Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I think we're live.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Are. Okay.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Do you

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: want to kick us off?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I'm still working. Who's looking at this to

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: figure out what's So we are live, back in the conference committee on 04:54 on May 30. May 30. Have

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Can I say something before we get started I'm with the sorry? Spent our interim time meeting with JFO and Professor Colby and APA and some folks in the administration and just really for the Had a few meetings like this. But really just trying to get everyone on the same page about the assumptions as numbers are being compared. And I think they're getting much closer to understanding each other's assumptions and how the foundation formula being used and the special education money would not result in higher spending. And so some of it might still need some attention that they're not gonna be able to resolve today, and so might need to put in some contingent language upon So just sort of want to offer that. I'm excited that they've gotten so close to much clearer numbers and better matching the expectations that I've been going into this with. But I am This is just regarding the cost of special education. No, it's the the, the cost cost to essentially the whole system of education in this, if this was an act. Knowing that there are hundreds and hundreds of assumptions of decisions we have not made yet, but we will make in out years, And significantly, the administration is going to need to be doing with our school districts. I think we're getting closer to everyone agreeing on those numbers, and that is great. Great.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Sorry, back to you. I'm sorry, Senator Bunker.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: So if we start with that's the one that says one of five. Page I'm sorry.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section one.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Page one of five. And section one. The first change is the 07/01/1926, and that's kind of backing into what it would take to be able to start get the system up and running in the FY '29 school year. So larger district boundaries would be effective 07/01/1926. That is gonna require what we get there next year. So, and then we ended up with a, on page two, and I think the word March is a bit of a placeholder, but because we're talking about a special election in March '27 to get the system up and running. That that does not that's where we're staying. I think we've all heard the secretary of state talk about how the November elections would make more sense on an ongoing basis. But to back to back into getting this thing up and running, we began to think that having a special election was probably the way to do it. The secretary of state could get out the ballots. And so that's March, something like that. And then the July date, new school districts assuming responsibility. So up and running on July. So then on page three, This is the section we've been in, kind of talk about on Roth, notwithstanding subsection

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Oh, it's just page three of your right. Can you give me

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: a second?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Yeah. Actually, we could have actually,

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we could also have that come up

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: and down as here. Why don't

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we do that? So I think we should do this.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: What? I'm sorry. Beth, we can have Beth walk us through the changes.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Up to you.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Let us do that. Page one to five. And we can

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Beth St. James, the Office of Legislative Council, would you like me to share my screen?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Sure. For the public.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, this is the Senate conferees proposal to the education policy sections. If the language is highlighted in yellow, that means it is proposed change to language. If the language is not highlighted, it is my understanding that that language has been agreed to, tentatively. Section one, just to orient you, you can see that I have referenced House Draft 4.1 and the corresponding page numbers.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Sorry, you never said before. Thank you. That is so helpful.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You've already gone over Section one. So, the next change that is being proposed is to section 11, Prohibition on School Closure and Transition to Paying Tuition. That corresponds to House Draft 4.1, pages 36 should be 37, not 27. No changes are being proposed to subsection A. Subsection B is new. Outstanding subsection A, if the school district closes a public school in a geographically isolated area as defined by the State Board of Education or the school district is adjacent to a school district that tuitions its students in the same grades as the closed school as of 07/01/2025, the school district that is closing the school may tuition its affected resident students.

[Unidentified Senator]: So this is a departure from the language that you previously proposed and that we mostly accepted other than throwing in a state board. Can you talk a little bit about what's changed? Well, we were

[Rep. Scott Beck]: trying to narrow it to tailor it to at one of our meetings, all had mentioned the possibility that one district could do this and then neighboring district to neighboring district. And we thought that was a good argument. And so we were trying to, you know, narrow it down by including this date as of July 1. So, for example, I don't know, if Twinfield decided to close Twinfield High School, they would not be able to take advantage of this because they are not adjacent to town that tuitions their high school grades. By putting this as of 07/01/2025, that guarantees that regardless of what any district next to them might do going forward, I don't even know if any of them should, that they would not be able to take advantage of the

[Unidentified Senator]: Okay. Maybe give me an example then of one that could.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Okay, one that I'm familiar with in my area is, for example, Danville. Danville is adjacent to Walden, it's adjacent to St. Johnsbury. Hypothetically, if Danville decided to close their nine through 12, since they're neighboring those two adjacent districts, also tuition nine through 12, then they could, they would fit into B. They would satisfy the four, the second part. I don't think they would be determined to be geographically isolated. I think a geographically isolated is pain in, something along those lines.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: This seems like an expansion of what you proposed before, not a narrowing of what you proposed before. But it's adjacent that feels like narrowing or the same thing?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: We we First, when we came out with, we came out with adjacent as an idea. And then the second, we talked about the idea of is in close proximity, which recognizes not a legal definition. And that didn't seem to maybe there was too much vagueness in that. And so and there was also the comment I can't remember if a first or second about the, you know, we don't want to set up a situation where it kind of unfolds over a larger from town to town type of thing. Can I imagine that?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I don't remember anyone's name.

[Unidentified Senator]: No. And I don't appreciate the concept.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I I mean, I thought I heard somebody say, well, what happens if they do it? And then the next down or a month down shit. Yeah, and I was I did? Somebody did it. Anyhow, whether you did or not, I think it's a fair point. And so by putting this as 07/01/2025, that would prevent block that possibility from

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: A domino effect.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah. Which was which was not what we were intending to do anyhow. But but I think that would clearly prevent that from happening.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Also has the advantages being simple.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Sure. And it's very narrow. This would only probably I don't even know if it would apply to a handful of towns in the state of Vermont.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: So Ben, not much different here, we'll just keep going with Oh, I'm sorry.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You're here.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: You're either. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: I I can

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: think of dozens off the top of my head. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your language.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Okay. Yeah. I know Wyndham County as

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: well as you do, obviously. Mean, Wyndham County

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: has some of the lowest tuition in the state. So that's why I'm like, if I can think of dozens off the top of my head, I'm extrapolating that there must be dozens more that I'm not thinking of. But we can look at them up at Let some

[Unidentified Senator]: me just ask this. Is Bennington adjacent to Manchester? No. But what is? Arlington. Arlington. So this would say if Arlington closed its high school because they're adjacent to a non operating high school town, that they would then become a tuition town as well.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: No. They they could. They wouldn't have to. You know, they could go the auction.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah. They could go yeah. They could come out for the Mount Anthony Union or I don't know what else is. No, this would

[Unidentified Senator]: not be little hard to sort of grasp. Get a grasp on.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah, sure. Seriously. But it's not patients. It's not meant to force a school to do this. Restrict to do this. Moving

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: on to Section 21, which corresponds to House Rack 4.1, pages 50 two-fifty three. The amendments to Section eight twenty eight in Title 16, Pushing to Approve Schools. The proposal here is to remove an independent school meeting education quality standards as an eligible school for tuition purposes. And also to require that at least 25% of approved independent schools, Vermont resident student enrollment is composed of students attending

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: on a publicly funded basis.

[Unidentified Senator]: And how is that different than the original proposal?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, this

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: is just back to your original proposal?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. So the only change is that they

[Unidentified Senator]: would eliminate an independent school meeting education quality standards. So that's not part of the original way to get It's current law. Correct.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: It's No. How many schools

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that eliminate? That

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: doesn't eliminate any would per se. Would just be a way, it would keep other schools from using that as a way to, because the whole point here was to narrow it to those areas where it's integral. This would keep at a school in a different part of the state, from being able to receive tuition via the vehicle of meeting education quality standards. It actually narrows. So for, just think of an example.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: The Waldorf School, I think, which is in Shelburne, which I think is an approved independent that receives tuition. According to the they would no longer be able to accept public tuition because they are located within a district that is fully operating. K? However, according to this the way the language was set up, they did they would have had the option of continuing to receive public tuition if they decided to meet the education quality standards. So they could have continued. Okay? This would prevent them from doing that. It's just another means to affect what

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: we were trying to affect better. Yeah.

[Unidentified Senator]: Okay. This is challenging. It's not really sure what the implications are on actually schools that are independent schools by virtue of being, meeting educational quality standards.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah, it would block them from using that mechanism to come back in and qualify.

[Unidentified Senator]: Yeah, I mean, it ties to other things. There are certain benefits that come along with being a

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Oh yeah, it's a decision that there's other things that go along with it.

[Unidentified Senator]: Yeah. Do you have a sense of the tie between Can you speak to the tie between the other ventures that go along with being at a group independent school based on EQS?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't think that I would describe it as benefits, but I can describe what would be required. So currently, education quality standards only apply to public schools. And those are things like meeting all of the state board requirements for curriculum and graduation requirements, etcetera, having licensed teachers, essentially everything that public schools are required to do. And being an approved independent school that meets education quality standards means that that independent school is following all of those same laws and rules.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Wouldn't mean they couldn't still do that if they want to, but it wouldn't be a means for staying at an independent school. They have to meet the other thresholds that we set out.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Do you have a sense of how many I said, I'm not all that familiar with the public schools. Do you have a sense of how many independent schools have, now, meet education quality standards?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Believe it's two.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: In the whole state?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Yeah. But this would And they would both continue to qualify, by the way.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: In other ways.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: In other ways. Yeah, they would. This would prevent an independent school from If they're blocked from public tuition, they could say, Hey, if we want back in, we can satisfy education quality standards, then we're back in. This would prevent them from doing that.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You know if any schools are in the process of independent schools are in the process of moving towards each of us, or or is anybody even I don't think so.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Session section.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's anything else you need to add?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is it for me.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep. Thank you, Gus. Submission.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Thank you, John or Kirby.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Think we're going in order through the bill. It would be section 27 before section 16.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Perfect. So John.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: You happen to know what age?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Section twenty seven and four point one?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. I'm not sure. I'll read this page 58. John Gray, up to Swatswood Council. I don't have as useful page annotation, and I have a much thinner header, but my doc has 30 pages now. So I want some more things here. So the first section we're talking about here, this is gonna make more sense when we come to later sections, but section 27 is your tuition section. The way that it's been talked about colloquially is money following the student. So this is districts sending to receiving schools amounts equal to the base multiplied by the sum of one and any weights applicable to that student. The structure that you're gonna see proposed here is allowing schools to be both down below the foundation amount. And so in accompanying that change, the tuition would need to be prorated to correspond to whatever that district's voting down amount is, so that's your approved percentage. Like I said, this will make more sense once we come to later sections, but just know that this is a conforming change to make sure that the tuition, the money following the student tracks what the school district votes to spend. And you see the proviso there, provided that a district that operates no grades that pay out a percent, and I think this is included, I'm sure the senators can speak to this, to ensure that folks who don't have as much incentive to vote for higher figures can't take advantage of other districts that would have to cover the cost of educating that student and would vote down to say, 90% because we had notes that were happy.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Does this also apply to the transition period?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There would be no transition.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Ah, okay. I will wait. You said to wait, and I will wait, John.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: That'll make sense.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Skip, maybe not. I'll do my best to explain how it makes sense. So you're not gonna see all sections here, but I did try to include most of sections 34 through 52, even where there wasn't a direct ask to do something. Did at want to call out what the section was and say, no position is taken here. Section 34 is amending your Title 16 definitions. So what you're seeing is the introduction of this concept of approved percentage. This is the percentage of the foundation amount, which we'll come to shortly, approved by the voters of the school district, provided that the voters shall only approve percentage within the range of 90 to 100%. So this is allowing a school district to vote down below that foundation amount down to 90%. The next change that you see is for the base amount, This is using the $14,541 figure that was what passed Senate Finance. When we come to the weighting sections, you're gonna see weights that accompany that weight, but just know that you're using base and weights, so inputs to a foundation formula that come from Senate Finance's amendment.

[Unidentified Senator]: Quick question. Sorry, just said it. So 14,541 is 90% of No. Okay. No. And

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: this is just to note, this

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: is well outside the bounds of the two proposals that are on the table.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Yeah, and I think

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: just need to say it. You may feel that

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: way about, I'm gonna be painting.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Thank you, John. It's also not the first time with that. Just trying to note it whenever we are.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I'm gonna describe nineteen first, and I'll come back to what the EOP is in this concept. So 19, foundation amount, that's the base amount multiplied by the school district's weighted long term membership. In the concepts that we've talked about up to this point, that would typically be your EOP, but because we're building in a concept for payments up to school districts that would reflect a voted percentage, the foundation amount is now that figure. And so your EOP is still the payment to a school district, but what that is, is it's the product of the school district's foundation amount, so base times weighted long term membership and the improved percentage, which is giving you that say 90% of the foundation amount, if that's what the school district so voted, 95, whatever it might be.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Section 34A. Wait, one more time.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Just to call out why I changed the definition of educational opportunity payment, I would have had to have changed all the references throughout the chapter where payments of educational opportunity payments are made to be something else. And so what the educational opportunity payment is, is is what is being paid to the school district and what the concept it reflects is, is the base times weighted long term membership, which is what in the house proposal would be your EOP, but it's multiplied by whatever that percentage a school district votes is. So the EOP is the product of your approved percentage and your foundation amount. And basically it gives you 90% of your in the household that would be called the EOP. Does that make sense?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: The foundation amount is what

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: we used to call the EOP?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Yes, exactly.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section 34A, this speaks to the transition question. And so what you're gonna see here is that the approved percentage range, as we just talked about that approved percentage range was 90 to 100%. What you're seeing is in the first years of the rollout, and there's notes here that this begins in '29, so it's a different timeline than the HASC has been talking about. So in each of fiscal years twenty nineteen and thirty three, the minimum percentage that could be that approved percentage would be as follows. So in your first year of debt foundation from the level of FY '29, it could be 85%, and then you're increasing by 1% each year until in fiscal year two thousand and thirty four, you had reached that 90% floor. So this is a transition mechanism for the lower end of the how you're paying out educational opportunity payments.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Senator Weiertz, I don't wanna jump the gun too much, but are you then at a sort of a 15% transition mechanism on the other side as well?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: You know,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Like, I'm at

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: the top to the No.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: We can. Great. Yep. Thought about it.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I Section 35, this is your weighting section. Hopefully this, at least the titles here are gonna look pretty familiar, but just to call out what I was stating before with the change of the base in title 16, You're gonna see the weights here of the Senate Finance proposed weights. I have tried to highlight, admittedly I did this off the top of my head in a rush to just call out what I believe are the differences between the weights. So maybe it's helpful to describe there are no special education weights included here. There are distinguished EL weights, that's for your English language proficiency levels, newcomer or slide. The health proposal had sparsity and small school support grants. Those are not included here, except you have, as you may recall, a weight for small schools and that small school weight picks up a little bit of the sparsity consideration because it's only those that have been impacted 26% for a mile. But hopefully this is not a new concept. This is the finance weights. I'm happy to pause if I'm hopeful, but hopefully this will mainly look

[Unidentified Senator]: Well, to some of us, it does not. So this is getting rid of the sparsity language that we all seem to be in agreement about, and now we're moving to a small school weights. Yeah.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Did cut that. We rotated your scores.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: I don't know. I don't know believe that.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The ask was for the senate finance weights. These aren't those weights.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I can Okay. Do something That was a miscommunication. Is

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: senate it finance base? Yes.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: But

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: the House waits?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: We did not mean to change the sparsity wave. He agreed with what he and we that was a miscommunication.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can can I ask then I I guess I'd say, is the ask then for the House weight or is it Senate weights except that the sparsity weight would be different? The

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: only thing we really were intending to do was to add in the high school weight of point one zero and add in a CTE weight of one.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And leave the

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: And then have the base change accordingly stay within the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: is where you got to the 14. To change the base to You just, like, subtract

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: it from the base and then divide

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: it? No.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Secondary weight, CT weight, and then a base calculated so that it fits within the existing education spending of 1.88. That's very

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: confusing math for me.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Oh, we didn't do the math.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: No, I mean, I understand the multiplication and the divisions. So the other weights that you're leaving and agreeing to

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Poverty, yellow Sure.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Those mean something very different as a dollar figure if you've lowered the base.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Okay. So we had talked with you about that point and said that we to have the high school weight and we need to have a CTE weight. And one rationale, if we take the CTE weight, for example, plugging in one is a lot closer to where we're gonna end up in the end after studying whatever than zero. What? That's in

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: don't know, say that again.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: That is in the within the existing, like the 1,800,000.0 that we're spending now, are there's a CTE cost built into that.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: And we wanted to reflect it in the way because there's gonna be a CTE wait.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Why do you think there's gonna be CTE wait?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: As opposed to where would the money come from otherwise?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: It could come from districts. It could come from a categorical grant. There's lots of ways that CTE is paid for. CTE weight is fairly counter indicated in the literature.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: But right now, it comes out of the

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: 1.88 formula.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Sure. And in the future, it could too. I'm just saying the assumption of a weight seems like a leap. Well,

[Rep. Scott Beck]: we do a study, and that study recommends we do a categorical grant in lieu of. I mean, finally made. But it's not a It's going to be paid. It's part of the 1.88 right now. And if we don't account for it right now, then we've got a

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I think it's accounted for in our proposal to Okay. Let's keep on going. Okay. I think I understand what your proposal is.

[Unidentified Senator]: Sorry. Would you disregard this small school stuff? Is that what I'm hearing?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah. Yeah. That was Yes. That's our miscommunity.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: That was our

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So so do you then want support chains for those? For the sparsity? Yeah.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: For sparsity. That they

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: We're doing you the thing we agreed on this morning.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that was

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: yeah.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: And that's a gram. Correct?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Yeah. The sparsity That's fine. Fine. Yeah. We were talking about the CTE and then secondary weights, not small school student.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And so how does a CTE weight work for a student? Can you tell me the story of a student and how the dollars are moving around?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: It's on an FTE basis. Most of our CTEs are not a full way. Well, they might be, depending on how they so they're there for half the time. It's a half Feet.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: So Okay, let's say we have a student who is an English language learner and they attend the CTE. I'm gonna say half the time because that seems easier matter. Okay. What is the English do you are you taking? How would the dollars get divided on that?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: So in that case, where kids Say, the kids at software went to high school.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: It's an English language learner and a CTE student, and they spent half the day at Burlington School District. Then the basin weights for the kid for half

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Both weight halves.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Okay. Yeah. Okay. That would follow the student to that CTP center. Uh-huh. And then that student would also qualify as half of an FTE. So the half of the weight applied, half a weight applied to the base would be the additional CTE dollars that that CTE center would receive. And would they

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: receive their English language services in both places?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, if they if they needed them, yes. And then that's half of that weight by the base would go go with this team. Money just follows the kid.

[Unidentified Senator]: I I just wanna make sure I'm clear. You're saying a a CTE weight of one, meaning that that student is already a one that needs to

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: be added to your a one. Added to it. We may have jumped the gun here. Not sure if we got it, John. Slide.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Continue on, John. Let's do it.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Alright. Probably not gonna be especially useful for me to go through this section then, but you can see here that the EL weights are those that house that, which is ultimately where some of the highlights here had ended up, including the newcomer side as well. We can ignore the Scott School piece. I did wanna flag just only so especially

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Sorry, I can see 10. Thank you. In

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the House proposal, this subsection F would be a claim of the weighted section and describe the determination of educational opportunity payment, and that would be your base times your weighted long term membership rate. And then that will place The reason it's included there is because this is your weighting section. So you have the weights at the point and then you just multiply it by the base. Here it's the foundation amount that's been determined, and that is what is multiplied by your pre percentage to determine the school district's EOP. Substitution age, this is the recalibration section,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: which has been struck. Oh, you don't you don't why don't you want to recalibrate the weights?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Not you, John. I'm looking at the cylinders. Sorry. I'm imagining it was better stuff than it.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Oh, I don't think don't think we meant not to recalibrate. We know we always need to get recalibrated.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I mean, yeah, I mean, we've had some conversations internally about do we want to update weights prior to districts getting going? But I don't Okay. In.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I'm Yeah. Sorry to do this to you for a moment, John, but I just want can we go back to the CT weight again? How did you pick the weight you picked?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: How did it happen?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: It was recommended by the EPA. Yes.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's where it came from the

[Rep. Scott Beck]: government center. We both had the one. It was less than what in their original EP model, I think it was 1.3.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And then do you know what evidence they used to lower it?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I don't know.

[Unidentified Senator]: The calculation math behind it.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Back

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: to you, John, so sorry.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, it's

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: all good.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I will not offer anything here. Let's keep going. Section 35A, this is where actually a lot of the conversation has already been. This is your contendant. You can see

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Oh, we did show you.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Between pupils, the pupils eligible for their technical application. And as you know, the weighting section is divided into two pieces. If you're counting up students within particular categories and then applying weights for folks who fall within those categories. What we've seen here is the passing of existing school districts that number of full time accounting counts. And then the actual weight itself, the schools would receive an additional weighting amount of less than zero for each of primary CTE pupil. Conversations already been had, okay. Section 36, there's not gonna be anything to see here in terms of highlighted language. I did just wanna call out, and it sounds like I should step this, but the reason there's a difference between this and the House proposal is that this calls out the appropriation of funds and in the House proposal that had been including support grants. And here I didn't have those called out because I'd understood the request to execute halfway and I can easily not step up. So some of those we've already addressed. I did try to call out sections, I haven't included it the text board just to say these are the same as the house or not, try to make this easier to read. What you're seeing in section 37 that I have highlighted, I had understood this forbearance to be struck, but I will not do that. Sections 38 through 40, same as the house, so conforming changes for updates to the newfoundation formula. Section 41, this is your budgetary vote section. This sets up the actual form of a ballot for the vote. And it's important that we now have a new structure, and there's additional information that will be provided with this ballot.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Is ballot good at everyone? In what circumstances are the votes happening?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So if you are I'll just go back to this. Each school district should be voting on the percentage of the foundation amount to determine its EOP. So it would have that vote of 90 to 100% or in those first years as you buy, depending on your in the first year of the foundation from your rollout. Yeah. Would be voting no matter the result. Everyone would be voting under

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: this

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: proposal.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: There's no default to 100.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There is no default to 100, and I'll come to that later. That's outside the scope of deception. Thank you. In this case, there would be a budget presented except for school districts that don't operate any grades. We talked about before that tuition aid section and how we work on the proposal with that. You would prorate or whatever the approved percentage is, but if you're a truly non operating district, you would have to provide for receiving school 100 of the base amount. And so those school districts are not voting. Everyone else is voting on the approved percentage. And so what you see here is a ballot

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: that Can would you explain that a little bit? I mean, in this context, sometimes I think of voting, especially in the context of school budgets, as sort of a form of consent to taxation. And maybe that's me overthinking the philosophy of taxes.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: What's the question?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: The idea that there would be no that everyone in the state needs to essentially vote for their school taxes, except in these very specific circumstances where they don't vote for their school taxes, but it's still at a 100%. I understood why you said it at 100% in those situations, but the idea there would be no vote in just that singular circumstance strikes me as confusing.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: I'm not sure I remember what.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. So I think Senator Beck was the one who I first spoke with about this credit. I don't know if you want to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: So I don't know. Do you have an answer, Senator Beck?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, I'm not sure I understand the question right now. Can you

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And again, maybe I've thought about the philosophy of property taxes a little too much over the last two years, right? 02:00 in morning, etcetera. But I, in some ways, think of the vote for the school budget. And I think people, I've heard other people talk about this, is essentially you're consenting to taxation. You're consenting to that property tax rate. And I think sometimes think of it that way and sometimes don't think of it that way, but I think that's not a brand new idea I'm introducing here. And so the idea that in the majority of districts under your construct, folks are voting, whether they're getting the full what's the new thing called?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Foundation amount.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: The new foundation amount. Or they're voting for the education opportunity payments on either end. All those folks would vote, except for this one very specific circumstance of a nonoperating district, that those folks would not be consenting to their tax rate. And I'm wondering why you've decided to do that.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, they they can. We haven't prevented a non school that doesn't operate any public district that doesn't operate any public schools from voting for supplemental. They may may do that.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I thought supplemental was out.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: No. Supplemental of the law section.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Supplemental's still in. We took your 10 down to five. So they do have the option to vote for supplemental spending if they so choose to do that. We're not giving them the option in this construct to go less than 100% because

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I understand why,

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: yes.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Okay, so yeah. So I guess if what you're saying is in the case of a school district that does not operate any schools at all, their only option, they're gonna receive 100 of the EOP. They're gonna get taxed like this. 're

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And why wouldn't they vote for that tax if everyone else in the whole state is?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, I suppose they they could. But if they vote no, they're still going to receive it. I mean, if they voted no, I guess the only thing that they could do at that point is run that ballot, run it back out for voters, or ask for more.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I guess under the other constructs, what happens if someone votes what if a district votes no?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: A district votes no, my

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: under 8%, what happens if a district votes no?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, let's talk about when we get to in perpetuity. Let's say a district doesn't vote, or let's say a district cannot pass pass a ballot item, then they would receive the minimum percentage of EOP until

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: they

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: can could pass pass

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: They wouldn't get a 100%?

[Unidentified Senator]: No. I was thinking logically.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: They would get the minute. They would get the lower. They would get the low. That's my understanding.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Okay. That's what you're

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We're asking what the interim or fallback rate is if you don't if you don't pass the vote, that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: get the full remedial fee, right?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: 90%.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: You get 90%. If you can't pass it let's say you go on the ballot and you can't pass 100%, 98%, or 92%.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: But if you're a fully tuitioning district and you can't pass a budget, you get 100%. You don't even have to vote for the

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: 100%.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You don't have to.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: They just get that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: But you could vote for 100% if you decided to run that vote in your town. Because if I could only run every four years, I probably wouldn't run every two years.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: I get it. That district that does not operate in public schools, they are going to receive 100%. I don't think it would require a vote of the town. They're gonna receive it. The only thing they would vote for, if they chose to, would be to vote for supplement.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Okay. I think I understand now. Thank you.

[Unidentified Senator]: Alright. I'm I'm going to jump back in. The construct I thought we were think thinking here that you're proposing and just looking at your quizzical look and maybe you might be on the same page was that you were voting as to whether you wanted to have a lower amount than if you voted no, then you got a 100%.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: My interpretation is you vote for whatever percent you want. You want 100, you got to vote for

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I only just got a parent. A lot changes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Yeah. I thought you don't vote you get the foundation formula. You don't vote on whether or not you want the foundation formula. The state has taken control. We are going to raise the money, set the tax rate for the foundation formula. We're trying to find a way for those financially poor towns to spend less. And I absolutely appreciate that. Yeah. Or the towns, this is the shock value. The towns, if we do this right, nobody's gonna have a problem when we get to the end. To vote to spend a little more, or you put in a bond vote, or ban uniforms, whatever, need to pave the parking lot.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That seems that I don't think

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: better figure out. Let's I also don't think that was the main point, because the main point was just having the option to vote low. Like Okay. Think the exact thing that I understand. But what the default is is something that it's not, like, we can talk about that. Okay. That was not the point. Okay.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: But in the language it's drafting, Sean, it's you can't pass 97%. The district's going to receive 90% until or if they pass a budget for it. Unless they're a fully tuitioning district.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Unless they're fully tuitioning Okay,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: great. That's the language right now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Okay, let's keep on trying to understand what else is in

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: here for all of us. Okay, so what would that vote look like? The first of these is your vote on the foundation amount. So it would pose to the voters, do they prove to extend a particular percentage of the foundation amount? So they're voting on a percentage. That is what this award is determined to be necessary for the insurance fiscal year and which equals, and it would spell out what the actual regulatory amount is, but the direct vote is on the percentage of the foundation amount. And the reason for that is because the I is between the percentage you vote on your foundational amount and the percentage of the homestead property taxes that you pay. So what you see in this next paragraph, district estimates that this proposed budget, if approved, will result in a homestead property tax rate of whatever it might be for $100 of the public education property value which is and it will be the same percentage of the income homestead property tax rate. So if you voted 90% of the foundation amount, you would receive a homestead property tax rate at 90% of that income homestead property tax rate. You go to 95%, you get 95% of the home tax property tax rate, 100%, 100% of the income tax rate. That's it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: And Senator Homings? So in other versions of both what the administration gave to us, and I think what we all voted on, the homestead rate and the non homestead rates, or rate, depending on what proposal you look at, are all We really corrected things so that they're all moving together. What I see you doing here is deviating in that the homestead property tax rate would be higher than the non homestead rate or lower than the homestead rate, depending on this boat. That what is happening here, John?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It could be. It would depend on the relationship between the uniform non homestead and the uniform homestead. So there would still be a choice as to how much liability is assigned to different rates.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: At a state level.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, but you're correct that depending, let's say they were set at the same, you would have an effect, you could move below the threshold if you wrote it down, right?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Again, it's an attempt to help the towns, and when we get there, there may be a few of the poorer towns that in order to pay that statewide base rate are going to be severely strained, and I think what we're trying to do is find a way for them to reduce their rate. I really do appreciate that effort so much. This a lot

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: of very brand new policy and significant deviations from what's been discussed previously at this point in the day. So I'm going to try to chill with my questions and let Jonathan explain.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: I like that. I

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: like everything. All right. Well, that's my safe answer or response. So next the budget here, the second budget vote you're gonna see is gonna look not familiar. This is the same thing that you see in the house proposal. But if for instance, if a board determined that additional spending is necessary in excess of 100% of the foundation amount, meaning that they voted 100% on the first vote, the board would present a supplemental district spending budget to the voters and it would be the same form of budget vote rule decision in house proposal for the supplemental district spending. And so you would be able to check, the local board voters would be able to see what local rate is required, supplemental extracurriculars, and the tax rate is required to raise the amount that they're voting in supplemental information. So nothing new in the second public entity. Section 42 is a slight difference from the equivalent Section 42 in the House proposal. In the House proposal, we repeal the census block grants for special education because you have special education rates, but those are not included in this proposal, so you're not repealing to the census block grants.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: You know how

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Districts right now are covering a lot of special education costs out of their education spending separate from the block grants, do you how will how will that work in this? How will they cover those costs that they're legally obligated to?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: Well, if they're you know, the when census block grants were were done, they were supposed to pay for all special education except for the extraordinary needs. Some districts have are there. Other districts are not. We know that. And so nothing and so for those districts that are it's not covering, it's coming out of their education spending. In this construct, if they are not doing it with their census block grant, it would come out of their DOP, basically. So no change, effectively.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Well, I think effectively, it's a big change. But Okay, thank you.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Just so I understand, why is it big change?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: I swear I'll just let John finish, and then I'll come back on it.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: But I'll

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: So right now, districts are able to request and or raise any dollars that they need to meet their budgets. Districts are under contractual obligations with each individual family that's under an IEP and under multiple legal requirements with the feds to maintain that spending. So given that those are not flexible, flexibility is needed on the other. Given that those obligations are not flexible, the spending needs to be flexible, at least for quite a few number of years until they Can you bring that back in line? Yeah.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They have supplemental. What? They have supplemental.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Does the supplemental account for the variations in special ed spending around the state? Just That

[Rep. Scott Beck]: doesn't help the district's variation.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Okay. I like how you stop screen sharing on page up for the QA audience. It's kind

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of weird. Forty three, the House. There were reports from AOE and JFO at the Senes of the House. I don't know Senescent House for three sections. I think there may be agreement, but I am just listing those here and not providing the text because they don't speak to the proposal that's in front of you. But I will note that section 45B, your EOP transition across several years, moving folks up and down based on whether your ed spending is relative to EOP, that would be strategical. Just the conceptual reason for this is that you're allowing folks to voluntarily transition themselves is the idea here, in those early years if you have down to 85 in the first year, for instance. So the thinking was, don't need to provide that same transition because folks are voting themselves the transition that they would ask for. We next come to section 46, which we're jumping to title 32 now. So we're jumping into the taxation sections, and in particular, we're talking about supplemental district spending. You're gonna see some highlighting here that some of it is not a substantive change and some of it actually reflects where I think there might already be agreement. First of these is the statewide adjustment. We spoke a little bit about this yesterday, but just ensuring that that's retained for the future. And let's see, you're gonna see some highlighting here for the supplemental district spending. This is not a substantive difference for the health proposal. This is just some clarifying terms that were included in Senator Feck's amendment from Friday past. So 5% was, I think, the figure that we talked about for supplemental district spending cap. What you'd see in the

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Senator Beck's amendment from the floor? Yeah. From the Senate floor that didn't pass? Okay, thank you.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: When we've referenced in the House what the cap is set at, we've talked about whether that's weighted or unweighted, and I think it's from this base times the just long term membership and unweighted cap. And so I've just included a defined term here, unweighted foundation amount, which is the base times the long term membership. And by the way, you can just say more simply that the cap is 5% of that unweighted foundation amount. So I think hopefully more intuitive to folks as well. Section 46A is your cap transition. So in the early years we would have a high cap, we just noted it was 5% of that unweighted foundation amount, and then at the transition period you see the beginning with the first year of foundation program rollout that's proposed in fiscal year twenty nineteen, it would be at 10%, and that would move down by 1% each year so that if you get to full year 2024, you would reach that 5% half. I think the House proposal had been for that rollout to happen starting in 2034 to 2039, but it's the same concept of lowering your cap over time.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: Our intent is only to get to the same place you were previously, okay. Section

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: 47, this is the imposition of the statewide issuing tax rates. You're gonna see a couple of things here. The first is that there's no concept here of the property tax classifications, which I believe were in the house proposal. So there's a table that you can follow with factors. This is saying is you would set a uniform tax rate for Homestead and a uniform tax rate for Homestead. You'll You'll recall earlier when we were talking about the budgetary vote, whether that could review up or down relative to the non homestead rate, this is what I was referencing. This doesn't specify a particular relationship between a non homestead and homestead, there's no fixed factor. So the legislature could choose the amount of liability that how much it puts on each rate. You will see a good bit of highlighting here, but I think much of it is flowing through from the definition you just saw. So for instance, the highlighting relating to dividing by a number resulting from dividing the CLA by the statewide adjustment, that's just steady in that statewide adjustment language. The real substantive change that you see here is from the approved percentage, the discussion we've been having about voting that foundation amount. So for your homes and property rate, when the commission is setting your homes set rate, they're taking that uniform rate that it's set above, the legislature has to set that, they're taking that and multiplying it by municipalities approved percentage to get that discount based on what the voting rate was. I made a lot of important changes throughout this section, hopefully I can go pretty quickly. This is just picking up the statewide adjustment. And I will come to a piece later that speaks to just making sure that the math behind that works correctly. Vint has been a subject of much discussion up to this point. So this is your interim rate. What happens if you haven't voted a budget? And so if the district hasn't voted a budget by June 30, this is page 22, and in our piece of education tax, they'll be posted 90% of that uniform concept property tax rate. Again, we would probably say that adjustment, but this is the default at 79%.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: That default could be different too, so that's I not a

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: did want to note that these sections you're seeing here are technical provisions, this is struck in the House proposal because there's a uniform rate. These are the technical provisions that we include to ensure that a municipality is a member of a multiple say union school districts and needs to have a weighted rate, that those are picked up, you're now accounting for variation in homestead rate on that voted foundation amount, you need to make sure that you And this

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: is current law basically?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is current law, it's just picking up the trenches, that's right, this is using current law but just referencing the proper rates. So pick up the approved percentage and again, it would also have to pick

[Unidentified Senator]: up the state level adjustment. I'm gonna ask that what the clock strikes for, we take a fifteen minute recess, please.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, the

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: You know how explain it.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: All the spectrum.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (House Education Chair)]: Did you all solve the problem that you raised earlier, Slender, back of what to happen, what the default is if the legislature doesn't vote on a right?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No. No, that's still an outstanding question. And is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: all that stuff conforming changes?

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I have a little bit more, but I think I can be pretty quick. Forming changes here, I didn't want to speak to the term of one letter. So I mentioned before with the inclusion of the statewide adjustment under this shortly. In the house proposal, what's recommended is a statewide education government tax rate that is adjusted for different factors. What you see here is you gotta recommend non outside of home set rates. But I do wanna call out that when you're setting that property tax rate, you need to divide it by the statewide adjustment to ensure that when you are netting out that set of adjustment, the math works out. So it has to be picked up in the December 1 letter. It's an assumption built into setting the rate. In the house's proposal, you have a health set property tax rate transition that would be struck again for the same reasons above, allowing folks to control their transition and these are just conforming changes here. Lastly, the last substantive changes here, variable growth in education spending for fiscal years '27 and '28. So what do we do in the fiscal years immediately preceding the proposed foundation formula rollout? This would hopefully be a familiar concept to folks. But for those fiscal years, excess spending would be the per people at spending just to include the amounts from the capital construction reserve that is in excess of the district's per people at spending plus their variable growth. So this is accounting for growth within the excess spending. And what we have is a hopefully familiar definition here that variable growth is an amount equal to the actual amount of Ed spending in the district in the current fiscal year multiplied by a variable growth percentage, and they would be lowered at a rate that would be the change in the NIFA price inflator over the preceding fiscal year. The variable percentage would be what results from taking the highest per education spending in any district in the state divided by the actual amount of spending in that district in the entire fiscal year minus one. So you're getting the gap between that district and the highest spending district. Multiply that by 5.5%, and that is giving you your variable growth percentage, which is added to this year. Why

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: 5.5%?

[Rep. Scott Beck]: It's what was It's what was used in ACT 46. We're not necessarily wed to it if you think another number looks better. In in act 46, there was they used five and a half, and there was no minimum. The top had zero. We thought that making sure everybody at least had NIPA was a little more fair than zero. But the five and a half is just

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: a carryover from Act 46.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Do you remember why Act 46 used to five and a half, personally?

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: No.

[John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Very last quick. Thanks. If you're using the feast, then you need to prescale the suspension of the custody penalty. It's currently in place, and then just I don't have the actual effective date section, but just wanted to call out the obvious timing difference here. We have a national thirty foundation from the rollout at the epoch '29, which starts 07/01/1928. And that is what I have for you guys. Thanks, John. We do Is that a roll call for you?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: Just the board. Oh, just the board. Okay.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: What a break or a when do you want

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Senate Finance Chair)]: this? Fifteen minutes, maybe.

[Rep. Scott Beck]: That's your

[Unidentified Senator (Senate conferee)]: fifteen