Guy Gordon (00:00.546)
Hello and welcome to the Facts Matter Podcast. I’m Guy Gordon. It is budget season. On July 3rd, the state legislature and the governor released their annual budget for fiscal year 2027. It came in a couple days past the mandatory deadline, but it came in three months sooner than it did last year. So I guess we’ll take it as a win. The Citizens Research Council of Michigan making some news with its analysis that came a couple of weeks afterwards, and here to break it down for us.

Bob Schneider, Senior Research Associate for State Affairs. Bob, hello and and are you a little worn out from answering all the questions about your analysis?

Bob Schneider (00:40.311)
I’m I’m still I’m still fresh. It’s a new week, so ready for more guy. It’s good to be here with you.

Guy Gordon (00:45.614)
All right. Let’s begin at the beginning. you got all the budget documents from from the the the various sources here. You put it together, you did the analysis that you do every year. But in this case there was kind of a a glaring outlier there, which is the numbers were not imbalanced. Tell me about

Bob Schneider (00:56.249)
Yep. Yep.

Bob Schneider (01:08.045)
Right. So w so we looked at you know our our general fund general purpose revenue, which is our the state’s discretionary revenue pot and it and it’s driving much of budget deliberations ’cause ’cause lawmakers and and the administration can use it however however they wish. So it’s a it’s a integral part of the budget cycle. and we looked at all right, let’s look at what’s in the budget, what’s been appropriated in in the new budget, and then look at what what

current revenue estimates provide is is going to be available. And we when we looked at what would what the spending plan was relative to revenues available, we found a gap and and a and a fairly large one. Based on all we we had to make some assumptions as well. But based on our best assumptions, we we pegged a shortfall, a revenue shortfall between $600 million and $900 million.

in that general fund budget.

Guy Gordon (02:08.064)
In spite of the fact that that the the the the parties and stakeholders here all said that this budget was balanced, as it is required to be by law.

Bob Schneider (02:14.146)
Yeah, said said the budget was balanced. It is. Our constitution requires our budget to be balanced each year. And to be clear, we assumed it was. but what we pointed out in our in our report was if it is, there’s more going on than than has been publicly released. There’s there’s more to the story. We outlined in the report, here’s probably the pathway that’s being planned for this.

Guy Gordon (02:34.604)
It’s more to the story.

Yeah.

Bob Schneider (02:43.931)
but we don’t know for sure and we probably ought to.

Guy Gordon (02:48.94)
Yeah, I I thought the quote was quite direct. He said that in all likelihood a framework for addressing this shortfall is part of the broader budget agreement, but the details of that framework have yet to be made public. Well, they were after your analysis came out. It was covered by the media. You pointed out this shortfall, and the the the both the budget director and legislative leaders came out and said, yeah, yeah, it is budget, it is balanced.

It’s more than just take our word for it. Here’s what we did. And it was basically what you lined out as what the likely options were for.

Bob Schneider (03:22.094)
Yeah,

Bob Schneider (03:26.866)
it most it mostly was. So we you know, we pointed out, guys, you know, we have a strategic outreach an attraction reserve fund. It’s our it’s our business incentive fund. If we’re trying to get a big business to come into Michigan, we might do a two hundred, three hundred million dollar inducement. Here you go. Here’s some here’s some cash to to kick start you and come to Michigan. If you locate it here, we’ll we’ll do

Guy Gordon (03:51.255)
And we should point out this this this was a bipartisan effort that came in the wake of a very embarrassing development where Ford Motor Company moved its battery operations for its new electric vehicles to Tennessee and Kentucky. And there was kind of a come-to-holy moment where we had to figure out: look, everybody else is using these very intensive incentives to draw a business. We need something similar. That’s what SOAR was about.

Bob Schneider (03:55.938)
Yeah, yeah, at the time.

Bob Schneider (04:06.412)
Yep. Yep.

Bob Schneider (04:19.203)
Yeah, that i i and and we put that in place, committed a lot of money, had some you know, not so great results in terms of deals that didn’t really come to fruition. we we knew there was about five hundred million dollars left in that in that balance that is uncommitted and available. in what we our report was released Thursday morning, we had a press availability that morning.

Guy Gordon (04:38.871)
Mm.

Bob Schneider (04:46.326)
our our numbers came out with the shortfall. later that day, as you said, guy, the administration and and l legislative leaderships no yeah. That Sornf gonna lapse. So now that’s almost five hundred million dollars coming back coming back to help cover our shortfall. They also announced a a smaller adjustment. there was a reserve fund for the Department of State Police.

They were getting a lot of federal revenue to make sure we had some state revenue, general fund revenue in in the bank, in case we didn’t realize the federal revenue. There was a reserve fund kind of sitting there. They announced also that’s gonna lapse. So now we’re up to five hundred and fifty million dollars. In our report, we outlined some other things that are happening. The the administration’s gonna have some flexibility. remember the American Rescue Plan, the state of Michigan received over six billion dollars from the federal government.

Guy Gordon (05:23.352)
Right.

Guy Gordon (05:43.18)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Schneider (05:43.479)
It’s all committed, but all that money needs to be expended by the end of this calendar year. Certainly some is not. and the budget allows. Well, if we have unspent state fiscal recovery stimulus type funds from the federal government, we can move that to the corrections and state police budget to help save general fund. And that’s gonna be another piece. We had no idea how how big that was gonna be, but

Could it be a hundred, hundred and fifty million dollars? Yeah, it could be. And if you now if you take up the things that have been announced since our report came out, add it to what a reasonable expectation of what that might get in terms of general fund savings, we’re probably we’re probably gonna be okay then. We probably know now much more about what how how that six to nine hundred million dollar shortfall is gonna be resolved. We don’t know everything.

Guy Gordon (06:37.334)
I was going to say they still haven’t given us and and this has been all verbal, none of this is written anywhere. We haven’t seen a written budget framework that would call for this.

Bob Schneider (06:49.4)
Yeah, th there’s there’s a document that certainly that that the that legislative leadership and the and the administration have that would outline here’s our revenue projections, here’s our here’s what we passed in the budget, here’s these other things that we know are happening through book closing and and and so forth that that you know, maybe larger than usual this year, including SOAR, that we’re we’re gonna lapse it. that

That that information, that detail has not yet been provided. I think it will in time. I I guess I will say though, I think we’re probably good now. but it would be nice to to have that detail.

Guy Gordon (07:29.536)
Okay, so given these new revelations, you believe that the budget is probably balanced. Is it also stable and sustainable?

Bob Schneider (07:40.439)
So looking ahead, to which which we also always do okay, okay. For like for twenty seven, I I think we’re good. I I I think with probably a couple other it’s within our margin of error of where we thought the shortfall would be. It seems reasonable to assume that that’s probably sufficient and if not, there’s probably another a c a couple other smaller things that they’re expecting to happen and book closing that

Guy Gordon (07:43.682)
Well let’s let’s hold the look ahead to the moment just for for for for f y twenty seven.

Bob Schneider (08:09.772)
you know, again, we don’t have an awareness of that there are gonna be enough to close that gap.

Guy Gordon (08:14.326)
Okay. So after you you dropped this briefing and you talked to the media about it, they generated their stories. the administration and to some degree the legislative leadership came out with this explanation about SOAR and the state police this r recovery fund. This was the quote from the state budget director. And i it it’s it feels like there was a more than a note of indignation.

In it when when it was released, saying that this reflects standard accounting practices, including reflecting known lapses, the expiration of unspent COVID 19 pandemic contingency funding that was scheduled to sunset this year and a lapse of uncommitted SOR funding. So I guess the part of it is including reflecting known lapses. Were those known lapses reflected in any of the budget documents that you or anybody else received after July third?

Bob Schneider (09:13.984)
they were not. although it th the the lapse part of it i i it’s fair. We assumed we made a assumption about our lapses and built it into our d built it into our analysis about one percent. our general fund we we have unspent funding. Yeah, we did that. Yes. We so I we we didn’t have any you know and here’s how much we’re expecting from lapses. Here’s the SOAR fund that’s coming offline. The legislature apparently doesn’t need to do anything. So we

Guy Gordon (09:22.968)
Right.

Guy Gordon (09:28.77)
But you did that. They didn’t do it.

Bob Schneider (09:41.782)
We we had tried our best to estimate that stuff. but right, it was not you know, there was not any reporting that show here’s how we balance.

Guy Gordon (09:51.873)
And is this a reflection of standard accounting practices? Normally wouldn’t there be a footnote or a side letter or some kind of explanation for this obvious gap that you detailed?

Bob Schneider (10:05.25)
Yeah. Maybe there was an expectation it wouldn’t be known. i by there there is the the fiscal the the nonpartisan fiscal agencies, the state budget office, and I’ve worked in for the House Fiscal Agency and the State Budget Office, they have sheets, they have an accounting sheet of r revenues and expenditures. They knew that you know they knew what you could see in the budget, I suppose.

Guy Gordon (10:19.287)
Right.

Bob Schneider (10:32.88)
and they knew their their avenue towards resolving that and in it in what would be offline and done in in in book closing. It was very large this year. It typically doesn’t involve a four hundred and fifty million dollar lapse from a SOAR fund. And I would point out the Senate wanted to lapse the SOAR fund and they put it in their budget. The House wanted to lapse the SOAR fund in different ways and they put it in their budget. The the the the

enacted budget silent on the source fund. I I think the key thing for us was we see a big lapse. We assume there is this stuff going on that that’s that’s sort of offline and is part of standard accounting practices, but we don’t know what it is. And if it’s not so fund, for instance, if the source fund isn’t going to lapse, now that’s four hundred and fifty dollars and I don’t know what w how how you solve that. That might mean you have to go back and start cutting

Guy Gordon (11:24.696)
Right.

Bob Schneider (11:27.868)
more work projects in fiscal year twenty six or or more appropriations in fiscal year twenty six. And if that’s the strategy, then we should know because because folks who are relying on on funding may may not be getting it.

Guy Gordon (11:43.235)
Well, i there there is a lack of transparency here. And again, this this this this indignation that all this is standard accounting practices, you have vast experience in the budget process, Bob. how much of an outlier is this? in in in your experience, would they leave this six hundred, seven hundred million dollar gap with no explanation in earlier years?

Bob Schneider (12:10.222)
the thing that makes it unusual, the gap itself in terms of the twenty seven budget, like reven expenditures are exceeding annual revenue expectations isn’t isn’t unusual. That’s certainly happened in the past. the unusual part is we don’t have we’re not projecting now to have any money in our general fund account, our bank account basically for the general fund.

Guy Gordon (12:19.756)
Right.

Guy Gordon (12:38.304)
our fund balance that we could normally carry forward.

Bob Schneider (12:39.488)
our fund balance. Yes. so

Guy Gordon (12:47.01)
Do and would be constituted.

Guy Gordon (12:57.42)
And for those of us that remember it was just a couple of years ago that there was this kind of jubilation in Lance about, we’ve got this huge surplus and there’s so many f fantastic things we can do with it. That’s all gone.

Bob Schneider (13:01.278)
goodness.

Bob Schneider (13:07.298)
Yes. That that’s on the general fund at least that’s that’s gone.

Guy Gordon (13:11.438)
Okay. Now let’s look ahead to FY twenty eight. These lapses that they’re instituting to balance this year’s budget, all well and good, as far as we know, and we’ll assume that it does leave a budget that is both balanced and sustainable. What happens in the next year, the out year?

Bob Schneider (13:37.123)
Yeah, so w we think the the next governor and the lect next legislature will still have a problem on the general fund side to to to start off their budget deliberations. if you look at what was passed in this budget, the the general fund based appropriations that are ongoing in nature, lots of one time funding in this budget and that’s gonna g presumably will go away. But if you carry in what did we pass that we mean to carry forward, and you look at revenues next year.

Things are still in balance. you know, w we’re okay, but we have but we know we have inflationary pressures every year, Medicaid costs, state payroll. So we we estimated how much how how much cost pressure will that likely involve. And then we know we have something brand new in that the state of Michigan and many states around the country are gonna need to be begin contributing towards snap

benefits. The supplemental nutrition assistance program are the old food stamps program, food assistance for low-income households. The old the the one big beautiful bill act enacted enacted last year will require states to begin cost sharing based on the error rates determined for payment the payments in that program and for michigan

Guy Gordon (14:35.992)
Right.

Bob Schneider (15:01.898)
Very likely now it it’s and for sure i you know, in March when the next governor releases his or her budget, we’re likely to need three hundred and twenty million dollars in general fund to help keep that to to meet those meet that cost sharing and and keep that program whole as it is now in the budget. when you add those things on, yeah, we have a we have a problem still. About a five hundred million dollar problem. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Guy Gordon (15:09.528)
Mm-hmm.

Guy Gordon (15:23.084)
We’ve had a happy

To to the tune of about a half billion b about a half billion dollars. We have had, though, it’s it would seem with each revenue estimate, we’ve been on the good side of things. That the w for the most part that our revenue estimates have come in larger than expected. Could we Yeah,

Bob Schneider (15:45.611)
recently. Yeah. th they they the the last time it did, I I would I’m not sure if I would like w we will have another revenue forecast in January, a very important one for the for the next budget. I don’t know if I if I’d I’m not sure where I’d land on that right now. I I wouldn’t expect big changes and decrease in those revenues maybe

Guy Gordon (16:07.105)
Okay.

Bob Schneider (16:13.634)
just as likely as an increase right now. you know, the the the the fiscal agencies and treasury may may may know a little more by now, but May wasn’t, you know, May wasn’t that long ago. so I I wouldn’t count on a a boost in revenues in January, although as you said, it it is it is possible. but probably I I would be surprised if we have five hundred million dollars more in general fund revenue in that. So

to some extent we’ll we’ll still have we’ll still kick off budget cycle next year with with with some adjustments. Either you need to make more general fund cuts or find new general fund revenue to just get things things even before you even talk about addressing priorities, you know, that that the the new administration may bring in or legislature may have.

Guy Gordon (16:43.032)
To to offset. Right.

Guy Gordon (17:01.944)
So regardless of party, both sides here will always want to come out of the budget and say, we’ve held the budget in check. This budget is a responsible budget, and we’ve actually even we may even even cut the budget. The budget’s smaller than it was last year. Given your analysis, and now knowing what we surmised, but they hadn’t put on the table, is this fiscal year twenty seven budget larger than twenty six or

pretty much in line with twenty-six? And d this does does twenty-six keep moving? Is is are you you kind of chasing it with these supplemental appropriations that have been happening?

Bob Schneider (17:37.923)
Right.

Bob Schneider (17:42.083)
Yeah, and that’s not unusual. We we we do adjustments to the you know, when they when they enacted the budget on July third, it was the tw in the new twenty seven budget, but also some significant supplemental funding was added to the fiscal year twenty twenty six budget. So the the answer we provided in our analysis to that question is if you look at what was enacted in the twenty seven budget on july third and compare that straight away to what was enacted last October in the twenty six budget.

Guy Gordon (17:43.67)
Mm.

Bob Schneider (18:10.956)
the twenty seven budget is bigger. If you do a fair apples to apples comparison and that’s become more difficult. and we can talk about the reasons for that. if you if you compare the twenty seven budget enacted on July third and and compare it in a in a logical way, it and it’s fair to do that. Compare it to the adjusted twenty six budget that takes into account the money that was added on July 3rd and supplementals. then that it is small.

Guy Gordon (18:34.243)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Schneider (18:41.63)
even you know in taking that apples to apples comparison. It’s slightly smaller. I think it’s important to say I th th the the the state budget really grew in the in the early stages of COVID when we had all of that revenue. I I would largely say it stayed relatively flat in terms of the total size over the last few budget cycles. But but that means you know, we’ve had Medicaid cost inflation, trading

Keeping it keeping it even is if if you want to shrink the size of state government, that’s not a bad outcome. You’re keeping the the total size of the state budget you know, e even and and that’s almost what you would expect.

Guy Gordon (19:14.125)
Right.

Guy Gordon (19:24.202)
Okay, so i i i but we there is the your your ability to watchdog this, or anybody’s ability to watchdog this, the ability of private citizens to know what their state government is doing, they keep making it harder by taking some of these expenditures off the books and putting them in different places. J break it down for me as to to what they’re doing for aesthetics to make it look smaller.

Bob Schneider (19:28.29)
Yeah.

Bob Schneider (19:49.091)
Yeah. I Yeah. I in in the disturbing Right. I d you know, just in in the big picture of the w truing up federal funds in the budget isn’t there’s nothing inherently or or any funding in the budget. You know, we’ve we’ve been over appropriating this fund, federal fund, state fund. We’re gonna bring it down to that happens every year. But in in the last two budget cycles, we’ve now taken money that is gonna be spent.

Guy Gordon (19:51.896)
That makes it harder for us to really know.

Guy Gordon (20:10.007)
Right.

Bob Schneider (20:19.254)
we we we we’re comfortable. We we know there was some we’ve talked about it before, guy, Medicaid tax appropriations to the tune of over nine billion dollars that were in the numbers of the budget. this this year there was something new with federal aid, especially in the K twelve budget, and it was taken from the numbers portion of the budget and just moved to the boilerplate language section, which just says, whatever we get.

Guy Gordon (20:26.165)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Schneider (20:48.014)
from you know, up to a cap from these sources, you know, we can spend. So recognizing we’re gonna get the money, it’s gonna get spent. But in doing that, when we total up the budget, the it’s not there. The numbers aren’t there. So now to the tune of eleven billion dollars now. we’ve had money removed from the dollar section of the budget and and and moved into this sort of language. Yeah, we’ll get it and we’ll s we and and this gives you blanket authorization.

Guy Gordon (21:01.304)
Right.

Bob Schneider (21:17.44)
sometimes up to a cap to spend it. that’s that’s not that’s not helpful from a from a transparency standpoint. It’s not helpful from a I want to keep my eye on the budget standpoint. i i if I’m a member of the public or even a researcher trying to dig into the growth in the budget over the last you know decade. this now is an obstruction. I the budget looks

Guy Gordon (21:19.48)
Mm-hmm.

Guy Gordon (21:32.215)
Right.

Bob Schneider (21:45.135)
ten, eleven billion dollars smaller than than two or three years ago. But in the reality that that that that’s not the case. We’ve just moved spending authority into language and now it doesn’t show up in the numbers. And it’s disturbing in in that it seems, as you suggested, guy, it seems intentional to try to make the budget look smaller.

Guy Gordon (22:05.89)
And it it seems to be politically motivated. So that both sides can claim to their respective communities and constituencies that, look at what we’ve done to rein in your tax dollar spending. The interesting thing here is there’s no good guy, bad guy here from a partisan standpoint because both parties are doing it. We’ve got the Democrats and the executive branch kind of acting upset about the fact you pointed this out, and then we’ve got the legislative branch that are a party to it as well.

Bob Schneider (22:32.888)
Yeah, I I you know, the the the the both the House and the Senate approved this budget. I presume that when folks cast those votes, they understood that these shifts had been and put had been put in the budget. The governor signed the budget. so yeah, it it’s not

i i it’s not a transparent process. It obfuscates the real size of the state budget, which is which is again, which has been flat and and actually good. Yes. Yeah. I’ve it yeah.

Guy Gordon (23:01.101)
Right.

Guy Gordon (23:04.898)
Well it’s also I wanna can we introduce a better word here. It’s not honest. They aren’t being honest with how your money’s being spent, and they’re there there’s a deliberate attempt to kind of hide it from those that are trying to watchdog this and to oversee it.

Bob Schneider (23:19.214)
Yeah. Yeah. I I we we we specifically call that out in our report and we we you know we we make the recommendation to the next administration, the next legislature, please put an end to to this practice so that w so that we have your we have apples to apples comparisons. I I would suggest that they they they well, one, the K twelve money, they put it back to what you know

Guy Gordon (23:30.797)
Right.

Guy Gordon (23:34.85)
How would they do that?

Bob Schneider (23:46.799)
Put the dollars that you think you’re gonna get in back in the budget. w and with this medium same with the Medicaid taxes, nine billion dollars, put it put it back in the budget. you i if there’s th there’s no real rationale to to to removing them, because we still have a whole bunch of other federal money in the budget. so, you know, make it make it real again so that those comparisons can happen.

Guy Gordon (24:05.75)
Right.

Bob Schneider (24:16.942)
if the legislature decides they don’t want to appropriate federal funds anymore, the the next administration, okay, do it, one time do it, take them all out, and then I suppose the fiscal agencies can go back and rebase all the historical data and try to make apples to apples possible again. But yeah, this the the year-to-year bouncing around is is not helpful.

Guy Gordon (24:36.205)
Right.

Guy Gordon (24:42.936)
So before we let you go here, I we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the school aid fund. K through twelve spending, it looks at least on paper like we get a two and a half percent bump in per pupil spending funding.

Bob Schneider (24:56.226)
Yeah. well two two and a half in total. well in the budget in the budget that was passed, that that’s the the the foundation allowance was bumped up. Yeah. We did look at the school aid fund broader picture. and it it seems pretty it seems pretty healthy that the school aid fund’s gonna have room for growth next year as well in the twenty eight budget. I think the one thing we and we pointed out in the report, the challenge for the school aid fund

is going to be in the next couple budget cycles. there’s still a lot of one time appropriations for the school aid fund. And a good chunk of them, eight, seven, eight hundred million dollars, is one time designated as one time funding, but it’s been in the budget for three, four budget cycles now. It’s mental health school mental health appropriations, it’s declining enrollment supports, it’s infrastructure supports.

Guy Gordon (25:48.152)
Right.

Bob Schneider (25:56.281)
There’s gonna be a day that’s coming up not too long from now in the next couple of years where we don’t have any one time money. We don’t have reserve funds to support those. And then there’s gonna be a day of reckoning where we need to decide we keep calling this one time money, and now it’s really gonna have to be one time money, or we’re gonna have to find new revenue or cut somewhere else to fit it into the permanent budget, if that makes sense.

Guy Gordon (26:19.468)
And there was though an effort to try to weight the spending in to benefit those districts that have bigger challenges, at risk districts, if you want to call them that, more at risk students.

Bob Schneider (26:26.114)
Yeah. Yes, and

Yes. so there there’s in this you know, this was a high priority for the administration, to move towards a a a a weighted foundation allowance that would allow districts that that earn districts with more at risk students, you know

economically distressed family from economically distressed families, English language learners, to funnel more of the per pupil revenue to those to those districts in recognition of what would seem to be a a greater need and a and a greater cost of of trying to catch up children that have, you know, that that may be experiencing some challenges.

Guy Gordon (27:18.504)
Right. And and finally there was again this shifting of dollars from the school aid fund into higher learning, and I know that’s something that at least in some constituencies is causing concern.

Bob Schneider (27:30.53)
Yeah, I I don’t think the K twelve groups are are real pleased with that. we’ve had a large run up of school aid fund dollars that, you know, fifteen, twenty years ago would have all went to K twelve, but over the last decade or so as Michigan has had revenue challenges on the general fund side, we’re using and the constitution allows us to do it, to use more and more school aid fund dollars for community colleges, which is now community colleges are completely funded.

by school aid fund and more and more to our public universities. I think the K-12 groups see this as skimming off of their revenue over to these over to these higher education institutions. but it was done because again as we just talked about general fund is very scarce right now and it’s a way to fund you know provide minimal funding at least to the

to the public universities in community colleges, but while we can save some general fund that we need for other areas of the budget.

Guy Gordon (28:33.23)
Okay. All right, well let’s wrap it up. The main takeaways, the budget’s balance for FY twenty seven, but it took some work finding out how.

Bob Schneider (28:42.222)
Correct. And twenty eight probably on the general fund side continues to be a little bit of a challenge.

Guy Gordon (28:47.832)
About a five hundred million dollar iceberg awaiting the new governor and the new legislature when they come in in January. And at least for now Michigan kids get a small bump, Michigan educators get a small bump. And that will put it to bed for this time. hopefully the the next go around won’t will not be as fraught and we’ll see greater transparency, Bob.

Bob Schneider (28:53.422)
Correct.

Bob Schneider (29:11.436)
I’m I’ll w I’m with you there. I I I have hope for that.

Guy Gordon (29:12.97)
Nobody nobody needs this drama. in the meantime, I would argue that this exercise over the past few days really highlights the importance of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan to have this kind of unbiased, third party independent review of what’s going on in our state government.

Bob Schneider (29:33.358)
Yeah, I I couldn’t agree more. I I you know, I I think we you know, we have a lot of experience crunching the numbers. I I’m here, Craig Thiel, is a K twelve expert, our our research director, and we’re able to get underneath this stuff. and you know, right. I mean that the the morning we we we had that report released in the morning. I think by the afternoon, there were media outlets already reporting on the sour laps.

Guy Gordon (29:44.675)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Schneider (30:02.314)
And it was news. It wasn’t Yeah, w yeah, we thought this was coming, but now it it was like we didn’t know this was coming and and now we do. And I think Yep. Yep. I I I d I don’t think that I don’t think that announcement would have happened if if our report hadn’t hadn’t come out that morning.

Guy Gordon (30:04.247)
Right.

Guy Gordon (30:10.422)
it took the it took the CRC to get that ball rolling. No.

No. And and and little and little explanation as to why they didn’t put it out there to begin with. and and which unfortunately was not offered, but perhaps should have been. Bob Schneider, thanks so much for all your work these past few days and for your scholarship on this budget report. All right. That’ll wrap it up for this edition of the hashtag FactsMatter Podcast. I’m Guy Gordon. Until next time, take care.

Bob Schneider (30:39.662)
Thank you, guy. Pleased to be here.