This video will provide a brief overview of time and effort, abbreviated as T&E. As a new director, the first thing you should do is find out how your organization currently does time and effort reporting, who currently oversees it, and how your organization did on past audits in relation to time and effort. Each organization that receives federal grant funds must have processes and procedures to ensure all employees whose salaries are charged in whole or in part to any federal grant complete time and effort reports. Payroll records, which are required but do not substitute for actual time and effort reports, show how much of an employee's time was charged to a federal grant. Time and effort reports are after-the-fact reports that certify how an employee spent their time. Time and effort reports must reflect 100% of the time for which an employee is paid. Even if only 10% of an employee's salary is charged to a federal grant, the other 90% of the time must still be included on time and effort reports. Classified and hourly employees must complete time and effort reports at least once per month. Exempt staff and faculty must complete reports at least once per quarter. The organization must reconcile time and effort reports against the amount charged to the grant for salaries and benefits prior to the end of the organization's fiscal year and prior to the end of the grant period. All faculty and staff funded in whole or in part by a federal grant must complete time and effort reports. All faculty and staff funded in whole or in part by non-federal funds used as a match or leveraged funds for a grant must also complete time and effort reports. Each organization must have an organization-wide process for time and effort reporting. There may be some slight nuances by program area or grant, but time and effort reporting for all grants must still follow the same overall process at your organization. You as a grant manager are responsible for ensuring that all grant requirements are met, including the time and effort reporting requirements. This means you must know the overall federal time and effort requirements and ensure they're being met for your particular grant. If they are not, you must work with your organization to ensure process improvements are made. There are a couple of acceptable methods for time and effort reporting. SBCTC has published time and effort guidelines that describe these methods and which types of staff can complete each type. The guidelines also contain sample reporting forms, checklists to ensure your forms and processes contain all required components, and information on reporting for employees charged 100% to a single federal grant. You can find the guidelines on the SBCTC website by searching for time and effort in the how-to section of the online grant management system or OGMS and in the resources section of the online budget and invoicing system or OBIS.


Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for for joining us. For the last two years the number of police officers serving the city of Burlington has been a matter of major discussion and concern. Since early 2020 we've seen the number of officers drop from basically the mid 90s where it generally been for many years to our current number of 61 officers with 53 of those officers being available for deployment and that's what this first chart shows here. In this period of declining officers we have also seen some very concerning public safety trends. After years of nearly all crime metrics moving in the right direction this table summarizes some of the public safety challenges that we're currently facing if we can advance the next slide. So these are comparing 2022 year to date according to BPD statistics versus the five-year average. Public safety is a core responsibility of local government and turning these trends around especially gun violence is my highest priority right now and a focus of much of my time day in and day out these right now. In past press conferences over recent months we have talked about major investments the city is making to address these issues by creating additional public safety resources including adding social workers to the BPD team adding urban park rangers to the park staff and creating other CSO positions non-arm public safety personnel and more. However to fully address our current public safety challenges and ensure that this community continues to be one of the safest cities in the country we need to rebuild the department to the authorized headcount as soon as possible. Today's press conference is focused on communicating to the community to our current officers and to prospective officers how we intend to do that and to get back to a department with 85 sworn officers over the next three years and the next slide here shows what you know what that could look like there's a lot of of course it won't work out exactly like that but that trend of getting back to 85 officers three years from now is what this rebuilding plan is focused on. Again I make we're gonna we've talked about this some in the past people who have been following this discussion very closely will note that I think most of what we are communicating was part of our discussions with the city council over the last couple months but wanted to kind of pull this all together in one place and communicate it to everyone so everyone understands what we're attempting to do. I particularly see a few of our current and new officers here with us today I particularly want to be communicating this to current Burlington police officers who are right now working too hard we're asking too much from them there was too much over time too much pressure on the remaining number of officers after the declines we've seen the last three years. One bright spot in our current efforts is that we did just in the last couple weeks hire three new officers that are headed to the academy in August and the three of them are with us at the back of the room today and we we're grateful for your service and looking forward to I'm looking forward to working with you over the years ahead and want to point out that the this a lot of this success is a result of at the back of the room also we have our recruitment officer Maggie who's been focused on this as a key part of her Meg is a key part of this for the last year plus. So the next slide here shows Dan if we could advance the basic three-part strategy that we have been talking about for securing that trajectory that we just showed it involved retaining officers at a better rate than we have in the past through a new contract it involved recruiting new officers through both the contract and additional incentives that we are now offering and marketing and communicating the the what is unique about Burlington what the opportunities are here is something that we are now doing to a greater degree than we ever have in this past that we ever have in the past the as we do this work one of our goals in addition to getting back up to the the into the mid 80s for the number of officers is to rebuild a department that fully reflects the Burlington community with a focus on hiring women something that has been a goal and something that the BPD has successfully achieved better than much the industry at times in recent years it's a goal during this rebuilding period we're also looking to hire as many BIPOC officers as we can including specific efforts aimed at hiring from our Burlington immigrant communities the next slide I think this gets into some of the detail actually the chief is going to go through in a minute I just I wanted to finish with the just the resources that we're dedicating to this we have secured two big council working with the city council and I'm appreciative of the council's partnership in recent months we have really significant resources to pursue this new plan there is approximately 1.2 million dollars in our the rebuilding plan that was approved in the budget in June it's a three-year budget essentially to fund this effort includes $750,000 of funds from the last year's budget that we did not spend in part because of you know in large part because of the significant reduction number of officers these funds are now being redeployed into this rebuilding plan in addition we are there was $220,000 of unspent recruitment incentives from a prior recruitment and retention initiative last fall that money is being redeployed to this effort and we are expecting to work over three years with the city the Queen City Police Foundation to an unprecedented degree to bring in funds that will help offer specific incentives to two officers the and again I just I thank the city council for their partnership in supporting that budget also the other thing the council did is we have been talking in recent weeks is approve a new contract this new contract is a contract that will allow the the chief murad of the BPD to be very competitive as we attempt to retain officers and recruit new officers given the 12% increase in salary that is approved as part of that contract in the first year and and the the following years of additional increases with that I now I'm going to turn over the podium to chief murad who will walk us through the details of how these funds are going to be used and the details of how we're going to accomplish this plan thanks sir I'm sorry thanks and welcome I actually I have been told before that I need to be a little bit less grim when I stand at this podium but most of the time it's because we are at this podium for reasons that are not good ones we are here to brief about crime or about some incident and this is not that this is a great moment I'm really really happy to be at this podium to talk about where we are right now this contract that was gotten with the mayor that was approved by the city council the budget that the mayor worked so hard to get along with CAO Catherine Shad along with the approval of the city council great work with city council president Karen Paul to achieve a unanimous approval of that budget these are real turning points for us and they they represent a moment for us to be able to begin to rebuild and regrow and to to basically say all right the you saw that prognostication that that graphic that showed headcount today's headcount the headcount there is August 1st and yet we're already up we're up by three people and are moving in that direction I am hopeful that what we see in that graph represents a nadir a bottom for us it may not we may lose a couple more people over the rest of this calendar year I actually do believe that we will but I also believe that we can begin bringing people in and I am speaking directly to people in Chittenden County in the state of Vermont who want to be police officers if they want to be police officers here we want them to come we are looking for good men and women to join this most important of professions and so I think that what we have here is one of the most competitive packages in the state I think it's a very competitive package for the region I'm already hearing from people who aren't from Vermont interest in coming to this place the profession as a whole is in a tough spot the profession as a whole has lost people the profession as a whole has struggled with recruitment and retention and to a certain extent we are looking for people who are either leaving other places or could go to other places and what brings them here well this is a big part of it the other big part of it is the support that this demonstrates this demonstrates a new a new era for the working with the city council working with the administration working with the police commission working with the city that we serve in order to say we have recognized that where we are right now with regard to public safety isn't where we want to be but we do want to move forward into something better and I think this gives us those tools and I'm really eager for it I think that there are you know some specifics that we can talk about with regard to some of the ways that we do that and we've talked about this a bit at the board of finance and when getting the budget approved they include excuse me they include new positions to help us reach those people out there who want to be police officers both people who are already police officers and we hope to attract to this unique and terrific community and people who aren't police officers yet who have thought about it who bring with them skill sets that we've always needed in law enforcement and new skill sets that we recognize we want now and we're doing that in a lot of ways not just with police officers because when it comes down to it these it is not just about police officers we have community support liaisons that we are hiring we have three new positions to hire for there for that we have a total of six to seven community service officers one of our new recruits was a community service officer who's making that transition into the police world we're hopeful to see that happen more we're hopeful to bring excellent candidates in in those roles um we've had a lot of challenges over the past two years and in all of these challenges I believe I hope there has been a consistent theme our shared mission is keeping people safe but on a day-to-day basis it is police officers who do that work augmented now by CSOs and CSLs our job as a city is to support these men and women as they do that work and to set clear expectations on how and the two clearest examples of support that they need are this budget that the mayor has put together and the both the AFSCME contract and the BPOA contract that have been approved by our city council the expectations have to be clear too we have to treat everyone fairly we have to treat everyone compassionately and we have to do that competently um I often use the word neighbors rather than citizens or civilians because as Sir Robert Peel said the police are the public and the public are the police cops and the community have to be one in the same and I've spoken again and again internally with the officers about our living up to the words on paper that our country has established what America says on paper is that it's what the Declaration of Independence promised that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights like life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness what America says on paper is that our constitution promises that we establish justice and that we ensure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty putting these words on paper is not the end it's just a beginning all of those things require public safety all of those things require a safe public in which all of us can share our public spaces together equally fairly and a big step to that is this and bringing people aboard so we do hope to hire a new public information officer and community engagement coordinator that's a single position with a very long title but it's a position that is going to help us tell our story about what we're doing to share that story sometimes with you the media with regard to specific events so that it's not just my phone that you're texting at you know four on a sunday afternoon but it is also a person who's engaged with the media in that way also a person who's engaged with the community that was a very important part of the description of that role someone who will be able to work with the community share the story hear their story a two-way conversation about what our community needs and wants and how the police are serving those needs we're hopeful to get a recruitment coordinator that recruitment coordinator is someone who will augment the work that is already being done by Megan O'Leary she is our current recruiting officer that's a police officer you need a police officer in a recruiting position and that is because people ask when people want to be cops they want to talk to a cop and ask questions of cops but we also need somebody who's going to understand better how the current market works what best practice tools are out there with regard to recruitment and how we tell that story in a way that not only communicates it as does the the public information officer community engagement coordinator but also tells the story in order to recruit and drive people to this agency and then uh sorry so i want to make a quick point on that just to make it's clear that those are two permanent positions that have been added to the structural budget of the bpd that is not that is separate from the 1.2 million three-year rebuilding plan but these are resources that should definitely help with that rebuilding yes sir and then thank you very much for that clarification um and then that that money is going to be used by those individuals in order to determine how we can market the burlington police department and this is frankly a first stage of that i i'm hopeful that this message that all of you are carrying will resonate uh through chitenden county and beyond and begin to let people know that we are open for business and we are looking to rebuild and we are looking to regrow and we're looking to do it in a way that meets what our community has said that it wants and re-establish the kinds of of safety that we expect here in burlington do you want to touch chief on any of the specific contract provisions you think are worth highlighting well i i think i think a lot of these are great i think we have a we have a really a good place to work this is a great place to work unlike a lot of places we do allow beards that was actually a decision of our police commission working together with the police commission they voted for that i wasn't in favor of it frankly but the police commission voted for that and added that to our directives we do allow beards we do allow tattoos these are things that are are part of our younger generations haven't always been a part of policing are not a part of many other agencies they won't allow those kinds of things a big one for us very important for us is that we will hire people who are not citizens of the united states so long as they are permanent residents green car holders uh that is a big difference between a lot of other agencies very big and it's very important for us and this unique community where we more than almost any other part of the state have a very large population of folks who fit that bill and we want those folks to become part of this agency whether it's police officers or whether entry level at uh as community service officers in order to build the skills necessary to become police officers being a cop is hard it's a very difficult job it is a job of shift work you are going to miss holidays you are going not always to be able to have the time off that you expected right now we're working too much overtime but that's always a function of the job it is a job that exposes you to terrible things sometimes but amazing things as well and you get amazing opportunities to contribute and the fact of the matter is not everybody makes it through and the reason that projection that was on the previous slide is so bumpy is that we lose people we lose people to plan attrition in other words there are people who are going to hit 20 years and be eligible for a pension and leave and we lose people for other reasons we lose people to injury we lose recruits from the academy because it doesn't turn out to be what they thought that it was and they will drop out the three recruits we have will all of them make it through i hope so we will do everything we can to support them here at this agency to make it so but the fact of the matter is this is a tough profession and we don't want it to be anything but because we want to have high standards in whom we attract and whom we keep and we want them to want this job that said we also want to ensure that we are opening this job to many different kinds of people perhaps that haven't been interested in it before that's an ongoing conversation that i'm part of at the state level as a member of a committee that works with the criminal justice council in order to assess entrance standards for the vermont police academy there are ongoing conversations about how the vermont police academy works as well i'm hopeful that we can tackle those in the coming years as well but in the meantime here at home in burlington we're going to use that money that we talked about for marketing we're going to use it for things that we have not done in the past with regard to effective storytelling and effective brand sharing to make certain that people understand what our brand is and our brand is its compassion it is a service of victims and it is public safety with and for our neighbors thank you chief i think at this point we'd be happy to answer any questions that your folks have yeah i i don't sure uh how does the uh how does burlington starting salary compare i think it blows everybody else out of the water right now in vermont and in chitin county uh and i think that it is a very fair uh a very strong starting salary and it's indicative of the value we place on the people who want to come and do this work for our community i think we could probably follow up Courtney and share the state police scale if if you could see for a comparison yeah okay dan can you work on the okay go ahead yeah we do okay the the question is um is part of this plan to in some way address the housing challenges that officers face uh when they're moving to the area and and specifically of trying to move to burlington this is um something that um you know we know very few of our current officers i don't know if you have an updated stat on that but currently live in burlington something we would like to address directly you want to speak to this effort yes sir uh so i don't have an exact stat on how many officers live in burlington it's not a huge number i do uh we have a number of officers who do but it's not as large as we'd like it to be more importantly we would love new officers to be able to live here i have been in discussions with uh people at the with the the chair of the queen city police foundation that's a 501c3 it's a difficult proposition to try to determine whether or not uh an entity like that is capable of of working on housing issues so we're still in the progress of discussing that but the trick would be to find uh people in burlington who are are willing to say particularly large you know people who have access to rental housing who will say we will incentivize burlington officers living here um and that's something that happens federally across the country there are a number of programs that have existed at various times uh to incentivize people to live usually in neighborhoods that are are a little bit challenged is often a way to bring a cop into a neighborhood that maybe is on the cusp of sort of a turnover um that's not necessarily something that we're looking for here we want them to live in burlington proper and anywhere we can find would be great and we want to work with uh people who can provide those incentives in ways that are lawful and fair but are also encouraging to officers to come because it is a challenge one of the officers who's recruit right now had to figure out where that he was going to stay during the pre-basic period that occurs here in burlington before going down to the police academy in pitsford um after the police academy he'll find a place but to have to get that you know uh several months early as it were was is a bit of a challenge it's not something we've supported in the past in a sense of us having a mechanism for supporting it that mechanism is something that we're going to build and use these funds to do that specifically the the hundred and fifty thousand that's shown as coming from the queen city foundation um now that this is improved in in motion we are going to nail down um housing incentives have been envisioned as being a significant part of that um I do think this is something we can raise uh raise funds for and and that there's community support for and that can be an additional incentive um beyond the beyond the contract terms for um for for recruits if i may be clear so it's not all from the queen city police foundation uh it would be obvious money that we hope to be able to achieve through uh fundraising or through grants some of it would be uh through the police the queen city police foundation not all of it some of it would be uh some of the things that we talked about during the budget presentation involved childcare incentives and those are things that other parts of the city are working on too the mayor's made it clear that he's very supportive of that working with uh members in the marketplace in order to try to create that for other city employees as well um many of these things hopefully will have that kind of extra benefit that these aren't just for police officers these are things that we can use to to increase our overall city employment and in general attract people to this community i have been working with other law enforcement agencies in the county to put together a a sense of of marketing that we all can share uh other police departments in the county through the the chamber of commerce and in order to say this is an attractive place to come and live because once we get them here in the county then we can we can scramble with south burlington pd over it and determine whether or not this salary is better or not um we can figure out all those other incentives but we want to get them here and and grow as a county as well not just as a city although i work for burlington and i live in burlington and i certainly prioritize burlington getting that experience and growth sure so we want we want okay uh so the question was about quotas around both race and gender and around diversity hiring uh beyond just uh traditional or excuse me in a sense of gender and non-binary employees um we have had non-binary employees before we've had transgender employees before not as police officer we've had we've certainly had a lot of different sexual orientations as police officers um those are we're looking for great candidates period we want people who who come to us with skill sets that allow them to be what we want we want uh we want people who can maintain order who can be de-escalatory who can connect with the community they serve who can do that compassionately and fairly and identity is a part of that and what you bring from your past to the job going forward is a part of that do we have quotas no quotas aren't lawful we do have goals we have goals we've joined a movement called 30 by 30 which is run uh out of new york and it is 30 female representation in the police profession by 2030 we joined that before i was allowed to hire again during the period of time where we were not allowed to hire police officers i joined that because i believe it to be important my wife and i named our daughter katie elizabeth after elizabeth katie stand because we i very much believe in uh in gender equality and making certain that we have uh fair representations on that in a profession that hasn't always been great at it um we are also of course looking to find people who are uh who bring with them advanced degrees or unique kinds of degrees not just criminal justice not just people with military backgrounds but all of those things are important to us too because all of these things can create a department that is able to represent a whole range of different service needs as it addresses the you know the requirements of a community like ours uh yes so i know in in seriousness and to repeat the question for you since you need that um do we expect there to be a certain amount of competition and do we expect there to be uh a sense of interest from other places yeah we have lost some officers to neighboring towns over the past two years i'm hopeful some of those may come back i'm hopeful that we may uh attract others to us and the incentivization the pay scale is a component of that the fifteen thousand dollar hiring bonus that was approved by the city council in autumn of last year is a component of that um we need that kind of support from our community both our elected representatives the community at large to make certain that people want to come work here because it's not merely about the money uh this is good money it's very good money for this profession but this is a hard profession and the fact of the matter is nobody does it only for the money and i don't know that i'd want people who did we want people who do this work because it's meaningful to them because they understand how meaningful it is to the community they serve and because it is a calling cops count and police matter and that means that cops on an individual basis they they count everything they do on a daily basis counts the police matter as an entity that is what that you know is a is a significant part of any community and i think that we are in a place right now in burlington uh that we recognize that and we're prepared to to bring people aboard with that understanding i don't know if you want to say something sir um i think we just i'm not sure we touched on it um there might have been a slide on it that i don't think we pause them but the this idea of of getting to this target over three years basically would involve doubling the amount of recruits of new recruits going through the academy over what we've had historically it would include essentially is it is it doubling or more with the laterals yes sir so thank you sir uh so it is a it's a 50 percent increase in the number of recruits that we hire in each class it is a 50 percent increase in the number of laterals that we bring aboard in each calendar year and it is 100 increase in the retention that is from a relatively low retention of i think 30 something percent to about 50 retention so that accounts for the fact that we don't keep everybody and retention is not just the groups that we bring in it's also the people who are already here we lose people again as i said before we lose people to retirement we lose people to resignation we lose people to realizing that this profession isn't for them occasionally we lose people to termination but we are not going to keep everybody we bring in that's not the nature of this profession or any profession for that matter we need to improve however how many we do keep if we can do that if we can double the at that improvement if we can bring in laterals at 50 percent higher numbers than we have in the past if we can bring in recruit classes you know we have three i need six i need six in the class in january and i need six in the class next august if we can do that then we keep to that schedule that is ambitious but achievable anything can derail that and if we end up with a class where there's four people instead of six people then that number changes a little bit if i end up with a spate of resignations or retirements that could change that a little bit but that prognostication there which is entirely a prognostication it is a hypothetical look at here's our patterns of retention and recruitment over the past here the goals that we're setting for ourselves here the knowns people who i know when certain people are going to hit their 20 and are likely to retire i don't know when other people are going to say this is enough for me or i've changed my feelings about this place or it's just time to hang it up or or something happened in my life and i can't be here anymore i don't know when recruits aren't going to make it through because they get injured or because they fail out because our standards are high and so are the vermont police academies or because they realize this just is not what i thought it was going to be i can't prognosticate for that on an individual basis but i can estimate when those things happen based on how often they've happened before and i can say i want to over achieve i want to achieve above that and that's what we see there is it something that we're absolutely going to do it is ambitious but achievable but there are a lot of things that can get in the way of making that happen and honestly the more all of us work together and pull together as a community to then the more likely it is that that will happen hey sanny go ahead good morning both of you my name is sanny bear and i'm an attorney and i'm an attorney who's particularly involved in incidents of domestic violence and i'm wondering if number one did domestic violence situations increase with the attrition of police officers and what if that's the case so you're going to include in your recruitment police officers and others who are experts at dealing with domestic violence situations yeah i just thank you great great question uh so right here domestic violence prevention is one of the specialized positions that we offer we offer specialty assignments like detectives narcotics canine officers domestic violence prevention we have an airport an international airport where we send officers that is a different thing than almost any other police department in the state um domestic violence is right up there because that is incredibly important to us your question around the numbers we did not see an increase in domestic violence assault misdemeanor or felony in fact those have gone down a little bit during the pandemic what we have seen a tremendous increase is domestic disturbance which is a precursor category and sometimes what we get to a situation we're not able to ascertain whether or not there was an assault whether it was a misdemeanor assault or a felony assault or an assault at all but we know that there was something that caused neighbors to call or others to call that caused us to take note of it and that rose drastically i'm hopeful that what that means actually is that we're intervening at earlier stages and that the decrease in assaults is a good thing because we're doing a little better at those interventions before domestic disturbance becomes a domestic assault i know that we are working hard i have kept our domestic violence prevention officer i've had to reassign a lot of specialty roles as we have gotten smaller we went from an an entity with with 90 you know normally around 96 we had 92 uh in june of 2020 we are down right now to 61 uh and fewer than that are available for for for actual deployments 54 and of those only 21 are actually on patrol who are dedicated as officers to patrol i have nevertheless despite we as we get smaller and smaller i have kept that domestic violence prevention officer assigned to her role because the role is so important and uh frankly she makes officers on the roads jobs easier because they can refer cases to her and she can take them over in a way that it ultimately makes it easier on the road even though they are missing a person that they could otherwise have as a coworker on patrol it is an incredibly important role is it one that we will continue to have as long as we can keep it i will keep that uh and right now as i said i'm hopeful that we are not going to get smaller uh but one can never say never uh particularly after where we've been over the past two years so i want to know that we but i this is a very important piece to me and it's a piece that i hope is indicative of of our agencies uh the vastness of of our opportunity in this agency which is only going to increase as we grow we used to have officers who did emergency response an emergency response officer we used to have a community affairs officer i see the need to embed an officer in what we call CAPE our crisis assessment intervention program which is where our csls reside which is where the domestic violence prevention officer resides where our victims advocate resides uh i see the office the need to have co-deployment of officers at some point it's not something we can do right now i want us to be able to engage with the community better both as a community affairs officer but other positions as well and right now we're being asked for that by members of for example our police commission other members of the public and yet when we have 21 people on any given shift we may only have two police officers patrolling the city to have them pull away and engage with the public at a barbeque or going to a school event is not feasible we need to grow back to be able to do those things that are so important to having strong relationships with the community likely be here like when will those folks likely be on the job and you post with the just making it a sense of timeline for those who need the csls and those who need the officer so when you when you say the civilian positions do you mean the the public information officer and the recruitment coordinator okay because because obviously we have the csls already we're we need to grow them um we have the csls already and we need to grow those we're doubling essentially each of those roles and that's going to be a priority for us uh the pio position is is nearly ready to post i think that it will be posted this week the recruitment coordinator will take a little bit longer and ultimately we'll have to go through a process uh at board of finance and other places in order to make certain that it's approved but i'm hopeful that we get both of those positions posted ASAP and then are able to start doing working with with human resources using our channels for advertising these kinds of position in order to to reach out to communities both law enforcement communities people who have experience as a as a law enforcement pio or that don't that are they're coming from a different kind of place and ultimately that hiring process will be what hr does with regard to the identification and then we will have to do background checks and vetting and there will have to be some kind of of interview process that will inevitably involve the mayor's office and others um and we'll figure out you know because this is going to be an important position it's going to work a lot with the mayor's office it's going to work a lot with you all um maybe i'll have one of you guys sit on the on the hiring panel i don't know but uh it's it's going to be a process that we that we follow um where i hope to be able to post that this week that i can't answer because usually about two months from the time something's posted two to three months from posting to to in general i mean maybe there's specific things here and i'm going to cut you off no sir but that's typically what we see the uh we want to be clear that our background check may be a little bit may take things a little longer than that but i'm i'm i'm good if he tells me three months we're going to try to make that happen in three months excellent the um and i want to be clear both the positions were in the budget as i said earlier they were funded and um the pio position is fully ready for posting the uh community the recruitment coordinator requires an additional step as that she referenced so that's a little bit behind that but that should be happening soon yes sir what's the benefit of having a civilian pio as opposed to a uniformed officer pio you know i'll just i'll let the chief answer intersect to the sorry the the the the question is why why have we created this civilian recruitment position um when this is something we've had um uh an officer doing the past um again Officer O'Neill here with us who's serving that role now um and we we will continue to have officers very involved in in this um however this is on the state police have recently created a position very similar position it's uh at a time when we have such limited sworn officer resources this um i think is really necessary two two things going on right now we have more limited sworn officer resources than we ever had and we have a greater need to recruit than we've ever had so putting additional resources in place to help succeed right now uh this is i think a logical way to do it again it's it's one of the other agencies we're seeing do and um i think especially in this period we'll allow uh hopefully we'll allow our officers or limited number of officers to be deployed um uh to to the public safety needs as much as possible as opposed to pulling them off for sort of essentially administrative uh or you know some will be strategic efforts but they're ones that you don't need a you know you don't need to have gone through the officer certification program to be able to do this work and and the same is true of the pio position as well uh so the reason you know a lot of agencies work with non-uniformed pios with non-swarm psos um pios excuse me uh is is this is the same thing um and a lot of places end up bringing you know former newspaper people in or former media people so if any of you guys are looking uh we'll be posting that soon and and we'd be happy to have your application in there was a 500 percent increase i guess in gunfire incident uh is there going to be any focus or targeting towards we're doing about you know the presence of guns around this experience too was in my neighborhood um last couple months so um is there any plan to address that so yes i think the last press conference we had was um following the recent um homicide and suicide uh several weeks ago um chief mirad i mentioned in my opening remarks we're extremely focused right now on uh the rise in in gunfire incidents it's extremely concerning to us um we have had two events here standing with the state's attorney making it clear that this um this type of activity which is unusual in burlington we haven't seen this kind of shootings at anywhere near these levels in in recent years that it's got to stop that it's unacceptable um and we are working very hard and have been working hard throughout this period to hold individuals accountable who are firing these guns and i think there has been 1918-19 arrests of these 40 different gunfire incidents going back to the beginning of 2020 um there are some significant cases that are still open that we're working very hard on currently i will say we are also in a way that um is unprecedented in the the 10 years that i've been in this role having conversations with other agencies seeking to bring additional law enforcement resources to bear whether that's in terms of investigatory resources uh sharing of information with other agencies prosecutorial resources there is a great deal of work going on right now to uh you know especially as we've been talking given the limited resources burlington the bpd has currently to bring other resources to bear here and um we will be talking more about that in the days and weeks to come um and that is very that is very much a part of the ongoing work whether it it and and i think that is there sort of the backdrop um of what we're talking about today that we to to have a fully uh resource detective bureau to be able to properly um do everything we can to disincentivize to make it less likely that these crimes take place in the first place we need a more robust police department and so a big part of the reason we are pushing so hard taking all these steps to rebuild the department is uh and what i want to be very clear we have reason i feel such urgency in um creating these plans and delivering on these plans is uh because of of that and some of the other concerning public safety trends we face um so i hope that answers your question i'm not sure if you were maybe you're asking something slightly different about whether did that address your question or you or is there something more specific you were looking for in that question i guess i was looking for like structurally like how you're probably going to plan but i understand that it's a very recent event so you're probably still in a process well i'll say that if if we were at 85 today i would probably have an officer devoted to uh a task force position about this i can't afford to do that right now our detectives we don't have enough of them so um instead we have officers devoted to the cases in front of them and those include as the mayor said a lot of cases that we are working on um you know we said it before at a previous press conference but when you have that increase in volume and and let's be clear that 500 percent is is a shocking number it's a small it's a that's a shocking percentage number it is a small absolute number right we are talking about a small absolute number and yet it's huge relative to previous years and officers detectives who have previously had one or two of these incidents a year uh to which they they investigate are now having one every other week and every single detective in that uh detective unit basically has a shooting assigned to him or her in order to look at them it is a it's a tremendous burden on them uh if i had more then i would be able to pull one out and say you are specialized and you are doing this this is your job to to tackle all this i i don't have those kinds of resources because they still have all those burglaries that are up many of those car thefts that are up end up having a certain amount of detective work applied to them um many other kinds you know certain felony assaults may have detective work applied to them and so uh they are they're they're pushing more than their normal load up the hill um but the more folks we get the bigger we grow uh the more able we are to actually sort of get to to some of that and and figure out new ways to tackle them um but as the mayor said we are doing that already particularly with regard to partners in the in the county and at the federal level and i actually you know we have had some movement on some of our shooting cases that i'm i'm hopeful that we will be able to talk about some of that movement soon but a component of of any kind of investigation is is also making certain that the people you're looking into uh don't have you know enough information for you to be able to look at them so that's a component of it too have there been any change on the motive that you've been able to find out or the victims condition uh no no there the the victim is is alive and then still at the hospital um the the picture of of motive hasn't changed much we uh obviously have the suspect um who took his own life uh and uh was was there knew both of those victims um and it does appear to have a component of there was a relationship a an amorous relationship um and so to that extent it has domestic violence components uh but um we are that that's a case that is still being worked on i don't believe we have yet been able to interview that victim i think that victim is uh is still uh you know it's a delicate situation it's somebody who has been through a lot and uh the ability to to to do the things we need to do to understand fully what occurred uh are uh we have to be cognizant of that we have to be compassionate and caring about that and those take a back seat to worrying about a timetable for us you want you can have the final question uh if you have one more from rockpoint this weekend um we're able to identify a victim for circumstances or bloody thing at that site you change uh so i can't speak to to the question about the site um what i can say is uh you know i hike in rockpoint uh pretty regularly take my my kids and the dog there um i think that it is a safe place that has a certain amount of uh you know you gotta be careful when you're there we believe currently that this was probably a suicide i'm not prepared yet to name the individual i'm confirming that we've made next of kin notifications first but based on the history the individual had uh this was a person that law enforcement had had 20 interactions excuse me 14 interactions with since june 1st and and that's a lot and many of them were driven by issues around mental health etc i'm pretty certain that this was a suicide we worked with the coast guard in order to gain access to uh the decedent there was no ground access our officer actually had to take off his gun belt and and vest and jump in the lake in his uniform in order to get to the shore um this was you know it's it's uh it's a very sad incident a very terrible incident but i don't believe that it has any implications for anything wider in the community okay thank you all thank you chief appreciate you all join us and talk more soon


If you want to fill them with air, bomb them. If you want to fill them with water, torpedo them. The standard question of every torpedo pilot has always been, when do we get a torpedo that can be launched from high altitudes and great speed? The answer is that we have such a torpedo now. And here it is, launched at 260 knots and 800 feet. What's more, it's running hot, straight and normal. All torpedoes of the Mark 13, Mod 6, 7, 8 and 9 type, look pretty much like the older models. So what has revolutionized the performance of the torpedo? The shroud ring, commonly called the ring tail, Mark 1, Model 0, in conjunction with the drag ring on the nose of the torpedo does the trick. This is a steel ring welded to guide veins of the new torpedo. Using this ring tail with the nose drag ring and wooden stabilizer, successful test drops have been made at 2,000 feet with a speed of 350 knots. Optimum performance is obtained at about 800 feet and 260 knots. The stabilizer is secured to the ring tail with wooden dowels which shear on contact with the water. The drag ring has two primary functions, to aid in air stabilization and to decrease the impact shock about 40% on hitting the water. This is especially useful in cases of extremely high altitude drops. In a torpedo drop, any deviation from true air trajectory is liable to cause damage on impact. The drag ring helps to eliminate pitch and yaw. Like the stabilizer, this disintegrates when it hits the water. A valve, the water-trip delay valve, prevents the torpedo turbines from burning up during its long air travel. On leaving the plane, the torpedo is operating only by compressed air. Impact with the water trips the valve, starting normal fuel operation. This valve is secured with wire to prevent the airstream from springing it. Similarly, high speed and altitude make it necessary to prevent the impeller on the exploder mechanism from turning while in flight.  Impact with the water will shear the wire. At high altitudes and in cold climates, special precaution must be taken to ensure a sufficient amount of antifreeze in the water chamber of the torpedo. View-oared instructions should be followed. With the new oar dolts enforced, not only will the torpedo be more stable in the air and in the water with no appreciable broaching or hooking, but initial dives in 85% of cases will be no deeper than 50 feet if the proper entrance angle is used. Remember that proper depth settings must be determined for the type of target to be attacked. This should be in accordance with tactical doctrine. Depth settings as shallow as 5 feet may be used successfully. Against armored vessels, it is necessary to set the depth to strike below the armor to achieve maximum destruction. However, take care that the torpedo is not set so deep that it will pass under the target. Recent statistics show that of 2,000 torpedoes dropped under varying conditions, about 92% ran hot, straight and normal. And in combat, the percentage of hits with torpedoes is greater than that of any other form of attack against shipping. And experts have figured that the plane is now from 40% to 50% less vulnerable to enemy anti-aircraft fire when using the new recommended high-speed, high-altitude approaches. Torpedoes were formally dropped at low altitudes and low air speeds, so air travel was nearly negligible. However, using increased speed and altitude combinations naturally increases air travel. The old axiom of releasing at 1,000 yards does not hold water. In many cases, the air travel alone is 1,000 yards or more. At present, the torpedo is set to arm with a run of at least 260 yards. However, an additional 140 yards is added in alt-sighting tables to compensate for possible torpedo and pilot error. So no matter what speed-altitude combinations are used, the torpedo should hit the water about 400 yards from the estimated point of contact with its target. A chart to serve as a torpedo launching guide has been published in Naval Aviation Confidential Bulletin for July 1944. A combination of any two coordinates gives the other three. For example, enter the chart with a dropping speed of 260 knots and a dropping altitude of 800 feet. This will result in an entrance angle of about 28 degrees, a time of fall of 7 seconds, and a horizontal distance of 3,000 feet between points of release and water entry. 3,000 feet is 1,000 yards, to which 400-yard water run must be added, giving a total horizontal range of 1,400 yards, from point of release to point of hitting target. When a torpedo is dropped, the crosswind acting on the plane at release imparts a motion to the torpedo, which acts on it throughout its time of flight and is in addition to the motion of the plane. The same chart can also be used for determining the amount of crosswind effect on a torpedo drop. So at 800 feet, the torpedo takes about 7 seconds to fall. A simple formula works out the rest of the problem. Crosswind effect is equal to the time of flight of the torpedo in the air in seconds times the velocity of the wind in feet per second. In making allowances for crosswind, the only effect to be considered is that on deflection. The effect on range may be disregarded. Always apply wind allowance on the side from which the wind is blowing. Disregard winds with relative bearings of less than 30 degrees or more than 150 degrees. Winds on the bow or on the quarter have only a slight effect on deflection. But winds on the beam may require important corrections which must be made. The following tables present practical aiming allowances. Mount these tables on cards where they will be easily available to the pilot. For winds of varying velocities on the bow or quarter, for two different sizes of ships, these allowances in ship lengths should be made. For winds on the beam, note the great allowances in ship lengths which must be made. Get these tables from your instructor and study them. Tables for aircraft torpedo sighting and launching data have been prepared by Beward and published as training literature by CNO. Let's break down table four and see how it works. Altitude of 800 feet, estimated target speed 20 knots and its length about 600 feet. Aiming point is 1.15 ship length ahead of the bow. Your own ground speed is 260 knots. Slant distance to point of impact should be 1,457 yards. Entrance angle of the torpedo will be 27 degrees and 20 minutes. You are approaching with a target angle of 60 degrees. So your radar slant range from the target at point of release should be 1,590 yards. Problems with other factors can be worked out in similar fashion. This chart should include data for shallow water drops. Using these combinations of air speed and altitude of release. Here speed in knots is roughly equivalent to altitude in feet. Radar slant ranges are roughly 700 yards less than those recommended for open sea drops. The toughest part of the new aiming problem is releasing the torpedo at the proper range. Primary dependence must be placed on radar ranging until the pilot becomes proficient in visual ranging. A tactical use of radar for torpedo dropping can be to locate the target and commence the approach above the clouds. Then dive through the clouds to make a visual attack. Another possible use is attacking anchored ships, using radar for ranging as well as locating, with a drop through the low overcast. A torpedo pilot may in general drop and hit within a wide band of ranges. But if the range is too long, the torpedo water run will be longer than desired. And the average torpedo speed will be consequently slower so that the torpedo may pass a stern of the target or allow the target sufficient time to maneuver away from the torpedo. Likewise, dropping at excessively short range is just as bad, since the torpedo will hit the water too close to the target and so cannot be properly armed before hitting the target, if it hits at all. To emphasize the importance of ranging, look at what happened in one combat mission. The returning pilots reported that they had dropped at ranges of between 1,000 and 1,600 yards. And at altitudes are from 275 to 300 feet. But actual photographs proved that the range's average 2,800 yards and the altitudes 190 feet. What a waste. And naturally, there were no hits. Remember that ranges are usually underestimated, so plan to counteract this tendency. Dropping altitude determination is, of course, assisted by instrumental aids such as the barometric and radar altimeters. However, neither of these is totally dependable under varying conditions of atmospheric pressure, technical limitations, and aircraft speed, altitude, or angle of glide. The Siemens-Eye method developed by training often must be used. Although with a new torpedo, altitude control is not too critical except in shallow water drops. The full range of entrance angles is 18 to 22 degrees for shallow water, 22 to 32 degrees for open sea or deep water. Naturally, the extreme should be avoided if possible. If an entrance angle under 18 degrees is obtained, say 12 degrees, the result of a speed altitude combination of 200 knots and 80 feet altitude, the torpedo may be seriously damaged and ricochet or broach violently. If the controls are damaged, as they probably will be, the torpedo may sink or at least have an unsatisfactory run. If the entrance angle is steeper than 32 degrees, the usual result of dropping from high altitude at low speed or dropping in a glide of over 10 degrees not only is there the danger of the torpedo hitting bottom because of the initial deep dive, but the torpedo may stub its toe, which may cause structural damage or damage the steering mechanism, causing premature sinking or a very erratic run. Target angles are between zero degrees and 90 degrees since attacks from a bath to beam should be avoided whenever possible because a fast moving target can run away from the torpedo or maneuver to comb the torpedo tracks. In any case, small errors in range estimation on stern shots will cause misses that might have been hits with the same error on bow shots. Also, stern approaches will expose pilots to AA fire for a longer time as closer drops must be made. Obviously, it is best to drop at an angle where the longest target is offered to the torpedo at impact. Perfect conditions would be a drop in which the torpedo ran at an angle of 90 degrees to the path of the ship at contact or as close to that as practicable. If you want to hit him, you have to lead him, the right amount. The range to the aiming point is dependent upon the air and water travel of the torpedo. The range to the target varies with the target angle and speed and the range to the aiming point. By previous training, the pilot should be able to estimate automatically his own altitude and speed. Aiming problems are now comparatively simple. Observe the target length, speed and course. And from this, select the aiming point. Then estimate the range to the aiming point. The target angle controls the range to the target. And this can be used to assist the ranging to the aiming point. Keep a rough check on the target angle, using radar and seamen's eye to check the slant range to the target. The actual ship lengths to be allowed for are measured from the bow of the target vessel along the course line, extended to the aiming point, which is the center of the ship at the intended point of contact. Assuming an underwater run of 400 yards with a proven new torpedo speed of 32 knots, here is a thumb rule that can be applied against a 600 foot target on a steady course, wind force zero. For 20 knots speed, aim one ship length ahead. For 25 knots speed, aim one and a half ship lengths ahead. For 30 knots speed, aim two ship lengths ahead. For a 400 foot target vessel under similar conditions, the aiming allowance is one ship length more than for the 600 foot target. It figures out that one ship length should be allowed for each 10 knots of target speed from 20 to 30 knots. So for 20 knots speed, aim two ship lengths ahead. For 25 knots speed, two and a half ship lengths. For 30 knots speed, three ship lengths. Study enemy ship characteristics and data on bow waves and wakes to determine speed. Under torpedo attack, it can be assumed that ships will use full power in attempting to maintain top speed. However, remember that any ship will gradually lose speed in a sustained turn. This loss is important and must be considered. Circling ships will have a deceptive weight due to the churning of the propellers in the position of the rudder. When selecting aiming points for maneuvering targets, three additional factors are involved. The direction of the turn, the degree or rate of turn and the decrease of speed of the target in the turn. In this example, assume that the target is in a developed turn and is using full power and full rudder of 35 degrees. The aiming point depends upon the ship's actual speed in the turn and must be measured from the bow along the ship's curved path extended. The curved wake indicates this path. In general, large ships capable of 30 knots at full power and continuing to use full power in the turn will decrease speed by about 12 knots after a 90 degree change of heading. The ship will then be able to maintain about 18 knots as long as it continues in this turn. The destroyer class of vessel loses only about five knots of speed in the similar turn. To estimate the aiming point for targets in a developed turn, use the actual speed the target has. That is, taking into consideration the loss of speed in the turn and measure this along the curved path of the ship using the thumb rule measurements of a non-maneuvering target. If the target is just commencing its turn, the loss in speed will be only about half of that lost in the developed turn. In this type of turn, an undeveloped turn, in general, the aiming point is almost identical with that used if the target is on a straight course. For attacks on a turning target, the best target angles are on the outer bow from zero to 60 degrees. On the inner beam, the best target angles are between 90 and 150 degrees. In any case, the actual target size presented to the torpedo is the controlling factor. For a US Navy light cruiser using full rudder of 35 degrees and 30 knots initial speed, it takes the rudder about 23 seconds to become fully applied and about 10 more seconds for important changes in the ship's heading and position to take place. The use of high speed and correspondingly high altitudes naturally calls for entirely new tactics and therefore a new concept of training so that the pilot is equipped with the knowledge and experience to put these new tactics to use. Training for torpedo dropping should follow a fairly definite pattern. First of all, study and talks with experienced pilots and crewmen. All available view or publications and official dispatches should be considered carefully. The pilot should then commence training with dummy runs. After making proper dummy runs checked with the F-46 camera, he should then use concrete blocks or dummy torpedoes. This can be followed by live torpedo drops all with single planes. As many torpedoes as possible should be dropped. Statistics indicate that for best efficiency the average pilot requires at least six single live drops before graduating to group work. Strengthened exercise heads as provided by Buor should be used. Sections of three or four planes should then work together. Followed by practice with divisions. Then with squadron attack, winding up with coordinated attacks with fighters and dive bombers. In each case, whether single planes, sections, divisions or squadrons are used, dummy runs should be made in sufficient number to ensure best results for the final live runs. During all of this, trained pilots should be used as observers and consulted after each run. It is helpful to think of the attack in three phases. The approach dive, the attacking dive and the aiming run, then retirement. In addition, pilots dropping torpedoes should record pertinent data for comparison with photographic data. Another very important factor in training as well as in combat is the correct use of photo assessment. The study of photographs from the F-46 camera mounted in TBMs will prove an incentive to good pilots and show up bad pilots. In combat, the photographs will also serve as a final means of recognition and verification of results. It is essential for proper training to furnish the pilot with high speed maneuvering targets for torpedo dropping practice. These targets should not be smaller than a DD. The new technique of torpedo dropping makes it almost imperative that the final torpedo attack be initiated in a glide of 20 to 40 degrees from no less than 5,000 feet altitude. The range will then be about 3,500 yards. As the plane approaches the correct dropping range for the speed and altitude combination selected, it is pulled up to level flight momentarily and the torpedo released. Drop should be from level flight, although it is permissible to drop in a glide of not more than 10 degrees. But note that this will affect the air travel. However, good performance does require that the wings be level and that the plane not be in a slip or skid at the moment of release. For an example of good technique, suppose the final glide is commenced from an altitude of 7,000 feet and 8,000 yards radar slant range. The pilot selects a point about 1,500 yards shorter the target and commences his approach as if he were going to glide bomb the point selected. The resultant glide path will be roughly 30 degrees during the glide. Speed approaches 300 knots. Target maneuvers are offset by changing direction of glide as necessary. Flying to the release point selected, the pilot maneuvers the plane without wasting any time so that its flight, course and his aiming are exactly correct when the release point is reached. The pilot decides he will release at about 800 feet. Around 2,000 feet and 2,500 yard radar slant range, he commences a smooth pullout. The plane should be leveled off and ready to release the torpedo about 800 feet altitude and 260 knots with a radar slant range of 1,500 yards. As a general rule, pilots commence attack too far distant from the target, resulting in a final low, slow approach. Planes other than torpedo planes will adjust these tactics to their own individual performance possibilities. An SB2C with dive flaps can make a steeper dive, leveling out just before dropping. Tactical advantage and surprise can be affected by utilizing approaches almost the same as dive or steep glide bombing. This type of attack has interesting possibilities and should be exploited fully. When the torpedo has an external installation, this nose cap reduces much of the speed lost due to wind resistance, thus increasing combat range. This is accomplished at small sacrifice in air stabilization and small cost in damping out initial shock. All torpedo attacks must be coordinated with attacks on the major targets and screening vessels, using one or all of the following. Dive bombing, strafing, or rocket attack. Unsupported torpedo planes should never attack well defended ships. High speed and high altitude approaches by torpedo planes require much less time to complete than the method formally used of losing altitude well away from the target and coming in low. This requires that commencement of the torpedo attack be withheld until bombs are actually dropping. If torpedo attack is supported only by strafing or rocketing, both attacks should start simultaneously. The VF attack is pressed in quicker and if they hesitate at all, they will be too late. This is not only for diversion, but some anti-aircraft guns may be put out of commission and possibly the torpedo planes will be offered a target whose speed and maneuverability has been greatly reduced.  Considered attacks by supporting VF will also assist torpedo planes in retirement. The torpedo is still the most potent single weapon of destruction against enemy shipping, but only if used properly. It's up to the pilot to see that it is used properly, making the most use of these recent improvements. This will be the result.


Here's a projection of the celestial dome, as seen by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe, factoring out all local and local group motion. The mapping preserved the relative sizes of the surface objects. The key observation is that the light fits the black body radiation curve perfectly. Its mean wavelength is around 2 mm, and its peak intensity has a wavelength of 1 mm. That's in the microwave range. This gives us the temperature of the radiation today. It is 2.725 degrees. We know that at decoupling it was 3,000 degrees. So the temperature has been reduced by a factor of 1,100. We also know that the ratio of the current temperature to the temperature at decoupling is equal to the ratio of the current scale factor to the scale factor at decoupling. So the universe has expanded by a factor of 1,100 times since decoupling. The black body radiation formula also gives us the number density of CMP photons. There are over 400 million of them in every cubic meter of space throughout the cosmos. This is a thousand times more than all the photons from all the starlight ever created by all the stars and all the galaxies for all the billions of years that stars have been shining.


Hello and welcome to the session in which we would look at the five components of pension expense. So pension expense is obviously an expense and this is something we need to report on the income statement as part of our pension accounting. What are the five components? First, I'm going to list them. Tell you how they affect pension expense, whether they increase pension expense or they reduce pension expense. Then I will explain each one separately. What does it mean and how does it affect an actuality pension expense? Starting with something called service cost for the year and service cost will increase pension expense. Amortization of prior service cost will increase pension expense and including with the amortization any plan amendment. Plan amendment means plan changes. Interest on liability is the third component. If you remember in the prior session, we discussed something called PBO projected benefit obligation and we said the obligation is a liability. And remember that our liability is based on the present value of the future cash flow because it's a long term liability. Therefore, any long term liability will have an interest component. So we have to compute the interest component. And when we compute the interest component, it's going to increase our interest, our pension expense. Don't worry, we're going to be working with numbers and explaining this little bit further on the next slide. The fourth component actually is a reduction in our pension expense. Actual return on plan asset. If you remember from the prior session, what happened is your employer will contribute money to a pension plan, to a pension fund. Well, what's going to happen, this pension fund will have stocks, will have bonds, will have all sorts of an investment. Now those investments will earn, will have an actual return. They will have interest, dividend, royalties, so on and so forth. So they will earn something. Well, when we have an actual return, when we return as a result of this return, it's going to reduce our expense for that particular period. Because the return is the opposite of an expense. Therefore, it's going to reduce our interest expense. Also, we're going to have what's called gains and losses. In those gain and losses, I will discuss a little bit further. And obviously gains and losses, if we have any gains, we're going to have a positive. If we have any losses, it's going to be negative. Now, why do we have gain and losses? Well, we're going to have gains and losses from changes in the obligation itself or changes, large changes in those plan assets. Either or we'll discuss those later on. But those are the five components. What I'm going to do next, if you don't write them down, write them down. So I'm going to go over each one of them separately. I'm going to explain how they fit all together and how do they affect pension expense. So it's very important, extremely important that you understand the big picture. The reason is because you have five different things all working at the same time. And sometimes you're going to have prior year balances. Sometimes you may not. It's going to affect OCI. So you want to make sure you understand what I'm going to be, how I'm going to be explaining this next. So let's take a look at this company that started in 2010. So we have a company that started in 2010. From 2010 till 2025, let's assume today is 2025. In 2025, the company decided to start a pension plan. So when they started, it was a small company. They did not have the resources. But after 15 years, now they have the resources and they decided to start a pension plan. They wanted to compensate their employees when their employees retired. Okay. That's a great that's what they want to do. That's excellent. Well, now we have 15 years. So all the employees that work for us, let's assume they stayed from 2010 till 2025. We're not going to tell them, look, we're going to start this new pension plan and you don't get anything. Not at all. If they stayed with us, we're going to compensate them. Therefore, what we call this as a prior service cost. And let's assume for the sake of this example, we computed our prior service costs based on the number of employees, their ages, how much they're earning, how much they expect to earn into the future, so on and so forth. The actuarial person told us we should be responsible for $15 million. Hold on a second. We just started this plan today 2025 and immediately, immediately, we have an expense for the past 15 years. And for the sake of simplicity, I chose the expense to be the cost, the expenditure. Now don't say it's an expense. I just hold on the cost or the expenditure is 15 million. Well, what are we going to do? Are we going to expense 15 million today? And the answer is no. What we're going to do for now, we're going to debit OCI, other comprehensive income. So OCI stands for other comprehensive income. And hopefully you know what this is. Other comprehensive income is a balance sheet account. It's an equity account. And remember, if it's an equity, we are reducing our equity. We're going to debit OCI 15 million and we are going to credit pension liability. Now we say we are responsible for 15 million. However, however, we are not going to let this 15 million hit the income statement now. We're going to park this 15 million for now in OCI, which it reduces our balance sheet. Obviously it reduces our equity. Okay, it reduces our equity. Simply put, if you really want to understand it from an asset liability equity perspective. So what happened is our liabilities went up by 15 million. If those are the liabilities, our equity went down by 15. So that's how it equals. That's how the accounting equation would remain in balance. Now, what's going to happen to this 15 million? We will amortize it. Guess what? Over the next 15 years, I just chose this. So I'm going to say we're going to take this 15 million and we're going to amortize it. Now, when we amortize it, it's going to go to interest expense. When it goes to interest expense, it's going to increase interest expense. So over the next 15 years, every year we'll debit pension expense 1 million. We credit OCI. We get it out of OCI for 1 million. And this is for the next 15 years. Now, bear in mind, just like I said, I explained to you prior service cost. What could happen sometime is this. Let's assume in 2028, the company is doing very, very well. And what we decided to do to compensate our employees because the company are doing very well. We can do plan amendment. Same thing. We're going to increase the amount that we want to give to our employees. If that's what we want to do, it's treated the same thing as a prior service cost. We'll determine the amount. First, we would let it sit in OCI. And obviously plan amendment usually. I mean, it could decrease the obligation, but usually it does not. Usually you're not going to penalize your employees for being there, but it could. Could in a problem, for example, telling you plan amendment and the PBO is reduced. What if that's the case? It means the pension liability is debited. Well, that's not the norm. Okay. Usually you want to compensate your employees. If there's any plan amendment, it's the same thing as prior service cost. So this is the first thing. This is one component of interest expense. Remember, this component increases interest expense. Before we proceed any further, I have a public announcement about my company. Forhatlectures.com. Forhat accounting lectures is a supplemental educational tool that's going to help you with your CPA exam preparation as well as your accounting courses. My CPA material is aligned with your CPA review course such as Becker, Roger, Wiley, Gleam, Miles. My accounting courses are aligned with your accounting courses broken down by chapter and topics. My resources consist of lectures, multiple choice questions, true-false questions, as well as exercises. Go ahead. Start your free trial today. No obligation. No credit card required. Second component of pension expense is something we called service cost for the year. And this is going to increase the pension expense. What is the service cost for the year? What's going to happen is this. The employees are going to work in year 2026, 2027, 2028, so on and so forth. So every year they work, well, we have to factor that additional cost into the future because if they earn one year, then they earn more into the future. So the actuarial present value of benefit attributed to that particular year, to that particular year. So it's that service cost for the year because they work one additional year. Every year they qualify for more. Simply put, when they do this, we debit pension expense for half a million and credit pension liability for half a million. So notice here, we increase pension expense. As we said, service cost for the year increases pension expense. Now for the sake of illustration, if we are keeping track of our liability, we started with 15 million. Then we increased it here by 500,000, 500K. So simply put our liability for the sake of this example, we have a liability of 15.5 million, 15 million starting. And let's assume that's the liability now. Again, any liability will have to accrue interest. So we're going to have to do, we're going to have to accrue interest on this liability. What does that mean? It means part of this 15.5 is part of this interest. So we have to determine how much of it is interest and we use something called the settlement rate. So we're going to take 15.5 million times the settlement rate to find out what is the interest component of the liability. And the interest component will increase our pension expense. This is the third component. The fourth component, if you remember the fourth component was the actual return on the plan asset. And the reason I put it in a different color because remember the actual return will reduce pension expense because it's what you are earning on your stocks, bonds that are sitting in that plan asset. And it's earning dividend and interest. Well, it's going to reduce it because we are earning. Now, how do we compute actual return on plan asset? Now, remember, we're going to, this is the actual return. Later on, we're going to be using the expected return, but you need to know how to compute the actual return. How do we compute the actual return on plan asset? Well, the formula is the first you want to take the difference between the beginning balance and the ending balance. For the sake of illustration, let's assume the beginning balance of the plan asset. So we had 4,200. The ending balance of the plant asset was 5,000. Well, what do we know? We know that the plan assets increase net of 800 because we started at 4,200. We end up with 5,000. Now, remember, during that period, during that year, the company made contribution. In other words, added to the plant and also deducted from the plant assets. So simply put, from these assets, what we did is we paid to retirees and the company and maybe the employees made contribution.  So if we started with 4,200, let's assume for the sake of illustration, we contributed, the company contributed $200. Therefore, it's a contribution. Contribution is a plus. Then we paid out to retirees from these assets, $350 worth. How did we end up with 5,000? Well, simply put, what we have to do is we have to find the net. So what happened is this. If we take 4,200, if we take 4,200 plus 200, that's going to end up with 4,400. So the beginning balance plus the contribution minus 350, what we paid out. So if we take 4,400 minus 350, and that's going to bring us down to 4,050. Well, if we net it out beginning plus contribution minus the benefit paid, we are still at 4,050. Well, it means what? It means the plant asset earned $950. It means the plant asset earned. So this is the actual return. Well, adding the actual return would give us a balance of 5,000. Simply put, the complete formula as you take your beginning balance plus any contribution minus any payment minus any benefit paid. This is contribution. And who makes the contribution? Usually the company or the company and the employees who are currently working minus benefits paid. Okay. Then we're going to have plus or a minus plus or a minus. We could have also the actual return could be negative. Who knows? Gives us ending balance. Now remember down the road, this is the actual return down the road. I told you we're going to be using the expected return rather than the actual return. Just don't be surprised down the road when we use the expected return. And I'll explain why when we get to that point. The fifth component of the pension expense is gain slash losses. What do those gain slash losses arise from? They could arise from two different two different sources. The value of the plan asset. Remember the plan asset, they have an actual return. But sometime what's going to happen is in some years, the stock market could go up a lot. If you have that money in the stocks or the stock market could go down a lot. So there is large and sudden fluctuation. Well, you don't really want to do so. You don't really want to account for those large and sudden changes because they change from year to year. So we're going to learn later how to deal with those gains and losses, but they could result from those changes in the plan asset or changes in the PBO, projected benefit obligation. Remember the actuarial scientist gives us this PBO. So sometime, let's assume suddenly the PBO told us that now people are living longer. Now you have to increase your PBO by five million dollars. And that's a large increase. Well, if that's the case, then we have to do something about this, which is a loss in our situation. We'll have to know how to deal with that loss. This topic to be discussed later because it's worth looking at it. But the point is sometime you could have a gain, sometime you could have losses and we're going to do. We're going to kind of smooth them out. You will see how we do it later. But those are the five components of the pension expense. What should you do now? Go to farhatlectures.com, work MCQs and true, false and exercises to learn more how to deal with those problems, how to compute pension expense because we're going to be adding more and more to this topic. We're going to start with the worksheet and all these components that are going to work together. Study hard. Don't shortchange yourself. Your education is important. Good luck. Study hard. And of course, stay safe.