to do this again. Okay, praise the Lord and Shalom. Welcome everyone to our Ministers Foundation course. Welcome to all our in-person students from all over India. It's a joy to have all of you here. And also our online students from all over the world and also from India. And it's a joy to have and a blessing to have students from diverse backgrounds. You know, just representing every tongue, tribe, nation, coming together in this manner just to study God's word, okay? So in this course, we will be studying three APC publications. The first one we'll be studying is this book called Fulfilling God's Purpose for Your Life. And our in-person students have received a copy of it. There is Hindi versions for those of you who struggle with English, especially our in-person students. You can also, you know, study it in the Hindi version so you have a better understanding. For our online students, I have posted this PDF copy of this publication on the stream page so you can access it. And for our e-learning students as well, it's there in your course content tab. You can just click on that and you can access this book. Now in this course, we will be basically helping you, equipping you with the necessary tools or the necessary materials, the insights that you need to know what is God's plan and purpose for your life, okay? God has a plan and a purpose for your life. We'll look at it in detail. We'll be studying that so you will be able to know how to find out God's plan, God's purpose for your life. And also we will help you to build a strong and effective ministry even as we look into receiving God's guidance and code of honor, okay? So three books that we'll be studying. And I just invite all of you to engage in discussions, ask questions, share your experiences so that, just a minute, yeah, share your experiences so that it will help us to learn from each other, also will help you to answer your doubts that you have.  It's not, every question is important, you need answers. So please feel free to ask any question that you have. If you did not understand anything, please ask me and I will explain again and I would make it more clearer for all of us to understand, okay? So even as we are a learning community, it's to be nice if all of you can ask questions, share your experiences, engage in meaningful discussion so that we can all grow together in understanding and applying God's word in our life, okay? Now the first book, as I said, we'll be studying is Fulfilling God's Purpose for Your Life. Just to give you a quick run-through through this book, in the first chapter, we will be basically studying about which we are going to cover today. We will look at the whole idea that God has a plan and a purpose for our life. Are you excited that God has a plan and a purpose for your life? Yes, God has not just created you and put you here on this earth or he's not just, you know, you're not an accident. He's created you for a plan and a purpose. So that is what we'll be studying in chapter one. In chapter two, we're gonna be talking about how to recognize God's plan and purpose for your life. How do we discover God's plan, God's purpose for our life in any given stages of our life or any given season or any given point in our life? You know, we all go through seasons and stages in our life. Yes, we will talk about that in chapter two so you'll understand more clearly. And then we'll also cover nine different ways how we can recognize or how we can know what is God's plan for our lives. In nine different ways we will look at and how we can discover God's plan and purpose for our lives.  God does not just tell us, hey, this is my plan and purpose. Take it, go and do it. Try to figure it out yourself, how you're going to do it. No, he's not a God like that.   And so in chapter three, we will be talking about the preparation process. In chapter four, we will talk about how we need to position ourselves right to fulfill God's plan and purpose. So we need to be the right time, the right place, in the right attitude, in the right character, the right mindset to receive God's provision, to receive God's anointing, to receive God's blessing and to fulfill what he has planned and purpose for our lives. So that is what we are gonna be talking about in chapter four. In chapter five, we'll be talking about God's calling is not something that is easy and simple. Of course, God gives us a skill, he helps us, he aids us, he strengthens us, he fills us in our areas of our weaknesses, he strengthens us in those areas. But it's also something, it's a high call, it's a high price that we have to pay. It's not gonna come easy for us. It's not gonna say, we're not gonna say, okay, God, I'm here, just give me a download of your plan and your purpose. Just give me all the skills, I'm here waiting and then I'm gonna just go and do it. It works like that sometimes, but most of the times it requires us to work hard, do our part, spend time, energy, equip ourselves. So it's a price that we have to pay to fulfill God's purpose and plan for our life. So we're gonna be talking about that in chapter five. And finally, in chapter six, we're gonna talk about how God has given us a plan and purpose, how we can all start off very well, but how it's important for us to finish the race. It's important for us to finish the course, okay? It's important for us to finish the course. So we're gonna talk about how to finish the course successfully, okay? So even before we look at chapter one, I just mentioned briefly what we're gonna look at in the six chapters. Before we look at chapter one, I just want to encourage you by saying that, each of you are not an accident waiting to happen, okay? You've got a destiny. You've got a future. You've got places to go. You've got people to meet. You've got lives that you can touch and you've got things to do, okay? So God has a destiny for you. God has a future for you. God has places he wants you to go. He has people he wants you to meet.  Are you excited? Yes? So we must, you know, catch on to what is God's dream? What is his plan and purpose for your life? There is no greater purpose than to live God's purpose for your life. Now, if you notice some of these things, what I'm saying is not in this publication. It's not in this book.  It will help so you can just take down, okay? There is no greater purpose than to live out God's purpose for your life. There is no greater satisfaction than to fulfill God's purpose for your life. There is no greater adventure than to walk according to God's purpose, okay? I'll repeat that again. You know, we need to catch on to God's dream for our lives. There is no greater purpose than to live out God's purpose for our lives. There is no greater satisfaction or happiness than you fulfilling God's plan and purpose for your life. There's no greater adventure. You know what's the meaning of adventure? What's the meaning of adventure? It's like a journey, okay? You're going to a new place for sightseeing. You're excited. It's an adventure. It's a journey, something that you're going to explore, okay? So there's no greater adventure than to walk according to his purpose. So you need to catch on to God's dream. You need to hold on to what's God's dream plan and purpose for your life. And like I said, it's not going to be easy, okay? There are going to be some challenges. There are going to be difficulties. There are like, sometimes the difficulties can be like a mountain that you have to climb. You know, there are some devils you have to fight. Some situations, difficulties, Satan's oppression, opposition, people that will come in your way. And you know, but at the end of it, it's all going to be worth it because you are going to be fulfilling God's plan for your life, okay? So even as we go on this course and we learn about what is God's plan and discover what is God's plan and purpose for your life, how to fulfill it, how you receive God's guidance for your life, how to be equipped to be an effective minister.  This is not like history which you studied in school and college, non-geography. This is not, you know, like economics or social studies, but this is something that is more practical. So whatever you are hearing, we want you to put it into practice so that you would know what is God's plan and purpose for your life and fulfill that, okay?  It's not just gonna be from the textbook, it's also going to be from the, you know, the extra information or the extra notes that I'm giving to you. So I would appreciate it if you take down notes and sometimes I'm going to, especially for the online students and the e-learning students, I'm just gonna be a little slow because some of our students, in-person students, you know, who come from North India, struggle a little with the English, so maybe I'll have to give some simpler words, so please be patient, okay? Before we go on, we'll just pause for a word of prayer, we'll just commit this whole course into God's hand and just ask God to lead us and guide us, okay? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day, we thank you God for this opportunity to learn from your word. Thank you that you have great plans and purposes for each one of us. You created us not by accident, God, none of us are an accident. You created us for a significant, for a purposeful plan that you have for us and God, even as you have that plan and purpose, we know it's not a mystery, but something that you want to reveal to us and so we pray God, even as we go about learning how to discern and know your plan and purpose for our lives, that you would open our hearts and minds, that God, you would help us to listen and also to put into practice what we are learning so that we can discern and know your plan for our lives and walk in it and fulfill it, God. We thank you that even as you reveal it to us, God equips us and strengthens us. We thank you for each and every student, we bless them and God, we commit this entire course into your hands, we pray that our journey of learning would be effective and a powerful one. We thank you for hearing our prayer in Jesus name, we pray, amen. Okay, so before we look into chapter one, I'm just going to establish a few important facts that will help us to understand that God has a purpose for each one of us, okay?   Anyone? What do I mean when I say God is a God of plan, purpose, design? God of clarity, okay?  Thank you, get through, yes, he knows what he is doing, yes. How do we know that our God is a God of plan and purpose and design? Esther says he's organized and not random, yes. Thank you, Esther, that's good. How do we know that our God is a God of plan, purpose and design? How do we know? Very simple, we can see that. Because he has created the universe for us and we see the stars, the moon, the universe. Thank you, get through, yes, Nate and Esther as well, creation, when you look at creation, right, there is order, right? We have morning, we have afternoon, we have dusk, we have, you know, and we have nights. And then again, the same pattern, then we have different season, which comes in the same pattern. Suddenly does God does not wake up and say, hey, you know, it's not raining in Bangalore, so I sense no, no God does not do that. Or does not say, hey, you know, it's been very cold in Bangalore, so I'm going to have summer now for them. God does not work randomly, but he's a God of plan, design and purpose, okay? You know, it means that Daniel says, it means God does not do anything accidentally, yes. Okay, God does not wake up in the morning, he actually doesn't have to wake up, but you know, just in our context, you know, God does not wake up in the morning, say, okay, let me decide what to do today, let me see which side I can raise, get the sun to rise up in the morning. No, he does not do that.  He's a God of plan, purpose and design, we can look at creation, we can see that. Even when we look at our bodies, we see that there is perfect plan, order and design, right? Suddenly your heart doesn't move from your left side to your top of your head, right? Your eyes does not say, hey, I'm tired of being in the same position, I go right down to the feet, right? It does not do that. There is order, there is plan, there is a design that God has followed. He does, yes, he does everything orderly, yes. Let's look at scripture, what Psalm 33 verse 11 says, okay? One of you can read that, Psalm 33 verse 11, there is a mic for the in-person students, okay. Psalm 33 verse 11 says, though the council of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. So what does this verse say? That God has plans in his heart, okay? Some of us don't like to plan, right? We just like to do everything like this. Wake up in the morning, what do I do? You know, where do I go? Okay, let me do this, let me do that. There is no plan and order. Some of us don't like to plan, but I've got some good news for you, that the God that we serve, the God that we worship has a plan. He's got a plan, he has plans in his heart, okay? Jennifer says, all his works, the Eden Garden God's plan for redemption of human through Jesus. Yes, we even see God's plan of redemption, how he unfolds it, it right from creation, you know, how he brings about his plan of redemption, how he's continuing to work out his plan of redemption even today, okay? Look at Acts chapter 15 verse 18. Did you call Abinas for the Micra students? Oh, yeah, so in person students, when you're reading, you can read from this mic, okay? So our online students can hear as well. So can somebody please read Acts chapter 15 verse 18, please? He who made these things known so long ago. Yes, so Acts 15, 18, thank you Anusha says, known to God from eternity are all his works. What does it mean? It says God knows ahead of time, what he is going to do, okay?  So he's got plans and he knows ahead of time, before time what he is going to do. Look at Isaiah chapter 46 verse 10. So can somebody please read? And if you want to read, please take the mic in person students. Isaiah chapter- Tony, I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass but I'll do whatever I wish. Amen, thank you Anusha. There is a cue here. Let me just see what, Kalol Chaudhary has raised his hand. Yes, do you have a question? Kalol Chaudhary, you raised your hand. Okay, so Isaiah chapter 46 verse 10 says, God declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying my council will stand, I will do all my pleasure. So God knows the end from the beginning, okay?  He knows when you will start your journey, he knows when you will, where you will be at different stages of your life, he will also know when you are going to finish your journey, okay? That's the kind of God that we serve, he knows everything about our lives, he and he has, you know, great plans and purposes. So here we see through these scripture verses that God is a God of plan, of purpose, of design and of objectivities, okay, or objectives. He's not a God who says, let me see what I should do, he does not work randomly, he does not say, oh, Adam and Eve sinned, okay? I didn't expect them to sin, I didn't expect them to disobey, now what am I going to do? You know, how am I going to remove sin? No, even before he created Adam and Eve, did he know that they're going to sin? Are you listening with me? Am I too fast? Yes, just a, okay. Even before God created Adam and Eve, did he know that they're going to sin? Yes, no? Yes, just a. Yes, he knew that they are going to sin. So it was not something that he was shocked or he was taken aback, okay? He knew that they were going to sin. So did he already have a plan of redemption? Did he already know how he's going to save the world? Yes, he already knows how he was going to save the world. So he's already has everything in perspective, in plan, in purpose. So he does not work randomly, okay? In-person students, are you able to understand? Some of you are looking very lost. Do you understand everyone? Yes, no, okay. Slowly, a little more slowly, okay. He does not work by randomly, means he does not work by chance. Okay, let's take a chance. Let's see what will happen. No, God does not work like that, okay? And he does not even work arbitrarily. That means he does not work randomly or by chance. He's got a plan in place already. So even if he has a plan for your life that you have to study in APC Bible college, and suddenly you find it difficult and you say, I don't want to study in APC Bible college. I don't want to do anything with Bible college. I want to go and do what I want to do in life. Does God know that? Yes, he knows, right? Is he going to stop you? No, he is going to speak to you. He is going to encourage you. He's going to strengthen you. But then he's finally going to let you make the choice, okay?  He could have stopped them. He just gave them the free will to choose. So God has given us the free will to choose, but yet he has a plan and a purpose for our lives, okay? Now if you look at your books, the textbook, it says that God has a specific plan for us and he has a master plan.  And God also has a specific plan and purpose for our lives. So two things, God has a master plan, or another word is an eternal plan and purpose. And the second thing, he has a specific plan for us. What do you think is God's master plan? What? Salvation, eternal life, good. So God's master plan or his eternal plan is that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is God's master plan, eternal plan. God also has a specific plan. What does that mean? Thank you, Lucy. Lucy says to save us. That's God's eternal or master plan. God also has a specific plan. What does that mean? God has a specific plan. The word specific means something that is more detailed, not general. It's general is like he wants all men to be saved, but specific is what? Esther says, customize plan for every individual. Well said, thank you Esther. That means God has a plan for each one of us.  But he also has specific plans for each one of us. What does that mean? God has specific plans for each one of us. Individual plans for each one of you. What does it mean? Unique plan, yes. Which means he wants some of you to be teachers, evangelists, missionaries, pastors, chefs, pilots, what else? Doctors, engineers, bankers, you name it and all of that, okay? So he's got specific plans for each one of us, okay? But when we are fulfilling that specific plan, we are also fulfilling the master plan, okay? Even as we go about fulfilling the specific plan for each one of us. So even if you're going to be a businessman or a businesswoman, even in that you need to see how you can share the gospel minister to others. Even if you're a teacher, how you have the potential or you have the opportunity with so many children, so many young people that even as you teach them some subjects you can even share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them. If you are a farmer, you have the potential or the opportunity to share with people in your village, in your town, with other farmers about Jesus Christ and lead them into salvation, okay? So the Bible reveals to us in the New Testament that God has a master plan. It reveals his eternal purpose. Let's look at Ephesians chapter one verses nine to verse 12. So can somebody please read Ephesians chapter one verses nine to verse 12? Before that Sanjay says, sorry, Anusha, before that Sanjay says we need to partner with God in the specific plan for us. Yes, we need to partner with God in our specific plan and also for the eternal plan and purpose or the master plan. Yes, thank you Sanjay. Yes Anusha. God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ which is to bring to his own good plan. And this is the plan at the right time we will bring everything together under the authority of Christ. Everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God. But he chose us in advance and he makes everything work out according to this plan. God's purpose was that we choose who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. Amen, thank you Anusha. So here it says in Ephesians chapter one verses nine through verse 12, it says having, as God is saying, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one, all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. I'll explain this verse to us. So here this word says that there is a good pleasure. There is something that God is really excited about. There is something that God is really happy about which he has purposed in himself, okay? Which means that the plans and the purposes God has for us and for the entire world is something that he's really excited about. Is something that he's really happy about and that is something he has purposed in himself. It's not something that he had a board of directors meeting or he did not have a committee meeting. He did not call the angelic advisory board. He did not call some angels made a board and say, okay, let's discuss what can we have? What are the plans and purposes that we can have? We human beings, when we are part of something we, you know, an organization or a business or, you know, a church, we have a committee, right? Committee needs a group of people who meet together who discuss and make decisions what best can work. But here it says that God has a good pleasure. Something is excited about his plans and purposes and it's not something that he discussed or planned with anybody, it's something that he planned within himself, okay? And he decided in himself and he was pleased with what he has decided, what he has purposed, okay? Then the word says that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he met gathered together in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth.  So what is God's plan? What is this great dispensation of the fullness of time is he's going to gather people together, all those who are in heaven and those who are on earth he's going to gather all of us together, okay? Look at what verse 11 says. He says, in him also, we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him, okay? So it says, according to the purpose of him or according to his purpose, so God has a purpose and he has predestined us according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will that we who trusted in Christ Jesus should be for the praise of his glory, okay? So here this verse says God has a plan and a purpose is something that he has planned in himself and what is that plan and purpose that he has is that he might gather all in heaven and earth all who believe in him or together in himself, okay? And he says that here in verse 11, he says, according to his purpose, having predestined all, according to the purpose of him. That means even before we made a choice to salvation or even before we chose Jesus Christ as a Lord and Savior God knew even before we were the creation of the world that we are going to choose him and he is going to work all things in us, okay? According to his will, according to his plan and purpose so we can fulfill his plan, his purpose and he can receive all the praise and the glory, okay? Yes, it's Ephesians chapter one verses nine through verse 12. Is that not the right verse? Yes, Ephesians chapter one verses nine to 12. So on page one of the new book, we'll have new books or old books. New books, that's on page one of chapter one. Is there any doubt about this? Is it okay? Nisha and Shekhar and Sanjay. Oh, you wanted me to repeat the reference? Yes, it's Ephesians chapter one verses nine to 12. Okay, any doubts so far? Any questions? So here in Ephesians chapter one verses nine to 11 and also 12, we see in verse nine and 11, it specifically says that God has a purpose, okay? And the purpose is what's something that he has purpose in himself, okay? Look at what Ephesians chapter three verse 11 says. Ephesians chapter three verse 11. So can somebody please read Ephesians chapter three verse 11 loudly? Yes, go ahead. Is it on? Okay. According to the eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yeah, so here this verse says, according to the eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. So God has an eternal plan or a purpose, okay? The master plan, as I said, another word is eternal plan and purpose, okay? Which he is executing, which means which he is bringing about all these past years, which he's finishing, which he's completing, which he is fulfilling and which he is continuing to fulfill and complete, okay?  It's something that he's also completing and fulfilling here now in the present, okay? So what is God's eternal plan or purpose? He read in Ephesians chapter one, verses nine to 12, what is God's eternal plan and purpose? Salvation, but in Ephesians chapter one, verses nine to 12, what is God's eternal plan and purpose? To gather people, those in heaven and those in earth, in Christ Jesus, okay? What does it mean to gather all people in heaven and earth and Christ Jesus? It basically means that all who accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, become part of the kingdom of God, become part of the family of God, become sons and daughters of God, we become heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus Christ, okay? So that is what we saw in Ephesians chapter one, verses nine to 12. Now let's look at first Timothy chapter two, verses three and four, what does Paul say? How does Paul put it, okay? First Timothy chapter two, verses three to four, can somebody read that please? For this is good, acceptable inside of God, our Savior, who desires all that to be saved and to come to the college of... Amen. So Paul is writing to Timothy and he's saying, what is God's good, acceptable, what is good and acceptable in the sight of God? What is good and acceptable in the sight of God? That all that he desires that all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. So what's God's desire for mankind? What God's desire for mankind? To be saved. Yes, to be saved. He says here to come to the knowledge of the truth, okay? So this is God's master plan. This is God's eternal purpose that he wants everyone to be saved. He wants everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth and he wants to gather them together in Christ.  Yes, he is. Has he fulfilled it in the past? Yes, okay. Will he fulfill it in the future? Yes, okay. Then we see that God not only has a master plan or an eternal plan and purpose, but he also has a specific plan for each and every one of us that he has created. So he has individual plans and purposes for our lives. Amen. So just tell your neighbor, hey, God has great plans and purposes for your life. Are you telling your neighbor? You need to say or tell your neighbor, wake up, wake up and God has great plans and purpose for your life. Okay, let's look at Psalm 139 verse 16. Psalm 139 verse 16. In-person, sorry, online students, can you hear the in-person students when they are reading? The scripture passage? No, sister. No. That mic is not on. Okay, thank you. Get truth. Not much. You have to increase the volume, please. Yeah. Okay, let's look at Psalm 139 verse 16 and I can ask one of the in-person students can, sorry, the online students, can you please read Psalm 139 verse 16? Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed and in your book, they all were written the days passion for me, when as it, there were none of them. Amen. Here it, what does this verse say? It's such a beautiful verse. You want to check the mic? Okay. It says that even before we were formed, God saw us how we would be, okay?  So it says, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed and in your book, they were all written the days passion for me, when as yet there were none of them. Can someone else read what the message Bible says? Message Bible can, any other student, online student can read please. Message Bible, what it says, Psalm 139 verse 16. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth. All the stages of my life was spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I had even lived one day. Amen. Isn't that wonderful? You know, it says that even before we lived out even one day of our life and even a one minute, God had everything before him. He sees our life from the start to the finish, from the beginning to the end, all the stages of our life, everything that we go through is there, spread out before God. So nothing goes unnoticed by him. There's nothing that he does not know. So maybe sometimes when we go through difficult situations and circumstances in our life, you know, when we don't hear from God, we think God does not know. He does not understand. He does not see what we are going through. He does not feel what we are going through, but that's not true. That's the lie of the enemy. But what does God's word says?  He knows everything about us. So every stage of our life has already been prepared, been planned, even before we lived out even one day of our lives. Isn't that amazing to know that we have a God who is so intimately connected with us, who desires so much about our lives to, he's so much connected with our lives.    And God has a blueprint for your life. You know what's a mini blueprint? What's a blueprint? It's a map, okay?  It's called a blueprint. Where will be the doors, the windows, the rooms, you know, everything will be mentioned so specifically. So what you need to do is just take that from the designer or the architect and you give it to the builder and he sees everything and he will build it according to what has been planned. So God has a blueprint for your life. He has a dream for your life. Isn't that exciting? To know that this great big God who's so awesome, so mighty, his omnipotent, he's all powerful, omniscient, who knows everything. God is omnipresent, present everywhere.  At least for that, can you all give me a smile because all of you are looking so serious and so sleepy and so lost, okay? Just be excited. Tell your neighbor, hey, God has a dream for your life. Yeah. You know, God has a plan and a purpose and a dream for your life. So even before you took your first breath of air on the earth, God has a dream for you and he's created you for a plan and a purpose. Sometimes we think we're useless, we're good for nothing, we're hopeless, we're a failure. That is why I couldn't land up anywhere. I landed up in a Bible college. Did you ever think like that? No, you know, don't ever think like that, okay? You're not an accident. You're not hopeless. God has created you for a plan and purpose. Amen. Okay, let's go for a break and we'll meet after the break.


Hi, welcome to Town Meeting Television. We're here with Under the Dome, and we're here with Reps Julia Andrews and Tiff Blumlee. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. And we're going to talk about money. We're going to talk about the big issues of this year's legislative budget and some of the tax impracts and the revenue implications, et cetera. So first, just introduce us. Tell us who you're representing and a little bit of your background, Julia. Sure. So my name is Julia Andrews. I represent the town of Westford and a portion of the town of Milton. And I sit on the Ways and Means Committee, which addresses taxes and fees, which I imagine is why I might be sitting here today. This is my first biennium in the House of Representatives. I also do a lot of other things, primarily I'm a marketing consultant as my day job. But like many legislators, do a lot of work in my community sitting on boards and things of that nature as well. Great. Thanks. Tiff. I'm in my second term. I represent the south end of Burlington. And I sit on the House Appropriations Committee, which and I've done, this is my second year on that. I first served on the Housing Committee, House General. And I have a portfolio. Everyone on the Appropriations Committee has a different set of budgets. And mine are housing, substance use, prevention, treatment, and then mental health. So those are just a few issues that never come up. Oh my gosh. That's a lot. And they're all very interconnected. It makes sense for them all to be in one person's portfolio. And I do have the legislative budget too as well. Before we go too far, I want to clarify for folks what the biennium means. Oh sure. So every two years, the House and the senators are all re-elected. And so you get elected for two years and we call that a biennium. And those two years march together. So we look at one set of possible legislation over two years. And if you don't get your legislation over the finish line by the end of the second year, you need to start over. Yeah, great. So and one of the biggest things that the legislature looks at is the budget. And talk to us a little bit about where we're at in the House Ways and Means with the budget. And maybe just give folks a little bit of step back into how does the budget make its way to where we are at today. Great. And I actually am going to toss that to Tiff because appropriations does. I'm the budget gal. And so the legislature gets a budget from the governor. And the governor presents it to the full body. And the Senate is in the chamber as well. And he outlines his priorities or she does. And then those budgets go to different policy committees for consideration. Our committee also takes testimony to understand where the numbers are coming from. Policy committees are, and when I say policy committees, I mean not money committees like Ways and Means or appropriations. Our focus is largely on the money. Where is it coming from? How much is it? How does it fit into the larger picture of the budget and the needs that we've identified? So those policy committees take a lot of testimony to understand the needs in a variety of areas. So health care will have the Department of Health and the Department of Mental Health and blah, blah, blah. And then they articulate. First, they take a look at the governor's budget. And they say, yeah, we like these things. We don't think this is a priority. Here are the things we would like to have funded that are not in the governor's budget and then send us a letter. We look at all of those letters and then try to work with the committees to better understand what their priorities are and then begin the work of trying to put it all together to honor the priorities of the policy committees but also to understand why the governor may have proposed various things. And it's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. And then meanwhile, bills are coming into our committee and they have money requests. So we have to log those in. Sometimes we will say, if there is money, penal pending availability of money and pass it so it can get on to the Senate, sometimes we know we want to set aside money for that purpose. It was in our plan going into the session. And so we will actually appropriate money. But all of those. So it's just a lot of moving parts up until the time that we actually finalize the budget and present it to the House and then send it on to the Senate. Which has happened. And now they are having their way with our budget and identifying all of their priorities. And there probably are going to be a number of things about which we agree and probably a number of things we will disagree about. And we will then, they will pass it out of the Senate and then our committee will look at it. And the question that we'll have is, well, do we like this budget? Does this reflect the priorities that we think are important for Vermonters? And can we live with the changes that they've made? And if not, then we go to conference. And so three members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and three members from the House Appropriations Committee will meet together and go through every line item and every piece of language. And do you know who's going to be on that? Who will be the three members that was like, no. They're not really named until, I mean, you can guess the chair obviously will be and generally the vice chair is as well. But that third person, it won't be any of the Republicans on our committee because they did not vote for it. It has to be three members of the committee who voted for the budget. And tell us a little bit about how House Ways and Means comes into this picture at this point. Yes, so our purview is taxation in fees. And so when priorities are identified and they need funding, that is where we come in. And I think the most important work that we have in any year, but certainly this year, is funding the education system. So I think probably some of the people watching now will understand that that has been a very difficult year this year for school budgets. So education funding is a shared responsibility between local school districts and voters that vote for those budgets and the legislature that then funds the priorities as they're identified by local school boards and their voters. Do you have a sense, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, do you have a sense of how many school budgets failed across the state? Yes, I believe it has been 30, which is a really high number. It's very unusual to have that many fail. And so right now you're sort of hammering out how to proceed with ed funding. That's still in the works. That is correct. And so the legislature has some levers that we can use to sort of massage the school budgets into place. And really what we have to be aware of is I think right now we're looking at pretty high tax increases for homeowners. We wanna protect our property tax payers in that way. But also we have to be cautious to not buy down the rates too high because it digs a hole that we need to climb out of the next year. So we're really threading a really delicate needle this year. So what's the big impact? Why, what is the big budget impact? So there's actually just like most complicated problems. There's a lot of answers to that question. And so I've heard a lot of things that people say, this is the reason why budgets are so high. And it's really a number of things. So right now healthcare costs and any business have increased really quite a bit. And in the schools, I believe it's 16% this year. So that's a huge cost driver. During the COVID pandemic, we had a lot of federal funds pouring into the state, including into schools. Those funds have gone away, but the needs of students have not. So I think we all naively felt like, oh, if we really invest in mental health during this really tender time, it will yield results and we'll all be fine at the end. And that's not really what has happened. We passed something called Act 127, which is the pupil waiting bill. This was two years ago, I believe. And it changed taxing capacity in different towns. So... You might wanna explain taxing capacity, just that term. I'll get there. I know you live and breathe it, but... I know, this is the nerdiness in which we live. So basically what this means is if you have students in your district that are harder to educate and require more resources, such as English language learners, we would wait those pupils more heavily so more funding flows to them so they get the best educational opportunity, or I should say equal education opportunity with their peers that do not also then need to learn a second language to be educated. There is an increased waiting for rural schools. There's an increased waiting for poverty. So I hate to couch it in terms of winners and losers because I think that that's a little damaging, but some districts gained and some districts did lose capacity. So for those districts that don't have those more difficult students to educate, it was harder for them to build budgets this year. So, and we did some things to try to ease that pressure, but it's a tough situation. But then if you are a city like Winooski where you've got a lot of new Americans, maybe you have higher poverty rates than some other schools, schools like that are saying thank you so much for this work. It really, instead of pretending that we're all the same, it really sort of identifies what we need. Did we see per pupil spending go up or has it been relatively flat? That's a hard question to answer in lieu of what I just described where there's a lot of parts moving around. I think I wouldn't know how to answer that to be honest with you. I guess I'm just trying to get at a little bit of the impact of the federal funds going away because I think that's what we're hearing is we've lost a lot of federal funds from COVID even though year after year, the state's budget relies largely on federal funds. Is that right? Yeah, definitely. Actually, do you want to talk about federal funds too? If I thought I heard you. Well, I can talk about the budget more generally. Are you talking about school funding? Yeah, I think, well, I guess my question is, I'm talking about the impact of COVID money disappearing, right, and so we have both increased needs because there are new needs that were identified during the last three to four years, new programs created. Well, here's, yes, I just want to paint a broader picture. We had $218 million less to work with this year in general fund money and that seriously constrained both the governor and the house in developing a budget and there are a number of reasons for that. One, we are winding down on federal funding and the ESSER money that went to schools. We had a huge jump in healthcare costs across the board that the state and state workers and schools are absorbing flood recovery. We invested over $70 million in flood recovery alone in our budget adjustment. In state funds. In state funds, just to meet the federal match. So, and then we had to make adjustments to the workforce because we had tremendous workforce shortages in certain state departments like the Department of Corrections. We had to come up with incentivizing that work and that has all, I mean, and it's all come to a head right now and we have some of the needs that Julia was talking about in our schools that have just increased school costs regardless of where the money was gonna come from. Yeah, 218 million, so where's the money gonna come from? How are we gonna find it? Well, so I think there's a few different ways to think about this from the perspective of school budgets. One is, like I said, that delicate threading of the needle of not digging a hole for next year's budget but also trying to protect taxpayers with increased revenue. Also, I think it's clear that we need to reimagine the education funding formula, which is not something you can do for this year as you can imagine, that's a complex undertaking that requires consideration and thought. And a third piece, which is helping schools to find ways to be more efficient and cut costs. So, I mean, we can keep putting more money into the education fund, but I think what we're hearing from taxpayers is that the burden is too great. I guess that's my next question, is what are you hearing from your constituents?  If folks wanna know, you know, if you do wanna talk to folks, you can email them and or you can call a surgeon at arms office and just send a message over and somebody will run it right to you, right? That is true, yes, that's great. And what kinds of, what are you seeing on those little slips of paper? We're hearing a wide range of things and the thing that's fascinating is that some of those things conflict with one another, right? So, you know, sometimes it's like, please fund our schools, we need the funding. Sometimes it's like, please stop funding the schools, it's costing us too much money and there's a huge range of those items. But, you know, I think one of the things that we do as a committee and we've done a lot of work in conjunction with the Education Committee is to do really deep listening with school administrators, with people like the Vermont Principles Association and the School Boards Association. We certainly do hear from people in our communities. And so, you know, we have really built, we're in the process of trying to build the bill right now that funds education for this coming year and we've had to kind of make some decisions about what we can do this year and then also start to lay the groundwork for future years to shift away from what I think we can all agree is an unsustainable situation. I wanna move on to some of these tax bills that happen. You know, I think it would be helpful. Well, I think it would be helpful. There's a little context that I can provide that leads into a couple other tax bills that I would want Julia to talk about. So, our budget was within $3 million of the governor's budget. So, and that's because we had so little money to work with. Doesn't mean that we didn't change things. Probably one of the most substantive changes that we made in our budget was put back nine of the 19 million that the governor took out for child care. The bill that we passed last year was landmark legislation and we're okay with 10, we're not thrilled, but given the givens, that $9 million is gonna be used to expand coverage for people. And so that's really important. I think that the governor and the house both invested in things like opioid addiction, prevention and treatment and recovery in emergency housing and shelter in mental health professionals that are embedded in the state police, FEMA hazard mitigation efforts. The house made some other investments that were really important, I think. And $6 million that will be matched by the feds to improve a database in the Department of Children and Families that is the oldest in the country. Unreliable, can break at any moment. There's one person who can fix it and it, because the system is what it is, we can't draw down tens of millions of dollars in federal money to help support some of the services that we know families and children need in the state. We also- Because of this database. Yeah, because of this state of the database. And the feds, originally, I think even in the 90s, they said, well, pay 90% of it. We said, no thanks. We got it covered. And now it's 50% and just as early as maybe even five years ago, we said, no thanks. And that is just penny-wise and pound foolish, you know. And it undermines the safety of children who are in the foster care system, et cetera. So it's been well-documented. Finally, we're gonna put money into it. We also, there's something called a waterfall section. So every year, in a decent year- Waterfall section of the budget. Of the budget, right. Where there is money that is appropriated on the condition that we have extra revenues we hadn't forecast. So we put in 20 million in contingency money in waterfall money for emergency housing, knowing that that is, you know, we've already committed 44 million, but that buys us more. And we also increased bridge funding to the Vermont State Colleges. The governor put in five. We had promised 10, you know, four years ago, every year, each year. And so we went back to the 10. We also took a look at the ARPA landscape because there is money, still ARPA money that exists. It's just housed in this department or that agency. And some of it hasn't been obligated because it's maybe for big projects that probably won't get off the ground. Just because of the timing really and how long we were able to try to get them off the ground. And so we obligated the first like 90 million of that money that is unobligated and that we can use for other purposes to housing, you know, 55 million of it for housing and then another 60, I'm sorry, another 36 million for FEMA match. You know, the flood has really affected the flexibility we have in our budget and the wherewithal our towns have to meet the needs of the businesses in those towns and the citizens who are stuck with houses that can't be fixed by FEMA. And is there anything preventively for next year's flood in this budget? Because you're bringing it up now. I just, yeah. Well, there are mitigation. There's mitigation money to help towns redo things and like, you know, what happened in Waterbury was critical. I mean, they didn't experience the kind of flooding this time. But so this is all leading up to you. You know, the governor and the house agreed right from the beginning that priority issues were housing, public safety and mental health. But the governor's budget did almost nothing, substantive in terms of a commitment of money for those things. In fact, the mental health budget was only, I think, increased by 1% and not the typical 3% that most departments got and public safety, Vermont state's attorneys would have to cut up to eight deputy state's attorneys to meet the governor's budget when we needed to actually add additional state's attorneys and victim services folks. The defender general's office needs a million dollars just to break even with where they are right now. The public safety backlog is significant. Yeah, of course we're close. And the court system and the prosecution system, public defenders, you know, they're hamstrung right now and so we knew that that was one pot of money that we were gonna need to raise because the budget did not have the money for the kind of investments that we need to make there. And then in housing, you know, 40 years ago we made a commitment by creating Vermont Housing Conservation Board. It was a climate really much like this when housing was becoming unaffordable to many Vermonters. And we said, we need to invest in housing that is perpetually affordable. And we have underspent. So every year there's a statutory upper limit to what we should be dedicating out of the property transfer tax to housing construction. And nearly every year since we've had the property transfer tax we have underspent it on housing which has contributed to where we are now. We're also experiencing, I mean the price to construct is it depends on who you talk to but it could be almost twice as much as it was pre-pandemic. And so the governor in housing decided that he wanted, he was putting all of his eggs in the zoning and permitting reform basket. And there's no question that we need to make those changes and the house has a bill, we passed a bill to do that, there's one sitting in the Senate that is, they're debating right now but that alone will not lead to the kind of housing construction that we most need. Is this ideological political differences about what's gonna drive housing development? Is that where this is coming from? Well, I don't know that people would characterize it as an ideological difference. I think that the fact is building permanently affordable housing isn't cheap, you know. $500,000 a house, well it costs almost $500,000 to build anything here now. And so we need to build more starter homes, we need to rehab buildings, we need to rehab office spaces, we need to be able to provide supportive housing for folks who need extra support in order to stay in housing. And a 10-year plan was proposed by housing advocates and developers and estimated we would need to invest $100 million per year for 10 years to meet kind of the most critical needs in the housing sector. The big mansions, they will get built and there's a much bigger profit margin for developers in those. But it's that other kind of housing that is so critical that we invest in as we are an aging state. But people are not able to leave their homes because what can they buy? Yep, we're gonna go. Where would they go? So at any rate, these pressures, public safety and as those related to housing, then, and we knew about those in the fall led to discussions within house leadership about raising money, raising additional revenues, which we have not done for a long time. We've raised some fees, but and that brings us to Julia's story. Now we can thank you for that context, Jeff. Yeah, thank you, Jeff. That was actually really helpful. And so on the public safety side, kind of like Tiff was saying, we know just there's body of research that says when somebody commits a crime, if they're not held accountable swiftly, they are very likely to re-offend. So getting this backlog squared away in our public safety and our courts is really important. So we went out and looked at how we could adequately do that. And then also another piece of legislation that's tied to the taxation that I'm about to talk about is Medicare expansion. So or Medicaid expansion, I always confuse Medicare and Medicaid. We know that there are tens of thousands of Vermonters that when they cycle off of Medicare at the age of 65 and move into Medicaid that there's a cliff and they go from paying almost nothing to paying over $2,000 a year. And for those that are living in poverty, that's an unworkable solution. So the tax policy that we put together for public safety and also to protect our most vulnerable Vermonters will fall to our corporate entities. And we did really work to try to make sure that those who are making the most, as is our custom, are providing the most back into the system. And so we looked at increasing, we created a third bucket, if you will, of taxation where people will pay a little bit more if they have a corporate profit of over $25,000. Not people are paying it, it's the corporations. Thank you. But yeah, okay. Yes, and so I think it's important to just pause and remind people too that the way that corporate taxes are paid in Vermont, it's easy to say, well, you're taxing our local businesses and to a degree that's true, but the way that corporations in Vermont pay taxes is on their sales into Vermont. So we're also putting quite a bit of burden on out-of-state entities that then sell things to us, such as an Amazon or another online retailer, if you imagine how people buy things today. And really those large corporations are gonna be much more likely to have that kind of income where they go into that third tier of taxation. And in a nutshell, and I do recognize the time, and so there's three bills here, three sort of big tax bills that we're gonna talk about, but just in a nutshell, can you give us like, who are these corporations and what are these securities that are being taxed and what's the percentage rate and what's the revenue that you're expecting? Remember what the third tax, if you could. I can't even remember what the third tier is. Do you remember what it is, Tiff? And that's it, yeah. Of the corporate? Yeah. No, I don't. Yeah, the corporations, so there's age 721, right? So age 721 is the bill that's gonna levy taxes to support Dr. Dinosaur Medicaid and the judicial staffing. So let's just jump over quickly to the other two, which is the property transfer tax and the tax on people making over $500,000 in income. So this is a new income tax and a new property transfer tax. So what are you hearing? So, well, it depends on how much money you make on what I'm hearing. Well, we do, and to be fair, there are people who are making over $500,000 who say, yeah. It's totally true. Bring it on, taxes, we should be paying our fair share. And there are people who are upset by that and you're right, there are people who are like, we want to live here because Vermont provides us with a quality of life and this is where our family is, this is where we've built our life and we're happy to give our fair share to make sure that we fund the priorities to keep our state as good as it can be. So the property, I'm sorry, there's a tax on people who make over $500,000 a year. And then I think for most Vermonters, that seems to be like things that somebody can get behind. The property transfer tax is interesting because it's properties over 750,000. Correct, so when you sell a home or when you buy a home over $750,000, you will pay an additional amount of tax to on like the top part that is over 750. So there's two tiers below that that have been expanded. So what that means is I think the first one's like 1.25% on the first $100,000 that moved to $200,000 and then the second one is like I think 2.25% and that tier was expanded also up to the 750. So actually if you buy a home that is below $750,000, you will pay less in property transfer tax. And then only the people who are buying the biggest and fanciest homes for lack of a better term will be paying more. And it's $1,000 less. Yeah. In the property, you know, that's meaningful. It is. And at 800, I think I saw that it was just $300 more. Yeah, and you know, so there's a concept in taxation which we follow in Vermont called progressivity and what that means is if you don't have a high, if you don't have a lot of resources to pay, you will pay less. And if you have a lot of resources and ability to pay, you pay more. And we really try hard to make sure when we're considering taxation that that's something that we focus on and try not to put too much burden on the most vulnerable for monitors. So those are three new taxes. And I guess, you know, my, the question I have here is do you think there's support for these in the Senate at this point? Well, it's hard to say. I don't like to speak for my colleagues. I've heard rumblings that perhaps people are gonna try to find money in the budget versus putting it all on additional taxes. I feel a little bit concerned about that approach given what our friend, Rep Loomley, just told us about how tight the budget is this year. But I'll definitely be watching carefully to see what happens next. Yeah. And then, you know, overall, I'm curious if, you know, there are other taxes that are being worked on, but are there places that you've seen a decrease in funds from tax mechanisms that are drying up, tax mechanisms that are outdated? Is that something that Wizz and Means has been looking at? That's something we see more in fees. Like fees change, like fees fund very specific things that are aligned with the specific fee. So the DMV fee pays for the roads and bridges, for example, or the DMV fees. And really what we look at is, you know, when we look to maybe adjust fees, there's gonna be categories of fees that are paid, like I said, by people who are maybe not as wealthy. And we try to keep those steady or reduce them when we can. I think last year, I'm just remembering there was like a real estate fee that seemed really onerous that we were like, yeah, we should reduce that, that seems extreme. Even though it was for real estate agents, it just seemed like it was out of whack. So we do look for places to do that when it makes sense and really try hard to make sure that we're, we have policy decisions that kind of underpin those decisions. So it was just last week, I was talking to somebody who said, you know, well, I would like to retire here, but I think I'm gonna have to move out of state because it's just too expensive to live here. And I think there is a feeling like, people are gonna leave, people are, that's, that this story, and I'm wondering how do you respond to people who are really feeling, whether that's true or not true, whether it's a feeling or a reality? How do you respond to people who say, it's just too expensive? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that I think about there. People do leave our state and people do come to our state. I don't always believe that people are leaving our state because of taxes. Like when I think about what I pay for in my family budget and like all of the things, whether it's heating fuel or food or tuition for my child to go to college, taxation is not the thing that I'm like, this is the big nut that's really breaking my back. It's often things like, oh my gosh, like my fuel oil went up by a dollar and a half, like how am I gonna pull that off? So I do think it makes, it is part of the picture, but we already live in a high tax state and people choose this for different reasons. It's because they have a great job here that they really like. It's because their kids go to great schools and their family has ties to the community. So I think there's a lot of reasons that people make those decisions. I also think, let me think you're right, and I think that there's research that corroborates that, that ties to community mean more to folks often than a higher marginal tax rate. And what I guess we're making investments to make Vermont more affordable in childcare by expanding Medicaid eligibility and the services that could be provided to families, those are among the highest drivers of people. It's most expensive for folks. And so we haven't driven down rents. We haven't driven down the cost of construction. We need to increase our housing stock for that to level out a little bit. But I think that when we are taxing people, it is to put more money in people's pockets for things that the state ought to be helping to support. And you just reminded me of something important that I wanted to say is a lot of times what we do to try to offset tax rates for more vulnerable Vermonters or even middle income Vermonters is to give tax credits. So over the past couple of years, we've increased the child tax credit. We've increased the rental rebate. We've increased the, what is it? There's another like earned income, that's what it is, the earned income tax credit. So that is a way that we try to even out taxation for a lot of Vermonters. Well, I think we just sort of begun to skim the surface, obviously in a half an hour. Well, I hope that you've had a chance to say some of the things that you wanted to say here. Just before we close, is there any last thoughts that you wanna leave your constituents with? Is there a chance to speak to them? You go. Go ahead. No, you go. This is the kind of comradering. This is how it works. And the legislature. Yeah, no, I'll just close by saying, I think sometimes some people are very kindhearted about the work that we do, which is really nice. And I think sometimes people feel perplexed by the work that we do. And so, one of the things that I think about a lot is, I hope that people do understand that we take a lot of testimony, we hear from a lot of people, we hear from everyday Vermonters, we hear from experts as we do our work and our aim is always to be making the best decisions we can for everyone across the state. Thanks. Well, that was very well said, Rep Andrews.  And you never know if you put stuff out on Front Porch Forum, you know, or if you have a Zoom and people don't have to register, you just don't know, like, is anybody hearing this? Is anybody concerned? I guess I've really encouraged a lot of constituents to get involved and to watch certain things and to tell them when a committee was going to be taking testimony on this or that because, I mean, it's not gonna be possible for a lot of folks, but for those who are able, I mean, I need them. We need their help to make the case for some of the things that we are talking about. It's not abstract. It's, you know, it affects people's lives and knowing that there is a public out there that really cares about this issue and wants to see a bill through, like the two bills that we just talked about, which I think are critical to our infrastructure. I think it's, I'm constantly looking for ways to kind of... Connect. Well, and break down kind of all the stuff that's happening and not over-report or give information that is gonna change anyway tomorrow. I'm not being very articulate about this, but I just think that... Well, it's a rapidly shifting. There's a lot of negotiations that are going on. So just as we want our constituents to know that, wow, you know, it does take a long time to do what we do, even though it doesn't seem like it's a whole lot of time to get all of that done, but we do take a lot of testimony. We also need the public to voice its opinion. And so, not just with us. We're the ones that are most often contacted and city council members. But once you get to the Senate level or you get to the governor, I mean, it's just, they do not... Yeah, well, it is reportedly quieter, right? And people have never really thought about actually contacting the governor with their thoughts. Which you can do. You can do it right on the website. You can go like to put your comments right in about the budget. And you can also, if you want, to go right onto Vermont, the Vermont Legislature webpage and look at the governor's budget compared to the House budget that's just been and see where the differences are, which is kind of interesting. I know we talked a little bit about that. I mean, the one thing that we didn't talk about, which I, if we have a few minutes, which I see we do, is the idea of results-based accountability, right? Sort of the budget is supposed to be built on, are we making a difference? And I'm curious in your experience as relatively new legislature, legislators, have you had some experience with that? And have you seen people showing you that the money that is being spent is actually having an effect? Or the lack of money being spent, which I think you've talked a little bit about, the lack of money being spent is having a negative effect. I'll just throw a couple things out. There's things that are, I don't know that we're asking all the right questions. And what we get from departments is often- You don't think the legislature is asking the right questions? I don't think we're always asking the right questions. And I think we're, I think sometimes we do, but for example, when we get kind of an RBA report, it is mostly focused on how much, how much did they do? How many people did they serve? How many meals were provided, et cetera, et cetera. And that doesn't tell us what we need to know. And I think that is in part a product of, I think we've had a kind of inconsistent commitment to RBA. I was running a nonprofit when RBA was introduced with great fanfare and we were gonna just do this. And I just think we have struggled and a lot of the faces are new, people running various departments. And so at any rate, I think- Well, and just to be really clear, if you're counting how many kids you're feeding at a lunch program, but your goal is to get more kids off of a lunch program or to get more kids on a lunch program because you want all kids to be served than counting the number, how many is that? Or to increase educational outcomes, which is really tricky because lots of things can go into that, right? Like what makes a good education? Certainly having a child come in with a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast is one way to improve those outcomes, but it's not exactly a direct line. So I think sometimes items like that are a little bit tricky. Well, and here, so here, I just, we learned in our committee because we started asking this question of every single department that came to present to us, what is your vacancy rate? And then when human resources came in, we asked, how long do people stay? And what we learned is that 40% of people who are hired by the state within the year, they're gone. Just in the HR or overall? Overall. Overall. Overall. So that says to me, also $57 million in our budget is budgeted vacancy savings. Huh. From departments. What's the biggest employer in the state? Who? Can I ask you that? Who's the biggest, which agency is the biggest employer? I think it would have to be the Agency of Human Services. That's what I was gonna say. Okay, so a crop, but that involves corrections. Yeah. So what this is telling many of us is that, A, we don't really know the cost of providing the services that we provide because we have vacancy rates that are sometimes 20% in certain departments. That is so surprising to me. And we're counting on those savings so that we don't overspend and that enables them an administration to say, yep, we hit 3.3%. We, you know, that's as much as the budget went up. But no, it doesn't reflect, we are budgeting to 3.3%. And that means perhaps, you know, budgeting in a vacancy savings in a small department that is fully staffed, but that sees a vacancy savings rate of $24,000. Well, okay, $24,000 is not a lot of money, but still. Across the, but why? Why is there, they're trying to hang onto everybody. But in order to meet budget, they have to somehow lose $24,000 worth of a person.  But it is, that kind of budgeting I think is dangerous and will be inherited by the next administration and- So you started with, what are you seeing the results of? Yeah, and, you know, I think we are seeing the fact that a lot of state agencies have been hollowed out, not all, but a number of them have really been hollowed out and it makes it harder to keep workers and it makes it harder to hit targets and to evaluate the work that they are doing. Yeah, interesting. Do you have any thoughts on that? Same question about seeing the results of how money's being spent or seeing the results of where money is not being spent? Yeah, I was actually gonna kind of address this in a more anecdotal way, having to do with the childcare bill that we passed last year. So, one of the biggest email categories that I get from my constituents goes like this. Dear representative Andrews, my spouse and I each are college educated and have white collar jobs. We have two children in daycare, but we also have huge debt from going to college and we also have a huge mortgage. Can you please tell me when I'm gonna get the subsidy for my childcare because we're right on the edge, like we need this to happen as soon as possible. And I'll say it's October and they'll say, I think we can hang on to them. So, and so I'll just pause there, that's a lot and I have gotten numerous of those, it's very upsetting. And it makes me proud that we did this work because it's clearly something that is needed. And when I see a budget come across that does not adequately fund what we promised those families, I'm like, well, how can we have accountability to that? It makes things very tricky. We're always in this shifting environment where things are moving around and we amend bills over time. And so to me, it just makes, I was so pleased to see that money go back into our budget because I was like, we made these folks a promise. And then if we don't fund it, then we will not move the ball forward. So I think there's a lot of times where we just really need to think about, we're not maybe perhaps not getting the results we want because of decisions like that. Yeah. The one, I think that we'll call that, I think we'll call that it at this point. You're in charge. I'm in charge and I lost my train of thought right then. But that is okay. I actually, if you don't mind me saying one more thing about accountability. Thank you. So I sit on, like I said, this committee that addresses taxation. And sometimes I lay awake at night and think to myself, that's not gonna make me super popular. It's not like duty. And whenever someone hears taxes, it gets people riled up a little bit. And I do think it's important to note that we never look at raising taxes for, you know, just to put into the general fund. It's always for a purpose. It's always purpose driven. And so when we talk about the public safety issue when the court's being woefully under staffed, we are willing to make the hard decision to raise taxes because we know what will increase public safety. So I just think it's really important for people to understand that we are not, we are very intentional in the work that we do there. That's a great point. So Rep. Julia Andrews and Rep. Tiff Blumly, thank you so much for joining us here. Thank you so much again. This is the first of a series of Under the Dome that we're gonna be hosting on town meeting TV on Mondays at 2.30, this is live. It should, you are also welcome to call next week. We will have some other folks. You can go to cctv.org and check out the full schedule of events. And thanks for watching.


and welcome to Desk of Lady Aida. Hey everybody, and welcome to Desk of Lady Aida. It's me, Lady Aida, at my desk with me, Mr. Lady Aida on camera control. Hello. And the scene's hello, Mr. Lady Aida. It's a wonderful, warm August Sunday night and we're ready to do the desk. We have 20, 30 minutes of some things I've been working on, some things I wanna talk about. This is my time. And we'll also do the great search at the end. All right, so I kick it off. I just wanted to say, you know, we went outside. It was outside. And we went to go see inertia in Washington Square Park and inertia is a really neat, like pop-up STEM thing. We met Karina and they have this cool mirror in Washington Square Park. It's there all day, it was there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, today, and I think Monday and Tuesday it has this mirror for young people to walk up in front of and it has this thing and says this is what an engineer looks like. And so it's a really powerful way, I think, to get young people to see. And a lot of people taking their photo in front of them. Yeah, and it was just like, you know, it was beautiful outside and like, here's Karina, there's Alexa, the photographer. And it was just really neat to see so many people going up in front of the mirror and they were imagining themselves with the word engineer and themselves. And I think this was a very subtle but powerful way to get people to think about. Check it out, if you're in New York City you can go visit it, Washington Square Park. It's there from like 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Yeah, that was cool. We'll see you next week or so. So, we won't there. Anyways, so next up, a lot of folks sent this in and I guess I could start, just jump right into this, right? Yeah, jump right in. Okay, so this is one of the boards that we have and well, we watched Suicide Squad and Lady Aida saw a frame go by and she's like, that's my board. And when we looked really close and I had to like take a photo of it on my iPad because there's no way to screenshot. You can't screenshot, we're watching. So anyways, so she spotted it and we paused it, we got it and then a lot of people started sending us this. This is King Shark holding it in his peace maker but then I guess the marketing side they published this little video on Twitter and I'm gonna play just like a couple seconds of it but it shows our board, so I'm gonna play it. Peace maker. Yeah, so that's it there. Isn't that cool? Meme'd. And so you were saying, I could spot my boards anywhere because they look a certain way and I'm just like. And like two frames, it was very, I mean like, you know, hindsight wasn't that fast but you know. I should also mention that, yes, we're gonna try to make a 3D print star and use it all the way. Anyways, back to this. So yeah, so you were talking about, this would be a good thing to talk about on Desk of Lady Aida. Yeah, I thought it was interesting because it's like, you know, we were wondering, you know, what, we were making a joke, it's so easy to spot our boards because our boards look a certain way and I realize that they have a certain look to them. Yeah, like this went by fast. It was, it was, it's a split second frame. Yeah. And literally split second. I thought I could show, maybe on the overhead, maybe I could show some of this like classic Aida for design and what, what to look for what I look for. So, you know, for many, many years, when, I have to run out of time to use this thing. Why can't I? Take this. Okay. For many, many years, you know, I was making boards with green PCB mask like this, this prototype here is green. Green is the most, you know, generic, most common PCB color because it's the opposite of orange, we just copper and so you get really good contrast and so you can see the traces really well. And I think also the green LPI, they've just, I don't know, they figured out how to get really good quality out of it. I know when I did fabric silkscreen, they were also blue or green. There could be just some, something about that color that when you use a UV process to photo etch it, it looks really good. So we used green for a really long time because that was the most expensive, but there's actually a couple standard colors for PCBs. I don't have, you know, one of each color here, but I can show, you know, here's an example of a red PCB. This is just like a LCD module and there's green, there's blue, and then there's black and then there's also white, although I almost paused it. Oh, yeah, I did have one white PCB. And there's also sometimes you can get pink or purple and sometimes you can get yellow and those are the standard colors. Like not every color is available. There's white, black, red, green, blue, and then again, you know, sometimes yellow and sometimes purple, like Oshpark does purple. And when we were starting out, SmartFun was red, they had all their PCBs were red and I wanted to have our boards stand out and look different. And so I was like, I didn't really want to make them red, although sometimes they use red. I mean, like there's only five colors so you're, you can't not use a color if you own the color. But I wanted to try something different to make our board stand out and so I could sort of differentiate if I saw a pile of boards, if any of them were ours. And I kind of liked blue, you know, black I liked but blue I kind of preferred for a really long time. Also my PCB house had blue as an option that wasn't, they didn't charge more for it. And so I like blue with, you know, gold, enig coat, you know, the enig coats a little bit more expensive, but if you're doing pick and placing, I find that the vision system and the paste works better with enig gold coat. And then one of our developers K-Town kind of came up with his style, which he brought, which was to have these gold mounting holes, you know, these two 2.5 or three M3 metric holes in the corners for mounting a PCB. And so, you know, we don't always have gold plate on the PCBs, although, you know, here you can see these are plated, these are not. You can see that these, these have four plated holes. I like the look of the plated holes. They also, they're also visually very striking. And so people know like, okay, that's where I'm going to attach to. And the gold also gives it a little bit of strength. I think it looks better than just like a raw hole.  And so like you kind of have an idea where PCB parts have to be away from so that you can use a pan head screw. So here's the question. It's not about our boards, but it may be a general tip. Does anyone have a good idea on how to work with an old PCB where the pads keep falling off? This person lost two boards already. Not eight of her boards, but general. Yeah, I know, if it's, if they're not meant for real work, especially the paper phenolic single sided boards that used to be, you just have to have a really good temperature iron and just work fast. And just, yeah, we do a lot of repair. A lot of people repair the boards. And then recently, we started doing black PCBs a lot for our designs.  I don't know exactly why we moved to black and white. I think, you know, the original price that we got the ideas for the black and white PCBs was liquid wear. They were definitely out of business. And so we were like, well, you know, this is a kind of a cool look. I think like, my PCB house did not do black, so I had to find a different one. I'm like, I don't remember exactly.  And once we were able to, we did also, if there was someone else that was making similar things, they're like, well, let's try not to do that. And so, as soon as that was all true, we started doing it. Yep, so that's kind of the look. And so, you know, when this PCB was in this movie frame, it was really easy to detect it because it had the blue with the gold and those plated holes in the corner. And then, of course, the white silk screen on top. I still do like the blue. I still do blue PCBs once in a while. But really, it's those gold. It's like, what was it that really made me be like, okay, this is the thing. It's those gold plated holes. Those are kind of an aya fruitism. I don't see, I don't understand why other companies don't do it, but I think it's always nice to have four plated mounting holes. They don't take up too much space, but they show that it's not overly crowded. I've seen overly crowded PCBs with no mounting holes. And people are like, oh, I like the PCBs when they're small, but I think you don't gain a lot from having it that much smaller. Okay, let's now go to the great search. Yeah, okay. What do you want me to pop right in? Well, are there any other questions about PCB styling? You're good. Do you like the purple Metro M4? Yeah, I did. I'll tell you, I have done purple, but getting purple is a real pain. It's easy when it's through Oshpark because it can have a special deal, but getting production PCs, I've gotten slightly different colors each time. It's not as consistent as the black or the blue or the red. Those are very standard colors. I think they come with that color. Anything, you can get Pantone matched, but it never, it never quite looks as good. I would love to have X-ray style, the Oshpark X-ray, but I've had trouble getting a PCB house to do that for me too. So we tend to do black and white. All right, so do you want to belt right into the great search? Yeah, let's go to the great search. All right, the great search brought to you by Digikey and age for it. Thank you, Digikey, for making this segment possible. Lady uses her powers of engineering and her decades almost now of using the Digikey site to find parts you need. Kind of important now because it's hard to find some parts. Yes. So theoretically, if someone was looking for a part, maybe this week we're gonna help them figure that out. Yeah, I take inspiration because I think the people, what people are publicly talking about is what people are privately struggling with. And we had that quote from last week for the article where I think we were quoting about how hard it is to get parts and it's a struggle and like things get delayed. And also we mentioned the great search was a good place to go. If people have questions, go to Discord, tell us what part you're looking for and we will help you. So this week, let's go to the computer. So we got this notice for a crowd, you're a crowdfund backer of this project, this is the Glasgow Interface Explorer. And I thought this was interesting because they were having problems having a part. And I thought like, I'm not saying I'm going to find that part, I'm just saying, here's how I would go about trying to find the alternative, how I solve it. And I'm sure they have very good reasons for the reason they're doing what they're doing. So this is not to say I know better than them, I'm just taking inspiration. Yeah, so anytime we see anyone talking about parts, we're like, oh, how will we get that? Yeah, I'm using it as a basis as a springboard. So the last missing part that they have is a TPS73101 DBVT LDO voltage regulator for a GPO bank control. They ordered it, they can get it, and then like people are like scalping it. And they're like, we're looking for parts, but the TPS73101 is a pretty unique part. Besides the worst polarity protection also has fold back current limit. And that's one of the things that they like. So they like that there's this back current limiting capability. So I thought that was interesting because I never really expect a board with that part. And I do want to mention, so if you go to the TPS78101, sorry, 73101, which of course is not in stock here because if it wasn't stock, they'd buy it. So this part, the fold back current isn't something that's listed in the specifications they have over current, over temperature and short circuit and worse polarity, but those are like additional product features. Those aren't things that you can select for. The Digi-Key search is really, really strong when you're talking about quantitative qualities of your chip. So you're like, what's the input voltage max? What's the current output max? What's the inductance? What's the queue? What's the ESR? All of these things for your components, that's where the Digi-Key search is really, really great. But when you're talking about qualitative things where it's like, does it have this feature? That's where it's gonna get a lot tougher because it's not something you usually look up in a data sheet. Fold back current, like I said, it's not in there. Like you might say, well, that's short circuit protection or over current protection, but it sounds like it's a very specific capability that they're looking for in this regulator. And so that's why for this, if I was willing to find an alternative for this part, well, first off, you know, this part is a SOP 23.5 LDO. Having dealt with SOP 23.0 LDOs, this is a very standard package in size. So anything that we've, regulator that we find, with this package overall, the pinout's gonna be the same because like every SOP 23.5 regulator I've ever seen, I mean like, of course, check the data sheet, but it's, I've never seen one that doesn't have the exact same pinout from one to the other. It's a very standardized pinout, thankfully. Not always true. Your transistors don't even, there are only three pins and they don't have a standard pinout, but this chip does. So yeah, so this part is, you know, not available and they're like, we're not gonna have any till 2022. Maybe you don't wanna wait till 2022. So this is actually where I would go to Digikey, sorry, to TI, not to Digikey and look at what TI recommends because one thing that I know from working with TI parts is they often have, they often section out their regulators into capability slots. So for example, let's go to like, we have like the TPS, TPS 61023. So the 61023, this is like a boost converter. From what I remember, this is part of a family and it was like the 61023 and 61021 and et cetera, et cetera. There was like a family of them. Hold on, let me see if I can find it. I think it's, if I search for the TPS 61. Yeah, so there's always gonna be like within that part number, there's usually like a family of parts. So they'll start with the first two numbers, but then like one will be like a two amp regulator and one will be a four amp, one will be a three amp. So you'll be able to get like different levels of output based on like the part number, but it won't be like a sub part number. I'll actually be a totally new part number. So what I mean is like, if you're speccing a, when TI makes this boost converter, right? They make a boost converter and some are just gonna make it through the process and be able to like handle four amps, some are gonna handle three amps, some are gonna handle two and then they'll bend those and they'll separate them or however they decide the process. So you can get a two amp version, a three amp version, a four amp version. So this is actually also in the power boost. So the power boost 500 and the 1000 actually use, if you look closely to here, these actually use almost the same exact layout, the 500 and the 1000, but the chip is the same package as well, but this is the TPS 61090. This is TPS 61090 with a two amp switch and the power boost 1000 is the TPS, sorry, hold on. This is the TPS 6130. So the TPS 6130 is the one that has four amp internal switch. The TPS 61090 has the two amp switch. So the smaller number has the more current. That's how it goes sometimes, doesn't mean anything. Okay, so the upshot is, is that if you're trying to find a regulator or a boost converter or something from TI and you can't find your exact part, you might be able to go up and down in either accuracy or current output or like voltage input limit and find something that has almost the exact same capabilities, but like a slightly different specification. So if we go to, let's see, was the TPS 31, 73101, the DBVT is a sub part number that usually specifies the temperature, the packaging and the reeling, like how big the reel is. So we can ignore that. So this is, yeah, since this is part of a family, there's the 73101, which is the specific component. And then this one has adjustable output. And there's also the family, TPS 731. And this is, you can see, this is like doesn't have the full part number. That's cause it's a family of regulators, including ones with fixed voltage output. So the 101 is the adjustable, but then there's like the 73118, which is 1.8, 73150, which is a 5.0. Well, there's a wide range of them. But you're gonna have the same functionality like that fold back over current protection that they wanted, is going to be in every part of that family. So I thought what was interesting is that if you look, they have a range of very similar boards with similar performance and probably the same kind of functionality. So let's look at, let's look at find other, do I wanna find other regulators? Yeah, let's do find other regulators. Let's see if they have the fold back protection as one of the output capability. So this is 7313, VNMIN, let's not have a maximum output. So this is, I'm searching for the 73101 and then I'm just kind of deleting things that aren't as important to me. So no, the VNMAX can be, I guess this is fine, this is fine. We can say maybe the noise is not as important. I don't care about fixed output because I want adjustable output. Let's remove the VNMIN so it can be a wider range. And VNMAX has at least five volts, VLMAX, yeah, five volts, that's fine. And then the minimum as well. Okay, so it has about 13 different parts and you can see that this is that 73101, it's still here. Oh wait, we wanted to find the fold back. Let's see if this is in here. Actually, I don't remember if this is in here. Okay, here you go, fold back over current protection. Okay, so here's the ones that have that fold back protection and have at least maybe the same amount of current. So there's the 73101 and there is the 732. And if you look and compare between the two, the 731, 732, both have the same list of functionality. This one's a little bit more expensive. This one looks like it has the same number of fixed outputs as adjustable outputs. And this one is 250 milliamp output instead of 150. So that makes sense, the 731 is 150, 732 is 250. So if we look at the 732, now again, if I had more time, I'd go through the entire data sheet and I'd compare it one by one to see if the quiescent current is what I need, if the drop-off is what I need. But it could be that you could just use this instead of the 731, just use the 732, the next step up. So if you go to digikey, I think TPS 73, 732.01, because the 01 is the adjustable version. And let's also only show in stock because we only care about if they haven't stocked, that's what we're looking for. So it looks like there's two versions. So for, I don't know what DCQ is, I don't know if this looks like it's a different package, although that's weird because I didn't know this came in another package. But they do have the SOT 23.5 in it. It's available through a marketplace, it's through a third party. Rochester Electronics sells, it's gray market, it's not the official distributor, but they do sell distribution quality parts. Looks like they've got 3,000 available. The only thing is the price is kind of high. It's gonna be $2 instead of what you would normally budget for it, which I believe in the search set a budget of about 50 cents. So the question is, is the extra $1.50 price worth it to get this board out there on the road? Another option that I would do is if you don't want to go with the TPS 73, 201, there's also the 73 401, which is the next step up in linear regulators. And this one was also only show in stock. And this one, oh, this one, yeah, you can get these a little bit cheaper. They go down to like a dollar or 73 cents, but they don't have a lot in stock and they're not getting them talked over. So nevermind. I thought that they actually had some leads in stock, but if you can find through another distributor, you could also change to the WSON version package. I guess they come in both SOF 23 and WSON. But I think the best bet right now, you know, it's annoying to pay more for a, whoops, one second. It's annoying to pay more for a regulator when normally you'd spec of 50 cents and you're paid $2. On the other hand, it's $2, not $5. And if you really want to get it out the door, this might be more important. And maybe next time we'll also look at maybe how to find other regulators with foldback current protection. Because again, it's a unique thing that you're gonna have to know how to find. But this is a good alternative.  And of course, you know, it has more current capability so you can even connect more stuff to the output of your board. All right, that's a good church. Where are you? Oh, I forgot to do my disclosure for all this stuff. So we don't get paid to write about Warner Brothers movies, we're not part of the Suicide Squad yet. No, we keep applying but they don't do this. We saw the movie on our iPad and we saw this and we write about stuff meant, our stuff is in the Mandalorian and a whole bunch of others and it's always really cool. Yeah, our stuff comes in movies. It's always really cool to see your stuff in movies and we're always gonna write about it and we don't do any marketing for movie studios or whatever. So please do not have bad faith arguments about that. It's not true. That's my disclosure. It's mostly just Twitter. People are kind of nuts. Okay, that's. All right, that's it. We talked about some board designs, we talked about some alternative parts and we showed some errors. All right. Thanks everybody. See you everybody during the week.