Thank you all for joining us.

Today is Monday May twenty twenty six.

That's five o'clock special committee on state legislative chairs and being here.

Chairman Muscle is present.

So let's do go through this first item.

Uh AS220 is here.

And also, Aaron, thank you for being here as well.

So um, let's chat about item number one, and then we'll take some of the other items on a term.

So this uh first item is the legislative package introduced by the same RIPTA coalition, which would establish a long-term stability for Ripto after some of the devastating budget cuts that we have recently um seen uh this last fall.

Um so I think many of us have read through this um bill to appropriate five million dollars um from unappropriate state general treasury funds to RIPTA as well as some other bills that will um increase funding to RICTA solders age 7363 uh and then Senate Bill 2323.

You know, many of you have an opportunity to review this in your package.

So um we can start off questions from committee members on these items had a chance to review this, seeing that there are no further questions.

This first item.

So moved by counselor breaks, seconded by counselor Peterson.

All those in favor, all those opposed.

The eyes have it, so I think we're audience approved.

So we'll uh make a motion to take a couple items out of order of so the first item number from the court said A study to know the motion to uh hear item number nine first year.

So by counselor Peterson, seconded by counselor Graves, all those in favor, all those opposed the eyes happen.

So we'll take uh item number nine.

It's very recorded here.

Item number nine resolution endorsing and urging passage by the General Assembly of Senate Bill 2026-2039, an act relating to taxation properties subject to taxation.

Okay, so hi, counselor.

Very nice to see you.

At this time, we'll ask uh folks from AS220 to come up to the table.

Uh my followers questions, but uh thank you all for being here.

Sophie, if you would mind.

I know many of us know who you are.

We're so grateful for the workwork that you do in AS220.

Uh but if you wouldn't mind just briefly introducing yourself and why you're here today.

Um, really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for that.

Okay, yeah.

So um I'm Shauna Duffy.

I'm the co-executive director of AS220.

I also serve with council meeting on the board.

Um, and I've been the executive director of AS2 for about 11 years on the board for eight years before that.

So I've been around AS20 for about 30 years now.

Um is Josie Mann, I'm a financial manager at AS220.

I've been with the organization for about seven years.

Um I think most of y'all know AS20, but just a real quick overview.

Um, so ASU20, part of the downtown court.

We're supporting about 100 FTEs every year, it's 35 to 40 employees, about 50 contracted teaching artists, a number of other artists from here about 80 youth and emerging um creative sector employees are employed by AS20.

Uh, about 3,000 artists get paid every year, we have over 500 months, a year, 800 classing workshops.

About 30,000 people come through AS220 on an annual basis, uh, including a five artist that some sort of experience can be part of AS20.

It's about 100,000 square feet across our three buildings.

There's about a 25 million dollar investment in the downtown, starting in the early 90s, our original building in Empire Street.

Um, creative education may not be what you think of with AS20.

A lot of people think of AS20 for the events and the galleries.

Uh creative education work has become the real center piece of our work, especially for the last five to ten years, but it really started in the 90s when you start working throughout the training school first rated youth.

It is right now one of our core areas trying to own what we do on creative education across all of our programs.

But at this point, our youth program is our largest program.

We are seeing for its support for our summer jobs program, but we also receive support from the department of education, the department of labor, and partnership and families for our uh work with youth all year, as well as uh emerging creatives as we try to find pathways from young people in after school arts education into actual jobs in the creative sector.

Um, and to this point, that creative education is all ages fans, you know, from young kids to our core work with 14, 24 year olds, all the way to a woman who told me she took her first dance class at 80 years old because she always wanted to be a dancer and thought I was doing and fast first ballet class for her 80th first yeah.

Um the reason we are coming forward with this now.

We've asked for the support from the state house is a number of different factors combined with the last several years to put us in a position where while we were very proud to be uh property taxpayers for a long time, it's become untenable.

It's a combination of the pandemic, and as you probably know, the state um forgot about um the arts and culture sectors.

They were trying to figure out pandemic recovering.

The city was very supportive, but the state was not as important about the arts and culture sector.

So we're still recovering from the pandemic and trying to build back, as is everything downtown.

The inflationary impacts that everybody is feeling and owning a lot of property.