One of the things the committee needs to understand about the COVID payments is that it wasn't just about conflict of interest rules being broken. Both of these payments were done within days of the end of fiscal year 2020-21, and both times the amount of money that was sent out made a significant impact on the bonuses that executives got. When on one side board members were getting all of their companies and all of the information.... They were getting all of this funding on one side, and by approving this funding, where they broke conflict of interest rules, they were also giving bonuses to all the executives, who were the ones who presented that information to the board members.
On top of that, the other issue was that for the second COVID payment, it just wasn't the COVID situation. SDTC's board members, in the fall of 2020, had already agreed that they were not going to make any blanket payments as they had already done. That was in the board presentation, which, again, we can table. The SDTC even did a full survey of the total portfolio of SDTC companies, which showed that, on average, every single company had over 14 months of runway, which was more than enough, so they didn't need any funding. Instead, board members were presented with another COVID payment, which they then agreed to, and in this case, board members are coming here saying that the companies were desperate; they needed it, and it was a requirement. That's absolutely false. The companies didn't need it, and the executives chose to give it to everyone.