Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: We are live.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're live at center appropriations, February 13. I don't think today is tomorrow, but we won't be here. It's our last day of the week. It's Friday the thirteenth. It's Friday the thirteenth. Yeah. We're going through FY 20 '7 budget requests, and today we have, I'll let you introduce yourselves for the record and give us your presentation.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Well, thank you, Senator. Thank you for allowing us to come in and talk about our budget. I'm Anthony Tabis, Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Environments, and I'm joined by our Vice President, Andrew Perchlik, who's with us as well. And I'm here to present our proposed budget for the fiscal year running through July 1 this year through the following July. You as a legislature are facing some incredibly difficult decisions, transforming our education system, addressing property taxes, responding to challenges in housing and public safety. And agriculture intersects with all these issues, and has a role to play in our future. So just a couple of highlights on our budget. It largely level funds our core programs, and that I think in a current economic and budgetary climate, we consider that a real victory. With those constraints, we're making some targeted investments, though, in a few key areas. One thing that we'll highlight for you is portability. We will be reducing the cost for our dairy farmers and also strengthening our business support staff, one of the smallest staffs like state government. And that is, the aim of that is to improve our customer service for our farmers and producers across the line. So with that, I can start going through few of our slides, and I always like to begin with our mission at the Agency of Agriculture, which is to facilitate, support, and encourage the growth and viability of agriculture while affecting the working landscape, human health, animal health, plant health, consumers, and the environment. So looking over the flow of funds and some of the breakdowns that we have, essentially, we have a $61,190,000 ask for FY 2027. If you look at the graph here on the pie chart of where it's all broken down, indirects are about 3%, general fund about 22% of our dollars, with special funds about 40%, and in federal dollars about 33%.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And can you give us an example, maybe it happens later, Secretary, but what are some examples of the short Sure,

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: yes. So we can go sort of the flow of funds, I think is our next So if you look at general fund, it's 22% of our base budget, and that essentially covers a lot of our internal services, our benefits, our salaries. And there are some of our economic development core programs that fund some of those as well. Federal funds, 33% of our base budget. So we receive funds from the federal agencies. It may come to USDA, FDA, and EPA. For example, in USDA, have we can get in more detail on that later on, we have couple slides on it the Northeast Area Business Innovation Center. It's a multimillion dollar center that we manage for the Northeast, but that's an example. We've got some smaller funds through FDA, for example, Probuphine safety, work we do for them, and also EPA, we have some modest dollars that we get through them. Special funds, it's 40% of our base budget, so that's fees, licenses, registrations, for example, pesticide registration fees are used to support some of our lab work, but also some of our enforcement work in that world. Small interdepartmental transfer funds, and that's about 5% of our base budget. It could be something from labor coming over for us to help with farm worker housing inspections, for example. So that's an example the CARES Act. Six appropriations we have. We have the administration, which Andy and myself are part of, we have food safety and consumer protection, agriculture development, plant industry, Vail, which is the lab at Randolph, and then we have the agriculture water quality efficient. So those are the different divisions that we have. Again, another slide breaking down the exact dollars and the percentages from the proposed budget. It's a pretty small increase, just about about 2% decrease to make our our targets on our

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: categories. Your total subject is 2%? Yeah.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: 1.8 essentially.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Alright. Gotcha. So,

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: if you look at some of the areas of increase and some of it mostly is the cost of doing business, contributions we make for retirement, medical leave, childcare, and then there's clean water grants. You'll an increase in that, and that's might that comes through the cleaning water fund, the board that develops a budget for other agencies and the public, and then they present that to the governor and it's included in the governor's proposal, and then legislature acts on that proposal.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then, you think, part of mental transversions that, like SLAs and things like that? Like SLAs for the Agency of Digital Services, is that included in interdepartmental transfers, or what are the

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Not in interdepartmental transfers. For the record, agency or financial that would be paid for with special general

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: funds. What are your interdepartmental transfers?

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: So that is oh, okay. So internal service fees, is that

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: what you're Would that be part of that,

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: or you don't? No, interdepartmental transfer funds are monies that we receive from other agencies to assist work, and it could be like Waterfall, it could be Right,

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We do an A and R.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Correct. So internal service funds are your Department of Human Resources allocation, your BGS. BGS. Those aren't, yes.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So it's mainly getting paid for your staff, pardon me? Correct.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: And then a couple of and then you at the bottom, you'll see a couple of things with federal funds at the bottom. 1.5 and consistent with infrastructure grants. And then the internal one is the transfer funds. That's the Lake Champlain Basin program. That's a two state, New York, Vermont collaborative, and federal funds come to that, and then we get some of those funds that come to us. A couple of areas of decrease, a bit of caution on the dairy business deviation standard contract. So it shows them as a $3,500,000 decrease, but essentially what is happening is there, it's a USDA funded program, and they're sending the money in smaller chunks as they come to us. So, in this particular case, we had had money that was going out in contracts, right? And then it and now we're gonna be doing more to the side of it. So, technically, it is a decrease but the money is coming but it's not coming as quickly as possible. So, the money is going out a little bit differently and slower. So, that's why it's reflected that situation. We did get some good news a couple of weeks ago. The USDA had put some of these funds on hold as they reviewed them. We normally would get notice in October, but they did release the funds to us. So we're back on schedule. So we started getting those dollars down to the farmers and processes over the next few months. The center is Vermont. All of them may be went to New York or Pennsylvania, New Jersey, as well as the Southern public. You dealt with some of the federal funds that went away during the change in administration last year, the local food systems and schools grants, local food purchase assistance grants, and then this $1,000,000 one at the bottom we're at end of the branding. It was a five year grant to us to work on some water quality work, and that's just coming to the end. So it'll be a decrease. And then the next one, as we get to our, we're asking for one new position of the agency, and this would be in the business office. The business office has a total of four employees, but we're managing an immense amount of particularly on the federal side, state side with grants and contracts. So this position would support Amy's department, and you would go to the pool to get that get that decision.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it in the insurance cost, isn't it in your budget?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yes. About 101 So we would go from four to five positions in that office. Here are our level funded items, you know, the fairs and field banks, farm to plate, the Natural Resources Conservation Council with Farm to School, some local food banks, working lands, all remaining public funding for the year.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that Farm to School, do you have to match the federal funding unit?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: I don't believe so. This is general fund money.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Just to increase the program?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yeah. What's the fair side thing for? The fair side thing, we have the operational grants, so the fairs fuel base, they apply, and depending on size and scope, if they're very ordered, $40,000 sometimes they're granted. And then some of the requirements, have to be open three times to qualify. So there's an operational one, but there's also capital ones. And the capital ones That's different than That's different. Let's look at capital budget.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You've got 300,000 on that,

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: is there? Yes. And that's and those are, you know, if you wanted put in a new bandstand or if you wanted to put more seating in, that kind of thing goes to the capital budget. The piece of the operation funds, there's one that helps support this community. That's Do you have to apply for that? Yes. Okay. I thought they just got it every year. Yeah, that was an application. They just said they had to apply. That was news to me because I thought they always just got it.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, they

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: They apply, and then if

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: they apply, they get it. They just have to

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: be open for three consecutive.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But they've applied for both of them. Right?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yes. This one and the capital. Yes. Yeah.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Nobody else is buying. No.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: If they were ready to get in, if they were open more than three days for a mention. Right. Yeah. It's based on a fund.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They have to be open three consecutive days for fair event. Correct.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: We walked through some of the highlights on the overview, talking about the basic salaries and benefits, and then the one position that we're asking for. We are budgeting on the ABS side as they go to a new formula. We think, I mean, conversation, we're kind of guessing, but we think we need about a $55,000 increase for us. And we'll turn to the food safety and consumer protection. This is, you know, dairy inspections, meat inspection, basic measures, etcetera. Pretty standard. We did have, and this is where the FDA trimmed us on a produce safety program. We go out and inspect fruits and veggies, the education part, and we had to trim. So we're doing the inspections, but we're not doing this amount of sort of education with a grant at the University of Vermont Extension on that. So that's been trending by about $50,000.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah, Senator

[Senator Anne Watson (Member)]: Watson. Thank you. I may be mistaken about this, but haven't are, there been some cuts at the federal level for food safety?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yeah, and it's been translated back to the states with some of those. So this particular program was started probably had a big flu scare out of California, maybe a decade ago, and one of the gaps that it discovered was not enough inspections. So they created this program through FDA and they gave block to the state to try to manage them. So they, you know, do all the farms where it is practices because each state is different size and scale. So they send us money and then we built a program essentially ramping up for inspections. This a lot of farms were not being inspected at all. Mhmm. You know how they want to. There could be cattle production near the, you know, the images. And so they built the program, and it's going pretty well. And then the FDA, I think nationally, it was about, in total it was a 40% trend, which got translated back to

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: The States. So is that in part why

[Senator Anne Watson (Member)]: that this program got trimmed?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yeah, we had to take away, we continued with the inspections, but we decided that to make it work, had to, you know, the educational component that we worked with, have extension on best practices that we had to trim that by about a $100,000 But, yeah. Okay.

[Senator Anne Watson (Member)]: Well, it's good to know where that paper. Yeah.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: So now we're in the agriculture development part of it. Basic standard salaries and benefits. We mentioned some of the reductions that came through the USDA, the local food one, and I think you backfilled that a little bit last year with some dollars that was lost. There is some, there's a bipartisan bill in Congress that would try to restart this This was one of those that bought, purchased local food, and then it was distributed to those in need to some of the networks. So that's on its way, and then it actually got trimmed. It was one of the probably our biggest that we lost in that. And as we the bottom one there is the farm to school reduction of 30,000. And there's the dairy farmers are have a a promotional campaign. They are assessed a certain amount, 15¢ per 100 goes into a fund. Can they use those dollars for promotion or research? Not state dollars, but through the statute, we manage that program at the agency. So they've trimmed that farm to school by about $30,000 and put it into other things. You can look at, I mean, we do get, get grants out of the folks in our agriculture development farm, mainly our economic development part of the agency. 80% of what we do is regulatory, but there is a part of that development. You can see some of the dollars, they have considerable federal dollars that support it, state dollars as well. I think you've been briefed on the, one of our key programs is the Working Lands Program, That's both forestry and agriculture. You can see some of the investments here. Dave's budget is $1,000,000 which we're asking for. And we have a $20,000 gift from Steve Vermont, really quite nice for us to have. And you can see some of the investments we've made out over the last decade, how many jobs it's created, investments across all the 15 counties, and some of our service providers also receive dollars to help our farmers essentially help with business plan as well.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you have a carryover that I could somewhere?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Do have at the ALN, we'll we do have a slide on carryovers. If you wanna go to that

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, I guess just no. I guess it is on here. I guess, no. I guess I mean, you're are you getting the money out? Like, the money out? Yes. Like, 4.27, you that was the request, but you only

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: had some two. We're well over prescribed and request. It's a very competitive program. We have a number of patients and we did, we were fortunate to have some harbor dollars that we used. We also had some one time money over the last few years and went very, very healthy. But now we're back to, you know, the base. We did increase the base as well. Was at one point it was 46,000, I think,

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: and we got up to 1,000,000 a couple of years ago, which

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: has been very, very helpful. But we had one time money and Arbor money, so we were able to do some bigger, bigger grants, smaller, smaller grants, but we're returning sort of back to the gains of what it was what it was in finance. So so what are you looking for for the share of your working lands currently? $11,000,000 on the base, which can be level funded, and then the 20,000 skiers will continue. But we do not have a one time answer or an increase in that. Okay. Thank you, Luis. The next one is the, talk a little bit about it, is the USDA, the Fairy Business Innovation Center, 11 states, all New England, New York, kicked out about $50,000,000 so far. It's become extremely popular and it's essentially infrastructure with some marketing. So if someone wants to pasteurize it for, they want to make cheese, maybe it's on the farm, they want a robotic milker, you know, to help finance these grants to farmers and also people in the dairy industry. We have a little map. Awarded four eighty eight grants. The average grant is about $85,000 anywhere from $10,000 to $2,000 On the higher end, we've done million dollar grant as well. I went to for work they're doing, and there's probably seen in the store, the cracker sizes, and cracker cuts where you can, they're all ready for your convenience, Well, make an investment in a machine. They were handpacking those or getting it. So the automation, they're able to help them get a new machine up in the town cabin. But that's one of our larger ones, but we have smaller ones, or, you know, farms, or goat farms, sheep farms, cheese makers.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is this, the, did you call it

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: a center in person? Yeah, Innovation Center.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But I assume it's not a center, it's like a staff member.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yeah, it's not a physical location. Although someday we would like to have a brick and mortar cheese school or dairy processing people could come and keep on working on that, that could be coming along the way, find the dollars for that appointment. UBM had one many, many years ago where people from out in the country could come and learn how to make dairy products, but that would be a dream to have the birth of water, but we've got some studies that have been done on that and how to achieve that. So hopefully over the next three or four years, we'll be able to pull that off.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't know if he's worked on them. Six. Six. They're all All.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Plans industry, you may recall that it's farm, farm is an odd, or just going back to all their work is centered around the plan. Standard increases, And, yeah, pretty basic there. And the lab, down in Randolph, just essentially maybe recent benefits. If we do have something, we go through the capital budget if there's some need for a piece of equipment to experiment for testing. We go through the capital budget. Clean water. It goes to roll along. We have some federal dollars in here. So they wanna use with. And then this is one of our significant changes that we're asking for. We're asking to reduce two major fees for our dairy farmers. One is in the medium farm operations. So these are in two hundred and seven hundred cows. And then a large farm is 700 plus. The medium farm operations have paid an annual fee of $1,500 and the large farms have paid a fee of $2,500 Small farms have not paid a fee, so that's not why it's not reflected here if they would have when the Act 64 was created about a decade ago. We started with a a fee. We would like to reduce those fees and shift that over to general fund dollars. Dairy economy is extremely difficult right now. We understand this is not going to solve some of the structural problems that are in federal system with dairy pricing, but it is one last bill that our farmers would have to pay, and they can pay something else with it and not have to pay this annual fee. And I think the Is it 231,000, something like that? It's $131.05. A $131.05 change to general fund, and it would impact about 141 farmers. So 141 farmers would benefit. But not getting center group.

[Unidentified committee member]: So I I think I fully understand why you you would ask for this and understand from my time on the ag committee how narrow margin of birth and birth. Just in general, though, with with this governor, he's as a policy for his time in office, he said, he's not going release fees. And so often we have fees remaining stagnant for six years, eight years, ten years. And that creates its own harsh realities in the budget. Here we're going a step further and saying we're going to get rid of it and just transfer them to the general fund. I I would like to see if there was some in the administration, some willingness to,

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: you not have everything that would after fees

[Unidentified committee member]: sort of by not being raised. And then now being eliminated, there are some fees like in the judiciary, which because they haven't been raised over the years, organizations are, you know, trying to go bankrupt that we depend on. So that would be my only question here is, you know, we're not just continuing down the road of impoverishing things paid for by the fees, we're accelerating by getting rid of fees and going into the charity fund. Also on that?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: And I think why we're asking for this is because we have very little control over the price farmers are paying for the product. It's the idle system. So I think this is a way for us to take one mill pile. And I'm not sure it's it's it's and I understand where you I I understand where you're coming from because back in the old days, there was sort of a fee schedule, like, it's your turn, and you did adjust for that. But I think, you know, these farmers may pay another fee, you know, they might be able pay in some part of the business. So I think this is an attempt to address in small way and shifting over to, you know, all the taxpayers. And the other things that have impacted on this event as well, I think, are pretty much the only stated or assertive region has a fee to cooperation. But I understand that was done because of the creation of the water quality initiative, you know, ten years ago, and that's why it was done. You know, it was in, all of it, created a program, so forth. But so I think that's that's sort of our view on it. We haven't really reflected on, you know, the other fields, except we wanted to help this patient with a central because of the difficult time. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: Understood. Just trying to make my my concern up front is not that this fever with the and how they basically lose by time because it's nothing crazy. With that said, I'll let you

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: And I can certainly agree with that.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. Senator, why don't take a question?

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Yeah. So I'm looking at the 675,000 increase in Champlain Basin grants, is that a guarantee that you have? Is that or is this an ask that you're going to be making? Because that's been an addition to the 231,000. Big benefit. This is interdepartmental transfer funds, so this funding would be coming from agency and Apple resources. And behind that would be, on their side, be federal funding being passed over to us. Okay, and then is there any funding that would come from the clean water fund?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yes, yeah, we get it. It's a $2,500,000 amount that is developed, and that will come to us based on the budget process that goes through the So whole that's, and we're comfortable with that working with our other agencies and partners with that. I also want to highlight that we're not changing, with the fees, we're not changing any programming at all, so we're going to continue working on what needs to be done to improve water quality. We're not reducing employees of programming with the switch. Just doing just the funding source.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Have our next witnesses on the hallway waiting if there's any other highlights.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: And we'll just leave you with the performance measures are there in the back of your file, so you can look at those at your convenience, and if you have any questions, we're happy

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to answer those. Mr. Norris? Just a quick question. Better funds, any problems coming in?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: I think the big ones that, you know, we were concerned about, but it's, you know, it's day to day, you never know.

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: Good morning.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: And at some point, you know, there's some discussion there may mean, they may create new programs that people are wanting one year into this. But there's tremendous pressure across the industry in other states to, you know, I talked about, you know, our farm economy not being great, it's just as bad as other states as well. So there's tremendous pressure on the administration figure somebody's out there. Stay tuned. But right now, don't have day to day and looks, you know, I don't think there's any more we can really trim right now. Haven't been told about it. Mr. Westman? How many farms do we have that? There's about four fifty and we, you know, I think it's gonna be a rough six to nine months. We're having another really, and the other equation is the price of the animals are very high now. Very high. Very high, so that is in some ways an incentive to some people that want to exit the business, they can get a good price for the animals. I would just say, I heard anybody talk about my neighboring farm right now, it was an organic, it's the last farm in practically might tackle. But you've got, I think one other, but, in the current use program where you have to have a legitimate firm that makes more than half of their income offering that to stay in agriculture for the last five years, it's virtually impossible to find any budget in agriculture. Yeah, understand. And the organic market has turned around as well. Now there's a shortage of organic milk, but getting people transitioned into organic production is certainly a long process. You know, five years ago, we were just the opposite, so it's, but with the price of cattle being so high, it's, yeah, it's incentive now. So, it's

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a different concentration organic is forty, forty two?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Yeah, it depends, you know, it depends on some of the components in the protein, the butterfat, but one of the advantages for the organic is that they know what their price is gonna be paid each month, they know they're, and unlike the conventional market, it's they're paid a month and a half until they're ready the product, so this is supply and demand.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Where are they, think, dollars

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: 4 below cost of production, I think that's the most, so that was some people were saying, you know, dollars 15 mil. And we've had a 20 mil for few years, and it's been okay, but the inputs are extremely high now as well, So we're going through another really difficult stretch. Well, thank you. Thank you, Senator. You've shared it. Everyone have a fantastic rest of Friday, and we can Yeah.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Likewise. Thanks for all that. Thank you.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: I

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: still have a form. You may Yeah. Bottom of

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Just let me share.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm here too much. If I stay in to the. Oh, yeah.

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: That that's how that works now?

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We can alter the rules. Because I had no incentive because I've never heard. I

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: know. We really do have to

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Might have a new system out of urns.

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: That's right. Quizlet.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: For every hour of. All talking about expenditures in that meeting. But I wanted to introduce yourselves and give us your presentation. Perfect. Good afternoon.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Scott Moore, legislative finance manager for the general fiscal office. I brought with me all the legislative directors. I don't know if you want to all say hello or not, it's up to you, while I share my screen. Are they just here for emotional support? If they're gonna die, you I often need lots of support, Senator Perchlik. No, I don't actually make any jokes. So I have prepared this presentation and Elle had it's on his website, I believe. So as we go through this, just to talk about the FY twenty seven budget for the legislative branch. The legislative branch does include general assembly in terms of legislators as well as the legislative IT, legislative council, the fiscal office of sergeant of arms, HR, speakers, office and the hospital perhaps as well. With that said, I'm sure you've heard or haven't yet, you're gonna hear lots of different people come in and talk about how the budgets work and what the budget instructions have given us. Just a quick background, budget instructions come out same time in August and the budget instructions gave us the instruction to increase the budget would have been about 3%. Try not to go over 3% of the overall budget. And in that, include 5.4% increase for PAY Act, the estimated 5% for healthcare, as well as any increase in the Federal Service Fund fees. At that point in time, they suggested that we cap them at 3% and know that they might increase typically in the final term service fund. Costs are calculated at the December. This is what I put together for you here. Make that a little bit bigger maybe. And the legislature is what you got down at the bottom, but it's also all Correct. Pledge, pledge, pay, protem, speaker, anything to add to that. The legislature. General assembly, exactly. So that general assembly includes you can see general assembly are the members, the house clerk. Clerk house clerk. Yeah, the clerk house clerk apparently. First time I've seen that, but the senate secretary helps even resources. You can see here that we have estimated $25,685,794 for the FY 'seventeen increase, a request from last year, which is an increase of $1,100,000 over FY26. You will notice the FY26 column did say adjusted for publication. If you remember last year at the end of the session, we added $1,500,000 to the legislative budget in anticipation of the session running along, cost for the mezzanine project, things like that. So because of that being added to the budget, we didn't want that to be considered at a global base. If that had been in there, would say 26 money, $44,703 a couple weeks ago, came in there and talked about that budget number of 26,000,000. But to compare apples to apples, we reduced it by the 1,500,000.0 just so you can kinda see what the actual cost would be year over year. One other thing I'd point out in the right hand column is the change in percentage of legislature being negative 2.5% increase, the legislative being a 20% increase, JFL being an eight percent increase. That's the effect of the legislative operations in these things split up. So we took about $900,000 away from the legislature and split that about seven seventy seven to the legislature and so on that with our 23 JFLs. It's one of

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: those competitors looking like that.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Excuse me. Did you use that funding that we that we had at the end of the year for federal? That is correct. Or or I mean, if we thought we were gonna have another. I have to go let you see how many weeks actually it went last year. Compare, as you might remember, about $300,000 a week is estimated cost between salary and benefits. So I have to go look and see exactly what we would have used that money. Yeah. Because I think we're going to collect forwards. See if I go square out. I know that I kept making sure you all got your expenses paid and thought to myself, go home so you can stop paying me all this So with that said, the one other thing that we do with the legislature, it's a little bit different, Valerie, he's just coming here, is we do have a meeting with the Drug Registered Management Committee. So Senator Erbai and Senator Ruth have already heard his paper presentation. We go in the December to the committee and say, here's what we propose the budget will be. Then we can get approval from them along the way. Also do meeting with finance and management as other agencies do. At that meeting in December 12, I presented a budget that was 25,519,000, only $974,000 increase as opposed to the $1,000,000 increase I just mentioned. The difference of the $166,000 is the increase in internal service fund fees that happened in the PACCAR. The Central District presented on the twelfth and by the seventeenth they had new numbers. So this number here, the $9.74, that was at that time. And then later on, I did send a memo to the Chair of Vice Chair of General MCs to let them know that we have that number, $166,000 increase to add, which we have in fact that 1.11 we pictured in the last slide. Who else is I, Ginny Lyons? Senator Baruth and Senator Lyons and Senator Clarkson, the senators, and then those House. Three House members, and the remaining name on the cabinet. The Speaker, and I forget about that.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Karen, though. Theresa Woods? No.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's three in three. But there were some slight Correct, so the reversion at $17,000 part of my portfolio, other thing I look at is capital bill, and that capital bill cost us, we go back and look at any old one time appropriations of monies that are two years older to say, are we using this? Is this something we need? Can we give it back? What's going on in this instance? That $17,000 and $65 The $17,000 was from a basic needs technical advisory committee that was left over, and the $65 was left over from an independent jury. So the point of the fact is we weren't planning on using that $17,000 for things, and so we reverted back to the general thought was the exception. Senator First Leach did mention the one other thing I forgot to mention, the DAA that we're, you just were on the floor talking about, these numbers here in the Fi-twenty six, that is pre So after VA, those numbers have changed. I remember we talked about that a couple weeks ago. So what are the increases? Essentially 80% of that is through people. And healthcare costs increase, we had pay act costs. There was another position that the sergeant of arms went to have. That's $25,000 It's not a lot, but that is included in that 88 percent of what's in the position. We'll get to that in just a moment soon, Richard. The rest of the percentage increase is basically stuff. So here we can see we have 5.4% increase in salaries. Health care at the time was predicted about 5%, and then increased increased internal service funds were there as well. So staffing requests here, sergeant of arms like to have a new head core guy position. That position would be part time year round. It's an unbenefited position, so no one cost would salary, as I mentioned, is about $25,000 in that work and health. And some torsion spray in the fall, and then in the off session, they're gonna do less need for those hours. I'm just here if you want that to ask questions. Just simply think about that. So it's a temporary, limited sort of like just just in the times that you have tourists doing. Tours, or even during the school year?

[Aggie Kessler (Sergeant at Arms, State House)]: Aggie Kessler, Sergeant Arch of the Record. So it'd be in our peak seasons, happens in the spring when you're in sesh while you're still in session and the school groups come in, they wanna see the legislate legislative legislature in action, and then in the fall, where we offer tours every hour on the hour for leaf keepers. We get we do 3,000 tours a year at the State House.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Between school students and tourists? And on that 5.4 salary increase, was that that over the two years of the plan? This is the second year. It was 5.4 for the this should be the second year. Correct. It was 6.5, I think. Mhmm. This next paragraph, the legislative branch budgets by department, we talked a little bit before when I was in here about moving legislative operations around. Once we pass the proposed motions that we're at JLMC, I'll show you the chart so you can kinda see what that looks like. But just so we know, JLMC did have a couple of motions that they had made, one of which was that if the numbers changed substantially after the increase in child service funding costs, I would report back to them. I wanted to show you that first slide where we had the percentages, we had negative 220%. Here's what it would look like if there had been no changes made in my selection. So everything gets made the same. Every department you can see is between 34% increase. That's as if the community systems didn't move, everybody stayed where they were, and then you can see that's 3.97%, down to 3.76% for the reversion. Then in legal judge ops changes, this is moving that $900,000 around. These are wilder swings. Again, these are a little bit less than the first line because there's an increase in those administrative structures. One thing I did wanna mention, Senator Baruth had passed and had the jail scene meeting what the increase he's had done over the years. In the past four years, the average increase was 8.3 year over year. So this is down to. And then we did have an increase in those service loan fees, which I'll point out where if I can get the right number here. I know why the PDF did show up, the second memo, but the second memo, which is on your website, I'll make sure it all has the right version if there's anything wrong with this. Is that part three? It would be part three. Correct. I don't know why the memo of Wikipedia. I'm looking online.

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: That's good.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Could be just a PDF by the graph to show you off. That's showing a $166,000 in each of that case. And then the last parts, parts four through the end, is every single ingredient line item comes every single position from soup to nuts. So if you'd like, I'm happy to answer any questions about those. You can have the way you throw it back on the screen because the font is very tiny. So that's all I have with you. Unless you have specific questions, which I'm happy to answer. And reach out if there's any questions. Anybody else? I feel like since we have all the directors here, I feel like that's not

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: I mean, certainly have like them always. Yeah. The only thing is if he's everybody, find out yourself.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Good teeth.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: We should ask them if everybody's hungry.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. They look at me.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: They're all swiping.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Even the teeth. Please don't keep that on the right. Okay. Well, thank you for your time. Good work on this.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Thanks, Scott.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You know, we're unmated. We're back to the the FY twenty seven budget request. We have the humanities council no. The arts council. Alright.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: That's okay. We're we're usually sitting right next to each other, so that's why.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'll let you introduce yourself.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Okay. Great. I'm Susan Evans McClure, the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council. Happy to be wrapping up your week with you. And many of you have heard us say, the council is the state's arts agency and the state affiliate of the National Gallup of the Arts. What we really do is work to envision a Vermont where all artists can thrive and where creativity is at the heart of our communities. And we've been doing this since 1965 as the state's provider of funding, advocacy, and information for the arts in Vermont. So I'm not really gonna break any news to you here, to say that we're in pretty challenging, unprecedented times. I'm sure you've heard this again and again from folks in your committee. The upheaval from the government is really affecting so many parts of Vermont life, and the arts and culture sector are being directly targeted, from cuts to federal agencies, to changing priorities of federal grant making, to the dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and on and on and on. Vermont's arts and culture sector is really under tremendous pressure right now. At the same time, over the past year, we've seen time and again the power that the arts and humanities and libraries and museums have to heal us, to connect us, bring us together. And I think it's worth saying that America's cultural sector is being uniquely targeted, I think, because of the tremendous power we have to make positive change in our communities through the practice of what we do. The creative sector really shows us a new way of looking at the world and helps us remember what being human is really all about. With the Arts Council, we really see our role in the state as supporting the infrastructure that the creative sector needs to thrive and meet the needs of our communities. So we work primarily at Great. All ways of being creative are welcome at this table. We work primarily as grant makers. So we invest in private and federal support in communities across the state. We also are conveners. We bring people together for learning, connection, and to advance the arts, and we are the state's advocates and storytellers for the power of our sector. Next, please. Sorry, had to reach you. Oh, that's okay. I'm okay. Well No, it's okay. Okay, thanks.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: I'll skip out. So

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: at FY '25, the council awarded a little over $1,400,000 in direct grant funding. It's those two fifty five total grants to 95 individuals, 139 organizations in every county and state. Grants directly supported artists to create new work, created more public art for our communities, supported arts education, and arts organizations who are really adding vibrancy to our communities. The council also administers two grant programs on behalf of the state, the Cultural Facilities Grant Program and the Art and State Buildings Program, which are funded through the capital bill. I was thinking about what to share today, and there's two fifty five grants in every single grant, and I can tell you an incredible story, so I'm just gonna pick two brief ones. If you can go to the next slide. The first is in the town of Ludenburg, Vermont's far eastern border. The town of Lunenburg received an arts project grant to work with the community to paint a mural that is now located at the transfer station, the dump. I'll share a quote with you from the project lead.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Did they build the thing to make the mural, or is that something that was there? I

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: believe that was our, I believe

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Looks like it's standing up built. Wood shop. Yeah,

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I think we did build it. It was a community product, so they actually built the whole, kind of figured out its location and talked with the community and brought in an artist. Rupini. What they said was that rural communities operate on shoestring budgets and often convincing voters to fund the arts is very hard. This project has certainly pleased our community, which could mean in the future, could ask taxpayers to fund our projects, and they would say yes. We've heard a lot from residents who also wish they had volunteered some time to help install the mural. Even with funding, these projects require a great deal of volunteerism, and we definitely know the next art project we undertake, there will be plenty of volunteers to help out. For the impact and engagement numbers, I've included our entire town population, because everyone in all caps visits the transfer station almost on a weekly basis, and certainly everyone on a monthly basis. And you can't miss the mural. And we know from comments that residents have been bringing their kids to the transfer station when they ordinarily wouldn't, just so they can see the mural by day.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Nice.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: And if you'll go to the next slide, I just have one more example from an organization called the Arts Bus. It's an arts education program in Randolph. As the name suggests, they have a bus, they travel around the schools, community centers. They received an arts operating grant to support their work, and they shared that Arts Council funding has been pivotal to the success of the Arts Bus through an incredible year of reaching milestones, climbing hills, bridging gaps, and overcoming obstacles. This multi year operating support paved the way to add a person to our staff and devote more time to business development, which turned out to be an accelerant, too. To have your endorsement allowed us to reach our goals for new fundraising, and we've secured two more multi year grants, which also have retained program partners, both of which have secured our revenue streams for the next two years. Further, through the classes you've provided, the chance to work

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: with you as a panelist,

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: and the publicity you've afforded us with your talented team, we've felt appreciated, included, informed, and made better by being part of this community. I love this memo because it also speaks to not only creating amazing work, creating products, creating things for kids, but the important behind the scenes role that the Arts Council plays in business development in supporting the nuts and bolts that nonprofits, which our businesses, need to get things done. If you could go to the next slide, please. I'll just take a brief moment to expand on the important role that the creative sector plays in Vermont's overall economy. The creative sector is our collective enterprises, businesses, organizations, individuals, anyone whose products or services really has artistic and creative content at its root. The council is committed to growing our creative economy in order to grow our overall economy for all Vermonters. One of the council's main initiatives is the Vermont Creative Network, which is celebrating our ten year anniversary this year. It was created in statute in 2016, and it's focused on bringing together a broad coalition of organizations, businesses, and individuals to advance creativity across the state. We know that when we invest in the arts, culture, and creativity as essential infrastructure, it means that we see a corresponding increase in statewide investment and resources for the creative sector, from in our smallest towns to our biggest cities. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis in 2023, the Vermont arts and culture sector was a more than $1,200,000,000 industry. We're 3% of the state's GFP, and we count for over 10,000 jobs. Although, in terms of federal changes, this has been crucial data to us to help us understand how the sector is growing and building. We work with other states to compare state by state data. We have heard some rumors, I will say breaking news, I just got an email from them this morning, that the US Bureau of Economic Analysis is no longer collecting this data for the sector. So that is something we're working with our partners regionally and nationally to ensure that we can still get the data we need to move forward where we have relied on our federal partners before. Go to the next slide, please. We also know that patrons of live arts and culture events are supporting our local economies. In a 2022 national survey, we found that there were 1,400,000 attendees to nonprofit arts and culture events in Vermont that year. 25% of the folks who attended were local, meaning they were from the county and which was taking place. 75% were from out of the county. And this study was great because it let us put some hard numbers on how much money they spent on top of just buying a ticket. So this could be anything from paying for parking, going out to dinner, paying a babysitter. Non local attendees were spending over $50 per person on top of the cost of their ticket, and locals were spending just under $30 every time they buy a ticket. And these numbers are larger in the bigger cities, think in Burlington, the out of towners number was over $75 as well. Academic data is great, but it's also about what Vermonters think about the arts. So in 2024, as part of the Vermonter poll, we found that 93% of respondents believe that opportunities to view and participate in arts and culture are an important part of thriving and healthy communities, Then 87% of folks agree that the arts and culture are an important K-twelve education. When they think about what defines Vermont, 84% of people said that the arts are important to the identity of our state. It's the intangible thing that makes us who we are. Next slide, please.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Susan, do maybe have any slide with the art in the State Building? Does that include the art that's outside transportation projects?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Depends on which transportation projects? Mostly, yes. Art Buildings program is funding to go along with capital projects to create a new public artwork as part of a public building. So AOT had their own art fund, because I know some transportation projects, that's art. I don't know. So the way Art and and Technology is set up is that the funding, we administer the program with the funding to basically pay the artist to create the work, and then once the work is installed, it becomes property of BGS, so then BGS manages that through their budget. So they are maintaining it. You'll see mean, they're they're everywhere in Vermont.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They're just

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: over 35 of projects up to date, including, yeah, a lot of the the rest there's often art along the rest stops. There was another project actually,

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: that's totally a sign here, that was started in the sixties and seventies that was called Sculpture on the Highways. The art council was involved in the creation of that project, but it has been long since passed. It was actually a very interesting thing where they had

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That were the whale tales, basically?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I think that was the whale tales. No. But it was one of the pieces that's in Williston Reston. Heading north in the Williston Reston, there's a very large concrete sculpture that was created as part of that. They actually brought artists from around the country to do the symposium in Vermont on One year it was concrete sculpture, I think the next year it was stone. Then they installed them, and they're part of the Department of Transportation. Right now, we're not actually working on this, I'm just fascinated by it. Sheets and DBS have brought in some consultants to help of assess the state of all of those artworks too. But a good one because it's everywhere.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The KITS work was some pest stops.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So we did fund and, yeah, the Vermont Arts Council funded a bus stop project in Virginia GEMS in partnership with Agency of Transportation. We've had a great relationship with Agency of Transportation. There's actually a guide now that we created with them to public art how to create public art as part of their transportation project. Yeah. The it's called Flower Stop. There's if you're ever driving for

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a chance, they testify in transportation, or did somebody

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I did not, but someone else did. Yeah.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Based on just from AMT that worked.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Yep. That one was fun too. Was a partnership with Northland's job training program with the Chats, so they're welders, and then the artist, Kat Cleary, created these giant metal flower sculptures and then developed them with the students. It really lightens up that lock. Arts Council is the only state arts agency in the country that operates as an independent nonprofit. Are a quasi state agency created in statute in 1965 to act as the state's arts agency. The council receives the majority of its funding from two sources, the National Network for the Arts in the state of Vermont. The ADA requires that the state government match the federal dollars dollar for dollar. Our general fund match allows us to secure substantial federal funds each year that are distributed to organizations, schools, and communities in all areas of the state. While there has been so much that's uncertain about federal funding, in terms of the Arts Council, we have been in an incredibly fortunate position. We have retained our federal funding with no cuts. The National Endowment for the Arts continues to operate. We've received all of our federal money from FY twenty six so far. The budget was just passed in DC a couple weeks ago that funds the NEA, and we've been informed by the NEA that we should plan on level funding for FY27. It's pretty monumental given what our partners are going through. And we recognize that while this is a good story of stability that we want to continue, there are also other changes to NEA funding that artists are experiencing in Vermont. There's limits to freedom of expression that artists are experiencing across the nation, and that the Arts Council really remains committed to using our public funds to invest in communities to support all Vermonters with access to the arts and arts education and community connection. So we've been told that our budget will be the same as last year, around $1,071,000

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And that would be the state match, if you'd say that your FY $26 amount, the one that you'd be wondering, do you get more money in addition to the NEA match? Can you say that? Your your state you probably have an interest.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Can you go to the next one, actually? Way, it's just numbers on budget.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What I was asking.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So, yeah, last year, our match, they ended up adding additional funding for $2.58 related projects last year, so they're telling us that this is the amount we should be aiming for this year. We're in the governor's budget, a little over a million dollars, which is a 3% increase from last year. So that puts us at a gap between what we are required to match from the NDA what we're in the governor's recommended budget for, for around $38,000 In previous years, we've received notice of how much our award will be around April, which we always bring to you. Last year, we actually didn't find out until July. So we'll say we were $2 off on our guests, but that was okay last year. So we will continue to be in conversation just so we know what that is, because we know that things are tight. We appreciate the support.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How does it affect between the federal fiscal year and the state fiscal year?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: So they look for the amount that's It has to be in the general fund appropriated dollars to the State Arts Council in the most recent budget year. We So have a couple month lag of how that works. I'll get started with today, and I think it's important to say that NEA's funds have not been cut. I also feel like it's important to talk about the other sectors, including the non profit, the young cultural organizations who received state support, who have been significantly impacted in the past year. Vermont Humanities, the Historical Society, the Symphony. Last year, Vermont Humanities had $630,000 in appropriated federal funding drawn back, and they anticipate that they will receive no federal funding in this current fiscal year. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra had a grant from the NEA canceled that they had already planned on using, actually, for a concert part of their concert series that included last year's concert in this building. And the Vermont Historical Society has routinely received funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, but they are moving forward assuming that funding from that agency will no longer be available. And I know all of you see every day the important role that our state's cultural agencies play. That's from economic development to student success, community cohesion, to really being at the heart of helping people understand how our democracy functions. When we stop supporting this essential slice of public life with public funding, we're really diminishing our prospects for the long term future of our state. Because this year has been so hard, and because Vermont's arts and cultural organizations are really in the crosshairs, our four cultural organizations are also putting forward or passed for a 10% increase to funding. If you'll go to the next slide. I think I'm on the next slide. This time around that increase is really nowhere near closing the gap that these organizations are facing, nor is that our intent with asking. We know that that would be unsustainable to ask the state to close these gaps in federal funding. Instead, we're really hoping that this request is seen in the spirit of signifying to Vermont communities that the state had their back, that the state believes in the work that they do, and that the state really values what our cultural sector brings to communities statewide. And for the Arts Council, that 10% increase would cover the amount required for our federal match, allow us to increase grant making in the communities that have been most hit by these other federal cuts, and I'm sure my partners and the other cultural organizations would be happy to talk to you about specifics for them as well. Again, I think one to note, too, is that historical society has some kind of staff poorly required ways that they need to operate. The 3% budget increase does not cover the increase in those costs, So with an only 3% budget increase, the historical society actually has to cut their budgets based on what they need to do in statute. So in thinking about this, and we know that asks are hard, especially in this year, I just wanna mention just a little bit. Mean, it's good to John F. Kennedy. And in 1962, Franklin Kennedy said a quote that I love. It's actually on the side of the Kennedy Center. So he said, in 1962, I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit. That's really what our cultural organizations are doing for all of us. We're building our human spirit here in Vermont, and we want to keep doing it, and we need that human spirit so that we can continue thriving for whatever comes ahead for all of us.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: I like the way you called it the

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Canaries. Yeah. I noticed that.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: It's a very special place.

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: Thank you.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any other questions?

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: I have some stickers for you. I think I do.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'll put it on the.

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: Feel free to share them

[Unidentified AAFM financial/business office representative]: with friends and family. Thank

[Susan Evans McClure (Executive Director, Vermont Arts Council)]: you all. I'm sure you are ready for a little break from this very

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Committee staff/technician (unidentified)]: Thank you. You.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any questions? Is this public announcement? Yes.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets)]: Not sure.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Secrets to share?