(0:00 - 0:23)
Meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents to order. We do have a quorum leading us tonight in the invocation and the pledge is Regent Mark Hall. Dear God, we thank you for your blessings on this college, this community, on us individually, Lord.

(0:23 - 0:44)
We thank you for how you have given us responsibilities and the ability to carry those responsibilities out. I pray that you'll give us wisdom in this meeting tonight and in the days to come. And we thank you for your son as we celebrate that at this time of year, Christmas, and all that that means to us, Lord.

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Be with us as we continue this meeting in Christ's name. Amen. Please join me in the pledge to the United States flag.

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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

(1:19 - 1:40)
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Visitation, and I also want to lift up the Alfredo family in prayer. God can hear that.

(1:41 - 2:03)
Okay. Okay, next we have disposition of the minutes, board special workshop meeting from November the 8th, 2023, board meeting November 16th, board building committee meeting from November 27th, and the board audit committee from November 29th. Do we have a motion on the minutes? So moved.

(2:03 - 2:15)
Second. Okay, I've got a motion by Regent Morofano and a second by Regent Geralds. Any discussion on the minutes? Okay, all in favor say aye.

(2:15 - 2:28)
Aye. Any opposed? Okay, next, report of the chairman. I will be brief.

(2:29 - 3:09)
I would just like to say our Lee College basketball team is doing an amazing job. Last I saw, they were ranked number 10 now in the nation, so if you get a chance, please go out and support our basketball team. And the other thing I'll say is that if you are looking for ways to give this holiday season, or in particular, looking for ways to remember Regent Alfaro, they are asking for donations to the Pete Alfaro Endowed Scholarship at the foundation, so that would be a wonderful way to honor his memory.

(3:10 - 3:21)
So that's all I have. Moving right along to building committee report. All right, Mr. Chair, the building committee met November 27th, and the details are stated in the minutes that we just approved.

(3:22 - 3:47)
I'll just highlight a couple of things. One is we began discussion that was pretty significant decisions that need to be made on some of the buildings here on campus, and I think we agreed in that meeting and by consensus that in order to begin making those kind of decisions, we really need to begin the facilities master planning process. We need to look at facilities as a whole before we decide demo, replace, et cetera, of one building on campus.

(3:48 - 4:18)
So we've asked President Villanueva to begin the RFP process to look for a facilities master planning supporter, and we look forward to that happening. The other thing we did towards the end of the meeting, we went and toured some of the buildings, and we're gonna plan to do that at each building committee meeting so that we, building committee members, put our eyes on the facilities that are on campus. We toured, I guess it was TV8, that's what it says here.

(4:19 - 4:49)
I guess that's the building where cosmetology currently exists. We got a tour of that building, and we also toured TV10. I didn't know it was across Pruitt Street, or I wouldn't have, well, I would've driven over there, but anyway, the minutes, and there's been some conversation about suggestions that were made about that building, and I just wanna state that suggesting, as the minutes say, to sell it rather than repair or whatever, was just discussing options that we could consider, and that's part of the master planning process.

(4:50 - 5:10)
We own the property, it's a large piece of property. The building needs a lot of work, but until you look at the complete master plan, you don't know whether that building is better sold to someone, let them demo, or we demo and repurpose the property, or whatever. So the minutes state that we talked about selling it rather than demolishing it, but those weren't the only two options.

(5:11 - 5:22)
Anyway, other than that, we had a good meeting, and we look forward to moving forward on the master planning process. That's it. Any questions from anyone? Policy committee.

(5:23 - 5:28)
We rescheduled our December meeting. We're gonna meet in January. Audit and investment.

(5:29 - 5:50)
Yes, we did meet, and we had a presentation on the audit that you'll get tonight, and then we did discuss a couple of things that Julie had been working on that she will get back with us on our pro-January meeting and fill you guys in on it. But we did kind of discuss moving forward some ideas of what maybe to do some internal auditing on. We'll keep you posted.

(5:50 - 5:59)
We will meet in January. Our next item is annual board training report. I've got a report to read here.

(6:00 - 6:35)
In compliance with policy BBD legal and BBD local, this is to report required training completed by board members during calendar year 2023. Regent Pam Warford completed the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board intensive short new board member orientation, the Open Meetings Act training, the Public Information Act training, and the Lee College new board member orientation training. In addition, all nine of us, including Regent Warford, completed the annual cybersecurity training.

(6:38 - 6:42)
Thank you. Now, report of the president. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(6:42 - 6:54)
So I have just a few kudos to offer. The first is to Ms. Marsha Touha, who's in the audience. She is, as you know, our executive director of workforce and community development.

(6:54 - 7:23)
She's been nominated and has accepted an invitation to serve as the vice president on the executive board of the Texas Administrators of Continuing Education. So thank you for everything that you do, Marsha, in your role, and we know that you're gonna do a great job representing Lee College in this new leadership role. I want to offer congratulations to Dr. Marissa Moreno, who's not here with us tonight, but boy, this amazing woman is like a research hound.

(7:23 - 7:47)
I don't know what to say. She's been appointed the vice chair of NASEP's Research Commission. Their main function is to conduct and share research on dual credit enrollment, and she's been involved with a number of studies and on publications, and she's been featured in many different things, and you guys have seen some of the publications that we've been in.

(7:47 - 8:06)
But her appointment kind of recognizes the college's prominence in that area, and so we're just very proud of her in that leadership role. She's also, I mean, she's just really on fire. So she's also recently been appointed to the United for College and Career Success Organizations Board of Directors as their board vice president.

(8:06 - 8:20)
And so she's very busy with a number of leadership roles, but we're very proud of her. I was also going to just toot the horn of the Navigator men's basketball team. I went to their last game.

(8:21 - 8:41)
It was kind of a nail biter. I kind of grabbed onto Annette a few times, but they squeaked it out, and you know, when you're on top like they are, all of the other teams are very hungry after you. So they've got their work cut out for them, but this is the, I think the highest that the team has ever been this early in the season in terms of their rankings, and so we're just very, very proud of them.

(8:41 - 9:17)
And I'd like to congratulate Noah Dobbs, who is our director of the PAC, who's been appointed to the Downtown Initiative Steering Committee with the city of Baytown. And the main goal of the committee is to encourage the development of the arts district and the surrounding areas, and we know that he'll do a wonderful job representing Lee College in that role. And then finally, I just wanted to thank the board for everything that you do to serve the college, to serve our community, and to support me and my team in our roles, and to wish you the merriest of Christmas and the happiest of New Year's, and wish you all a restful break, because you certainly all deserve one.

(9:18 - 9:29)
Thank you. Moving on to informational report, report of Lee College resignations and or retirements. Got two retirements to report.

(9:29 - 9:42)
The first is Howard Bushhart, who was a longtime faculty member in our Allied Health Program. And the second is Mr. Mark Hartley. We're very sad to see both of them retiring, but they've done a wonderful job.

(9:43 - 10:09)
Mark Hartley has been a faculty member in pipe fitting and sent a very wonderful email yesterday talking about the many students' lives that he has positively influenced and we certainly witnessed that and we're very proud of both of them. Next, we have financial report. Thank you.

(10:09 - 10:44)
Just to tag on to the basketball track, they have a game December 28th at 1.30. So if you're sitting around saying, huh, I wish I could go watch a basketball game. They will have one. Okay, so it's hard to believe, but we're already 25% through our fiscal year.

(10:44 - 11:02)
It just flies by. Our cash, we continue to be strong with our cash receipts. Our revenue, we talked about this a little bit last time and we're pretty much like right on budget.

(11:03 - 11:35)
I would be a little more comfortable if we had a little bit more room there, but right now we're still projecting that we will meet our budget on revenue. State appropriations, we got half of that early on and so our next payment will be in February. Taxes, we'll start getting our taxes in this next month in December is when we'll start showing some of that revenue on our financials.

(11:36 - 11:55)
Other revenue is still pretty strong. We received about an extra $100,000 from TDCJ this month. It was for some books and supplies that we were able to be reimbursed for through the contract and so that's one of the big items here.

(11:57 - 12:17)
Our restricted funds, we're doing a really good job on keeping our funds, especially our Title IV funds, pulled down as timely as we can. So right now we are behind on just a little over $200,000. I remember when I first came here, that number used to be in the millions.

(12:18 - 12:42)
So we've come a long way on getting those reimbursements processed. Our budget versus year-to-date projected actual, as I said, right now we are projecting that we will be meeting our revenue budget. Overall, we're projecting an operating surplus at this point of about $1.2 million.

(12:45 - 13:17)
Our expenses are right on track with our budget. Monthly, our operating was a little bit less than what we originally had in the budget, but you may remember last month it was flipped and so when you look at it year-to-date, we're pretty much just right on track. And looking at our projection for budget versus actual, again, we're pretty much right on it, just a little bit less on some of our salary and operating costs.

(13:19 - 13:59)
And that is it, unless anyone has a question for me on the financials. One more item that I will share with you real quick is this is a reconciliation that we always present to you at the end of the year where we take what our August operating results were, which when we handed out the August financials to you guys, it showed an operating surplus of a little over $6 million. And just keep in mind that our operating financials that we present to you are all prepared on a cash basis.

(14:00 - 14:33)
So when cash goes out the door, it gets recorded as an expense, where in accountings world, maybe it isn't an expense, maybe it's a pay down on debt or something like that. So we prepared this reconciliation showing what the operating results were and how we get to the final net position on the audit. And so you can see that as far as cash goes, we had an operating surplus of about $5.5 million.

(14:37 - 14:55)
These are adjustments that are reflected on the financial statements, but there's really no cash involved, but it is included in your net position. You know, some of the big ones you can see here, depreciation, which we don't record on a monthly basis. We record it at the end of the year.

(14:57 - 15:26)
Backing out any equipment that had been expensed in the year that should have been capitalized. And our principal payments for our debt that gets recorded as an expense throughout the year, but then gets reclassified against the debt at the end of the year. So overall, when you look at the audit report, you're gonna show a final increase in net position of $10.5 million for the fiscal year.

(15:29 - 15:42)
Any questions on that? Okay, thank you very much. Next item is public comment. Is anyone signed up to speak? No one signed up, Mr. Chairman.

(15:44 - 16:08)
Okay, next, items of action. Personnel, consent agenda, your consideration of new hires. The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below.

(16:08 - 16:17)
Do we have a motion on this item? So moved. Second. We got a motion by Regent Guillory and a second by Regent Cotton.

(16:17 - 16:29)
Any discussion on the new hires? So the police chief is new to the college, right? He's not the one that was already here, I guess. Outside Appleton, yes. Okay, very good.

(16:30 - 16:40)
Is he, we met him yet? He hasn't been here, right? We have to approve him first. They can't start until the board is. But I promise you will if you approve it.

(16:42 - 16:54)
He looked very experienced. Yeah, he looked good. Any other discussion on this item? Okay, all in favor, please say aye.

(16:54 - 17:26)
Aye. Any opposed? Next up, we have new business. Consideration of developmental leave recommendation for spring and summer 2024.

(17:26 - 17:35)
The administration recommends that the board approve developmental leave for Sarah Tidwell and Scott Bennett. Do we have a motion on this item? So moved. Second.

(17:36 - 17:54)
Yeah, I've got a motion by Regent Guillory and a second by Regent Morfano. Discussion on this item? I'd just like to say I'm really proud of these employees that are getting their terminal degrees. That's really great for the college.

(17:55 - 18:09)
And some of their research is directly impacting student achievement. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

(18:10 - 18:38)
Any opposed? Next up is consideration of adoption of board policy revisions for local policies. Move approval. The administration and board policy committee recommends that the board approve and adopt the revisions to local board policies as presented and recommended by Texas Association of School Boards, update 45.

(18:39 - 18:48)
Do we have a motion on this item? I will move approval again. Second. All right, we have a motion by Regent Cotton and a second by Regent Geralds.

(18:48 - 19:04)
Any discussion on this item? Okay, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Next, consideration of adoption of board policy revision.

(19:04 - 19:36)
Oh, I didn't close that, sorry. Consideration of the addendum to BibliU contract establishing the cost per item, ebook, or courseware for the spring semester at $80. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to approve the addendum to the BibliU contract.

(19:36 - 19:42)
Do we have a motion on this item? So moved. Second. Who made the, I didn't hear, okay.

(19:44 - 19:55)
Regent Hall made the motion and Regent Cotton made the second. Discussion on this item? Hearing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye.

(19:56 - 20:27)
Any opposed? Consideration of anthology blackboard. Let me make this a little bit bigger so I can read it. Learn SAS three-year contract with DLT Solutions LLC.

(20:28 - 20:50)
The administration recommends the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and approve the anthology blackboard learn SAS three-year contract in the amount of $515,725.14. We have a motion here? So moved. Second. I've got a motion by Regent Morfantino and a second by Regent Gerald.

(20:50 - 20:56)
Discussion on this item? The second was Pam Morfantino. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay, it's okay.

(20:57 - 21:10)
Record reflect, the second was by Regent Warford. Discussion on this item? Okay, hearing no discussion, all in favor, say aye. Aye.

(21:10 - 21:40)
Any opposed? All right. Consideration of the annual audit report for fiscal year 2022-2023. The administration recommends that the board receive, discuss, and accept the annual report for fiscal year 2022-2023 as presented by Whitley Penn.

(21:40 - 21:52)
We'll entertain a motion on this item. So moved. Okay, and once we have a motion, then we will get to the discussion, which will be the presentation.

(21:52 - 22:06)
Second. Okay, so a motion by Regent Cotton and a second by Regent Guillory, and now I'd like to invite Whitley Penn up for presenting the audit. To receive, discuss, and accept.

(22:06 - 22:12)
Yeah. Yes. Review, discuss, and accept.

(22:12 - 22:52)
Yeah. Did you say? You may be reviewing Hartford. My faith, right here, we got the Hartford.

(22:53 - 23:06)
We can go old school. She doesn't know what she's supposed to say. I can help her, just read the front page.

(23:07 - 23:13)
Yeah. Yes, we can. We saw it.

(23:26 - 23:51)
Oh. Like Regent Gerald's, I don't have my reading glasses, so somebody would have to read this to me. I don't either.

(23:51 - 24:01)
I changed my purse. Should I have ever done that? You can leave somewhere. I'm gonna read the menu to you now.

(24:01 - 24:10)
You're gonna have to figure out a plan. I think we drove a little. I was almost done.

(24:13 - 24:18)
We were doing really good. We just did worse. I don't remember that we're hanging anything.

(24:21 - 24:28)
626. Yeah, I'll pin it in on the end. Let's see.

(24:28 - 24:41)
You pinned it? Mm-hmm. I know what it is. I think it lasted a couple years.

(24:46 - 24:52)
The Audit Committee did review this. We'll give you a pin or something. Apparently, if you're married with it.

(24:53 - 25:08)
We have. We're not finished here, what we're waiting for? Hmm? I can, I was just saying. She had a presentation, that's what we're waiting for.

(25:08 - 25:17)
She's emailing the presentation. She can put something down. I think this is it, isn't it? Move it out.

(25:19 - 25:28)
Yeah, she had some slides that she was emailing. Yeah, but she has to have a whole slide in. Yeah, but she had a consolidated version.

(25:30 - 25:45)
Is that what y'all presented it as? Yeah, yeah, she presented it to us. Shortened? Yeah. Okay.

(25:56 - 26:05)
I need to call you. Nah. Yep.

(26:06 - 26:37)
I probably need to do those kinds of things. I assume you don't have a different position. No.

(26:38 - 37:41)
Still are. We're still on that. The Audit Committee, Okay, so I apologize for that. 

I do have a presentation that we went over with the Audit Committee and we'll go through it tonight and then if you have any questions about the actual report that you have in front of you we can go through that as well. So this is to present the audit results for the fiscal year 2023 audit. The team that worked on the audit consists of myself, senior manager Patrick Simmons is the audit partner, and Tom Peterson is the engagement quality control partner. 

What that means is he's a separate set of guys that he does not work on the audit itself but he comes in at the end and he reviews the report and all the, not all of the work, but he reviews like papers and things that in the throughout the process to make sure that we're following our quality control standards for the report as well. And then we have Cynthia Guerra who was our senior associate on the job. She was out here every day working with Renee and her team to get the audit completed. 

So the audit process, we come out, we start usually in this summer time, I want to say June-July time frame. We come out we do our risk assessment process. So it's kind of a, the audit process is a little roadmap that we have on the slide. 

So we start out with our planning risk assessment process. We come out and we talk to different people at the district. We look, we talk to human resources, we talk to those in payroll, accounts payable, purchasing, student financial aid, revenue, you know, we talked to different individuals in the district to get an idea how internal controls are working and then we perform tests of controls in order to determine whether or not we can rely on the controls as they were told to us and whether or not they're in place. 

So we do that during, during the summertime. We also do our federal, the single audit. Since you do receive a lot of federal and state funds, we are required to do a single, what's called a single audit on those federal funds as well. 

And so we're required to test compliance and controls over, over those programs also. Then we come back after they've had time to close the books and finish out the year, we come back and we do our substantive testing. What we do that at the end of the year is come in and we corroborate those balances. 

So we confirm cash and investment balances, we confirm debt balances, we get information from outside sources in order to determine that the financial statements are materially correct. And we do that in order to issue our opinion on the financial statements, which is the, the, the key reason for performing the audit. So there are three types of opinions that can be given. 

The, the, from, you can't see my slides, so it's kind of hard to say, but there are, there are three types. So a disclaimer of an opinion would be that we came in and the records were in a condition that we could not give an opinion on the financial statements. And then the best that you can get is an unmodified or clean opinion, and that's what's issued on on the financial statements. 

And that is the highest level of assurance that we can give on, on the financial statements. So again, unmodified opinion over financial statements, no internal control findings related to financial reporting, and no findings related to compliance, and that refers to the federal and state programs. The major federal programs, so we have to do a risk assessment process on the, all the federal programs that you receive. 

We have to go through that process and look when was the last time they were audited, how much money is spent on them, have there been any findings in the past, and has the federal government determined that that particular program is riskier than other programs. So the major programs that we audited this year included the Student Financial Aid Cluster, which is the probably the largest amount that you have on the, on your schedule of expenditure of federal awards, and then the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, or HEERF. That's probably, that's probably the last year that that one has to be audited, and it's starting to wind down. 

And then again, we had no internal control findings related to each major program. So the internal control critical areas that we discussed, payroll, procurement, accounts payable, human resources, we look at information, technology, cash receipts, financial closing, reporting, and we perform test of controls over those areas in order to rely, determine that we can rely on those. We did look at the statement, or provided us a brief overview of the statement of net position, which can be found on page, on page 14. 

So I know Annette had that slide up there and talking about the difference, the changes from the statements that you, or the information that you received for your August numbers and the changes. But looking at that page 14, you can see your comparison there. You have total assets of 184.6 million. 

That's made up of your cash and investments. Capital assets, net of depreciation and amortization is 117.6 million. And then your other non-current assets are your, your long-term investments that you have. 

Your total liabilities is 113.3 million, and that's made up of all your current liabilities, your accounts payable, and then your long-term liabilities, your notes payable, bonds payable. And then the largest numbers in there include your net pension liability and OPEB liability, which we have another, or we'll talk about those a little bit more because those, the pension and OPEB liability are not liabilities that the district has to pay out. You're not gonna have to write a check for that amount. 

You pay out in contributions for each individual that's part of the retirement system over time. That estimate is just an estimate from the TRS and ERS of the amount of, you know, the future value of the the money that will be paid out for retirees. And then your, that leaves you with a total net position of 70.1 million, which is an increase from the 59.6 million in the previous year. 

And that on page 16, you'll see that breakdown that Annette gave you of where you went, where we arrived at the 10.6 million, the increase from last year to this year. And that's broken down by your operating revenues. You had total operating revenues of almost 16 million, your operating expenses of 70.8 million, and then your non-operating revenues and expenses of 65.4 million, bringing that to change to 10.6 million up to 70 million. 

So we had a breakdown of the expenses, but without the slide it's really difficult to go through that and see. Of course, your total expenses or the largest portion of your expenses is instruction, which made up 36 percent. 17 percent was institutional support. 

10 percent of that was operations and maintenance. And the other categories were all between four and seven percent of your total expenses. You're gonna skip over these because you can't see that. 

So the rest of this is just required communications that we have to give at the end of the audit. We do look at your accounting policies. We look to see that your accounting policies and methods are in accordance with industry standards. 

This year there was a new GASB or governmental accounting standard board called subscription-based IT arrangements that basically just all of your IT arrangements, software contracts, they wanted to recognize that for long-term contracts that there's an asset associated with that, a right to use those assets, as well as a liability for paying the contracts over time. Really had no effect on the overall net position. You just added some assets and some long-term liabilities that will be amortized as they're used. 

There are accounting estimates in the financial statements. Not every number can we tie back to a specific, you know, invoice or statement. The largest estimate include that pension and OPEB liability that I mentioned and then the allowance for uncollectible taxes receivable. 

We do look at those estimates. The TRS and ERS are agreed to the reports we get from them and then we review the uncollectible calculation to make sure that we're in agreement with that. We encountered no difficulties during in performing the audit. 

Any adjustments that we had were reviewed and approved by management. We had no disagreements with management. The last piece of data that we get is called the management representation letter and that's just a letter stating that we've, you know, all the information has been provided to us that we would need to complete the audit. 

No information has been withheld and management accepts responsibilities for the financial statements. We know of no other consultations with other accountants and there are no major issues discussed with management prior to retention. And one of the points that you know I have to make in there is there no difficulties encountered in performing the audit and this is just where I like to point out all of the work that it takes, you know, in the finance department to get to that point.

(37:42 - 39:09)
You know, you all get reports at the end of every month and you see that but trying to see what goes into all that to make sure that the information that you get is accurate and is not constantly changing. That takes a lot of work. Monthly reconciliation, you know, daily processes to be in place and ensure that they're operating that way for the numbers to be as as as easy to audit as possible at the end of the year without a lot of adjustments and things that have to change. 

So just, you know, a testament to the hard work that goes into getting those getting the financial statements to this point. And with that, have you had any questions for me or for Annette on the report? I'd be happy to answer those. On our land held for investment, how often are we required, do you know, to reappraise that? It's not a set but it has been every, I think, y'all just had one this year but that's like the second or third one. 

It's been, yeah, it's been done pretty frequently. There's not a set requirement for how long but just watching the market, you know, it's a judgment call when that needs to occur. Yeah, there was no change in it this year.

(39:11 - 39:22)
We did but we didn't have it appraised like we did a few years ago. Yeah and you had one in 23, it was done in this April? We do it every other year. Every other year, okay.

(39:26 - 40:54)
Back on page 14, the net pension liability, you may have said this and I didn't understand it, in 22 it was around 5 million and for 23 it was 13 million. Yeah, so that's that's going to to jump a lot because it's the biggest depend or the biggest driver for that is the the interest rate and how how the economy, you know, how the how stocks perform because the it's an estimate. It also runs, I should say, what runs one year behind. 

So those numbers, the estimate we get from TRS and ERS are as of 8-31-22. So if you think back to how the stock market performed in a previous year, so when it earns more interest, then the liability decreases because it earned a lot of money, you know, from the investments. But when the investments go down, then the liability is going to increase because there's not as much in trust for those future liabilities and if you could see this slide, which can I show you the one that's up there, because it's a lot easier to see that in a picture, it fluctuates up and down and that's just how pensions function. 

There's not really anything you can do about it. It's going to go up and down the market. So last year was a relatively low year.

(40:56 - 41:08)
And then so it decreased and it fluctuates. But it is at 76% funded, which is pretty good for that. But next year, you know, it could go down again.

(41:09 - 41:46)
Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. Thank you very much. 

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. 

All in favor of, we have now received and discussed, all in favor of accepting the audit as presented, please say aye. Aye. Okay. 

I think this would have been better as an informational report, an action item. You have to. It's kind of silly.

(41:46 - 41:51)
Yeah. It is. There's a lot of silly things that you guys have to do, but you still have to do it.

(41:51 - 41:59)
The audit is what it is. And whether we approve it or not, it still will. We can go through all kinds of GASB principles that are just ridiculous that we have to go through anyway.

(42:00 - 42:16)
Just my two cents worth. So, we do not have an executive session tonight. So, our next item is matters of concern for future agendas.

(42:19 - 42:30)
Not a concern, but before we adjourn, can I have 30 seconds? Sure, you can. But not the last 30 seconds, because I have. Sure.

(42:32 - 42:46)
Go ahead. All right. I would just like to offer special prayers for our chairman, Darrell Fontenot, who's scheduled for surgery next Thursday, December 21st.

(42:46 - 42:56)
He has been dealing with this issue for a while. He's been open about it, so I don't feel that I'm violating any privacy here. And I just want to say that you're in our thoughts and prayers.

(42:56 - 43:07)
I know the surgery is planned to go well. You should be home by Christmas. And I just want to tell you that we'll be praying for you and your surgeons on that day, and we're here for you.

(43:07 - 43:17)
I appreciate that. Appreciate that a lot. Okay, so the last thing I have to say before adjournment is I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

(43:17 - 43:23)
Enjoy your time off with your families, and we'll see you next year. You're adjourned.