We're ready to start the meeting of the Montpelier Roxbury School Board of Directors, the Board of School Directors, starting at 637. First, one addition to our agenda, we need to appoint the chair for our evaluation committee. And we can go to the first order of business, which is public comment. Hearing none, we can go to the second order of business, which is the consent agenda. I'd like to have a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye, any opposed? The consent agenda approved. Now on to Hope and Eve for the learning process. All right, so starting off with student celebrations, all of these kind of melt together. It's hard to like really categorize them, but our first student celebration is that the conversation, which is a student led group that talks about sexual assault and issues, pyramid consent, and holds actual physical conversations about those issues during soul and block once a month and has done so for the past few years, went into ninth grade classes recently and had community members and professionals present on consent and what that means. And it works in tandem with what they've learned in health and sort of builds on that so that they understand a really important issue. Yeah, so we had a slam poet, Stephen Willis, come in to the high school and a lot of English classes went and some people in free blocks, but he basically was this poet who talked a lot about race and issues of identity and it inspired a lot of people to see how poetry and literature can inspire and how you can really showcase who you are through it and I think it would be great to have more people come to the school and guest speakers to do more motivation for students to see the possibilities and dual enrollment has been going really well their semester courses have an earlier end date than the schools here so a lot of people have been excelling and taking advantage of that opportunity. And student council has been tasked with helping the League of Women Voters register students to vote so there's going to be a voter registration drive next week and I'll be registering and I'm excited. But student council members will also be helping advertise that and make sure that students have what they know what they need to bring in and have the information they need to register. Moving on to student concerns and needs. Just mentioning the continued efforts to support diversity, equity and inclusion, I always just reiterate that with every presentation even if there isn't something specific to bring up about that just because I think it's so important and club action has been working on something called peer tutoring and they're having a solemn block tomorrow to discuss and present to potential peer tutors who are interested and so it would be students who are have taken courses that other students need help with and basically like helping build a sense of community and making sure that students can help and support each other if they're struggling in certain subjects and just also get the gratification of like helping other students succeed and that ties into the achievement gap of course because if students aren't getting what they need out of their experiences in the classroom that sometimes extra help is necessary and I think that this is one of the ways to sort of ameliorate what might be. I wouldn't say lacking in the classroom but what they might still be missing out on that would require that need of extra help and in terms of student perspective a lot of MHS students who are involved in Earth Group are also involved in Youth Lobby which is a climate action group that has members from Harwood and G32 and has expanded to schools such as Essex and Burlington in the past and so they're holding this big sort of like first day in the legislature where they are going to be co-hosting coffee with constituents with David Zuckerman and hosting a press conference and delivering the United, I think it's called the Young Vermonters United Climate Declaration to various committees and also testifying in committee to certain legislators and so that's just entirely around climate justice and ways to move forward in the legislative session this year. Yeah, so this is our final marking period with summative so we have retake week approaching quick and that's going to have midterms and a lot of students are prepping for that and I think it's just a good opportunity to take advantage of improving your grades and just working towards getting better academic scores. That's all. Thank you. Question on voting. Can you, I should probably know this, but can you register prior to turn 18 if you're gonna be 18 a little bit? Yes. Yeah. I heard the poet was amazing. He was so gonna. I was so curious, I was at a workshop so I missed it but I heard he was just like and I got out of the park. Yeah, everyone loved him. It's like people who normally wouldn't be interested in that type of stuff were like really involved. That's exactly that. Yeah. Yeah, that was great. He was definitely really engaging and funny too. He was funny. He was personable. My daughter went twice. Oh yeah. Yeah, Sue Miami even said that she thinks that she overworked him a little bit because his voice was like horse in the day. Yeah. Excellent. On to board business. I think this is probably a good place to start with appointing a chair for a value. This community was formerly Becky but I've seen some Becky has stepped off the board with a new chair and Tina has graciously volunteered to do it. So I would suggest someone nominate Tina unless someone wants to fight her for it. Go for it. Actually, what do we have on that committee right now? Because Lisa had been on it before and I think it's... Jerry's on it. Jerry, I'm on it. So Tina and Jerry. We met this week. Yeah. Thanks for the refresher. I move we appoint Tina Muncie as the chair of the evaluation committee. I see. I see. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. And then we need to appoint, talking about Becky, a replacement. So Mara, if you wanna come up and introduce yourself. I think that's an excellent letter of interest You don't have to say much other than hi. Should I use the mic or can I just talk to you? Awesome. Yeah, talk to you or you can sit if you want. That little... Yeah, there's a...  Y'all are fancy. So my name's Mara Iverson. I use she, her pronouns. I live here in Montpelier. Otherwise I could not have backed being in Montpelier right on the school board. And I work for outright Vermont, which is an LGBTQ youth organization and we advocate throughout the state of Vermont. And I'm particularly interested in being on the school board here because I'm passionately interested about education far and wide. And it's kind of the place where kids spend all their waking hours between the ages of like six and 18. So that is a place for shaping the citizens that are going to support the country in the future. And that means that it's important for the people on the board to support those efforts. And I'm really excited about that. Good. Thanks, any questions for Mara? How many committees do you want to be on? And when can you start? Yeah, Andrew. Well, now, is that a serious question? Do you have... I was asked this question because I was appointed to a vacancy. And I think it is... I mean, Mara's the only applicant, correct? Yes. So it's not like we have... Yeah, so it's not like we really have a decision. No, I'm very glad that you applied. So thank you so much. Yes, if we did have a decision, you would be extremely competitive. Yes, yes, without that. Very, very glad that you applied. So thank you so much. Do you have... Obviously there's going to be an election in like two months. So you have designs on plans to run for election and school board as well. So, okay. Yeah. I was going to do that anyway, and then the appointment came over before that. So... Yeah, and so just to explain this, because it's totally your choice, the appointment, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say will probably occur, is good for the remainder of Becky's term, which is to town meeting day. And then there will be an election for... There's three of us. It's actually not the remainder of her term. She has another year on her term. Exactly, I was gonna say. So there's gonna be three full term seats, and then the remainder of Becky's term. Three? Three? Yes. Your seat, me and Tina. Oh, but you and Tina are really competitive. They're competitive elections. Yeah, we're rerunning. People kind of run against us. Yes, yes, yes. Because it's all one election. Huh? Yeah. It's like... It's over no more than three, right? You had to designate? No, no, because they have terms. They have terms. Yeah, but then there will be an election for the remainder of Becky's term, which will be, I think, separate and resting. Yes. But what we were discussing practically wise, when you put your name on the ballot, do you, are you saying, for example, if you're running for that, because you have to designate, right? In fact, your petition has to say that. That's what I would say. Yeah, your petition has to say that. So your petition needs to indicate whether you're running for one year or for three years. Yes, so that's where I was going. Michelle has indicated that, can I announce this? Yes. I think we have. Yes, let's go. So Michelle is very saddly, but probably not so saddly for her. Yes. I'll announce that she's not running. So there will be at least one non-competitive three-year term and then the remainder of Becky's seat. So our appointment does not have, you can run for obviously any of those. So if you say, maybe I'll give it a year and see how I feel. Then you can choose to run for Becky's seat, the remainder of the term we're gonna appoint you for. Or if you say, hey, I really don't want to have to deal with another, I know I want to be in this for three years. I don't want to have to go and get signatures and deal with another election next fall. Yeah, you can run for your term. Just so you're kind of clear on that. Excellent information, thank you. Yes, and I think the, you need 30 signatures. I'm actually checking with John Odom to see if there's meant any change in the process because we used to be part of the city and now we're our own district. I don't think there is, but I'm checking with John Odom to make sure. And actually the person to check with is Tammy Legacy. Okay. It's the person who knows us as a district, yeah. So I gotta find out the answer to that question, but the process in the past has been, we need to get 30 signatures by, I think, I think it's four days before town. Yeah, so it's usually at the next 20 days. Yes. Before the end of January. Exactly, before the end of January. It's usually at the end of January. Mr. Chair, is it the 27th? Yeah, I need to get, I talked to Tammy. Okay. Yes. I know that due date, Grant indicated today, it's January 27th, these signatures will be two. Okay, that's good to know because I need to do that as well. And any members of the public who are thinking about running, it's good for them to know as well. January 27th.  Would you like a motion? I would like a motion. I think we're ready to answer further discussion. I move that the board appoint Clara Iverson as a Montpelier representative to the school board. I sound good. Will the term vacated by, thank you very much. A second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations. And yeah, I'll move to the floor. You are totally welcome to take a seat up here with us until you swear yourself in, which you can do either in person or over the phone with John Odom at City Hall. It's not especially when you cannot vote, but we certainly are happy to have you sit for the rest of the meetings.   And then I'm going to do a fancy name tag. I think you can do it with an anti-notary if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, she can. We're going to square in. But John, he's not going to mess up the thing. If you can do it with any notary, we have several of the school districts. Yeah, that's what John said. All right, actually, I'm all welcome to the Senate. Budget discussion. Packed house. Yeah, so it is. Is that? Packed house. Yeah, so it's all right with everybody instead of going through every detail on every slide, since it's just us. I'll probably just hit the highlights of what's changed. And then at the end, there'll be plenty of time for discussion. My apologies, I only got the briefing out this morning because I was told our equalized people number would be out Thursday afternoon or this morning. And unfortunately, it still hasn't come. So waited for nothing. But there were a lot of other things that changed. So there's really just one unanswered question. So unfortunately, all slides are loaded, so I'm going to be kind of skipping through. So here's the important one. Changes since our last presentation. So the common level of praises came in. Pretty close in Montpelier. I was out by, I had estimated 86.86, I'm sorry, 87.17 and the actual CLA came in at 86.86. That's pretty close, but it's still enough that it increased the tax rate by 0.6 cents in Montpelier, just that one change. In Roxbury, way off. I, Roxbury's CLA dropped over 5% last year. This year it actually went up. So that was a shock to me. I guess that means property values did not increase in the community of Roxbury, which may not be a good thing for individual homeowners that are trying to sell, but it's great news for taxpayers because it dropped the tax rate 9.6 cents just the CLA. I think Roxbury is just such a small sample that it can swing individual sales. Yeah, yeah, probably. So before Roxbury was almost a level tax rate, now there are tax rates going down, I think like 9.4 cents, which you'll see later. On the expense side, tech center tuition went way up. The number, our six semester average went up dramatically because two semesters dropped off and two new semesters came on. The two that dropped were very low as far as student counts. The two that came on were very high. So we increased like, I think it was over four students in our six semester average, not to mention central Vermont, career centers tuition went up fairly dramatically as well. So that was a bit of an increase there. Health insurance corrections, if you remember, this is actually a correction to a correction because the last time I decreased health insurance looking at the statewide negotiations, but as I re-read it, I think I was a little too quick to make that adjustment down there. So I undid that because of the timing where you can make adjustments to various bargaining units. So I put that back in and then I think somebody changed from like two version to family or something like that. 504 placements, those are outside placements, not for kiddos that are on IEPs. I was able to reduce that. It's based on student needs. We know something more about student needs today than we did last month. Internet and phone, I dropped that $18,000. We are down to just one internet phone provider and we have now worked it out so that our E-rate discount is being applied to our bills and we have a better idea of what our monthly bills are going to be. And so that was a savings. On the revenue side, we got some numbers from the AOE, the special education block grant that was a little bit lower than I anticipated, the special education triple E, which is essential early education for pre-K. That was a little higher than I anticipated. The special rate intensive, which is that like 56% or so of our expenses, that's a little higher than I had initially estimated and our extraordinary is a little higher, probably because it went to 95% reimbursement from 90% except it went from 50,000 to 60,000 to hit the threshold. But so the net was on the revenue side, we ended up positive. Tuition, that's just general intuition that we get for kids that are coming here from other districts or towns. I bumped that up a little bit in the hopes that you were going to approve the announced tuition, which you did. And so that is the changes for expenses and revenues and tax factors. The one that we're missing obviously is equalized people's stuff. District overview slide, this is mostly intended to put some background information up for town meeting day. We went over the context, I don't need to go over that again. And I'll give you a final unknowns. We're down to, as soon as we get equalized pupils, I'll probably just delete this because there's no sense in just overly reminding people that dollar and yield and unrest and during that piece of my life and we're going to know about it. So as soon as we get equalized pupils, that slide will go away. Obviously the numbers in this chart are different because the expenses went up a little bit, the non-tax revenues went down a little bit. So I think we were at in Ed spending, it's 4.68, I think we were at 4.77. So Ed spending is down a little bit. Equalized pupils is still the big question mark. If you remember, I did bump it up by about five in my estimators. I'm hoping that's still good. I'm hoping that's still maybe a little on the conservative side, but we should know that any day now. Enrollments went over that last time and staffing went over that last time. Quick question, who's responsible for the equalized pupils? Is that Brad James? Brad James is the one who's revised it. And I should be in some fairness, our FY20 ADM didn't get certified with the AOE until this past weekend. So had he run the numbers on Friday, he wouldn't have a good number of year. So I was kind of telling him, wait, wait, wait, and then on Monday hurry up and do it, hurry up and do it. So it should be, I'm hoping tomorrow, but definitely we should have it by next week, which is when you definitely need it in order to approve the budget. The expense detail, you can look at some of the words. I tried to update the merit because some things change, like career center tuition is a different number. So I changed some of those words, but really the changes that are reflected in here are the ones I talked about, whatever the changes from December 18th. So I won't bother hitting the individuals. Nothing through the capital plan is different. Tax rates. So this one is different in a few cases. So the revenues and expenses are updated. The equalized pupils isn't, I didn't change the dollar yield as a reminder that is different than what the tax commissioner recommended, but it's still up in the air into the legislature's commissions, their work. The CLA in that box, that's what's been updated since last time. And you can see the blue box at the bottom, what I had estimated before versus what it is now. And the impact of that. So the impact of that different CLA was a 0.6 increase from Montpelier, 9.6 cent decrease for Rocksbury. I should say for anybody from Rocksbury that's listening, this is it. I mean, this is pretty much done. This 1.610 actual tax rate that we are estimating there, it's not gonna change. I could decrease the budget by $5 million. It can't go any lower because of statute. I could increase it by, I think the last time I played around that, I could increase the budget by $850,000 and it still wouldn't change the Rocksbury tax rate. So this 1.61 is pretty much done for Rocksbury. For Montpelier, of course, that number could change dramatically if that equalized pupil number changes. And to give you some context for that, it's about one penny for every seven equalized pupils. So if instead of 1245, if that's 1252, then that tax rate drops a penny. If I were to try to drop it a penny by doing something with the budget, I would have to reduce $120,000. $120,000 is about a penny for Montpelier and seven equalized pupils is a penny. So yeah, and that's something you should kind of put in the back of your mind.  So, Grant, if the pupil count comes in seven higher than what you expected, then that gives a $120,000 buffer into the budget. That would allow us to do is reduce the tax rate. We could increase our budget by $120,000 if this went up by seven and the tax rate would stay the same. Or we could leave the budget alone. This goes up by seven and the tax rate drops. And then the residential tax rate impacts. I just refreshed those. It's kind of interesting how it's an increase of 9.4 cents in Montpelier, a decrease of 9.4 cents in Roxbury just coincidentally, just how it works sometimes. And as this note says, Roxbury is a firm member. Even if our equalized pupils change, it's not gonna change Roxbury's tax rate. And the other thing to point out is this, these impacts are based on property value alone. And most people, at least I'd say two thirds of the people receive income sensitivity adjustments which lower their impact. I updated this residential tax rate history as well. It still tells the same story. If you look at tax rates without CLA, tax rates have dropped for both communities from FY18 to FY21. In the case of Roxbury, it's even dropped fairly significantly when you factor in CLA. It's almost 9.4 cents lower. And the dark blue is Roxbury without CLA, the light blue is with CLA. And you'd see last year, because the CLA dropped, that line went up even though the without CLA went down. But this year, since the CLA was stable, it actually went up a little bit, both lines went down. For Montpelier, a minor increase without CLA, it turns into a big increase with CLA. And Andrew had asked for a 10-year history, which I couldn't really do for Roxbury, but I did give it to you for Montpelier. The one thing you should look at though is this number here from Montpelier with CLA on the handout that you got from 10-year history. That number might be a little different because I was tweaking it as in my non-residential. It is what it is, the budget has no impact to this. Outlook being changed, budget summary, I just kind of updated the numbers. It's a 4.68 increase in net spending, 4.3 in spending for Pupil right now. That number could change dramatically if our number of Pupils goes up. The tax rates in Montpelier right now, it shows a 5.7% increase, which is the 9.24 cents. Roxbury a 5.5% increase, which is 9.4. And we are really down to, I think we were all pretty comfortable with the budget before, so we're really just down to finding out the equalized Pupil count. But if there's anything else, any other questions or changes, go free, the upcoming meetings, we have on next Wednesday, which we have to approve the budgets and we get the warnings done. Yep. And then March 2nd is the information hearing here at high school. Questions for Grant, Tina. I've had a community member ask what the, and maybe we really can't do it, what the cost per Pupil was for us compared to the surrounding districts and what's the comparisons to the surrounding districts and the rest of them. We're in the middle. I was looking at it yesterday. In terms of per Pupil spending, where we were last year at least, they've just released that Pupil. They've released the 2019 numbers at the end of. And it depends a lot on what you're looking at too. I mean, you can't say anything about FY21 because everybody's building them right now. I can tell you that we're at 17,060, $17,060. The excess spending threshold is 18,756. So that's significant. We've got a nice cushion. We have plenty of room before we get penalized for tax rates. If you take that excess spending threshold and figure that maybe the statewide average is maybe 10% below that, then that would be like 16,880, which is slightly below our 17,060. But that's just me making a guess because 21, we won't know until it's all done. In FY20, there's a couple of different ways you can look at it. You can look at pure statewide average or you can look at it by small districts, medium districts, large districts. You can look at it by districts that are unified union school districts like us versus supervisory unions. I think if you looked at FY20 and you looked at unified union school districts, I would say the statewide average, I believe was just over $16,000 and we were at $16,361. So that I would say is a firm number that we would point to, about $360 over the statewide average last year. And I would say though, in general Andrew's assessment is correct, we're probably in the middle of the pack pretty close. And there aren't a huge number of union districts, are there? Yeah, they're getting a big number. More and more. That's true, that's true. For FY19, if you look across the entire state in terms of our rank of education spending per equalized people, and this was just published last month, we were 73. Meaning that 72 districts had higher per people. Then we did, yeah. Yeah, and a similar number were lower. Districts, unions, however, they're grouped together. Right, they're like 180 or 200 or something all together. There are, let me see what that was before. Oh yeah, that's been a lot of numbers. That's where Andrew's happened. I'm looking for the lowest. There's some 160s on here, 162 might be the highest number. Should we really smack in the middle? Yeah. Sometimes. 165, it looks like. And that's grouping. And of course you have to also factor in how you look at average, too. I mean if somebody has an extremely high number that could change the number if you're looking at a dollar value as opposed to where we rank. This is just rank, yeah. Which is probably the most better way to do it. So probably the biggest change between what you're presenting us now and what we're gonna see next Wednesday is you will likely have the lowest people number. Yeah, as a matter of fact, even as recently as like one o'clock, Brad emailed me and said he was still hoping to get it out today. But obviously, I mean, unless, I haven't felt the vibration on my phone. I haven't emailed him. The language nature is in session. That takes up his time. And that's where he was all morning today. Since he said that, I would assume it's definitely a safe bet that we're gonna have it by next Wednesday. And hopefully in time for me to get out of briefing too much before the meeting next time. Because what, if we didn't, it doesn't the law require that the ballot states the per pupil spending? The ballot has to say what the per pupil spending is and what the percentage increase is from the prior year. So we wouldn't, if they don't get it to us. We'd probably have to have an emergency board meeting. Probably, I don't think it would get there. I mean, right now we have one technically because what they did was they calculated it before we got our FY20 numbers in. So they have a statutory number in there, which is 3.5% lower than last year. We don't want to use that because it's like. Nor is it accurate. Was that? We've got more kids. Yeah, we've got more serious. So we'll have it. I'm confident we'll have it. I'm the only thing I'm not comfortable with yet is I want to see what it is too. I don't want to just have them send it to us. I want to see what it is. And it should be, if we were at 1240 last year and we had an increase again this year, 1245 really I think is conservative. It should be at least that. And if it's not that, then we're gonna have some issues that we have to sort through. And that makes me uncomfortable which is because the state-wide data system is so clunky that it could take a long time to fix. So hopefully we're in good shape though. I know, as a matter of fact, U32 got a look at our FY20 ADM because they asked me about a couple of kids.  So I think we're good. These are actual, not equalized, right? Right, that's a head count on October 1st. Right. It's not even ADM. So this looks like we got 15 new kids. And then you have to look at what came off from the prior year. Oh no wait, 72 to 108 is 36 new kids from last year. And now the big question is, then you take that and buy it by two because it's two-year average, so that's 18, but then you don't know how the waiting is going to factor that. But I would hope that we're in good shape. Yeah. Some kids are more kids than others. Right, we got a lot of tech graders, it's a good thing. Tech graders are very weighted. So with our current numbers though, what we're looking at giving the voters is a 5.7% increase in the budget with a 9.4% increase. And I feel like we're gonna have to really justify that to voters. I've told Jim I'm really, I mentioned this to Brigitte too, I'm really anxious because our municipality is struggling with health insurance costs. And I've been told by some city council members that they're looking at some steep increases on the municipal side. And I don't think it's fair, but I think that will affect us. And so I think that's something for us all to be cognizant of having into this. And I think that when we brief this budget, I think we should try to put it into terms of spending per pupil. Because really, just your total expense budget, that's not really fair. Because there's districts out there that lost 100 kids. And their budgets only went up 4%.  That's apples and oranges. It's really, it should be, how are you looking per pupil? Because then their pupil number is going way up higher. And ours is staying pretty stable. And right now we're at 4.27. I'd still like that number to be around four. So I'm hoping for an equalized pupil count that's a little higher, which will drop that percentage down. And I think that's the number we should be trying to tell people about. And educate them. I really think it will drop based on the actual. Yeah. The other story, and I think Libby was on this email, but I responded to Jim when he got these yesterday. I just took a quick look. And if you look at FY15 to FY21, although the change from FY20 to FY21, right now we're looking at it potentially being 5.4%, obviously subject to change. But say that that stays, if you look at FY15 to FY21, the change over that period is closer to 10.5%. And if you look at total, and if you look at... In the tax rate or at spending? And actually they're pretty similar, both the tax rate and per pupil spending, which makes sense because they're linked. But if you also look at inflation over that same period, you're looking at about a 10% increase to the overall cost of goods and services that people pay for every day. So when you contextualize, the cost of our public schools going up at roughly the same percentage as the cost of most other things we're paying for over the same time period. And in fact, if we went back a year prior, the cost of our public schools amount to pay would actually be less than inflation. I think it really helps. I think we have a few good stories to talk about. I think one, start with this is a very solid budget and it's based on the needs of our kids and that it serves the needs of our kids and there's nothing in here that's extravagant or not well thought out. And in fact, if anything, I think there could be an argument that we need more robust spending and this is pretty good trade. Very responsibly so, but this is not, they didn't go all Cadillac on all things.  Well, the taxes and other things do go up over time, but I think noting that as Andrew said, that overall in line, this has roughly been in the rate of inflation. We did have a few years where we had pretty light to no tax increases. In fact, 18, 19 are reductions. Or reductions. Yeah, and then 17 was very modest and 16 was not particularly substantial even last year wasn't particularly substantial. These numbers may get better when we get the equalized pupil. And also the fact that Montpelier has a robust housing market. And that led to a CLA that's, that accounts for a lot of it too. So, we just need to tell that story and put the tax number. Well, one, hope it gets a little better, but then put it in context. Cause I think it's a very solid budget. And I think it's a budget that Montpelier should support, but I do people pay attention to the numbers. Yeah, I'm looking at inflation and these per people spending numbers. I feel like I just crunched the numbers briefly yesterday and from FY 15 to FY 21, they're pretty much exactly even. So, and that is with two years of projections based on the state's consensus revenue board. Yeah. So it's maybe paired with what actual inflation was. So I think we're telling a good story that the increase in the tax rate does not do to a year of spending this out of line with what we've been spending. And we heard from a lot of community members about desires and that they have for our schools that we're not providing for, I'm thinking of the theater group in particular. Yeah, Bridget. We've also, you know, this, Andrew's really a helpful Andrew and Grant's story over a period of time and I would just add to it that in these last few years, we have also been catching up on a lot of deferred maintenance. So we've not only been educating our students and meeting their needs as we've been fixing these buildings that had suffered for a long time and that investment continued to pay off a long time. You did pass the big bond. Yeah, but that's included in the tax rate. Yeah. I don't have the numbers in front of me but that's going down over time from here on out, is it not? All the construction bonds do go down a little bit each year as the interest goes down each year and then of course you get the big drop whenever one gets paid off. Yeah, they go down a little bit. Our retirement bond is kind of going up a little bit as that goes down though. So it's pretty stable. I'd say it's overall, it's a little bit of a decrease but not from that. So any thoughts or just hold tight and plug in the equalizer for the new two and we'll talk again next week? Yeah, I'll move it, please. That's fair. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Grant, we appreciate it. And thanks, Andrew, for additional number. I'm sorry, number crunching. Yes, and thanks also to Libby and Grant for getting some 10 year numbers in quick order and I know you have other things to do but I do think this is helpful in terms of telling a story because this is the first time in three to four years as Andrew pointed out that we've brought a budget to the public that's really asked for much in terms of tax reviews. And I do like this slide a lot if we can explain it which maybe somebody else might be able to do better than me but I mean, this is Montpelier's line through tax rate without the CLA which we can't do without the CLA. We have no control over that and it's pretty flat. Yes, it goes up but that's what I mean by doing the CLA which we can't do anything about. And this is for both communities as we've existed as a unified district, so. All right, thank you very much. Great, thanks for having me. Thanks for all you do. So we are like well ahead of schedule which is good news for all. I think next we have executive session and contract negotiations. We also want to discuss. A personnel matter. Yeah, personnel matters because I don't think administration contracts fall into. Yeah, she's going to give us an update on the rules on those too. Do you have a special ask to have Grant come into executive session and so I've asked him to come in? We can invite anybody. Yeah, so we make a motion to enter and then we can invite anybody else. Okay. So we should invite Mark too. Good man. That's his job. He's read his Roberts rules. Okay. He and Robert are best friends. I move to find that discussing contract negotiations in the public setting would put the district out a substantial disadvantage. I second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We have a motion to go into executive session. To discuss. The purpose of discussing contract negotiations. And personnel matters. With an invitation to grant guys there. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.


SecDef released the 2013 Sexual Assault Report Thursday and provided guidance to eliminating sexual assault in the military. The best way to combat this crime is to prevent it. As a result, today we are issuing a substantially revised DOD sexual assault prevention strategy. While many of my directors this past year have focused on strengthening prevention, the prevention strategy hasn't been updated since it was first drafted here in 2008. And will now be updated every two years. Since May 2013, SecDef has directed more than 28 initiatives to enhance commander accountability, ensure appropriate command climate, improve victim support and enhance safety. To view the report and the new initiatives, go to defense.gov. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Tony Rosa.


So earlier today, I posted a video about how Tucker Carlson wants to make Marjorie Taylor Greene's trans ban a litmus test for Republicans Going forward and I'd recommend that you check that out because I think it's really important But I want to further explore the ways in which the rhetoric with regard to LGBTQ plus issues among the far right Has escalated substantially and we're not just talking about bigotry. We're past that point We're now talking about stochastic terrorism and we're talking about rhetoric that is explicitly genocidal So I touched on this issue last week when it comes to the threats that Boston Children's Hospital was receiving After libs of tiktok and Matt Walsh were fear mongering about the gender of firm and care that they were providing to trans youth But that hasn't stopped as Harvard Laws Alejandra Karabao writes libs of tiktok has spent the weekend attacking Lurie's Children's Hospital in Chicago by tweeting and retweeting incendiary misinformation six times last time they did this Boston's Children's Hospital received death threats and the FBI got involved. So I need you to know why they're not stopping It's not like oh we feel guilty and we're going to stop It's not even that it's they see what they're doing They see the effect that they're having and they want that to be the effect The goal here is to harass and intimidate so that way doctors and parents feel Disinclined from seeking out gender from in care or providing gender from in care as is the case with doctors to trans youth That is the ultimate goal But we're talking about a multitude of tactics here and by the way that is stochastic terrorism What libs of tiktok is doing and Twitter has not taken action even if it is the case that that is not freedom of speech If you incite harassment and violence that is not protected speech But yet it continues to happen and somebody is gonna get killed But I want to talk about other tactics that individuals within the far-right movement are doing to punish people for being who they are So let's talk about Crystal Alonso This is a member of a group called Moms for Liberty and this group has been able to Successfully not only cancel LGBTQ plus events pride events, but they've also managed to get Hundreds of pro LGBTQ books banned from schools now Crystal has a recommendation as to how Lawmakers could handle Education and dealing with the existence of queer children going forward. Let's watch The kids that do have There you know, they're confused or they are gay or whatnot that the way they're trying to go about it is to make it an Open conversation and open theme classrooms, but like for example children with autism down syndrome They have to have special IP means of the counselor they have to be put into separate classrooms and I understand that it's a different type of education for children with those disabilities But I think that for children that identify differently. There should also be like a specialized Something for them. So they feel that they're important enough that They're being counseled and why not have that conversation that you're explaining in front of everyone. I Think for the same reason why teachers wouldn't just bring a child with autism from the classroom Okay, he's got autism embarrassment.  It's not that it's something to be embarrassed about but you I mean, I'm sure That you understand a lot of kids that are young and feel great. Some of them are shamed because Right, which I understand but There's just a way to go about it See it's not that she doesn't want icky queer kids around her straight kids It's that you know, we want to protect these queer kids So we should segregate them put them in different classrooms because that's what is needed now Children who are developmentally disabled They are in special classrooms because those teachers specifically are trained to deal with the needs that they have unique needs address their unique Circumstance, but when it comes to queer kids, they're Similarly situated to their heterosexual peers So there's no reason to separate them unless you don't want them around your kids It's like we have an example of this somewhere in history, but I can't quite place it now Crystal isn't alone in making that recommendation because another individual a GOP operative if you will and friend According to him of Kerry Lake the GOP candidate of Arizona Also made the recommendation that maybe we should separate Queer people for a very good reason according to him. Let's watch You know this monkey pox is serious, you know We need to quarantine and isolate all the folks of the LGBT community We need to find all of them. We need to hunt them down and put them into isolation camps for their own protection You know monkey pox needs to we have to stop the spread somehow. So the best way is probably to you know Find all the LGBT folks and you know, put them in camps something like that something like that So hunt them down and put them in camps Hmm. It's almost like there's another example of this happening in history again Maybe you think wow perhaps they're just historically ignorant and they haven't learned from the past Oh, no, no, no, they know they've learned from the past and they've learned that those tactics are very effective at Eliminating people who you view as inferior to you now if this guy looks familiar that was Ethan Schmidt Crockett He claims to be a good friend of Republican gubernatorial nominee Kerry Lake and she followed him on Instagram before he was banned So I mean I have no reason to not believe him Now you also probably recognize him because he recently went viral on tiktok for demanding that PetSmart employees take down fried flags Now this isn't the only psycho associated with Kerry Lake as she endorsed Republican nominee for Oklahoma State Senate Jared Jackson who claims that the existence of Jewish people as evidence that evil exists in the world and Implied that Christ will quote shock those kinds of people along with communists the Illuminati and The Rothschilds and they'll be chucked into the fire specifically so she keeps associating with Nazi types, but you know, I guess it's just a coincidence now speaking of Oklahoma candidates Let's get to another story where this individual has decided to not denounce comments He made not too long ago where he says we should definitely stone gaze and we're not talking about giving them free marijuana because that would be delightful We're talking about actually killing them specifically because they are homosexual as Carmen Foreman of the Oklahoma explains Republican Scott Esk 56 who faces Gloria Bannister in Oklahoma State House district 87 has made headlines lately for old Facebook comments He made in which he wrote gay people are worthy of death and we would be totally in the right to stone them He has defended the comments that he made in 2013 that surfaced when he unsuccessfully ran for a different house seat in 2014 When contacted this week, Esk complained about a 2014 article about him in the Oklahoma that he called a hit piece Although he did not elaborate on the content of the story Esk declined an interview about his campaign and directed the Oklahoma into videos He posted on his YouTube page quote I've stood up for what is right in the past and I intend to in the future and I am right now He said that's got me in trouble. The media are not my friends as far as I'm concerned So in other words his views have not changed and he still unapologetically believes that gays are worthy of death And it's justifiable for them to be stoned. Yeah, but you can breathe a little bit easier knowing that he claims He would not make it a law in the state of Oklahoma to extend the death penalty to homosexuals I was getting worried there for a second. He just thinks that it's justifiable if the gays are stoned But don't actually do it. He's not gonna make that legal. I'm so glad he's a reasonable person here Now, it's not just gays and trans people who are the targets of fascists in the United States Because other marginalized people are always the targets We talked about the way that they are anti-Semitic But they also are targeting women lately as chuds of tiktok the good of tiktok account points out that Before Florida State House candidate Louise Miguel was banned from all of social media Well, he called for the death penalty for women who got abortions Oh, and he also wanted to legalize the murder of FBI agents IRS agents and agents at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco firearms and explosives so on one hand, you know, he says we should protect innocent lives Which is why we should murder women who get abortions, but also it should be legal to shoot presumably to kill federal agents This is the GOP but look not everyone in the GOP to be fair is as extreme as that Some of them are more quote moderate such as Tudor Dixon She is the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Michigan and when asked if 14 year old rape victims should be forced to have their rapists Baby her answer was essentially yes They should be forced to have their rapists baby Arguing that rape victims often find healing through the baby when we force them to have said baby and claims that they Often have strong bonds with their rapist baby Therefore, they shouldn't have the choice to abort it have your rapists baby, and you'll love it later This is what they're saying no choice for you And this is the more reasonable position apparently because at least she's not saying oh well We should kill that 14 year old if she gets an abortion Right. I mean she hasn't said this But this is what we're dealing with now Do you understand a few years ago? I think that it was reasonable to deduce That the majority of the Republican Party were proto fascists, but nowadays that is no longer correct They are no longer proto fascists.  They're starting to do that legally with bills introduced by Marjorie Taylor green and being promoted by fascist propagandists like Tucker Carlson But when does it actually get worse? We're in the midst of that right now. We're in the middle of getting worse Now, you know, of course everyone would be alarmed if they started to literally round up LGBTQ plus people and started to kill them But what we're seeing right now is them just slowly but surely turning up the heat and we're a frog in that boiling pot But we can't acknowledge how bad it is because it's getting worse slowly So they're turning up the heat slowly. They're not gonna jump too far But I still want you to notice the demonstrable difference from their rhetoric now and just a couple of years ago Times are changing fast the rise of fascism is a threat to all life in the United States and across the globe And it's not just happening here in the United States. It's happening in other countries as well We've witnessed the rise of a global fascist movement and you need to be aware of this Because if you don't push back if you don't try to stop it then it may be too late So pay attention to their rhetoric and how violent it has become and it should absolutely worry all of us


One of the hardest lessons to learn, let's be honest, we all struggle with this, is who to give attention to, who to speak to, who to ignore, who to leave in the state that they're in. Jesus says, do not give what's holy to dogs, do not cast your pearls before swine, they will trample them under feet and tear you to pieces.  Sometimes it's hard, you want to try to convince them, but sometimes you need to leave certain people alone. If a person is bound and determined not to listen, if a person is bound and determined to destroy you, leave them alone. If they've told you or demonstrated up front what they are, well then leave them as you found them, let someone else or let God deal with them. Amen.


FNN headline news update. Good afternoon folks, Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of Delray Beach, Florida. This is your 2 p.m. update. We've probably got a bit of a mixed bag out here. The Dow's off 54 and the New York Stock Exchange is down 22. Otherwise, all the other industries are trading to the upside. The S&P's up eight. NASDAQ 100 or 112. Brussels up two. Semi-Zero up 10. Trannies are up 86 points. Let's go spend some time and take a look at our cash indices charts out here. As soon as that comes up on the screen on the upper left, you'll see the Dow Jones Industrial. Now, the Dow has been trading in a small consolidation pattern. And on Friday, price broke through that. So what does that give us? That gives us a measured move equal to or greater than that consolidation. So if we just simply copy it and move it up here, well, Steve is going to have to do a couple of different things out here. He's got to use the old scrunching technology. And this would say that the Dow is going to go target the 36,115 level. Now that's a small consolidation pattern out here. Hopefully we'll have enough time for me to show you the larger consolidation, which is basically at the Dow's all-time high. So that's level that it's going to need to take out in order for this other consolidation to come through fruition. The S&P 500, what we've got here is an A to B equal CD to the upside. If we get a bearish reversal cable, I would confirm a Gartley sell pattern. Otherwise, price should continue higher. The same thing inside the NDX 100. With regard to the Russell 2000, she's just really inside a large consolidation pattern. So I'm not going to spend any time taking a look at that with regard to the semis. They suggest that price should continue to move higher. What this did was this came back and price tested its TD9 threshold level, where the bottom actually came in. That was on the trading day of back on August the 19th. That level, by the way, was tested and then rejected with lighter volume back on a Cobra 12. So this suggests that there's an A to B equal CD that's also forming inside of the semiconductor index. Now the transports, which have been the strongest out here, will form a TD9 count top today. Now the cool thing about this is that if we see price close over today's high, tomorrow or the next day, that tells you that transports are on fire. And maybe the transports are on fire. Maybe that's the message of getting all of the ports cleared up and so forth. But you'll get that confirmation. You should have that in the next couple of days out there. With regard to the spot follow tonic, still below its 50 day expansion moving average. It's bullish for the S&P 500. The XAU did form a TD9 count top on Friday. This could suggest to pull back to its oscillator and change them. Currently printed at 124.69. Folks, stay tuned for David White, the power trading hour. He's up next. Tom O'Brien will take us on home at 3 p.m. And I'll be back with you tomorrow at 1. Take care and have a great day.


I've been low I've been chasing all the things I never had before A place where I can drown the old with you What you see is what you get A sparkle lit in the southern sunset I didn't know what I was doing wrong All the things I've grown I didn't know it could be that strong Just let it go and carry on Taking chances that I never took before All the way up on the highest mountain I found a place where I can drown the old with you What you see is what you get A diamond in the southern sunset I didn't know what I was doing Inside going on, let it go and carry on All the things I've grown I didn't know it could be that strong Just let it go and carry on I was doing wrong All the things I've grown I just let it go and carry on


In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk about supplements, but more specifically, we talk about the five most overrated supplements. These are supplements that you see on the market right now, heavy, heavy marketing, lots of people talking about using them and all their benefits, but we dive into the science, we talk about our experience, our personal experience, our experience with our clients, and we explain why we think the following five supplements are totally overrated. We start out by talking about branched chain amino acids, then we get into fat burners, then we talk about nitric oxide boosters, then we moved it to testosterone boosters, and finally, we talk about collagen protein. Again, listen to this episode and hear why we think those products are totally overrated. Also, this month, MAPS Split is 50% off. Now MAPS Split is a hardcore, bodybuilding, physique competitor, bikini competitor type workout program. It's six days a week in the gym, so you need to be relatively advanced to follow it, but boy, the results you get from following it are incredible. We've already gotten some before and afters from people who follow the program and they're nothing short of spectacular. Anyway, it's 50% off, right? So here's how you get the discount. Go to mapssplit.com, that's M-A-P-S-S-P-L-I-T.com and use the code SPLIT50, that's S-P-L-I-T-5-0, no space for the discount. A little while ago, we were talking about like, trying to, and we had to write these down. Doug, you've got to start making a little list when these conversations happen. Of all the failed ideas or things that, do you remember, you guys, we shot, I think we did at least five of these YouTube videos, where we did the green screen and we would talk about somebody exercising. Oh, yeah. Remember that? And we never aired them, because we sounded like we were just picking on. We were just like bullying. Yeah, so we're like, uh, we were this close, though. It would have gone like crazy, though. I think so, too. I bet it would have gone, I bet if we watched it now, that'd be amazing. Oh, we would get so much hate, though. I don't think so. No, no, we would get so much hate. I was talking, I was talking in an interview I just did, and they asked me like, one of the challenges, be a bully, that we have now today with the business. And I go, one of the greatest challenges that we all have to think about now that I think is really different than how Mind Pump started is, we have to like, really, like we used to like, no holds bar, say whatever, talk shit to whoever, because we were the little guy, and everybody's rooting for the little guy to beat up the big bully.   Yeah, so it was back then, we were so small, it was like we could call people out. We actually titled episodes, Mind Pump versus certain people, name. Because we didn't, you know, because they gave out bad information. But anyway, that reminds me, we should talk about the five most underrated, overrated supplement. Yeah, it's a little throwback. Since we're on that screen. Well, I think that we owe it to our audience, considering that we did the five, probably the most valuable supplements, and we went into that, and that was, Yeah, we got to balance it out. That episode went viral, and we're getting a lot of response from that. And I think, okay, if we're going to list the top five, we should come up with a list of what we think are the bottom five. Now to be clear, these aren't the worst supplements. They're the most overrated. Overhyped. Yeah, because there's stuff out there that's a complete, that's nothing. There's no use for them whatsoever. But they don't get a lot of hype. They don't have a lot of advertising around them. Yeah, we wanted to... We tried to think of some popular ones that a lot of people think are going to do a whole lot for them. No, that's exactly what we did. Well, the first thing that we did was we went, and we searched the top 25 supplements sold, and then we pulled the five out of that.  We want to address the big sellers that a lot of people are buying into because of the great marketing behind them and how overrated are they really with their overall results, whatever there is. Right, now to be clear, if you look at marketing, if you just look at pure marketing for the most part, most supplements are overrated. And what I mean by that is if you look at marketing, companies will have... And this is, by the way, this isn't just with supplements. This is with any product you buy. It's typically overrated when you just look at the marketing. Because they'll have you think that taking the supplement will solve your fitness problems. Taking a supplement will burn body fat, build muscle. But the reality is we preach this time and time again on the podcast that diet, exercise, and lifestyle make up 98% of pretty much anything you're gonna get. The other 2% can come from effective supplements. And really only if you need these supplements. And then there's the overrated ones. These are supplements that are... Lots of people take them. They're on lots of different products. And they just don't do a whole lot. They don't do a whole lot at all. Well, and the first one that comes to mind for me is BCAAs. Branched chain amino acid. And this is a tough one. We have plenty of friends that have that sell and market branched chain amino acids. Can I sell BCAAs and make a case for them? Yes, I can. Yes, I can tell people that there is a place, there is a consumer where it may make sense to. The endurance athlete, the person who's training extremely hard and is doing double day workouts every day. And also having a hard time hitting their protein intake. That's the key right there. So the branched amino acids are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. They're essential amino acids, meaning you have to consume them because your body can't make them. Now they're found in high amounts in pretty much every complete protein source.  If you have milk, if you have a vegan protein of some sort, tofu for example, or soy, you're gonna have branched amino acids in there. They are found in all complete protein sources. Now, by the way, branched amino acids isn't a new supplement. They've been around for a very long time and they tend to go through this cycle of popular and then not too popular. The first time I heard about them was in the 90s when I first started working out in lifting weights. Yeah, I took it when I was a kid. And they would use studies that were done on burn victims and people in hospitals. And what they found was in these studies that when they gave burn victims branched amino acids, they healed faster. And so they took that and said, this is a great recovery supplement. What are those the two examples? It was like burn victims and bodybuilders and they would always make an exception for a higher amounts of protein for those types of situations. Well, what they would do is in these studies, they were using them on people that were consuming very low amounts of protein.  In my experience, the only clients I've ever seen benefit from branched amino acids were my vegan clients whose protein intakes were very, very low. And I'm talking about clients who would consume 40 or 50 grams approaching a day and I'd have them take branched amino acid tablets before and after the workouts and they would notice a benefit. Other than that, and by the way, this isn't just our opinion, this is branched amino acids have been studied time and time again on athletes for building muscle recovery.  So now how are they selling it today in terms of like your average person, gym goer, because I see a lot of these influencers are getting into the BCA thing where they're drinking it constantly throughout the day saying that they're gonna get gains that way. Well, the theory and the idea in the bodybuilding community and why all of them do it there is when you listen or you read the studies like Sal's referring to, some people interpret that like, okay, well, I'm in a caloric restrict diet. I'm cutting for a show for six to 10 weeks. And so my body's catabolic. And so I'm gonna take the BCAAs for muscle preservation. Yes, for muscle sparing reasons, I'm gonna take the BCAs in hopes that my body will burn that before it burns muscle. But what they're not realizing is that, and this goes for all competitors, most all competitors are not only eating adequate protein, they're eating 1.5, yeah, an excess amount of protein. I've never trained a competitor that didn't know the importance of protein and didn't consistently get their targets in every single day, even in a cut. That's the magical, the macronutrient. So if they're already hitting their targets for the magical macronutrient, even if they're in a cut and they're taking, it's a waste of money. Total, and now the question arises, okay, if my protein intake is low, do I benefit more from taking branch amino acids or do I benefit more from eating more protein? You benefit more from eating more protein. Branch amino acids are a terrible replacement for protein as well. Now you'll get some benefits because you have low protein and your body could use some more branch amino acids, but you're still better off just having more protein in your diet. Now one of the other ways that they sell it is they say, okay, branch amino acids, we know that they're important for building muscle. So why don't you just drink them all day long? Why don't you drink them all day long so you can have this constant flow of these important amino acids in your blood and your muscles will always build and they won't shrink. This is also totally false. You don't need to have a constant intake of protein or amino acids in order to preserve muscle or build muscle. The best studies we have show that maybe eating every four to six hours will maximize the rate of muscle growth. Anything more than that doesn't really do anything for you. And I want to say this, too many branch amino acids can actually cause competition for certain key neurotransmitters in the brain. High doses of branch amino acids might even cause some people to feel down or depressed or kind of tired. Not to mention that. Wouldn't you theorize too that you eventually would get desynthesized? Desynthesized. Sensitized. Thank you. They saved me there.  Sensitized. Eventually, because you are eating so much protein, taking so much BCAs, I mean, one of the things that, and I think, I know Ben Pacolsky talks about it now, what other bodybuilder friends do I know that actually promote a fast or a protein fast at least once a week or throughout their diet? And one of the things that I experimented with when I was competing was doing these fasting days with athletes or competitors and myself. And I always noticed that when I actually reduced protein significantly for a day or fasted completely, when I reintroduced it, I felt like my body responded more to it. So my concern would be, or what I theorize is that these competitors that are not only getting their max protein to take all the time and then also taking BCAs, like they're getting like little to no benefit. In fact, they'd probably get a ton of benefit by completely reducing or eliminating for a day and then reintroducing. Yeah, too much all the time, all the time. Probably not, not super good. The body wouldn't adapt. Yeah, probably not super good. Why wouldn't it adapt like everything else? They actually have studies on that. They show that when people reduce protein, then bump it back up, that their protein synthesis rates tend to spike. I noticed that feeling as well. The other thing is this, is that because, and this is what markers have done now with branched amino acids, and it's brilliant. One thing I like observing about the supplement space is how brilliant they're able to market certain things. So what they've done is they've established that branched amino acids are a supplement for building muscle and for performance. So that's been established because we've been advertised branched amino acids for a long time. So we know that. Then brilliant supplement companies realized, hey, what if we made a really tasty drink? And then all we have to do is sprinkle branched amino acids in this and now we can call this a muscle building drink. Because tasty drinks have been around for a long time. Calorie-free, tasty drinks have been around for a while. We have diet sodas, we have crystal light and all that stuff. How do I make crystal light a body building and muscle building supplement? I know, let's sprinkle branched amino acids in. So what a lot of people do is they buy these drinks, they love the taste of them and then they think, oh, because it has Isoleucine and valine, this makes it a muscle building supplement. This is the same they've done with protein bars. It's really, you look at the macros and it looks the same as a candy bar. It just has more protein. Just more protein. Add protein, now it's healthy. That's so true, Sal, because there's a lot of bodybuilders that listen to the show and I still catch them doing that and that's their justification. They like the taste.  You're not only getting no additional benefit, you're probably spending more money. Spensive water. Yeah, you're better off with just drinking crystal light. And then like I said, like exactly, or like I said before, pay attention because you could be consuming so many amino acids that you're actually causing yourself to feel a little down because of the way that they can affect neurotransmitter production. You have to have a lot of them to do that, but that's still a possibility. But again, studies are conclusive.  They do nothing for- And relatively high, you need to be clear. Is it mean like high? About 0.6 grams to one gram of protein. What we recommend. Right, right, right. And that's where you'll get maximum benefits from protein. The next category is actually probably the biggest, most popular, highest selling category of supplements. And should've been number one. It promises everything in a pill. Yes. I mean, for the most part of what? Everybody's coming into the gym for. And what is that fat loss? That's it, fat burners.  But in the 90s and early 2000s, you had fat burners that started including ephedra in their formulation. And they became blockbusters. Things like Xenodrin, remember Xenodrin? Xenodrin was huge. I know Hydroxycut sold something like $160 million a year on its own. This is when fat burners really went main, main stream.  It was an appetite suppressant. It was sold to housewives. I think they called it dexadrin. Do you guys remember that? Dexadrin on TV or whatever. And it was a very similar formulation to what you see in fat burners now. It was a strong stimulant.  This is what makes it hard to convince people that fat burners will largely waste the money is that you definitely feel them.  This is definitely working. Well, because it affects your central nervous system. That's why. They're packed full of very strong stimulants. And studies show with some fat burners when they do six or 12 week periods that sometimes people do lose more weight that's on them. But you need to understand what's happening with the fat burner that causes it.   It's typically because it's a stimulant that causes you to not want to eat as much. So it's an appetite suppressant. Think about like twitching all day. Well, yeah, I would say that and move more. If people see results from it, it's the combination of the two of those. It's you with lots more energy and it's you having an appetite that suppress those two things. Now a lot of people will think, well, then cool, then okay, fine, I don't care how it works. I know it works. Let me try that. Here's the problem.  Like all stimulants, caffeine being a stimulant, right? So when you drink coffee or you have an energy drink, you notice that you'll get a certain feeling from it. Drink that same drink every single day and you notice a very rapid tolerance buildup. What one cup of coffee did today, I need to have one and a half or two cups tomorrow to give me the same effect. It keeps increasing constantly. And over time, a short period of time with stimulants, you build up a tolerance very quickly. Over a very short period of time, you don't feel anything except for side effects. And you see this with people who chronically drink lots and lots of coffee. Over time, they just get the anxiety and they lose sleep over it, but they don't feel good anymore. This is because the body starts to adapt. So fat burners do this. So initially I have energy, appetite goes away, I build a tolerance. Now I'm taking them just to feel normal.  Now I got to go off. Here's what you're left with. You're left with a body that adapted to strong stimulants that now is not getting those stimulants.   It's definitely a category. It's also a category of what I would consider the more dangerous supplements. Not saying that they're dangerous, just saying if you had to rank supplements in terms of risk. Well, I remember, you know, back when these like hydroxy cut and a lot of these brands kind of came out in the sports world. Like, you know, during the off season, a lot of athletes would mess with these things. And then we get into situations where there's heat exhaustion, you know, we're getting back into camp and they're dehydrated. And meanwhile they're still taking these like hydroxy cut and like fat burners and passing out in a couple of kids that died. So that's why a Federer got pulled. Yeah.  One of the companies that was selling a Federer and he died. That was originally how it got pulled off the shelf was they had enough situations. They have a high abuse potential because they're stimulants. So like all stimulants, you feel like you need more and more and more of them. Not trying to scare anybody. I mean, to be quite honest, they're relatively safe compared to most things, but they aren't, they don't really help. And in fact, here's the thing, I'll give you some examples where they actually are terrible. When I'm training a client who is a high stress, not getting good sleep, type A type individual, the very last thing I wanna do is throw a very strong and CNS stimulant. It's always this client that's drawn to these. The client, the cortisol junkie, the one that's already hopped up on three or four cups of coffee a day that loves the pre-workout, that loves the energy drinks.  And that's where this is, this is where this gets out of hand. It's rarely the person that may benefit from a little bit of the stimulus every once in a while. It's normally the people that are drawn to that are the worst people that should, at least in my experience, like when I had the clients that came to me that said, hey, I've got this or hey, I wanna talk about this, they're the same ones that I'm trying to lower stress, get caffeine out of their diet, focus on their sleep, and that's the worst thing they could do. Yeah, and I've actually had clients that were stubbornly would take fat burners and I'd noticed they would lose muscle as a result because stimulants cause stress hormones to rise. That's why you're stimulated, it's part of the reason why you get stimulated. They actually started to lose muscle as a result.  I've almost never, never, never, never recommended a fat burner. And again, the studies show long-term, they do nothing for you, but make you feel super hopped up and stimulated, which is why they're such big sellers.  And it's just promising a dream. So the other type of client I'd get with it is somebody who was overweight and they thought that, you know, that was something to just throw into the mix on top of trying to, you know, fix their diet or everything else. Like that was gonna be like a whole another way to, you know, catalyze their progress going forward. Absolutely. Next category, didn't even exist when we were all in the big box gyms working out. It also, well, it was for me cause I was in there still when it first, I remember when it. I mean, before, I mean, we were there when it first came out. Oh yeah, yeah. It didn't exist before that. I was there for five years plus before this hit the market. And I remember when it did, fell in love with it, used it like crazy.   And then two, that it has any direct connection with actually building muscle from that. So we're talking about nitric oxide boosters. Now, I remember the very first ones that came out and it was brilliant marketing again. They, you know, these supplement markers understood that one of the most prized feelings that people, again, by the way, if you're a sales person selling people on their feelings, is the most effective possible thing you could do. Supplement companies know this. When you lift weights, when you guys work out, what is your favorite feeling? The pump, dude. The pump. There's nothing better. It's like coming all the time. Yeah, that's what Arnold said in Pumping Iron, by the way. Just in case you thought Adam was being weird. No, but the pump is something that everybody seeks and enjoys and loves. And so supplement companies were like, wait a minute, what if rather than selling a supplement that builds more muscle, burns more body fat, what if we create a supplement that promised to give people a better pump? Let's tear everybody up. You know? And the market was brilliant. They would show before and after on these commercials. And the before and after was not a 30 day before and after. They actually said to you, this is Tony before the workout. This is Tony right after his workout and he's all pumped up. And it looks real dramatic because that's what it looks like when you get a pump and it worked. People loved it. And these supplements contain amino acids and things that contribute to the production of nitric oxide or the compounds that help prevent the degradation of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, by the way, is a compound that relaxes blood vessels and improves blood flow. So the theory is boost nitric oxide, get more blood flow, get better pumps. We love pumps. Oh, pumps can make you build more muscle. By the way, the most effective nitric oxide boosting compound that there is are these erectile dysfunction. Oh, I thought I was gonna say blood doping. No, erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. The way Viagra works is it slows down or stops the breakdown of nitric oxide, thus giving you the ability to get an erection. Do these supplements improve performance, strength and build muscle? The vast majority of studies say no. No, they don't really help at all. They don't do much. There's some studies that show there may be some benefit at altitude. So if you're not accustomed to altitude and you take them, they can give you some benefit. Subjectively, do you get a better pump when you take nitric oxide boosters? I used to think so. And then I realized something. I used to drink drinks that were NO boosters right before my workout. Yeah, the sugar in them. And well, what I realized was that it would explode. Well, what I realized is I was drinking 16 ounces of water before my workout. Then I put that together and realized, wow, if I'm really hydrated. My favorite thing to teach this lesson to someone who loves their NO Explode is literally the, and I know I've given this tip on the show before, if you don't remember, make an effort to literally drink a half gallon of water relatively close to your workout. So sometime before your workout, if you work out at noon time, make it a goal to have at least a half gallon. I used to drink a half gallon through the workout. And it would make my pump so nasty, more than any supplement that I've ever taken before. So I think that more of what people are feeling from the pump is that they're drinking that extra 16 ounces of water, they're shaking, they're in an explode, plus they're drinking, they're probably thirsty too, from that high sodium drink that makes them want to drink more water. So they're pounding water on top of that. And that's where that pump feeling is probably coming from more than anything else. Now studies will show that certain compounds like citrulline, which is an amino acid that gets converted in the body to arginine, and then it gets turned into nitric oxide, does raise nitric oxide a little bit in the system, but that does not correlate to better performance or more muscle. So that's the thing. It's like, you don't wanna just look at what's happening here, you wanna look downstream, because ultimately the reason why you're taking a nitric oxide boosting supplement is to try to build more muscle. And in the grand scheme of things, they can be fun, you can enjoy taking them, not a problem, but are they gonna move the needle for you? This fell in the category of I'm just taking this because I think it does something. I had no idea what it did. Well, dude, nitric oxide boosting supplement didn't exist. Well, the theory that I had, or what I thought was true, and what I used to sell to people and tell people was that more oxygen, more blood, more nutrients equals bigger muscle. I mean, that was it. If I can give you a supplement that's gonna promote more oxygen flow, which is gonna promote more blood flow, which is that's how your nutrients are transported to your muscles, then it must be building more muscle that way. That was the idea. And the truth is what does that is a good diet, good sleep, and good hydration. Whether or not you take a few key amino acids and compounds really isn't gonna make that big of a difference or any difference at all. It actually doesn't make that big of a difference at all in terms of any of that stuff. So nitric oxide boosters, again, is there some value? Maybe a tiny bit, but again, super overrated. They're way oversold, not a big deal. All right, the next category, you know, this next category, there is some value to a small subset of the population, but to everybody else is a waste of money. These are testosterone boosting supplements. This is a touch, this is a touch you on probably for somebody to hear, and I think it's important that you preface it with what you kind of mentioned right there is there is a group of people. I would be an example of that. When I came off a testosterone and I went and did my blood work and then did the every well test and saw, like my testosterone levels were in the floor, abnormally low. So one of the things that I did during the recovery was I took a test booster. But what people don't understand is that if you already have normal testosterone levels for your body, normal levels, the testosterone booster doesn't put you above your normal ranges. So it's a waste of money for somebody who is already normal. If you're somebody who is 50 years older or even if you're in your 30s or 40s and you've tested and you have extremely low testosterone, there's value to it for that person.  Yeah, they're already healthy. Yeah, I was 17 years old taking these things. Thinking that, you know, because you think testosterone, steroids. Yeah, you think it's gonna be like over-the-counter steroids and it's like, no. And it's the most expensive typically in the whole store. Yeah. And so it's like, if I'm investing this, it must really work. And so that's the thought process. Well, here's the other thing though, is that men will take a testosterone boosting supplement and they'll notice a boost in libido. And they'll say, it's working, okay. Yes, there are herbs that boost libido. No, they don't raise testosterone. So like horny goatweed is an example of this.  You may notice a boost in libido, but it doesn't mean your testosterone levels went up. So that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're thinking, I'm gonna raise my testosterone to build more muscle. It ain't gonna happen. Also, look at the percentages that the studies show that these things raise testosterone. Like 15%. Okay, so let's say your testosterone levels at 500. 15% boost is what? 575, you know? It's not nearly enough to cause any changes in muscle gain or strength. In fact, if you're somebody who takes anabolic steroids, the minimum dose that you take to see gains would be thousands of times over something like that. Well, and a good example too. I remember when you did the Everly Well test on your testosterone and I think you came around, I wanna say like 400 or 500 the first time, and that you were running the ketogenic diet, you changed, you introduced some carbs, switched some things up. And I boosted like crazy. Yeah, you shot like 400 points up. So that just shows you how, when you talk about the things that are higher priorities as far as sleep, stress, diet, and strength training, as far as boosting your testosterone naturally, those things are in a whole nother level in comparison.  Spend your time and effort getting better sleep or getting a better training program or focusing on your diet a little bit or minimizing just overall stress in your life that you'll get so much more bang for your buck. And again, the reason why people buy testosterone boosters is because they feel the boost in libido. But again, the boost in libido doesn't mean that your testosterone levels went up. Oftentimes it means testosterone stayed the same and it was something else. Here's the other thing. When you look at the studies on compounds that do raise testosterone in men with low testosterone when that population, the effect is not permanent. So I'll give you a great example. Ashwagandha, phenomenal adaptogenic herb, it does raise testosterone in men with low testosterone. Not a crazy amount, but they do notice a measurable rise in testosterone. If that man stays on Ashwagandha indefinitely, eventually it starts to lose its effect and the testosterone level start to drop. You may also notice this with the libido effect. In fact, if you've tried a testosterone booster and it boosted your libido, you probably noticed that after about 30 to 45 days or 60 days, it kind of stopped working. Like I don't have that boost anymore. But they promise a lot. You know, these testosterone boosters promise a lot.  Nothing, there's no natural raising of testosterone that will cause the effects of what anabolic steroids would cause. So again, super, super overrated. All right, this next one, really popular, relatively recently, lots of promises.  I know I am. And you know what's funny about this one is that this was actually considered a garbage junk product before they reversed it and flipped it and turned it into something. Now it's like so hot. Yeah, we're talking about collagen protein. Now collagen protein is protein that comes from collagen sources, you know, tendon, ligament, bone, what not. Nails. And they say supplement with this. It's gonna make your skin better. It's gonna make your hair better. Your nails better. It's gonna help your joints. And then they have studies to support this. They'll show the studies and be like, hey, people who supplemented in this study with collagen noticed, better skin, faster growing nails, better hair. But what they don't tell you is that in those studies, all those people had a very low protein diet so that they consume more collagen protein and then they got those effects. Guess what else happens when you take low protein people and put them on just more protein? Same thing. The same thing.   Did we even get into this when we did the protein talk? We did, I think we did talk a little bit briefly. Did we talk about collagen? I can't remember if we did. I mean, right now I'm trying to think how we listed the highest like we did whey, we talked about concentrate, isolate, and then- Egg protein. Egg protein, where did we put collagen? We really didn't talk about collagen. I didn't think we did. No, we mentioned it, but we didn't talk. We didn't list it as one of the top proteins because it isn't. No. It's actually amino acid profile, it's rating is one of the lower proteins. If your protein intake is adequate, it's not gonna do anything for you. So it's not a supplement that's gonna add any extra benefit to a high protein diet. If you wanna, if you let's say your protein intake is good, but it could be higher, will you get better benefits from supplementing with let's say a whey protein or egg protein over collagen? You will. Those protein sources have higher quality, better amino acid profiles for everything from performance to muscle building. Now, is collagen protein bad? No, it's not gonna hurt you. Here's what I like about collagen protein, it's flavorless. If you like to add protein to something and it doesn't taste like- I do like it for that reason. And there's a reason why it's five on our list and not one or two. It's, I mean, of all the things that we listed, it's the least most overrated of the five, right? But it still is. I mean, if you're going to be taking in adequate protein, it is a waste of money, you're completely fine there. If you're on, if you have low protein and you're gonna choose to take it, you're even better off taking a different type of protein. Recent study just came out that showed that you need to eat far more collagen protein to equal the effects of lower amounts of better quality proteins. In other words, and this is my, I'm just throwing out numbers, you would have to eat let's say two grams of collagen protein for every one gram of whey protein because it's amino acid profile wasn't great. And that's because all protein sources aren't equal, some are better than others. And no joke, this is a 100% objective fact. Collagen protein of all of the animal sources of protein is at the bottom. It's actually one of the worst sources of protein. Well, and, you know, to your point that you made earlier that I think is so important to reiterate is that this was something that was thrown away for so many years. It wasn't like new science came out and we found out that it's like, it's like, oh. It was new marketing. Yes, we found a way to market it to people. And that is why it's become popular again is because for someone who's selling it, you can buy it for relatively cheap in comparison to whey protein or whey isolate or your vegan protein. You can get it for like cents on the dollar in comparison.  There's better margins. It's got, okay, so do you know what has collagen protein? Jell-O, that's why Jell-O's got, that's why it becomes firm or whatever. It's actually collagen protein. Collagen protein is relatively flavorless. So when they said, hey, you can add this to your coffee, it's a great protein for that because you can throw it in there. It doesn't taste like anything, but the coffee and whatever you put in there, butter or MCT oil or whatever they do. Sneak it in there. Yeah, so it doesn't have flavor. Again, it's low quality and it's the marketing. The word collagen, right?  Put it in your lips. We know it's in your hair. Oh, and collagen in your joints. And so people make that comparison. And so it was an easy thing to sell, but it's largely a waste of money. And if you're going to increase your protein intake with a protein, some kind of a protein supplement, your best options don't include collagen. You're looking at either whey protein, egg protein is really good, and your mixed vegan sources are even really good. Collagen by itself, totally, totally overrated, overpriced. And I would say almost a complete waste of money. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our guides, resources, and books. They're all totally free. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Salon, Adam at Mind Pump Adam.