001I think this is the informational meeting of the SVSU VSD public informational hearing for our um budget. We're going to call to order now. Thank you. >> Thanks. Thank you. And we are going to ask if there is any public comment and we are going to ask if there is public comment that it is limited to what is on the agenda, which is our budget for this evening. So, if there is any public comment, um please state your name and the town that you are from. Oh, Sandy, I just want to know when you say informational meeting and public comment, so if I have a question on what Tim or you might say in terms of the budget, I can ask it then versus getting up and asking some now? Yes, that is true. Um
002and we hopefully will be able to address it if it is part of what is in the budget. So, if you are going to ask something that might happen 5 years from now or in this new act, which is not pertaining to this budget. >> Not 73. >> not be able to address that at this time, but if it is specifically about um the proposed budget, then yes. Well, it's about how the budget, not necessarily the budget, but how the tax rate and some of the other factors affect the tax rate. So, that probably falls into there. It would be. Okay. So, why don't you start? State your name and the town that you live in? Uh my name is Shawn Marie Oller and I live in Bennington and I just had a couple questions
003in terms of what the board um might be doing in terms of outreach and in terms of getting the word out um other than this informational meeting. And it took me a long time to find this, but um through the tax department I found the current numbers for FY 26 of what each town's homestead deduction is. So, in other words, I'll just go to Woodford. There was 106 homesteads, 75 homesteads had exemptions. So, 70% of Woodford had help with their taxes. Um I won't go through all the numbers, but Bennington um is at 60%, Pownal is at 58% and Shaftsbury's at 56% and it's in this big long document that goes by town. I also have Arlington and North Bennington, but they're not part of the And then the other question, which is somewhat not
004related, is um I understand from talking to Cassie and to Chris Murphy um right after the vote that your bylaws or your articles of agreement do not allow you to disaggregate the the vote. So, in other words, there you couldn't tell if Pownal voted it down and go to Pownal and do a presentation. You can't I mean, that's how I understood what Cassie and Chris said. So, I'm curious and this is not for now, how to find the articles of agreement for this current elementary union school board. Because at MAU we used to be able to say, "Oh, so which town voted it down and which town didn't. And so I tried, but obviously the town clerks know, but I didn't feel that it was necessary to go further than that. I thought if I
005if we if you maybe you could look at the articles agreement for the future because I think when this board formed, you know, as citizens are used to looking at, let's say Woodford, a smaller budget. And when they see $33 million, it kind of, you know, it's a it's a bigger number. It's almost the same as the Mount Anthony budget. So I don't know how one can get across that, you know, and you did a nice job in this one handout where the um the municipal tax rate is is shown. So the the different towns show the different things. So I'm just here to support and I do plan to write a letter of support with some of these percentage numbers in there for the community to know. And I hope it passes. Thank you,
006Shawnmarie. Are there other members of the public either online or present that would like to share with us? I think my name is Charlie Gringo. I live here in Bennington. And I Shawnmarie just asked the question that I was going to ask. Is Is this Is this Is it correct that you be able to tell us what each of the towns vote was? So this Bennington and the others. Does Woodford support? That's my >> by 18 votes. >> Yeah. My understanding is we're not able to break that down. Because we're one unit. I mean that's we are one elementary unit. So it's it all matters. Every town, every family. Do you know? Don't know. Don't know. Okay. The town clerk has to do their job. And they they have to assemble all of them before
007their results can be released. Sean is absolutely right. It is it is required for the articles of agreement of this union elementary school district. I mean, I just think it would be easier to address people's concerns in in various towns if you knew. And so I just I'm curious if the articles of agreement can be amended or looked at. I mean, I I have no idea. I'm just saying it would make life a lot easier, especially considering what's coming up if we become even a bigger district that you're able to actually see where the concerns are. Thank you. Good points. Are there any members of our community that would like to share? Um so I can answer that we have reached out to um all of the schools to speak with both staff and uh
008PTGs um because all of the communities matter as though we have divided and gone out um among all of us. We have this wonderful information um night this evening and our superintendent is going to share some of these numbers and help to clarify some of the questions you may still have. Does everybody have a handout? They who would like We will also be putting this on um the SBSU website for folks who are at home. There is a tab that says departments at the top. Underneath that tab is superintendent and we've tried to put both budget and anything Act 73 related there. So, we we're hoping that's kind of one-stop shopping for folks that they see something in one of these meetings. So, I'll start with that. Um we've been talking about school budget since
009the fall. And so, I would encourage those of you who are in the room, this is where you want to start. Um as a new superintendent, I want to thank Renee Gordon as my chief financial officer of teaching me all the ins and outs of school budgeting. Uh it is if you read this as a first-time viewer of this, you'd think that the state has created a system on purpose that is not transparent or accountable. Um I was told by an 8-year-old this looks like shoots and ladders, and I think that's a good description of it. I try to explain it to folks this way. We work with school boards in the fall to build a responsible budget anticipating the need for the following year. We then go to the voters and ask for their
010support. This year, that first ask was 1%. What happens if you pass it is that it then goes to the legislature with every school budget in the state of Vermont that was passed. And then the legislature works on how to pay for that bill. So, it is disjointed. I would say that. The other piece is that there are for folks who are in the back trying to figure out how's this going to actually impact my taxes. I've included the math formula in the back, including descriptions of every single variable that goes into this. I'll tell you, as Renee explained this to me the first time way back in August, I said, "Well, hold on. A couple of these seem to be imaginary numbers. I remember that from high school math." And she said, "They're not
011imaginary, Tim, but they do cancel each other out." So, the reason I say that is that again, by law, every community that passes a school budget, the state of Vermont has to fund that. So, our budget, initially, was 1%. The average school budget went up 4.2% this year. And 4.2, which means there was communities that were higher than that, and there were communities lower than that. But, by law, everyone sitting in this room, watching this video, a member of these communities, we all pay for that for our property taxes. Property taxes are different than school taxes are different than how we pay for our police department, fire, sewer, highways. That's money that we approve, stays here, we pay our bills. That is not how schools work. So, that frustrates people as I meet in the
012community, I completely understand that. I've been a taxpayer for 30 years in this community, but that's how it works. You develop a budget in good faith, you ask your community to vote for that. Folks have input, they can vote it up or down. And then it is up to the legislature to pull the various levers to pay for the bill. If you're reading this, you'll see at the bottom that the governor has already asked to allocate funds from other sources to buy down the tax rate. Folks, anybody in the room heard the buy down? All right. So, we did that last year. Over 100 million dollars collected from other funds to buy down the taxes, and that's a political strategy, so it makes the tax rate a little more acceptable to everyday folks. Problem with
013that strategy is that you immediately place yourself the next year in a hole. So, the Vermont Digger has a nice article about this. I encourage you to I haven't linked it, but maybe I can throw that up on my website, too. The increase in school funding, this the increase in educating our kids this year, I think I've seen 6%. Half of that was created by the legislature's decision to buy down taxes. It's not wages, health insurance, utilities, programming. It's simply that we took money from other accounts. So, we already started the year with a 3 to 4% increase in education, and we did nothing to address the current bills. Governor has asked for another 75 million this year, and he will dig that and if the legislature approves, they're having a spirited conversation about that.
014We will start in even deeper hole next year. So, whatever increases are in the school budget will be compounded by that decision. Rene and I, as an exercise, can already tell you that if nothing changes, if we maintain the same buildings, all the same staff, we'll have slightly fewer kids, your health insurance, your wages, your benefits alone will raise the cost of school budgets in this community 4% next year, right off the top. So, I want to be clear with folks in that uh two things I want to be clear. Costs continue to go up, the number of kids go down, and the the the thought locally if we could just can get to zero, Tim, or possibly cut the school budget, that will lower your taxes. I just want to be really clear with
015folks. It is not that straight of a line. It's not how it works. We could be at We are now asking for a 0%, which folks who've worked in business, and many of you have, you know that that's a cut. A 0% increase in the school budget for next year will will be a cut for our kids. We will not hire teachers, we will delay maintenance, we will not buy materials for things because what will happen, it will cost more to pay for a teacher, health insurance will go up somewhere between 8 and 12%. Utilities will go up, we're all facing that. That is the dilemma that we sit in. Um I will share Sandy and I have talked about this. After the vote went down, I did reach out to people in the community,
016people who I know are connected to the legion, to select board members who are out and about in the community and I did not get any one unifying reason for the voting down. There were a variety of reasons. Some folks, you know, um taxes were definitely in there, spending um but there wasn't any unifying reason why and that's understandable. We live in a democracy, folks get to but I just want to be really clear with folks. The current ask is a 0%. This um page that uh Jean Marie referenced, this is uh this is something we also generated during the admission and budget bill. There is one of these for every school district that we serve. So, if you'd like to see Arlington or you'd like to see the MAU, you can find this on
017our website. What this is is what appears on the ballot and I want to talk about that, too, because that's been some confusion in the community. Um your daily membership, which means the number of kids who are attending school. I would we said this in meetings, I'll keep saying it. This is a Vermont challenge. There are fewer kids in K-12 in Vermont than there were 20 years ago. It's not a Bennington County thing, it is a Vermont thing. So, this is important because again, how we fund schools currently is how many kids weighted. What I should mean by that is do they are they learning English, are they considered poor? Are they living in a rural community? Not special education, but those are those account for the the extra expenses to educate kids who come
018in those categories. That's important cuz fewer kids means fewer dollars coming back to the school. It also we provide you with the common level of assessment per your community. I'm a proud resident of Pownal. Prior to that, I was a proud resident of Bennington. This is also a driver in addition to fewer kids. Basically, what this means is the state feels that all of our homes can generate more taxes than they actually do. And they have a lever in their formula to manipulate that to make it even I shouldn't say manipulate to soften the blow of taxes or make taxes harder on folks. But this is important because if you look across all of our homes in the eyes of the state currently. And again, this is a Vermont issue, not a Bennington County issue.
019And part of that is we just don't have the resources in the state to assess homes more frequently. But basically, what they're saying is my house has to be taxed more in order to raise the revenue to educate kids locally. And we all face that dilemma. So, can you just explain that just a little further? Which means in my estimation, it means because people are buying houses at a higher cost, um your you know, your neighbor's house that they just bought was you you spent more money on it. Um we sold a lot of houses in these last couple years for more than they were assessed at. Yes. So, that's how they come up with that number, right? They're saying that like eight we're at 80% meaning my house is really worth 20% more than
020what it's assessed at. Sure. And thank you for that. Renee will correct me if I screw this up. Common level of appraisal, this is the green bar right here. The ideal number is 100 Because that's agreement that your house is value is in the eyes of the state and you are is the same. You can see that across our communities, they're significantly below that. And again, this is a Vermont issue across the board. As Sean Marie said, we all live through COVID, our houses went up in price of what we could probably get from and that's what the the state is saying, "Ooh, we can tax you on that rate." In reality, what the level of assessment. The uh the CLA, the adjustment, that is a lever and we're going to get wonky here in
021a minute, so rein me in. That is the state can manipulate that up. So, if you see Sandgates at 100%, they built that up to where they want you to be at and it softens the blow of taxes. They might correct Renee on that. I just want to make sure that. >> Yeah, they they introduced that in legislation last year. It's called the statewide adjustment. So, they actually factor it in at the beginning of the formula on the the property yield. So, it gets factored in there and then gets well, I should say gets factored out. And then it gets factored in at the bottom. So, as Tim did say earlier, it basically negates itself in the formula, but essentially what it's doing is artificially inflating the CLA that you see, so it lessens the
022impact of what the actual CLA is on the on the tax rates. But it evens itself out. At this point, the legislature is still debating how they're going to pay the bill. I think there's fewer than 20 communities who have to go back and revote. Folks are working through that. But a vast majority of communities this go around voted for their budget. Now the legislature's having a spirited conversation of how you actually pay for that. Which will then impact your taxes. And again, the system seems to be built not to create trust in the system. And I'll point out, if you drop down, it says "Estimated Homestead Tax Rate." I'm a resident of Pownal. So, my tax rate is going to be $1.55 that's on a $100 value. That is almost a 16 16 cent
023increase which the three of us have talked about as we are all residents. Now, 16 cents is a lot. A lot a lot. If you look over at Arlington, Arlington was staring down the pipe at a 31 cent increase. I've talked to the chair there, Todd Wolkins. He's a long-serving member. He's been on that board for 18 years. The The second largest increase that he could recall in our conversation was 14 cents. Because Arlington's facing the same thing. Fewer kids over time. The state says their houses are worth a number that it's not. It creates some this push to uh tax you higher in order to meet the bill. The percentage increase, you can see that at the bottom. 18% uh Pownal was originally at um 11%. In that time though, as you follow the
024legislature, this is what I published. I put this out here. I'm the one that put this on the internet. We ran the numbers. That number for Pownal now is probably closer to 10 cents. Because the legislature is negotiating it and again, it doesn't create certainty for taxpayers certainly and it certainly doesn't create certainty for schools who have already created their budget. So, first go around, we went into the vote. Help folks come out, vote for us vote the school budget next Tuesday um at your local polling place. We had a very good discussion and this is the last paper. You're almost done with me, I promise. So, folks go in to vote and the ballot's going to be very straightforward. It's only going to have two items on it. One is to elect to fill
025in a um uh a vacancy currently currently from a Bennington representative for the um elementary school board. The Bill has joined us as uh the uh member right now. So, if you like Bill, we encourage you to I probably shouldn't say that. Okay, if you like Bill, you can continue to like Bill, but there's an opportunity to find a candidate, so please send that. The second thing is the article two, which caused some concern, and we did get some feedback. So, if you read that, you're asking the the school board is asking you to expend a dollar amount, in this case it's $33 million. And And then you skip to the second second sentence, and this is all required by law to put this out there. It is estimated that this proposed budget, if approved,
026would result in educational spending of 13,884, which is an 11.79% increase from spending the previous year. And rightfully so, folks who stopped me in Price Chopper as I'm shopping for bananas will say, "Tim, I saw you on TV. You said 1%, now you're saying 0%, and this increase is almost 12%. What is going on here?" And again, we put some information in here. There's a math problem in here. It's it's a convoluted math formula. It is what you expect for expenditures. There is money that you receive as an income for different element school boards. You divide that by an increasingly smaller number of kids, and what happens is is your spending goes up, and as a result your taxes go up to cover that. Um we did put in a couple of things to remind
027folks that 0% is effectively cutting programming for kids. Uh I just would The points to remember, this is not the way we fund town budgets. Proving money that stays locally to fund services here. Vermont as a whole will continue to see fewer kids over the next 5 to 10 years. I look more at the 5 years. They tend to be a little more accurate. The 10-year trend is a continuing kind of slow uh uh slow decline. Uh and then this is Sandy and I's favorite. In 2018, one of the expenditures that school districts have, a family plan for health insurance for employees, which the school district pays 80% of that cost, cost the district $17,394. In 2026, that same plan will cost the district $43,920. Now, I I don't have a spirited conversation with the
028governor, but I do take issue with the fact that when he says schools need to do a better job with reining in costs, this growth in health insurance cost coincides with the state taking over negotiations with providers for health insurance. Last best offer. Yeah. So, this is another number that goes into determining how much we spend in schools that we have zero control over. And health insurance over the last 4 to 5 years has gone up somewhere between 8 and 12% every year over year. I would say that's not sustainable in any business model uh if I was looking at that. But, Sandy and I like to point that out everywhere we go. Um the last thing I will do I will say this. Please please turn out and vote. This board has worked really
029hard. The 0% is a very close examination of what we need. Um but also I would strongly encourage you to reach out to your elected officials. If you've been following the education conversation, you know that they're talking a lot about maps. They're fascinated with maps, lots of maps, maps different every week. Um, what they I'm not hearing a lot of is are we going to figure out a different way to fund schools? And if they make no movement on this year, they make no changes, we are going to be back here again in about 6 months having the same conversation about how are we going to pay for school while also being very much aware that the taxes on our fellow citizens continue to go up at a rate that's unacceptable. So, I'll stop there.
030We probably covered wide-ranging topics. Folks might have questions or need for clarification. Sean Marie, I'll see if anybody else has something. Um, some I live at Seymour Pond. I don't have kids in school. Nobody at Seymour Pond does. But, uh, one of them residents there brought up that he wished he could come to the but his wife is ill. Anyway, he said that Mississippi has gone from wherever they were to number three in the country when it comes to whatever tests Where's Vermont in that's in that list? And why aren't we number three? And and and how do you get to number three? Great questions. Not on the agenda this evening. Um, great questions. They are questions that we are working on right now. I don't know if you wanted I can do a short
031one. Absolutely. So, the Mississippi Miracle is what the media's calling it. Although, when you talk to folks from Mississippi, and I've listened to their interviews, they get offended when you call it a miracle cuz they've been working on it for over 10 years. They focused on a specific reading program, they focused on professional learning, they've actually started to increase teacher salaries in that state so they can attract better talent because Mississippi still is one of the lowest paying states for for students. Um I don't think they're number three but they're definitely a number 10 which is why everybody's paying attention cuz historically they had been the lower five as far as out of the 50. Um it is definitely a conversation in Vermont. I would say somewhat rooted in the proud Yankee tradition of independence
032and individual choice. So we have a wide variety of ways we're trying to teach kids more effectively in the Vermont and I would say it's a conversation for now and in the future. We need to get all on the same page and we need to focus on that skill because reading, Sandy and I had this conversation earlier, is the gateway to mathematics and science. Most kids struggle with math testing and science testing not because they don't understand the content but they can't read and they can't decipher what you're asking them to do. Um another question which may be too political is the cost of health care has gone up. Is Is that somewhat due to the current administration's failure to fund health care the way it should be or or they want how they want
033it or is it is it normal to go up as much as it Um unfortunately I think over the last the five years that I've looked at data that the 8 to 12% increase seems to be the new normal. I don't think it's sustainable. Um I'll wander out in the minefield. Here we go. Um the I think uh I think as as as wealthy as a society as we are, I think there is a solution to health care. I think we could find a way there. Whether or not there's a political will to do that, I don't know. But my my staff hears me say this all the time. I'm weirdly optimistic about this moment. I feel like we have arrived at a fiscal place in our time as it can be Vermont, it can
034be Bennington, it can be the United States where we can no longer defer the uncomfortable situation. We're going to have to make decisions about what is the purpose of schools. What do you want us to get done, and what are you willing to pay for that? Health care is the same thing. If we're going to all get on the same page and think everybody should have some access to health care, what are you willing to pay for? What are you willing to, you know, accept as that? Um I'm weirdly optimistic. I'm hopeful. I got three kids in their 20s, and I'm hoping they find a solution for them before they reach my age. That would be helpful. I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute. So, I read in the minutes that you talked
035about Woodford. Woodford has what, 18 students right now? Maybe? And it also gets a lot of money from the national forest. Is that money actually does it go to the whole union, or does it just go to Woodford? It now goes to the whole the whole That's my understanding. It It used to be It used to be the whole. And that's how much Do you know how much money that is? It's about $100,000. I mean, it's a significant amount of money for that little town. So, I saw in the minutes that you talked about closing Woodford. It was $500,000. No. No. It was an option. It was an option. Then then Cindy made a motion to accept these other pieces to lower the budget to zero. So, because I'm just reading the minutes and not
036watching, was there any conversation around uh closing schools and also I'm assuming that in articles of agreement that maybe fall under Act 46 that there was there usually was a time frame that they couldn't do it for 5 years or what have you. So, again, it would be helpful to see the articles of agreement for this elementary union and what has been discussed about the all the various buildings in this area? >> isn't a part of what this budget is right now. That that tiny piece that you've mentioned. So, we're going to restrict this evening for the budget in particular. Um in in a in that meeting in in one of the meetings um something was brought up about it, but it had nothing to do with the budget. And so, tonight uh we're focusing
037on it. It was not part of a budget to do at least none that I recall. I I can stand corrected. Um it was not part of any of our budgets to close any school in any budget meeting. So, this budget does not have anything to do with that. But, what I'm asking in terms of developing the budget that you're asking us to vote on, was there any discussion about consolidating some of the schools in this super in this elementary union district? That's my question. And the Renee Gordon gave a possible scenario not and it sounds like what you're saying to me, Sandy, is that it was not discussed. It was just given as an option. Correct. That is correct. You are correct. It was given as here are some different scenarios to consider. So
038my question again is has there or will there be any discussion about consolidating all the buildings that we have in this union? So we have a facilities committee that is specifically geared to look at every building and determine what's Do we have the efficient best best suited for educational buildings? >> Yeah, I think it was NESDEC was the acronym. And they are meeting it's community members, it's board members, staff. We have staff. Two staff. Two staff members, Sean Marie, and collectively they are looking at all of the buildings and they are going to give us their recommendation as to what will happen or could happen or um should happen to each of the buildings and their part of what they're looking at is uh numbers for certain, but also uh the age of the buildings
039uh That's what we're looking at. The >> What they're used for, could they be substituted for better use to better service student you know, which building would use more oil would be a consideration going forward, you know, and think about factoring that in. I mean and that recommendation has not come to this board yet. And so we are respecting their process and waiting for what their final recommendation is to our board before we can take that consideration forward. So it is in the minutes how much the Woodford budget is and how much it would cost if you closed that school and covered the maintenance for that building. And I know that there was a significant amount of money put into that building over the last 2 years to fix the heating system. So, I mean,
040it's it's not like the building hasn't been kept up. But, I think it's prudent that those conversations continue cuz Act 73 is going to push that forward. Which also remains an unknown for us, you know, Tim alluded to, you know, the the master >> It's in the Ways and Means Committee and they're talking about school construction right now. And how they fund it. So, I I just think it's something I mean, it's always been the elephant in the room. That makes your basic question. Well, there are conversations going on. There's, you know, there's meetings. We have all been to the schools, walked around, looked at them. Obviously, we understand enrollment numbers and how that plays in. We need to make, you know, an informed decision, which includes, you know, speaking with the superintendent, finding out
041what our special education needs are. You know, there's like there's many factors that go into that ultimate decision. And none of us are looking to take that lightly, whether it's closing a school, whether it's reallocating students or programming. Please know that those conversations are going on. I can share though in the articles of agreement we have passed the point at which school closures are restricted, but the articles do require a vote of the union to close the school. The that the board doesn't have the authority to do that. It's of the school district. Correct. And they will be an aggregated result of that. Questions? Comments? And there were only I think 84% of budgets passed. So, you said that's all that was amounted to 20 school districts? Uh I think so. I got invited to
042a listserv of if you were a superintendent who had a budget fail, I got to join that cohort. And I think that's I shouldn't say I I think it was I think it was 18 of us in the room. So, I can't tell you if that was district or if that was, you know, you were there for three three schools in your district. I I'm not sure of that, but it was a relatively small number compared to whatever you had buddies pointing to what was it 2 years ago now that we had the It was a third. Yeah. So. Is there any sense as to why the elementary school budget went down and the Mount Anthony school budget was voted yes? It's called North Bennington. If North Bennington had been in your group, it would
043have passed. Um what I believe Shawn Marie's trying to share is that North Bennington votes on the MA, but they do not vote on this budget. And that may have been may have been we don't know for certain that could have been a tipping point. I will say that is I've been a long time resident. I've always been proud of the fact that this community has supported schools. We had to go way back in the history, but how many years Renee since the last time a budget had to be re-voted? Pre-dates my being here. So, prior to may have been like 12 2012. Yeah. So. It was Mike Betters days. So, I don't know. That that's something to be I've always been proud of that this community taxes are a burden. I want to be
044really open about that, but I've always been appreciative of the support that this community has given to a school budget. And like I said, I think a 0% is a an honest offering by the school board. We hope that folks come out and support them. Is there any plan for whether it's more letters to the editor, whatever might be between now and next Tuesday to So, Sandy fired one off really quick. I got in. There's been an article on the front page of the Banner. We're also on Facebook. So, that message has been distributed as well. It'll go out and we have a newsletter. The board has taken upon itself to organize itself. It's been out in schools to talk to staff, talk to PTGs, and ask for support of that as well. I would
045anticipate at least one more letter, and I will be at the Bennington Select Board on Monday night making one more plea in front of that board as well. And then we'll say that at one of the meetings that we were at, somebody suggested that the snowstorm may have been a factor as well in that last voting. I don't know if that's true or not. But that You do? Yeah. I worked the polls, and we didn't have half the number, maybe less than 500. In pounds? In pounds. Yeah. It was the snow. >> So, it could have been a factor as well. >> Come on. It'll be 75 next Tuesday. So, we'll have a lot. It'll be 75 Thank you all for your comments and your input. Leon, you've got? Well, yeah. Leon, I just one
046comment. If we don't know where the number of votes are that we need to be trying to go after, go after the the that district or that maybe a combination of districts. Are the schools themselves having uh conversation for the kids to talk to the parents associated with that? I I I think that's a a big part that may be able to enhance uh information a a good part to get information out to the to the uh parents concerning their efforts to vote on the budget by way of the school and the students at the school. Thanks, Leon. It's a great suggestion. >> It would be interesting to know what the age range of people who voted for or against the budget was. And people who have kids in school or is it people like
047me? I don't know. That's a good That's a good question. I think they're keeping it pretty close to their their heart not to share any of that information. And you're right. Good point. Yeah. Is there a floor meeting the night before? No. No. This is it. Yeah. If there is no other question or comments, we have a motion to adjourn. I will make that motion. I'll second. Motion to Second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say "Aye" to signify "Aye". Aye. Aye. Any nays? Thank you. You're welcome. Motion is unanimous. Have a good evening and thank you all. Thanks, everybody, for coming out. Enjoy your evening.