Why do we always come here...on the FY25 WPS budget before Council

Why do we always come here

I guess we'll never know

It's like a kind of torture

To have to watch the show…
from "The Muppet Show Theme"

I had family commitments yesterday afternoon, so I was unable to make it to the Worcester City Council taking up the Worcester Public Schools' budget. Thanks to the wonder of recording, however, we can all relive it, and I think the only way I can bear this is to blog it. 

I post the above, by the way, not to call anyone a Muppet, but to note again that a) Worcester does this backwards, as school committees in Massachusetts send their requested appropriation to their appropriating authorities, and of course the Worcester School Committee hasn't yet met on the budget, b) the Worcester City Council, like any appropriating authority, has very little oversight of the Worcester Public Schools budget.
Both of that, incidentally, are per MGL Ch. 71, sec. 34:

Every city and town shall annually provide an amount of money sufficient for the support of the public schools as required by this chapter, provided however, that no city or town shall be required to provide more money for the support of the public schools than is appropriated by vote of the legislative body of the city or town. In acting on appropriations for educational costs, the city or town appropriating body shall vote on the total amount of the appropriations requested and shall not allocate appropriations among accounts or place any restriction on such appropriations. The superintendent of schools in any city or town may address the local appropriating authority prior to any action on the school budget as recommended by the school committee notwithstanding his place of residence. The city or town appropriating body may make nonbinding monetary recommendations to increase or decrease certain items allocating such appropriations.

The vote of the legislative body of a city or town shall establish the total appropriation for the support of the public schools, but may not limit the authority of the school committee to determine expenditures within the total appropriation.

And also, of course, the city charter in section 5-2 says:

 The city council may, by majority vote, make appropriations for the purposes recommended and may reduce or reject any amount recommended in the annual budget, but except on recommendation of the city manager, shall not increase any amount in or the total of the annual budget, nor add thereto any amount for a purpose not included therein, except as provided in section thirty-three of chapter forty-four of the General Laws.

There are very few questions the Council has purview to ask, and very little they can do, and that's even if they funded schools appropriately!
So when I say I don't know why we do this: I really don't know why this is what is done!
And this is not the first time I have said this.

Some things to read this last week of May

I tend to share most of my "here read this" stuff on Twitter* but for those who might find another location more congenial:

• While I am very much not in the habit of recommending retirement system pieces this Wall Street Journal (gift link!) on the Plymouth County Retirement System, which is outperforming systems many times their size, was interesting, and it's a public pension system, so, related.
  
  
• A federal judge struck down New Hampshire's version of a "divisive concepts" law. " The judge went so far as to call some elements of law 'fatally flawed.'"
  
  
• Google itself has found that most image-based misinformation online is now AI-based, and the way they conducted the research suggests the problem is even worse than they have found.
  
  
• Significant piece in Houston Landing that Texas districts were suspending homeless students, contrary to state law, and no one was doing anything about it.
  
  
• Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a searchable map on gun violence, which you may find useful (gift link).

___________________________________________________

*it's Twitter. It will always be Twitter. Surrender already, dude.

Testimony before Council on FY25

non-testifying attendee at City Council tonight

Good evening, Mr. Chair,
My name is Tracy Novick and I live at 135 Olean Street here in Worcester.

While I am not here primarily to speak against items 10d, 11o, and 11p, please count me among the myriad of your constituents requesting that you stop wasting time and money on actively working to make our city less safe for pedestrians, bicyclists, bus riders, and, yes, motorists. The base attempts to play politics should be ended this evening and never be revived.

I am here to speak in support of President Verdier’s public petition 8v, the first time I have heard Worcester’s not meeting its constitutional mandate to fund schools for four years running mentioned on a Council agenda. It should shame all of us that it had to be done by the leadership of our teachers’ association.

But of course, Worcester has been here before. In fact, eleven years ago this evening, I was here to speak in support of then-Councilor O’Brien’s motion to fully fund the Worcester Public Schools in the FY14 budget.

Let us be clear: the mandate to fund public schools dates back to the 1993 Education Reform law, a law which was passed in part due to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Worcester schoolchildren by the late Mayor Levy.

Massachusetts General Law chapter 70 section 1 defines “a standard local funding effort applicable to every city and town in the Commonwealth.”

So, no, there is no “Worcester exception” for building high schools. Besides, Worcester is hardly the only city or town in the Commonwealth to be building schools.

Worcester is, however, eleventh from the bottom of 351 cities and towns in the percentage of our minimum budget that we are required to fund from local resources. Twenty-six cents of every local revenue dollar funds the schools, with another three for construction; that is also among the lowest applications of local revenue to schools of which I am aware.

I am aware of no local community in which the schools are facing the revenue crisis--and it is, to be clear, a revenue crisis--on the scale of the Worcester Public Schools in which there has been zero effort on the part of the local funding authority to increase allocations to meet or soften the hit.

As the statewide average in projected school funding for the current fiscal year is 125.5% of the required minimum, the vast majority of local funding authorities see the need in their school districts, and have risen to meet it.

And to again be clear: this city is not in the company of cities sitting on unused tax capacity out of fiscal prudence. It is in the small number of cities and towns that are not meeting their constitutional obligations to schoolchildren.

You make it impossible to effectively advocate for the state to further its support for Worcester’s schools when you don’t meet the minimum requirement locally. 

It is a ridiculous to need to request that our local funding authority not break the law. 

It is however the request I make tonight.

Another reason to testify/call/email Worcester City Council this week

In addition to noting for the Council that they aren't traffic engineers and should listen to those who are on Mill Street (a bit outside the scope of this blog, so I will leave it there), you might also weigh in with the EAW President Melissa Verdier's petition to the Worcester City Council. While Council will probably have actually passed the WPS budget by the time they take public comment tomorrow at 6:30 ish, as apparently it's on their 4 pm agenda, not that those get posted, the budget isn't done until the whole budget is done.
You still could request that they not actually break the law again in how they fund schools this year.

Those also serve who drive the bus*

Among the cemeteries my family visits each Memorial Day is one which holds the following gravestone:

A granite rectangular gravestone with a curved top bears the name “Lowe” and the image of a school bus.
Visible on the side of the school bus is “R. F. LOWE”**

In the small K-8 district in which I grew up, Mr. Lowe ran the school buses. By “ran” here, I mean he owned, operated, and drove the small fleet of buses that were contracted to the town district. And when he drove as a substitute, however you may have behaved on the bus usually, you behaved yourself. 

May Board of Ed: budget

 the backup is here

Bell notes it is the week of the Senate deliberation on the budget
Literacy Launch in the Senate Ways and Means budget at $10M
Senate has a new appropriation for a mental and behavioral health framework
"slew of amendments" none yet enacted
Bell expresses hope that the state could have a budget for July
...which hasn't happened since 2010
And on ESSER
end of May, claim rate is at 60%
about $669M left to claim; expect some districts to use late liquidation

May Board of Ed: Educational Vision

 Johnston: what outcomes are envisioned as a result?

"Our vision is that as a result of their public education in Massachusetts, students will attain academic knowledge and skills, understand and value self and others, and engage with the world"

May Board of Ed: two charter school things

 Benjamin Banneker Charter School request for amendment, to allow it to have a building in Somerville (location is in the charter for charter schools); not seeking additional enrollment
would impose a subcap of 10 Somerville students; Somerville has been close to the NSS charter cap for some time

I don't think I understand the subcap thing at all, even though I just heard it explained; I was clear on this until they added that
anyway, the amendment passes

Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy Charter School on probation 
in its 21st year
has seen a precipitous decline in enrollment
86 students; chartered for over 200
Johnston lists conditions being imposed

passes

May Board of Ed: Commissioner goals

 ...which are done with regard to his acting status; you can find this here

Hills:

a lot about learning loss and literacy

Governance: working with Tutwiler, EOE, Board

community: relationships with school districts and community and parent organizations

expecting progress over months

those pass

May Board of Ed: Boston Public Schools

 Johnston: district reviews in 2020 and 2022
city and schools and DESE agreed to systemic improvement
now closing out second year of implementation of plan
$10M including in-kind support from the Department, spread over three years
technical assistance, consultation, programmatic reviews, facilities improvements, data audit, initial support for new positions 
Craven: over three mayors, two governors..."it's gone on"
focused on non-academic operational portions

May Board of Ed: Commissioner search

 now two responses to RFP

meeting later this week to see if either meet request

May Board of Ed: opening comments

 You can find the agenda here. The livestream will be here.

Craven calls to order with "one member on the phone and two caught in traffic"
updating as we go

There's a Worcester Public Schools FY25 budget hearing today at 6 pm

 At the time and place so advertised or at any time or place to which such hearing may from time to time be adjourned all interested persons shall be given an opportunity to be heard for or against the whole or any part of the proposed budget.

In adherence to MGL Ch. 71, sec. 38N, the Worcester School Committee is holding a hearing on the proposed FY25 Worcester Public Schools budget today at 6 pm. There is a remote participation link in the posting.

And you can of course always contact the School Committee directly 

What's in the proposed FY25 Worcester Public Schools budget: just the facts

 Ahead of Monday's public hearing on the proposed FY25 budget for the Worcester Public Schools, here's a brief look at what is in the document. I'm going to attempt to leave aside opining here on the administration's recommendations (not that I don't have plenty) but stick to an overview. As always, all of this is offered in my capacity as someone who lives here and cares, not in any official capacity at all. 

First up, revenue: 

This budget is projected not meet the city's legal obligation to fund schools for the fourth year in a row:

chart from page 113 of the FY25 WPS budget document

Let's talk about these Senate budget amendments

They were due Friday, but I only got through them yesterday. Debate doesn't begin until Monday, though, so you still have time to contact your Senator's office to enlist their endorsement. As the Senate sorts their amendments by topic, you can find all the education-related ones here.

As per usual, if you're looking for earmarks, you're on your own: these are ones that impact more than one district and in K-12. Opining, as per usual, is entirely mine. 
Also there are several "let's have a foundation budget review!" amendments, which I am going to give their own blog post. 

On inflation:
Amendment 743 just straightforwardly adds the $217M (Thank you, Senator Moore!) which is the amount the jointly endorsed MASC/MASS/MTA/AFT-MA solution would cost.

Amendment 758 puts in $100M for "inflation relief," though it specifies that it would not go into base aid in future years, which rather misses the point.

The rest of these don't fix anything for this year:
Amendment 735 would establish an escrow bank, where any year where inflation was over 4.5%, the difference would be "banked" to be distributed in years when it was less.
Amendment 644 uses the calculation requested, but starts it in 2026. 
Amendment 798 uses the calculation requested, and, while it doesn't specify 2026, since it conflicts with the language the budget outlines, per Section 3, it wouldn't go into effect this year. 

Other Chapter 70 and core aid related things:
Showing his usual zest for amendment, Senator Tarr has submitted Amendments 615 for $125, 618 for $120, and 619 for $110 per pupil minimum aid. And this is your ongoing reminder that every increase makes it more likely that fewer districts will escape hold harmless during the implementation of SOA remaining, and that this funding has no relation to student or municipal need.

Amendment 666 is chapter 70 "extraordinary relief" of $18.5M, targeted only at places where the required local contribution is more than 30% of local revenue

Amendment 799 is $5M in relief "municipalities who rank in the lowest 10% of municipalities in both of the following categories: (i) total per-pupil dollar expenditure; and (ii) actual net school spending." This means it won't be the highest need districts, as those have required per pupil expenditures that are higher.

School choice:
Amendment 720 would raise the per pupil amount of a school choice student from $5000 to $7500.

Rural aid:
Amendment 631 would raise it from $15M to $17.5M

METCO:
Amendment 635 would raise it from $29.4M to $33M and would also allow funds to be carried to the following December

Charter school facilities:
Amendment 709 would raise the charter school facilities per pupil amount (which comes from a sending district's Chapter 70 aid) to $1288 from $1188

Regional transportation:
Amendments 623 would raise it to $106.5; 661 and 734 and 748 to $121.1M

Special education and circuit breaker:
Amendment 705 would phase in circuit breaker being 100% reimbursement of the "extraordinary" costs, with 75% for FY25 moving to 80% in FY26, 90% in FY27, 95% in FY28, and 100% in FY29, but would immediately put 100% into place for any children whose parents or guardians do not reside in Massachusetts or who are placed outside their hometown.

Amendment 639 would study the delivery of special education services

Vocational:
Amendment 611 would move the CTE line from $2.5M to $3.5M; 711 to $4.5M

Amendment 663 would move transportation reimbursement for out of district vocational from $1M to $2M

Amendment 751 would require a vocational admissions lottery

Amendment 752 would create vocational annexes to comprehensive high schools in cities

Amendment 755 would create a commission on such annexes

Advanced Placement:
Amendment 622 would increase the AP math and science line from $2M to $3.3M

Amendment 654 would require state colleges and universities to take an AP score of 3, 4, or 5 for credit

Early college:
Amendment 708 would take the early college line from $3M to $3.5M

Amendment 731 would create a five year strategic plan on early college in the state

Sex ed
Amendment 756 would require biannual collection of sex education in districts in the Commonwealth

Early literacy:
Amendments 687 and 780 would raise the "Literacy Launch" amount from $10M to the $30M that would match the Governor and House

Amendment 787 is the terrible literacy bill that would mandate curriculum be taken from a state list

SEL:
Amendment 640 would increase the SEL line from $6M to $8M

School to career:
Amendment 714 would increase the school to career line from $7.3M to $8.5M

After and out of school:
Amendment 665 would increase the budgeted $8.6M to $10.6M

Diversity in education:
Amendment 689 would student the impact of layoffs of this year and last on teachers of color

MSBA:
Amendment 760 adds "collaboratives" to the study of the MSBA that the Senate included in the outside section (starts on page 67)

Trusts:
Amendment 621 would increase the civics trust from $1.5M to $2.5M

Amendment 750 would increase the genocide trust from $2.25M to $3M

Yes, the proposed Worcester Public Schools FY25 budget is posted

 And you can find it online here.

and there is our rueful fish in his budget habitat

I am not going to give you any analysis in this post--I haven't cracked this open yet!--but let me give you a few tips in reviewing:

• Revenue matters. As much as we all immediately want to plunge into what the recommended allocations are and aren't, the money has to come from somewhere. The majority of the Worcester Public Schools' funding comes from the state--which is what's led to this push around inflation, which is the main reason for the FY25 budget gap--

  

  from page 18; as a side note: the federal grant triangle here is back down,
  because the ESSER funding that boosted it is gone
  total federal grants was $70,633,666 (FY22), $83,720,834 (FY23), $65,411,638 (FY24)

  
  
  ...but there is a state mandated balance between that and city funding for the general fund budget. The first place I always flip (and the one thing I did check right away yesterday) was if the city's budgeted spending is projected to meet the state requirement. This year that's on page 377:
  
  
  
  ...and the answer is no: we're $1.1M short.
  Now, if you follow the math, what's happening is that we're still catching up from the $3M from FY23; plus this current year, it was back to a little over $1M until the School Committee had to cut $800K from the budget due to the charter school tuition/reimbursement coming through other than what was expected.
  
  
  
  Nonetheless, not meeting the state mandate again. 
  And as a reminder: 
  
  
  

  

  from page 10

  
  
• I know you're going to look at the school by school, but remember that isn't how the budget gets passed. Particularly in a year where there are cuts, anyone with a connection to a particular school is going to flip to those pages first (they start on page 234). I get it.
  The budget is not passed school by school, however, and school committees in Massachusetts don't have that level of authority over the budget (or assignment authority at all).
  The budget is passed at the cost center level, which is the account by account section of the budget that starts on page 155, as listed in the table of contents.
  I anticipate, by the way, that this may be a struggle for the Worcester School Committee this year, with the new makeup of the committee. Committee members cannot move money in such a way that it will only benefit their own district.
  If you're going to advocate, keep this in mind with your advocacy. 
  
  
• Most of those numbers are big. This sounds silly to say, but small changes are not what makes big differences in a budget of this size. As I've said before, and no doubt will again, don't get caught bikeshedding the budget. 
  
  
• The budget isn't done until the bottom line is voted. This is a proposed budget; each account gets reviewed and passed by the Worcester School Committee over June 6 and 20 (starting at 4), and the bottom line is approved on on the 20th.
  
  
• They have to hear from the public first. It was only recently posted, but the public hearing date is Monday, May 20 at City Hall at 6 pm.

Go review it! Be grateful we get the comprehensive budget document we do!

And let me know if you have questions I might be able to answer. 

Updating FY25

 For those who find this useful: I've updated my FY25 spreadsheet with the Senate Ways and Means budget. Note that I have NOT waded through the House amendments that passed, but I do know that no large accounts were change (yes, there were earmarks). 

A few random observations:

• The Senate keeps the $104 minimum per pupil, but puts it into the chapter 70 line itself, which means it is not coming out of Fair Share, but general fund revenue, on which the Senate differs from the House. 
• The Senate drops the support for free lunch back down $20M to the $170M proposed by the Governor. The House thought it would cost $190M. This one worries me, as it's a mandate that is subject to appropriation, and the districts will be on the hook if the state doesn't come through with funding. Remember this has had to be backfilled with supplemental budget funds to run this year.
• The Senate funds the Governor's much-advertised "Literacy Launch" at $10M, not the $30M she submitted and the House agreed on. That feels like it might be heading for less than $30M. 

FY25 proposed budget for Worcester Public Schools will be out today

 I intentionally haven't said anything on this, as I don't think we really know anything until we know the whole picture. The proposed--it is always only "proposed" until the entire budget is passed by majority vote of the school committee--budget is scheduled to be posted later today here. 

Highlighting Mass Budget's note on the House budget and adding one of my own

Mass Budget and Policy Center sent out a statement last week on the House budget. It says, in part, this on K-12 education:

...while we are on track with the stipulations of the 2019 Student Opportunity Act (SOA), the House budget proposal does not address the unexpected and historically high levels of inflation in recent years, nor did it adopt amendments to address or study the issue in the year ahead. Until it is addressed, the failure to fully adjust education aid to high inflation will continue to depress the value of K-12 aid because support each year is built on the prior year’s amount. 

If the Senate doesn't address inflation in their budget (filed tomorrow with amendments due by Friday), we will never get that funding back.

To that I would add: the state--the Governor and the Legislature--are through their own policy choices working against the Student Opportunity Act's lifting of districts out of hold harmless. The $60 per pupil minimum increase compounded by (should it also pass the Senate) the $104 increase this year pushes districts back further from escaping hold harmless and getting foundation aid increases. The inflation rate this year pushed what were 195 districts receiving foundation aid back to only 106. 

This is maddening. 

Two quick notes on the framing of the city budget

The Worcester City Council sees the proposed city FY25 budget for the first time Tuesday. I don't have time now to go through everything they have going on with that, but I did want to make two quick notes, as it appears this year's passive aggressive language is surrounding the increase in required city spending.

Let's first just note that the city hasn't met the required spending for the past two years, and is projected not to meet its required spending for the current year, either: 

just realized I didn't source this; it's DESE Chapter 70 district profile, 2/21/24

And as (sigh) this inevitably, and yes, right in the budget, involves another round of "but this doesn't count capital or debt service," that is correct and also STANDARD, which means that, for example, all of those shiny new schools you see MSBA celebrating are in communities that are ALSO carrying debt services which ALSO doesn't count for them, and yet they not only are meeting net school spending, THEY ARE SPENDING WELL OVER IT.

Moving on: the increase required of the city is determined by the municipal revenue growth factor, which is also how it is calculated across the state for every community. Yes, this year's 5.01 is the highest it has been in some time: 

As noted on the slide, MRGF is calculated by the state by the actual changes in a community's:

• State-imposed levy limit of 2.5%
• New growth
• State aid 
• Prior year local receipts

Decisions the city may make regarding those inputs--not tapping the levy, pushing new growth into areas that don't include schools, and so forth--make no difference to the state, as the city's available revenue has still grown by that much.

And finally, to the carrying of costs: as has been ongoingly noted, the majority of Worcester's budget is carried by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By the percentage of the foundation budget the local community is required to contribute, Worcester is 349 out of 360 (or 12 if you want to count up from the bottom); Worcester's in red:

Possibly especially because I am going to be in the State House tomorrow alongside those who will be arguing that the state should fund the inflation rate in such a way to make up prior years under the cap which would benefit Worcester: it is difficult to have that taken seriously when the city doesn't meet its required spending, and then complains about that required spending growing when it is and remains among the lowest percentages in the state. 

Some things to read this weekend

please enjoy this tree in Palmer

 I've shared much of this on either Twitter or Bluesky, but for those not on there, or who find this easier:

• I'm sneaking this in here due to her connection with the Worcester Public Schools: Senate President Karen Spilka recently asked for ideas on which woman deserves a statute in the state senate, and here is a suggestion it should be Frances Perkins (graduate of Classical High). 
  
  
• There's new research out on state takeovers of school districts, and, as EdWeek writes: 
  

  Politicians typically pitch state takeovers as efforts to help steer a sinking ship to calmer waters. But existing and emerging research offers a more mixed and less rosy view.

  And speaking of state takeovers, things are not great in Houston. 
  

• You may have heard a lot about Norwegian cell phone bans in school. Here's a blunt list of what was actually found.
  

• The bill that passed the House this week adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which classifies most anti-Zionism as antisemitic is what has been repeatedly called for in public testimony before the Mass Board of Ed; it happened at the January meeting, from the panel invited by Chair Katherine Craven, and then again in February and March. Lest you think it only happens elsewhere. 

• This opinion piece in the New York Times on college admissions spends too much time from the perspective of a wealthy student, but some of the points are useful. Sara Goldrick-Rab, meanwhile, reminds us of community colleges and decisions that need not be made in the spring.

• Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law this week new penalties for those passing a stopped school bus:
  

  Illegally passing a stopped school bus is now classified as a high and aggravated misdemeanor, resulting in a fine of no less than $1,000,12 months in jail, or both.

• A Marin County grand jury found that asking parents to provide school supplies was contrary the California education code:
  

  “Public schools in California are required to provide, at no cost to students or their families, all the supplies, materials and equipment necessary to fully participate at school,” the grand jury states in an introduction to the report. “As a result, it is improper for public schools to distribute lists of school supplies that are required or requested.”

• This piece on rules came in response to the college response to college protests this week, but I thought it applies well to how schools run, too:
  

  We spend our lives being socialized to believe that failure to follow rules is harmful to society. Less remarked upon is the equally important fact that overzealous, unthinking enforcement of the rules is just as harmful to society. Inflexible as rules are, they cannot function effectively without the ability of their enforcers to compare their text to the fluctuating exigencies of the real world. Small-minded determination to use rules as the final word on all human conduct is characteristic of goons, acting with the desperate meanness that comes from the need to have an easy club with which to beat back the imposing intricacy of life.

  And speaking of those, McSweeney's doesn't miss. 

more chapter 70 resources

I got a phone call yesterday from someone wanting to understand the foundation budget inflation rate, and he asked for online resources that better explain. Here's two from me lately, should it be useful...

• The Northampton Government channel has video of the presentation I did before the Northampton School Committee in March. I've never had a reporter ask to interview me before a finance presentation before. 
  
  
• The video of my presentation to MASC Division III on Tuesday is now up thanks to Holbrook local television. The PDF of that (corrected!) presentation is here. 

The conversation was stemming from this NEPM piece.

Two new bits on the FY25 budget

The report of the superintendent starts on page 6 of the tonight's agenda (different than how they've been doing it). This is tonight's report; the meeting, public side, starts at 5:30 (ish).

The district shared a video of Dr. Monárrez speaking about the budget yesterday. 

Well, this is (probably) bad news for our low income count for next year

 On Tuesday, State House News Service reported that nearly 200,000 people have come off MassHealth in the past two months. And per SHNS, "Through the first 11 months of the eligibility redetermination campaign, the publicly funded health insurance system's caseload has dropped by nearly 358,000."

First, people need health insurance, and if any of this is people dropping off MassHealth because they can't be found or didn't return forms, then we don't know that they have health care: 

Most of the roughly 810,000 people who have left MassHealth since April 1, 2023 lost coverage for procedural reasons, according to state data. About 541,500 were disenrolled because they did not provide enough information for MassHealth to confirm whether they are eligible, and another 15,200 could not be reached by state officials. The remaining 259,400 Bay Staters were confirmed ineligible after a review.

Here's the additional education connection, though: If half a million people dropped off for lack of information, we don't know that they aren't eligible; they still may well be. 
If any of those are children, they now not only don't have health insurance: they no longer count as low income, unless they are on one of the other state programs that counts towards that.

This is exactly what MASC and MASS outlined before Ways and Means at the hearing earlier this year. And if I am following those numbers correctly, we have had more people drop off since October than we did prior to October, which means the hit on FY26 could be worse than that on FY25.

It isn't too early to worry about and advocate for fixes for FY26!