Sure. Um, Joseph says, "What resources would you suggest for research on the history of the land taken for 128?" There's more to the question which I can get to. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I I'm sure there are there are some scholarly papers um over at MIT where um Fred Salvuchi, I think he he's he he I know he was he was a teacher there for many years. Um the departments of urban development would certainly have that sort of those sorts of resources. I I would just frankly I would Google it and see what what shows up. Yeah. His specific question is about roads or trails. Um it's from the photos uh that there were ridges and rock formations that were cut for the road and you know is there are there where we can we find details for that preconstruction condition? H that's I that would perhaps be in the mass what is now the mass highway department archives.
Okay? And today we're going to look at those options and I would like you to keep in your mind the framing statements. Okay? Now, are we going to be able to address every single one of them? Maybe not. But I still want them to be in your um thinking. Okay. Then you have the option handout um that lists the tabled the ones that we already made recommendations, which there are three. And by the way, they're pending recommendations. the board al ultimately makes the final decision on those recommendations. And then we had some options that um we need to address today and they're in two categories. Ones that require finance and ones that do not require finance. Okay. Again, here's our budget. Might not be accurate now, but here is where we're at. And by the way, I think it's important for our staff to know how much the district does pay for health care.
All right, don't don't be mad at me. That was a tough one. Okay, fanatic. And we all know how important phonics are because of our librarians. So, um I'm in an interesting position and I would like to say that I don't envy the one you guys are in. I know much like Kristen said um and even Miss Eaton, I don't I don't know the budget for the Gilbert public school system and I but I do know what it is like to have to make budget cuts, really hard, heartbreaking budget cuts um that do sometimes end in losing valued team members. So, I understand that where you're coming from isn't easy. I am in a unique position because I only became a mom to a 17-year-old uh a year ago, a little over a year ago. Uh, I have no children of my own, but I always took the time to do the research and make sure that I was appropriately voting for schoolboard members because I've always known the importance of education.
So I would get a hold of Mass Highway. Excellent. Ask them. Um Katherine asks, "The original St. Mary of the Annunciation in Danvers was demolished for Route 128. Do you know anything about this?" No, ma'am, I don't. Sorry. Okay. I love it. You like stuffing me, don't you? Mean you're liking this, aren't you? I can't because the last time I had you, you had answers for everything. It's a big road. It's a long road. It's right. Uh, let me see. I'm trying to find a question from somebody who hasn't had one yet. Um, there's a lot of comments about the pig farm. Um, what makes what makes the road so difficult seems to be all of the onoff ramps. I think that has something to do with that question you answered recently. Yeah. Um, if they built a train or trolley in the middle lane of 128, what was the plan for how would people have gotten there to their to their ultimate destinations in office parks or towns?
It's quite a large number. It's $4.2 million. Now, we don't have to worry about budgeting it that this year because the district said they would cover it, but um I think it's important for everyone in the district to know that's a great deal of money. Um so as we know our budget what the district gave us to budget is 750,000. Um the money the compression compensation committee gave back to us was 200,000 which gave us a total budget of 950,000 minus um which we did come to consensus with uh the 2% raise. And then I had only on this one put because we came to consensus. Um I didn't put the other options on there from the compression the $9ome,000 one. I only put the bus driver one. Um which then led us with that money to a lot today. Questions about my um figures there?
And I know that an educated public is our best hope for the future. So, I've always been aware and always paid attention even when it would impact me and not directly through my children. I voted for continuating continuing budget overrides to make sure that the school district had the money it needed. And now I'm grateful that I made those decisions because I do have a junior in high school. Um, everybody hit all the statistics. I don't think that that part's important, right? It's a proven fact that certified librarians and quality school libraries improve overall test scores, right? It's not a tangible fact that you can see. It's not like, oh, I worked out and now I have a six-pack, right? It's a little bit harder than that, but it's very, very real. I want to talk about a different side of the library and that is for children who don't necessarily have the best lives for me.
Um, shuttle buses, trolleys, um, you know, like for example down in Westwood at the 128 train station, you know, there you would have or you could have caught the Riverside Green Line. Um there were they would have just created the connections based off of where those stations were located which probably would have been at the cross streets. Right. Well actually I was as a followup my question is how would people even get to the middle of lane of 128 because it would be so dangerous. overpasses. It's that's you know again you've got the high you've got an overpass let's say for route 20 in in uh in Waltham just you know that's and by the way when you build those train stations you then are incentivizing developers to build so close by that people could just get off the train and walk right to their offices.
Okay, like I said at the beginning, I can be flexible and I'm willing to be flexible. Here's my thinking about how we're going to address this. I thought it would be um I know you met with your caucuses and so you know what your groups are thinking, but I I I did want you to meet with other members and just to hear their viewpoints, their thinking, and I thought it would be a good idea just to take, you know, maybe 10, 15 minutes, divide into two groups, talk about what you're thinking, share it out, and then come back and then let's have a discussion. if we need to weigh our responses like we h we did last year. Maybe we don't because we really don't have a lot of money here and maybe we are all on the same page with our thinking. But I would like you to um meet with a mixed up type of group.
Books were an escape. They are the reason I am a successful businesswoman today because I buried myself in books. I read the dictionary. I read everything I could get my hands on in an effort to escape the life I had. And I know that there are children in the Gilbert public school system that could benefit from the exact same opportunity. And they're the kids you would never expect it from. I promise you, most of the teachers that were at my high school had no idea that I needed the escape I sought in books. I was just an exceptionally bright child. So yes, there are the statistics and there are the benefits to a certified librarian on the overall performance of your district and the overall performance of your job as schoolboard members, an elected position. Right? Don't hurt the children of Gilbert, either by lowering their test scores or by taking away a resource that can guide them to a book that can prevent suicide, can guide them to a group of people that they can connect with and deter another school shooting, right?
Mhm. I mean, the development would it still would have been developed and I don't know what Mr. Blakeley would have come up with as an adjunct to his plan, but it would have been slightly different had we that rail system. Um, is there a is there a plan at some point Diane asks for a deck adding? Oh god, I hope not. I hope not. Oh my god, how awful. Oh yeah. Uh, no. No more cars. Yeah, I agree. Um, when did the prison or jail inside within 128 near Dam go in? I don't know. But boy, if there's any incentive for a prisoner not to try to escape, it's not to try to cross Route 128. Yeah, that could be dangerous. Um, where can we find detailed maps showing the original 128? Um well I we have I don't have actually don't have a copy of book in my hand but there is there are some maps we have in uh in the book but again I would go to the Mass Highway Department website.
Okay. Is are we okay with that? Okay. So, that's what we're going to do. Um, and here's some things I would like you to consider when you're in your group. And I'll keep this slide up so that you can refer to it. Um, and you might want to take your folders with you, but I'd like you to review the issue and framing statements handout. Um, review the tabled options and our recommendations so far. And of course, you need to know what the options are. Um, review the remaining budget amounts. And if you want to do some calculation within that group, you can do that. By the way, I wanted to use my talking sticks. And they're lost. I don't know where they went. Somewhere here, but I was going to have you use the talking stick to make sure every single person talks. Okay. Um, and I'm going to just say I'm not going to assign roles or anything like that for this time, but I would like to put one person though in charge of making sure that every person's voice is um, heard.
We can't just focus on the palm and the cheer. And I did all those things. I think they're amazing. I love them. But the academic piece, libraries, they're just as important, if not more so. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Kio. All right, moving on to agenda item number eight, reports 8.01, fiscal year 2025, monthly financial report and third quarter financials, year-to- date ending March 31st, 2024. Dr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. I will turn this over to Miss Betts. Good evening, President Thompson, governing board members, Dr. McChord.
There are funny there's a there's a fellow who works at a car dealership near here. a fellow named Robert Fehee who is um he's a chronicler of Route 128. And so look up Robert Fehee F ah he ey and 128 if you Google that his name and 128 his website should come up. I'll bet he can answer that question and some of the others that uh great questions by the way that you're all asking. Maybe Robert knows something more about the pig farm which apparently is of great interest to everybody today. I guess I like pigs. They're adorable. Especially the little Vietnamese guys, you know. Well, I was going to make a comment about bacon, but I think maybe that's inappropriate. Thank you. We almost got a spit take live on camera. That was Well, I guess we're just having a good old time. Um, Kathleen says, "Going back to the beautifully constructed overpass bridges.
Um, give reasons for your viewpoints, use your active listening skills, and be respectful. And again, that's the amount of money we have to spend. Okay. So, how we're going to divide into our groups is by colors. So, the colors are, and if it doesn't work out, I'll switch it. Green and yellow. So, raise your hand if green is your favorite color or yellow. That's the only two choices you have. So, raise your hand if uh you like green better than yellow. Okay. Well, then we only have a couple. Okay. We're going to do something else. Dogs or cats? You have to select one. What's your favorite? You have to select one. Who do you love more? Dogs or cats? Can't say both. Dogs. Cats. Are you two comfortable being by yourself? I'm only kidding. I'm only I'm only kidding. Okay, we're gonna count by one and two.
I just wanted to let you know that if you have any other questions, um that both Miss Miss Jackie Matten and Lauren Tusk are out in the in the audience to be able to answer any questions that you might have. Um we are in we are at the end of the third quarter in Gilbert public schools. So we do share both the monthly um report as well as a quarterly. So I'll go through that. Uh so on the monthly financial report we'll be talking about the district operating funds, the state grant funds and some of our school-based funds. So to begin you we always share the district operating funds. That's our main uh grouping of funds that we have the most flexibility using. So note that the available balance in maintenance operations is about $8.7 million which really should be close to how we end up.
Whatever happened to the overpass bridge over Trapello Road in Waltham?" You mentioned that in the late 1950s the Eisenhower administration mandated that the overpass bridges had to be built to accommodate tank movement. Um and so without ornamentation. So when the bridges the bridges concrete had they were updated. What happened to when did they remove all of that ornamentation a as as they were widening the highway? They just that's when they rebuilt the bridges. So each bridge was done at a different time. Mhm. I don't know explicitly when the when the route 20 uh hunch beam bridge. Okay. I'm trying to see if there's a question in here. Um nope. I think we're about out of questions that have not been asked before. Wow, that was impressive. That was like a a marathon questioning. Oh, that was great. I love this. Thank you.
Okay, let's start over here. Ariel, two. Okay. Um, I'm going to randomly randomly select someone just to say what we're doing when we get in our groups. So, let's have um I don't have my cards. Amy, what are we doing when we get into our groups? going into the groups and we're talking about options. We're reviewing an issue. Um, and we are going into talking about specifically like budget amounts, budget amounts. Um, we're using our skills. We're we want to make sure that everybody talks even though we don't have our talking pieces and being respectful um and just giving like the reasoning behind our view points. Perfect. Very good. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, we're going to take about what do you think 10 15 10 minutes to do this. Um we can stay in this room. Um again, just make sure in your group someone takes the responsibility um volunteer for this job to make sure everyone talks and then we'll have someone um maybe share what the conversation was.
We are in the third quarter and all of our maintenance and operations um purchase order deadlines are passed now. So everything that is going to be um expended is encumbered through June 30 at this point in time. Um I've also wanted to highlight civic center. That particular fund is used to account for our um rental income. So much of that rental income is shared back to our schools, is shared with um with our district athletics. And then uh in addition, it's operated through the community um school uh department. And then finally, unrestricted capital. Please note that again, the available balance is about $25.6 million. And again, um there might be a few more um incumbrances that will occur through um Mr. Dutchover's work over the next uh month, but generally speaking, we do expect that that $25.6 million will be the budget balance carry forward that we will propose when we come back to you in June.
I thank thank you all for attending and for for giving me some some great questions. And as I said, I will send um David the chat and the Q&A so he can think about these questions that he might not have known the answers to. And um I can send out some information in in my recap maybe, but I will send out the recap with the video link because David was gracious enough to let us record this session. And um as always, David Amazing. Thank you so much for your information. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. And where can we find your book? Well, I assume it's at your library or any of the libraries in the uh in the system. Um uh there's also through Nobleet, you can order the li the book from uh all the libraries in the Noble system. And uh it's also, you know, it's it's out of print, but uh just, you know, go to eBay or or Amazon.
Okay. over over here. Um, ones over here, twos. Okay, thank you everyone for um promptly coming back in. The conversations um I felt were very interesting. I felt they were sincere and I really feel that you were keeping um in mind the best interest of the district during your conversations. So, thank you for doing that. Uh let's have some um spokesperson from each group share out first group over the group that was over here. Who's your spokesperson? Okay, Dorothy. So, just share about, you know, your conversations and maybe it seems like your group came up to some agreements, but whatever whatever you'd like to share out so we can learn. We had a solid conversation about um the reality of the situation in terms of a couple of different things. the dollar amounts that we have to spend as well as the um likelihood of getting um a proposal passed or a presentation or recommendations passed by the board.