Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Good morning, happy Tuesday. I hope everyone had a good weekend. I know the Appropriations Committee did. It is Tuesday, March 24. This is the Ways and Means Committee. We are about to receive a referral of the FY27 budget bill to us, and so we're going to get a little ahead of it so that we can hear about it and ideally do a vote on it so that it can continue on its journey on the timeline that was expected of it. So Emilie is not able to go line by line through the budget, so she's going to do a big picture overview of us. It came to us because some language that we had passed another bill has been incorporated into the budget.

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: And gonna turn it over to you now, Emilie. Great. Unless you wanna

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: say something first, Representative Shai?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Well, just in case you haven't heard, we passed the budget out unanimously in our committee, which was really exciting. It was a good amount of teamwork. And I think we've put together something that we can all be proud of. So glad to be here. Thank you.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Great. So for the record, Emily Byrne from the Joint Fiscal Office. I have a very brief presentation, as Representative Kornheiser said, that runs through some of the top level budget construct, if you will, and then a couple bullet points on just highlights for this committee that you all probably wanted to be aware of. And then I can go through the bill itself and whatever level of detail makes sense or lack of detail, whatever.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: The -Switch maybe or other ones.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: -Yes. Any level of the universe. We are almost done.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Did I spell your name? No. I did that right. I did. The

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: highlight document that we normally have and is available for caucuses and on the floor is in its final round of editing. So that may come in at the very end, and we could walk through that depending on timing, if that works. So at a high level, the total unduplicated budget for FY 2027 is $9,300,000,000 Of that, over a third is coming from the federal government and federal funds, mostly the Medicaid program. The general fund and the education fund are both 27% of the total budget this year. Special funds, and that includes the tobacco fund and the state health care resource fund and the fish and wildlife fund and all the special funds across state governments outside of the big three state funds and federal funds make up about 7% of the budget, and the transportation fund is the remaining 4% of the budget this year. To go through just at a high level, sort of I know you spent a lot of time with the Education Fund Outlook. This is a similar document summarized for the general fund. So the And I tried to call out places, again, where it's relevant, how the budget incorporates some of the changes that are being proposed by this committee in the miscellaneous tax bill specifically, and sort of other revenue type changes that you may want to be aware of. So in terms of sources to the general fund, so we take the January 2026 forecast for FY 2027, and then we modified that based on the changes in the miscellaneous tax bill. So the changes to the meals and rooms tax that's being dedicated to the general fund, the changes in corporate income tax and the other tax credits that were included in the miscellaneous tax bill. The net of those changes in FY 'twenty seven is about $3,000,000 I'll jump down to that prior year carry forward line. So also, as you are more aware than I am, is the changes in the miscellaneous tax bill that also impacted FY 'twenty six. The way that that shows up in the budget is a decrease in the amount of money that's being carried forward from FY 'twenty six into the FY 'twenty seven budget. That's when we accounted for that nearly $4,000,000 of anticipated corporate income tax change in FY '26. So those two, that 3.18 and that 3.96 are the net impacts of the Miscellaneous Act bill on the general fund, so almost about zero. Then, so I'll jump back up, sorry, to the transfers to the general fund. So the other additional sources to the general fund that the appropriations committee utilized in their budget construct was the big change in that transfer to the general fund is utilizing the interest in the technology modernization fund. There was a fund set up back in 2022. A fair amount of funds was transferred to it to help with some of the major IT projects that state government is undertaking because of the way the fund was constructed. It earned a fair amount of interest, nearly $10,000,000 in FY 'twenty three, 'twenty four, and 'twenty five. The appropriations committee decided that, given the pressures in state government, to transfer that money to the general fund and then utilize elsewhere. So that brings the total sources to $2,740,000 and then about $10,000,000 higher than what the governor recommended, primarily as a result of that transfer from the technology modernization fund. So that additional revenue, plus a change in transfers, which I'll get to, were appropriated in the bill to the tune of about $2550000.00.17000000 dollars higher than where the governor was. How the Appropriations Committee is able to appropriate that additional $7,000,000 When this committee made the decision to change the allocation of the meals and rooms tax, that was done right because in the governor's recommend, he had $10,000,000 that was being transferred from the general fund to the education fund for the purchase and use change. Because of the miscellaneous tax bill change, that changes the allocation of the purchase and use tax and then yields and rooms tax, that $10,000,000 change make up for the purchase and use tax doesn't have to be transferred to the education fund anymore. So that frees up $10,000,000 in the general fund to be appropriated. So that's where the remainder of the funds that are appropriated in the House version of the bill

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: come from. There are

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: a few other transfers that happened, which is why it's not exactly $10,000,000 but that's the bulk of why that change is there.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: And then what's the reason for the difference between 10,000,000 and 7.3?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Off the top of

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: my head, I gotta remember off the top

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: of head, what those are. The twenty sixth, the FY twenty sixth. Money got lost.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, and there's also It's been a long couple of days. Transferred some money to the tech modernization fund. There were some other transfers within that that changed, which I can We have a detailed spreadsheet. I'd be happy to walk you through it. But that's the overall net impact of those other transfers plus the education fund change was 0.73. Oh, the Tech Mod Fund and the other one is they're transferring $1,300,000 to the Community Resilience and Disaster Relief Fund to help support the towns that were denied female relief. So net of those out, like those plus not having to do the 10 get And you the so, just a few other things to highlight for this committee that I know is relevant to the work that you're doing and wanted to call out specifically. So, included in the budget that's proposed by the House thus far, they included additional funding for a position of the tax department to assist with the implementation of the changes to the Homestead Declaration that we understand are being contemplated in this committee. Yes, it hasn't passed out of this committee yet, but the money is in the budget if that's necessary. Additionally, there's another $150,000 appropriated to the treasurer's office for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. It does include the $104,900,000 transfer to the Education Fund. And the big reason why this bill got referred to this committee is because it incorporates the changes that were in H558, the transition of the school based Medicaid services program, to the agency of payment services from the agency of education.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you for your grace and most of our requests to your committee.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: You know, we were able to do a few things for you. So glad we could.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: There's a document from Emilie Emily posted that you might want to refresh. Do you have a second thing you want to share?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's all I had. These are the super highlights. There's lots of other We don't have the official highlight document that you typically look at in caucus of the whole and an

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: individual's caucuses. We'll have that later today. Hopefully, it will be

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: out soon. I don't know if there's specific sections of the budget you want me to talk about or more about the bill?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Representative Holcombe, you had a question there where someone was at?

[Rebecca Holcombe]: Yeah, no, actually, was hoping to say something to chair Chittenden. I really appreciate the work at the end around the transfer of the Medicaid. I understand this is something that needs to happen. It is high stakes. And the state has had some real struggles with implementation of complex policy. And I think what concerned me is there was no consultation with school districts about the implementation transition until literally the Thursday before we saw the bill here. And my hope is in appropriations that you can keep an eye on implementation and to the extent you see signs that there may be challenges that we get on it early so that we don't have failure. We can't afford to fail on this. Right, no, it is a big deal.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: And there were five positions that are sort of school facing in the field, field facing positions that would be kept in the agency of education because we've heard somebody else told me that was really a critical piece of that.

[Rebecca Holcombe]: And you can reassess next year, but we just can't, we cannot fail in the implementation on this. I really appreciate your being responsive to that.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Nine thirty one was moved to second.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Yep. Do you think it's it?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Not quite yet, but you will in a minute.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Any of them?

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Yeah. Just one just one second. I'm just I'm coordinating all the things. Representative Waszazak.

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak]: Thank you. For the $100,000 that we requested for a ten year tax study for JFO.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Oh, yes, that is in. Great. That was kind

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak]: of netted out of everything.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it

[Edward "Teddy" Waszazak]: was kept in the tax. No, that's right. That was in there.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's in your bill, but it's accounted for in the general fund. Correct. As

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: was the downtown payment and the tax credit for the $3.50 for the down payment assistance, all those things that we have accounted for. Let's see, page, so we're now seeing the, it says it's a presentation. H nine fifty one fiscal year 2027 appropriations act. No page numbers on here, I think it's page three. Does this say 35% increase in federal funds in green?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Oh, that's just the it's not an increase, that's just the total percentage of the total.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: 100%. Yeah. Okay. So what are the what is the increase last year to this year?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Did that last night. No, can I get back to you on that one? Yes. And do you want the total budget or just the general fund budget or the

[Carolyn Branagan]: Or both? The total budget, that's what's going to be easiest for the public to address. The total budget for next year, this year over last year, Count of the increases. Yeah, actually.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You know, I typically say I

[Carolyn Branagan]: don't do math on the fly. Wouldn't be this, but

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: 2%? Thank you.

[Carolyn Branagan]: I know you've had a lot to think about.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: 1.6%. 1.6%. It's been

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: changed from '90 What year are we in? 2026

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: to 2027.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: And it's 2026 as adjusted by the budget adjustment. So we had a lot of money that had to be put into the budget for case level immunization, Medicaid stuff, a big chunk of what it increased from what was passed last year. Okay, so if I start talking about this, the 1.6% increase being fairly reasonable, is someone going to jump in and say, yeah, but what you're not saying is something else? What else? I do not like the answer now. Do you have something in mind? Well, guess the BAA might be something they bring up and I can deal with that. It was approved by the group. Don't know what else there might be. I just hate getting caught and things like that. Assuming that's what you're using in the numbers, of that, so it's about almost 100 and 146,000,000 increase. That includes 105,000,000 increase to the education fund. So, of it's related to the education fund. It's not related to the appropriations budget, the general fund's budget. And when you see the highlight sheet, you will see that will be clear. Okay, I'll explain that. Yeah, actually we have more questions.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: So the downtown and biller siren tax credits, are you considering that in the base or one time?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: What was the answer? Sorry. Sorry. Base. We reduced the revenue available through the base budget.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Does anyone need to see anything else

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: or have any other questions? Yeah, representative. Okay. We're also expecting to start seeing next year the impact of things like the changes on the provider tax, a bunch of other things. Has that all been pulled together? And I only say that because I'm hoping we can be extremely proactive in responding to some of the challenges. And I think you're the only community that really has that global perspective, to be honest. But it feels like we have a train of having met us.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: We do. I will remind the committee that we did look at that fairly comprehensively the first week in the session, which was like 1,000 years ago.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: I mean, it's awesome. But it's awesome.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I know that you all did as well. Right.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: So in FY '28, we're going to lose $18,500,000 for provider tax. That's the first of five years of reductions in provider tax, so it starts then. We will have, probably, we don't have an updated revenue, but revenues are not increasing at the rate they used to be increasing, the federal funds are gone.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Taxes, we're not going have

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: money next year to keep buying down property taxes. It just isn't going to be there. So, I've been telling people that have come into our committee room that if you're getting something this year, don't count on it for next year. Start planning for not. I mean, could starting 40 or $60,000,000 in the hole for next year. So it's really important to think about that. Just be aware of that. You. We'll have to raise you some arsenal. I'm sorry, I was busy stuck in sign language when you were going through all that, why should we be concerned about $40,000,000

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: for that?

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: $18,500,000

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: cut in provider tax next year, that's revenue cut. Some of the one time that we have that's available this year is one time, it will be available next year. That's a good chunk of it. We don't know what revenues are going to be doing, but their rate of growth is declining. Yet, you know, we have to pay out and people getting raises and all those things that are- But it'd

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: be helpful to the committee for us to revisit that early testimony and have it be a little updated next week sometime. Does that sound good? So we like to sort of set the stage for the second half of the session?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Represent Could we also, I mean,

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: from sitting there, I know how woefully decrepit some of our state systems are. And I just wonder if, I mean, we could use one time money to buy down tax rates. We could also use one time money to fix some of the foster care tax systems, in which case we might be eligible for additional funding. Right, yes. So, mean, how do we as a body begin to evaluate the financial impact of some of the choices we're making? Yeah,

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: and it gets to be challenging because we're a part time legislature who's here for whatever amount of time we're here for, eighteen weeks, and that would be a full time job. I know that, for example, Rev. Donahue and her family have been looking into the secured youth residential facility and what's really going on there because we've had a number of failed attempts in Newbury and Virgins and on and on and and yet we're spending all this money to be spent. We're spending $4,000 a day for beds, whether there's a child there or not. It's costing us over $1,000,000 a bed per year in some of these places. So, really digging into It's a can of worms, and you peek under the foot, you know, I'm basing my numbers, but it gets worse the deeper that you look. So, there's a lot of that and people have spent hours on that and there are a number of areas where I think it kind of needs to be spent. How we manage that becomes, it's unchallenged. The

[Mark Higley]: other thing, so what we included in our miscellaneous tax when it comes to the federal link up or decoupling, that's really a wild card as well. Because initially, you know, GFO came out with some pretty meager figures that jumped up within a month and a half time looking at other states. But again, that's kind of an unknown as far as some of that money to me.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: It's a volatile tax. I mean,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: even in the best of times, corporate taxes are our most volatile revenue source.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: We can't do it.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: There's a highlight sheet that we can look at if we want to. Think it's arrived. I heard rumor it had arrived.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Oh, right. Is

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: that helpful for folks?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Yeah. Okay. And

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: our other bills were moved to the end of the list except for that single one that you're reporting. Yeah. Because education committee needs to get back to Education Committee.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: City.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Apparently, we cannot take one and pass it. Great. Sorry. Spoke

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: out of turn.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So I think we can jump into that table at the top. That's what drives those numbers that are in that chart, Representative Branagan, that you had asked about. And these give you that show you that picture that shows the real driver in the increases. That's $52,000,000 in the general fund and 104 spending in the education fund. About $42,000,000 of additional federal funds anticipated. So at the top section on page one we already spoke about, that table is in the PowerPoint that I

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: just went through. That's what that table reflects.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Do you want me to do a quick run through all of the bullets? Highly doc, do want to read them yourself and ask questions? Represent Waszazak has a question,

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: I guess you know Mark Selzazak asking questions. Love it. Excellent.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: The under the housing thing, the 61.45 and based on the ACC's response, Latin America, etcetera, Chair Wood had a presentation at some point towards the end of last week that included a half million dollars from municipal support funding. Is that in the budget? Yep, it is great. It'll be

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: in the B1100C something section.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Is that the municipal technical assistance with VCRD? No, no, no, no. For homelessness response and supports, there was a half million that Chair Wood requested for municipal money. It's part of the 82,000,000? Yes. And I can follow-up offline about what specifically that might be. Eventually, we hope to have a spreadsheet of what all the stuff, because it's all over throughout the country. The governor put in 82,000,000 to do this and we have the exact same amount that the governor put in for this program. Municipal support money is vital for Berry City, so

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: guess Yeah, that's absolutely.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Then I can follow-up with that. It's perfect. I'll follow-up and figure out

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: what the parameters for that are.

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: Yeah, so I know that the state had been trying to make incremental investments. I'm particularly worried about the SNAP technology system, but also the Foster Family Services. The CCWeb. Yeah, yeah. And they're a long way or they were a long way from having enough money to do what needs to be done. Did you get any testimony on did you make investments in moving that work in this budget? And do we have any sense of how much more it would take to finish the job, but also how much money we're leaving on the table and how much staff time we're wasting because we haven't finished the job. Your testimony on that?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: I'm sorry. I'm also now multitasking about the floor here. Ask again. Please. First of

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: all, I know that for years you had been working systematically to make those investments in the SNAP technology system, but also the foster family, the CCF WISP. Did you get testimony on how much we've done,

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: how much we No, have we wouldn't get that in our committee. That would possibly be in human services, possibly in energy and digital infrastructure. Did you get a

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: testimony on how much federal money we're possibly leaving on the table? Again, that would be

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: in human services. That would not be our committee. But we have been told, you know, anecdotally that yes, that this program is leaving money on the table by not having it. And when I was in a corrections institutions ten years ago, we talked about upgrading CCWIS.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Just a question, and then there are differing narratives on whether or not the agency of education asked to fund the four people on the construction management division, if that was in their request to appropriations? Any idea?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: On instruction management?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Construction management. Construction management.

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: What would structural management? Yeah. It doesn't ring a bell? Okay.

[Unidentified Member]: The governor's recommended the press stated it was ranked in five under the service position conversions, but none of them seem to do with school.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right, those were the transformation positions that were in age 73 are being converted from limited service to permanent budget.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Anyone else?

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: I'm curious, we're not the first ones to see this budget, are we? Been passed around. I mean, what's been the reaction?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: What do you mean? By whom?

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Well, anybody that's actually seen it. Senate or

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: The Senate hasn't seen it. We just passed it out last night. It was unanimous. It was unanimous Friday, and it was unanimous on Monday. So, people had the weekend to think about it, and it was still unanimous on Monday. Does that get enough of the notification? It does.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Anyone else have any questions? Do we have possession of the bill at

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: this moment, Sorsheim? We do. Great.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Would anyone be willing to move that bill?

[Charles Kimbell (Ranking Member)]: Madam Chair, I would move that we find H nine fifty one favorable.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Thank you, representative. Representative Kimbell moves that we find h eight ninety Nine five one. H nine five one favorable,

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: and represent Waszazak seconds. Any discussion? Yes.

[Kurt (Committee Assistant)]: Representative Hold vote for this, and

[Rebecca Holcombe]: I support this, and I'm deeply grateful for the incredible work for the appropriations committee. I just have to express again my concern. We are running out of money. There are one time investments that we could make which would reduce our ongoing costs every year moving forward. So I wish we were using that one time money for permanent reduction, not short tax holidays.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Representative Ode.

[Carol Ode]: I'd just like to say that with our vote on the yield bill last week, hearing what Representative Shy was saying, that we are reserving

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: half of what we could,

[Carol Ode]: what we were given, so that we can use that next year to buy down property taxes. So I think that that as a person who's much to save and well in the savings account, feel like it's fiscally conservative.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Thank you. Representative Higley.

[Mark Higley]: And that other $52,000,000 was kept in the education reserve fund, correct?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: We transferred the entire thing to the education fund. Yeah. And you all put together your yield bill, which we passed out as the appropriations last week.

[Mark Higley]: Okay, that's cool. Thank you.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And it doesn't really matter, but generally in discussion once we're in the motion, we're not supposed to talk to people outside of the committee. I don't know why. That's just the North. We've never talked about it before. I'm just flagging it. Doesn't matter. Any further discussion? Representative Branagan.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: I think I also vote for this right here in committee, but I wanna reject my vote towards the floor for future time. Your vote is said reserved. That's late. It's true. Awesome.

[Carolyn Branagan]: Okay.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: Seeing no further discussion, and with so much gratitude to the committee for their patience in doing this all so fast and to the staff and for coming here so promptly. Thank you. Does Kurt please follow the roll?

[Kurt (Committee Assistant)]: Representative Branagan? Yes. I'll vote yes. Is representative Burkhardt? Representative Higley?

[Mark Higley]: Yes. Representative Holcombe? Yes. Representative Kimbell? Yes.

[Charles Kimbell]: Representative Masland? Yes. Representative Ode? Yes. Representative Page?

[Woodman Page]: Yes. Representative Waszazak? Yes. Representative Canfield? Yes.

[William Canfield]: And Representative Kornheiser?

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: Yes. We have voted the bill

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: favorable eleven-zero-zero. Thank you, everyone.

[Unidentified House Appropriations Member ('Representative Shai')]: I will report this. Thank you.

[Unidentified Member (diarization mix)]: Off to the floor we go.

[Emilie Kornheiser (Chair)]: And we're filling announcements, I think.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. Yeah. So