Bill Wray: Sure. Again, very comfortable with the level. It’s under CECL. It’s a forward-looking estimate of lifetime losses in the portfolio. If you look at our losses, and we tend to be aggressive about recognizing losses when they occur. We’re almost literally none for the year, almost – we haven’t lost the $40 million we have on our reserve over the last 20 years. And so we’re no way complacent about credit. But our quantitative models are built to have conservative estimates in them. We’ve got good qualitative reserves as well. So we are extremely comfortable where we are. And we have outperformed the industry on credit issues through ups and downs for quite a while. If you look at our delinquencies, they are essentially nonexistent on the commercial side that are light on the others. We do stress test consistently, both top down and bottom up using a third party and the numbers tell us that we are in good shape on the reserve side. So yes, we do feel comfortable.
Damon DelMonte: Okay. That’s helpful. I appreciate that color. And then I guess on the margin front, to go back to that, I guess, Ron, you guys have added a lot of wholesale borrowings. And if loan growth is slowing, is there an opportunity to maybe take cash flows from the securities portfolio and reduce some of the higher cost borrowings? Or have you even considered maybe selling a portion of the securities to kind of accelerate the ability to repay borrowings and get some relief on the margin.
Ron Ohsberg: Yes. We’ve been not reinvesting our investment security cash flows since the first quarter. So the securities portfolio is in runoff mode. At the moment to do just exactly what you said to use that to pay down those wholesale borrowings. And as Ned mentioned, we’re slowing the loan growth down right now. So the growth in reliance on wholesale should be coming down.
Damon DelMonte: Okay. And then if the Fed does end up cutting rates in the back half of ’24. How do you feel the balance sheet is positioned for something like that? Do you think your margins – I mean could that be like a built-in inflection point for you if nothing else changes, if the margins keep stripping lower like at that point, you’re poised to benefit.
Ron Ohsberg: Yes. So an abrupt change in rates is felt immediately in our SOFR book our prime and SOFR loans are about $1.8 billion. So those tend to reprice immediately. We would have to ratchet down our deposit and wholesale borrowing costs, it doesn’t happen quite as quickly as it does with the loan book. Overall, I think that would be a net positive for us. It wouldn’t happen immediately, though, it would bleed in over a period of quarters.
Damon DelMonte: Got it. Okay. And then just lastly on the expense front. Yes, I appreciate the commentary before on that. So you kind of feel like this mid-$34-ish million range to $35 million a quarter is a reasonable level, given what you guys have going on with the branch openings and other strategic efforts.
Ron Ohsberg: Yes. Like I said, the fourth quarter should look like the third quarter except for the few items that I mentioned. And then things will reset with merit raises and so forth in the first quarter and branch costs will be higher in the first quarter than they were in the fourth quarter. But not really prepared to go into 2014 on this call…
Ned Handy: 2024.
Ron Ohsberg: How could I say 2014. All right 2024…
Damon DelMonte: I know, it’s fair.
Ron Ohsberg: Thank you. So yes, yes. We’re just kind of looking at the Q4 right now and dispositioning ourselves for next year.
Damon DelMonte: Got it. Okay. That’s all that I had. Thank you very much.
Ron Ohsberg: Okay.
Ned Handy: Thanks Damon.
