Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House of Robotics It's Tuesday, 02/17/2026. It's 02:45PM, and we are going to have a whirlwind tour of all of our lovely Arts and Creative Council folks. So we're starting with the Lamoille Arts Council. I'm Susan Evans if you want to introduce yourself for the record and tell us about it.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Hey, Rewind, I'm Susan Evans before, who is frantically looking for the Zoom link. I'm the executive Ah, Curtis. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. The Arts Council is the state's arts funding agency. We're the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sorry, it says I have to restart my computer. Autumn, do you have the presentation that

[Autumn (staff/assistant)]: I sent you earlier today? Do you think you can

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: just pop that on there? That would be great. Thank you so much.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We have computer not working for you copy.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Yeah. Oh, and you have copies. You can see the visuals. But you know what we are trained for in the arts is improvising and adapting. So that's the skill that we bring to this. So the council really envisions a Vermont where artists thrive and where everyone has access to the arts in their lives and their communities. And since 1965, the council has been the state's primary provider of funding, advocacy and information for the arts in Vermont. So I'm not going to be breaking any news today to tell you that we are in a challenging and unprecedented and pivotal moment in our nation. The upheaval from the federal government is impacting so many of our sectors in Vermont, the arts and culture being directly targeted. From cuts to grants at federal cultural agencies, to changing priorities for federal grant making, to the disillusion of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and much more, Vermont's arts and culture sector is under tremendous pressure right now. At the same time, the past year has shown us time and again the power that the arts and humanities and libraries and museums have to heal and to connect and to inspire. America's cultural sector is being uniquely targeted because of the tremendous power that our sector, artists, authors, libraries, museums and more, have to affect positive change in our communities. The creative sector shows us new ways of looking at our world and helps us remember what being human is all about. I believe that the moment we're in requires us to all have courage and connection. And our artists and cultural organizations are being courageous. They're continuing to live by their values and do amazing work in the face of big odds. And they are creating the very connections that we need in our communities to build a path forward for Vermont. So while so much of federal funding has been uncertain, the Vermont Arts Council has been incredibly fortunate to retain our federal funding with no cuts, miraculously. The National Endowment for the Arts continues to operate. We've received all of our FY '26 funding that we've requested so far. The budget for the NEA just passed federally, and we've been informed by the NEA that we should continue to plan on funding for FY '27. This is very different than many of our vital partners and cultural organizations across Vermont and the nation. And we recognize the limits to freedom of expression that artists are experiencing as well. The Vermont Arts Council remains committed to using our public funds to invest in communities to support all Vermonters with increasing access to the arts, arts education and community connection. And so while the Arts Council's NEA funding has not been cut, the other cultural agencies who receive federal and state support have been significantly impacted over the past year. So today, you'll hear from Vermont Humanities, the Vermont Historical Society, who comes bearing that was perfect timing.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Vermont Historical Society and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra about the outsized impact that these federal threats have had in their work. I know that you all see I know that you all know and see every day the important role that our state's cultural agencies play, from economic impact to student success, to community cohesion, to the functioning of our local democracy. And when we stop supporting this important slice of our civil society with public funding, we diminish our prospects for the long term future of the state. And because this year has been so hard, and because Vermont's artists and cultural organizations are in the crosshairs, our four cultural organizations are requesting an additional 10% in funding this year. This 10% funding nowhere near closes the gap for these organizations that these organizations are funding, nor is that the intent. Instead, we hope that supporting this request will signify to Vermont communities that our state has their back in their important work, that the state believes in what they do, and that our state values what our sector brings to communities in every county in every town. You'll hear from all of us today about what this small 10% increase could mean for our organizations and our state. Next slide, please. The Arts Council sees our role in the state as supporting the infrastructure that the cultural sector needs to thrive and to meet the needs of our communities. We work primarily as grantmakers. We're investing private, state and federal funding in the arts through a transparent process that supports artists and organizations, arts education and communities. We are conveners. We bring people together to learn, to connect and advance the arts. And we also are storytellers on the important work that our sector does, and we advocate right here with all of you. So in FY '25, the Arts Council awarded just over $1,400,000 in grant funding and two fifty five total grants to 95 individuals, 139 organizations in every county in the state. And I could tell a single story about every single two fifty five grants, but we're on the clock.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So let us do two. So if you could go to

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: the next slide, please, Autumn. This, I just want to share two brief stories. The first is from the town of Lunenburg on Vermont's far eastern border. The town of Lunenburg received an arts project grant to work with the community to paint a mural that is now located at the transfer station, also known as Spug Dump. So this is the incredible mural they made together. And I just want to share a quote from you, a quote from the project lead with all of you. He wrote to us and said, We could not have done this project without the support of the Arts Council funding. Rural communities operate on shoestring budgets, and convincing voters to fund the arts is very hard. This project has certainly pleased our community, which could mean in the future that we could ask taxpayers to fund art projects, and they would say yes. I've included our entire town population as the number impacted because everyone visits the transfer station almost on a weekly basis, and certainly everyone on a monthly basis. And you can't miss seeing the mural. And we know from comments that residents have been bringing their kids to the transfer station when they ordinarily wouldn't just so they can see the mural. This is John's town.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, perfect. You saw me. Well, thank you. John, do have any dinner?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I can't bring my trash there, so I have not been in.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Well, now you have to go visit. Oh, great. I'll go visit now. Well, we love working with them. The town of Blundenburg has been amazing to work with. They've come back. I think they've applied for a cultural facilities grant. They're really trying to

[John Kascenska (Member)]: With the dump?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Everything happens. Exactly. To

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: go to the dump by Gutenberg style. The

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: next one you see is from the Arts Bus, which is an arts education program in Randolph. As the name suggests, they take a bus, they bring it to schools and communities. They received the grant for arts operating support, and they shared with us, The Vermont Arts Council has been pivotal to the success of the Arts Bus through an incredible year of reaching milestones, climbing hills, bridging gaps and overcoming obstacles. When you provided multi year support, it paved the way to add a person to our staff and devote more time to business development, which turned out to be an accelerant too. To have your endorsement allowed us to reach our goals for new fundraising, and we've secured two more multi year grants while also adding routine program partners, both of which have secured our revenue streams for the next two years. Further, through the classes you provided, the chance to work with you as a panelist, and the publicity you've afforded us, we have felt appreciated, informed, included, and made better by all you've given us. And I think this story, while of course, adorable photos of adorable children making art is great, this one really speaks to the important role both that our cultural organizations play in driving our economy, but also that this state funding plays in developing backbone of these organizations so that they can be effective businesses working in every town in the state. So if you'll go to the next slide, I'll take just a moment to expand on the important role that our creative sector plays as a driver of Vermont's economy. So the creative sector is the collective enterprises, organizations, businesses, nonprofits that have creativity really at their heart. And one of the council's main initiatives is the Vermont Creative Network, which was founded by statute in 2016. Thank you to many folks on here who helped make that happen. That's really about bringing this group together to drive the creative economy forward on behalf of all Vermonters. Because we know that when the creative economy is growing, that has a corresponding effect in all of our local towns and communities. And according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2023, the arts and culture contributed over $1,200,000,000 to Vermont's economy. That makes us 3% of the state's GSP and over 10,000 jobs. I'll note that just Friday, we were officially informed the BEA is no longer producing this data anymore for us or But we are working with national and regional partners to ensure that we have accurate data. I think that is go on about this. I think that's incredibly important for us to be good and responsible responsible with with public money is to use data to inform the decisions that we're making.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, Buzz.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Can you let us know how you figure out the contributions or how that's put together? We had the tourism folks in last week, and the tourism is 3,000,000,000. There's this image that I have that you're cherry picking numbers that are important to the arts sector. You're not including necessarily what craft beer brings to Vermont, but can you just give us an idea of what you're measuring to get to the 1.2?

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Yeah, so the BEA defines these numbers and they look through the categories of job types that pay taxes. And then they identify what the names of those jobs are. And they have worked with the National Endowment for the Arts to identify which ones they consider in the creative field. So it includes graphic designers and fine woodworkers and artists and anyone who works in a creative organization. So it could be a museum, but it could be the museum security guard. So they pull that information together. And the BEA has their sector by sector analysis for each sector. So they do them. We've heard the tourism statistics. They have outdoor recreation. They call them satellite accounts. So they are the ones who are identifying that. And that's actually been important to us that we're not the ones making up that number, because that helps us align with all of the states, which is why it's even more troubling that the federal government is not going to be providing that data anymore. Because we also think it is important to have that kind of neutral data source so that we can be in comparison with other states. Excuse me. If you could skip the next slide and go to the slide after because of time. I also want to add that we have lots of data about economic impact and numbers. But I think it's also important to talk about what Vermonters are thinking about the arts and the role they play. In the 2024 Vermonter poll, 93% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the arts provide that opportunities to view and participate in the arts and culture are an important part of thriving communities. Folks overwhelmingly agree that arts and culture are an important part of K through 12 education in Vermont. And folks agree that the arts and culture are important to the identity of our state. So I think it's both the economic impact and these kind of intangible ways that the arts and culture add to everything that we do and make us who we are that are really important. You go to the next slide, please. The Vermont Arts Council is the only state arts agency in the country that operates as an independent nonprofit. We were created in statutes as a quasi state agency created in 1965 to act as the state's arts agency, which means that the council receives the majority of our funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the state of Vermont. The National Endowment for the Arts requires that state governments match the federal dollars allocated to state arts agencies dollar for dollar. Our general fund allocation allows the Arts Council to secure substantial federal funds each year that we spread out throughout the state. We We've been advised from our partners at the NEA that our allocation will be a little over $1,000,000 this year. And securing 100% of these federal funds will result in increased funding going to Vermont's artists and arts organizations who are working to meet the needs of our community and grow our economy. So in the governor's budget, the governor's office put us in at a 3% increase over what we received last year. Our partners at the NEA have told us that we will need more than that to meet our federally required match, which is just under $40,000 The number is up there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that separate from the 103,316?

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: That would be a piece of the 100,000. So for us, the 10% increase would more than cover the amount required for our federal match and also allow us to increase grant making in our communities where they have had federal funds canceled. You'll hear from our my partners and the other cultural agencies about what that will mean for them as well. We're really appreciative of the partnership from the legislature every year and the real commitment that you all have to making helping us meet that required federal match to ensure that those were making the most of those federal dollars and bringing them to Vermonters. I just want to end with the words of President John F. Kennedy, who had an outsized role in the arts in America. And in 1962, he said words that are actually etched on the outside of the Kennedy Center. He said, I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we too will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit. And that's what Vermont's cultural organizations are really building, our human spirit, our capacity to make things better, and our communities. And that is why we are excited to be here with you today, to share a bit about that and to ask for your support.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Always fun to hear from all of you. So appreciate it. This is Wayne's. Yeah, all of these today are Wayne's.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Do you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: have a question, Wayne, before we come back?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So 01/3316, that includes the 38645. So the governor recommended 3% and essentially 7% on top of that. Does that help 10% come down?

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: So what we're requesting is 10% on top of what the governor recommended. Again, as we said, the 10% is not you'll hear from everyone today about the gaps that those will fill. Some of them are statutorily required gaps that agencies are working to fill. We also know that that 10% is not going to make anyone whole. It's not going to fix all the problems. Or are we asking for that overall? We really see that. And the reason we ask for 10% collectively is we want to be able to go back to our constituents and communities and say, look, the legislature knows that things are really hard right now. This is a small increase that we're asking for, but it will mean a huge amount to those communities.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: What I'm looking for is just the differential between in in dollars between the governor's recommended increase and your 10% increase.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: I will request to not do public math, but do that to the side and report back after my

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: colleagues are done. Well, it's right on there. The governor's total budget is 1,033,155.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But the asking the priority is the 38,645, which is part of the 103. But the 38 is what's going to get

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: you the match. Yes. Great. So if I subtract 38,645 from the 103,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I will That will

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: be the difference between our federally acquired match and the amount that we're requesting. The Over the federal Over the match. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, we have the VSO, I believe. And that's when I did not call each other for the Even though we all have stressful. Got the memo. Yeah, we did. Hi,

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: everybody. How are you? Good. You want

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to introduce yourself for the record? Let's do that.

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: Find the second, please. Cancel that. Hello everybody, I'm Elise Bernal, the Executive Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Thank you very much for letting us come and share some information with you. I'm just curious. I had a couple of different documents. Is there one specific one that you're all looking at right now? That one. Great. That's helpful. Yep.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Should

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: I put that up on the screen or since you have just Sound talked through good. Great. Let me open that up. Wonderful, good. So the Barat Symphony Orchestra, it's in our ninety first year right now to be one of the very, very few statewide symphony orchestras in the country, and one of the very few that's sponsored in part by the state. First page is something big we're doing outside. One of the best things you can do with an orchestra is get a lot of people together with live music. We've been doing that, and a lot of people know it through the summer festival tours. And this was an initiative last summer, bringing Oklahoma to Vermont, right on the front page. It's an example of the reach that we've been having just in terms of people. I'm

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: going to

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: move down to the next page, which includes our mission statement, you can read it there, as well as our strategic plan goals, which is in place through the next year. Pretty much self explanatory, and that hasn't changed too much since 2025.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Let me go down to

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: the next page, it's titled What We Do. Right now, we're serving about 5,000 students around the state. We have eight different educational programs. Probably the most common one people know about is musicians in schools. And I'm going to read a little quote here. We were just down in Weedsboro right before the holidays. So just looking over in Massachusetts, almost right there, and we had a brass trio down there working with a school of about 63 kids. I And wrote to the teachers and the superintendent, I said, I just want to know how is it received, because we always want to learn how what we're doing has an impact. And the principal said, Reedsboro loved our time with the VSO Musicians. I was very pleased with the balance of education and entertainment. And that's something very important to point out. Musicians held the attention of four year olds all the way up for an hour. They were patient with questions that students had, and they did a great job of explaining things. So that's just one example of some of the impacts of the Musicians in Schools program. In fact, we're going to be going to Swanton Shoreham, Cornwall, Bridport, Berwick, Sheffield, Newburgh, Glover and Brownington in the next two weeks. So those are just an example of some of the places that we're headed out on educational programs. There's also work that we do with K, let me see, now, age two through five. We just started now a new program with that. And there's about, as I mentioned, about eight different programs we do with musicians around the state. We also served just over 40 towns in the course of the year, reaching all the counties, everything from the educational programs to the full symphony orchestra concerts. I come from a financial background, so I'm very interested in the business side of what we do. And I wanted to point out the amount of money that we're generating for arts practitioners and for businesses. That's a really important thing to point out as we all get swept up in the beauty of music, but remember, it's very much a nonprofit business. And also, it's not mentioned here, but I did put it in some documents to Commissioner Gresham's department. Another thing that we bring is outside money into Vermont. We also receive financial support from donors and foundations outside to bring it into here. About $182,000 last year was brought in by the BSO into Vermont. And we also bring that's from about 137 different unique donors and trusts. So I think that's important to point out as well. Let me get back on to that page again. Right, performing 68 live concerts for around 23,000 people in the course of the year. That's about 5,000 more people than pre pandemic. So there is a good interest in coming to see the conference. Let's move on to the Vermont Community is Reached. That's just a list of the towns that we've been present in, in the current year. To give you an idea, picture of some work that we did with Grace Potter this last year. We also work a lot with Vermont based musicians like Grace Potter. We also had a tour with the Moth Radio Hour with Vermont based storytellers. We commissioned a piece of music by a Burlington composer named Michael Strachter. A whole bunch of Vermont based artists are helping inform the work that we do. You want to move down a little bit to the next page, we have BSO Education. Again, this is a little bit more detailed look at some of the programs that we have. Musicians in schools, I mentioned that. There's three different groups, strings, brass, and woodwinds that travel around the state and work with generally K through six kids, introducing them to those instruments. We have a musical petting zoo that we bring on our summer tour, and actually was just at Vermont Public for their open kids day.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There's a really Musical petting zoo that's interesting. You can touch a

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: trumpet and learn how to play a trumpet or a cello, or we just have a whole bunch of musical instruments you can literally get your hands And we have music teachers there who help you make probably not the world's greatest noise, but you can make a little noise on it. It's a great thing, especially because I think orchestras, people of the musicians, they should stay there. They don't literally get to try them out. So that's a kind of thing. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Music comp, that's us working with high school students who are learning how to write music, and we perform their music for them. We just had a concert last night at the farmers' night. Were you there at that one? Yeah. That was a great piece that that when he was 17 years old. Can you believe it? He orchestrated that. It was incredible. So it's

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I can't believe you weren't here last one. What made you a point? Yeah.

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: Music comp program, student insiders, that's when we do a pre concert talk with middle and high school kids before they come to a concert, which is subsidized, their tickets are subsidized by local business individuals. So, for example, we're going to do Disney in concert coming up, and we have 100 kids who are going to come and have a workshop with the conductor and understand how you operate Disney videos with conducting an orchestra, learn all about that, and then attend the concert. We do a partnership with the Vermont Youth Orchestra, which you may know is a statewide orchestra. We bring in their senior level kids, and they play with us in concerts, which is a real treat to bring their skills back to the kids once they play with us. When we have guest artists, we do some workshops. So we had Sandeep Das, who is an Indian tablet player, and he did a world drumming workshop in Charlotte in Castleton. We actually just had a wonderful violinist last week who did a master class in conducting in Essex High School. So we make use of those soloists that come and play with us. And then first steps in music pre K, as I mentioned, is something we're starting this little photo there, teaching kids everything from playing instrument to beats and rhythm. We'll move down a little bit. Next page, serving the state. We have a holiday food shelf every year with our holiday pops program. We also offer a lot of free tickets. I think it's just shy of 300 free tickets to various things through the course of the year with some of these partner organizations, and then have smaller concerts. These tend to be quartet and quintet concerts around the state. Generally, that comes from either locals in the town halls and smaller communities that want to have music there for free, or people just together and sponsor a concert. I'm going get down to my budget request. So this is tracking back to what Susan said about the 10%. The governor has generously approved the 3%, or it's at least in the governor's budget, which is fantastic. The 10%, I had originally, when I submitted the information to Commissioner Gresham, asked for a $40,000 increase for three reasons. One, a lot of work we do is around technical equipment, staging, lights, tents, sound, and all of that is far below, far ahead of 3% more per annum. So for example, our summer tour, if you've been to that, that's $130,000 of just staging, lights and equipment before we pay a musician. Those go up six to 7% every year. Our musicians are union. It's the only union musicians group in the state, and their costs are going to be going up by 5%. So that's going to go above the 3% for us. And lastly, a lot of work with the schools. Schools are, as you know, decreasing the amount of money they have available to bring people like our musicians in. So we're seeing less engagement, and we're wanting to subsidize more work in the schools. So those were the three motivations behind asking for more than 3%. And that's why if the additional 10% were approved, we would put it towards those costs. And here is a pie chart sort of breakdown of where our money comes from in general and where we spend it. We are members of the League of American Orchestras, and I look at 28 other orchestras of our size and make sure we're sort of right sized. And we are, this is sort of the breakdown that orchestras have in terms of where their money comes from and where it's spent on. First

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: of all, I'm just really always excited about the amount of work that you're able to get done when the state's contributing less than 10% to your overall budget, that you're not relying I mean, you're relying on us, yes, for that 10% or less than 10%. You explain a little bit about the musicians and about how they're compensated as union members? Are they pay per diem or are they full time employees? Are they can you just explain that? Because here in Art Sector Day, the things that I'm that come back for me is that many artists are underpaid for the work that they put for them, for the enjoyment and pleasure that they bring to us. They're always like if they go do a free concert, it sounds like they're paid, but if so many people give away their time, their craft, and their art, and we as a culture tend to think, to accept that. And I just want to question to get some information on how well these musicians are compensated and that they're able to live here and do their art in this way. Sure.

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: So first, our musicians, we have 54 contracted musicians. That means they are guaranteed a certain amount of work a year. We in general hire up to 85. So we have additional ad hoc members. Each of those contracted people are guaranteed to earn perhaps 10,000 to $15,000 a year from us. That's it. That is not full time. They obviously teach a lot of lessons to a lot of people. They work with other symphony orchestras. So that $10,000 to $15,000 equals if you come to our Flynn or our Paramount concerts, our summer tour and one or two more. That's what they get paid for that. So they'll get paid for form rehearsals and a performance, a flat rate per. So for example, a performance, they'll get paid about $170 for one performance. In addition to that, we pay mileage at about half the IRS rate, and this is all through the union contract. And that's it. So it's by no means something you make a lot of money out of, but there is a huge draw for people to want to come and play the kind of performances we can do, because not a lot of the other orchestras that are here in the area can actually do a Brahms Symphony or a summer festival tour, Oklahoma in concert. Does that answer the question, or do you need a little bit more information?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No, I mean, I'm extrapolating in my head that four rehearsals is great, but I'm sure they're practicing long before, so the amount of time that they're giving, perhaps you don't quite reach the depths of legislative pay, but nevertheless there is an element of being compensated at a lower level than the full time or whatever, the lower livable location.

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: You have to show up knowing the music, because then you only have four rehearsals with everyone else. And oftentimes it's new music that no one's ever played before, and then you perform it once, and that's the life of the musician. So yeah, I think it does sound a little You have to show up knowing all the legislative work before you talk about it. Yeah, but I think

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Robin makes $0.67 an hour.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, I thought I was up to 13¢ for 11. Hard to tell.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No, thank you, that's very helpful. Just don't want folks to think that you're paid

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: or overpaid for,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: you know, and against a concert, people's concert at, you know, when there's a couple of thousand people on the lawn, part of that experience is a couple of thousand people on the lawn along with people. And

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: interesting for that, approximately any given concert we have, only 30% of the cost is covered by ticket sales. Otherwise, you'd have to pay $200 a ticket, and no one's gonna do that. So you've got the orchestra, you have a conductor, but then you have that huge technical amount. Then you hire the tent, all of that. So it's it's a big, expensive spectacle. The musicians are not out on the winning end of it financially. Last

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: question, just so if you're paying, if the state is paying less than 10%, how does that compare to the other orchestras of your same size?

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: I think, again, there's only about three other orchestras I can think of that get a state subsidy in this way. And I think it's around the same. It's between 510%. But it's rare for a state to have an appropriation for a state orchestra. Again, most orchestras are in a small locality. They're not statewide like we are.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: All right, well, thank you.

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: You're welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I just have our most recent annual report. I'm going to pass it around. You know, light reading when you go home.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. And I'm going to keep us moving along. Thank you. Historical society, Steve. So welcome, if you want to introduce yourselves, and we have information.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Situated here. I'm Steven Perkins. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Historical Society. Thank you so much for having me. We had a bit of a thing, I guess, with our our budget analyst and who finally updated some numbers at noon today. And so the most recent budget numbers and cover letter was sent over at noon. I just wanted to make sure you had the right documents in front of you and not the information that I sent last week, which may be confusing. I have it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Says we're good.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Okay. Excellent. So like the rest of my colleagues, in addition to the 3% based budget increase recommended in the governor's budget proposal, we all request an additional 10% to demonstrate the legislature's support for organizations affiliated with federal agencies, such as the NEA, NEH, and IMLS, which face unprecedented reductions and rescissions from the current federal administration. So the governor's recommendation, which is like 3.6%, I believe, because that extra piece covers the fee for space formulaic transfer for the Museum of the Pavilion, is 1,245,583. The additional 10% would bring it up to $1,000,371,141. So I feel I know we all feel that we're entering an era where the under station understanding and preservation of history is more critical than ever. And Vermont Historical Society right now is handcuffed by unavailable federal funding and statutory requirements to our operations that grow more rapidly than 3% year over year. Requests for curriculum assistance, classroom education kits, and special programs are at an all time high, and school reservations at the Vermont History Museum in 2026 are up a 139% over last year. That's where and our flagship program, Vermont History Day, looks to break participation records this year that takes place in April at Saint Michael's College. So that's the very broad overview of our ask and and why.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you're looking for 01/20/4588 as your 10%. I'm looking at the chart that was on, Susan, which is actually very helpful to have it all on one spot.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Yep. 1370, 141.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. But the increase, the additional 10% Yes. Exactly. Four.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Yep. What is on Susan's chart is correct, and is now correct in the budget documents in the cover letter that we sent to you.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah. That's 6.4% above the government's record.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: So

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: I've talked to this committee many times about this kind of unique collaboration between the Vermont Historical Society and the state of Vermont. Like the Arts Council, we were created through an act of the legislature, though in 1838. So we've been around for a long time. And since kind of the middle of the twentieth century, end of World War II, as our types of organizations have professionalized, we've received regular funding through appropriation from the state of Vermont. In exchange for that, there are a number of statutes that govern what we do as the Vermont Historical Society. There's some very broad ones and some very specific ones. But the most specific to what we're talking about today is the statute that requires us treat our employees as if they're state employees. So as an organization, our employees are all graded as if they were state employees, paid on the state pay scale, state health care, state pensions, all of those things. Yep. We only receive roughly half of our budget from the state of Vermont. So that is a burden for us each year because those costs, which are 58%, 60% of our current budget, generally grow much faster than 3%. And we're not big. We're not a big agency that can look at, well, 50 people retired and we hire 50 people at a lower rate. We've got 12 full time employees. So managing that is difficult. And that's usually the biggest budgetary crunch. But we definitely punch above the weight in fundraising because we get what we get from the state, and we double that through earned revenue and fundraising throughout the state of Vermont. So we have over 1,800 member households of the Vermont Historical Society. I say households because we sell memberships for, you know, a family as opposed to individual people. So it's a lot of folks who are involved in the Vermont Historical Society. I brought some artifacts with me today because I think we all know what the historical study kind of does as its core, but I wanna talk about how we use artifacts and how we can use artifacts in a better way, especially to affect change in our educational environment in grounding students in Vermont history, understanding our past so that they can build a better future. That's right in our our mission. I'm I'm paraphrasing. And I think it's important to see how we do that and to see some of the incredible things that we hold on behalf of the people of the state of Vermont. So I'm going

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: to unwrap a few items. Backhandle around. As long as you don't have

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: peanut butter in your finger, you're okay.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: CHANIN: Yes? What is your relationship what is your organization's relationship with the archives?

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: State archives? We work closely with them. They are funded and report through the Secretary of State's office. I sit on the Vermont Historic Records Advisory Board. My position generally does. So yes, we work closely with them. We have we run a program, again, that was created by the state in the 1940s called the League of Local Historical Societies and Small Museums. And we have staff that provides support to local societies and small museums, 190 of them throughout the state. And we provide them with technical support. We provide them with workshops. We have an in person conference each year. And that goes hand in hand with the historical records program through the state archives that Rachel Onuf heads up.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: You had brought in some of the fabulous documents just a couple of weeks ago, and this committee was supposed to go

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: on a field trip, but only a

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: couple of us go last year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We had a fire drill, and that wasn't even a fire drill, it was an actual real thing, they thought.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, so but a couple of us were able to go and that was the first time I'd seen some of the deeper sections of and I'm a map geek so you know just seeing the different ones. Anyway, I'm just curious because

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: it's a lot of historical material.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: It's a lot of historical the state archives is very focused on state created and state derived documents, whereas we collect artifacts, documents, archives that tell the story of the state of Vermont. And so a lot of our collection includes things like diaries and letters and artwork and, you know, that that sort of thing that would not be collected by state archives. That being said, state archives is a relatively new organization, compared to us, and we served as an archive, for a better part of our early existence. And so we do hold a lot of foundational documents from the state of Vermont, especially from the republic era, from 1777 to 1791, that which was not destroyed. Think everybody remembers 1856, the state house burned, and all of those collections were here.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Remember in the don't museum. Right?

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: We ran the museum here. Vermont Historic Site actually ran the state cabinet, which was in the next room over us. And so all the collections were here. When the state house burned, many of the collections of the historical site in state of Vermont, they're kind of all together, we lost them. So all of these things you see at state archives and you see in our collections were somewhat recreated from the eighteen sixties onwards because of that fire. This is a cane. El Paso, be careful, the knob is just a little bit loose on it, and you'll notice it's cracked at the bottom of that cane, and the cane is from St. Albans, and it received that crack and hole on 10/19/1864. That date jump out to anyone? 01/1964. The Saint Albans raid. Saint Albans raid. Theron Theron Webster, who lived in Saint Albans, was walking down Main Street that day when the raiders came down down Main Street to rob the banks shooting shooting their guns, there is a fragment of a Confederate bullet embedded in that cane. And it was given to the historical society shortly after the event. It's interesting. Where else do you see a cane with a with a bullet fragment in it from the the civil war in Vermont? That's it. But, also, how does that start to prompt questions about why were Confederate raiders in in Vermont during the civil war? What was this guy who was this guy?

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: Who was the guy that

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: in beginning? Right? Why was he why why is he there? How did he happen to be there? Did he have anything involved in it? And so just some basic questions that this brings up. Howard Coffin, the the right Vermont civil war writer, probably writes on many things, is writing an essay on this cane for our upcoming exhibit next year called 50 for two fifty, which examines Vermont's history through 50 iconic objects. And so he's gonna tell the story of Vermont and the civil war through this king. And it's it's really quite magical that you can save an artifact like this and be able to tell those stories.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We have about two minutes left.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: I have two more artifacts. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we'll just pass them around quickly. And

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: There's one.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: We'll go this way.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I'm gonna do that one. Still make one.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's not free anymore.

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Oh, this one this way. You're welcome to take it out and handle it carefully. Powder horn was owned by Efraim Duel, who was a prisoner of war during the American Revolution. He fought on the patriot side. He was a Vermonter. He was an older gentleman. He'd also participated in the French and Indian War. While a prisoner of war, he decorated that powder horn with all of the locations he had served in through the French and Indian War and through the American Revolution. We're using that artifact to think about Vermonters during the American Revolution for this project. The book that's going around is, a slave narrative.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: What?

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: A slave narrative. That's the term that's been used for it. It is one of only two in existence of a man named Jeffrey Brace, who was kidnapped from Africa as a teenager. He was enslaved in Connecticut. He was then enslaved on a as a soldier, enslaved soldier or sailor during the French and Indian War. And then he served as a sailor during the American Revolution, which earned his freedom, and he moved to Vermont. And he lived in Fultonie. He ended up then living in Georgia and died in St. Albans and recorded his life in this volume. Like I said, there's only two in existence. We have one at the Vermont Historical Society. So again, artifacts, it's a book, it's the words, but it's also the thing that tells that story and thinking about a Black man and what he went through during this time period is really quite powerful. So just some examples of some of the artifacts and for what we do beyond just preservation. How do we take these artifacts? How do we present them to people? How do we let children have access to them? How do we get into classrooms? Having them come to us, it's budget, it's cost, and there's our request for the extra 10%. Great. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you very much. I'll keep passing it around, if you don't mind Absolutely. Sitting, and we'll hand it all back to you. Very interesting artifacts. There you go. What a collection. Thank you.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Will you be doing an affair at Chumburg again any time?

[Steven Perkins — Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: That was the lost leader. Maybe it was a huge lost leader. Christopher.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you so much.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: It's a very historic bubble wrap.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: He's had to, 2024. Welcome, and introduce yourself, and let's talk about the humanities.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I'm going

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: to join the Zoom, assuming that that allows me to share my presentation. Alright. Seems to be working. So hello, everybody. I'm Christopher Kaufman Elstrip. I am scarily going last, but I I shall persist. Thanks for having us. I'm the executive director of Humanities, and it's been quite a year for all of us. There you're probably aware that Vermont Humanities is the sister agency to the Vermont Arts Council, right, as the National Endowment for the Arts is the sister agency to the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, DC. All 56 states and jurisdictions have a state arts agency. They also have the State Humanities Council. And for us, 2025 was one of the strangest years on record as the new federal administration terminated all funding for state humanities councils in April 2025. I came in and talked to you all about that last spring as well. So I won't go too too far into it except to say that that has that situation has continued, and this neither the state humanities councils nor indeed the vast majority of the grantees of the NEH have seen any additional funding since then. One of the things that I like to highlight when I'm talking about NEH right now in this situation is to to just remember some of our original founding legislation from congress that created the NEA and the NEH. Congress said at the time, finds and declares the following, the arts and humanities reflect the high place accorded by the American people to the nation's rich cultural heritage and to the fostering of mutual respect for the diverse beliefs of all persons and groups. The diverse beliefs of all persons and groups. The world leadership, which has come to The United States, cannot rest solely upon superior wealth,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: power,

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: and technology, but must be solidly founded on the worldwide respect and admiration for the nation's high qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and the spirit. Going back to Susan's presentation and her quote from John F. Kennedy, I think you can see the connection between the founding legislation of the NEH, which happened a couple of years after Kennedy's presidency and the presidency of Lyndon May Johnson, and the president's attitude towards the arts and humanities at that time. Vermont Humanities works in six areas, and you can see them listed here in community leadership, civic engagement, Vermont Reads, public lectures and discussions, primarily in libraries, but not exclusively, early literacy programs and training, community grant making, and climate resilience and adaptation work. We have a lot of different programs at Vermont Humanities, but our largest one right now by quite a ways is our community grant making program, where we support work in all 50 counties. That's all 14 counties, excuse me. Work on things can figure out if we did something. 14 counties. All right, 14 counties. We we work as part of Vermont two fiftieth. That's with Steve and Susan. Unfortunately, not Elise, can we drag you into Vermont two fifty? Yes. Okay. We were part of the legislative working group on the status of libraries in Vermont a couple years ago. We work as part of the Vermont Creative Network that Susan was talking about earlier. And we do a lot of work with the secretary of state's office as well, including on the Freedom and Unity comics and the new map that you may have seen of the State House most recently. We were also part of the Vermont Kid Governor program at the Secretary of State and part of the Civic Health Index as well that you may have seen last spring. We are on faculty with Susan at the Snelling Center at the Vermont Leadership Institute, and we're part of the Vermont Council on Rural Development Annual Leadership Summit as well. And we all work together on the Vermont Arts and Culture Disaster and Resilience Network on climate change as well. Our biggest program after grant making is actually Vermont Reads, where we choose a new book every year to encourage all Vermonters to read and act together. It's building community around the themes of the book. If you've been around for a while, you may recall that this is the part of the presentation where I hand out a book. Unfortunately, I cannot do that this year because we have run out of books, and we cannot afford to buy more. It's great that we ran out of books. We have given away 4,850 copies of The Light Pirate.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What is it called?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: The Light Pirate.

[Susan Evans — Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council]: The Light Pirate.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: By Lily Brooks Dalton. She grew up in Windham County, Vermont. It's got an incredibly popular book. There's been 109 community programs. Under normal circumstances, we would just buy more books. But these are not normal days, so we have no books to hand out to you today. Hopefully that will change in the future. I think a lot of you remember Gather from a couple of years ago. That is the most popular book in the twenty four years of the program. There were 138 community projects and 21 author visits by author Ken Caddow around the state of Vermont for that book. Lily's book, The Life Pirate, is now number two with 109 projects, and she'll be here in April. She now, unfortunately, lives in California. Why would you leave Windham County for California? Vermont READS projects are are pretty amazing because they lead to community change all the time. And there's there's many examples of that, but just a couple of them. El Viaje Mascaro, The Most Costly Journey, really significantly increased volunteerism for organizations working on immigrant and refugee issues in Vermont. March by representative John Lewis inspired youth leadership initiatives in high schools across the state. The Light Pirate is engaging citizens with regional conservation districts and flood resilience projects around Vermont since it is a story about climate change and dealing with too much water. And we encourage all of you to find a Light Pirate project in your town. Although we've run out of books, the projects will continue through June 30. In our public lectures and discussion series, we work primarily in rural and urban libraries, places that generally don't have a budget to afford vetted scholars and public presentations. I know Steve does much the same thing, and we often work together and share scholars. So I want to just acknowledge that we are continuously in collaboration. We budgeted for over 100 presentations for 2026. That's after the Doge cuts. And again, unfortunately, we have booked them all, and we can't add more. So the speakers bureau is now closed to new bookings for the rest of this year unless we have additional funding. That's particularly tragic in this particular year, right, the American two America two fifty year. We have 18 amazing America Two Fifty Speakers Bureau docs ready to go, and nobody can book them because we had run out of cash. In our early literacy programs, these are not as visible as some of our more public programs, but they're really critical to what we do. We train hundreds of parents and teachers and librarians every year in the pedagogy of early literacy. Many of our learners are working in home daycares in rural communities across the state with little access professional development. All of the trainings come with free high quality children's books to use in their homes, in their classrooms, and in their libraries. We host two small conferences for librarians and one for center and home based early educators and the literacy staff at Vermont Humanities is available for personalized consultation and mentoring throughout the year. Of course, there are a lot of studies about the lifelong social and economic impact of early literacy skills on individual and community success. You've been hearing about them, for example, from Let's Grow Kids for many years, and we are proud of the success that they've had in expanding access to early literacy around the state. The teacher trainings that we offer are accredited through Northern Lights and the Community College of Vermont, and they help home day care centers maintain their stars rating, which helps them, obviously, to attract kids to be accredited. The early literacy program didn't suffer as much under the federal losses as some of our other programs because that has been a primary place where we've been able to raise private dollars to support the work. Our grant making program also was not cut last year because we had so many private donors willing to step up and say that they supported cultural programming in communities across the state. So community grant making is, as I mentioned earlier, the largest part of our programming with regular grants now comprising about $400,000 a year. Special grant programs addressing COVID nineteen and flood recovery, often in partnership with the Arts Council, have added over a million dollars over the last several years to the grant making that we've done in partnership with the Arts Council. Couple of examples from this last year include a grant for $3,000 to a group in Virgins called Treleven for fireside friends to encourage young people to create graphic depictions of the issues most on their minds, current culture, threats to democracy and environmental challenges, changing self images, and historical and participatory learning. Up For Learning, Leading Together, Strengthening Youth Voice in Vermont's Democracy based in Waterbury received $5,000 to engage youth and adults in dialogue, research, and storytelling to elevate youth voice, build civic leadership, and reimagine decision making, strengthening civic health and intergenerational democracy in Vermont. And the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association received $5,000 for work interpreting the exhibition Karli, Protocol, Peace and War, that's part of our America two fifty commitment for an exhibit that explores Abenaki life during the colonial and revolutionary war era, highlighting diplomacy, divided loyalties, and daily survival. Abenaki scholars are shaping interpretive content to share with museum audiences in a number of museums around the state. We also finally work on climate resilience and adaptation. This is part of our mandate from the National Endowment for the Humanities in prior years, when they really encouraged us to work with the public humanities needs of Vermonters, and we see working on climate resilience and adaptation as a primary interest of Vermont audiences. This work often seeks to create intersectional connections around issues of importance including in varying perspectives on land use and development, respect for traditional and indigenous cultural practices, alternative education, including tech, ag, and forestry, and substance abuse prevention and treatment. This particular picture is actually from an event we held last summer in association with Vermont Reads, The Light Pirate, where a group of Vermonters read the book and then did a nature walk at the Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary up in Washington County as part of their work with the book. So closing out, we are grateful for fifty one years and for last year, 2025, which was truly one of the hardest years we have ever been through, even harder than the pandemic, even harder than the floods. But we have made it through with support from our community. And as Susan noted earlier, our four organizations are really committed to our joint missions, and we're united as a collective of critical cultural organizations for the state of Vermont. We're all different, but we believe that arts, culture, and humanities are key tools towards strengthening our state and our democracy. And with that in mind, I know you've been hearing from all of us about the 10% increase that we've asked for. We hope that you will engage with us and support this request and add that additional 10% if you can in recognition of the challenges we face responding to the hostile federal environment. The 10% increase is a significant show of support in terms of our own modest budgets, though in the context of the state budget, it's small, only about $275,000 in total across all four of our organizations. For Vermont Humanities, it works out to be just over 30,000 additional to our regular appropriation. We're happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'll go and start with Tom and

[Elise Bernal — Executive Director, Vermont Symphony Orchestra]: then with Wayne, because this is Wayne's question.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. I'm going I'm

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: to let you.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: You needed to lay off folks last year. Same situation. We did. We have not hired them back. So when I saw you in the spring, we had laid out three full time employees. And so we are currently seven full time employees and three part time people. And folks are really incredibly committed, but I can't say that the cracks aren't showing, particularly around the grants program, where one person is trying to answer questions from dozens and dozens of nonprofits who are applying for grants.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just on numbers, lost $630,000 in federal money. I was looking at your other budget page, and at the bottom, you've got a net income loss of $250,000 How you jive the two?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: That correct. The budget for this year projects using $250,000 in reserves. That's not just reserves that have been built up over a long time. That is the result of an emergency grant that we got from the Mellon Foundation last year, which has a two year term on it. So we didn't have to use any of that Mellon grant last year in 2025. We do have to use it this year. So of the Mellon grant, so $630,000 loss, Mellon grant gave you some, but you're still going to be

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: down $250 that you're going

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: to take out of the Mellon grant?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Yeah. The total amount that we lost was about $630,000 We were able with the Mellon grant and additional fundraising from Vermonters, we raised back about $400,000 so a little under twothree. So you're going to

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: be pretty much operating at same level?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: We'll be pretty much operating at the same level for 2026. And then 2027 is going to be a real trick if things don't change.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you very much, and thank you all for coming in and for all you do to bring arts across Vermont. It's certainly an important part of our culture and it's a big difference, so thank you all.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Thank you for having us.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you. You have

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a good question, management. Yeah, I just want to say I read the book Gather because I also read the author at graduation and it was an amazing book. It was wonderful.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: It was an amazing amazement.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I went and bought it for my grandchildren. Oh, wonderful.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: We have another Roman author book coming up, but it's not quite announced yet, so I can't tell you. Certainly not on the second.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll move for information.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup — Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: But I will be bringing it to you when it's out. And I do have some general information folders. And there's a clue in there if you want.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of you. Appreciate what you do. So, we will be updating the agenda for tomorrow. It originally said 09:45. We are going to meet at 09:30 and do our straw poll on committee of conference for the budget, because hopefully everybody will be here. I saw Dave on Zoom. Hopefully Trevor will be back from his head out. So we're still alive, guys. So, all right, I think