thank you, miss lannes. mahnke, chief. this commission has had a lot of questions regarding this issue. -- fenty, chief. thank you for all your hard work. it is not easy. we need to get the issue out so we don't have a crisis situation. when these 479 officers decide they're going to retire. just before we go to public comment, one suggestion, we should take advantage of the ability to bring back the retired officers, and that is something that i think we get experienced, well-trained, veteran officers. i was wondering about that status. the talent pool has been trained, cleared, and has proven themselves already. >> commissioners, it is primarily a funding issue. like many of the prop f employes, they are hired against grant funds and special projects. the limited capacity, we have limited numbers of prop f. we rely on investigators. we have the academy currently working on the laterals. it is part and parcel of the value and cut expenditures are going to be determined t, and tn dedicating sufficient funds for the retiree

lann do you doms. landrieui thank senator rockefeller and all the members that have come to the floor today to debate this important bill and to share their thoughts about other amendments that are -- some directly but some indirectly related to our discussion. it doesn't look like we are going to vote tonight but we're going to continue to work throughout the evening as members want to come to the floor and speak on their amendments and we're going to try to work something out for tomorrow. but i want to thank senator snowe and her staff for their good work today. i see that senator whitehouse is on the floor and he may want to speak about an amendment, but i'd like to just remind everyone that we are on the sbir and sttr reauthorization act. it's a very important piece of legislation that has been sputtering for a reauthorization now for over six years and there are literally thousands of entities, small businesses, dozens of federal agencies, many, many organizations from the chamber of commerce to