Ready.

Thank you.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Almeida County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, December the 8th, 2025.

May I have roll call, please?

Supervisor Fortunato Pass.

Supervisor Town.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Did you want to go through instructions on participation?

Since once again, we're using MS teams.

Got it.

Uh for all participants.

Please state your name for the record prior to your comment.

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Only matters within the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed to notify the clerk that you wish to speak.

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's start with the federal legislation update from CJ Lake.

Good afternoon.

You've got Emily DeSola here with CJ Lake, and I think John will be joining shortly.

Um, you know, just thinking about the schedule.

Congress has two weeks left.

Um, the Senate came in today, the house comes in tomorrow.

But um they are, as I look at my calendar on my desk, they are set to adjourn on um the 19th.

So a lot to get done or not done in um these two weeks.

And so I know we'd been talking about uh first up just appropriations and kind of tell you where things are there.

I think is the bottom line.

You know, we were hoping that they would be able to move some sort of uh package with multiple bills that they call a mini bus um before the end of uh the calendar year.

Of course, we know the current CR uh expires January 30th.

It just seems like from conversations that we've had with staff on the Hill, um, with appropriators, they're just not as far along as they need to be in order to uh bring a package up in either the Senate uh or the House uh between now and the end of the year.

So that's not to say that they don't get something done in January before uh the 30th.

I mean, this idea of moving labor H and defense and transportation HUD uh with interior and CJS, it it makes sense, but um I just they're not there yet.

So um a probes is is on the back burner right now, and so the the focus um is really health care and defense for these next two weeks.

Um, I know uh we talked a good bit last week about kind of where things stand um with the the Obamacare subsidies, and the Senate is set to take a vote this Thursday.

Um, right now we're expecting um at least one vote on a democratic proposal and or the Democrats' proposal, and that I believe, John, correct me if I'm wrong, that's a three-year extension.

That is what Democrats want.

On the Republican side, they're still talking, and so they don't yet have a particular package that they are planning to bring up.

You know, originally it would be that there'd be a Democrat uh proposal and then a Republican alternative, neither of which would pass, uh, wouldn't have the votes to go anywhere.

But at this point, we don't really know what a Republican package will look like.

And I'll stop in a second and turn over John so he can give his take on this.

And then on the House side, they're not there either.

Um, you know, the speaker has said that he will put forward some sort of package, but it may not be a vote on subsidies.

Um, but we just don't know what that is.

So um there just seems to be a lot of uh discussion internally in the Republican conference on the house side, and they haven't reached an agreement.

But John, I'll turn it over to you and you can talk a little bit more kind of on the ins and outs of the health care piece.

But I think the bottom line is, and John said this.

I remember last week, we're not gonna see anything done before the end of the year.

We're just not.

There's not gonna be a proposal that gets enough votes uh in the Senate and the House, and then to go to the president.

But I'll turn it over to John now.

No, I think that really sums it up.