 Welcome back to Senate Education, Friday, February 3rd. Policy committees and appropriation committees, the appropriations committee in the Senate, there's, there's always this working together during the session for us to understand what requests are and for appropriations committee to get an understanding from us our thoughts on different requests. Some committees, some policy committees do it more than others. I tend to like the Education Committee to know what's happening in the budget to see if anything is, you know, comes out as a concern or something people might, you know, be deeply supportive of and then share those notes with Senator Kitchell so. And then there will be things that will come up during the year that people will want to get money for particular ideas whether you know it's school safety school construction, from this lineage education bill, other work we might work on so without having gone through the budget myself yet I will be completely honest here. I thought, let's have you all in to just give us an overview of the educational components of the budget of the budget adjustment bill. Okay. Senator would you like to hear so we, we sort of have two pieces. There's the, there's the dollars the numbers in the sense and that would be, and sorry children's Campbell Agency of Education for the record. That would be Sean and Brad, and then there's a second piece, which is some change in language. And that would be my piece so you, you pick your poison whatever you'd like to hear first. Yeah. Tell us, which of you make sense to go first. Sean, why don't you go. I'm going to volunteer you all. I'm Sean Cusano, the deputy CFO with the agency head. So thanks for having us in your, your committee today. So myself Brad and Jill are here. Brad and I are going to share about the FY 22 carry forward and the money coming into our 23 budget from last year. Would you like, do you have the slides or would you like to share. We have the slides in front of us. Okay. All right. So we can start sliding through mine. So we're going to talk about the general fund carry over revision on slide to our agenda. We're going to turn it over to Brad and he'll take care of the education fund. And we're happy to take questions at any time. And we can skip right to slide five now. This is our finance and administration appropriation. We're looking at carry forward for purchase orders of 19,600 and carry forward or 52,000 and reverting $282. So the 52,000 was to cover a shortfall in our 23 budget. Based on the ups and downs from last year. Any questions on this one? This is our, you know, secretary's budget or CFO's budget legal. They're all within this, this appropriation. We'll stop you when we have questions. Sounds good. Our next appropriations education services. And we're looking at a small purchaser order carry over much larger general fund carry over 462,000 and we're reverting 3,800. So we've got, again, 44,000 for a shortfall in our FY 23 budget 230,000 for sub grant obligations and several other little initiatives. That have been approved by the administration. Next, we've got the adult ed and flexible pathways for creations for adult ed we've carrying over 262,000 for grant obligations and reverting 7192 flexible pathways we're carrying forward 600,000 for our dual enrollment programs spring semester obligations. Any questions from Senator Hushin. Just a elementary question here. No pun intended but reversion. What can you explain to me what reversion is. Sure. So at the end of the fiscal year, you know we'll have a balance and our general fund and certain appropriations. We have a use for or an obligation for it, and the administration approves to carry over that's our carry forward number. And then if there's still money left after we carry forward some that we haven't identified a need for. We're going to revert that money back in this case to the general fund. The same same thing goes for the ed fund. Sure. So yeah flexible pathways were reverting 182,000. Next up is the state board. There's a small appropriation here. And we've got a small purchase order for going into FY 23 and we're carrying forward $10,000 for anticipated extra legal expenses. We're reverting 54,755. And that wraps up the ed fund or the general fund. Next up is the education fund. And right I'll take the first one. So back in the finance and administration appropriation, there's ed fund in that appropriation as well and we're looking to carry forward 250,000 for purchase orders and reverting 1.6 million. And then that leaves us on slide 11. Okay, good afternoon. James is your education. We'll see you all again next year. It's always somebody came in. I was wondering if it was going to be here today. So we are now on slide number 11. And this is one of the bigger numbers here that we're talking about here. This is the special ed formula and what this covers this covered this covered the the census, what was now the census block grant but was reimbursement the mainstream block grants, extra extraordinary expenditure special education, as you're all aware we went from a reimbursement model to a census block model this year. I think you're aware, if not I'll be happy to explain. And that was supposed to start back in FY 18. Or actually, when I went through passive, it was, it was supposed to start in FY 20, I think. And what happens is when we're doing a reimbursement model, what we're doing is we're repain the prior year's costs, we're kind of truing up another we're advancing people like during the course of the year. And that's what they're actually spent, and we're truing it up and that's using a big number that we end up doing in the following fiscal year. So what happens is that becomes part of the next appropriation what what occurs with federal folks IDA especially is there's a requirement to meet for federal maintenance of effort for us to maintain the same level special special education spending. So, being aware that special education costs are going up and the census block grant was going to actually be less money than what we were reversing. We want to try to offset that increase and so we took more money forward and kept pushing forward carrying forward. So that we could kind of buy down that and not have as a really high number here that we couldn't meet. And that's what the census blocker census block grant finally started this year for the first time is postponed. So, you know, our numbers were way off. So we had money left over and we didn't need it all because the cost came in lower than anticipated. Additionally, in the last four or five years. So what we do when we come in the appropriation time is we ask for what we think they're going to be spending based on what they're telling us. And when they come in lower we have extra money left over. So that's kind of a lot of what you're seeing here so those two things right here that so we're reverting giving back to the end fund $27.3 million. And that was that we don't need. We're carrying forward a fairly large piece we're carrying forward about 31.2 million 31.3 million dollars. And that's, that's, we hopefully won't need it all, which means we've heard it next year. But basically what we've done now is we've gone from the census block grant or primary from the reimbursement census block grant. And there are a number of districts saying that's not going to be enough money for. If the special education aid doesn't help them out and what happens that falls directly onto the education spending, because they have to pay for it anyway, and then falls directly out of their tax rate. I think Brett might Mr. James might be getting to it. Yeah, you're definitely in the realm of senator week if you don't have on center weeks. So just out of curiosity on the special education formula slide so the 27 million that is. We're going back to the education. Okay, everything I'm talking about now is education. Okay, so I'm talking about general fund. I'm on the education. No, I know it's clear. Thank you. So I guess that then I do have a question because your question sparked mine. I guess I'm confused as to why we were burning 27 million when we know that schools were didn't get enough money. Well, that's, that's part of what we're asking that 31 million full care forward to be where we're taking, again, we had a pot of money. That's about $58,000 $58 million. Okay, that was sitting there from from last year. We didn't need to keep looking, we didn't need just over 27 million, but that's the reverse and that's we're giving back the education one drops the bottom line was incorporated into tax commissioners December one letter by statute. And then I saw that. And then, and then that letter says this 31 million, and we're going to use that, if necessary, for a variety of purposes, which was explained just a thing that you're asking. And I blame this. Thank you. So, who gets these block range. They go to the supervisory. Okay, the census block ran just very briefly is based on a three year average of money that the state was spending out was paying out to people. And it's divided by an average average day membership count a three year membership membership count that gave us a block grant. What the law says is in FY 27, everybody will be at the same block grant. Currently they're not. So some are high, some are low. So we have a four year transition as they're going from where they are in FY 23 to FY 27. So some are coming down by equal implements for four years, some are going up by equal. It's different implements are different for every school district. Okay, but it's going it's going to so what's happening is now the block grant is going out based on the pupil count. So the total people count tax and error but the total because instead of looking at what they really spent on just special education reverse. So, okay. So, we're, we're, I just, sorry. I don't mind being around. So, with, with reversion, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around some things here but with reversion, these funds are going back into the ad funds. Pre assigned for this upcoming year is it just yet to figure out where these these monies are going. It's up to the legislature to decide what to do with these quote unquote surplus funds. I mean that's another way of thinking about it as a surplus rolling forward. I don't know if they're just giving my back to the ad fund. But what, what December one letter from tax commissioner does it put it sets out the recommendations for the property yield which right some said property tax place the income yield which gets people discount the tax credit on their property tax rate and then the non homestead tax rate. So that's been December one or so. What he's doing, what he has been for a few years. What he is doing is, is looking at the statutory done. He's looking at what we think is going to happen with the education with the manager going to be on the education fund, and how much money is coming into it. So there, there are things that are not property tax in the education fund, like the sales and use tax person use meals room, Medicaid transfer employees things like that, kind of know what's going on. But if this is what we need the education fund and those pieces I just mentioned come to here, we still have to fill that gap, and that's property tax, either homestead or non homestead. So that's what his December one letter is doing is looking at what we think is going to happen. And he's making SNS of what the yields need to be to bring in the right amount of money for the homestead side, and what the non homestead property tax needs to be to bring in the right amount of money for the non homestead side. And what what the law says to do is it says to take any surplus. And anybody sitting at the bottom of the education, which, which of these numbers we're talking about right now, and use those in terms of sure me what those yields and tech that helps a property tax rate should be. So they've been used up in his December one letter, which came out and said, you know, even though tax tax rates are going to go down overall taxes will be going up as property values and such. But he came out with the yields that that school board you're looking at business management looking at set tax rates right now, having not use those, those numbers at the bottom, then the yields will be lower, because it wouldn't have much money so tax rates would have been higher. It's kind of an inverse relationship. It's an inverse relationship. So that that's, that's where the money is it's up to you all as a hard body to decide what you want to do with those funds. But they're sitting there right now to be used. That's that's right. Are you ready. Okay, just so maybe a follow on the center she's a point and for clarification from the chairman is your more experienced list of us. Are those reversions now accounted for in the BAA are those funds now allocates theoretically out of the house. Right, the house out of the house or I'm not sure if it's passed out of the house yet but are they already accounted for in in the BAA. That's correct. They should they should be because we're saying we're giving this money back or what I heard this for. So I think that would be part of the answer. Yeah, again, I have another BAA after full disclosure. I want to go back to why I like to do this with committee is when I sometimes when you're on a policy committee and they start talking about budget issues. It was always frustrating to me not to have kind of understood different committee chairs handle it different. Some people love to jump into the budget. Some people say that's appropriations. If this committee could just it's important for me to just you all just generally know it so if you see something, we can try to do something about it and have a conversation with appropriations but is it knowledge is power. That sort of thing. Yes, Ted. I just didn't want to know the languages in the BAA is coming to you. It must be on its way down from or across the hall. And this we have given we have a similar presentation to house education after we presented to house appropriations and my colleagues here presentation of appropriations or this week's sort of taking the rounds around as following the bill. Thank you. I'll try to understand the budget process. Yeah, because I'm used to I'm not familiar with it. That's a municipal level. So I asked the question of our school board is during COVID. Nobody was in school. Yeah, you're still asking for this much money that they didn't use does that go back into the surplus. I'm used to you. You either use it or you lose. Well, yeah, that's not that's not the case because this is all state money. It's already generally, right. Basically, basically, the education fund works differently than pretty much every other fund in the state and probably in all the other funds basically you look at how much money you have said this is what we're going to do in the education fund. The school districts make the decision basically as to how much whether they're going to spend. It's a local decision, you know, for all the districts and the state's obligation is to find it. So it's reverse. And then so that that that makes it that makes it different. So when when we appropriate the money in the big bill or the BAA. Basically what we do is we're making our best estimates as to what we need. And then if we don't need it. We don't need the process because we're reverting back what we don't need to give it back so they can use it the following year, or we're carrying some form because we still need that much money for x, y, z. Good question. So that's good questions. I mean, this is not straightforward. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think your approach is good. They do. Okay, so are we set and I'll continue on what we're going to hope to use what this 31 minutes for. So, so again, as you said, this is the first sense of block for him. A number of districts don't think that's going to be enough money for him. So one of the charts that we're supposed to do and I'm slow and doing I have to do it is to look at high spending. Supervisor use high, what's the high spending in terms of special education, and then to see what's happening is it's going to be enough money for them or not. So we're going to make a recommendation to come back to you. So that's that. So that's, if we decide we need one later, then we're covered here. This costs have also been going up across the board from what people have been telling me I'm not a special education expert by any means, but cost been going up across the board. In terms of more kids needing more services learns to do the pandemic into a lot of cases, but also because people's I think somebody mentioned it earlier is one of the independent people. Right now, so people have to pay more to get people. So those costs are going up services that when when you have high cost kids, those prices are going up they're going up across the board. I've also been told by business managers to ask the question is somebody to ask me is our extraordinary. Is the is the total cost and count of kids for extraordinary expenses going up I'll explain that in a second is is that they're up there saying yes it is going up like that. When I say extraordinary expenses. Basically, if we go back to the reversal numbers to kind of understand what the state did was refunded roughly 56% of special education costs for most people. The districts districts supervisor unions had a student who's had high cost that exceeded $60,000, then they paid 56% of that $60,000, and then the state picked up 95% of the amount over $60,000 and those are the extraordinary costs we're talking about. So anything over at this point 60,000 I think next year for 24 its inflation takes up to like 66,200 something like that somewhere in that range. And again that's that story inflation, but that's what I'm saying extraordinary costs and more and more kids seem to be coming into that category, even though the cost, the level is going up, and the cost themselves are going. Okay, so that's so again we're trying to build a bit of a cushion in here so in a bag and say well we were wrong we need more money. I said here we got too much to give it back to you. Another piece in the in in statute for unexpected and I run it down to remember unexpected unusual circumstances, and if districts, the families supervisor unions are experiencing unusual or unexpected costs they can ask us for additional funds and we anticipate that So this is more kind of take using this money for kind of a reserve for these anticipated things coming our way this year. That's that's why that number so high otherwise we get it back. Sorry. That's number 11 slide. Special education. Thank you. So what governs what you can do with the circles. This are the rules for for the agency of education. I don't know the answer that I think there's some I think it's somewhere in finance administration, we have to give it back and we, you know, we, you give it when you're giving us appropriation you're giving us authority to spend money. And if we don't need it, then we can't spend it because the fiscal year ends. And so it's just money sooner we can't do anything with it. But where that authority is, I don't know the answer to that. Find that out from the council. Yeah, they. Finds a manager problem. Okay, so anything else on special education. On state play students and students partner with the slide 12. Again, state play students, we're giving back $1.4 million, we're asking to carry forward $5 million. And again, same idea, we're getting, we're getting not necessarily more students, but they seem to be costing more interest a place is the lines are going out of state. And then there's those costs are coming in quite high because we have no, no saying what they're going to charge. So we want to make sure that we have the sufficient funds to cover that. So this is a lot of it's covered state place for special education purpose, but also for regular state place purposes to that's what this whole appropriate state the $5 million and it's giving us a little cushion because we're not sure what's happening. So those are some special kids, but they also kids who want to go to Europe. No, no, no, no, those are regular tuition kids. What we're talking here a state place kids are people who are moving their families by DCS. Okay. That's that's who we're talking about. And their place somewhere where their parents don't know what laws chase a little bit it's not and it's not. And the reason for the committee that I asked this last year this committee quick, real parameters around where dollars go out of state. It's just that will return. So, so, so we do have a lot of kids going to, again, they're going to therapeutic schools with a lot of state. And we're talking about high and high cost therapeutic schools in many, many cases and in lots of different states too. You know, it's ideally be nice have them all here for a month but we don't have this service. Anything else in state place. Next little pathways. Again there there to their two parts of flexing pathways for dual enrollment specifically dual enrollment has a. It's it's funded 50% from the general fund which the part Sean was talking about earlier and 50% from the education fund that's that's right from general funds covers the I guess it's not the general department it's the next generation initiative. it's own separate fund. So we're giving back 1.8 million. We're asking to carry forward roughly 1.5. And we never really know how many kids are going to go into early college. The numbers have been going up. We don't always know how many kids are going to do enrollment. Those numbers tend to go up too. And those are all costs to get funded. There's high school completion, which is not growing like the other two. I do know that books for early college this year versus last year. Last year we had just under 300 early college students this year we have just over 400. So those numbers are going up. And we're talking $8,000 a year for 100 kids. So it's a lot of money. It's not poorly spent by any means, but it puts us a lot of money. So that's why we're carrying so many forward here. We're not sure what happens because we don't know until it's doing it. Just remind us early college can be CCB, state colleges, UDF, St. Mike's. Yeah, it can be. I think a dual enrollment is kind of the same. Dual enrollment just to make sure everyone's on the same page. 11th and 12th graders can take up to two years of college credits while they're in school or through the summer for dual enrollment. And then some students who are 12th graders, if they so choose, can disenroll from high school and enroll in college full-time. That's what early college is. So they can get a year's worth of credit if they do the right courses. We have more about that in our state. Slide 14, the education spending grant. We're asking carry for a million dollar, carry forward, pardon me, a million dollars, which is roughly what I think we usually ask the most years are cooperative. We're recruiting 11.75. And that's much larger than normal. And the reason for that is because of how the law is constructed, when a district fails its budget. When a district fails its budget, what the law says is that we pay that district a certain percentage of a certain amount of money per student, per equalized student specifically, but per student. South Bronx's budget failed in FY 20. And I think it was. And there that payment I just mentioned because I have a lot of kids turned out to be 6.8 million dollars. So we sent them 6.8 million dollars because that's what the law said to do. It turns out that that year South Bronx, because of its property values, specifically the property, the home set property values, was able to raise more money than their school district needed. And again, these are education fund dollars all. And so they sent the excess to the state. And we never sent them any money. So they had 6.8 million dollars sitting there. So we had, we got 6.8 million dollars back. And that's part of this 11.7. So we're really talking about a more normal size reversion of about $5 million. And that 5 minutes is a little bit high, but not. I kind of felt like that was my fault because I think I just figured out that when I realized it was happening. Small schools grant, small schools grant is also kind of the same as merger support grant. Just to remind people or explain very briefly, school districts get a small schools grant if they met certain criteria. And basically the main criteria is if your two-year average enrollment per grade is 20 or less on average. Yeah, that's the criteria. If we went through lots of unifications and mergers, if you all recall, it was very calm and relaxing. We went through a number of mergers and when small school districts merge into a unified union school district, we need a simple union district for grades pre-K through 12. What the law said was if they, if those districts received a small schools grant two years prior, they brought it forward to them as a merger support grant for the new unified district. And they're able to keep that money in perpetuity until you guys change your mind or until they close the building that brought that money or if they, if they do a renovation that combined schools and renovates that building until the bond is, the renovation bond is paid off. So basically this money, the small schools grant cost is kind of leveled out. We're carrying forward $150,000 because now Lincoln has become its own small school. And so this should cover that. That's kind of what we're looking at here. And just so you all are aware in FY25 when the new weights come into play, small school grants for this, for the small school grant per se will be gone. Merger support grants will stay, the small schools grant will be gone, but it'll be merge support grant. And the reason behind that is because in the new weights for the pupils, there is a component for small schools or small schools. And I think that was the last one. Oh no, second one. Sorry. So we're on slide 16, technical education. These are probably normal numbers on an annual basis. We're giving back about $1.5 million. We're carrying forward $412,000 per obligations that we have. Basically what this money does is it covers, it covers salary assistance for special education director, not special education department, career technical center, let's try English. Career technical center directors, co-op people, guidance counselors, possibly assistant directors. So that's who the loss is we give aid to. So this appropriation is doing that. We always, it also covers transportation. We always overestimate a little bit on that one because we don't know how many people are going to be asking for this money because some of it depends on the size or whether they have the position or not. So basically what we do is annually in this historical, we basically increase the prior years by 5%. And that has always given us enough money to be able to fund this and we give the rest back the next year. Then I think that was the last question. Of course, Mr. James, so very awful. I have a good test. It's related to this and I don't really understand itself, but I think you probably will. I might have a test here. It's an error line. Yeah, I think it's maybe a check. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's not a compliment in this case. I'm used to that. Just a question. I'm not quite sure I'm following it all. So on budget adjustment, she's saying SR 11 acts looking for flexibility on 67 meals, 72 facilities, 28 literacy, 112 mental health and ed, 166 radar. That's me. Yes, okay. She's right. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Bullock for raising this break. Perfect. Is Jill? All right. Again, Jill Briggs Campbell, Agency of Education and my cat Susie sitting next to us who just got disturbed and was very upset. So I did just get confirmation from Ted that the proposed language that I'll be discussing today went through kind of exactly as is through the house. So we're talking about the same language. And as Senator Lyons pointed out, this is exactly what she described, which is within the SR state set aside dollars. So you'll recall from a few weeks back when I was in person and we talked about with our SR funds, those COVID federal emergency funds, 90% of the funds go down to the district. So we're not talking about those. We're talking about the 10% of the funds that remain at the state level. And over the past two years or so, the legislature has appropriated those funds through, you'll see a grab bag of acts there that are listed on slide number three for various purposes. And then once sort of the priorities or specific, very specific, sometimes use of funds have been laid out, the agency has undertaken to carry out those programs. We have between all three funds and remember SR one finished in September of 2022. But across all three, we have something like 40 separate initiatives. So we've been busy busy. And what we're looking at now is as a reminder, the SR $2 end in September of 2023. And the ARC SR or SR $3 end in September of 24. So as we are engaging in this work, you know, putting out RFPs, getting contract bids, putting out grant programs, making awards, trying to hire personnel or contractors or whatever it may be. There's a need to sort of reconcile any funds in a specific appropriation that are available still. So we have a budget for our contract of $500,000. We put out an RFP, it comes back at 450,000. That's great. Except that because of the specific appropriations, the agency doesn't have the flexibility then to take that extra $50,000 and repurpose it within the broader legislative priorities that have been outlined. So what we're asking for is essentially some language in the BAA that will give us the ability to do that. And I will tell you just from personal experience that I think I've answered about five emails today, just today that have said something along the lines of, I could move that around, but we have to wait for the BAA language. So you'll see it's a pretty simple piece of language here. It's identifying all of the acts where the SR state set aside dollars have been appropriated. It identifies some checkpoints that the agency is happy to report to the Joint Fiscal Committee in October of 23 and October of 24, giving sort of a status check. And the rest of the slides, I'll just sort of say I provided so that you had sort of some insight and you've got this in another slide deck as well, but some insight into the work that's underway. But I would sort of point to slide number six, which is sort of pointing to why this is really necessary right now. So if you asked me the question today exactly how many dollars that we're talking about here, my answer would be I'm roughly estimating across the $44 million, something like maybe two to three million. But I can't give you anything more concrete than that. And that's because even today we have eight live grant programs, including programs where we're making awards, like even as we speak, folks are working on that right now. And we have 12 live or planned contracts, meaning the RFPs are going out, the contract work is underway. So we also are using within our sort of state set aside, there's a subcategory that's called the admin. And that is funds that are reserved to the agency to administer the essentially almost half a billion dollars that's come into the state. And right now if we had any unused funds there, because they were specifically appropriated, we can't move them back up into the state sort of set aside and use them for statewide initiatives. So that would also give the flexibility to be able to do that. I will also just point out on slide six that all but 365,000 of that 44 million and actually, Sean and I met yesterday, it's all but 165,000 of that 44 million is budgeted for a purpose. So we are moving forward. We have plans for it all. But if we can kind of do those reconciliations and be able to gather up the money and then repurpose it for things that you've already identified are priorities. And the really the rest of the slides is just a summary of the work that we're doing. So I'm happy to answer questions about them. I don't think I need to present on them. But yeah, go ahead. Great. This question may be for you, Chair. Is this language will fall under our purview? Are we doing this work? We just want to make sure that yes, that's okay generally with that. And I will also note that the language was drafted with the Joint Fiscal Office. So Sarah Clark and Catherine Benham and I worked on it. We're not inventing a new wheel here. Very similar language was used for the Coronavirus Relief Funds. And there are other there are ARPA SFRF programs that are using a similar kind of approach. So the agency is trying to kind of piggyback on some some language and work that's already underway. Mr. Fisher. Director Ted Fisher from the agency of education. This is director of communications and law and state affairs. This is one of the community's information. We have the access on this slide because at the time there was not bill numbers because it's the governor's proposed language. I sent the link to Hayden and Jill. Jill didn't mention the number. Just section 57 of H1 measure 45, which is on page 45. That's where it fits now. So it all basically happened down the hall. But if, for example, you saw, I thought, this is concerning. We have a deeper discussion. And kind of a question for you. Yeah, just, you know, from I'm just thinking back to how the budget and the VA was handled in the house when I was in the house. And now here, I'm just curious, can you share about what this is going to look like over the next couple months in terms of what is getting sent back to the house when we do our work here on the budget and the VA? Yeah, so when we finish our work, even in the Senate, if there's any of course difference, there'll be a committee conference. I think there will be some sticking points one thing that may be a problem might be, as you've probably heard, there's been a request for 9 crunching million dollars from organic farmers. Keep them going. Not sure if the Senate will agree with that. I could be misreading what people are saying. Some people said, well, maybe we'll wait and do that later when we really understand the situation. And so there may be a committee conference over some of these things, sort them out. And then in terms of the budget itself, as you know, Governor has his budget out, it's in the house now. And then you can tell me if I'm answering your question properly. Okay, and then once it comes to us after crossover, I'll ask for basically the same kind of thing that we're doing here for the agency to come in and say, hey, this is where we're at. This is where we'd like to be. This is where we may agree with the house or not agree with the house. And Senator Kitchell and Stephanie and I kind of try to just take in, kind of just have a little bit of a conversation around are there particular items that we're all feeling we might be in disagreement with, are there particular things that might come out of a bill that we're going to be funding for all that. Is that helpful? Yep. And then it's a little, you know, back and forth a little crazy, but it works out. And I should mention this, appropriations always has a liaison to the calls out committee. It's been Senator Bruce since he was the chair of this committee. I think this time around it may be Senator Kitchell, which would be great because he was on this committee for a number of years and certainly knows what the priorities are. So we have that voice in there. I was trying to understand the timelines for the budget and all the municipalities have got to have theirs done by our meeting there because they're going to vote on your budget. So the budget is the last thing we, I mean, when the budget's done, we're out of here as everybody will tell you. So it is usually my experience has been that first second week in May. I don't know if that sticks with your experience as well when you're in the house. And if there you'll see it slow down a little bit. If there's a big policy bill coming out, you know, if we're behind on, for some reason, a huge bill that has to get out because we go when the budget goes, they might slow down a little bit to make sure the committee jurisdiction or policy committee gets something out. For example, if we get into a big conversation around church and state where we get into a big thing on school construction and we're just not quite there, they might just slow it down so that we can finish our work. I'm just thinking it's kind of backwards. When the municipalities have to have their good federal funding for education and really decided on it. Is that accurate? No, I mean, we, I'm looking to Mr. James, I mean, the big thing for municipalities or things that at least education policy is really setting the yield. Right. I mean, that's right. And that's, and that really is, I mean, it will impact the town. Right. But it's really the school districts who are, you know, is there a cause because of what they're bringing to the voters and then the yield will set the tax rate for the towns. But again, you have enough say about it here. It's a big complaint. And then I will tell you later on, this is how much money you need to raise because it lists the center. Yeah, no, no, these are great questions. It's not as straightforward as the town. And, you know, for what it's worth, Senator, we are going to hear from Mr. Feldman next week as a follow up one of the things that came out of yesterday's conversation was just some tax policy in Vermont versus other states. He has a really interesting document he's going to bring in comparing us to others. And we can maybe pull that apart. He might be a good person for us to ask some of these questions as well. Start back. The timeline, anticipated timeline. So that I think they will take a vote in appropriations Friday or early next week. I guess the house, the house did it today on the floor. Yeah, the house did it today on the floor. And it's on our on its way to us. It'll be on, it'll be assigned to appropriate appropriations have been generally working on it. You know, this kind of was coming in conversations between represent Blanford and Senator Mitchell. So I'm guessing it'll be on our on the floor for us to vote on as a Senate next Friday. It seems early, maybe early next week. Yeah. Yeah. I'm missing anything. I don't think so. Okay. That's all right. Okay. Center group. Thank you, chair. Did you respond, Jill, to the question that Senator Lyons had asked about the flexibility piece? Yeah, so I'm a suit. I'm making an assumption here because we were in front of Senate appropriations just what two days ago, Brad? Yeah, Tuesday. And so that that was exactly all of the numbers that she was rattling off were the were the specific acts that are listed in the the the language in the BAA. And so the idea here is and and I can if we if you if you want, we can dive in a little bit further. So if we look at say the slide number nine, and you look at community schools, which is Act 67, which was one of the ones that Senator Lyons was referencing, you'll see that the original appropriation was 3,399,000. And we have awarded or budgeted all of those funds. If you look at the the ARPS or after school grants, those were appropriated in Act 185 last year, and those awards are being made, you know, even as we speak, I think our team is working on those. So those are ones that we we intend, you know, to fully award. What we're looking at is places, particularly around some of the RFPs, the bids that are going to be going out. So the family literacy engagement, professional development or some of our literacy initiative, professional development models, high quality instructional materials, those those bids are still in flight right now. So if, you know, by some, you know, strike of a fortune there, they came in under budget, we would want to try to be able to gather those funds back in and repurpose them. Act 72 is another place where there's $4 million that was appropriated through Act 72 of ARPS or funds that work as well underway. But it has very specific appropriation lines. And if there's the ability to, you know, we may not need a contractor that's that's a specific line, if we can move it up into a different area of Act 72 that should be prioritized, we need the flexibility to be able to do that. And I think sort of the critical underpinning here and the message, I guess, would be, we don't want to be in a position where we are returning federal dollars. So that's why that flexibility is needed. So really, the answer is yes, in terms of what we would say to Senator Lines. Okay, but I think she was just wondering, please ask how flexible, but it sounds like as flexible as needed, right? Yeah, and I would say if we have something like, for example, Senator Lines was really involved in Act 112, which was the mental health grants and contracts. So we take very seriously that that's a priority of the legislature. So when we have our grant program, which awards are being made right now, we found initially that we ended up with some funds still available, right? So the districts and non-district entities were asked to, you know, tell us what, tell us what you need. And we ended up with some extra funds and our program manager actually went back and spoke with the districts and spoke with the non-LEA entities and said, you've got a really promising thing here in your application. What if you had an additional $50,000? What could you do with it? You know, and please resubmit. So we're trying to ensure that we are fully awarding those funds and at the same time, you know, if there's $2,000 left over, there's $2,000 left over. And the same thing will happen with the contract for the direct mental health supports for educators and staff that those bids were due a couple of days ago. If they come in under and we can use those funds to put more money into the grants, we can't do that right now because of the way they were specifically appropriated. So the intention is not to ever go outside of the legislative priorities. We're not going to bring in a new thing. We know what the state's priorities are and to stay within those boundaries, but to be able to maximize the benefit, essentially. Joe, would you do us a favor and write to Senator Lyons? Just reference that, you know, we've had a question. Senator Gullick raised your question. Please let me know if you have additional questions. If you might, Claire, just some kind of follow up, maybe if you don't mind. Yeah, absolutely. Would you would you mind having Hayden give me the exact questions so that I can address it and make sure I hit all of her? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, happy to. It's really great that you're making all these efforts to use those funds. Yeah, absolutely. And our program folks are really working very closely with the districts and other entities right now to make sure we're maximizing their infrastructure again. I just wanted to say, where my communication structure had, there are some extremely cool things. We are in the process of trying to highlight some of those very cool things that school districts are doing. And I say cool. I mean, they're doing amazing things for kids, right? But some of them are like truly cool factor definition or like good examples of innovation. So we're in the process of starting some work to try to highlight those as best practices and essentially provoke ideas, hopefully in peers and colleagues and also show the public what some of the good work that schools are doing. So my hope is, is that by the end of this month, we'll have one of the first examples of some things highlighting our friendship. That would be true. Yeah, we would really welcome that. Absolutely. Yeah, as Susie has decided, she absolutely has to be part of the testimony. Thank you for joining us, Jill. Thank you, Mr. James, as usual, Mr. Fisher, Ms. Brits Campbell. Committee, the agenda for this week is posted, has been posted. Take a look. There are going to be a few changes that will give you a good sense of what we're going to be up to. And I think it kind of catches on people's questions and all the way along. I would, again, just to review, I think we will have a school safety bill, certainly a miscellaneous education bill, which will include some of these things, possibly as long as well as other things that I'm working on with Destiny and James, and we'll share with everybody. And as that's done, universal meals is something we're going to need to decide on. Senator, you, we are going to look to maybe put the school construction. Just to kind of get us, give us something, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will. And Senator, if you don't want to put it in, you could just always share the language, just to give us something to build up. That would be great. And we will be picking up, not next week, but the following week, some of the work on the early childhood bill that all of you are working on, several of you are working on in the morning, on helping you out there. So, all right, now you're going to stick around for a little while. If anybody wants to hang out.