What we look at is as teachers and when we're evaluating is saying, okay, this student can access the standards and be able to to show us, but but based on those can do descriptors, how are they going to be able to then uh demonstrate their understanding? But it should not stop them or be a hinder to them or hindrance to them moving on to to a to to a a higher level of a class. Any other questions? >> No. >> Sorry for the confusion at the beginning. >> No, no confusion. [laughter] >> Just you, Dr. Yeah. The whole reason you're doing this to prevent confusion, right? >> That's right. [laughter] >> Well, thank you for the team and the collaboration involved. I know it was many many hours of working through this is you know doesn't even tip u hit the surface of the amount of work that has gone into this.
Medicaid. Um, it's a separate budget line, but I like I I've taken to showing it here because the town sometimes lumps it in with us. Um, it pays for a for one staff member who does all the Medicaid claim work for us. Uh, that uh has been underfunded through through in in for years. Uh so we're proposing a 10% increase $4,694 in that line. That line generated in fiscal year 25 her work um generated revenue for the town amounting to $300,197. So it's a good investment for the town. Obviously have that one staff member doing that work and generating $300,000 in in reimbursements from the government. So, >> and I know you've explained this before, but when we get those reimbursements, they go to the town. >> Yes. >> And so, it's just considered revenue from the to the town. >> Yes. It's it's revenue into the general fund of the town.
Now typically this has not required a vote of the board in the past. You could just have whatever grades at whatever campus without any kind of board approval. Um, of course we would always bring things like that to the board because it's important. But this year, school finance said that um there needs to be a board action and that it needs to be approved by the state school facilities board. So we called the state school facilities board and they had never heard of that. So they were like, "What are you talking about?" So we said,"Well, school finance is saying that you guys have to approve what grade levels we have on what campuses." So later I gave it a little bit more thought and thought, "Well, it's probably because of various things like um you know, facility size, the nature of how the facility was designed, things like that." So we did get an email back from SFB that said, "We don't really care what you do.
You can look at the things that you're really super interested in. If you have any questions about any of them, please let me know. I'd be happy to talk you through anything. >> We will still have an end of year report >> 100%. And the only difference in the process is is that the retreat is moving from so >> August until >> so we are going to move the retreat um from August >> to January February. >> I'll get I'll be setting out the date um but we are going to move it to winter. So I have in the midyear report now this kind of gets us start to set up to start thinking about things a little ahead of time but we're looking in one we just think it's better for this group as well as the admin team just a better time than right before the school year and that can set us up although we won't have all the GPIs completely set in in in stone at this time we at least can really get start thinking because right now we're already starting to think about next year anyway.
At the end of the day, I didn't get to talk to anybody. Yeah, that that goes along with and we've talked about that is there's going to have to be some coaching of families as well of like what to expect in this time, what it is and what it isn't. Like it isn't a one-on-one [clears throat] parent teacher conference, right? And helping parents understand that you could request one of those at any point, right? This is not the time for that. >> So that's why I think I kind of start off with the whole having a [clears throat] department. It was really nice because as a math department, we could all just say, "Here's our our bigger picture of what our expectations are because we all hold ourselves at the same level." So, >> yeah. Yeah. >> Well, and some of that could be even communicated in advance, right?
So really thank you so much for your due diligence and the flexibility and really ensuring that educators were part of the process as well. So thank you for all the work again many hours and uh to all the staff out there who are part of this thank you for your efforts as well. >> Thank you. And I don't do we need that considering still >> maybe not. I don't want to put extra work. >> Everybody understands? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Check. >> Done. All right. Thank you for the questions. Yeah. Um 10.2 intergovernmental agreement uh shared consultant services with the village of Asico. So, as part of the redevelopment of the old trauma uh school, middle school, um since the building is small here in a tiff district, which is a tax tax increment finance u uh zone, we're required to do some due diligence especially with the developer as it relates to things like uh performer adherence to the uh tiff rules law which are very specific and technical.
Yeah. >> Okay. >> It does not come to the school department in you know anyway. [snorts] So, I I wanted to give you an idea of, you know, what's coming uh in terms of the budget. So, March 2nd, we have we have another school committee meeting. So, we we'll certainly have the opportunity to review the budget further. And along the way, as you're reviewing that that large budget packet, I I appreciate you saying 70 70 pages. I think it's 91 pages, Mr. Oliver. >> I was thinking so, you know, sorry, Mr. Yeah. Yeah. Ju just so you know that 91 pages is going to be up on Yeah. >> It's going to be up on our website tomorrow morning. So anyone it'll be publicly available on our website. >> I want to say I really appreciate the comments that are made all the way over to the right about >> whether they're contractual or >> um why there's a change.
Three of your four buildings are already okayed for K8. So, Territorial, Del Rio, and Heritage as far as school facilities board is concerned and their paperwork are K8 schools. So, we are free to move um grade levels around among those campuses as long as it stays really between preschool, but preK through grade 8. So, um we got the okey from them. We have that in writing. And so tonight, what we are asking is that we're actually reconfiguring two campuses. We tend to think of it as just one, but we're actually reconfiguring two with grade levels. So we would have um HMS would house grades seven and eight only. And Del Rio would house grades three, four, five, and six. Um when we had we used to have grades like one, two, three, four at Del Rio. Had all kinds of crazy combinations honestly. Um but this one current fifth graders would remain at Del Rio next year.
Okay. And so really starting to plan so we can help our teachers plan a little bit better for next school year as well as our our directors and divisions. >> So January you usually go to Cabo. So we thought we would all just kind of like >> you want to come to >> with you in Cabo. Is that >> a favor? >> We are. >> I'm sure the admin team would love to go too. >> Well, that's the whole group. So, yeah, I will send out I will I will get those saved the dates out to you. Um, we will still have probably a board dialogue in August um to kind of solidify the GPIs, but that will just be a meeting we'll have with the whole admin team before um a board meeting. So, this way I think it's going to not feel so rushed at the beginning of the square.
So, there's a lot of different ways that that they could, >> but there's also like >> content areas and comfort all play into this as well, right? like what your PE department might want to do and share might be very different than your music department or your math department. >> Absolutely. I love that we're looking at it because something has to change. >> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] All right. Um so the calendar has to shift a little bit to make this happen next. Right. So [clears throat] if we're this is really to make uh Thanksgiving be a non-attendance week. uh we have some pieces that move. So like we move an inservice into [clears throat] Thanksgiving week that then makes it so that we make up for uh um we move a student attendance day into the first week. Move an inservice day into Thanksgiving week.
What you normally would do you engage uh a firm that specializes in negotiating these types of deal and we work with the village of Asiggo who is a partner and we interview a number of uh firms and we settle on Johnson research. This is a firm that's got over 30 years in doing this type of work. They've actually worked extensively with the city of Chicago, which to give you some context, the city of Chicago has over 200 tax active districts in the city. They help [clears throat] with the doing the report and doing the compliance that's required. So when we selected the um the the firm what we decided to do instead of uh each paying separately for the service of this firm since we have similar uh intention of having co-development of this property. We decide to go jointly and the cost of providing the technical support for the review of this uh project is 20,000 and each of the entity will pay 10,000 each.
I almost wish there were more comments >> to every line, but I really appreciate [snorts] how much goes into it and um the transparency of >> Thank you. >> every line. >> Appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> So, March 2nd, we'll have that opportunity. If anything comes up in the meantime, please reach out.
The only people that are moving are the sixth grade teachers. So we've had sixth grade teachers um we've had teachers from HMS express interest in making that move. Um, we also have positions that we needed to hire for because people are retiring or, you know, moving out of state, things like that. Um, we've had lots of good interest in those kind of jobs. So, we're asking this evening that the board approved formally for school finance. That the grade level configuration for Del Rio would be 3, four, five, and six starting in August. And that the HMS configuration would be grades seven and eight. I have already heard one positive um from a parent saying they're glad because both their kids will still be in the same school. >> Well, that's you know, I just wanted to let you know that um I had a parent say that >> just in case anybody wants to know, I've had zero phone calls and I had one email about it.
>> February 5th. >> Is that one of the long weekends in February? No, we tried to avoid that. We tried to avoid long weekends. We tried to avoid all the incoming freshmen and we tried to avoid Super Bowl weekend Super Bowls on Valentine. >> Valentine's Day next week. Next year. I care about >> All right. Any other questions for Erica? Right. Could I get a motion to adjourn? >> All in favor? Hi. >> Where are your >> You going to leap over the table.
That takes care of one of those Thanksgiving week days. Parent teacher conferences also counts as an attendance day. So that takes care of Monday and Tuesday of the teacher conference week. Also because of how our calendar works, we could stack those on the same day. So teachers only come in and work. And this is what their preference was was a marathon day on Monday and then teachers are off the rest of the week. Right? So they're going to come in in service in the morning, parent initiated teacher conferences in the evening. I'll talk a little bit about what those look like in a second. And then uh [clears throat] Tuesday through the rest of the week there's no staff here. There are no students here the entire week, right? So that fixes our attendance issue with with students. Gives staff a longer break before they head into the last couple of weeks of the semester.
The village of Asiggo already approved this and we just need to approve it here in order for the contract to be valid. Any questions? >> This well I guess my only comment was this is stand procedure I would assume for something like this. >> Absolutely. Because we just just like the village doesn't we don't have the technical knowledge. It's a very specialized bill uh in helping us negotiate the best the best financial term to participate in the redevelopment of this project which will be funded in large part funding. >> Right. So, so basically by us spending the $10,000, we're we're in a sense doing our due diligence to make sure that everything's done >> absolutely that we can get the the best deal from the developer in the development of this property in the interest of our taxpayers. >> Yes, it's probably not just due diligence.
You know, we can we can certainly meet with you individually or I can or just have a phone call or whatever about any questions you have as you go through. Uh March 5th, we are scheduled to present to the finance committee. I believe I wrote it down. Let's see. That is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. >> Okay. >> On March 5th. >> Then um during March, so this we have the new budget advisory group. So we're kind of trying to figure out exactly what you know what the role of that group is and how that works in the grand scheme of things. But um because we you know we've had a couple of meetings of that group so far and kind of feeling things out a little bit. But um in March we'll have some discussion with that group about the budget. I'm not sure exactly when u March 23rd we would according to our budget timeline which is in the 91page budget um and you've you know voted on previously we will have a public hearing on the budget and also additional school committee budget review at that meeting with the hopes that on April 13th um the school committee would review and vote a a budget.
Um, I think I copied the board maybe on my response to that. And after I answered the questions that the gentleman had, which kind of were like larger questions about school finance, his response was, "Wow, that totally makes sense. Those are great ideas. I'm glad to see you guys are so transparent and are working hard to to solve it within your means." So, I thought that was positive. But otherwise, um, I don't know if any other administrators in the room is to be this would be a great time to ask, but as far as I know, >> I've received a lot of positive feedback on on doing this. Have you guys out there yet? >> I've probably talked to a dozen families and nobody's expressed any negative concerns, >> even though their kids have to stay with you an extra year. Absolutely. Go for it.
So that that's of interest to our staff as well, of course, right? Uh and allows us to take care of some of our responsibilities. Um uh a lot of our instructional leaders are excited to move that in service day from the beginning of the year later into the year when we're in the thick of the work and have an opportunity to stop and respond to the needs at that point of the year. Right now that doesn't happen until we come back uh after winter break. Okay. So you can see the other dates that shift then. So now instead of Friday, August 14th being another inservice day, it's a first day of student attendance, which for many years we did Friday is our first day. That's kind of the split shift day where kids go through, experience their schedules, meet their teachers, they go away for the weekend, and then we come back and kick off the next week.
It's probably my assumption. Do you foresee any situation where the villages uh interest are um in uh >> diverges from ours? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Uh I I don't think so >> because then at that point wouldn't the consultant have to pick which one? >> No, I don't think so. And the reason being that we found out that the property was actually put in the tiff district Washington main tiff district intentionally in the event when the time comes and the district needs to re redevelop the property the benefit of having tiff increments actually helps to chain up to encourage development from a private developer. So from from the very beginning of the establishment of that tip in the area it was set up to assist the district in developing the property. So that was that was always the what was being contemplated the beginning and additionally since we're not in the business of property development the villages that is what the village does it makes sense to use their co competency in helping us get the best deal possible when we're developing so I will say that in the last three years this is the second time we have brought in outside support when working with thirdparty and governmental entities.