We always enjoy working with your staff, but I encourage you to read through there, maybe see those things we might talk about or approach about if we were to have issues. Third page in there are your audit adjustments. Uh pretty short, half a page. Um some school districts you're looking at two pages, three pages worth of adjustments. So that just kind of speaks to the quality of your staff as far as making sure that the numbers are presented are correct that you're looking at or reviewing each month and so there's not much modification to them past what you're seeing. And then finally the last two pages in there is what they call the management representation letter. We like to call this one the reminder letter. Essentially each one of those points we kind of talk about during the audit. So it's always good to reread that each year.
Okay. At the end, the bills have to come out to $1.5 million. Okay. So, you know, I think the hope was to get some inind t inind credit back from contractors and things like that. You know, I've been concerned about that just because on a $ 1.5 million project, if you're looking for $300,000 of inind, that's that's a third of the whole cost. That just is, you know, I just think it might be I don't know, think taken a little too highly of what you're going to get written off as the back end of it. So talking to Jeremy a little bit, they kind of have some of the same concerns. So, you know, really the question is if their budget's 1.5, but they only have 1.2 to spend, you're going to get a building that's $1.2 million, and then they're going to have to make it work out on their side.
Um, the special ed grant that I'm talking about, um, we try to do 50% um, salaries and benefits for preschool teachers from there. um as well as then what I'll talk about with education funds. Um the rest of my pres or the rest of my special ed grant pretty much goes to salaries and benefits of other special education programming and teachers. Um and so uh that portion is there. Um and then as far as from the education fund um we do pull money from there but I I need you to understand kind of what that looks like. Um, we have a membership count every October one. Everybody knows about a membership count where we get uh a defined amount of money for each student that's enrolled with us. But on the special ed side, there's also a count day and that's the December one count where we get additional funds for um and it's all a tier based um system.
But are we purchasing any specific um adaptive PE equipment for our special needs students? If there is adaptive equipment needed, we do purchase that. Um again, depending on what the activity is and things like that, we work closely with, you know, Mr. Smith and then the teachers on what is needed. But it's not something that's across the board that all of our stu schools have in order to meet the dynamic needs of our special needs students. I would say the majority of our stu um schools do get what they do need. Not all of our schools contain classrooms that are life skills and things of that nature. So it is dependent upon that. Okay. Um because I know that that is something that is um there's just so many different resources for our students that are special needs and we just want to make sure.
Um and so you are smart if you start the networking with the financial committees um and um the town managers um very early on because you don't want to get you deep into a process and have someone tell you we're not going to approve more than you know 2.5%. Um, so while the chapter 70 amount is and I've also had the experience of being a municipality and I I did craft my budget in the municipality this year um but they don't have the type of the same type of assessments that are in the regional school district and also they um you know so they can feel free to um work with um they can work with that budget. Um, but the major revenue stream is is chapter 78 and that's become a little bit contentious lately because it's not keeping pace with the inflation and there are all sorts of groups um that have gone to meetings at the state house and there's a big meeting in Amherst um to address the need for a different funding formula more revisions to the existing funding formula.
Any discussion? We got your back. We do. Are you willing to accept it? I am. Important question. I'm praying. So, all in favor? I I Any opposed? So, Bess Coughlin, congratulations. You are the chairperson of the Dartmouth School. [Applause] Yeah, leave that there. Um, I thank you all for your support and I will need your support this year. Um, gota I will now um seek any nominations for the vice chair. Vice chair. Where's that other sheet? I So I have a question. How is this your second year? Just starting. You're just starting your second year. Okay. I will make a motion uh to nominate Mary Beckwith as vice chair. I second that. Second. I wasn't sure who was how we were going with this. You guys are great. I second that. That's great. You don't have to accept. You don't accept. I'll accept. All right.
Kind of refamiliarize yourself with those points. And so as the year goes on, if something does happen pertaining to them, um you make sure to tell us about it when it comes time for audit. So that being said, any kind of questions or comments? I know that was kind of quick. Try to keep it as condensed as I can without getting too deep in the weeds for you.
That might mean the building's smaller towards on the um attached documents that are there on the blueprints. It would be document A. I believe the smaller document A is smaller, right? So it' be document A that's on there, right, Jeremy? Am I is that correct? Okay. So that that's a $1.2 million building. Okay. In hopes that on their side of it, it's going to come out to 1.5 at the end. Okay. If you do that, you're cutting out restrooms. You're cutting out the community room. when I say community, multi-purpose room. Um, and again, that would be standalone. Okay. The other one on and that's all in, right, Jeremy? That's all in cost. Correct. Um, driveway, uh, building, no furnishings, nothing like that. The building itself, right? Uh, concrete work, correct? Fencing for the outside. Um, so that's what that's what 1.2 is going to get you in hopes of on ABC side.
We get additional funds for students with special education services. Um, preschoolers are kind of a flat fee. All of them, if they're special education, get um, for a long time it was about $3,000. It's moved up to about $3,600 per student. So, all of that money after the December one count, depending on what that number is for preschool, special ed at December one, all gets trickled into the the education fund. Um, and so that money can be used for preschool students. uh we have tuition um that our typically developing peers, those parents pay tuition, that $100 a month. Um and then just this year we started the voucher system and trying to pull some of those funds. And so these are really I mean kind of good numbers, but rough I mean kind of rough estimates of things. um just so you can see kind of what we spend on on preschool from the 2022 2023 school year and then kind of what we're hoping projected the next two years.
And then we did not talk about prek. So, our material is being purchased for our prek students. Well, I just want to make sure all kids get physical education and health. The prek students aren't a part of this adoption, but we purchase materials separately for the big playroom because big playroom. Oh, yes. We have we have tricycles and scooters and Yeah. Dr. Mahaland. I think most of my questions been asked, but um just appreciate the focus and how much I learned from, you know, learning about the physical literacy that you mentioned and how much this connects just the whole child and being in Indianapolis where sports, the amateur sports capital, I think it's just going to open up even more interests. Um so it's it's wonderful and I love Mart Lawrence's question about you know connecting to community partners. So very excited to see what will happen.
So, um the other parallel with municipal with municipalities and with regional school budgets is there two different um like there's an excess and deficiency fund for the regional school district. You can only maintain 5% of your budget in that excess and deficiency fund. And you can apply that to each region's off or each town's off you can use it to offset um each town's assessment in terms of the budget. Um so the other parallel in the municipality is the municipality has free cash. Um, and so that's, you know, so it's a little bit, I don't want to say it's easier in a municipality, but it really is easier because you have one budget, one town, you know, and one chapter, you know, one chapter 70 revenue stream. And so all you have to worry about is what the town manager says their funding event is and then how you pass the budget through um the fing pong and the select board and the school committee gets to vote on that budget.
Good. Um, any discussion? Any other nominations? Sounds good. Very good. All right. Um, all in favor? I I Sounds unanimous. Yes. Here we go. Miss Beckwith, congratulations. Congratulations. [Applause] Get your graduation speeches ready, ladies. Forgot to tell them that. I I think that there should be a little more prep like explanation. Um, okay. Now we are looking for nominations for secretary. Make a motion that we nominate Dr. Jun Saba Maguire as secretary to the school committee. Second. All in favor or any other nominations? All in favor? I I And I don't even get to accept her. No, you don't. I knew that. Um, okay. Great. So, we have that done. Next up is uh the committees um subcommittees of this body and then uh town and district. Yeah. Committees. Um so policy committee um the assistant superintendent heads that Mr. Kylie and currently we have Kathleen Amarol and Mary Beckwith.
Any questions? And if anything ever comes up, like I said, Christy can email us, call us. We're happy to answer anything that you guys are questions. No, I said thank you. Okay. Most approve the 2023 2024 audit has been presented. Second motion second [Music] discussion while you're voting I cannot thank Kyle and his staff enough uh they are just very professional excellent to work with top-notch people and our central office staff Christy Nicole Jen Whitney everybody central office and stuff they do here and then in our local buildings the the office staff they are tremendous just to make sure that we are topnotch with our with our uh with our audit and our reports. [Music] Jojo, thank you. Thank you. results monitor report results report. Um who wants to talk to that? We have any question that Everybody's had a chance to review those. Anybody have any [Music] questions?
that's going to come out to 1.5. As a contractor, I don't want to speak for Jeremy. That's on their side. That makes me nervous if I'm the contractor and I'm expected to come up with those kinds of funds. If you have a 1.1 $1.5 million budget, it's going to get you that other building that's on there. Okay? Multi-purpose room, bathrooms, all those sorts of things. Now, ABCC's hope is in August, not in August, right now, the Patterson Grant's opening. They're filing for a huge chunk of the Patterson grant that they always do to come out to help fund this. If they get that grant, that's great because then they can move to 1.5, right? Which means the building would be a $ 1.5 million building. That's the budget you would get with the multi-purpose room moving forward. If they don't get that, they don't get that in August, then the shift's going to have to come back to where it's a smaller building, unless we're willing to put money with it.
So you can see tuition doesn't really pull in a whole lot of money for us by the time we pay for some things. You know, we pay for snacks out of there. We pay um a little bit of staffing out of tuition as well. um we get about, you know, 35 $40,000. Just by increasing it to $200 a month, it allows us to pull in about $130,000. Um and that's still paying for all estimating all those other costs of still paying um snacks and those kinds of things out of there. um as far as the education fund and that those APC dollars or that December one count um and that all depends on kind of what that number is on December one. So you can see in 2023 we had fewer special ed students on that count than what we did in 2024 2025. Um and so that kind of fluctuates.
Mr. Smith, I love history. My board has asked questions and when we renovated elementaryaries, I can remember some of the elementary school old gyms because I've been here a long time. Sorry, board. I've been with you for a while. They were old. When I think of Crest View and I think of Scal Test, I see Miss Whitaker sitting over there. She had a gym right out of Hoosiers. And when we redid the gyms and the equipment for them, we I mean we just completely transformed them. We've come a long way as a school corporation uh with the facilities. So board, I want you to kind of think when we think of equipment, when we renovate buildings, we really go after those big things, but those loose equipment things that the schools need, those things come up through curriculum. They come up through my office and on to Mr.
So regionals are really fun but they really are more complicated and people really need to understand the budget process. Thank you. Uh last but not least, Lori, please. So, my question is long, but it's not a very long answer for you. It gives you a little rest of your voice. Um, we are currently in the middle of a phase shift. Our current interim superintendent has had to do much more than just his superintendent duties. He's trying to make sense of last year's budget and finding things like job descriptions and professional practices that need updating or creating as some don't exist. He typically works well beyond 700 p.m. on weekdays, attends town meetings in both Berlin and Boilston that often run until 9 or 10, and he often spends weekends at central office. Do you feel you are equipped to continue his work? Would you be able to dedicate as much time to turning our district around so we could attract a full-time superintendent next year?
Are you both happy doing that? Do you like I'm fine. I' I've been enjoying it. Okay. Mary's much better than I am at it. But I I will say it's been a very active committee this year and um I feel like everyone has done a great job. Um fields and facilities committee. Uh chair is the superintendent. Um John Nunes and Kathleen Emerald are current committee members. How do you two feel about continuing or not continuing? No, I'm fine. I'm fine. Unless somebody is Yeah, dying to Yeah. take it on. No, I don't see anyone dying. Stepping back. Okay. Budget committee. Um Mr. Kylie of course is in charge of that one and currently it's Chris Oliver and myself with John Noobs as backup. Um, is there anyone else who wants on or is there anyone who wants off? I'm happy to continue on that committee.
I'll make a motion. [Music] You need a motion? Yes, please. I'll make a motion to accept the results to monitoring report concerning physical education, performing arts, visual arts, and foreign language as reasonable progress towards meeting the board's results policies. Second motion second discussion. No discussion [Music] move 6. [Music] Uh contract approval appointments motion to approve engagement letter with Darren Gilmore and Phillips PA for the 2024 2025 financial audit amount not to exceed $10,300. One second. There's a second discussion discussion rules. [Music] It won't change my vote, but I'm curious why it's 10,300. It's a slight increase. I didn't know if they increased their fee or not. It's a nice round number four. 10,000 was last year. So, yeah. Okay. Good. Good question. I figure but I think on it I'm just open enrollment discuss policy. Um as you know last year they made the open enrollment thing you have to do.
So, a couple ways to look at that. One, you could get a $ 1.5 million building attached to the high school if the Patterson grant goes through for them for nothing. Okay? besides our tax money that goes tax our tax credits that go to it. On the other side, if all that falls through and you still want a $ 1.5 million building, you might have to look at putting 200 to $300,000 with it to get that. Like to me, like do it now, do it later. So, if we want to build this $250,000, there's the money there. So Jeremy the task court if we waited if we waited till August till the Patterson grant was selected it could be August 1 it could be August 31st until we knew that how would that I mean where would that set you at with your construction site?