Karron photos his comments that I'm just thrilled that we're seeing more of growing our own talent and promoting from within there was that period of time prior to dr. Gifford coming on that we saw a lot of you know movement from outside of this district and I agree it's not something that you know we can always do however if the if the shoe fits and it it works for us and in this case I have nothing but respect for mr. Porter as a parent who's to two students two daughters gone through went through Potter's school they had nothing but a wonderful experience with mrs. Brooks and mr. Potter and I know like everyone else's it was the right choice and I wish you nothing but the best and congratulations to you as well yeah no I think I'll just echo that as well and I just wonder if Melissa will get ready to be up on the roof or out somewhere and you know with fun and building up the you know the excitement of the kids doing some kind of crazy high jinks and I look forward to seeing what that'll be but certainly Heidi will be missed but I have no doubt that Rick and Melissa will just do wonderful things so thank you for taking on this opportunity so thank you [Applause] so next on our agenda we have the mr.
Kylie will be talking about our fiscal year 21 budget and presenting the some things that are anticipated coming you know you gave us all our binders and we've looked at those but you could kind of talk a little bit about that with us teaming up on this presentation it promises to be let's say probably more exciting than approval of minutes and public comment but everything else pretty wonderful so dr. Gifford all right so we just obviously we start every time we talk about the budget with the idea of what do we do to get it going just so folks know and again we'll just breeze through this quickly as this is our first draft and we have more work to do of course but as you know we always meet with our teams of folks just trying to get that out of the way because I can't see where we are but so we always bring folks back to the idea of what our mission statement is and our core beliefs okay beautiful the core believes I think are important to remind folks because everything we do when we talk about the budget and what decisions we have to make come back to those things about developing our work ethic in the with the students the academic excellence engaging in open communication etc as you know we have a lot of good things going on and we still keep that saying up there strong schools equals strong communities and some of the things we always like to highlight some of the things that we feel we're most proud of and right now we have a 99.4% highly qualified teaching staff that increased a little bit as you know we have a rich program of studies and the arts theater our language programs are physical education and health and our athletics etc Advanced Placement the increase that we've tried to increase the number of students taking Advanced Placement our programs for our students that are struggling students might be struggling with disabilities or social emotional issues etc the increased involvement that we've had with stem over the last few years we continue to educate our English language learners and of course a full-day kindergarten ah'd everybody has that and the rich rich offering that we have for professional development the number of offerings the vast array of topics that we cover etc and of course our award-winning music programs our program you just heard tonight about the art students etc the nationally recognized spectrum uncle I could go on and on our focus on our math and deca programs and our robotics and Legos and engineering our teachers work very hard with the PBIS and RTI models to try to support student success we have a lot of therapeutic work going on in our district once again to focus on the social work and the mental health issues most recently we've added again this year as you know a BCBA just added that person some are Beatty and ABA services and we continue as you can see when you hear the school's talk about these kinds of presentations the community outreach that they have or the connections that they have formed with folks in the community the PTO etc we've been really strong in our creating more efficiencies in our processes our paperwork trying to reduce that and Shell's really good at that and we've been working hard at securing some grants most recently the Project Lead the Way grant in the computer science area and the financial literacy one so with that said you know we have had our strategic plan in place over the last four years really because it took the first year to really get started our focus areas or our goals we're teaching and learning access and equity and community engagement we continue to focus in on those three major areas updating our initiatives each year we will be starting our new strategic planning process once again not to throw the baby out with the bathwater the but really take a hard look at what we have been doing and make any adjustments necessary enhancements and see what else we need to do to continue the work in that area so we will be just as a little announcement we will be starting that process March 10th with a meeting an all-day meeting we even let the principal's know we had to cancel the first meeting and they will be inviting folks from their schools to join that process and we'll be getting that done we are also will be sending a survey out to the parents that will be coming out shortly in about a week or so to give us some feedback on how they see us working in the schools and anything that they might think that would be a good idea for changing what we're doing or at least enhancing so with that said I'll just go over the guiding priorities right to let mr.
Kiley talk about the really important stuff I guess is how do we get there how do we make it all work thank you dr. Gifford it's challenging for sure it's gonna be a fairly challenging budget year this is FY 21 we are proposing a budget of forty five million five hundred and eighty six thousand seven hundred and thirty six dollars seventy-five percent of our budget is spent on instruction so that salaries of staff principals teacher assistants substitutes instructional staff other instructional staff instructional technology professional development special ed services material supplies so that's seventy five percent of our budget other services which represents the next biggest category which is 11 percent of our budget is transportation attendants health athletics and other extracurricular activity maintenance and utilities is what it sounds like custodial services utilities maintenance to them of our aging buildings and grounds that represents about 8% of our overall budget the administration section includes district administration administrative technology and legal services that's about two percent of our budget tuitions is about four percent of our budgets and those are tuition payments for out of district tuition and really when I looked at this they're fairly consistent I'll talk a little bit on the next page about a couple of things that changed so if you look at the top line on this next page instruction so instruction increased about 3.8 percent so that would be primarily due to contractual obligations for salaries and Department of Ed the Department of Ed reclassified administrative technology and they change the account number structure so you'll see on the administration line it looks like a thirteen point two percent decrease that is largely between really a bookkeeping adjustment by the Department of Ed to move funds from that would have been included previously in administration into the instruction line maintenance utilities pretty stable again just about $4,000 increase over last year other services a hundred and twenty one thousand dollars primarily due to special needs transportation and some contractual obligations and tuitions up about thirteen point two percent two hundred thousand dollars so that is based on our projections for next year for for tuitions so for a total budget increase of 3.2 percent 1 million four hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred and fifty seven dollars so when I look at this budget I think that it sort of represents a level service budget there's really not and we'll talk on this page budget recommendations about what we're changing what we're proposing changing but really we're looking to maintain all the good things that we that we do now as best we can and really you know focus on that level service some of that is because of the we'll talk a little bit about what we didn't build into this budget in a minute but I won't get ahead of myself so budget recommendations it's become evident to us that we really do need to support technology in the district better than we are you know we've gone to the one-to-one initiative it's Jonathan's doing an amazing job trying to keep it up and running but the the fact is that we just don't have enough people to manage all the technology that we have it's a good problem to have that we have the technology but we're very reliant on it it's it's a great tool that kids use and you know on a daily basis and to be able to support it we really needed to focus on that so we've built in an increase of one FTE for a computer technician and we have proposed a reduction of two teacher assistant positions so they they basically offset those two those three positions basically offset in terms of overall cost the next page is what we didn't fund so there's a lot that you know where we're fortunate we have very thoughtful administrators in this district to put together great proposals for us to consider and they spend a lot of time on it a lot of energy in their buildings you know coming up with what they could do to improve it's hard for us I think I can speak for all of us that you know it's it's challenging when we're not able to support all of those increases or any of them in some cases unfortunately but there's a list here and I won't go through every item but there's some very valuable things that we could be doing that were you know not able to fund in this 3.2% budget increase the total requests not funded who were seven hundred and eighty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars I'm sure the principals could have come up with another seven hundred and eighty thousand four hundred and ninety dollars without you know blinking an eye that would have been valuable things for kids on top of this so they're really selective when they put when they put forth proposals and thoughtful about it so it is it's difficult for us to not be able to support that and so I guess you know in summary I think you know this is the first step in a fairly lengthy process you know we're working with the town to try and understand exactly where they are with their budget process but at this point there's still some moving parts on there and we're definitely above where the town thinks thinks we should be in terms of but they like I said that is a bit of a moving target in your binders there's lots of backup detailed budget lines obviously I don't want a bar put everybody to sleep and go one by one through that but certainly tonight on March 9th March 23rd when we have our public budget hearing and we can also have you know budget discussion and you know all the way through till Town Meeting we can have more discussion about this and I anticipate we would there's a lot of uncertainty right now you know built into this budget obviously we you know there are factors that we have yet to determine in terms of collective bargaining agreements so that would be the the biggest single item of course that you know needs to hopefully get ironed out at some point in this process but I'd be happy to discuss any of this with you at any time thank you dr.
Gifford Thank You mr. Kiley the presentation Jim when do we do we expect the final number or a closer number from the town side I know it was just after our last budget subcommittee meeting you had just recently got I think a number and you know that that numbers fluid right now I had a number last Monday a number that changed on Wednesday when we met for the budget subcommittee and then changed on Friday when I put your packets together so three times last week and I believe that the town is health insurance percentage increase I'm assuming it's an increase not a decrease is going to be finalized tomorrow so we'll have an idea I we've heard some numbers that you know are not the worst I think I had maybe mentioned in the past that it was going to be something in the range of 0 to 8 percent and I think we're going to be below really from what I hear so so that you know it's still gonna be an increase of course but so so there are things there besides the health insurance there are other things still that the the obviously the legislature although I think the chapter 70 portion will not change significantly because of the Legislature's involvement in in you know creating the the chapter 17 reform I don't think that'll change a lot but there are other factors that could change the chapter somebody just didn't do us any good it no no it was gave us $30 per pupil and as we found out last week we have the student Opportunity Act that we now have to fill out right and we were already going to get $30 per pupil so we got more paperwork and no benefit oh yeah right that's unfortunate but so you know I don't want to sound the alarm right now however you said somewhere you know worth hundreds of thousand dollars apart is that that's correct that's correct to me that's so scary because hundred thousand hundreds of thousands of dollars in reality is you can only make up so much with you know supplies supply items you know maintenance costs ultimately it's going to come down to you know I don't want to say it but positions oh it has the potential so a couple of things I I just want to mention and put out there to everyone in the audience at home and in the audience here is that after our last budget subcommittee meeting I had Terry him the chair of the fin column was there her and I had a good conversation you know and I brought up my concerns so to her that Dartmouth does enjoy a low tax base of low tax rate and based on the numbers that we're looking at year after year after year I am seriously concerned about the long-term impact of continuing to fund this aya I don't think this is sustained these these increases based on what we're being offered in this town for little little new growth now what is the new what is the new growth what are they estimating that it's minimal its I don't actually don't have an estimate I hate to say it but I don't have a current estimate it's gotta be some number though right asking for 3.2 so is new revenue growth less than 0.7 percent it's less than points yeah and you know you gotta you've got to remember too that there are increases in other areas that are more than two and a half percent so right right so if there's 3.2 percent revenue growth and we should get 3.2 and they should get 3.2 right that's what I'm just wondering what that numbers is kind of important yeah it is but so if health insurance goes up whatever you know 4% that is more than the increase in the overall budget so it reduces the amount that can come to us in theory New Bedford voke is going up 5% so that reduces the amount that can come to us we're still Aggies going up 202 percent they're building it's a small number compared to the other education budgets in town but it still is going up 202 percent right yeah it is it is yeah it's just the long-term prospect is concerning to to me and I don't know what the answer is and you can circle back to me at the end and I'm sure my call other colleagues would like to follow up so I have one I would like to see a mr.
Kylie if it would be possible some of the percent changes in those categories as you said a reflection of moving things where they're reported around it would be useful I think for me and maybe for the public to see what are the real changes like if we kept it the same do you know what I mean some of the changes look artificial and so if we had kept things categorized the way they were what Howard spending change in each category which I don't need to see that now but I think just conceptually that might help me and I don't know maybe some other people understand I want to reiterate mr. Oliver's point right is just document notes we're in the bottom 13% of per pupil spending right now if we were at the state average we'd have about 10 million dollars more all right even halfway there right gives us a lot more breathing room and I agree that I don't think this model is sustainable right now and I'm seriously concerned about about I mean we're doing the best that we can with what we have but you can only get blood for I mean there's only so much blood you can get from a stone there's just not anything there I have a few other questions but I'll let everyone else okay good yeah okay yeah it's yeah it's exactly what it is so the per pupil is $2,500 and you've you're pretty close to the 10 million shannon i could no no i use the calculator too because that cuts the big numbers but eight million nine hundred sixty-eight thousand three hundred and ninety nine dollars and 64 cents you know so but that's that's the difference if we were at the state average okay you know we wouldn't have to we wouldn't have to sit here and have all these wonderful discussions we would be it would be wonderful we need help as dumb as that sounds and and and such and that I think it goes it goes to places it goes to our state legislatures and I'm a broken record on this so I won't say too much about it but that you know 1.5 billion dollars and I talked about it a little bit at the last meeting with you know where the money all went to the other you know the Gateway communities and such and vocational schools and we get nothing type of deal and also I think you know in all seriousness I think that town fathers need to need to do some looking at how they budget things you know with receipts and in that type of deal I know which you know I don't not trying to shoot ourselves in the foot you know comes up you know September October at the fall town meeting with what they're able to do with the surplus revenue and capital items and everything else and I greatly appreciate what what we get but we have to be able to operate on a day to day basis with you know staff and pens and pencils and things of that nature type of deal so I think they need to do that and I think in just a personal opinion a couple of the expense things that they do I think they have to look at kind of putting it to the wayside I mean to you know be increasing the opah have liability funding every year i mean we're putting money into it that's great you know but we've got to be able to operate to so I did a drop in a bucket which was a 50 plus million dollar liability I got listen it's still better than I wasn't Fayette in Fall River but that's beside the point but I think what you have to do is you know you got to be living for today I mean we've got things that we've got to do today and you know we're trying to hold a budget together with baling wire and chewing gum and we're you know I think very shortly and we're going to be in big trouble trying to do that I commend central office administration in the all the administrators for the work they thought they get I appreciate the conservatism I without a doubt with what mr.
Kylie said that 700,000 could have been a million and a half a two million dollars without batting an eyelash and with you know we're not getting anywhere so we had a long row to hoe here I think thank you for the work it is appreciated does not go out and unnoticed very appreciative I don't have that much to say except how discouraging it has been all these years that we've had to fight every time for money for the schools this isn't anything new this is historical and I don't know I know we've in the past we've put out their information and chats but it seems like we need to keep on doing that so people can see where our spending is compared to other communities our size because I was just looking at social media before I came out tonight which finally wasn't a good thing to do arguments again and again you know that why would teachers need more money there's no appreciation really by some people of what teaching really is and the sacrifices our teachers make and our administrators that anyone that works in the school department to provide quality education to our students and I just hope there's a way we can get the information out there I think there are certainly more parents today that understand the needs and probably 30 years ago or 40 but it's a continuous problem and when you look at if we only could get to the state average what a difference that could make so I want to thank our administration and our certainly our staff but and and also mr.
Kiley for the way you put a budget together because you know there are some business agents who are just looking at the numbers but you don't just look at the numbers you look at the people and the students and that's the same for you know all of our administrators so just thank you for all the work you've done yeah I'll continue going so the way I see this I agree we need to do better we need to do better for our town we need to do better for our kids we need to do better for our staff and the schools and diamonds you know you could very easily tie in property values to the wonderful school system that we have in Dartmouth that being said there's two ways that we can we can fix this the state can come up with a different formula we can get more money from the state right or we could ask for and as much as I would love to see an operational override several years ago I'm sure mr.
Nunes remembers this this town voted to close schools then go for an over so that is concerning to me but the reality is we cannot continue to operate the Dartmouth public schools long term that's my just speaking for myself my personal opinion looking at the numbers the mr. kyliyah shared long term with the revenue that is being offered to us from this town I wish there was an easy answer but there there really isn't we've managed to help out a little bit with school choice you know take the edge off but that's nowhere nowhere near nowhere near enough from where we need to be and I agree that I think it's time that town government really takes a hard look fundamentally at how we're operating this town so I mean I agree I do think there are two places we can look and I agree with mr.
Nunes you know proposition two-and-a-half came in and locked our property taxes in at a low rate and then as form came in we're just reformed now you just reveled right and so I mean ultimately we can say we want more money from the state but it's not gonna come from the state because we are not putting in the effort that the ad reform bill expects communities to put in and so the way they're getting communities towards where they should be with their effort is to give them lower increases as compared to other communities so that they step up to the effort that they should be making um it's unfortunate that we're between a rock and a hard place because we're not gonna get it from the state legislature and you're right I don't you know it's frustrating I don't know what to do I do have a question related to and I'm trying to remember dr.
Gifford mentioned full-day kindergarten right now everyone has that and it's I remember the creation of that way back when but it's just kind of part of what we do now is that stab fund still there you know it's not gonna help our operational right sort of problems but I don't know why we still have that Stabilization Fund one I can't imagine any of us ever voting to get rid of full-day kindergarten or just start charging parents for that I just it's just part of what we do to whatever's in that Stabilization Fund would get us through for a year before we were faced with the same hard choice again right I mean there's what six seven hundred thousand dollars in there about three hundred and that's I mean I don't know why it's like sitting there kind of doing nothing and I think that's something just waiting for this year it's again it cannot be moved into our operating budget because it's a one-time source of revenue and we set us up for disappointment if we build that in but I do think we ought to look at getting rid of that Stabilization Fund and moving that money into capital or whatever for whatever purpose is because it's just I mean I don't I just don't really know why it's there anymore it's a symbol and in this day and age I don't think this community can afford to just have symbols I think we need to I think we should put that money to use so I'd like to see us maybe explore that topic I don't know with the Select board or the town manager it's I just I just don't think it makes much sense anymore through you madam chair no mr.
Collier the dr. Gifford to follow up on Shannon's that's out quote-unquote that's our money our Stabilization Fund so it would just take a request from us to like in the fall when this does this the town does all its capital stuff to release that 300,000 to give us some capital money to do something I think this is staying out of keeping it out of the operating budget I think it would require a town meeting it would require a town meeting vote there's no doubt on that but we should be the ones that we would be able to ask yeah is the board I think that's correct yeah yep I can I can certainly ask the I can certainly at the next committee meeting provide the language of the formation of the the Stabilization Fund itself which you know might help I think I think it might help clarify a little bit but but yeah I think it would be up to you to do that I mean I would definitely not recommend it the only thing that it could be used for would be you know if something really bad happened economically you know you could bridge a gap over a year at some point never a year we're making the same bad right right it doesn't there's not enough in there to really do anything to get us through a recession no after one year of a recession maybe most recessions last longer than it yeah so our public hearing is March night on this and then she said tomorrow they're gonna have actually our public hearing is March 20 signing 23rd so our next meeting okay so yeah so our next meeting will be just for discussion you know for the consideration or anything that you think of along the way that you'd like to you know like me to look at and get more information for you if you think of something between now and then I'd be happy to put it together and bring it forward for you and I would assume that I will have a revised estimate because I had a estimate from the town of their financial projection but I didn't include it in your packet because I knew by the time I was putting your packet together that it was incorrect and I didn't want it it wasn't right to include it so I'm awaiting that but I'm assuming with the whole health insurance numbers coming out we'll get one hopefully quickly following that that moving target is that typical or is that just more moving this year than in past years always a moving target of course the legislature sometimes yeah we're actually probably closer to the number legislature wise than than usual just because they were involved in the whole root the whole reform of the chapter seventy number whereas that's not usually the case and that's some debate between you know how far they're gonna get away from the governor's number but so that number is probably better health insurance is a little late this year in terms of the number that doesn't help us but and there's a few other things I think that are out there I usually have a pretty good number at the governor's you know when the governor comes out I usually have a projection from the town that's fairly close and sometimes even before that but not so this year so next on our agenda we have a Senate consent agenda where dr.
Gifford is recommending approval of the field trip requests that you have in your packets one is for the Dartmouth high school music Department permission to participate in the Allstate Music Festival in February 28th or the March 2nd was that correct date to 2020 as Symphony Hall in Boston and then a request for the Dartmouth high school to participate in the YMCA Youth in government annual motto motto legislate model government conference to be held at the State House on March 18th through March 20th so moved second any discussion on that good luck so next on our agenda some old business we had brought up before John Nunes and I met with dr. Gifford recently to go over this paper here the discuss like indicators that would be included in the superintendent evaluation okay so with one of the things we discussed was we went wrong we looked at the goals that you had all approved prior from the four goals and then we just chose indicators that would best represent accomplishment of those or at least progress toward achieving them if you recall when we went to the conference presented by death scene it was recommended that the committees choose six to six to eight when we chose them we went a little bit over because it's kind of it's kind of hard to pull it out and even though we choose them that kind of the focused areas but you can always we can always talk about anything else so anyway so we we chose under standard one under B student engagement and meeting diverse inner needs seniors someone's give up be one and three understand - we chose under the whole see everything and see about time for teaching and learning and time for collaboration and standard three student support and family support under B and understand it for you chose D continuous learning of staff and administrators and a shared vision develop and if you look through the whole packet we sent you we've had it before anyway the entire rubric they give examples of what that looks like as you know you've been through this before so we don't really need a vote per se but a discussion if you want and just a consensus that folks would focus on [Music] there anything in just in addition to or that you see that might as dr.
Gifford mentioned we were going through them looking at the goals and sort of one kind of leans and the other and so it was a collaborative process it was kind of you know this just came out of our discussion and I always emphasize that I feel very fortunate that a lot of what we're doing hence with the spotlight on the students and people coming in and talking that the administrators come and talking about district improvement plans and school improvement plans we're really privy to that information as it has it throughout the year so it was easy to kind of think of things related and yeah and but by all means if anyone sees an indicator that you feel I just noticed I did miss under for a two mission and core values yeah I forgot that one well I attended a meeting where deci and the mass Association for school committee did a great job talking us through what each men and I still feel overwhelmed because it's it's a lot but it's really it's really simple it's really what you're doing and exactly what's coming out of what we're doing and that's the other thing we talked about was these kinds of meetings you see what's happening so you know it's like a check yet we're doing that we're focusing on this we're focusing on that so it's helpful these meetings I think so no vote per se just okay very good thank you let's see so a new new business we have the policy revisions assistant superintendent Michele Roy is here to kind of go over policies jb j f ABD and j fa b f yeah okay so you might you might remember last May we undertook the review of some of our policies related to educational stability homeless foster care military families in advance of the desk review that the Department of Ed was was doing of those policies so they suggested four minor tweaks so on the equal educational opportunities I don't know if your scan has color so in the third paragraph included in the groups right after homeless they suggest we add foster care okay on the second policy related to homeless students and I think this is my mistake they had actually suggested extra curricular activities and I think for some reason I had missed adding okay in the first paragraph and in the paragraph second paragraph from the bottom homeless students continue to be enrolled in their school origin and received transportation we do that that's that's that practice they just added it as an explicit edit to that policy and in the third one which was a new policy students in foster care when we got the feedback on this they wanted us to add preschool and so we added it to the title but they suggested we also in addition to the title add it to the first paragraph so appropriate public education preschool through high school graduation so those are the four minor tweaks they like us to update based on the desk review okay and this is just a first read first read only the second read they did say that they would take the policies as implemented pending your vote so okay well in alignment with their timeline okay abd I've never seen extracurricular activities is there supposed to be an are there no I've never seen it as with an a always a curricular I've just never seen it that way so I googled it to see if I was wrong like and I couldn't find it on Google either so maybe they have a special way of using that word but grammatically I've never seen it without the Ru PluralEyes activities that yes dropping the are to make extracurricular plural so I just want to check that could be just the state's way of doing business okay the the homeless students receiving transportation that's basically the mckinney-vento on my correctness the only thing they did was separate recently probably in the last year or so students awaiting foster care are no longer considered homeless separated them out that's the only change they made to them it can have been to act under Elsa yes one more for mr.
Kylie I'm just thinking not that they probably happened is the state fully funding mckinney-vento no no I didn't think so much I was all I was hoping I was hoping okay by not fully funding what would that percentage be mr. Kyler next year you know I I'll get back to you on it okay but it's like I didn't mean to blindside you I follow it is yeah I was actually gonna ask what our what our numbers are do we know what our numbers I believe we have two that are who live in district who attend Dartmouth home schools in 16 that we cost share okay well thank you all right next on our new business we have mr. Kylie will talk about the Stabilization Fund discussion and vote thank you so this is really for your consideration we had when we built the FY 2008 built in a provision for settling collective bargaining agreements we have not settled some of those collective bargaining agreements if the funding if the agreements are not settled and by June 30th the funds would be returned to the town at that point it would require if we were to settle some contract at some later date it would require going to Town Meeting and requesting funding that seems risky to me we have the funding sitting untouched in our FY 20 but and what I least like you to consider is asking for asking the town to create a Stabilization Fund in which I could deposit those funds directly into that Stabilization Fund and if so if we settle before before then I won't deposit the money we can withdraw the article if it's before time meaning if it's if it's voted at Town Meeting and then we settle and it's still not June 30th I don't need to deposit the money it so we have some flexibility to still hopefully settle this contract before then but the the important issue with discussing this tonight and probably only tonight because March 9th I think is probably too late is that if it's not on the warrant then it's not going to be created so if it's not going to be on the warrant for Town Meeting this can't be created and then the money just goes back to the town and it would be uncertain as to whether we could ever you know get that money back so it would be a it would be to settle contracts with the DEA and DAA so reserve funds for that purpose so we create a Stabilization Fund specifically for collective bargaining settlements for the schools there's some discussion that I've already had with the town side of government they have a Stabilization Fund that they created to settle collective bargaining agreements it is specific to the town side of government we're not quite sure whether it makes more sense to have Town Meeting vote to expand that existing Stabilization Fund or have our own the downside of combining it is that the monies combined I trust them and I don't think that that would be a problem so but that's still to be determined but basically tonight I'd like you to consider requesting a article be placed on Town Meeting to create a Stabilization Fund that would fund a future collective bargaining settlements thank you so mr.
Kylie we're essentially voting to send this to the select board to be placed on the yeah my neck yes and my next step would be that if you were to do so tonight to talk to the town administration tomorrow let them know and we I'd work with them to craft language that would be you know placed on brought before the selectmen and then hopefully placed on the warrant for Town Meeting how would deposit what's the mechanism for taking it out assuming that we would like to settle yeah no I'm just require a vote of us or footage Town Meeting how does that money choirs a vote a town meeting that's the downside okay I think yep but I mean I mean accessing any Stabilization Fund requires a border town meeting so the timing of that settlement would then if we were to settle July first it would have been a benefit because it would have read it would have reserved those funds in place for that purpose however we might not be able to access them until October but you wouldn't be the end of the world because you're just spending out of a salary account and that salary account would endure in the year well the problem that I would have yeah is that I would be unable to spend 2021 funds so I would have a 2021 budget right but I can't spend that money on the 2020 settlement so okay I can't float it like that okay I actually need the Stabilization money in order to to do that wouldn't be appropriate to spend 21 money on 20 so I think there are some problems with it but I think that those difficulties away the fact that town and we essentially lose the ability to control that funds income has a reserve fund like how does that work and can we set up a mechanism like that instead right because that just requires a vote enough income to to spend that through the year we can't do anything like that no there's no legal mechanism by which we can we can do that I like the idea commitment from the town but I'm just worried right that we settle in August and we've got no way to get teachers there back pay it's contingent upon can right but we tell meeting doesn't happen in October right so now they've they're they're stuck without back pay if we settle in August just for you know giggles talking about that right yeah I know but there's no way to know we wouldn't be able to we wouldn't the money in the in the fin come reserve fund is appropriated by Town Meeting at at the annual town meeting for the operating budget it's specific to that year it's we can't transfer money to them and like and put it it's not a reserve account either it's operating budget of money so we can't really this is the only means that I can think of to have any control of this money beyond June 30th that's why I think it's worthy of consideration but I just don't think there's much choice we have I think we have to vote to do that I mean we don't want to give the money back to the town right Carroll's feisty tonight yeah I agree with the with mr.
Kylie and Central Admin to set the set up and but make it a separate one under the school bye sorry at least we know what it what's there and it doesn't get cold mingled and accidentally overspent so would that madam chair if you'd like I'll be glad to make a motion that the school the school committee requests the Board of Selectmen to set up in place on the June special Town Meeting warrant an article to set up a Stabilization Fund for the school committee in the amount of up to six hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the purposes of not unsettled collective bargaining agreements second does that work Mr curry leave that works perfectly yeah very little hopefully we won't have it long yeah any other further discussion any abstentions thank you thank you okay next we have superintendent's update good okay so just a couple of things as we've talked a lot about all of this already but we just want to send a big THANK YOU to the bus drivers and maintenance department for last Friday once again they and the principals Manning the booth said at school and walkie-talkies going and we got everybody safely home it took some time but the trees falling all of that but once again they did a nice job for us continue to keep your eye on the facebook page as we continue to put some nice things about our students one we had Emma Sousa and Jack Sullivan honoree student athletes for Southeast Conference were recognized and students other students were recognized Erin good Lindsey Oliver and Sarah Walz waltz and that was for girls and women in sports day so just a couple of nice things just as I said continue to watch the Facebook page this is all there and I decided to take a leap and started doing a podcast with the help of mr.
Perotti so we posted our first one on the YouTube channel that they use and where we've invited folks to give us ideas for topics to talk about and a name for the podcast so our next guest will be mr. Tebow we've already promised that he will have a spot in our next podcast so we're gonna do a couple of month but it's fun and I guess mr. Perrotti told me that he we had students editing it and one is already inspired to do their own so that was good we did something good pre-k applications are out as we said and available for folks and K registrations are open so those are starting to come in as you know we had our PD early release day last week and that went well as usual lots of our teachers and and other admin folks presented some of the PD sessions some of the topics innovation and technology innovators mindset engaging all students special education inclusive practices responding to child abuse no such thing as a bad kid on SEL so tons and tons of sessions folks had the opportunity to attend I'd let you know that we secure the financial literacy grant and I don't think I told you that we would just awarded the Project Lead the Way grant for our computer science pathway so that will involve some professional development in that and we're excited for that we had applied for the engineering as well but we didn't get that one and we kind of heard that folks that applied for two they were only granted one but we'll try again next year Camp Invention registration is open it's already fast it's quickly filling up and as you might not know but we have started the direct the process to hire a new director of music and miss Roy is leading that charge and the team which includes mr.
Nunes met already to review the applicants and the interviews would be taking place soon and obviously we will be doing the same with Miss McHenry's position now that we've made that public that will be getting posted shortly and this morning I met with I was able to come on into the high school and students signed up during the pace period like they do so I decided superintendent chat so I had some sign up and mr. Tebow I just wanna let you know I had students email me after found out about it and I'm looking forward to the next one so well city so we had a good time chatting about things and that's it thank you very much next on the agenda is a report of the chair I really don't have anything to add between what Brendan Rico described was happening around the high school and around our community and what you've shared but I did want to bring something up under other matters something that came to my attention after the posting of the agenda and as a chair I just wanted to bring it to you and I would be open to discussion around us considering as a school committee related to an earlier topic around override that if we would entertain and I know possibly Shannon might be willing to add a little bit more to this but discussion around considering a vote to support us as a committee potentially voting to sending non-binding referendum to the Select board that they consider an override for health insurance yeah I wholeheartedly agree and support that time is running short if they're going to do anything I finally got a chance to watch the portion of this their meeting that they had the discussion and such at their last select board meeting and all they talked all you know mr.
Bynes and mr. McGinnis talked about and did a very nice job talking about what the cost would be and the amounts they needed and that type of deal but there was no other discussion from the board and they just went right on you know next item on the agenda waterways and a way they went type of deal I mean they're meeting tonight it's not on their agenda they're not meeting now till beginning of March I don't know what they're doing I honestly don't you know we need the town needs you know everybody needs an answer are we going are they going to put one on are they going so maybe this letter will kind of push them in that direction to light a fire yeah Shannon so I would support such a resolution the only thing that I would say is my one concern is is I think that is insufficient right as an override as we've talked about our schools are not sufficiently funded my concern is don't get me wrong I wanted a percent support this but that if we go to the well on this then the well will be dry sort of long term in terms of what the true needs of the schools so I don't know like you know what I mean I want to support this and I think we need this I think we need to give an even bigger override I mean I think there are there are other issues that we need to address that having been said I think I would vote in support of this with perhaps a note that we need to consider sort of also the long term along with this short term measure yeah I'll just I'll just add to dr.
Jenkins that um I think I would vote in favor of this as well I see absolutely no harm in putting this out to the voters in town I don't see why we waited why they've waited so long the little little to no discussion that took place at the last meeting I think it was frustrating to many of us and to be quite honest with you I do not see the harm with putting this out to the vote isn't what the voters decide I do agree that you know I wish I wish it could be more but I think at the very least we've gotta at least try to get this through to support all the staff in town support something like this I just don't know are there any other options is there anything else that can be done it seems like that's the only way we can go is it over right [Music] and mr.