Waldron okay moving tools for business we have the super turns budget 2018-19 recommending action that the board continuous discussion on the superintendence 2018-2019 budget and approved submission of such to the First Selectman by the end of January all right so if we're gonna be continuing on with the discussion from last time last time just for recap we discussed it and ultimately you asked administration to come back with us with a series of reductions we could at least take a look at and examine to see how they would fit with this budget moving forward sure so thank you so a couple of weeks ago our last meeting as you just stated the board asks administration to come back with some areas that that could be exercised to take a look for to ensure that these are priorities to ensure that they are are the mandates are that not mandates water areas where we can maybe find some reductions because the the proposal that I put forth back into earlier December's is a large increase and if not you know in in alignment with historic increases and we all know that we have a very significant need in the special education for this year which brings us into next year one of the things that I was asked to come back with was areas in the administrative area which could apply to secretarial clerks and administrators and also taking a look at what might it look like if we increased class size K through 8 perhaps with you know a reduction of one teacher for a grade level or something like that those are some specific areas so kind of divided the areas up in terms of the priorities that we put forth in the budget and and I guess we'll start probably a good way to start about this we'll talk a little bit about enrollment I think that's important because we've had some changes just in the last two weeks in enrollment but talk about things versus people / positions I think that's a way to look at this we're at a we have a very frankly an efficient budget eighty percent of our budget around 80 percent of our budget is people we're a service business education is a service industry so there's there's not really a lot of things that are going to get us major savings if we reduce so when you get to a point where you're really starting to look at your budget you really have to look at positions and happy really exhaust as many efficiencies as you can which which we've not so the one thing about enrollment I do want to start with is I'm in recommended to move from eight current positions for sections of kindergarten for next year based on a bit of a declining enrollment down to seven for next year I have to thank dr.
sailin and her team they have really aggressively communicated with preschools in town and they've come up with a number of approximate 140 849 eligible students for kindergarten next year if you do that math 148 students divided by seven sections you're looking at 21 to 22 students per Section in January that's now that's not considering the next six months and students moving into the town which has been a recent experience over the last few years I can't in good conscience recommend being on the outside of our target outside of our guideline so I'm recommending before we get into any of the reduction areas that we add back in that kindergarten section meeting at the same as it is this year with eight sections which will put us around 18 and a half students eighteen point five per Section our target is 19 so that gives us a good start again we still may get some more students we may lose some students so I think that's more appropriate and more responsible frankly for for the budget and you know just to start there I didn't know if there's any questions on what's a section what's the cost of adding a section back in oh this the way we've looked at in this particular one is that does that include the benefits or does not does not look about sixty seven thousand dollars for this teacher would open without the benefits eighty-four thousand yeah okay I'll remember we've used is 80,000 recently whipping health benefit center and salary but that's probably gone up with the two percent increase contractually okay so you know if there's any other questions on that or I'll just kind of move into some so so here is it that's basically telling us that the Malone and rec room study which said in a bit going down will be going down steadily given birth rate so you know dynamics in the town and on his way off karela are their number was what it was 117 117 so there I that's like 30 kids off that's like to to pull there's two sections the interesting thing is it was a it was a really big dip for the kindergarten class for next year and then it goes back up again so it was it was kind of odd in that way it was if I'm not mistaken it was like 11 or 12 less next year than it was going to be even the year after that okay so is a bubble Valerie exactly and then I went right back up in the morning we had a redo on that they recalibrated in August of 2016 for us and so it's a it's still fairly recent enrollment study but again we're seeing we increase and you can't be experienced in real numbers I mean if we have that many students eligible in our town that are eligible and it just is those are the students are who are of age so we need to be prepared for that so that's that's an add into the budget that's just you know a prepares them there's a moment that makes me say I'd like to ask Malone in my room how could they be so far off right I mean they're they're the professionals we hire and I think that's a fair question that they should be able to answer without us having to pay for another study and and I believe and Eve correct me if I'm wrong we've talked to Tecton about this the architectural firm hire for a strategic Facilities Committee worked they've worked with Malone in the room in the past I don't know that they'll necessarily subcontract out to Malone remember him again but they may and that would be more than appropriate you know to be part of the discussion if I'm not mistaken they attributed the dip that they predicted was due to birth rates we looked at the birth rates for five years ago and I know they we I think Point Blank several board members when they were here in August of sixteen or September really asked about movies and the experiences we've all as citizens in Brookville have been experiencing all the new students and and and so forth that were that we're seeing in new families and they think they couldn't project that in terms of any kind of housing turnover it'll be a lot that they couldn't projected they didn't know he didn't know that better would have a big impact they did not predict it would have a big impact and they also then be relocating into great detail all the new housing that's been built they made their projections off of that and it probably was pretty I don't know pretty conservative frankly on the number of students we're seeing in some of the new building okay so I think it's probably appropriate to start with things and also continue on with the discussion and things that perhaps we can reduce those new asks for is those new initiatives or new authorities that we had going forward we're looking at to consultant areas one for examining school start times the other for looking at school enrichment those are areas we might want to think about considering for reduction going forward timing up for the tea them up for nineteen twenty verses eighteen nineteen the world language lab at the middle school something to consider again these are things we're looking at [Music] a total of fifteen thousand thirty k for school start times a sliding Richmond and the enrichments buddy would that was your one if they're probably in you know a year to to that study as well in the world language loss at the middle school we have that estimated at forty seven thousand dollars out your mobile lab wouldn't be a hard left Johnson asked a question about the language lab are there things that we could do you know by a chromebooks or more other technology that could address some of the things that the language lab would offer the students is there a you know something that a program that we could use on in a Chromebook car or is it it need to be that sort of work well it would be a mobile lab so it would be software you know appropriate software that's aligned with what we're trying to accomplish in one language and we've worked with mrs.
Holly on that but it would be on a mobile cart so that that would be the start of it there but the software the training the the machines themselves the SM is $47,000 for that so those are those are three items that you know we might be able to find some savings in the budget proposal remind me on enrichment what is it that we were doing with enrichment and what would be the impact of not not pursuing this consultant cost well do you want to jump in on that dr. Rubin had the start I'm sure we talked about that at length so there's two responses that one of the things that we're doing as part of the curriculum rating is building enrichment experiences into curriculum but in addition to that we in response to some of what we've heard at at board meetings from public and the past and questions that parents asked we were looking to have to have a consultant come in on the school-wide enrichment model which is out of the National Center for gifted education which is housed at UConn dr.
Renzulli is in charge of them and they call the Renzulli model or the school-wide enrichment model so bringing a consultant from the National Center for gifted education in to to work with us on what they see that we can do and fulfill to bring the school-wide enrichment while a former model in addition to what we're doing in curriculum writing so that's the piece where we needed a consultant okay it is the resume model a specific way to do enrichment or an hour of lorca so it's a specific way to do in Richmond it's it's used all over the world it's used widely in Connecticut because you find us here at the National Center for gifted education is here and Rizzoli's here so it just makes it convenient and that's so there's two separate things we are building enrichment into the curriculum that we're writing but this is this is a larger lens of looking at a writ of programmatic type approach to to servicing students on the oricon talented and that would also include looking at our identification which does need looking at and dr.
Cipolla is you know in a working on that because it comes under special education there are there's new legislation currently on gifted education and identification and what services should be looked at in school systems so that would all be that consultation so what would come out of the consulting study is a like a road map sending a recommendation on what they see we have what are our strengths who are we lacking how with a school-wide enrichment model work in Brookfield a budget for it you know a plan going forward shall I move forward okay the again before getting to concepts of positions and just again these these aren't recommendations these are just areas we should be exploring and thinking about you know we have to look at things again that aren't mandated that we're not legally responsible for so we don't have to have a start time study we don't have to have an enrichment study we don't have to have a world language lab we also don't have to have middle school sports for example we could take a look at freshmen sports you know you hate to go in these areas and again I'm not recommending any of these with just walking through these to have a conversation in these areas these are high value programs here in our community but again we're not mandated to to have these programs so those are some areas we can take a look at how much do we spend on those the freshmen sports is approximately twenty five thousand eight hundred that's a okay I do there's a safety issue I think with football and freshmen sports we would have to consider that that's all freshman sports but that did that is football is one where the developmental needs of the boys they're very small and much weaker than older students they have immaturity could run put them in the very you know only a few kids can really go to JV that have the skill in the physicality to be able to handle that in the middle school middle school sports is twenty seven thousand three hundred approximately what we spend on that that quotes the transportation and the coaches and those kind of things so that's an area we can consider none of these are enjoyable to even be talking about frankly but I'm just sharing it with you there's also I know we really in terms of there's some unaffiliated positions that there's been some discussion about not specifically to the positions but through what's been discussed with the Board of Finance and where we might be able to find reductions even in this year's budget unfortunately with the the costs we're facing with the increase in special education so there's been some discussion about them we have some part-time clerical positions in the support center huckleberry and wool skin here and those there's two individuals that are part-time employees that support those positions that work in those positions that totals about $26,000 so that's an area again you start getting into individuals I wanna be very careful how we talk about that tonight we talk about positions not people but those are areas we could examine further there's also a greeter in the monitor at the kind of lunch monitor position / door greeter position at the high school that works in a security capacity that's an area we can take a look that's approximately thirty thousand dollars John if the position went away who would be responsible through a security I've had some conversations with administration on this and there'd be some you know reallocation of responsibilities physically moving people into different locations with off the staff yeah and that might you know mean looking is efficiently as we can at the district and looking at clerk administrator or you know an administration like secretarial type folks and moving them building to building maybe not full in one building and there's a lot of discussion that would have to happen with the bargaining units and things like that if we went in this direction but to try to gain some more efficiencies if we could in those areas you know and again we're fortunate that we have library clerks at huckleberry whiskey NER in the high school those are other is we might might take a look and consider so again trying to answer the the the comebacks that you asked for will be the total one that the clerks does library $20,000 come on honey yeah there's three positions it spot about $120,000 but you would ask to take a look at I had mentioned at the beginning of this discussion to take a look at class size and what would the impact be if we reduced just for the exercise Kate wait and if we reduced nine teachers don't about taking one per 100 great if we did that just as an exercise and so class size would as we just talked about kindergarten going from eight sections to seven would bring us over twenty-one in kindergarten it would bring us to 21 and great one we reduced the section that's been recommended in grade two we bring us to over twenty one grade three almost twenty two great for twenty four grade five twenty six great 623 grade seven twenty eight that's already a very high class average grade we talked about that back in December grade eight twenty-three so why not wild blue large in the grand scheme for our Brookfield guidelines in the value add that smaller class sizes bring I mean it does have a thinking about or above the top end of the range in a number a great in every grade and that's again we just talked about Milanovic boom being off with their their enrollment projections so again you know we're not saying the the spike and drop off enrollment like was a you know projected a few years back and all you have to have is an outside influence that has a bunch of students showing up from somewhere else and it's a desirable family we don't have any ability to absorb okay yeah so I want to make sure we talked about that another thing we had talked about when we're talking about the potential ECS cuts from the summer when the governor's budget proposal was out we worked with the principal's on the clubs and part of the late buses that would go with this and the clubs that weren't as well attended and not as necessary they're all necessary to the child who loves a particular club I don't want to not say that but avoiding the fillers across the four schools we thought we could reduce while still having clubs and activities but significantly reduce the offerings we get reduced about fifty thousand dollars in total across the four schools that's an area we can certainly consider so that the that would do what in terms of the breadth of the offerings how dramatically impact is that to our kids hard to say I put a number on it maybe it's a 20% reduction in our offerings or something like that I've you know we'd probably probably hit you know your huckleberry a little harder than it would hit your middle school in your high school I mean you're not going to reduce National Honor Society or you know student council and those kinds of things your book at the high school I mean those are to have a fully functioning high school you're gonna have a lot of those clubs so they would impact our younger students probably more than it would impact our high school students okay we have Li classes at huckleberry no no no we don't okay so this would just ant a risk and here there's just too late buses right so we wouldn't be decreasing that's not necessarily again week this is this is the preliminary discussion and then we'd have to if this was something that the board said you know that's an area we want to reduce John go back and work with the principal's then we'd fine-tune what if we'd actually what the real absolute impact would be and we'd be able to come back and report on that okay okay the other thing you know that that was talked about and again the last thing I want to do is go here we have a very valuable band program at huckleberry hill we have two music teachers at huckleberry hill one is our general music teacher the other is really focused on our band program and does you know it's a great feeder program into the middle school but again things that aren't mandated and if you're really looking at areas while they add value that you have to take a look at it's something we the board should consider and just think about we heard from the community last year that was something that parents wanted no part of and we listened to that so that's an area there another area we're building and we're really gaining momentum with our new leader and Spanish excuse me in world language and in English language learning is our Elementary Plus program and dr.
Ruby actually was talking about that and the impact on schedule but you know we have four four and a half teaching positions dedicated K through six we have a fully functioning seventh and eighth grade Pro in both French and Spanish for our world language program that feed into the high school we offer Spanish K through six for our students in our flus program and right now that we use we have 4.5 FTEs dedicated to that again a program we wouldn't want to lose and really gain traction and working on curriculum like we're doing it across all the subjects so we're really excited about it but again it's not a mandated area how much do we spend on the worldwide language at the element where's that can my $310,000 salaries are three hundred ten thousand sell real net salary only so dr. pralaya the question i'm concerning the students that take the K through six when they get into seventh grade what level at Spanish are they at I'm sorry well since this is since the program started just a few years ago we don't have data that would would tell us that because we haven't been doing it long enough the only data that we have is it's it's not a lot because we look for it when you you know you asked us to do this we trying to back up everything we could with data that we we don't have a first program for a French and so if we just look at Spanish kids that take honor Spanish versus kids that don't take honor Spanish in the middle school and kids they take honors French and continuing with French is there a difference between how kids score on AP tests if they were whether they were in the advanced Spanish in middle school or not and with the data that we have we didn't see any difference in how kids performed on AP language tests whether they had honors middle school Spanish or just the regular Spanish so they weren't advanced in being advanced in high school didn't show a difference on AP testing so that's all we have it's and it's not a lot of data so but what we're hoping is because we're building the Spanish is that we would see a return on the other end that kids arm achieving because of the background and the time that they have the students who started elementary Spanish are they in about sixth grade now the or fifth grade I think they're in sixth this year yeah yeah so we don't go too early to tell how many data that would inform but ideally they would be at least a year I had I mean that's what you expect the year two will be the little yes well it's a Flis program so you know it's it's and and it's in development so I don't think I really know I think would be premature to even predict anything right now I think in order to have a data set that would be be able to be used for prediction I think we need four or five more years of this program so that kids were coming up through the high school that we could look look and see what differences they were between those students and the students that didn't have that experience and this is this this he realized the value and I know people don't like this word of having some kind of aligned assessments to your curriculum in your instruction so you can report out and see how children are doing in how they're progressing so that we just that data wasn't as it were working on that but a hat was not built into the program that was built six or seven years ago and brought forward and this is how is working on Matthews and the some teachers who are going to be working or are working on the foreign language curriculum for the elementary school have participated in the curriculum PD so you know we're working on that but it's going to be a while before we have a dataset that's got any reliability and validity to make any educational decisions about that program the other consideration we think about elementary school we can take a look at is the specialist schedules and we may need to take a look at the specialist schedules at centre school and what I mean by specialists the four core kind of specialists that we have are P music and is that and I'm sorry art music is ed and library excuse me P visits and we think about a five or six day elementary rotation where children every rotation or you know almost once a week are getting one special week when you look at the total proposal for next year at center school you're looking at sixteen sections as eight first grade and eight in kindergarten you're your specialist schedule isn't necessarily full teaching that specific subject and you typically a full teaching load would be 25 to maybe 28 periods a week you know depending on the length of the period in the way the schedule is designed at the particular school generalising when I say that our specialists teach there their full teaching load they also do enrichment in that particular subject with their children where then they have openings in their schedule they also some are called upon to help with intervention as well so there's a real value add with our specialists not only a value to the community and what they bring to the children each and every week when the children do get to have those experiences but they also help the overall school community and you know one of our priorities when we talk about things is not only hiring the best but retaining the best so this particular suggestion again not recommending it but it's it's it's something I need to say when we really begin on a budget and really examine these things is would move specialists at senator school from one point old positions full-time positions may be 0.6 or 0.7 positioned to find some savings you wouldn't get any of the value added I just described they would just be available to teach the particular subject to the children so that's a may not retain hard and people don't have a full-time job they're obviously going to look elsewhere because people want a full-time job so that could go against one of our big priorities which is to retain the best people we can so again I'm not recommending then I don't want to go forward with that but it's to put before the board to consider and think about you know wrestle with some of these difficult situations we're talking about here and in short of a major reorganization beyond the three phases of reorganization we did last year and to take a look you know I haven't talked about any ministry tour because I was asked to come back with that again short of a major reorganization where we moved administrators around or took a look at how we deploy assistant principals and department heads and things like that you know short of going in that direction you know we really need to man our schools and make sure we have the the proper supervision and proper of opportunity to evaluate our teachers there as well so but that's another area we might have to look depending on one area of reorganization we did have some significant discussion on perhaps talking about the high school department heads may be moving into [Music] moving down like they used to beat down - all the way down seventh grades that are responsible for curriculum instruction and professional development from you know that whole supervision piece from 7th to 12th grade that is something that the initiative team has looked at quite a bit so that is an area we would like to look part of that there would depend on some of the other pieces in the proposal in terms of you know the new science teacher we need at the high school and some of those other things but that's another area we could explore as well so that's that's pretty much all I have from the administrative team we remember the principles and had a real deep discussion on this yesterday so kind of open for further you know we ask questions as we've gone along but it may be a whole picture there's a little context we talked about I threw it out last time and yeah right through a lot of time but we we talked about school didn't get the transportation um had turned that over to can't respond in that hurricane and we heard a lot of research on that yeah we spoke to the bus company they do the routing and without doing the full-blown routing exercise which really would be quite difficult without having the new kindergarten registrations knowing where all those kids are they're estimating that it would add up to 10 minutes on to some of the runs to the elementary schools which would be problematic for two reasons for us number one either children would be arriving late to school in the morning or arriving home lake if we wanted to counter that effect by changing start times we would have to negotiate with the bus company because the contract specifically states our stop times are our start times and our dismissal times and when you think about it it makes sense because if you're adding up to 20 minutes of labor cost per run onto the bus company's costs obviously that would be an impact in the negotiate that I think with enrollment declining the last few years it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have them go through that full-blown routing exercise once we do get our kindergarten registrations in and see if they think it's so what's the longest the elementary kids are on buses today what's the longest runs she said about 45 40 45 minutes he's on for 50 yes so that would be the last bus stop as soon as entre so so so those ten more minutes weeds are almost on the bus burn yeah and think of the geographic size of Brookfield it's not a large town and they could be on the bus for an hour students yeah and I think that's part of the reason why we see so many parents doing parent pick up because you know they may gain another at least a half an hour I have the head bay and it's just a little Side Story I had I I had kids who would be on the bus for 3540 minutes and they could walk home in five minutes because it's just the way the must run had to be and so they would get out of risk in the air and traipse across the street which I didn't like and walk through the woods which I didn't like but they would be home a lot faster than taking the school bus so it was crazy okay all right thank you visited with us on the air over leaders going wherever best for [Music] visit about this is [Music] the digital requests for production of element the if you were reading in the correctly blow up the digital 95 you almost double what we do here thank you the detail okay laughter we were hot and in other words lying so didn't honor and includes all the PE for curriculum or science and gives us and or literacy k-8 and we it's all for all of impacted services that keep us it is trying to make it up for so [Music] dr.
- really you know a lot of confusion that could you explain the difference between special ad and el4 to some reason a lot of people in the public believe if he had and I thought hey if you could just define it isn't mobile stands the difference to be seen or to students if it would sure they have under individual Sicilian act there there are already children a half we identify their learning deficits we work with them and has a special plan in place of those children that the proposed realized and could range from all kinds of programs with it all kinds of costs it's very different range individual child and we have productivity to do this with especially in a market okay absolutely and totally different our children are English language learners those are children that are new your memory and learning the CDA English and we're going about them we have approximately 98 suit is or any language learners there are offices or any language learners who also are non any but you could be a child who's learning language but they're they're attuned totally different although to me all enemies as we can but we are remanded to the immediate immediate mandated by the law to mean either these two children of all the attorneys and engagers services have a very different opinion about the average in as well as our students were fourteen percent now that is average we do not have another I don't know um so sorry and I just some so the what do you seek and get we are with a higher in and that is he women teachers and she's doing and then actively working with teachers scheduled to go on throughout the air in an issue that we are writing support for teachers K to 8 at this year and will remain your request of the humanities department chair when Donna saw the beginning and the inaction it was very I think the is and so we had a person coming back in the company air for reading writing and additionally there's funding for a consult in just a support learning teacher going on so we're coloring think about it we're covering my ass okay for all we're trying to do is build capacity in an integral with the old and in part of this training there are a core group we're building leaders everybody teacher leaders we're going to will after school on vacation days work and tea people or entertaining or supporting always who are part of the training stuff everybody in a the foreign language in a specific war and the only buying P to everyone in the desert to use when we laying and we have to do this is I did the new people are looking at you know things I'm looking at people's you know we gotta get even create it and you know the bigger like I don't know how much you know you can do that but other generators to do it possible and I don't know you know I think that's an area that we neither not everybody $221 or we have a lot on the state and it's long and I will I will add because we are orange and a jerk and they're very similar in terms of their population and so this year you don't see the amount of money we would ever have to send because we miss our teachers to the Irish for the PA when and so we actually we're in a different so we're moving ahead of that a particular digit and as really any communicative of the student tool that had an Uzi has an exciting new thought of our teachers you know we're providing learning and in rural America to earth so it's been going on is that to say I mean I really feel very strongly about the work that we're doing because the teachers need the professional development and they the curriculum that's being developed is really the heartbeat of the district and we're here to educate students and if we don't have a really strong curriculum that's aligned with standards we're never going to get to that standards-based report card revision that you know parents wants because they want to have an authentic reflection of what their kids are really doing and without this work we're not supporting the teachers to do the work that they need to do in their classroom so then that makes the question of what are we doing and this is this is really the heart of whether what the school system in terms of the academics is really all about and I wouldn't disagree with it I just don't have a sense of how big big is and how you know what's a reasonable number for a different are size that's my only issue with it so so it's just kind of hard to gauge right good then that the problem sits on a trajectory like this and of course that's what you want to do is say is it in the bounds and I'm not getting a comfort to be frank talk to Ruby do you see similar costs year after year or does that is that more of like a one-time investment in the or again we say that this that the curriculum writing was really gonna take us about three years we started last year and so while we have the curriculum the amount of work that we had to do you know that we have to do to get our curriculum documents where they need to be is enorus once we have all of that work completed the way it's set up is different from the old paradigm of having a grid and every three years you read that revise certain subject areas that's that's past tense would be with having our curriculum documents as well as materials that are linked to assessments that are in there in the curriculum in a platform teachers will be revising an improving curriculum in an ongoing way it's a living document it's not a let's wait three years so - that's the you have to have that background to answer this question it's not the it's not going to be that same cost ears on I mean we'll be working on it this coming year and hopefully be finished the following year not needing that level of professional learning I think I've said before and it's it's not meant to discourage anybody in any way all of us who are teachers and fortunately we have teachers on the board we were part of the becoming a teacher is not learning how to be a curriculum writer yet we asked teachers to write curriculum and so without any training with without training just using templates and what not and we in order for us to provide our students with the type of education that we really need to be praying with we to put tools in the hands of teachers that are gonna help them get that job done none of us are our experts and everything and particularly the elementary school teachers have they have an almost an insurmountable job with the amount of change in standards that have come around in every single subject area and they're expected to be Jack's of all trades they are expected to be Latif's reading and writing and science and social studies and math and with other new standards that have just in the past five six years been adopted in Connecticut the schools don't have the materials for that before that it's things aren't taught the same way so we can't expect teachers to do for our kids what they need to do if we're not supporting them so that involves professional learning and involves having a strong team of curriculum writers who know the context of brookfield know the standards and know how to write curriculum in a way that's meaningful to everyone that's here the next teacher that gets hired it has to be it has to be a usable product and that's that's what our goal is and it's I mean these teachers are killing themselves doing this work so I just my opinion is to agree with you and say that unless we have a well-developed curriculum we're not a system and if we don't have a system there's no way that we can ensure that students are progressing each level we're just each teacher has their own kids and that's not really a system so if we really want to be a great educational system I agree that has to be the cornerstone of our work and it's really hard work and it's it's not exciting work sometimes and it's difficult but it's probably the most important work we have to do to guarantee our kids have an aligned curriculum and then we assess according to that curriculum it shouldn't be a question like how kid gets in any grade level face talk about elementary like if you get mr.
sands oil you gonna have a great year because that teacher has it every every child no matter what teacher they get they should have a curriculum that is robust and that is complete and that has the materials and the assistance and you know everything that a good quick and these have right there so that it's it's not it's an all lottery of what your child is going to get that's what we're trying to build and then because we're using data in a more and more sophisticated way we'll be able to tell when we look at data across a grade level you know what's the person we need to give to two different teachers so that there are now all getting the professional individualized professional job develop and just like we want kids to get individualized instruction so that kids can get what they need to get in every every single class of their end I mean I'm sure all of us as as parents if you're a parent has had that experience where you know you know what teacher you want because everybody talks about that teacher on the floor all on your in this grade and I know our teacher maybe you don't want well we know that we don't want look field to be that way doesn't have to be that way if we support our teachers and we provide them with the tools that they need to do the job it's it's not you can't do it at night anymore you know cutting and pasting and bringing in cute little activities to keep everybody happy and you can't write curriculum on your own so I mean I know I sound like but I'm really committed to this and I would hate to see this go because it is it is what the system is about without without a strong curriculum and support for teachers you don't really have much amen no in honestly Argentine our strategic coherence plan is predicated on goals for learning teaching for learning and measures of learning along with the systems that support that so we really took a different approach to that coherence the strategic planning a couple of years ago that was really focused on the learning portion of the organization it wasn't you know all about we're going to get this project or this this particular initiative done and complete it was about the learning for the students and building that system so and I mean just honestly like just to be clear like I am full as part of a budget money like that my friend I in front people at every public with watching it's not building a dream school like there's a lot more that we could have asked for the inside do think that this is approaching a forward seven in a pretty responsible way I just think when it comes time to make hard decisions you know I just don't want to look first at programs that you know members on this board and passwords have we will work hard to put in place and the students enjoy that's you know very so you're cutting this what also directly impact students input rate what is what we don't want to do Doctorow you were finished with your list yes we had yes I think we've exhausted you know what I can bring forward and then we certainly can talk about how we could make this work within the confines of the proposal or whatever the board would like to do is we kind of process this a little bit more I guess I'm looking for certain Oh God I was looking if to see if you had a recommendation because as of now we're looking at an extra 84,000 yes to the budget with the kindergarten teacher which I believe we all agree as good as needed do you have any ideas or recommendations yeah to that extent to make to if we were to say within the the six point four percent increases not eat ask for an increase on top of that original proposal the recommendation going forward would be reducing the part-time clerical positions for next year which is about $26,000 and the the monitor greeter staff member position we talked about that's currently at the high school which is thirty thousand seven hundred that gets as close plus benefits when you add benefits in that gets us there it gets us to that kindergarten teacher so neither of these numbers reflect benefits as well that was a twenty six and thirty seven or twenty seven hundred and thirty three thousand seven thirty thousand seven hundred just looking at the different things that you laid out for us tonight I can tell you what I'm not in favor of cutting and anybody else has feedback on it that that would be great I'm not in favor of increasing class size that would be a disaster that's not something that you know we asked you to look at to look at it just because as the board we have a due diligence to look at everything because not only should we and are we supposed to be concerned with the students and the staff members we also have a responsibility to the public and to the taxpayers so that I just think it would be a disaster and I think we'd be hurting our students I'm not in favor for anything that would be directly impacting the students because their job is to go to school their job is to be happy their job is to learn well and their job is to leave with the best education and supportive memories that they can from Brookfield's having said that i am not in favor of cutting any of the sports and i'll tell you why because to me just from a psychological aspect sports is just so good for your mental health well-being in addition to physical in addition to social skills a lot of students and gain different skills through you know playing sports and you know making friends and that's also important because that impacts how you do your schoolwork you have a positive attitude because you're involved in something and you feel like you belong with a group and you've made friends you're gonna try harder in school because you're happy so I'm not in favor of cutting sports again just makes our kids well around it and just we want our kids well-rounded and happy and educated well I am in favor of cutting administration that will not have a direct impact upon the children and that's what I feel I'm here to do we see administration heave because when Bob and I were going back and forth to get clarity on that last meeting are you meeting him in a straight tor position like an administrator or if maybe our administration could be clerical or secretarial administration all of it all of it combined somehow we've know we actually got a letter that wasn't included from a miss Kurtz it was very well written it was a very kind letter that she feels that the budget is too high last meeting I came back and I said I mean it's all over the place we have a high budget I understand why and that's one of the reasons why I asked you to map out for us the difference between special ed and ëall those are services that we have to and we want to provide to our students and people are understanding that and and it's a it's a shame but you know the library clerks the unaffiliated positions perhaps an administrator or if we map it out correctly it can be done well and it can done be done with no impact upon our kids so that's just laying upon what you've laid out for us here I would just like to add that I really don't like the idea of cutting the specialist teachers down from 1.0 FTEs to 0.5 0.6 I just think we have amazing specialist teachers at other schools and as you said they they provide added value beyond their primary role and I just don't think that's the direction we want to go to I know you weren't recommending it necessarily it was just something to consider but I feel like I have to put it out there that I don't think it's it's the right direction along the same lines I really would hate to do anything that affects the huckleberry band program I think again that's such a valuable program that I just I know these are all tough decisions but I don't want to I don't I can't like all of that one let's go beyond you get any thoughts well I think I mean these are low budget items but perhaps this starting of the school time in the enrichment can wait a year I think they're important but the things we haven't started yet so I think by waiting I don't think that would have a negative act impact on kids I think maybe we could wait for the language lab as well and but I thought is to think about are there we use a cart of Chromebooks that we already have and maybe just are there some online resources maybe we can supplement that work not in a you know in the way that we want it but maybe just to give some support to that program through some online resources perhaps with a movable Chromebook card and I think you know as hard as it is I think we should consider reducing some of the clerical positions things that are I know they'll make I know that work is important and they'll make jobs for others demanding but I can put something that we should consider it was I think I would agree with what suggestions so far I think we need to stay as far away from things that directly impact the students I would disagree with you no holding back on the world language lab I think that was something that we really looked forward to and again with the band and the specials I think those are the things that I don't think we should go down to well we don't have to have it it's just nice to have it so I don't think that's what Brookfield it's I don't think that's what this town is about so those things are the things I think that make our districts special and enrich our students so other than looking at clerical positions and I think as right now I think clerical musicians is probably the only place I would go we have to get more creative later all right how I honestly think it's too premature to really what well spent a lot of time staring at the details of the budget and the one thing I will tell you as I was very impressed in the tightness of the budget it's not like I could I struggled to find anything that I could feel was fat or you know or extra extravagance so I bought the team for having a gift at a very tight budget if we hadn't had this surprise we've had this year we probably wouldn't even be debating this to be frank we're sitting here with a very reasonable and low budget increase we're very close to kind of status quo because you're not asking for a ton of new things but the fact is we have the the surprise we've had this year and we're struggling with it for this year as well as for next year's budget I am I thought an in perspective is about how are you how would you think about this and the one thing I kept coming back to is we shouldn't be taking things away from students because we had a surprise on another corner and that doesn't matter what the topic was it'll surprise over here you shouldn't be necessarily taking experiences away from the kids and I look at the list we've just talked about and there's a lot of experiences in here that we've built up over a long period of time whether it's the banned programs or their elementary world language or the sports programs we shouldn't be taking that stuff away from our kids they are what we're here for or goodness sakes and so you know you don't have a lot of places you can go reduce in terms of programs I come to the same places we ought to be looking at administrative walls and we ought to look at not removing but deferring some of the new things that are there just because we in this spot and I think dr.
Cipolla told us it's a couple of years at least as far as we can see it's not something that's with us for you know in 40 years it's up there's a bubble of students in the sinan area and so it's a it's a wait on a couple of things so I asked myself what would I wait on right and what would icon Joseph's administrative type costs I would think about the solution that we're doing this year right just deal with a this year problem and say continue what we can into next year so those administrative areas the Clara colonist and the center of things we think we're going to need to do this year you're not going to go put them back next year so let's go deal with that and put it in correctly and and I would be aggressive on administrative roles given that we're asking the taxpayers for for a big increase here because overall so the only Indian to do cutting administrator a little bit more than would and I would defer anything that we can defer I mean that would include the world language live as much as I'd love to see a world language live at the middle school it's this the year to do it right given everything else were facing the consultants I desperately want to find a way to change the start times of our schools but is this the year you can afford to do it given everything else we have going on so I would defer all of those and I would go and go after reductions and on affiliate it's I would work on some areas that we haven't talked about finis and can a note today today on I apologize for the things like there's a growth and substitute costs year-on-year right let's go to that a little bit and see if we can find a way to you know stay a little bit with the model that we kind of been marked on a year ago and that was a big year to year both but other than those I'd say you know you go in with with the budget as the administrator of his broth administration has brought us and we take some reasonable reductions we'll put back the kindergarten and we defer whatever we can defer and it's a logical way to deal with and I I'm sorry I keep me this keeps going through my head and I keep meaning to bring it up one concern that I have is I read in the paper the bishop is is going to st.
josephs to talk about what to do with their school I think it was supposed to be last night and then because of the impending storm they moved it to tomorrow night I can't help but imagine my I definitely we need that other kindergarten class we'll need that science teacher most evidently but whatever his his decision is is tomorrow night it's gonna have an impact on us and the students and their learning so that's yeah sorry I just come in here sharing or are you talking to the administration over there well we we've had conversations earlier in the fall taking a look at what what could what's the possibility what might enrollment look like if there was a drastic decision made over at st. Joe's we don't know we don't know what they you know we're making assumptions just in this conversation what the meeting might be about tomorrow night they but there are some you know there possibly would be some immediate savings if if st.
Joe's was offline we don't know that that's going to happen we provide nourishing services to the school there is some transportation so there's some savings there you know possibly in the forty to sixty thousand dollar range just just on those two things I mentioned but again we don't know what that is enemy while their savings there immediately the impact you know we we provide services for special needs students who are in Brookville if they are Brookfield residents and upcoming to our schools we would have to actually let most likely provide more services to those children based on an IEP so in the long haul it might actually cost us more look in analyzing possible residents to present book field residents students who attend st. Joe's there might not be an immediate impact on class size we're looking at our seventh grade that's a big bubble anyway but again we it's all conjecture an assumption at least that insight to demonstrate to you folks as well as the board that we we've been thinking about this over the last two years because it has been a conversation in the community you know while we don't know any final decisions there's been that conversation but out there that this you know might be coming in the near future so we've been thinking about discussions once the school knows what's happening going fully so is there any language I would have to agree with Jen I agree that the enrichment and start times consultant you know is it important but could wait for prioritizing I'm waiting for the world language land as well and I would support you know looking at cutting administrative roles as well I'll just for those that don't know I was the one that actually championed the school start times I mean the hard evidence is there that starting later has a direct impact to that to that extent Wendy had brought up last time that perhaps we do it poll to the parents to see if the parents would support start time as well and if so then start with the consultant next year I think there's validity to that response to know if we even if necessary going forward most schools that have done this have gone forward with great results there has been one district where the parents just said no will not support this so it might be a benefit to have a pole first going for in that I do disagree about the enrichment school right enrichment I think we're long overdue with school right in with enrichment and in the district and I think for fifteen thousand dollars like that that to me is a cost that's well worth it to the benefit of all of our students we have to look at enrichment for them as well world language lab even if we have to defer it for a year we can I would love to see it there just because I think not only are we're using it for our students for language but I think it's also gonna be an asset to our elo programs as well but again if we're looking at things that we do have to cut and clerical positions that that may or may not make it to next year anyways it's definitely a place I think we can look at I would be 1s2 cut any programs early in existence and I think again cuz this was this was a great budget going forward and I think we need to you know keep the intent of it as much as we can one thing that I think we saw come out at the roundtable and I've also been hearing a lot of comments from from people in the community is that and this this jumped out at me from the very beginning is that we talked about when we put the number out there that there's a proposed six point four percent increase but when you look at our actual expenses this year and add in the anticipated expenses for next year and a status quo budget we're really adding a very very small amount of money to that budget so is it possible for our next meeting to see these numbers presented in a different way so that we see what the percent increase would be over our anticipated actual expenses for this year so to the summary budget if you look at it because it was me that this most recent one was actually done it says no 5.6% status quo right you see that yep so that's our actual if we carried everything forward from like what's expected so then six point four or the point eight percent increase is only what's new above and beyond that status quo the five point six is that what you were asking well but I think this is what are you in the five points if you compare to the real spent for this year right because this is adding special quests to net for next year's budget exactly if we include the 1.1 million in special ed costs for this year and compare it to next year then that's really a status quo number so you're only adding so comes down to more like a three percent budget increase right we can't technically call it what our budget was last year because this is what was approved by the town No I understand but it's a way for the public to understand we're using out honor in our budget and did I think you bring up a good point because if you know I know the Board of Finance table the discussion but there's a great collaboration with the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen and you know the special appropriation that was requested by this board of the first elect of the selectmen and ultimately the Board of Finance if that special appropriation comes in it's my understanding that that would actually increase this current year's budget number which would lessen the percentage increase no more that we're asking is it very similar to what you're talking about so doesn't change the end result but it has not changed right some people see six point four and just think we're asking for the world exactly well in fact that was the letter we received this morning it was interesting because I understood it from the point of view of how could you be asking for 6.4 that's not making a lot of money please pay attention to us as taxpayers it was very well thought out but it didn't spend any time understanding the why right what was really under which word which we of course are so close to right but not everybody in town yes all this isn't for men that's that's true on anything that we do whether it's politics or serving on a board is it probably 80% of the people in town they don't look at the one number it's also you know hard for people in town were still in a terrible economy right now we have a lot of senior citizens and they're living on fixed incomes so when they see that 6.4 that's a scary number I'm not I don't think it's just the seniors no no I said we think in a bad economy people are moving out of Connecticut on you read that every single day in the paper people are not making the money that they used to make I know when my business I'm not making the money I used to write okay so I think probably so we need to do now is go through some of the items that everyone had had talked about and maybe you know just either have a further discussion or a vote one kind of item by item to see where we look like we might be able to take some reductions with us and then from there clarifying yes so then we would do that and then what we say to John please give us a revised budget for the next time well that's if we want to have a next time or the board could decide to make a motion to approve a particular number and we could find a way together right now to meet that number yes so I guess I gotta get it before the end of January two weeks okay you can narrow us down pretty quick here yeah first of all if I'm just going down the list here we are on and I guess I'd assumed it we are all in agreement of adding the extra kid on TV yes we're good with that okay that's eighty four eighty four thousand without includes benefits including for us okay so if I'm going down the list now we have school skirt the school start time consultant that was one that some people had said that they you okay with taking out let's just goes Johanns is a group who is okay with taking that out of the budget okay the enrichment consultant who is who is okay with taking that out of the budget I'm actually gonna lean toward where do you work which is a small mountain it's a long-overdue okay World Language lab who is okay with taking that out of the budget um no one had really said sports can I not go there don't go okay great that we have the two part-time clerical positions [Music] yet it was too right to veto three positions and two people three positions okay two people three positions of the the clerical positions who is okay with taking that out and what's the amount of that with benefits there's no benefits 6:46 awesome okay all right then we have the greeter monitor at the high school it was okay taking down which one was that really great into running up thirty thousand seven hundred that's not including benefits correct correct so the Jewett said the total with the greater monitor and the clerical approximates the kindergarten teacher what is the grade on monitor with benefit health benefits 216 871 on average so that's you said that was 30k salary in this is 29 16 notes 48 47 47 K for that yes okay so we're going we've had about 120,000 copies come on we've covered I've covered that in your webinar sure taking the percentage now yep okay library clerks it would be that way there would be three positions which could I just before we ask it's from a show of hands on that what's the impact of the library clerks coming out I mean so we have librarians and library sure so our our librarians teach our media specialists as you call the media specialists teach classes there's their specialist teachers they teach classes the the integrate research and learning with the classroom teachers they're integral parts of all of the learning that goes on in the building our library clerks are secretaries in the bargaining unit for the secretary and they run circulation and full support for the library so if you're having media specialists teaching classes then there would be no one to man the library for all those other students who might be going down to the library for a research project to check out books and all the other many many things that go into supporting you know a media center so it would impact the utilization of the medicine I have a question if it could be perhaps we have a lot of parent volunteers we could put some parent volunteers absolutely do you spirit volunteers especially in elementary school and could go in if we had to we would certainly go in that direction you can't rely in count on volunteers that's the only thing you know so it's you know it's not like having a full-time employee so no I agree have me want to go in that direction so we could utilize you know utilize our facilities as best we can and how are they distributed is that one is there one at center schools are one at the other three buildings I would also say or suggest that maybe we don't look at these as a lump you know right you know look at all three maybe we we think that it's necessary to still have on it huckleberry and whiskey here but maybe not the high school where and that could be way off on this but are the kids more self-sufficient at the high school if you reduce one of those positions and then we tried to strategically this divided it as best we could among now and for two positions among the three pairs you know something like that we'd have to get creative with how we schedule that if we had less yes well part of the circuit we talked about the specialist so there's the value-added piece so the individual runs that facility by themselves and you're having more adult supervision in and out with younger children so it's it's we've learned to function there without it not saying it's ideal but that's what we have okay so how did you appoint them do we want to look at this one by one I personally I don't know I feel like I don't know enough I mean I know if you answered the question might know enough about how valuable each of those are by school okay so I wouldn't know which one to to not I think dr.
Brenda's saying is that we would probably leave it up to the administration's discretion as to okay what to do and how to utilize okay there's a good here there's a cut don't cut a cut in a partial hat type of thing about 120 K exactly so do we vote on eliminating a percentage of that or not you know I felt a bit how do we do that there would be one position two thirds of you two positions we can take a poll we can do show hands how about if we just will go this way whom would be okay with a third of the position let's do that and we'll just kind of do show hands with everything and kind of I start with who would be advocate don't cut that at all okay we would advocate kind of all let's lick the extremes and see where we're going no I'm sorry sounds like fun no none of this is gonna be frank I wouldn't couple okay I just think libraries are part of a student's experience and if you if you've got a library specialist teaching and you need somebody running the library right that you actually change the school environment for the kids and libraries I think are important I'll say that broad like libraries are important but my boys are important so I would I would advocate not cutting okay show of hands who would be okay we'll go up with us who would be okay with cutting some or all of the library positions show of hands okay I say all right I'm a mouth that's that's three so so even though so little grows it and Debbie are with Bob okay I didn't see in yes a lot I just want to make sure yes okay okay so if we put that alone for now yeah let's keep it over for now discussion and they have to come back to it I am didn't hear anyone voicing any support with some of the others the club's late buses band program Spanish and specialists am i correct enough yeah I think the club's an important thing to find out the data on the clubs that are not well attended so what does that mean is that one student five students I'm gonna like look the numbers do you have enough we would have to go back and really dig in on that and we never had to get to the point during the ECS conversations about this to dig in and make those hard decisions we had kind of ideas the principles each had ideas but it wouldn't be appropriate if I started speculating on that today okay again that would be a management decision you know sometimes cook 50,000 or 25,000 from that and we'd have to make it happen as an administrative team okay did I do this correctly that it's worth 150,000 but then we back out the 84,000 for the teacher is that what others again okay and you gotta get you got you gotta be our storekeeper good reading to the administrator okay I'm sorry administrator I had that next on my list okay okay you're looking at everything okay so did can't work in the magic over history yeah I'm in - about 66 now yes that's what I had exactly so we're 66,000 lower than their original proposal yes yes that's taken into account the kindergarten [Music] okay Eve had I'm taking a look at administrator is there anyone else that they mentioned something to that extent oh okay let's just show Hansen it was interested in making an administrative position I thought let's be specific reduced in wanted minutes we do see one administrator position yeah exactly okay all right Halloween said yes there was 630 ESSEC okay so that how much does that work and realistically leave those 125 hundred a hundred and twenty our host benefits plus benefit so what would that be so we should reduce that number with the understanding that you're asking us to reduce one administrator who made that reduction what's the number on that hint we're done it Joey so again 280,000 blender including getting the additional track a teacher back in there when 208,000 under the original proposal in Corinth which is approximately 0.5% correct there's a 5.9 approx yes any other discussion [Music] so you just want to clarify what we're doing going forward are we going to the First Selectman with the budget that was originally proposed with the extra kindergarten teacher put back in or are we already taking out the things that we just discussed what we're doing right now is trying to get a budget that we're going to put forth to the First Selectman so it would be with the extra kindergarten teacher - what we have just talked about here so the budget proposal would look a little different because it would be - these items consignments positions and what why wouldn't we what's the downside to giving him the budget that was originally proposed with the kindergarten teacher put back in for if if the superintendent felt that the world language lab and the other things that we just discussed were important and would help meet our goals then why wouldn't we submit it and see what the feedback is we absolutely again if if the board decides that is the budget they want to put forth to the first election and that's that's our decision and we'll return to being come to right here I don't know it I guess it's frustrating to have cut mine up spent a lot of time considering the things that we wanted to have and then we thought the students deserve and to eliminate some of them didn't get that maybe some things you know are better put off for another year but I don't know maybe maybe our responsibility is really to submit the budget that we think is is the best budget we can do and that's necessary for the students before taking things away I don't think we're taking anything away from the students we've deferred we've deferred to the initiatives just because we're in the peak and the rest has been administration cuts the library clerks we have to go back and so I would if we had said one thing that was to take away from students well the weight I would have voted against that's world language isn't it take away because we haven't started it yet yeah it's a different guys I think about is just so when do you do it given we have the speech costs that we're doing look the taxpayers in the eye and say we're acting responsible as as we can in the environment we're in right and so in some respects we have to be very cognizant of having the best program we can have for our students and on the other respects we have to say we are acting as a board and we all in this budget right the superintendent's made a proposal to us well thought out proposal by the way I thought it was extraordinarily cohesive budget but now we have to think about it in the environment of what we were asking the money from that's part of our role as a board is to that balance those two right by the way for selectmen or the selectmen the Board of Finance also have that one so you could say let us throw right and let those people make those decisions or we could bring forward something that said we've made some decisions and I think that in my view it helps us by saying we've taken whose actions because it doesn't open the door as easily for others to say well true that's true you know the fact that we've already done in taken what we think our home positions are you know what makes it easier for budgets to go through and so that's the that's the reason you would do it the reason you might not do it is yet let others you know participate it's like the old let it go to the vote or some philosophy in your point is very valid observer day and said go read the one we can absolutely go that way if that's how the board feels to go just bring forth that budget to the voters if it got to the voters the Board of Selectmen you know and I think the exercise that we did I think part of is to let the community know that we looked at everything really carefully and that I think the this board is we wouldn't do anything that we thought would have a direct impact on kids particularly class sizes or music or specials or clubs and I think that represents our values that those are things that we think are really important and that are important for our kids but yeah I think it's a really tough position because we want to we want I think what we did is we looked at every possible thing what's something you know that we could be a little more fiscally responsible think that was part of what we did even though I I would say I wish we'd have to do any of that any other thoughts on them you don't mind I got one or two other items that I just wanted to ask him a question or two one if we could sure because it may affect us upon a bond of imagine can in the budget I notice it was six hundred thousand dollars for the special education reimbursement budget yes and then that is a glance at seven that said it's a different number so I was I was wanted to talk about what's the proper number to put in because we know right now there are workers greater than 700 yeah it's a good question the 700 came from the recent experience we've had with getting the excess cost reimbursement based on the costs we put into the budget which are very similar to the costs that we've incurred this year the 70-79 number comes from later on from some correspondence from the State Department of Education telling us that that's how much they expect to be giving us this year and I put that into the great report so is there but you also have an outlook for next year yeah in exam room also we want to choose what our campus so what is the outlook for next year so some some of the nine or seven members I would think it's probably 77092 rated by our increased cost on the tied to the bubble war ends up then if we adjusted that that would lower the wasn't my another 1779 that's why I was yeah it was a reconize question yes yeah and done can this year you took the excess cost grant and built it into the budget versus having it as a grant yes yeah right so it's built into the special education my time and the special education transfer its revenue item in our it's really all spend and then there's a revenues so if we changed that we would just add that to increase the revenue light for it yes okay okay is that a valid thing to do sure in this budget this so about seventy nine thousand right there yes but it's not going to change the years because it really is a change also in our current your outlook yeah right so when we get into doing what Debbie said which is the Franken apples and apples right to do the growth it will be 77097 79 so it's still open X the whole outcome right but I think we need to make sure we're taking the title absolutely the second fret and the second ones there's question more than anything there was an increase in substitutes and last year we had a whole discussion about going to the building subs and you know going down that path this year the description and the explanation about why there was a increase year to year was to reflect the experience that was that we're seeing right now yes if we talk a little bit more about what's costing substitutes to grow by fifty five thousand year-on-year because that's that's the number we budget for 1718 based on her 1516 history which was about $300,000 and then we came in slightly lower than that our actual expenditures in 1617 were was over $450,000 and we're running on a pace this year so far to hit about three hundred and fifty to three hundred sixty thousand dollars so I think that 1516 may have been an anomaly and it's substitutes and might and my career doing this so far substitutes a very very difficult light item to budget because it can be influenced by some little business particularly the number of long term substitutes that you need because they get a much higher daily rate than your regular substitute coming in when somebody's just that sick so if you have a bunch of people out on the maternity leaves or other leaves of absence and you bring somebody in for a long term it gets quite expensive and you can drive your costs up significantly and the and did the plan we put in place in terms of what we were gonna try and do to have building substance that taken root it's taking room not at the level of perfectly for core building just because for whatever reason it blows my mind when we talk about economy and so forth and people needing work and especially work in their career where they're getting experience we're not finding people desiring a long a building sub type position when they don't land that first teaching job to the extent of having you know maybe 16 to 20 of those folks you know in our district we do have those folks I couldn't tell you the number of those exactly right now I mean the principles with knowing each of their buildings but to get a certified people we do have them as building says but we we don't have the high number we thought we would have because that was part of the reason we took it down yep this year and was that we thought we were gonna get some benefit you have enough and we are still on the 1617 budget going forward to 1890 were net down 14 I think about $45,000 yeah yeah so it's still a reduced cost even though it's it's going up again okay from where we were and the third I know the third item and a fourth I mean they're both small so I please forget me so in 330 line and they're but they're positioning type things odds if you go back to page 6 out of 14 on the date back now there's two lines in there that are up year-to-year board of education and business and fiscal by 14 thousand and twelve thousand is there a business driver under those those items were cut meeting last year than I was not at I'm not sure there was a an exercising of the budget last year to really find about $150,000 and we were digging and digging and digging and frankly some of the decisions I made can was out on leave at that point were arbitrary decisions to administrative areas to not directly impact the student so we're over running those budget solution yes what goes into the Board of Education along there and we're not sitting here spending money ourselves I never had somewhat thought goes into the world of education once we've got the audit fees we've got support for munis we've got a CAE reporting okay I have a service note why do we call it Board of Education I think also those two studies are in their right to 45 thousand I was focusing more the status quo okay and why did that go up so it was a miss budgeting for this year okay I got you and then lastly travel and conferences and I got a that's primarily being driven by increased in the science department at the middle school be sure they get out the conference for the NGS Sanders and so forth and new alignment and science work it's the anticipation at the middle school is there any way we can hold that one flat for $5,000 I did not for nothing it just is one of those image things that you're that people look at travel and they say you're asking for 6% increase or 5.9 percent increase and you're increasing travel 13% so that's a core this is just a mechanics question and image question we're gonna dr.
movie talks a lot about professional learning and you know if that's that's an area that we need to take a look at and reduce we will you know not gladly do it but if that's something we need to it's a new ask no I understand it's it's something new we're asking for so it's not a loss we'll find other ways to we'll get created and get that training I'm going to say ask a question about the building sub I wonder if did any of the local universities give interns we do that too you do every and sometimes the intern experience is more expensive than you realize because you're paying for their tuition they're not pretty so I will pay them to substitute we're paying the University for their tuition so they can get just I just it's just one of those could lines that always drove me crazy and the Board of Finance so when you see a small line like that growing it just put that do you think so I think if we're going to leave it that's what you want then we need to have a much more detailed study statement and the patronage for the Board of Finance of here's exactly what we're going to be travel in the mouth yeah sure it Dean has a lot of that outline so but it's the whole budget not just know I understood you said yourself prevent your questions yeah those are my questions thank you I just wanted to make sure the most important one was that was the 779 versus something about that one I wanted to make sure we addicted ok we can go forward two different ways right now we can take which I just lost under my calculator I had the number to just go away 287 287 with the excess cost less on the total line right of the proposal that's approximately getting exact as we headed to throw on the yes it was three to reduce and four not to reduce but weapons sorry no on the library clerks there were three that were interested in reducing our tour all and for that we're not interested not interested in reducing it at all unless I misinterpreted exactly how that was okay but we can we can take this forward right now I don't think was there anything that we asked after burrow or administration to look back at and report back or does everyone feel okay with how it is right now just all of our measurements yes they addressed all do you have any questions in regards to we discussed no one here world on Sandhya or where we're going okay so what we can do then is if everyone is okay put forth a motion to approve the budget and again I head it into my calculator including the it was to wait for the reductions of tokens I saw 79 - it affects left so we need to subtract that from the amount that we're going to because what we need to do is vote on real in actual amount and that's what I had can do you have that number so here I got us 43 for 1943 for 91 51 151 and we're subtracting a two hundred eighty seven thousand eight okay I got 43 203 151 and 43 2 / 3 151 yes okay that's two of us okay so then what we can do is make a motion to approve a budget to visit to be presented to the Board of Selectmen 443 million two hundred three thousand one hundred fifty one dollars what is the percentage on that Ken's day right now like five point seven thank you I'll second okay any discussion we have a motion in a second can we just review so I know exactly what we're reducing it go back to this or adding back in the one kindergarten to you're heading back in one kindergarten teacher or for 84,000 we're reducing the school start times consultant for 30,000 the world language lab the 47,000 the part-time clerical positions for 26,000 the high-school greeter monitor for 47,000 and the administrator or and what was that with the benefits is that 142 I'm sorry 142 32 and adjusting and adjusting the excess cost seventy-nine thousand right call it just what was that 79,000 for we have in our budget that the excess cost grant next year would be seven hundred thousand we're getting notice from the state that this year's is going to be seven hundred and seventy nine thousand so we're assuming if our special education costs are going to be the same next year as the increase that we had this year there will be seven seventy nine thousand versus seven hundred so there's seventy nine thousand it was not taken into account for the budget so we can reduce the budget okay and that's refunds we get from this those correct yeah 279 more coming so that's a savings of 79 yes yes that's nice to reduce okay any other discussion on the motion at hand okay so well in favor aye aye from post six one thank you everyone that was still there miss tough first budget is always the toughest Israel so I especially pushing it for the new members on the board and we next on our last on our list for old business is the prioritized tenure capital projects discussion recommend the reaction of the board discuss approve the 10-year prioritize capital projects list okay we think that just as an action right now but what if we might be bringing you that's okay we might be bringing it to a motion because I think first we're gonna have a discussion and if we prove then we can make a motion to to set up for it as well just as a point of order do we actually we actually have to submit a capital for both for to AmeriCorps we just given information for their budget is that actually a submission from us we approve it but it's not our budget that's why exactly so we need a little bit decided for me do we do and I preferred it approvable promotion but it's just for the year one capital is what they what we have to send forward to them right what is the innovation but if we have a discussion I say let's you know in order to understand the year 1 capital by all means meet we've taken a look at this before it was presented to us I believe two meetings ago and then we just decided to wait until we approve the budget to go forward on it so we didn't have the discuss the opportunity to discuss it two meetings go but is there anything new there anyone like to say any questions regards to it I will reiterate again that the generator where the high school is it is a necessity in many many different ways yeah let's just for the people who listen and on TV because a they listen to us go through these this is a very interesting capital budget for me cuz there's only a handful of items in this entire capital budget for next year there's 350 the totals nine hundred and twenty-five thousand there's three hundred and fifty thousand of that is for replacing the generator here which we talked about a couple minutes then there's fifty thousand four for the parking lot at the high school there's fifteen miles for the generation transmission from Augusta and Jenna I got it that's why I thought my little ruler that's fifty thousand for the generator transfer switch so those going to get us a four hundred thousand dollars for the for the generator project renovating the boys locker room for fifty thousand which is the first step that's a design step with five hundred thousand in the second year which we are that's a placeholder because we until we do the design we don't have any idea what that cost arrays correct the third item is a hundred thousand for designing war restaurants food store storage and storage out in thanks up on the playing fields correct correct between baseball and design work initial design with that project actually being a couple of years out 15,000 for replacing the coil risers that was an item brought up and discussed with us at our round table and it was already a project that was under discussion so that's what that's kind of come together nicely 60,000 for time in attendance clocks and record-keeping that wood is used to support the new payroll structure that we just put in and 300,000 for as a placeholder for what might be follow-on to the technologies only one because we knew we needed something in the budget we don't we have no idea how much but 300,000 we agreed at our last meeting was a failure number to put into the budget that's what that's the entirety it's not like it's a long long list of projects it's you know necessities and there are necessities to me I think we just can't let this one go forward the time in attendance clocks has been actually requested for the last three years it's been taken out the last two years because it wasn't quite yet necessary and now that we've had the conversion to be honest it it's necessary to have so I'm just looking at your one right now yeah that's looking at questions going forward by all means this is so that's the year one I not does a good point the year one that is what I just went through and we're looking at a ten-year plan yeah that has a lot including a new school and something for everybody to consider to remember this this ten year plan we developed last year we've since in this iteration it's been student some modifications that we've conducted however don't forget we've hired detective they're going to be doing a full building condition study of all four buildings so they're going to really help us with the next phase or iteration I should say of a new 10-year plan once their work is complete going forward so that's just to keep back cookie supposed to look very different from this so again I wanted you know just I don't know how much time you want to invest in going how many more years out you want to go there's no spare videos I would just sort of you know only because I toured huckleberry and I haven't toured the other schools yet but you know there's nothing being done to huckleberry now and yet some of the other ones and years two three and so on like we're talking about renovating and I know this could change but renovating bathrooms and repaving the parking lot I guess those things might come off right I think there's gonna be a lot of changes yeah once we have those conditions studies in hand yeah once the board will be part of you know the board will be presented with a with a draft plan and then have lots of discussion about it the committee now Facilities Committee didn't feel that there was anything that needed to be done to have a berry right now not right now in the bathrooms but if I remembered some of the bathrooms were still on that set of projects we were working on above there is money that was approved in I know it was last year the year before for that purpose yeah it was just a matter of getting the process done so it's not like the bathrooms are being worked on because there's heavy people something that we're looking at as a committee approved for capital and in the schools and making a game plan for getting those items done yeah and actually right now our highest priorities getting done the projects that were approved for 1516 because we have a limited amount of time to those projects had not been many of those projects had not been started so that's our real focus right now through the sabia the biggest of which was the water projects by school yes but we have these on spreadsheets if you're interested we can send it to you come in and look Rosa you understand it yeah it's operated out so you can say thanks any other questions discussions I I would just say that if we're gonna submit the full ten years if we don't have to we should make sure it's clear that we're expecting significant changes when STATCOM is done for work right so that the Board of Finance doesn't over manage it okay right just just as a matter of how in our in our how we submit it we talked to mr.
Dunn about how he'd like it submitted they may just want to look at the one year knowing hectares out there I'm guessing he's not spending a lot of time on years to through remember this time last year we submitted the initial tenure plan that really hadn't ever been done so we submitted a ten-year plan and that's been have been flowing it already but that was he was looking at financing and planning long term back then so I think his worry is 40 million for a new school is lower and seven years out so it's you know next year if you can help we're gonna stress this equation I think okay so how about if we M put a motion forward to approve the tenure capital improvement plan to go to the fruit to the Board of Selectmen with heavy emphasis on your one second I think we could just approve the plan just say that year different emotion to say including a budget submission of my other 25,000 for 1819 because I think that will be better for the record but the night so it's it's redundant to have a two hundred understand adjusts when people will read the minutes they will they'll see that 95 years how about if you make the motion isn't that quite so so I would I would make a motion to approve the ten year plan for submission to the Board of Selectmen in clich includes a 2018-19 capital a budget of nine hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a second okay all in favor okay that concludes our business next we have upcoming events well Daniel card a lot of the upcoming events that I just said at center our kindergarten registration is open them and in the huckleberry and I'm gonna join will be starting soon and in the 11th annual recycling billboard contest is underway thank you okay there's no other items without objection the meeting is adjourned thank you [Music]
good morning big Hollow today is January 19th it is the 89th day of school this is w Phe news I'm Kayden and I'm Emma today for lunch we there will be multi cheese pizza carrots broccoli and fruit salad there with mini bagel graham crackers oranges apple juice we have some friends celebrating birthdays celebrating birthdays today is Stewart Stewart celebrating this weekend this week you can is Brady my my my yesterday's thought that question was what is the name of our big Hollow superintendent the answer is mr. gold the winner is Sophia and mrs. cast enters class come to the office and pick out your prize today's fun facts question is what state has the abbreviation WI remember to write your answer neatly and include your name in class ok our kindness challenge and today's challenges drop pictures to send through a local retirement home and now we will observe a brief period with a special console we have these we have any guests today mrs.
okay finally see if they Knight will call this meeting to order at 6:30 to standing first of all they everyone coming to see the third of our community engagement beads as we go through the process and trying to decide how to move into the future to improve our tools to make the education that our children experience the best it can be and what they deserve being with the parents and what will happen the CD is first dr. Horner minute and other administrators and guests will give a presentation if you attended the earlier sessions or saw our mind I think you'll find that there's more detailed information given and then after the presentation what we want to do is break into small groups and the purpose of this provide feedback in the small setting everyone can every comment will be recorded and that'll all get back to us and our decision-making process so there's a lot to do this evening without further ado I'll turn it over to dr.
Nick is here to share something exactly yes good morning that hollow we have something very exciting to share some of you have already received positive office referrals this year but I would like to take a moment to recognize the bullet the latest one that I received it's a second grader in mrs.
Wong thank you David welcome and thanks to all of you who are attending this session or watching us on livestream this is the third of four community engagement sessions meetings with our school board and with the public to discuss the financial challenges facing or focusing for those watching online it may be frustrating to not be able to see the presentation and I'm sure you wish you had an analyst I want them to be aware that this presentation has literally changed every day as we have made it and various venues with our staff they've given us feedback into the justice priorities so part of the reason that we have intentionally not provided to our live audience or are on the presentation notes is because they're still very much to draft form at some point in the next few months someone's going to ask you why do they want to eat more of our money what does the school system done to avoid asking taxpayers to pay their taxes our other districts other financial challenges that a mother's having and we hope that our public can become knowledgeable with answers to those questions and so tonight we're going to talk to you about that process what has happened up until this evening we're going to answer like my name is Tucker and maybe Bob then in other school districts we're going to explain what a general fund referendum is and how it works and perhaps most importantly and the information that I know that several of you who attended the November and December sessions have been waiting for we will share some possible one minutes finally for those of you willing to stay afterwards as mr.
Russell's class congratulations to Hannah Jones she is being recognized for showing self-control hard work positive attitude honesty teamwork and responsibility and the comments that miss Russell wrote say Hanna designed her own cahoots for the class to enjoy she always shows initiative and creativity so Hannah Jones sometime today you need to come to the office so that I can take your picture put it on Twitter Facebook and Instagram and also call your parents and tell them how amazing you are congratulations have a great day and now we will approve a brief period of silence to reflect on you in just there TV use of the day please please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all have a bully-free Friday every member Kairos comes everyday everywhere thanks for watching
McDavid or our president said we'll have some small discussion each of our administrators will be seated at a table so that they can listen to your new hood it can be very difficult or very intimidating to walk up into an auditorium in front of lots of people that speak on a microphone to everyone but if you typically don't you remember when we use that format and that's the reason that we want if you're willing to go into the cafeteria here I might be no noticeable staff and speak to you in small groups thus far we have two fairly well attended community engagement sessions and they relaxed and and reported they're still available for viewing on a dedicated web page of our website we reviewed our financial challenges in all the ways that we have tried to save money and become more efficient the ways that we have sought additional revenue for our school district prior to coming to the school community and asking for a referendum as a result of those meetings and staff meetings that we've been holding over the last several days there has been a tremendous amount of engagement and input we're very grateful for that the very first community engagement being before the word referendum had been uttered patron asked them how do they work who else has done well we want to give you a little a little bit of an education referendum came into being in Indiana just back in 2008-2009 when the state our legislatures put it in place for the first time as a means for schools to ask the public for additional funds for either operating or construction building abilities in a nutshell a referendum is a federal question asking the taxpayers to support by their construction or our enemies when we ask the public to support operating needs we're asking the public for by the general fund referendum and that's what we're here to talk about as evening if the public approves a referendum they're saying that they may support paying more in taxes than the 1% that their tax is currently capped at residential homes in the state of Indiana are capped at 106 that's the maximum you know as a homeowner you're going to have to pay but a referendum asks if you will will anymore even though that makes is the property tax the school work can determine how funds will be used for our area or general on some key information about a referendum is that it is a very highly regulated legal process the board has to pass a resolution saying it wants to pursue a referendum at a public board meeting that needs to happen months in advance of an election our leader has not yet passed such a resolution we certainly appear to be headed that way but before they decide how much to ask on our algorithm they want more input they want to hear from the staff they want to hear from all of you they want to make sure that our priorities that we are going to outline tonight to do as a job or a career that's the reason for tonight's meeting and our Monday night's meeting our final community engagement meeting will be on Monday January 22nd at 6:30 at Kings where some people wonder 100 moaning it in one of your schools some people have told us that it can be difficult for people to come to school since they don't have children who belong here and so Kings way has been just a marvelous partner and opened up their facility for us and so we hope to get some other folks here on Monday as well it's important for you to know that the laws have changed significantly about how referendum should be handled and there are legal restrictions about a school district can and and I do to promote what we can and cannot say when we can say it where we can meet employees other than the superintendent the Director of Finance the associate superintendent and the assistant superintendent and employees may not promote the referendum during school hours they may not use school district resources to promote for opposed threat remember they may not have school email they may not use paper they may not use silica and sharks once aboard adopts a resolution to put to the court the referendum the school district may not shall not spend taxpayer dollars to promote Oh we'll talk about that a little bit later we've got the free good luck we learned a lot from districts who have passed our owner agreements and we realized that a successful referendum requires the sophisticated political campaigning a political action committee or PAC consisting of hundreds and hundreds of volunteers is warmer and more like you community members parents people who want to be involved in promoting your enemy the pack includes a chairperson or a couple of chairpersons respected people from our community a treasurer and as I said hundreds of volunteers I have a list of every superintendent with in the past summer months especially those who did not have to referendum the first time I did the second time and I asked them what they thought that he was interestingly enough almost every one of them remember mentioned the role of the path and every single one no matter how small how tiny their district indicated that they had at least 200 to 300 active volunteers anyone can be part of the path and when it comes time we'll have a massive hauler anyone can donate to a path a lot of appellative money why would they need donations well printing materials printing archives all the things that the school district should not use taxpayer funds to promote training will be involved will be provided for anyone that wants to be involved but there's something for everyone the school board has to make a decision when it considers advancing or referendum about whether or not to put this item on a May ballot or November ballot popular wisdom says it's easier to win to November we can't wait we simply cannot wait another school year to make this change we need really prior to the beginning of the 2018 night to school year if there is referendum and the majority of voters who go to schools that they agree to support it they're agreeing to pay additional tax beyond they currently pay for any use those funds go into a second budget which can only be used for that which we promised they would be used for what happens after eight years people ask again and again well we don't have a crystal ball but as we look the state to the many school districts that have passed multiple river another indeed sometimes the school district asks for a referendum to be renewed and another political campaign ensues sometimes it's for less money but the whole process starts all over again again I can guarantee you you're going to be asked this question well the district just needs to live within its means they need to tighten their belts just like we do at home or in my business when times are tough and we agree the district needs to live within its means we also want you to know that for six years we have done everything that possible to become more efficient we need many of the items on the next couple of slides and I'd like to highlight just a few ways that we have been efficient with our revenue and ways that we have generated additional revenue for our students in 2015 we convened an efficiency task force of twenty eight members of our community they helped us identify over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in savings that we could not get identified on our own a much better example and one that really seems to resonate with our friends in the business community is how well our school district has managed healthcare costs I like to ask do you know any business in Avon or any entity that does not raise its insurance premiums in 2016 or in 2017 Brandon this year 2018 we to increase our insurance premiums by 3% but can you find any an a business that managed their medical expenses as well so far I have yet to have anyone come up and tell me that there is this managed to do that for the last two and a half three years even that 3% is far below the industry average that example is not because we're so smart we're so great we work very hard with a wellness clinic and a health care program and we worked hard to help our employees be very educated consumers about health care they have helped us keep those premiums on another point that's made Obama's big list I won't read everything are the ways that we have generated new women we have some amazing sponsorships from Hendrix Regional Health and anymore Automotive Group they will bring in two million dollars over ten years a couple of other examples is the top one on this list open enrollment last school year we decided to allow a small number of students who don't live in avons district to come and attend our schools it seems kind of illogical or counterintuitive by our students we were actually able to reduce class sizes but that's exactly what happened k4 buildings we were able to generate $350,000 of additional income for the school district by accepting those students and we were able to strategically place seven cross r7k for buildings and it really made a difference in class size you can see on this list we go after grant really hard if there is a competitive grant we're going to go out later we constantly renegotiate our contracts and our services to make sure that we're getting the very best terms I feel confident in saying to you that we have become relentless in our efficiency and I said it probably a dozen times in the past year and a half if you compare something that we can be more efficient with I hope you identify that to us some of our best ideas have come from our employees and our patrons we feel we must be cautious with our taxpayers bonuses as 10 faves you may also be interested to know that you don't just pay taxes of course to support the schools you support the tower the township fire department the library the Avon Police Department and over the last four years we have grown into work very very closely together we have a collaboration taxing entities group we meet every other month senator crane and representative Sturm join us because we want to be sure that we are all working together for Washington Township taxpayers and here are examples the school and the library share fiber optic because the school is a much bigger consumer and we can provide it for the library at a much lower cost and they could get our own the township our fire department has just joined our wellness clinic that we provide for our employees thereby saying hopefully on their Medicaid we have a cooperative fuel purchasing agreement with the town and the township again we are a large consumer of fuel and we can purchase it and share it at a cost of course we don't want to make money off of our partners but if we can provide a diesel or fuel to our town and our Township at the same cost of ribbon to get it get it for that ultimately helps all of our taxpayers there are many other examples here and I won't go into them but suffice it to say that we do not nor one other community in the state of Indiana that is cooperating as taxing entities to the level that we are and it had other Pence's attention and it has covered locals attention and we're proud of that we also think it's our obligation another question I can pretty much guarantee that you'll be honest or something will say to you is something a lot of the vines other things seem just fine to me and Yvonne great schools wonderful kids supportive community safe schools high-performing playing in state championships I don't know why would they probably need more money on that proud of this answer but it's the truth we've managed that particularly for the last six years on the backs of our students and our employees this table here tells the story of our staff the blue bar represents a student in 2009 Jenna you can see on the far left that we have grown from eight thousand one hundred and eighty four students and two in 2009 to today nine thousand five hundred semesters the red line represents teachers you can see but in order to manage our earth and without adequate funding from the state of Indiana the only way we have been able to manage is to keep staff very low as a matter of fact today we have one thousand three hundred forty three more students but eight and a half fewer teachers twenty fewer custodians and six fewer administrators than we did back in it isn't just custodial and administrators and teachers we care about we have amazing support staff instructional assistants food service workers clerical support custodians and they too have been cut it's just a little difficult to represent accurately on a table because they are so many elderly employees some work ten hours some work 14 hours but I can say thank you to you that our support staff is also as a mean as it could possibly be suffice it to say that we can cut staff and now we are cutting into his own we did add some teaching positions at the start of the school year as parents who may be aware that we simply could not in good conscience allow this to continue particularly at the k4 level with classes of over thirty in some of our some of you know that we were taking a leap of faith in order to do that we hired these teachers as emergency buyers to bridge us and even though we did that and it did help at the k4 level we didn't do anything for grades 5 through 12 and those class sizes and those caseloads are still uncomfortably hot so when we asked the voters to support us we're asking the voters for what's needed to stay on a path towards sin and restoration and to increase quality education for our students if people don't register to vote or don't go to the polls and this fails we cannot maintain where we are today if we do not succeed we cannot maintain the status quo many of you we've also seen this chart of before which compares the salaries of avons seven teachers to those in our conference and neighborhood schools this is one of the slides or a piece of information that keeps me on that way because a quality teacher is the number one factor in student success there is no other variable that has a greater influence on student success that we control on the school's poverty doesn't predict it the way of here a great teacher does intelligence great values curriculum a quality teacher is the number one influence teachers have the biggest impact on students lives in their learning we must our fabulous teachers when I talk to parents about this I ask you to envision that great teacher that you hope your youngest gets because your oldest a top teacher and you hope he or she doesn't retire or move to another district that actually brings tears to someone's I don't ask that question but we know that right now according to this chart another recent research that are 20 20 year veteran teachers and whom we have best invested so much and who have oily state with this district during challenging times to go to any one of these other districts and earn five to 11 percent more annually and of much smaller class sizes those of you who have been here a while that I have know that that was a thought was the case for many many years we have we led the county the conference with our teacher compensation it's taken us eight or nine years to get this Bob below and if we're not going to get out of it overnight but we must make progress retaining our teachers is our number one goal we have a teacher shortage of the state of Indiana and attracting new teachers will already hurt so this graph shows that a first year teacher will do better at ground for Wayne plaintiff in Zionsville then he or she will in a mom now some of you may be wondering what about those important support staff members that may I mentioned my goodness wire but they're selling composition will you hear a little bit more about this and on the whole our research shows that we are not lagging in our compensation of our support staff the way we are referred to the juices we're not leaving but we're not quite below us even no not very below us but we can't lose ground there we cannot lose support staff to other greater districts so we want to maintain these people also with steady incremental salary increases the school finance is one of the most challenging topics I've ever encountered I've learned a lot about it but I can't possibly do it justice the way dr.