2025-04-15 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Financial Services

SPEAKER1 - That's my office here in the state house. Okay. And okay. So,
so we first like to call up, senator Doonan to testify, please. Thank you.
SPEAKER2 - And I think she's here with rep Orr as well to both testify together.
SEN DOONER - Thank you. Kelly Dooner, State Senator for the Third Bristol And Plymouth District. Just full disclosure,69 I was serving on the Taunton City71 Council when this petition came forward73 and voted favorably for it. I have spoken with senate legal counsel77 who confirmed there was no conflict of interest with me voting on it, or speaking on it as a senator. Just to give a little background, the city of Taunton is in the process of building a new public safety facility, that is going to be absolutely fantastic. However, with that transition period is the reason we filed this home rule petition, just so that chief Walsh could help with that transition period of everybody moving into the new public safety facility, working with new equipment, new cameras, new 9 1 1 systems, just to be able to keep a smooth transition for the sake of public safety, and the safety of the residents in the city of Denton. Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - Thank you. And I thank you to chair Ryan, chair Brady, esteemed members of the committee. It's my, honor to be here as part of the Taunton delegation, of course, on131 behalf of our house colleague that we love and have lost, Carol Doherty, who filed the House version of this bill. We reiterate reiterate the fact that this is, very important to the city, to be146 able to carry this transition on. I believe we have till October of 20 25 or 2026 before our chief ages out. But, what's important here is that beloved chief doing a lot of work not only with the public safety building, but also in the midst of other reforms within the city police force, body cameras, etcetera. And just bringing that forward till everyone is settled is what we're asking for this for. And you may be hearing from, our the mayor's office later today with testimony, but we wanna be here today to let you know how important this bill is. And we appreciate, your work on this. And we always are here to answer any questions. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator, any questions?
SPEAKER2 - No questions at this time.
SPEAKER1 - Questions from the panel? Any questions? I see no questions. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And next, we have online, senator Lovely. Please, senator, do you have the floor?
SPEAKER5 - Thank you, mister chairman. And mister chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify remotely today and taking me out of order. I am in the district, just welcome secretary Howe, to an event here. So I appreciate the opportunity here. I am here to testify quickly on 2 bills if I could. The first bill is, h I'm sorry. Senate number 18 78, house number 28 25, house number 41, and act relative to the smart plan. So the smart plan, save money and retire tomorrow is a highly high quality, low250 cost retirement savings program at,252 available to Massachusetts state and municipal254 employees. Perhaps now more than ever, access to258 retirement savings plans like the smart plan is an economic imperative. Many state workers will not have the resources they need when they retire. According to The US census data for 2020, only 58% of baby boomers and 49 and a half percent of millennials have begun to save for retirement. Recognizing this trend, the growing number of states have adopted retirement savings plans like280 this 1. So it's automatic enrollment policies with an opt out for,284 employees. And we really do believe that this, this plan would be very advantageous for our state municipal workers so I I do, express my support for this bill. Second bill is, s 18 79, an act of expanding access to retirement savings. Again, this actually combines the smart plan that I just, spoke to with the core plan. The bill would modify the core 4 0 1 k plan by removing language limiting the plan to employers who have 20 employees or less. It would allow the state treasurer to seek reducing, operating expenses through private donations or grants and other legally permissible fundraising. Given that nonprofit employees are 17 and almost 8 18% of our total workforce in the commonwealth and women make up 75% of the nonprofit workforce. These336 bills would expand the availability of retirement savings to households that typically face many barriers to saving for retirement. I will tell you that there is a third bill on just on the core plan, which is referred to another committee. I don't know why. So there's a349 bit of overlap here, but these are refiles. And I would like, to express my support for them. I355 will stop there and happy to answer any questions.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, senator. Are there any questions from the committee? Senator? I just
SPEAKER2 - wanna thank you for your testimony, senator, and thank you for filing this 2 piece of legislation.
SPEAKER5 - Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you to the committee.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. No further questions. Thank you.
SPEAKER5 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - First, I wanna introduce, 2 2 other representatives that showed up. Rep James Irina DeRosa, Ohio representative, and the ranking minority member, representative Dave DeCoste. Hello there. And, next, we have, from the old Colony Planning Council, Mary Waldron.
SPEAKER6 - Good afternoon, Chairman Brady, Chairman Ryan, and the414 honorable members of the public service committee. My name is Mary Waldron, and I'm the executive director of the Old Colony Planning Council. I am only, I'm only the council's third executive director over its history, and I'm its first, female director in its history. While I may be here by myself, I'm representing 26
delegation. We truly believe that it takes a village to be responsive, effective, and successful. I'm grateful for representative LaNatra being the house sponsor and a leader in the OCPC region, amongst its delegation, and then senator, Commerford for being the senate, sponsor of of, senate 18 o 5, an act relative to regional planning agencies. Over the past several years at Old County Planning Council, our staffing levels have remained the same. Yet, there seems to be a very high growing demand and request from our communities in the area, transportation, economic development, housing, age friendly, comprehensive planning, assistance in grants, to name just a few. At the same time, there is494 an ongoing effort to have the regional planning planning agencies pay the state, state retirement board on behalf of their retired employees. But these costs would be significant and overwhelming and the outcome dire. These payments to the senate to the state retirement board would be unsustainable and certainly would lead to large scale layoffs, termination of services to our communities, and force many regional planning agencies to shut down. The reason for this concern is that the regional planning agencies are extremely constrained in their ability to raise530 new revenue. We are funded through a combination of resources, grants, state funding, federal funding,536 and the assessment that we collect from our communities. That amount in OCPC region amounts only to a hundred $60,000 a year. The municipal assessments, are also limited by prop 2 and a half, which means that we cannot increase enough to cover additional overhead cost. The regional planning agency's overhead rates557 are limited and capped by federal regulations, and the payments to the Mass State Retirement Board would create overhead rates that exceed the allowed caps, thus making us ineligible and or non, competitive for federal grants, resulting in the inability to fulfill our federal inability575 to fulfill our576 federal and state transportation planning priorities and obligation, such as the fiscal impact, of this on Old Colony Planning and our colleagues and the other regional planning agencies, is of extreme and considerable concern. The only answer is the filing of this legislation. Senate 18 o 5 and house 2 8, 8 9 aims to protect the Commonwealth's regional planning agencies by ensuring that we are not held liable for these payments605 and are able to continue our work on behalf of our communities, local governments, and our state and federal partners. I am respectfully requesting that you support senate 18 o 5 and house 2 8 8 9, an act relative to regional planning agencies filed by representative LaNatra. The legislation aims to provide financial stability. My time is up. But thank you for, the time to631 come before you to testify.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator?
SPEAKER2 - Thank you, mister Cochair. Thank you for your testimony, miss miss Waldron. I know you've done an unbelievable incredible work, taking over the old county planning council, and we appreciate all your work. And this affects many districts, not just Plymouth County, but Norfolk and and Bristol, I believe. And I wanna, I'll convey with, representative LaNatura as well as senator Comifin, because I thank them for filing this legislation. Well, I also wanna welcome, a member of the committee, senator John Keenan from Quincy. Thank you, senator. Thank you. So
SPEAKER1 - any further questions from the committee? No? Seeing none, we'll move on. Thank you very much for your673 testimony. Our next is, Bill Keith, executive director of PREC, and, Patrick Charles, assistant deputy director from PREC.
SPEAKER7 - Good afternoon, chair Ryan, chair Brady, long time no see, and, members of the committee. My name is Bill Keefe. I'm the executive director of PERAC, and I'm joined by assistant deputy director Patrick Charles. I'd like to acknowledge the close working relationship we've enjoyed over the years with our committee, and I know that will continue moving706 forward. We're here to be a708 resource for you on any retirement related matters, so please don't hesitate to contact us. And thank you for your ongoing support, in particular on some key matters that passed last session, such as the veterans buyback, clarifying the calculation on, post retirement public sector work, and ensuring that people who benefit from the equal pay act receive that full effect of that benefit through retirement. We'll be submitting detailed written testimony on all of our bills filed this session. For the record, we respectfully request your favorable report on bills h 19 through 25. We're grateful that the committee favorably reported each of these bills last session with the exception of h 25, which is newly filed. I'll touch751 on 3 of these bills here starting with h 22, an act providing for statement of financial interest flexibility, which was engrossed by the house last session. The statements of financial interest we are speaking of in this bill are not, are those filed by retirement board members to PERAC pursuant to chapter 32 section 20 c, not those dealing with the state ethics commission. In line with the state ethics filings, this bill would exempt a member from filing if he or she served less than 30 days in a calendar year. Additionally, in a case where a board member is not timely in filing their SFI, the bill would grant the PERAC commissioner's discretion under extenuating circumstances for a late filer to be granted a waiver from the statutory penalty of permanent exclusion from board service. This is not a common occurrence, but it has happened where an individual had a compelling case, but the commission did not have the authority to grant equitable relief, which then impacted the person's career down the line. H 23 is an act to provide, for payment of credible service, would fix a piece of chapter 32 section 4 where its intended use is no longer needed. The provision was part of the creation of the public retirement system and allows the employees of public entities, that newly joined the retirement system, credible service at no831 cost. Now decades later, with the well established system, there are sub public entities, in particular,837 regional transit authorities that never joined chapter 32 retirement system, but now want to. What happens is employees will get 20 to 30 or even more years of service for free without ever contributing to the system and will then receive a retirement allowance that substantially negatively impacts the system. What this bill would do is require such people to purchase the service in the same fashion as others who purchased prior non membership service, where an amount equal863 to what would have contributed is paid plus interest. Lastly, age 24, an act clarifying the chapter 32 definition of wages is a follow-up piece to an SJC decision and legislation this committee
and not not retroactive. The decision declared that sick vacation and personal time used in conjunction with partial workers' comp benefits is not regular compensation. This upended years of practice as the decision rested on regular compensation requires a service to be provided. Along that line of reasoning, there is the potential for a slippery slope where it could be interpreted that no sick vacation or personal time is regular compensation. We strongly believe that such leave time is earned by providing a service. And with this bill, want to ensure that will be the case going forward by adding sick, vacation, and personal time to the definition of wages in chapter 32, section 1. As a point of reference, the governor had included this language in section928 25 of her f y930 26 budget. With that, I'll thank you for933 the opportunity to speak and be happy to answer any questions you may have.
SPEAKER1 - Senator, any questions any questions from the943 panel or from the committee?
Representative, go ahead.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, mister chairman. Can I ask you why the regional transit authorities, are just now considering joining?
SPEAKER7 - It's a decision by decision case, case by case decision. They've contributed to Social Security and they've, you know, made the, decision to join this. I I couldn't answer why. Right. And they don't happen it doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened recently.
SPEAKER2 - Okay.
SPEAKER7 - Most recently, it was the Cape Ann979 Cape Ann Regional Transit Authority.
SPEAKER8 - So are some regional transit authorities part of the state system and some are not? And are they part of county systems?
SPEAKER9 - So the way this chapter 32 works is it depends on where they are located and whether or not the largest city in that area has a pension system Okay. Or whether there's only a county system. So for instance,
instance, with the Cape Ann, they went into the Gloucester retirement system. Merrimack Valley Transit Authority, which covers all of the Merrimack Valley. Lawrence is the largest city, so they went into the Lawrence. There are some times where it's only county systems. There are no cities, that have their own systems. So it really just depends on geography based on chapter 32. It lays out how you do that.
SPEAKER8 - Okay. So similarly to the Lowell Housing Authority, that they're part of the Lowell retirement system because that is the largest in the area. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, mister chairman.
SPEAKER1 - Thank thank you. Any further questions? Seeing none. Thank you. We're done.
Thank you.
And, panel number 2, we have Robert Fabino, chief human resources and legal legislative affairs officer of Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System, and Jonathan Asimo, executive director of MAS Teachers Retirement System.
SPEAKER10 - Good afternoon.
Thank you, chair Ryan and chair Brady and members of the committee. Jonathan Osmo, executive director of Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System. And with me today is Rob Cabino, chief legislative affairs officer. And I appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the bills that we filed as an agency for this legislative session. Since 7 of the 8 bills we filed for this session were previously filed last legislative session and oral and written testimony was provided to the committee in 2023. I wanna focus testimony today on 2 of the 8 bills. The first bill, that has not been previously filed is house bill number 31, an act relative to reducing delinquent pension reporting.
The delinquent, reporting bill would make changes to chapter 32, sections 18 and 22, which are parallel provisions in chapter 32 that deal with data reporting. Section 18 includes all Commonwealth retirement boards, whereas the provision we cite to in section 22 addresses the MTRS only. Both provisions would establish a monetary penalty. Monetary
incentivize employers and school districts to comply with the law. Currently, there is no effective mechanism to enforce these provisions. There are over 400 public school districts in Massachusetts, including public charter schools and collaboratives. And now, though many districts are in compliance with pension reporting requirements, unfortunately, many are not. Not only are member member's retirement deductions tied to employer reporting, but creditable service is also attached to it. And it's important for members to see their deduction history and the creditable service deposited in their retirement accounts in a timely manner for their retirement planning1233 purposes. Delayed employee reporting adversely1237 affects our ability to process retirements, refunds,1241 and account transfers in a timely manner. For these reasons, I respectfully ask for your support in passing house bill number 31. The second bill I would like to discuss is1256 1 that was previously filed. It's house bill number 27, an act establishing a special commission on retirement credit purchases. The purpose of this bill is to evaluate and study the costs and benefits attributable to all service purchases allowed under chapter 32 to improve the long term sustainability of Massachusetts contributory retirement systems. Currently, chapter 32 allows 19 different types of service that may be purchased by public employees. Each year, the joint committee on public service reviews numerous bills to expand the types of allowable service purchases. Rather than a piecemeal approach, our bill suggests a holistic view of the broad policy and fiscal impacts of creditable service purchases. Under current statute, each type of purchase is unique relative to the eligibility criteria, maximum allowed credit cost method, and interest charges. Due to pension reform changes in 2013, the cost to buy section 3 service purchases types are calculated using the full actuarial assumed interest rates, while the cost to buy section 4 service purchases are calculated using buyback interest or 1 half of the actuarial assumed interest rate. Most other states that allow service purchases change charge their members either the full actuarial present value or a percentage of the actuarial present value of the increase in benefits resulting from the service purchase. The rationale is that the member's benefit increase resulting from the additional service credit and the correspond corresponding actuarial liability are the same no matter what type of service it is or when it is rendered. In Massachusetts, a member's cost to purchase service has no relationship to the amount of the resulting increase in the member's benefit or the resulting increase in the system's actuarial liability. For example, if a teacher and a superintendent are both purchasing credit for out of state teaching service that they rendered 20 years ago, they will pay the same amount for that service because the invoice and the cost is based on the salary they earned 20 years ago. But the administrator, the superintendent, will receive a higher benefit increase from that service, and the Commonwealth will incur a greater actuarial liability. Lastly, the careers the careers in state and local government are evolving with mid career professionals and short termers entering and leaving the workforce. Portability of benefits is important to public employees, especially in Massachusetts, where1459 public employees do not have1461 Social Security coverage. Perhaps a more uniform and cost balance balanced yet less restrictive service purchase policy could be a positive recruitment tool to allow members to improve their defined benefit, while not increasing the state's unfunded liability. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about the bills here today, and I appreciate the excellent work being done by this committee. We will also follow-up with written testimony on the bills that we have filed. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Senator Keenan has a question.
SPEAKER2 - Thank you. Through through you, mister chair. I noticed that1508 they make up the commission and includes, I think, a representative of the state teachers
SPEAKER1 - That's correct.
SPEAKER2 - Retirement system, and then also a union member that would be representative, I think, of the state employee union. That's right. There's no provision in there currently, if I read it correctly, for a local retirement school administrator or a member of a local retirement system or a union representative that might be a member of local retirement system?
SPEAKER10 - That's correct.
SPEAKER2 - Would you be open1534 to adding Absolutely. Yes. Great. Thank you.
And and through you, mister chair, just1544 to let you know, I know a lot of things haven't been1546 adjusted in quite some time. I even had a teacher in my neighborhood that was probably below the poverty level of poor things she had to do. Extra credit teaching for students. She had, she has since passed on. But, we also have a Kohler commission we deal with, just that in the retirement boards around that because that has been adjusted in several years. And and, again, we've done well for names from the Commonwealth the past couple years, but the volatility of what's coming out of DC is a whole new volume. So it it's a scary time of theirs, you know. But
SPEAKER7 - Absolutely. We
SPEAKER2 - wanna keep the conversations open for us.
SPEAKER10 - Absolutely. Thank you, Chair Brady. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Any further questions from the committee? Nope. Thank you for your testimony.
Next up online is, from also from the Southeast Regional Planning Committee in Economic Development District, Jeffrey Walker.
Oh, there he is.
Go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER11 - Yes, sir. Good afternoon, chair Ryan, chair Brady, members of the public service committee, along with my colleague and fellow RPA executive director Mary Waldron. I thank for the opportunity who needed to be here today on in regards to h 2889 and s 1 8 0 5, enact relative regional planning agencies. I share my name as Jeff Walker and as cochair of the Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies or MARPA, an executive director of the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District or SERPed, serving the 4 cities and 23 towns and over 650,000 people in Southeast Mass. I'm very happy to provide a quick background on Marpa history of the state retirement board issue as it pertains to us and why Massachusetts regional planning agencies need this legislation. The 13 RPAs that MARPA represents were created in the sixties as special state districts charged with providing regional and local planning services to all 351 cities and towns. For over 50 years, the RPAs have played a critical role partnering with communities and the Commonwealth to provide a wide variety of key economic and community development services. All 13 of the Commonwealth's RPAs provide planning, policy making, coordinating, advocacy, and technical assistance to communities that often do not have the resources to do this critical and necessary work on their own. Over the past 50 plus years and even more so since the pandemic, RPAs have continued to play an essential role. Since our creation in the sixties, '7 RPAs have been members of the mass state, employee retirement system. Central Mass, Merrimack Valley, Montachusett Regional, Northern Middlesex Council Governance, Old Colony Planning Council, Pioneer Valley, and, my own organization, SERPed. 2 RPAs, Berkshire Regional and Franklin Regional, by enactment of special legislation joined later after county governments were abolished. Make a long story short, it was the first time since enablement by the legislature and creation of the RPAs as de facto state agencies that we began receiving requests about 12 years back for retroactive payments to reimburse the state board for past employer contributions, which we had pre prior to been exempt. As you know, and as Mary shared, we are heavily constrained in terms of our ability to, raise revenue. We rely on multiple sources, federal, state, foundational, private funding. We take very seriously our stewardship of these funds. And if suddenly obligated 50 plus years in, to pick up those employer contributions as she shared and as I confirm and attest, it could require quite a number of us to close our doors and no longer be able to provide the important work on behalf of the communities that we serve. Our sincere thanks to all of you for your consideration of these bills and we are grateful for your help. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Any questions from the committee or senator? Kim committee. Any questions? No. Seeing none. Thank you very much for your testimony.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER1 - Yep.
Next is Eddie Boynton from the Braintree Education Association, MTA. Also online. He's also, online.
SPEAKER12 - Hello, everyone. You're gonna hear a classroom bell in a second. I'll mute my mic, when that goes off, and I'll unmute once once that's over. So I apologize for that. Good afternoon, chair Ryan, chair Brady, members of the public school, our public service committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in strong support of h 39 and act relative to the smart plan. I'm Edward Boynton, a 13 year educator currently teaching middle school math and Braintree. H 39 would be a simple but powerful step towards securing the financial future of thousands of public employees across the Commonwealth by automatically enrolling new state employees.
New state employees into the state's deferred compensation plan, the smart plan giving other governmental bodies the option to do the same. We can significantly improve retirement outcomes for our workforce. Right now. Too many public employees, especially young workers or those unfamiliar with financial planning, miss out on years of potential savings simply because they don't take that first step of signing up behavioral research and real world data tell us that auto enrollment works. It removes the barrier barriers to participation, leads to much higher enrollment rates. In fact, employees who are automatically enrolled are more likely to stay enrolled, save consistently, and retire with greater financial security. This is especially important in the education sector where employees lack the federal protections of ERISA law. Without those safeguards, countless amounts of educators, looking to save above and beyond their pensions often fall victim to high fee predatory retirement products sold to unsuspecting educators by 4 0 3 b companies. These products, erode savings, undermine the very purpose of retirement planning. The smart plan, by contrast, offers low fees, strong oversight, and a fiduciary responsibility. During my career as a teacher, I was taken advantage of twice, when saving for my future retirement. First with a high fee 4 0 3 b, which contained fees totaling 2.4% annually. And second, when I transitioned from my 4 0 3 b to a cash value, full life insurance policy. These plans were pitched to me by sales agents who had approved access to my school building but never disclosed the full cost of using their services and offered no fiduciary protection because again, they're not held to ERISA standards. I thought I was doing the right thing, saving beyond just my pension, but after 8 years I learned of the true cost to some of these 4 0 3 B and 4 57 plans. Had I stayed in that high cost 4 0 3 B, the cost to me would have been well over $100,000 in fees. That's real money, money that can make the difference between a comfortable retirement and 1 that is filled with financial uncertainty. Unfortunately, unfortunately, this is not just my story. You can still walk the hallways at many schools across the Commonwealth and lose count as to how many educators are still enrolled in these high fee retirement plans. What age 39 offers is fairness, transparency and the power of default choice. It levels the playing field for early career workers who might otherwise delay or avoid enrolling and allow municipalities to choose to direct educators into a retirement savings plan that has low fees, strong oversight from the state treasurer and serves the best interests of its members, all of which is severely lacking in public education supplemental retirement plans. I urge you to please support House 39 and help ensure that every public employee, especially us educators, has access to a secure, affordable and reliable path to retirement. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator, Questions? Any questions from the committee? You're free to go back to class. Thank you.
Next is, Matthew Nugent.2071
SPEAKER13 - Thanks, chairs Ryan and Brady, for this opportunity to speak before the Public Service Committee in support of responsible investing for public pension funds. My name is Matthew Nugent, and my residence is in Beverly. I come here today to testify for important legislation to require public pension fund divestment from ammunition and firearms. Specifically, the bill number is h 49, which is sponsored by Massachusetts State Treasurer, Deborah Goldberg.
Now more than ever, is the time that our Commonwealth would do well to responsibly invest for a bright future, where children are not outrageously slaughtered with lethal firearms in classrooms across the country, where deadly guns are not the most common2156 cause of death among children and teens in the nation, where thousands of veterans lives are not taken, and tragic suicides every year across The United States, and where nearly 50,000 children, women, or men are not carelessly killed with dangerous guns annually across America. Sound financial management demands2183 that the state2185 prudently avoid risky investments associated with recent court cases involving controversial corporate gun manufacturers, which market deadly firearms
to civilians. Several of our sister states already have taken the opportunity to divest from irresponsible corporate gun and ammunition manufacturers, including our neighbor states, Connecticut,
Nevada is another 1. Plus, the city of New York has done likewise. I strongly encourage the committee to favorably report on h 49 and and advance the important legislation during this session. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, we thank you for your testimony.
SPEAKER12 - Very good.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Thank you.
In online, we have, Lisa Bond, first assistant city solicitor from the city of Taunton.
Lisa Bond 1 more time.
That's the end of people who signed up prior to, the hearing. Is there anyone in2273 the audience or online that would like to testify? We'll take that testimony now.
Anything further, senator?
SPEAKER9 - Nothing for me
SPEAKER2 - to touch it. Well, if you need a mister chair, I'll move to adjourn.
SPEAKER1 - I I kinda like that. We might have set a record here. I don't know. That was that was very good. I I just wanna thank everyone for attending and attending online.
SPEAKER2 - I'll second the motion.
SPEAKER1 - Oh, sorry. Second the motion. And then, I wanna thank the l LAIS staff, Seamus, Liam, and Philippe. I I yeah. I'm just thanking some people here. I wanna thank you. And I wanna thank our court officer, Christina. All in favor Aye. Let's all join. Aye. We're done.