the water turned on in a house downtown you just don't it's i think chelsea is a similar dark hall yeah i wouldn't be surprised we have residential care homes and chelsea we didn't hear back from everybody but it would surprise me for them as well but i think it's it's it's an issue of slow and spotty speeds and they drop a lot of telehealth you know um appointments so in the middle of an appointment the service will drop off we're hearing that from a lot of facilities a lot more critical than if you drop off in the middle of a senate hearing so okay any questions for laura at this point julie tesler welcome thank you very much i don't get to speak with this committee very often uh so my name is julie tesler i work for the vermont care partners representing the designated and specialized service agencies in vermont for us telehealth has proved to be very effective it's actually one of the silver linings of covid-19 is that we've learned how effective it is we went from using a hundred units of the service in january to over a seven thousand five hundred in april and we're finding some benefits uh we have less no shows than we used to have because a lot of people we serve have lower incomes and a lot of stresses on them so now they don't have the same barriers with transportation and child care that used to interfere with access so our therapeutic groups actually have a higher attendance than they did pre-covid we are using audio only for some clients um and that's the best we can do for some folks that don't have access but that's not going to be allowable by cms when this disaster period ends so even if it's a interim solution it's not a long-term solution um i think other people i'm sorry we have a question julie i just when when when the emergency ends you will no longer be able to do telephone medicine or you will not get compensated for doing telephone medicine that's what was the we won't be able to receive medicaid or medicare reimbursement for telephone only we will hopefully we will continue to be able to get reimbursement for telehealth um using audio visual it's it's the telephone only which particularly for elders not all of them have the equipment and have been using this but we're also one of the things we're doing during covet is getting people laptops and computers so that we can communicate with them people who haven't used them before had access to them before we've gotten some grant funds and scrounged up some money so that we're getting more of that equipment out there so we can use telehealth audio visual which is superior um then telephone yes it is absolutely it just that's for some people telephones the only ways we actually have staff who are using track phones and they can't because our staff also live in rural areas and don't always have access to broadband so we have this image of them like you know they're working out of their cars now but that's not going to work as the weather gets colder are the people who work for us I'm trying to think as we talk about how building less expensive broadband to people's homes is an economic disincentive for the long term of getting high resolution business quality broadband and there's a tension here and I'm trying to understand the parts I can't address that's above my head I just know the basic would be really helpful for the the work that we do and the people we serve one of the groups in particular are the students that use our therapeutic schools they tend to come from lower income families and have less access and live in rural areas so our ability to provide education to them because they're coming to us for schooling full-time is really being impacted as well so we're hoping that in the future they'll have access so that's all the information I have to add and I do very much appreciate your committee taking this up and Senator McDonald's you've asked a question I can't answer and I leave it to your committee to deliberate you know what are the cost benefits and how you want to make investments thank you okay committee any questions at this point okay for the representatives out there if you could help us I think we already found out in health and welfare there's CFR money out there for you know the purchase of equipment there's even money out there apart from this pandemic or telemedicine and equipment but we're talking maybe poles and wires maybe wireless but and it might be doable in a town like Northfield which has schools and a nursing home and a veteran's home and there are vet there's veterans money those might be more doable if you can you know just if you can any information at this point that helps us get some small achievable in a very few months so we can't string very much wire but maybe up you know a mile up the road if that's all it's going to take and we'll have the hassle about what speed we're going to hold out for and the cost of holding out for it and the future cost of not holding out but yeah okay yeah so but any anything you can do to help us because I think in the next few weeks we're going to have to come up with a proposal if there's going to be one for using the CFR money for broadband so when you're talking to your folks see you know if one of them knows oh yeah you know something hollow road doesn't have anything and we've got three folks up there that could really use telemedicine and if you got a couple kids in between then or in the same house then we're that just gets us a better argument okay thank you I am we'll see you all probably in the morning um I am looking and I don't yes Charles Martin is here we're a few minutes ahead but Charles is from the Chamber of Commerce and right um from the Vermont Chamber and has been asking to talk to us I think he and I have been playing phone and email tag for a while and just wanted to talk to us about some things that are on the Chamber's mind as we work our way through so this was when we could get everybody fit in so Charles the floor is yours thank you Madam Chair Charles Martin from the Vermont Chamber of Commerce um I wanted to take the time to kind of briefly meet with the committee to express what my members are conveying to me and kind of what I've heard from meeting with just about everyone who has an opinion on broadband in the state both public and private since this whole pandemic kicked off the Vermont Chamber has sort of been doing a lot of thinking about the future of Vermont and we believe that the state is well positioned to become a work-from-home capital um certainly in the country um and we essential to realizing this goal right Charlie would you repeat that would you repeat the Vermont will become what a work-from-home capital a work-from-home yes thank you very much um we're already noticing a mic just speaking with realtors um and sort of our own internal knowledge uh we're already noticing people who are looking to or have relocated here uh because obviously the state of Vermont has done a lot better in the midst of the pandemic than a lot of other urban areas so central to achieving that goal is high-speed internet uh most couples moving from an urban area don't want anything to do with a township that doesn't provide them with equitable internet access so that's kind of where we started off when we were looking at this problem I've been following the DPS emergency broadband action plan conversation to an extent and met with the department as well and we definitely applaud long-term thinking in the legislature related to robust internet access that exceeds federal standards and we support you know any effort to ensure public funds are invested in a very lasting way um but that said we're also cognizant of the reality facing unserved workers who cannot tell it to new children who are unable to tell or learn and patients who like you just heard are unable to access providers I would point out to the committee and I think it's important to understand that these tasks are almost always sufficiently covered through access to federally defined broadband um it's worth mentioning because I know that's a really big part of this conversation so kind of on that note we encourage the legislature to view broadband access as it relates to COVID-19 and the pandemic in two separate parts they're sort of an emergency relief portion and that's bringing access to those students who have nothing and those workers who have nothing and those patients who don't have the ability to access the providers as quickly as possible with whatever it takes to get them that basic basic equipment or basic function then there's that second part that the legislature has highlighted and it's kind of internal goals to provide what I've heard called future proof access that will potentially or theoretically be a little lasting and serve for monitors into the future so that'd be kind of the first the first part of the conversation that I've seen muddied a little when I've seen the public or engaged the public on this I don't think there's as much of a understanding that really what's being discussed is an emergency relief proposal and then separate of that there's an economic long-term economic infrastructure investment conversation at end so in the interest as I mentioned earlier of object approaching this conversation with the objective of mindset as I could I met with virtually everyone with a position of influence on the broadband question the state public and private CUDs schools state agencies and of course the private sector I've also been engaging our membership internally in the greater business community in the majority of those engagements people have expressed support for an immediate injection of funding to provide emergency broadband build out now and one of the reasons I kind of emphasize the now and how this ties into long-term economic planning is people are looking for homes in Vermont right now and as everyone on the committee has probably heard someone from the chamber say one or two times we're trying we have been trying to recruit population to the state for a very long time and if our neighbors to the east and west you know have the rural counties in New York or places in New Hampshire have broadband access and town X in Vermont does not very often times it doesn't take too many conversations with realtors to know that that a couple who's looking for a house or an individual looking for a house will go for the town in the state or the county that has the broadband access and I wanted on the kind of 100 over 125 over three conversation I wanted to kind of provide an anecdote of my own situation my brother and his girlfriend lived with us for about three months they moved in from Philadelphia my brother's girlfriend's an architect he's a graphic designer my wife works for a very well known health provider in the state doing web design and I have been more or less running an economic crisis resource center for the last three months from my kitchen table my speeds and I'm not I'm not happy about this but I also just want to point it out in terms of like kind of highlighting the technology necessary to achieve the emergency relief my speeds average six over three so that's what I'm doing at my house right now and we are not having any sort of technical delays I mean there's the occasional loading bar but we are able to all have our lives intact and we're all able to earn a living and access so we need to access remotely with six over three as a speed and that's running four computers four phones and two iPads simultaneously but I really just want to point that out to kind of highlight when we have conversations about 100 over 100 that is and that is a really great goal but it's also sort of what's necessary for world championship online gaming gaming or sort of projecting a hologram in your kitchen at this point zoom for instance and it's when it has its user advisory that you look at before you buy the product it buys is at least speeds of 1.5 over 1.5 netflix advertises a need for speeds at three megabits per second and youtube tells their users that you need between one and 2.5 megabits per second so I really only say that to point out that people can have people can be provided federally defined broadband at 25 over 3 and meet those basic sort of human needs of telehealth telelearn um access um you know and I've I've heard people are getting kind of creative and it's somewhat disturbing in the way that they are becoming creative I mean it's it's heartwarming but upsetting I've spoken to a few principles at this point um in orange county where I grew up and one of those educators expressed that they had used money out of their own school's budget to pay for broadband build out to the entirety of their special education population because they have no resources coming in and no one was actually serving that those households who are also low income household and rural areas in orange county and I I kind of only say that because you know that's great that they were able to do that that's not necessarily the best use of their their school budget um if they probably want to use their budget on other things but when they do serve those those households they don't they not only serve the students they serve the parents who might need to tell a work and they also serve the whole family who now has access to telehealth capabilities so it really is it really does kind of serve all the trifecta of need when you can actually do that additional build out with just a relatively small cash injection that provides service off the pole to the household um so more or less I just wanted to convey that sort of sense of urgency that I'm hearing on a daily basis on this and I apologize if this is redundant because I know the community the committee has already heard a lot of us to begin with but I felt it was necessary to sort of bring that forward on behalf of my members and the people in my orbit and uh I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have make sure you tell your principal that buying that uh broadband for students out of his budget is probably reimbursable I will COVID I'm assuming the department of ed will be reaching out because I don't think he's alone in yeah okay I've got sander mcdonald just I want to compliment the witness on thought a thoughtful trying to figure things out and and compare the choices and um I don't anyway that's we don't always get that so I want to thank the witness appreciate that senator any other thank you um and if you again it gets difficult but anything because whatever we do with this batch of COVID money has to be up and running by December 31st so if you can find us some place a an industrial park uh startup um you know sharing group anything like that that could use the help let us know um if it's because we're we're really going to be under the gun here trying to get things out so um thank you no I appreciate that and I'd also say I let faith faith a copy of the public comment we provided on the DPS emergency plan and I have a little there's a little more detail okay so I may have gotten that and missed it in my email but if not faith if you can resend it to all of us it's actually online would you like it also sent to you I will leave that up to the committee is it online for today yes it is okay I can find it then um thank you everyone thank you Charles um I think that's it for the day tomorrow we have a much lighter load um we're going to continue the education property tax and miscellaneous tax discussion and um I don't know if we still have Adam Greshan on or not tomorrow you do not we do not that's what I thought um because he left it to Secretary French to explain what the current thinking is on how they're going to fund ed this year so I must say it's interesting usually we're having a fight over three cent raise in the property tax and this year it's like oh is that all that's your two cents worth it yeah it's not 17 cents but we're going to keep working on that and at this point I think and I think I just said something over to faith to have on for Thursday but um maybe we can get him in on Wednesday so it looks like you might get Thursday and Friday off Friday we may be on if that's when we can get the broadband consultants to talk to us we are going to be meeting on Thursday we are going to be meeting on Thursday okay right we are all right so to campion do you have a question I know I was just wondering about the the meeting on Thursday is that the joint meeting that we were going to do last week with um house technology no it's at the discussion of the bills today eight six seventy four s two hundred and s three ten oh okay thank you that's right the little current use bills I knew I told faith to put something on for Thursday so uh we'll try and get this out for those that weren't here at the beginning I have noted that our tiff bill is sitting waiting for third reading so I'm going to ask if I can get that released it completely slipped my mind because I know I presented it on the floor and then I just kind of lose track of things but it never went through third reading why was that you know madam chair we went home oh I I think I presented it like on Thursday wow and we went home so um it's just been sitting there it's mostly clarifications I don't think there's anything particularly controversial on that one so if we could get it it in case any downtown feels vigorous enough or for those that are in the process of a tiff um it will clarify some of the issues that came up in St. Albans so I'm going to try and get that one out anything anybody else would like to take up let me know