diff --git a/project.clj b/project.clj
index 22a3efd..7fd4404 100644
--- a/project.clj
+++ b/project.clj
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
                        :dependencies [[org.clojure/tools.cli "1.0.219"]
                                       [ch.qos.logback/logback-classic "1.4.14"
                                        :exclusions [com.sun.mail/javax.mail]]
-                                      [org.slf4j/jcl-over-slf4j "2.0.11"]]}}
+                                      [org.slf4j/jcl-over-slf4j "2.0.12"]]}}
   :release-tasks [["test"]
                   ["vcs" "assert-committed"]
                   ["change" "version" "leiningen.release/bump-version" "release"]
diff --git a/src/main/clj/dda/c4k_common/base64.clj b/src/main/clj/dda/c4k_common/base64.clj
index 1e5acb2..a2c36e7 100644
--- a/src/main/clj/dda/c4k_common/base64.clj
+++ b/src/main/clj/dda/c4k_common/base64.clj
@@ -8,10 +8,10 @@
   [input string?]
   (.encodeToString 
    (Base64/getEncoder) 
-   (.getBytes input "UTF-8"))) 
+   (.getBytes ^String input "UTF-8"))) 
 
 (defn-spec decode string?
   [input string?]
   (String. 
-   (.decode (Base64/getDecoder) input) 
+   (.decode (Base64/getDecoder) ^String input) 
    "UTF-8"))