Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Tuesday, 02/17/2026, about ten of eleven in the morning. And we have Logan Mowbrings from the Joint Fiscal Office here to talk to us about the purchase and use tax because the governor's made a proposal that involves our general fund and the education fund and the transportation fund. So we thought it would be a good idea to have us all kind of grounded in the same way that this works. So, welcome. Thank you for coming and take it away, please.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Thank you. Yeah, so for the record, Logan Mowbray with the Joint Fiscal Office. I have a presentation to sort of give the committee an overview of the purchase and use tax, what it is, how it came to be, where it is, and then we'll look at the governor's proposal as well. So, we called purchase and use tax the full name is the motor vehicle purchase and use tax. So, as I just mentioned, the outline there, brief overview, We'll go into a little bit of the history of it because there has been some changes to how it's been allocated. So, I'll address those and then we'll look at how the revenues are allocated currently and then how those allocations would change under the gov rec proposal. So overview purchase and use tax it's a 6% act on the value of a motor vehicle. There's a maximum of $2,486 that can be levied on trucks weighing over 10,099 pounds of the larger trucks, as well as certain other motor vehicles such as trailers. This tax is collected by B and B and it's levied at the time of purchase or registration for use within the state. Then there's an additional or there's a 9% tax on rental charges for short term rental vehicles. That's essentially at the 6% tax and then the 9% tax. There are a few exemptions. I've listed a couple there. State, perpetually owned vehicles, related to charitable vehicles. If you transfer a vehicle between close relatives, you don't have to pay the person use tax, but there are a few other Go

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: ahead, Tom. No, you go first.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Okay, so the maximum of 2,004 and 86, if I did my math right, that's a vehicle costing $41,400 which isn't very much. Correct. And most of our cars cost more than that now, but there's no upper limit on our cars.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: That is correct. Now, this only applies to the trucks, the bigger trucks weighing over that 10,099 weight limit. And there are a couple other vehicles, mainly trailers that fall into that cap. But your pleasure car, as it's called in statute as the bus drive, does not have a cap to it.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: So I'll jump on that before my question. It seems a lot is different. But what trucks I'm a Ford, 150, two fifty, three fifty and higher, what is 10,000 pounds? You know? I mean I can Google it too.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah, I'm not sure which specific cars

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Certain 250s are going to get over that 350s.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Depends on your configuration.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Right and those are the ones that get like seven miles per gallon of gas so that's positive. No F-150s would be. Okay. Is this technically well no, can't be technically just only for agriculture because food trucks yeah anyway so it's a cap of $24.86 on large trucks that tend to use tend to do more damage to the roads, etcetera, etcetera. Okay. That's crazy.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Right. So a $50,000 car would pay $3,120

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: for your $70,000 electric

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: car. Well, maybe that's what it would pay. Anyway, it's

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: And I should mention, there there are also other other taxes and fees that these vehicles pay, such as, like, registration fees. They do have to pay a higher registration fee than a normal vehicle, depending on weight. The purchase and use tax is one aspect of it, but there are other things just to throw

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: that out. What do they balance out? Say, if I buy a car that's $70,000, nice, really Mercedes Benz EV or something, that's $7,000, and I'm gonna pay a higher tax than, the Ford f three fifty, then is it gonna equal out that the $24.86 plus whatever registration fees that they carry is gonna match what I pay for a a luxury car that's less burden on the roadways? Likely not, but I don't know.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: You can

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: see we're learning some

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: new stuff.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Educated Board Committee. I do have a question.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Well, just want to and I do want to just ask one more question. The question I raised my hand on before my umbrage kicked in. How do you define religious or charitable vehicles such as vehicles that are for clergy or religious organizations? I guess I'm not sure

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: of the specifics on that. I know it you have to be for charity, you have to be defined as a charity and organized as a charity. I don't I guess I know the specific definitions that would enable an organization to become religious or charitable exempt? I'm sure it's somewhere in the I don't have it yet. I could probably find out for you, but I don't know.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: I'm just curious. I mean, whenever we see exemptions that we've never seen before, we always get curious anyway. Is

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: there a difference between a 501c3 as a charity?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Nonprofits? Well, Club the is registered, may not even be a good example, but there's plenty of 501c3s out in the world that do community work that you can see, whether it's Habitat for Humanity, for instance, which could actually qualify perhaps depending on who's sponsoring it as both the religious vehicle or nonprofit.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: But there's also 501c4s. Those are very different.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: They aren't always political.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Like, my regional development corporation was a c4. So it was a nonprofit, but not a nonprofit that was charitable. So there's all these IRS taxes. So C3 is the one you get to deduct from your

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: No, so

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: common's not a nonprofit. No.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: They might be a nonprofit, but they're not a nonprofit.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Are they charitable?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: No they're not, they're a business.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: We get

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: sidetracked. Mike, you also have a question. You can raise your hand again.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Keep going. Okay, thanks.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: All

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: right, moving on, we'll go to the brief sort of history of the purchase and use. So established in 1960, it was set at a tax rate of 2%, increased to three, sixty eight increased to four. You can see we've sort of we used to have a cap on the pleasure cars. It was eliminated. You can see in 1986. 1991 raised from 4% to 5%, but it was set to sort of revert back sunset at a specific period of time. You'll see through '93 through '96, it was extended out past that original sunset. And then in '97 is sort of where some of the bigger changes happened. As part of Act 60, the big education bill, the rate was increased to 6%. Additionally, as part of Act 60, the gas tax was raised from $04 to $0.19 per gallon. Then Last

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: time the change of the gas tax happened? No. Okay.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: No. But in 1998, you'll see that all revenue from the purchase and use and that gas tax increase was directed to education funding. The education fund was created and defined to include one sixth of purchase and use tax and 21% of the gas tax in FY '99 and then 16% thereafter. So it that was the allocation. They got the Ed Fund got a per sixth of purchase and use and some of the gas tax from 1998 until 2004, at which point they did a revenue swap, revenue neutral at the time. The gas tax that used to go into the Ed Fund stayed in the T Fund, and the portion of the purchase and use tax was increased from one sixth to one third, And that's sort of how we have it today. So today, Ed Fund gets one third, the T Fund gets two thirds, T Fund gets all the gas tax.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: Say education's our problem.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Well, the T is underwater, so I don't think so. I think

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: we have a gas tax problem, too. Yeah, but they're taking it out of the It's not helping the T

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Fund as much as

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: it used to, but we're here more.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: It would if the education wasn't getting that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: They don't get the tax, the gas tax at all. I'm talking about the gas tax.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Oh, right. It's informational, not what.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Right. It's mathematical, I wasn't gonna I'll go

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: back just a little bit because we skipped over the one where it says motor vehicle includes all vehicles propelled by or drawn by power other than muscular power. Sail bolts?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Great question that I don't know the answer to. I don't imagine though. All right, so moving on slide six. I won't go through all the numbers on this chart. You can reference them here, but this is sort of the allocations as I just laid out. Pre 02/2016 purchase and use, 16% gas tax to the Ed Fund. The remainder go to the T Fund post 2005. Ed Fund received one third. BNU, no gas tax. T Fund received two thirds, 100% of the gas tax. And you can sort of see how it broke out there over the years.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So, at the moment, 50,000,000 of purchase and use is going to the education fund.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Right. Forecasted to go.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Right. Forecasted to go, but that's what we have to use.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: But if you look at the lines, look at FY 'five up through 'twenty six, and you look at the rate that the transportation fund increases and compare it to the rate that the Ed Fund increases, means the discrepancy.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Well, that's just the money that's going to each of those funds.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: That's the point. So it's still

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: a two thirds, one third for the purchase and use tax, and that's what all those numbers show. So the rate of growth would be the same in either one, right?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Within purchase and use, they'd be growing at the

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: same rate. But if you look at the FFund for FY 'five, the one above the total at the bottom, they're going from 28 to 26.5, that's almost a 100% increase. Fortunately, you're going from 121 to 171, which is like a 50% increase. And the same thing if you go up to the fund up above

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Because the dollars are smaller, so the percentage is going to be different.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: But it's still the same split.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: For the and use, and then the gas tax portion, which no longer going to the Ed Fund, is growing at a slower rate than the Right. Purchase

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: the totals at the bottom include the gas tax.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: And the gas tax is growing at a much slower rate than the purchase and uses.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: So my mind, what I'm thinking of is we're trying to fund both the education and transportation. And so with the scheme that we have now, with the proportions of the taxes that we have, are we shortchanging one over the other? Obviously, transportation funds is a problem. So I'm looking at this and saying, judging from these numbers, what would we do to fix it?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Is there a proposal from the administration to phase out this?

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Yeah, it's the purchasing But so, it's really helpful to have the gas tax, but for the purposes of the education fund, you can really only look at the purchase and use, the education and the transportation fund and how those go, because they're increasing at the same rate, because the ratio hasn't changed of one third, two thirds. So, there's no difference in rate increases in the purchase and use. It's dependent on volume, though. Yeah, but the percentage breakout is still the same. That has not changed since 2005. But the gas tax, which 100% of which goes to the T fund, is growing at a much slower rate than it used to be. So that when you put them together in the totals at the bottom, that's what distorts the percentage increases because the tax gas tax is growing at a slower rate and the Ed Fund has nothing to do with the gas tax.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Sorry, the gas tax isn't growing at all.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Right, it's actually down.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: The high of '20, you know, fiscal year 'seventeen it was 78.2%. Right, now it's down to 71.2%. Right. In the meantime, so I bought a used electric car, my wife and I, 2025, and we paid a double registration fee. We paid because there's this engine whatever until we figure out what we're going to do with the gas tax. We paid an extra $89 on top of the $89 for registered car. Where does that money go? It doesn't it's supposed to account for I don't use gas anymore for that vehicle, which is whatever. But the idea here, where does that, how does that get accounted for because I mean I can't imagine that there's $8,000,000 of extra registration fees. That's a DMV thing, right?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yes. That's a purchase. You're referring to the electric vehicle infrastructure supply fee. That money was dedicated the legislature decided to put the rep the collections from that specific fee goes to EV infrastructure, so charging stations. It goes to a program run by ACCD where they put out charging stations using those speeds. Essentially, they expand the infrastructure charging network was the thought at the time. So when it was created, that's where all the revenue from that extra $89 that you paid goes into this program.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: That's It

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: doesn't go to the T Fund.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: It doesn't go well, it goes to the T Fund to be transferred to this program.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Which is actually in the budget this year.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: It is also in the is my

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: $89 in the top line here of the transportation fund? No, that's purchase and use. So it's

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: not in here at all. Your $89 is not showing up here.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Okay, no I just I mean I imagine it's not 8 to $7,000,000 that were low from seven or eight years ago. Mean that's an inflationary drop is more than just $8,000,000 right but and what did we say Chris that once upon a time every penny on the gas tax is $2,600,000 or something like $2,800,000 Okay, it's just

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: information No, about no, it's good to get all

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: the data. Go ahead. Looking at the gas tax, which is only transportation, it fluctuates up and down based on the volume of what's sold. If you look between FY14 and FY19, it reached a high.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: So that was due to the fact that we made some changes to the gas tax around that time. I'm not going be able remember everything we did, but we essentially added in this 42% assessment around this time. So we got an increase because we sort of changed how we were collecting it, increased the amount we were collecting.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: At the pump?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Well we we've taxed up the distributor level. Yeah, it was something that

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Why am I Patrick? What's his name? He's a senator now from Colchester. Brannett. Brannett. So he was a chair then and there was a need obviously you can see the numbers and so there was both a percentage per gallon plus an attempt to raise the cents per gallon. This represents what you think is this double increase step it needed to happen as you can see because it went from 59 to 76 and that was little Like

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: we had the heating oil tax of 2%, did we add that to

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: this as well for No, it's separate than that. So there's a 2% assessment on the tax adjusted retail price of gasoline. So the price of gasoline subtract out taxes. We then apply 2% assessment on that number. And I have a presentation if we want to get into the gas tax. Can do that one as well.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: A little

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: based on volume or cost per gallon?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: You're clicking on Per

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: gallon or per cost per gallon?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: So it's cents per gallon, but the rate is calculated based on the retail, the tax adjusted retail price. And so they're collected quarterly and then the DMV sort of subtracts out the taxes that you pay at the pump or that trickle down to the pump. And then you get the tax adjusted price, and then they apply this 2% assessment and a 4% assessment. And then those are charged in the next quarter as tax to the distributor. There's a little bit of math there.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: So does that continue to the present day? Yes. Okay, so then it went down. Obviously, with COVID, it went down. Now flat.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Correct. And it's forecasted to decline by a little less than 1% a year.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Added a tax and of course other things is declining because

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: we have other things going on. Correct. It was a pretty twisty compromise between because of the gas tax is a third rail in our world and so you know we don't mind when Exxon raises the gas prices, but the gas tax itself was a third rail and so that's this is what's the compromise back then.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Okay, so let's go to the forecast. So

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: this is the purchase and use revenue forecast as of January 26 under the current allocation. And you'll see, as mentioned, this year, FY '26 total 150, two thirds is a 100 to the seed fund, one third is 50 to the ed fund. In FY thirty one, would be up to forecast to be 174.9 and there's the breakdown. You can see the growth rate there. That's the compound annual growth rate over the years of little over 3%.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: What's This estimate just really match inflation.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah. So the purchase and use tax is sort of one of the revenue sources that the t fund has. It sort of grows as inflation grows because based on the price of vehicles. So as vehicles increase, the amount of money we collect here increases. So it's very similar to that, yes. This next slide is just a breakdown of sort of how much these revenue sources make up the total revenues in each of these funds. I should say the Ed Fund is just the non property revenue as forecasted or as represented in the forecast.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Non property, right? Non property, yeah. Instead of business property tax, no property tax involved in that.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Correct, yeah. So on the left, can see that purchase and use makes it about 32%, growing to thirty four percent and thirty one. In the Ed Fund, it's about six percent of the non property tax revenues and paying about the same in 31.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: That's a number

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: of taxes and fees that we charge, the whole list of them. That's where inspection stickers are, there's jet fuel sales, there's 40 some odd fees that go on there. I could present you a few lists if you want to look into those.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: We're good. Just good examples. Thanks for taking

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: my So then moving on, this is the governor's recommended proposal. So as you all heard, it's proposing a phase down of the purchase and use tax to the Ed Fund by $10,000,000 per year and reallocating that funding to the T Fund. Under this proposal, the purchase and use tax will be fully allocated to the T Fund by FY31. And then when all else is equal, shifting purchase and use out of the Ed Fund will put upward pressure on property taxes. So note that in this year's proposal, proposed to transfer 10,000,000 from general fund to the Ed Fund one time to offset that shifting impact of the 10,000,000 of purchase and use that will now be going to the T fund instead of the ed fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So reducing, taking the purchase and use tax out of the education property raises property debts. Unless we put general fund money in to offset it. Yes.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: We are always your control. You will give this instruction again and again next month of saying, well, you want to fund it, where will we find it? And there's no answer to where this money will be found. It's just part of

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: general fund expenses at the moment. So the third question is, or second question is, what are we not doing because we're doing these things? So everything we do is a trade off this year.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: This can go in, I don't want to say serious, but just questionable transfers because we're not replacing it with anything specific, kind of along the lines of like ADES and all the things that we're we have questions for the administration further questions for the administration over but no this is thank you for writing it so simply.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Lynn? Well, this is based on current law, current payment, current everything. We're not counting on how much the ad fund would grow if we stay in the same situation we're in now, because the ad fund has grown a lot in the past, all through the years, with a declining population. If we enacted Act 73 and continued to implement that, this number would probably change. The numbers for Ed Fund would change. Well, property, the goal,

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: I think, is to get property taxes to come down.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Yes. Does not

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: help with adding.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: This will cause the EdFund to require more property taxes. If you implement and continue with Act 73, which is intended to lower the spending on education, putting it into something more manageable that you can control as such, then your spending would have its impact on property taxes. And

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: you're starting with, say, first we have to find $50,000,000 to cover the purchase and use tax over five years, because if we don't, property taxes will go up. So, have that before we even get to trying to lower property taxes. So, even with Act 73, there's going be this $50,000,000 hold. So we'd have to save even more in property taxes to make up for the $50,000,000 that we're proposed to be transferred to the

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: T Fund. Yes, but 59 gets phased out because you go from 50 to 40

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: I know that. You still have to recover.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: And you will have a way, if you fully enacted Act 33, go and use the foundation plan and other vehicles in there.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: That's the idea. But we're still starting with a $50,000,000 hole because of this

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: transfer. It's

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: million dollars this year, is the proposal. So, we have to figure out about all that, which is why the governor's proposing $10,000,000

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: of general fund to equalize the transfer to the T fund. Right, right. That reduces the dependence on the T fund, But the general

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: increases general fund reduction, increases general fund reliance for the education fund.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Yeah, but the T Fund will have less general funds and the Edge Fund will

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: We can pay the money to the T Fund directly. It's still $10,000,000

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Still $10,000,000 No, you just said actually about I was going to add that additional $10 that we had discussed earlier. Yeah. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Currently in the governor's budget.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: So the question of where does

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: it come from is it's in the governor's budget to make everything balanced, the budget that he presented balances, so the money is there. So then you just say, well, what are the things we're choosing not to

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: do because we're choosing to do this? So that's the other question.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Earlier. Okay, so I think we understand this slide.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: The last one, it's just similar to the first one. There's just the percentage of the total funds. If this proposal were to go through as proposed in FY '31, the T Fund would 44% of T Fund would be purchase and use, and obviously 0% of non property Ed Fund non property revenues would be from the purchase and use tax. And

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: gasoline tax and DMV fees go down significantly. Is that because we're projecting even less in the way of gasoline taxes?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: So the gas tax is going down. So this is just looking at as a percentage of the total fund. So this just shows that the purchase and use would make up a larger percentage of the total, not necessarily that the DMV fees would be less than they are, but just they'd make up a smaller percentage of all the revenues in the fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Right. But at the same time, do our economists forecast what the gas tax is gonna be?

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So that's going down.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: The gas tax is decreasing by about 1%. So that is a portion of the decrease in the gas tax. I believe the DMTP fee is growing just ever so slightly there. So it's just within the proportion. It'll become smaller.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So they have two different reasons for those numbers to correct.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Correct, yep.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: That is what I have.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Any questions? I understand. A question In about the what context? I mean, Ways and Means will have something to say about this. Right. Will they be sending us a recommendation in their letter? And in what context will we be talking about this? In the context of the transportation? It's all part of Which part? Yeah. Well, it's Ed Fund. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out when will we be talking about this again? You know, in what?

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Well, when we get the committee letters, we'll see what we see and what's recommended.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Just to kind of square the circle here on the conversation about education funding, it's not only about the cost, but education itself is pretty static. We're talking large increases due to health insurance and health care. Think that's what's missing from some of the we need to always remind ourselves. I think it's present in all the conversations, but So it when we talk about what does $50,000,000 mean today or $10,000,000 a year for the next x number of years, we can be assured that health insurance is going, the cost of health insurance to teachers and education systems is going to increase by far more than $10,000,000 a year at the rate we're going. So I just want it's not just about thinking about small schools and then just larger districts, it's about the actual everyday costs that we're talking

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: about. Yeah, salaries and benefits make up 75% of your state school budgets. And that's

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: the way it should be because it's a human resource oriented business. Very

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: personal. People tend to You can't have robots teaching your kids how to read.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Salaries and benefits. And benefits, one of

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: the biggest drivers is health care.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Yes, salaries are good. Salaries are bad. Benefits are bad.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: And most salaries for teachers still put people at 60 to 70% of the area median income. So it's just this nobody's getting rich here. It's $65,000 a year. So it's just whatever teachers get paid in different parts of the state. So it's just this is the subject that teaches us all up at night, right?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: Mean agree with that. My question is whether we have too many people in schools. Yeah,

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: well that's a whole other conversation that we're going to let the other committees deal with

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: and then we'll be dealing with it when it's either on the floor or what parts ever come to our committee.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens, Member]: So I have no complaint about salaries or getting pulled?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Everything else goes out. Well, there's a lot of work to be done on that front, as we know, and that's what committees are spending their time doing, those committees. Logan, thank

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: you very much. I'm not seeing any other comments. Chris, did you have anything you wanted to add to the picture here? Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Of course, thank you.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: Thank you, Logan. So,

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: we are our next thing is at 01:00, so if you all want to work on your budgets and do whatever you need

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: to do with that, try

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: to figure out where we all are. People in committees are working on their committee letters. The goal is to have them

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Clerk]: in by Friday. This Friday. This Friday. We'll see. But some will, and we'll see you afterwards. Anyway. Robin, I'll see you tomorrow Okay, Dave. Thank you.

[Logan Mowbray, Joint Fiscal Office]: Thank you.