Personnel & Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the first personnel and finance committee of this term, everybody. And I was designated to, call the first meeting, so we did that. And it's 05:30. We have everyone here. Chair Miles will be a little late, and I'm calling the meeting to order. And our first order of business is, election of, officers. So we have an election of the chair and also a vice chair. So we're under b, election of chair. Do we have any nominations?

Yeah. I'd like to make a nomination. I'd like to nominate Go ahead. Chuck Erickson as chair of personnel and finance.

Thank you. Do we have any other nominations? Do we have any other nominations? Do we have any other nominations? Doesn't sound like we do. Let's see. So what's the right wording that I'm supposed to say? If there's no

Can I speak to my nominee?

Is that

Oh, sure. Right. That be allowed? Okay. Sure.

Yeah. So, supervisor Erickson has been on the board, more than twenty years and has been through a lot of our good budgets and our challenging budgets as well. And as we look to do things like tackle structural deficits, look at big, big projects like the Alliant Energy Center redevelopment, it would be good to have an experienced, steady hand to help guide us through these times. So, like, supervisor Erickson is is the is has the skill set, experience, and knowledge to do that.

Thank you very much. Anybody else wanna say anything? Okay. That's terrific. So alright. So if, we can still why don't we do votes? So all in favor?

Aye.

All

opposed? That carries. So alright. Thank you very much. And next thing we have up is election of vice chair. So do we have an any nominations for, vice chair?

I would like to nominate supervisor Andre.

Excellent. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Okay. Don't think we have any. So, Sarah, supervisor Smith, did you want to make some comments?

No pressure.

Sure. I

yeah. I I do sit next to supervisor Andre, so I gotta be careful with comments. You know? But, no, I I I think that supervisor Andre is a very thoughtful supervisor, very collaborative, really interested in finding common ground to work with all supervisors. And when we're facing a challenging budget and whatever else this next term may bring, I think supervisor Andrea will be a wonderful vice chair to have on this committee.

All right. Okay. With that, thank you very much. With that, all in favor of that nomination, aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. This will be great. So, alright. The next thing we have and Chuck, I was going to do this initially was to call the roll.

Would you like for me to call the roll?

Sure. Let's do that since we

Supervisor Erickson? Here. Supervisor Andre?

Under here.

Supervisor Kemp?

Here.

Supervisor Smith?

Smith here.

Supervisor Brower? Brower here. Supervisor Jawla? Jala here. And supervisor Rheinlender.

Rheinlender here.

Excellent. So we have everybody here. So we do that at the beginning right away. So normally. Alright. The next item is, c, consideration of minutes. So we'll need a motion from somebody who is here on April 9. Make that motion. Supervisor Kemp?

Yes. I believe I was here. I'll make the motion.

Okay. Alright. If I'm not hearing anything otherwise, that will carry. Then for April 13, someone who is here can make that motion, please. Who am I seeing? Supervisor Kemp? Okay. Yes. Alright. K. If there's no objections, that will pass as well. Alright? So then we're on to, fund transfers. We have the fund transfer, register of deeds, Laredo, Rev, and expiration, I guess. Are there any questions about this or emotion, I mean?

Some would, sir.

K. Any questions? Alright. If not, all in favor?

Aye. Aye. K.

Next, we're on to e resolutions and ordinance amendments. Sorry. So sorry. I was just looking through here. Alright.

So for this one then, we need what we normally do is I will ask for separations, and I will have some in mind. If anybody wants to have step separate something for whatever your reason is, let me know right at this stage. Then what we've normally done is we set those aside, and the remainder of those, we will vote on those altogether. K? Is that clear?

Should I explain? I don't know what else to say with it. So as of right now, the motions that I want to separate so far are number two, which is res three forty two, number three, which is res three fifty eight, and then hi. Okay. Welcome here. Res eleven, four fourteen. So are there any others that the committee would like to separate? Or, Chuck, did I get all? You got them all. So okay.

Going once, going twice. So then, again, it's number two, number three, and number 11 we would set aside. And so the motion we're looking for is the anything outside of that. So it'd be number one, what, four to ten, and then is anything there after eleven?

Twelve through thirty.

Twelve through thirty. Okay. Wow. Okay. Alright. So do we have a motion for that? Anyone? Anyone?

Andrew.

Oh, go ahead, Andre.

Yep. Andrew's approval of one E14 through ten and twelve through 30.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Without any objections, we will pass those. And then we in just a second here, we'll start at number two. And if you'd introduce yourself, we have one of our student members here.

Yes. My name is Steve Hong. I was a part of the last, what is it called, like, committee or

Personnel and finance committee or Yeah. The okay.

I'd lost tenure of people, and I'm excited to be with you guys for the last month of May of my school year.

So Alright. Great. Okay. Well, great. Well, thanks for being here. So alright. So with that, let's go to number two, which was res three forty two. And that we've got a treasurer here, and I believe we'll need a motion to tweak. It's under the policy wait. Parse parcel details. Right?

Yes. Parcel details.

And you want to remove one of those or just explain what you

want done,

please? On line number three, on the parcel details, which the parcel number ends in 1314 Dash 1, I received notice today that the condo association was taking legal action against that property. I do not want to be involved in that. So I said, you guys do your thing, and then we can follow-up later if we need to.

Okay.

And that is line three. Line three.

Line three. Okay. Stargass Drive. Alright. So any questions for the treasurer? Sure. Go ahead, supervisor Chavla.

I do. Have you had a chance to reach out to any of the supervisors in these in these districts to see if they can help facilitate getting any of these tax payments?

Besides putting it on this resolution, I have not reached out to the supervisors directly, but I have gone and visited these locations and given them the brochure that I have that's front and back, two sided with all sorts of things from human services to financial assistance to medical assistance to Yeah. Job service, whatever.

Yeah. Would you be willing to before the board meeting just because we have so many new people just kinda explain them? Because there's there's not that many districts on here. Would you be willing to just email them and kinda explain, like, what this process is and what you've done? And that way, if they get constituent contact on it, they know what's going on. Sometimes they ask at the board meeting, have you reached out to the supervisor? And I think this just might help facilitate any discussions at the board meeting as well.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks.

That'd be great. Okay. Was that a motion?

No. It's just a request.

Okay. Like, Sure. Supervisor Andre.

How do

you prefer motions as committee? You want hands up? You want verbal? What

Everything.

Great.

Hands are fine. Verbal. Sure.

Andre moves to strike. Parcel ending in 1314 Dash 18237 Stargass Drive from the list and the property in the resolution.

K. So, Chuck, that's technical amendment.

Right. So first, you're gonna vote on the amendment and then come back and vote on the resolution as amended.

Okay. So No. Okay. What do you mean? He means, like, at a board meeting, I think, when we have an amendment, we have to write it down and and trot it up to the desk. Oh, yeah. We didn't have We don't do that.

That, especially when it's something significant insignificant as this.

Would say these no. Normally, we don't.

Alright.

K. And welcome, chair Miles. We're on number two. We're on resolutions and ordinance amendments. I'm up. Okay. So now we're voting on the main motion three forty two as amended. Correct? I got that right. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Post. Okay. That carries. K. Thank you very much. And, yeah, it would be great if you could reach out to the supervisor for that district, especially the new folks. Okay. Now we're on to number three. And number three is, a word of contract for the Arctic Fox exhibit. Chuck helped me out here. Did we

Oh, we have a speaker on this one. So Okay. Let me find the

And speakers will get five minutes. I will set my timer as suggested.

So Stephanie Walter, I will promote Stephanie.

Okay. Is she promoted?

She is promoted now.

Okay. Stephanie, can you hear me? Stephanie, are you there?

Stephanie is muted.

Stephan okay. Now you're unmuted, it looks like. Can you hear me?

Okay. Yes. Excellent. I'll put my video on here so

we can see my plate. You've got five minutes, so go ahead when you're ready.

Okay. I just wanted to introduce myself really quick. My name is Stephanie Walter, and I am a zookeeper at the Henry Vilas Zoo. I've been working there for about seven years, and I've been in the animal industry for about seventeen. So in order to facilitate this to go faster, I actually wrote something up to read, just because I think it'll be more efficient and, worth your while.

K. Sounds great. Thank you.

So although I don't have a background in finance, I do have experience working at the aviary with Capybars, Morrison, and Peru. I know that improvements need to be made to allow them to stay in their habitat year round. And if a significant portion of their funds are dedicated to the new fox exhibit, we will not be able to make the necessary upgrades. People love the capybaras and frequently ask where they are when they are not on exhibit. Currently, the public cannot see them in their current winter housing.

Every spring and fall, keepers have to dedicate time to train the capybaras to willingly go into a crate for their upcoming transports to and from their winter housing. After experiencing a perceived negative event, it is common for animals to backtrack on the crating behavior, and steps must be taken to retrain the behavior. This is the case for the capybaras. Also, the crates that the capybaras are trained to go into do not go through the exhibit doors, so the 120 pound animals along with the weight of the crates have to be lifted over the exhibit wall, which is a safety concern for everyone involved in these moves. The first winter housing for the capybara was at the animal health center, which typically houses quarantine animals.

When new animals arrive at the zoo, they usually spend their first thirty days at the animal health center to ensure diseases are not transferred from new arrivals to the zoo collection. Therefore, having established zoo residents staying there is not an ideal scenario. In addition, the stalls where they stayed were smaller than their current winter holding space. Wild capybaras spend a lot of time in the water to hide from predators and often defecate in the water. There was little evidence that Peru and Morrison used their pool there.

The capybaras' second housing was in the giraffe barn, which was an improvement because it is a larger space, and they frequently defecated in their pool. As you probably know, the long term plan for the giraffe barn is to be torn down and rebuilt. So similar to the animal health center, this location is not a long term solution for capybara winter housing. Eddie the giraffe was sent to another zoo in part due to this impending instruction. But as quoted from the animal care department meeting minutes from 07/11/2023, it said, after investigating a leak in the roof of the building, damage was found that could need extensive repairs.

Beth Peterson has begun searching for a regional placement for Eddie to get him to another institution, hopefully, soon as this fall. So if the giraffe barn is unsafe for the giraffe, why is it safe for the capybaras? When the bids for the capybara improvement project came back too high, there was no further discussion about modifying the plans to make it more affordable that I am aware of. It is very common that large scale projects are adjusted multiple times to satisfy financial goals. Janine, our interim director, has been kind enough to schedule a meeting in a few weeks from now where all zookeeper staff can give their inputs on how, we can make improvements to the capybara exhibit.

I do not recall a meeting of this kind available to me to share ideas in the past. One of the arguments for building the Fox exhibit is that AZA does not like empty exhibits when they inspect zoos. Zoos are not tabled as a result of empty exhibits. Henry Vila Zoo accreditation was tabled the inspection before last due to deferred maintenance and other unaddressed issues. Capybars are one such example of an unaddressed issue.

Currently, there is a zookeeper staffing shortage, and we have a vacant position. With the addition of sick calls and keepers who have FMLA, there has been significant burnout with keeper staff. The continued county deficit deficit will make it difficult to predict if we will be able to fill positions in the foreseeable future. It is unclear to me what area is going to take on the responsibility of an additional exhibit, and it seems unwise to add work to an already strained staff. The Fox exhibit is not in the zoo's master plan and is slated to be torn down in ten to fifteen years.

Since there is concern over having an empty exhibit, a better financial investment might be to remove the building until sufficient funds are available to rebuild.

Can you wrap up?

Yes. I just have one paragraph.

Alright. Thank you.

Perhaps our future new director will want to weigh in on the plans for the zoo as well. Maybe installing an interactive display of sorts in its place would enhance that space until future plans are finalized. In conclusion, I oppose transferring the Capybara funds for the temporary fox exhibit. The animal welfare of our current collection should be a top priority, and by allowing the Capybara funds to be diverted would prevent us from providing a long term solution for their winter housing. While an exhibit modification that allows the public to see them year round would be a best case scenario, a scaled back modification could be made that would cost significantly less and provide the capybaras with access to their current space excluding the outdoor pool.

This would benefit them in multiple ways, allowing them to be seen by the public during the bumper months that water must be turned off to the outside and keeping them safe when weekly cleaning requires us to secure them away from the outdoor pool. These yard modifications could also allow for easier access to get crates in and out so that the behavior could be maintained for medical purposes. Fiscal responsibility involves investing in the long term over short term, and that is what I hope you prioritize today. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Questions for the speaker? Anybody online? Anything? Anything? Nope? Okay. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you for being here. We appreciate it.

Thank you for listening.

Did you want to say something? Okay. So we have the interim director of zoo sorry, interim executive director of the zoo here.

Hi. I'm Janine Wachter. Thank you for being here this evening, and thank you, Stephanie, for sharing the zookeepers' concerns. As interim director, I asked a lot of questions of the team in this decision making. Much of this plan has been prepared.

Prior to my time, I just joined the team in February. And I did want to know quite a bit. And I'm happy to share this presentation with you all at some point too before the board meeting if you're interested. Some of the questions that I had asked the team were around some of the facts and figures in this decision making, including timelines. One of the timeline areas that I want to share is that the enclosure that we're looking at for Arctic Fox, if you're familiar with the zoo, is the former penguin exhibit.

The last three penguins that were transferred from our zoo was in November 2022. And so I recognize that we have a lot of work to do to not have an empty exhibit at the zoo, which, as Stephanie mentioned, is not great for our AZA accreditation. It won't table us, but it is a mar on our AZA accreditation. And so as looking at that, we do not want to have that experience, A, for our visitors and as an institution overall. There was lots of conversation, and I know that there was several opportunities for the staff to participate in conversations with contractors and other staff members around the plannings of both of these exhibits, both Capybara improvements as well as Arctic Fox as this empty exhibit sits.

And so I recognize that really what we would like is the ability to do both of these projects. And so I am asking the team for more input in the Capabara project, the aviary funds that we're asking for a transfer of, and taking a time out and a pause to really make sure that we are doing our due diligence. What I'm looking at in the reasons why we paused Cababara in the first place, where there were some structural issues, there's also an HVAC envelope that we're breaking that wasn't quite planned for in the initial plans for Cababara aviary improvements, which would cost additional, as well as some additional potential animal welfare issues that were brought to my attention as free flight breaking in from the Capybara enclosure into the aviary in free flight. So I'd like to take a pause on that project in particular to understand those areas before we move forward on that particular project. We have scheduled a meeting with the staff, as Stephanie mentioned, on the May 29.

I would like some all staff input to understand what else we could do for Capybara and possibly look at other areas across the zoo to incorporate for Capybara to make sure that there may be an opportunity to see Capybara year round. At this time, I have asked lots of questions about the structural integrity of the giraffe barn where we do winter housing. It is in keeping with many zoo practices to move animals from summer enclosures to winter enclosures, especially in a climate like ours. Could we do more? Absolutely.

Would I like us to do more? Absolutely. But I do think we have to do our due diligence to understand what we can do in the spaces that we have and what additional improvements might look like for Capybara. What I'm asking at this point is we have had this Arctic Fox plan for some time, noting that, I think the meeting for the staff was August 2023 to solidify Arctic Fox as the animal for the former Penguin exhibit. We have had this this money budgeted.

Neither project met the total financial, capability. So looking at transferring some of these funds from Aviary Improvements into Arctic Fox now so we can get that project done. This is the second round of bids on Arctic Fox. I know that if we don't move forward in understanding conversations with construction teams and with Public Works, we will have to rebid. And I am hearing that that would be more costly, especially from our construction company at this point. So I would like us to move forward, and I would ask that we move forward on Arctic Fox project and this fund transfer while also looking at Capybara and making sure that that's a top priority because I do think it's it's very important, and I really want the staff's opinion in understanding what we can do, to improve that enclosure.

Can I clarify something really quick?

Hold on a sec. Okay. Please. Okay. Are you done?

Yes. I also have Beth Peterson on from the zoo. If there are any questions around animal welfare, she is our general curator and registrar if anyone has questions for her.

Okay. So what I'd like to do first is, so you spoke. Are there questions for the interim executive director? So Okay. Just a few. That's Okay. I saw supervisor Chavla first. So why don't you go ahead first? K. Please.

Alright. So I'm new to all this. This is my first PNF meeting, and this is the I was looking at this, and I wasn't aware that happy bearers were involved here. So I was reading it was an aviary habitat project to a penguin building project. So if the penguin building project was paused, would it do anything to benefit the copybearers right now? Or is what is going on with the the copybearer improvement? Like, what what's the status of that?

Yes. That status is, we need to take a a pause and get some additional staff feedback, and then we need to rebid that project, because in its current state, it is not feasible.

And then do you have any concerns if if we go forward with this, it would negatively impact the Capybara improvement in the future?

I think with our capital requests, depending on the budget series, as well as what we have, working with the foundation, I think we can look at how we might be able to prioritize foundation money towards this capital project because I do think it's very important. So the answer is maybe. I am not likely to be the director in that space to make that decision at that time, so I personally can't make that promise. But I would say that is it's of critical importance and is at the top of some of our capital improvement requests.

Thanks. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. Then I saw supervisor, Andre. Why don't you go ahead?

Yes. Thank you, interim director. Yes. My my question was also about how these projects are interconnected, and I'm hearing from you at least that there there isn't anything interconnected in terms of, like, sequencing or timing. It's just a question of resource allocation and hypotheticals about if we fund this project, you know, does that lower the likelihood of the Capoeira project perhaps coming to fruition, which is a TBD, but there's nothing else relative to the actual buildings or projects that are connected.

That's correct. It's it's primarily financial resources.

Thank you. Okay.

And then I saw, yeah, supervisor Rielender.

Yes. Thanks, interim director. Does the Arctic Fox exhibit create any sort of fundraising opportunities that can help increase outside money that could go to the sounds like much needed Capybara improvements?

Absolutely. With our newly launched foundation, there are opportunities to continue to raise capital for any of our capital improvement projects. And always when we have a new animal, there's lots of excitement, and we hope to get revenue with folks coming into the zoo to spend money through concessions and at events. So having a new animal always brings some excitement to the zoo. Thanks.

Okay. So anybody thank you. Anybody there Okay that answered your question?

Okay.

All right. So folks online, do any of you have questions for the interim director? No? No? No? Okay. Alright. And then okay. So, normally, we just have normally, when speakers are done, I would say they're done. We only had the one, but I don't know where she went

Well, she was done.

She was done.

She's yeah. Well, I mean, you didn't have questions for her. You started discussions. Right. Okay. Speaker

Yeah. Well, that's normally, but yeah. Okay.

Part of that discussion.

Okay. So just said one thing. Oh, Chair Miles, did you have anything?

I just You

just, I guess, recap very succinctly. The if if this adjustment, this resolution didn't pass, the the Capybara project wouldn't be moving forward either. Right? Did

you In say current state. We we need to reevaluate, like I said, the construction project that we had plans for, post some additional welfare issues in free flight with aviary as well as an HVAC concern in the envelope moving into the air aviary from Capybara. So the Capybara enclosure, it butts up to the free flight aviary. And so it was looking at creating more space for Capybara to move into the aviary, but it would break that HVAC envelope. And also, the enclosure on the outside is structurally sensitive.

The team refers to it as paper mache. And so it's kind of faux rock. And so when we were looking at that construction plan, it was a very sensitive construction that the team has has deemed kind of not feasible moving forward.

So it sounds like there's scoping work that needs to be done with the project, and then it needs to be bid.

So I mean It will

need to be rebid, and it may not be that space. We have some opportunity to look at a variety of spaces across the zoo, not just that space. So I'd ask the team to think creatively, both in that space and across the zoo as we look at our continuous capital improvements.

Like, you know, the point of my question is that if the money isn't made available for the Arctic Fox, it doesn't mean something's going to happen now for the Capybara. It's going to be some time before.

Correct. Unless we can find something within the remaining funds in immediate improvements, and there may be some slight immediate improvements as well as we continue to gain some additional, feedback from the staff.

Do we have a Go

ahead. Yeah.

Do we have a ballpark amount of money for the Copy Bar exhibit? Is it is it comparable?

It I I don't have that number in front of me, and I don't wanna misquote that what the project in its state was, but I can find that out. Thank you.

Yeah. That'd be great. Okay. Any other questions? So one thing, I think you said this that so this was, so the Arctic Fox exhibit, that's been vacant for a while or there's a space there. And then the reason it came back to us, it was delayed and it came back and the bid now is higher. Correct?

It is in its current state, it is stable. Okay. If we have to go to bid Yeah. It's like we're at the the deadline. The the construction company is being very generous knowing that it's coming up shortly.

Okay.

But we would likely have to rebid if we delay further because we've this is the second time around now.

This is a silly question, but do we have Arctic foxes now?

We do not, but we've had them in the past. That's right. I was gonna say if have questions on specifics, if that can answer that question.

Yeah. I was trying to remember if we had them in the past, but and they went away or they're circulating or whatever. So traveling. Okay. Any other questions? Anyone? Anyone? So okay. Wait. Is it appropriate to ask Beth a

question yet or do we need to have the the issue raised first?

No. You can ask Beth now.

Could I just ask what are the concerns with the Oh, there. Giraffe exhibit that made it so we moved the giraffes out, but that it's okay for the copybears.

I could answer that.

My understanding of the problems with the roof is that there is some just like your roof in your home, there are some areas that need to be redone. It doesn't it's not putting any animals at risk knowing that the roof needs some fixing, but I can't I think we were kind of in a in between spot of we know our giraffe are leaving and that we're starting, you our know, new Edge Of Africa project in the near future. And so there was back and forth about whether we wanted to spend even if it was just a few thousand dollars debating about whether we needed to spend the money on redoing some of those roof pieces for a building that wasn't going to be used anymore. Obviously, we found a new use for it, but you wouldn't know by being in the building and that there was anything wrong with the roof. I think it's just one of those things that when you get up on top and you're inspecting it, that there's some adjustments that they recommended.

The giraffes needed to leave because we were expecting to have construction start quite soon. So the construction for our new Edge of Africa exhibit, which will house giraffe, comes. It takes over all of the old giraffe yards. So, those animals would need to leave no matter what when it came to construction, not capybaras, giraffes. And, only having, indoor space for giraffe is not appropriate, so we would definitely have needed to move them out whether, we made adjustments to the roof or whether we didn't. And the capybaras, like Stephanie said, had a very nice winter in there and were nice and warm and used all of the exhibit, much larger space, and they seem to be quite happy in there.

Thank you. And

then well, I had one other comment. Beth, is the barn for the giraffes, is that appropriately large enough for giraffes?

The for giraffes or for capybara?

For giraffes.

The indoor space for giraffes, I believe, is large enough. It's just lacking a lot of the infrastructure that would make up for a modern zoological facility holding giraffe. So the future exhibit includes all sorts of features that we wouldn't be able to retrofit into the old facility. Okay. And along with, like, HVAC updates, because that building, I believe, is from the seventies.

Okay. I just thought it was kinda small for giraffes that I thought, like, to run around and stuff. And kappa bears are really little. Right?

They are.

They're not very big.

They are about a 100 pounds. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Anyway.

Mhmm.

Okay. Any other questions for Beth? You're okay? You're okay? You guys are good? Okay. Alright. So let's see. So we need to vote on this. So, unless there are any other questions, we will just do a voice vote. So Need a motion first. I'm sorry. Need a motion. That would help. Thank you.

I'll move it.

Okay. Survivor Chawla. Alright. So all in favor of the motion to approve?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Okay. Everybody online voted? Okay. And anyone opposed? Does not look like it. So res four fourteen passes. That carries.

Res that's not res four fourteen. I'm sorry. Sorry.

Res

Three fifty eight.

Three fifty eight. Sorry.

Recommended for approval.

I'm sorry. What?

Recommended for approval.

It's recommended for approval. Thank you. Please help me with that. Alright. Moving on to the next one is number 11, res four 14. So we separated that, and we have some speakers for that. Correct, Chuck?

We do. We have a number of speakers. We start with supervisor Furman, who's here in person.

Okay. Alright. Great. Thank you for being here, supervisor Furman.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, committee. If the goal after rejecting smart communications contract in September was to see a contract up for approval that's financially worse for the community and the county, I got great news. Mission accomplished. The contract in front of this committee this evening for the runner-up of an RFP issued almost a year and a half ago and whose result was issued almost a year and a half ago and whose results were due in March 2025.

Compared to the smart communication contract, it no longer pays the county back for staff administration time, which was close to $300,000 a year. And although it gives residents a ten minute free call each day, those savings quickly disappear with five minutes of usage of the tablets due to changes for basic tablet usage that didn't exist in the smart communication contract. This process shows our RFP process is incredibly broken. The RFP went out in January 2025 without committee or community input, and we're still considering a version of the results a year and a half later. I'll leave it to others this evening to discuss the importance of communication and the hardships related to charging our residents to stay connected.

I posted a long public blog post on this topic. I won't get into a point by point financial comparison, which is covered in an item attached to the registrar file. PP and J voted three two to recommend approval driven largely by concern about the uncertainty of running another RFP process. The original RFP results as I've noted are now well over a year old. The market has changed and we know more about what we want and what's possible.

We should absolutely be asking all the vendors for their updated proposals, including those who weren't selected or who didn't participate in the original RFP. Accepting stale results from a flawed process doesn't protect the county. It just locks in the mistakes. The first RFP had significant gaps. It didn't adequately specify the board's values around free communication and cost to families. We've since updated our ordinances on data privacy. We've had lengthy public debates about what the community actually expects. A new RFP carefully drafted to reflect those values would give vendors a clear target and give us a much stronger negotiating position.

Sorry.

Then simply taking the runner-up and hoping for the best. The new contract isn't scheduled to start until November. A focused well run RFP process with clear requirements around subsidized communication, tablet fees, and data protection can be completed in that window. PP and J recommended approval not because Viapat's contract is good, but because they're afraid of the alternative. That's not a reason to bind the county to a worse deal for five years. The board has shown it's willing willing to hold the line when a contract doesn't reflect our values. This one doesn't. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions for supervisor Furman, supervisor, Chavala?

Yeah. Thanks, supervisor Furman. I was looking at some of the the financial analysis here that was, attached to the resolution and provided to us. Can you talk a little bit more about how, the text messages are charged? Like, I understand there's a you get ten minutes of free calling, but with the text message charges, can can you give us a little bit more analysis on that? And I know you said you weren't gonna dive into some of the financial stuff that's in here. If you don't mind, can you dive into it just a little bit? Yeah. I think that's a a core issue here.

Oh, absolutely. So, the contract includes a charge of, for for basic content of 6¢ a minute. And according to the contract, basic content includes tablet use across multiple applications simultaneously. So that sort of confused us for a little bit. We weren't really sure what what that meant.

And that meant if you're using music and and playing a game at the same time, you're not gonna pay, you know, 6¢ for each of those activities. You're just paying 6¢ across the board for using the tablet. But one of those things so what what what do you get charged for when you use the tablet? You are charged a per minute fee to make a phone call, but but it's not considered basic tablet usage. So you're just charged for the phone call.

My understanding is you're not charged for video messages outside of the 12¢ a minute. But if you are doing a text message, receiving or sending a written text message, you do get charged 6¢ a minute, which means if somebody is, you know, slow at composing a message for whatever reason, they're they're going to pay a considerable amount of money to sit there and type out the message, in addition to message charges. And so it it it's this, you know, kinda hidden fee that just will will start adding up pretty quickly for people that are using the tablet, outside of, you know, the other the other minute fees. Does that help? Does that

It does help. So, like, just one more. So if if you're streaming a show and the show is an hour, it's, 60 times 6¢ a minute. Right? Yeah. That's what you'd be charged. But the rejected smart contracts gave for example, if you're streaming a show, that would be free.

There were basic, there there was, basic smart entertainment, they called it, and the and the other contract that was free. And then they had a premium, smart entertainment contract and the smart communication contract that was 3¢ a minute. Okay. But I think, you know, the the biggest worry for me is is the written messages, charging people to write or read messages in addition to to, you know, message fees, certainly is is can get will get very expensive very quickly. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah.

Any other questions for Supervisor Furman? Anyone? No? Okay.

Thank

you. K. Our next speaker is online. It's Okay. Aiden. Excuse me.

No. I was gonna say yeah. Okay. Yep. Go ahead. Each speaker only have five minutes, so we'll stick to that then. Go ahead.

It's a message. Can you hear me?

Just a minute, please, Aiden. So I'm gonna announce you. Aiden Gardell is our next speaker. He's online. He will be followed by Jack Ringhand. So Jack will be Aiden's been promoted, obviously.

Okay. Aiden, please go ahead. You have five minutes.

Alright. Thank you so much. I'm thanks so much for having me on tonight. I'm I'm probably gonna cop follow-up with all the stuff that Keith just shared, but I I'm urging you to vote against this contract because it's not a good contract. Instead, it's a contract of convenience.

I'm opposed to this contract, first of all, because it fails to meet basic needs of people in jail through providing them free communications to their support systems outside the jail, but also it's a flawed and second rate contract. Again, just giving a brief recap of how the contract in front of you came to be. In early two thousand twenty five with the current communication contract set to expire in the fall, the sheriff's office belatedly put out an RFP for a new communications contract, and that RFP included things such as mail scanning. Soon after, the sheriff's department presented the smart communications contract to the to the board. It was met with hesitation from this committee last year and the PP and J committee as well.

Then it came to the fall, and with so much community backlash against, this contract, specifically the mail scanning part, the sheriff's department struck out that mail scanning part of the contract near hours before the board was set to vote on that. Luckily, the board did end up voting down that contract, and most of the community and members of the board assumed that a new RFP would be put out that would reflect all the feedback from the public and the board debates, from that last RFP process. And we assumed the RFP from nearly a year ago wouldn't be valid anymore. Instead, the sheriff's department chose to pursue a second choice option from that nearly old, a year old RFP. They presented a contract with ViaPath with barely any notice to the PP and J Committee a few months ago.

This contract luckily did not include mail scanning anymore, but that begs the question of how relevant it even is to the original RFP from over a year ago. During PP and G meetings over the last few months and with a lot of pushback from the community because the the contract still fails to offer free communication, the sheriff's department did make additional changes to the contract, albeit very marginally improved. And now this contract, which is the second choice contract from a year overdue RFP, has gone through multiple edits and changes and yet still does not provide free communication, sits before you. This is a contract of convenience, and we, especially your constituents in jail, deserve better. In his recent in Keith's blog post, he really goes into great detail about comparisons between the contracts and how this contract offers less county, services and resources to the county than previous ones.

And, really, again, points out that this is not in the best interest of both the county and its residents. And at the core of this argument is the need for the county to provide the service of communication for those in jail, not as a luxury, but as a basic service, like that of access to water or beds to sleep on. So many states and counties have realized this already and have implemented free phone calls. Look at Connecticut or Massachusetts, which statewide have free, calls and county by county, each jail does as well. Dane County could lead the state of Wisconsin in this direction as well, which is already carving out a pathway path statewide for better communication requirements in prisons and jails through the assembly bill a b seven three one or senate bill s b seven zero eight.

And just to take also the one step back and put it into perspective of Dane County specifically, I just wanted to cite a few numbers that we've you know, as kind of our our our group of community members have come come together and found. You might know that the average population of the jail per day is about 600 people, but many people assume that most people are in and out of that the jail within a few days. But we actually put in a FOIA request and found that in 2025, the average length of stay was twenty one days in the jail. So keep that in mind when thinking about the services that communication could give people who are in jail for a long time the the tools necessary to release back into the community well and and with the tools that they need. Time and time again, free communication is shown to improve jail residents' abilities to release back onto the county and even make it safer for those in jail, both for the residents and officers.

Dane County can provide free communication. There's a report that I you received from Worth Rises showing the fiscal analysis of this, which, you know, really breaks it down and makes it attainable and and puts a number in front of you. And we just need to, like sorry. But we first need to reject the second rates stitched together contract so we can put something better in its place based on all the information and everything that the community is saying. So thank you so much for your time.

K. Great. Thank you. Who's next?

K. Next, we have Jack Ringhand, and he'll be followed by Elise Salar. So I'm probably not pronouncing that right. But

Okay.

Hello, chair.

Alright. Go ahead.

The

Yeah. Go ahead, Jack.

Alright. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, chair and and members of the personnel and finance committee. My name is Jack Ringhand. I'm a nurse in a resident District 12. I wanna say happy Mother's Day to all the moms here. I hope you had the opportunity to spend the day with your kids, and happy early Father's Day for the dads here. Well, I wanna note that for Mother's Day this year, the moms within Dane County Jail most certainly did not get the opportunity to spend the

day with

their kids. Across the country, roughly 80% of women in jails are moms. So certainly, we know that there was a handful of moms within the Dane County Jail that were physically barred from seeing their kids. This is the reality day in and day out. And we know that those incarcerated within the jail are also disproportionately pretrial, meaning they have not been convicted of the crime that they are incarcerated for, as well as poor.

They're in jail because they cannot afford bail. Thus, parenting becomes something that must be purchased for these folks. These parents also face pay paywalls when accessing basic communication with their families on the outside. Viapath, a for profit company, stands between them and their family on the outside and the other way around. These families must interface through a for profit third party to get in touch, with their loved ones who are incarcerated.

It's likely that or I should say in 2025 in terms of the the revenue that Viapath, for a private company, generated through Dane County families was nearly $400,000. It's likely that these charges severely restricted the basic communications between moms within Dane County Jail and their kids this past weekend. So Dane County needs to take this moment as an opportunity to establish a plan for free communications in and out of the jail that's accountable to the public. The proposed contract in front of you does not get even close to this this standard. First and foremost, it maintains the status quo of Dane County allowing and enabling a private company to leach off profits off of working class people within the county.

Additionally, it's a bad deal for the county. As mentioned by, my peer, Aiden, as well as supervisor Herman, The county this contract is a bad deal. Compared to the problematic smart communications contract considered in September last year, Viapath provides a significantly less financial value to the county. It does include a ten minute per day per person phone call, which equates to roughly $68,000 per per year in terms of its financial value. But the company currently pays an administrative fee of $78,000 per per year to facilitate the staffing capacity required to, facilitate a jail communication service.

The smart communications con con contract, as noted within supervisor Furman's blog post, offered a $300,000 per year admin fee. So we're getting for one example of why this is far less value, there's far less financial, resources being directed or being offered via this company. You have a very low value contract in front of you that doesn't even come close to meeting the basic communication needs of folks within, the Dane County Jail as well as their families. So for Mother's Day twenty twenty seven, right, in twelve months time, I'm trying to look forward and see where we're gonna be at. I think we need a system that assures free communication in and out of the jail that's accountable to the public.

Everybody, even beyond parents, deserves real access to basic communications with with their families to combat the isolation that's inherent to incarceration. Now is the time to make that happen, and I thank you for your time. Vote this contract down.

Great. Thank you, Jack.

Alright. Who's up next?

Our next speaker is Elise Salar, followed by AJ Thorne. Elise has been promoted. Hey. Go ahead, Elise.

Hey. Thank you all for doing this. My name's Elise Salariar, president in District 12. Yeah. I also want to urge the committee to vote against this contract.

Thank you to Furman and Jack and Dan who already spoke. They all brought up some great points. Just reiterating that, like, with the not going through another RFP process, now that there's been, like, more thoughts about what we actually want out of this contract and getting more calls, county's missing out on a lot of opportunities to get a significantly better contract. There was already talk earlier about the messaging costs. My day job as IT, there's absolutely no reason the company should be charging just to be drafting a message.

Honestly, like, that is not taking any additional resources. It is simply just an extra charge for the sake of profit to charge against people who just wanna connect with their family. On any average day, the more than half of the residents in Dane County Jail are pretrial, so these are not people who've even been accused of a crime, or well, accused, but haven't been convicted in any way of a crime. And even beyond that, basic communication and connection with family has been shown time and time again to be a positive impact, reducing revisitism, and just treating people with humanity. A ten minute phone call isn't enough to, like, really get connection out of asking your kid how their day went, talking to your other loved ones, just basic things that help us feel connected to our community.

Having that connection saves money in the long run by reducing, you know, all of these other factors. The analysis that Furman shared shows so many issues with this contract, where it's really just a bad contract. And we can get much better if we push to actually put the bid out, ask companies what they're able to provide. So thank you for your time.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Elise. Next.

Okay. AJ has been promoted. Then after that, we have Eric Holland.

Okay. Alright. AJ, if you could go ahead.

Hey, everyone. My name is AJ. County resident. So, yeah, I guess, I've been hearing from community members and board members and even the sheriff, that everybody wants free communication for jail residents. And I'm just kinda confused why we're considering a contract that just does not provide that.

And, yeah, to echo what everyone has said so far, like, we know the benefits of free communication. Like, it helps with recidivism, behavioral issues in jail, drug abuse issues. Free communication is just shown to be better for families, jail residents, and jail staff. And I know things seem, like, rushed because this contract feels rushed, but we absolutely have time to start a new RFP process. We just we need to do that now because, yeah, that the last RFP, like Furman said, is is stale.

It didn't make clear the need for free communication. And if this next RFP does that, we can get a much better contract because this proposed contract is just yeah. It's not good, and it is worse than the smart communication contract that was voted down last year. So, yeah, not to just continue to repeat what everyone's saying, but, yeah, I just wanna echo everything that everyone said. And, yeah, please vote down this contract. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Thank you, AJ.

Okay. Eric has been promoted, and following Eric will be Ali Bates.

Okay. Eric, go ahead, Eric.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm gonna speak about two things. First, about the advantages of free phone calls, and secondly, about how the fiscal landscape has changed in the last year. So, practically, I would like to point out that free phone calls are important because both the newly incarcerated people and or people who are planning to leave incarceration require extensive communication, arranging things like bail, maintaining employment, establishing care childcare, maintaining or repairing social networks. So communication is not optional.

It's something that somebody really needs if they're going to be successful either in getting bailed out of jail or if they're going to leave incarceration and and return to the community. The the major funding the the major theme that runs through the research on free phone calls is that it decreases stress all around for jail residents, their loved ones, jail staff. A graphical example of this is a national statistic that one in three families go into debt to maintain jail communication. So it's important enough to the families that they're going into debt, but that creates problems for them in other ways. So Worth Rises has done some research on places that have had free communication.

They've had they've they've documented increased connections, about twice as much connection for people in jails than before they had free communication. There's a a financial relief. Again, this is this is Connecticut numbers that they went there there was thousands of dollars of savings from people who were trying to maintain communication. They have stronger family and community relationships. And I think it's important to talk about communities here because people, it is true that the biggest impact is on families, but it's also true that the communities from which these families, are being disrupted, are all are also disrupted by incarceration and by lack of communication.

Other people have talked about parenting, child development. It's that getting that connection with the kids is an important thing, and it's free phone calls help that improve mental and physical health. I mean, it makes sense that if people are able to connect to people that they care about, that that's going to improve their both their mental and physical health. People that know them, people that can help them work through their issues. And then another one is there's less violence and operational disruption in the in the jails themselves.

So this is an advantage not just to the families and the communities and the people that are in the in the jail, but it's also an advantage to the jail. Deputy Warren Oles in Connecticut had a quote that said, the free phone calls have greatly reduced stressors. It's brought a calming effect to the incarcerated population. Any way we could make the job less stressful for our staff is a priority for us when emotions might otherwise escalate. And so, obviously, deputy Warren is speaking from the perspective of somebody who's running a jail, but, the idea of decreasing stress both from people who are in the jail as well as the staff in the jail, that's a win win.

And it's perhaps not surprising that sheriff Barrett endorsed free calls even though he did not offer to put them in into his budget. The I'm gonna shift now from the advantages of free phone calls to talking a little bit about

thirty seconds left.

Okay.

Sorry.

Alright. Thank you. I should just name off some jail, per minute phone calls. Nine tenths of a cent per minute in Illinois, 1.2¢ per minute in New Hampshire, 1.2¢ in Dallas County, 1.4¢ in Colorado, 1.5¢ in New York, 1.6¢ in California, 2¢ in Ohio and Mississippi. So Okay. The it the the landscape has changed. Jail communication is getting and you should vote this down and do an RFP. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Next person.

Okay. We have Ali Bates. Ali has been promoted. And following Ali, we have Yashin Amen.

Okay. Ali, go ahead. You've got five minutes.

Hi. My name is Ali Bates. I am a Madison resident. I am speaking in opposition to this contract with Viapath. The community has made it fairly clear over the last year that we want free communication.

I will acknowledge that this new version of the contract makes some progress with the ten minute call each day, but that is just a short phone call that likely would only be able to handle one small thing that jail residents need to reach the outside world to do, like calling an employer or a landlord or coordinating childcare. But if they want to take care of all of those things and then also maybe say goodnight to their child, they are still subjected to the status quo, and the status quo does not work. The current system run by Viapath is burdensome to use and pricey to keep connected with, loved ones, or even handle the basic logistics of trying to make sure that your life does not completely fall apart while you're incarcerated. I would like to reiterate the demand to implement free communications in and out of the jail that it in a way that is accountable to the public. While this contract has some cheaper rates than previous contracts, paying for connection is still paying for connection and a barrier for the folks in our community who cannot afford to pay bail.

This still puts the burden of paying for the communication system on on some of the most vulnerable people in our community who have no choice in the matter. There will still be people who need to choose between staying connected and paying bills, you know, making a choice between isolation and material survival. And there is so much deep seated harm that is caused by the isolation and alienation of incarceration. If we are going to continue incarcerating people, we cannot put the financial burden of existence on them. On any given day, half the population of the Dane County Jail is held pretrial, meaning that the county is enforcing a monetary barrier for these Dane County residents that restricts their ability to talk with family and make critical calls to employers or childcare and landlords all while they're not convicted of a crime.

Something I wanna highlight due to the fact that over the last several months of questions and debate in other committee meetings, there have been a lot of questions on the concept of indigent status and how that does provide some free communication funds for some jail residents. Indigent status does not actually address the financial barriers jail residents face. Indigent status is ostensibly designed to grant people with little to no means some funds to pay for things while they're incarcerated. Residents have to be designated indigent, and if they qualify, they receive $10 per week loaded into their account. To qualify as indigent, there are a complex series of requirements that first and foremost require you to have been incarcerated for seven days or more and the and have little to no money on your books for those seven days.

This is an issue in many ways, partially because there will be many people who are simply not in the jail long enough to qualify but would definitely benefit from being able to communicate with the outside world. And if they are in the jail long enough, those seven days are an issue because there are many things that simply cannot wait seven days to take care of, and the overall negative impact on mental health and quality of life that it can occur in seven days with little to no access to your support system is immeasurable, particularly when you consider that these are people probably experiencing the worst days of their lives. Overall, the inefficiency of the Indigent system is proven out by its usage, you know, as it is complicated to qualify for Indigent. And although the current ViaPath contract allots $25,000 per year for free

Ali, you have one minute left.

Okay. The Vi Path contract allots $25,000 per year for free communication for Indigent residents. In 2025, Dane County jail only used $11,960 of that allotment. We cannot rely on that system to address access to communication for our low income neighbors. At the end of the day, when we think about the budget, taxpayers are already paying for the jail's communication services, but only a very small subset of taxpayers, and it's those that can least afford it, families with loved ones who are incarcerated.

The average cost of communication in the Dane County jail is about $130 per month. If you make minimum wage, that is eighteen wage hours per month. The majority of those in the Dane County jail are detained because they cannot pay bail, meaning they and their families very likely do not have the extra money to pay for communications in and out of the jail. I urge you all to vote down this contract and start consulting with impacted people and community experts to learn about the real needs of our neighbors and community and start imagining beyond what we have always done. This is not a sustainable or equitable system, And so and as so many people have spoken up to say, we are sick of this current system that is neither helpful nor useful nor free. Let's build a Dane County that takes care of everyone. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. Next, we have, Yashin Ahmed followed by our last speaker, Brenda Salvo.

Okay. Go ahead.

Hi there. My name is Yashin Ahmed. I'm a Dane County resident. And like everyone before me, I wanna urge this committee to vote no on this contract. As our neighbors who are frankly better public speakers than I have testified here, Dane County can work towards free communications into and out of the jail that would be accountable to the public.

And I I wanna center this, on something that many of our neighbors have said before me, but recognizing that, ultimately, this is just a bad deal. This is a result of a negotiation that fundamentally could have been done better. We need to recognize how this contract is being proposed under the context of, ultimately, we are in a position where it doesn't look like we have any other options. So they'll squeeze that administrative fee out of us. They're gonna impose those rates for per minute messaging charges.

And, yeah, we we know that we can do better than this contract for numerous reasons. Ultimately, it's important for us to recognize how much wiggle room there is in these contracts. We saw how last year when it didn't look like the smart communications contract would pass, the sheriff was able to pull out the mail scanning element of it at the last minute. Like people have said before me, this contract itself came from an RFP that would have required mail scanning. And we saw how even the slightest pushback from the sheriff got a few free phone calls promised.

I'd ask you to imagine what we could do with real negotiations, but we already know what that looks like. Across the country, both at the state and county level, we've seen free phone calls won outright, not just two free fifteen minute calls a day like we've seen in La Crosse and Champaign, but fully free calls. And as my neighbors have testified, these calls would cost the county a fraction of what incarcerated folks, many of whom are in for crimes of poverty and their loved ones pay. Ultimately, this would minimize the amount that goes to companies like Viapath and Smart Communications. I also think last year, the board made it known that the Smart Communications, contract was in part killed because that company was pretty unsavory.

Right? Jonathan Logan had his Lamborghini called the convict and a yacht called the inmate. But, ultimately, we need to recognize that these companies are fundamentally the same. Someone else is at the helm, sure, but the mechanism is still the same. And as we think about how much money, people would save, I think we need to recognize that, we all see how bad it's about to get in the economy.

And us here in this room are probably far more insulated than the average incarcerated person and their loved ones, again, going back to that question of crimes of poverty. I think it's important for us to recognize that as things get ugly, as the county continues to be in a position where it has to cut services, we have to alleviate whatever burdens we can. I urge you to vote no on this contract to to solicit a new RFP and so that you can negotiate better ultimately. And we do really need to work towards system owned and administered by the county so that we can ultimately minimize the exploitation of our neighbors. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your vote of no on this contract.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Yassine. Okay. Next person.

Here we have Brenda Salvo, and we do have another speaker after Brenda, Allison Tracy Bartz. Brenda's been promoted.

Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead, Brenda.

Hello. I am here to speak about the Viapath contract that's in front of you today, and ask you, like some folks before me did, to vote against recommending it when it goes to the full board. My name is Brenda Salvo. I was born and raised in Dane County. And as an adult, I've lived here since 2015.

I'm not sure who all on this call or on this committee was around last fall, but this contract is essentially a replica of one that was presented to the full board and voted down because of both ethical and financial reasons. And that contract would have been with SMART Communications. This one is with Viapath. At that time, we were looking at the contract with Smart, who wanted to monopolize jail residents' communications, charge exploitative fees, use their personal data, facilitate surveillance and censorship, and to ultimately limit life saving connection with families for the sake of profit. And this contract before you today does almost all of those same things, and it does so with higher fees for residents and with less financial incentive for the county.

There are a couple changes I wanna highlight, that I believe some of the other speakers also have touched on. Firstly, thanks to the work of supervisor Furman and possibly some others, We won some important privacy protections for jail residents, and that was the one positive change from last fall's contract to this one. The second change is that this contract will cost the county itself more. We will be taking on significantly greater costs for equipment replacement with this contract, and we would no longer receive funds for administering the communication systems. And then thirdly, this contract will cost to jail residents residents and their families more.

Our neighbors in jail will be double charged for a lot of communication, incurring fees both for the type of communication itself, like rates for calling someone on the phone or video or rates for sending a message while also being required to pay additional fees for just using the tablet, which is their only way to make those calls and their only way to send those messages. So if I was residing in the jail right now and talking to you from there, I would be charged for this video call as a whole, and I would also be charged for using my device for the entire duration of this call. Overall, this contract is bad for jail residents, for their families, and for our communities just as bad as the last one that was voted down in a landslide. And if we are, as a county, are taking on the cost to administer communications ourselves and to replace equipment ourselves, How much is a company like Biopath actually doing other than just extracting profit from some of our most vulnerable community members? Community members who you are representing, community members who elected you.

The fees that these families are paying are lining the pockets of out of state investors, and I don't think that's something that our county should be doing. One of the flaws of this public comment process is that we, as community members, can't respond during your discussion to correct any misconceptions that come up later. One concern that we have consistently shared, in other committee meetings is the disproportionate impact that these fees will have on vulnerable community members. It'll have a disproportionate impact on poor community members who can't afford bail, on poor community members who have just lost one of their household incomes. It'll have a disproportionate impact on disabled jail residents who have to spend more time, writing those messages and reading those messages than someone who reads English confidently.

And by virtue of who our county chooses to incarcerate, this will have a disproportionate minute. Thank you. This will have a disproportionate impact on black and brown community members. In response to these really valid concerns about equity, there have been some claims that these concerns about discriminatory impact are inconsequential because the staff at the jail would help if there were issues of accessibility and affordability. And I wanna urge you to not put too much stock in claims that jail staff will help unless we hear directly from the people who need that help, who need that support, that it is truly available and sufficient and given without consequences.

I don't know if anyone here is disabled or poor, but I am both of those things. And if I was in jail right now, I would be very impacted by this contract. I also hold a lot of protected and privileged social identities, way more than the average jail resident. But even being someone who is often protected by our society, every time I've requested accommodations, I've had to fight for them in institutions that are legally required to give them to me. In institutions that are prosocial, in health care, in school, I have to fight tooth and nail and often have been unsuccessful to get the accommodations that I need.

So if we're hearing that this contract is gonna harm people and then we're later told, oh, don't worry. It won't harm people as much because we have people there to help. I think it's healthy to be pretty skeptical of those claims. Okay. Then I'll ask you to hold that in mind, as you enter your, discussion discussion with with one one another. But in conclusion tonight, I ask that you vote this contract down. It is just as bad as the last one that got voted down. It exploits our people for profit of someone who isn't even a part of our county. So please protect the people who are here instead of lining the pockets of people who aren't.

Great. Thank you, Brenda.

Okay. Next. K. Our next one is Allison Tracy Bartsch. She's been promoted.

Okay. Go ahead, Allison. Is she on?

A minute.

Oh, sorry. She's being promoted now. I'm sorry.

Okay. Okay. Allison, are you are you there?

Hi. Yes. Can you

hear me? Go ahead. You have five minutes.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. I will make my remarks brief since we've already heard a lot of really great salient points from everyone else this evening. And I would like to just hammer home a couple more financial points about this. We've heard how it will cost jail residents money to use their tablets per minute while they're communicating with their families, which will disproportionately impact people who have trouble reading or who otherwise might have a slower time composing messages.

We've heard about how the contract will be paid by our poorest residents into the pockets of wealthy shareholders and board members of for profit companies that are outside of Dane County. And we've heard how the county will be covering lots of costs that other contracts might not have. That includes, there is no administrative fee paid to the county, so it will cost Dane County more to administer this contract than it would have for the contract that was already voted down. And, there are also additional costs to the county for the actual accessories and tablets. So anytime a tablet is damaged or broken, it will cost the county $200 for that tablet.

I think compared to the previous contract that was already soundly rejected, this one is worse financially, and it would make no sense to look at a contract that is so similar to one that was already thoroughly rejected and decide that this time it's gonna be different. That's just not true. It is a worse deal for both the county and the jail residents. The charges are greater to both the county and to residents. And I believe that the county could administer its own communication system or pay for all of the communications for jail residents.

We can make other choices. I cede my time. Thank you very much.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Allison.

So just to note, there was one other person who had was on the registration list, Antonio Jeffrey, but never showed up online. So Okay. That's all of the speakers that

we have now. That's everybody you got. Okay.

I believe she emailed you. Just so

you know.

I don't know who is speaking. And

That's I did not

get an email from anyone like that.

Okay. Are there questions for speakers? Anybody? Anybody in line? Nope? Okay. So, with that then, if we have a motion, then we'll go to discussion. So is there a motion on res four fourteen?

I recommend the other committee recommends denial.

Okay. Thank you.

Sorry. Point of order. Do you wanna recommend denial on the resolution or on the resolution as amended by PB and J, which had a change relative to the timeline of the contract?

Is it appropriate to ask a question at this time? Sure. Can you you're in a unique position to go over those changes. Could you please elaborate?

Following this

one along first.

Just little bit from it.

Yes. So, yes, the the resolution itself does not clarify that this is a major contract that would require board action for any extensions after the three year period. So the amended version in PP and J that was recommended for approval three to two specifically notes that it's a major contract that has a three year length such that if an extension is desired, there would have to be a proactive action with county board involvement for those subsequent extensions.

Okay. And that's the that's where this currently stands. So I think I would be recommending denial of of that amended resolution.

That would be perhaps a more consistent thing to move through the process. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. Is there discussion? Anyone? Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Well, this is my first meeting of personnel and finance, and I'm led to believe that as a committee, we're supposed to be making sure we're spending the citizens' money responsibly. And that means more than just property and sales tax. This contract is a tax on being poor in Dane County or being a loved one of someone who's poor in Dane County. And if we pass this, we have our hands in their pockets, the pockets of our constituents just like if we were handling the property tax or the sales tax. Communication is not a luxury for these folks.

As we've heard from a couple of my constituents, Jack and Elise, District 12 showing up. Thank you very much. These residents are in jail for an average of twenty one days. They are in the process of holding their lives together, needing as much, communication with loved ones as they need logistical communication with with legal teams, trying to keep their jobs on track so they have something to go back to when they when they hopefully get out of here. And and also, if they had the money for bail, they'd be doing these communications for free at home.

They'd be talking to their children in person and their and their their legal team on their smartphone. I've reviewed the data from Worth Rises at Jack Ringhand's insistence. I've looked at supervisor Furman's blog post, and I think that seems like a nonprofit free communication model could be a great fit for Dane County. It would have the sort of intangible, difficult to quantify effect of reducing recidivism. I have no expectation that this contract will get past the full board when I was I sat in on the smart communication one, and this seems like a like a very similar shade.

And I encourage the committee to vote no on this or to vote yes on my recommendation of, denial, and to encourage a new RFP, that is specifically inviting to nonprofits that provide free communication. Thank you. Any other comments? Supervisor Chabalo?

Yeah. I'm in support of supervisors supervisor Rylander's request for denial. I I don't think jail communication should be free, but I think jail communication should be cost neutral. And I think that's an important kind of of a nuance to have. Anytime we have, municipalities or private companies profiting off of jail communications, that sets a really bad precedent.

That also being said, I do think we need a way forward when we look at our budget and we look at all of the challenges that we're gonna have to try to make that cost neutral. And I think one of the ways to do that is if you look at the cost of jail communications right now with any of the contracts that were bought before us, the prices are exorbitant for those who can afford it the least. And I think if we can simply look for a way to reimburse what our costs are and our costs aren't that high. There was a lot of a different analysis and and a lot of what was attached and brought forward to us that showed that, you know, a few $100,000 out of our operating budget, which is millions and millions of dollars, could could essentially pay for all those communications. So when I think we look at, you know, what the path forward is, having an RFP that expresses not only our desires, but also our values is is of of peak importance.

If we have a stale RFP where we've seen, you know, rapidly the price of things, especially things things like communications goes down, and bandwidth is is increased by so much, think right now, we would get a much different RFP. And if we look at who we want to encourage to respond to that RFP in addition to maybe who's responded to in the past, when supervisor Rhinelander is talking about nonprofits who expressly might have, values of making everything cost neutral. I think we wanna try to explore some of those options. And, the other thing is I get very uncomfortable when we're locked in to long term contracts, whether those are five year contracts or whether those are three year contracts because the landscape changes quite a bit, but we're locked into and when I say we, I mean, us as a county and also the residents of the jail. They're locked into paying a certain rate even though those rates might be decreasing in the future.

So I think just take a step back. I think PP and J has done a great job. I, thank their chair for coming here and testifying, to us, providing us the the raw data and the numbers on that. And I think, you know, we should definitely explore through an RFP process how we can make jail communications cost neutral and we can reduce those costs to be as low as possible for anyone who needs to use those services.

Okay. Great. Thank you, super supervisor Chavla. Supervisor Brauer?

Yeah. I'd just like to make one point, and I'm in support of the recommendation that supervisor Rylander has made. But the document we received this afternoon from Worth Rises, I think, gives some specific number targets to what the results of an RFP could be compared to. And that's, I think, a new development that we haven't enjoyed in the same with the same clarity in our previous discussion. So I'm encouraged that by reengaging the RFP process, we'll have a a reasonable target to aim towards in determining what a good vendor contract pricing structure looks like.

Okay. Great. Thank you. But thank you, supervisor Brower. Any other comp supervisor, Andre?

Thank you. So number one, I do really wanna appreciate advocates who have been joining the board and and PP and Jay to raise the salience of this issue for months and years now. I've I've learned a lot through the process, and I I've came come to the conclusion that that I did on the contract because of a lot of those insights shared and making incremental improvements along the way. So no matter what, I really appreciate that this has become such a source of public discourse. I think where I'm I'm challenged with the recommendation for denial is throughout the course of these discussions about jail communications, number at one point it was, let's look at the lacrosse model.

That came up over and over again in committee discussions starting about three years ago. And the lacrosse model offers free two phone calls that are free communication for individuals in the La Crosse County Jail by subsidizing these large nonprofit or for profit vendors using county GPR. That that's how La Crosse accomplishes that. So when, you know, I learned about that as a model, I thought, okay. You know, that that's something we could do.

We could use some county GPR to do that and provide a minimum level of free services. So that was kind of where I at least heard the conversation start. And then it was issues with mail scanning. And even though that was removed from the smart contract, the board denied that one. And then it was issues with smart the vendor in particular.

Okay? You know, this is a different vendor. It's still a big for profit vendor, but it it's a different vendor. So it it does feel like the goalpost is changing a bit, and I think it's and may you know, maybe that's part of this process here is to really refine what a a collective support for priorities in an RFP would be go back out to the field and do this. However, I do really want to emphasize that the the sheriff's office is going to have a lot of different criteria they look at when they're they're formulating and reviewing that RFP, and it's you know, I I think it's reasonable to say that some level of free or or neutral cost services would be a priority, but it certainly won't be the only important criteria that is reviewed in the RFP process.

There's gonna be technology, security, data. Can a vendor transition from old jail to new jail? That's a major component of this extremely complex process. So there's no guarantee that we go through that process and have a different outcome than we are now. Maybe there's an opportunity that happens. There were no nonprofit vendors that engaged in the previous RFP process. Perhaps there wouldn't this point. Perhaps they would have better rates. Perhaps they would provide lower no cost services. Those are things I would I would be hopeful to see.

I have supported this contract because it does increase the volume and the value of Indigent services and because it does provide that minimum level of free services per person per day, which is something we have not seen come forward so far. And I think in a county budget deficit period when we're looking at potential layoffs, I would have a very difficult time justifying adding a new expenditure even though it's one I would love to support. And I think if we had this conversation in 2022, we would be in a totally different position about it. So I one of the components I do wanna ask captain splinter because I see you're online. There's been a lot of conversation about indigent services.

We did not fully utilize that component in the existing contract. And I was wondering if you could speak to or share, of course, I see you're online, how we can maximize utilization of that proposed value of engine services because we we should be fully using those services if if they're delineated in the contract. So could you speak to that either sheriff or captain splinter? How we we can optimize that if there's any, you know, ways we're planning to improve access, if so.

Yeah. Well, thank you, supervisor, chair, and members of the committee. I'll let captain Kelly splinter, talk into the specifics, of your question. Thank you.

Thanks, Sheriff. Captain Splinter, are you online? If so yep. So you're unmuted.

Jenny, go ahead. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. Yes. We're currently looking into that process as we kinda talked about. We just started it when we were on the last PP and J meeting. So we did identify, there was some revenue that wasn't utilized for it. So we are still working on that process right now because we wanna make sure that it's in line, especially as some of the commissary stuff goes through and works together. So we are still identifying different areas, so that is something that we will still make sure that we have on the forefront and the plans to make sure that it is all utilized going forward.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. With regardless of where all this conversation goes, I think it would be important to I would respectfully request you come back to go not come. Go back to PP and J and report on any updates there in terms of, like, workflows or process improvements.

Captain Splendra, could you also discuss some of the testimony tonight? And actually, where my understanding started on this comms contract made me think that, like, every single communication that an an individual who's in the jail has with the outside world, you know, is charged and goes to this process. Could you speak to the attorney exemption and and the support that case managers and social workers provide if someone requests, for example, they need to deal with a childcare or housing issue, how those are sort of routed around this contract process. Again, recognizing some of the testimony did point out that is not a perfect process, but how that works and and what those exceptions are to being charged?

Sure. Of course. So when a resident comes in newly arrested into the facility and they're in the central booking area, that is when is the most important time for them to get that communication right off the bat. So they can let friends and family know, hey. I've been incarcerated. I am not, you know, maybe coming home tonight. I'm not gonna make it at work. So in our central booking area, those phone calls are all free in our our house or our holding areas. And once they go to a different housing area within the 1st Floor of it is where they'll start accessing the tablets as you guys have been made aware of how that whole system works. While they're in there, it is time for them.

They're reflecting. They're realizing, hey. I didn't make this phone call. I didn't do that phone call. We have reentry team staff now that, worked down on our 1st Floor of our jail to work with all of the newly incarcerated residents that come into the facility immediately. And that's where they get the one on one communication with them to say, what are your needs right now? Do you have, you know, your housing needs? Do you have your food needs, your basic life needs? What do you have? Your childcare and employment. What can we help you with? Those are the times that they're connecting with our reentry social worker staff to be able to say, hey. I need to call my job. I need to get my child's day care set up. I need day care.

I need somebody at home. I need my pet set out. That's when we can get those people out of those locations and to a phone so that they can call and make those life connections. That's so important to everybody on the committee as well as us. So we have a lot of that reentries team that does that.

So once you're there and then they end up going up into their other housing locations, that's when they get more involved in all of the programs that we're offering at the jail, and that's where the rest of our social work team comes in. That's where we can talk about our parenting stuff. We can talk about, more in-depth mental health resources and things that are needed and medical needs that are needed to be met. So if we see that people need to be connected with, peer support or, say, the rape crisis center, those are all phone numbers that are automatically assigned as free in our system. So it isn't just free for one resident to use it.

It is free for anybody that calls that number from in our system on these tablets. So a lot of those resources are an automatic free number. And if you look at p g 18 of the actual contract, number 15, it says the telephone system must allow unlimited call blocking, but it also says number 20 is must be able to exempt certain telephone numbers. So not only if somebody calls and says, this person keeps calling me. He needs to stop.

I don't wanna hear from them. We can go in, put that number in so it can't be called by that person. But we can also go in and say, all of these resources, medical clinics, schooling, education, those platforms can all be documented as a free phone number. So that is outside of that ten minute free call that Viapath is put into the contract. There's a lot of conversation about a comparative to La Crosse County, and I don't believe I said this on the last one.

But in communication with La Crosse County and how they do it, their numbers that they give free a day, that time limit that they give a free, that is any phone call that they make. That is to their attorney. That is to their loved one. That is for their community resources. They don't have a separate free fund line It's like we in Dane County will have if we choose to go with this contract.

So on top of us picking the numbers that can be free, they're still getting that ten minute to call that family. There was concern about people with disabilities not being able to do that, typing out on that tablet message. Again, that is where having our staff right into those housing units with the residents is highly important in having those all staffed appropriately so that they can get out. They're talking with the residents that are in there. They're making that connection, and they're seeing they're identifying.

This person is struggling with this. This person has come up and shared with me that they're having a hard time identifying, being able to type something, to write something. The deputies, social workers, mental health professionals, and our medical staff are all working with our residents to be able to help them make that message, get that phone call made, whether deputy has to do a form, the social worker has to type it out form. Our staff is willing to help. So those are all kind of things that they do to kinda work with them.

We'll pull them outside into a different area so that the social worker can help them type an email versus just working off of the tablet. There isn't a charge to that email to go to their if it has to go to their boss or something like that. So those are all things that, we are working with. Our reentry staff, the whole purpose is of, is to get the resources that they need to be able to get back into the community and get back on their feet or to make their bail get their bail. Those are the things that they do.

Final sorry. Final question for me, captain Splinter. I think at a previous conversation, you had noted the total number of minutes that were designated according to those, like, authorized free lines and numbers that we have under, existing relationship. Do you have that data point accessible to you?

As far as okay. So for 2025, we used 527,913 free minutes. So those are the free minutes that we utilized in Dane County. And let me just see if I can find from 01/01/2026 to 03/31/2026, so far, we have done a hundred and twenty two thousand eight hundred and seven minutes of free phone minutes to residents for residents.

Thank you. I I just I do think those data points are important, to highlight that those numbers and the lines and the free services are being utilized pretty significantly. Of course, there are provisions in this contract that I would like to see improved. The, you know, time to use the tablet issue and, like, to draft an email is something really concerning to me. There are other provisions that, you know, I I wish were improved, but the access to to those free lines, the free minutes, and the ten minutes per person per day, to me, satisfies that this is a step in the right direction. So that those are that's it for me.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Supervisor Choplow.

Thanks, chair Erickson. Captain Splinter, I had a I had a data request, and this might be something that I you might not be able to produce, but I figured I'd ask for it anyways. Is it possible to get an anonymized cost per resident per day of, their communications and included in there what services they used and the length of time they used those services. And then in addition to that, their total length of stay. And the reason I'm asking that question is because we're looking at basically, you know, a matrix here of cost per minute per different services.

It offers some things for free. It charges for other things. I think if we had a better handle on usage patterns, which maybe PP and J has already gone through, we could kinda make a good determination of what a suitable plan is or maybe, like, what some of our cost, you know, points are. Like, this reminds me of, you know, years and years ago where you tried to pick a cell phone plan and they gave you all different types of usage options on it. And I think if we had a comprehensive dataset of how residents are using communication services, what they're being charged for those, how those correspond to length of stay, and what length of time they're using each service, I think that'd be helpful.

Is that something you could provide to us in an anonymized fashion?

I don't think that's something I can pull out. It would be something that I would have to communicate with the vendor on to see what their system allows for reporting. I could not I can't answer that for you right now.

Okay. Would you like me to write that up as a formal request, or how how how could we go forward on that?

It would be much easier to have it all documented and what exactly you're looking for to be able to for me to turn around and ask the vendor to make sure that I'm not missing something you're requesting.

Perfect. I'll do that.

K. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Anybody? Questions for staff or comments otherwise? If not, it doesn't look like we I see any. So okay. So with that, we have before before us a recommendation for denial of four fourteen. So if we'll have the vote now, so all in favor.

Chair Erickson, can we get a roll call on this? It might just be easier since we're all kinda spread out.

Sure. We can definitely do a roll call. So roll call has been requested. So, again, on recommendation for denial. So, Chuck, go ahead, please.

Okay. Chair Erickson. Aye. Supervisor Andre?

Andrew, no.

Supervisor Kemp?

Aye.

Supervisor Smith? Aye. Supervisor Brower?

Brower, aye.

Supervisor Trawler? Trawler, aye. Supervisor Rheilander?

Rheilander, aye.

We have our student here too.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. Steve Hong. Aye. And Shukla. Is she still here? She was here, but not anymore.

Great. So what was that?

That was six to one.

It was? Okay.

There there was one that was in favor. There are seven still in attendance.

To make sure

The one y g g zero.

Just wanted that clear. So that so recommendation for denial passes six to one. Alright. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay.

Now on to the next section of our agenda, which is section f, which has a number of things on it. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but includes things like funds or fund transfers, contracts, bid waivers, expense appeals, bills and accounts, and then also per diems. So it's the same on this section we've done in the past is we can do them all together or if anybody has one they'd like to separate, we can separate them and take up anything individually. So any thoughts? Any emotions?

Don't everyone speak at once? Is that

whatever the chair's prerogative is?

With this, I would look for a motion of moving, you know, one through eight in a motion. So moved. Alright. All in favor of that? That's for Resotralos. That was Brower. Brower.

Brower. Yeah.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. That passes. Alright. Thank you for that. The next item h, future meeting items and dates. So our next meeting is June '30. Any other items for future meetings? Oh, okay. Supervisor Andre, I saw you first.

I will follow-up via email to specify this in a little bit more detail, but I would ask that we have two items on our next agenda. One, being understanding the fiscal impact of vacancies year to date that have yet to be filled. You know, we're under a hiring freeze, but I also understand that beyond that hiring freeze, you know, there are exceptions and so forth. But also that hiring is really slowing down in a lot of ways, so understanding what impact that's having on our budget, I think, would help us prepare. Along with that, I would love to understand from director Slavin what positions have been hired year to date.

So to get an accounting of those positions, what's been authorized and not by department would like a just a spreadsheet would suit my needs with the position titles. And then the other item, you know, we're heading into the earnest components of challenging budget deliberations, and while the budget projection for 2027 looks rosier, really understanding, and I can document this in details via email for controller Hicklin and others is interested, how the closing of books from 2026 specifically is impacted. Basically, just digging into the memo that was pried in April in more depth. And then finally, there's been some public attention on the reserves versus surplus and having a fuller understanding of both those definitions as well as what contributes to reserves versus the surplus aka unspent funds from the previous year, where those stand relative to future budget projections. I think, would help us have a baseline level set going into the rest of the year.

And you you had said closing of '26. I think you meant '25, but so the actuals where the February memo was working from some projections and assumptions.

K. Thank you for that. Alright. So that was great. Supervisor Chavala?

I'm all good. I was just gonna ask. Like, I read this article. And

What are you referencing?

Snap time article, and, I think, supervisor Andre covered all of it in her request. Okay.

Okay. Great. So we've got those times. You'll send those along. Excellent. Thank you.

More detail, like, what are the specific things we might wanna understand together? Sure. Thank you.

That'd be great. Alright. Anybody else for other items? Anybody online? No? No? Okay. Alright. So next thing, I public comment on items not on the agenda. I don't think we have any

public for that item.

Great. And then, Jay, such other business that's allowed by law. Oh, Chair Miles. Being

lack of another place for this in the agenda, I just wanted to make some remarks Okay. About our about well, at the last personnel and finance committee meeting, there was an action item, whether or not to approve a bid waiver, for contract with GovAI. And I just as a I think, there's there are subsequent emails that, went about after that that, to me, indicated some, I think, misperception of of the why the committee took the action it did in denying the bid waiver. But, moreover, I I I it underscored for me, I think, especially since we have a few new members to the committee and to level set with with, staff and departments, some of the principles. I think we need to underscore some of the principles that go into why we have an RFP process and for which the criteria for bid waivers need to outweigh those.

And so I just wanted to lay that out there for everybody. At least this is my thoughts after hearing some of the reactions after that decision. And so the first principle here is is in our RFP process is that it's playing transparency. The process has to be entirely visible to to everybody from the moment the need is identified to the point that a signature is signed on a contract. That means the scope of that RFP must clearly articulate what, exactly the county is looking to to procure and the specific deliverables that we're requiring in a in a timeline.

The other part of transparency is that there's public access in the sense of the solicitation, both from for the public to know what's going on, but also for vendors to understand, see very publicly what the score scoring criteria is, how how those what what rubrics will be used to evaluate, responses, who's involved in evaluating, the scoring. All of that has to be in public record because sunlight is the best disinfectant against claims of favoritism or mismanagement. Next principle, fair and unrestricted competition. The RFP process must create a level playing field. Specifications should not be written in a way that artificially narrows or plays any favoritism in the field of possible vendors.

Potential vendors need to have equal access to the information and the process and so forth. You know, in my view, the broader the competition, the more likely the county is to get a competitively bid or competitively priced and innovative solution. So and then next, I have best value and stewardship of funds. An RFP for services is evaluated on the best value. It's it's an important balancing act between the lowest cost versus the volume and or quantity of service.

The cheapest vendor may not be the best choice if the service requires a lot of handholding, micromanagement, and contract management, or if a vendor delivers a substandard product. And in the context of the GovAI conversation, you know, we we heard from some employees that questioned the the quality of of of that tool. So, in short, the evaluation, must outweigh the, must weigh the highest return on the public investment. And then last, I have, you know, the processes about being objective having objective accountability and integrity. All of the parties involved need to be beyond reproach and means the RFP process must document scoring criteria just and the decisions need to be based on those criteria, and there needs to be a full disclosure of conflict of interest.

So it's by adhering to these principles that I think the procurement process to not to not adhere to those principles makes our process vulnerable to corruption, self dealing, kickbacks, etcetera, anything all those things that would violate public trust. And we saw a situation with and I'm not saying that there's any of that involved in the in the request for that bid waiver for GovAI, but, you know, I appreciate that that Sam worked hard with a a potential vendor on coming up with a deal that was favorable to the county, but that was something that was done behind closed doors. And it was something that other vendors would have loved to have had the opportunity to negotiate as well. And that's what the, RFP process is for. So, I think that's just something for all of us to keep in mind as we consider, bid waivers.

We had a couple tonight that, you know, were legitimate you know, raise legitimate concerns, for providing the waiver, like, a limited number of vendors, especially those who'd be familiar with the systems we have in place here in the county. It's one of them and another where we're working with an organization that had their own RFP process. So there was a whole process that was already executed. So so I just wanted to lay that out there to level set and make clear why we have the processes in place that we do. So I think it's important to uphold those principles.

Great. Thank you, chair Miles. Any questions for chair Miles? Okay. Well, if we don't have anything else, then, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Great. All in favor? Aye. That carries. Thank you very much, everybody.