Mr. Shepherd, is that a fair assumption? Yeah, that is. When you when you look at your budget there there are room there is room there to consolidate in certain areas and also that the savings that could come from reducing reliance on contracted services that is that's huge. That is a a large chunk of of money that could be distributed elsewhere. I think the thing that excites me most about the possibility of the salary study is just being able to have the apples to apples comparison. That's what we've struggled to provide, right? Because a tech specialist in this district is so different say from someone in another district, but they're going to really be able to provide you with the data that you need to make decisions on and how to use that pot of money then. So that you're using it wisely and hopefully using it to continue to retain quality staff.
Any questions regarding that? I'll entertain a motion to accept the ECA school musical assistant that Andrea provider or suggested. >> Second that. All in favor say I. >> I request for leave without pay. >> So this is a little bit of a different one. I remember us talking about this say it was about a year ago. Um we were talking about some of our policies and our leave and where we were at. We were starting to see some FMLA leave to be approved. And as I was going through it, I had shared with you that we have in our policy um leave without pay is supposed to be board approved. And I was kind of confused on it at the time. If somebody doesn't have the days, but yet they physically can't come to work and we don't have a board meeting for another month, how does that work?
And have also served as a chief business officer. And so, I have a unique role in that I understand the programming side of things when it comes to special ed, and then I understand the fiscal side of things of running a district as a whole. And so, I tried to put those two lenses together to really help bring out the information I needed when working with your team, which is great by the way. You have some pretty talented people there at the town that I am honored to get to work with. So, let's go ahead and dig into some of my findings. You all possibly would have gotten the written report. So, some of what I'm sharing today is just reiterating that information as well. And so, as part of this analysis, I was able to look at quite a bit of financial data going back several years.
>> Yep. Then, when they do that, there's a lot more gaps. Cuz there's also no clock here, so on in the offensive like cuz I know in college there's the clock in the in the attack, but not here. 90 90 seconds in college, which which is I think it's a lot a lot more better cuz otherwise you can just literally run out of run out the time. Oh, I have experience with that. Just I I know a little I know a little something about that, so. >> bit about that being a the perennial goalie for uh the Spartans the last few years. Do you have over 1,000 saves in uh your high school career? Close. Close. Close. Not quite, though. Few less? Few less. And good job by Pellegrino to turn around. She was going in and out, looking like she was going to pass the ball to Lucy Parsons, but she ended up getting a stick to the round the face, and Pellegrino going in for an 8-m attempt.
So, they have a lot of connection with our students. They know what GLTS is all about and they bring a positive um relationship to our students. Uh they provide for a state if needed and they do proactive patrols in the bathrooms in hightra areas to make sure cafeteria um and any blind spots that we might have within the building. We have three parent liaison. Um we have uh one that works directly with Miss Keys and freshmen. Um and we have two others. One that works directly with myself and one with Mr. Vogle. Um their big m their biggest priority really is cultural bridging. Bridging the gap between um the different cultures from our communities to our school. Also making parents part of um you know the solution and part of making sure that kids are coming to school and that they understand. A lot of our parents work a lot and it's hard for them to come in um or come in for meetings and what our parent liaison do is work with them to help them understand help us understand uh really what their families and their students are going through.
Um maybe then have Roland put something on the website. Mhm. Then you really plug it in June and basically tell everybody what the hard stop date is for getting your application in which I would think would be like mid-June. And then we would have another meeting. We would get our ducks in a row a little bit more and then we would be able to um uh choose somebody in July. Is what I would think. Sorry, I'm going to move cuz I'm in a loud space now. I know like a lot of families have things going on in June, you know, graduation, prom. Uh you know, that weird gap between like when summer's when school ends and summer programming starts. Um it's like the most or June-Decembering month um is what it keeps being referred to or May-Decembering. So, we just should be really mindful and I think pushing it back to July is a great choice.
So, we'll go on Maryann to talk. Maryann, can you just give your last name, please? Maryann, if you could just give your last name and your mic is open. Burbank. Maryann. Can you hear me? Yes, please please go ahead. Okay. Um I um Yes, my I raised my children here in town and they had very good educations as I have talked about previously at some meetings. They do not live in town now currently, but I still feel an obligation to provide an excellent education for the residents in Canton. I think that's very important and the paraprofessional pay is extremely problematic. As a retired teach elementary teacher myself, I cannot state enough how important paraprofessionals are and yes, their relationships with the children. Um as I mentioned at the Board of Finance meeting last night, it is the people who work directly with the children who are the soul of a school.
He was a joy to have in class for his senior year. He consistently led by example, often being the first to volunteer to demonstrate any activity, including project adventures. His high energy and great attitude in class is what makes him deserving of this of this award. And our second recipient is Connor Rabel. [applause] [applause] I would like to offer a round of applause for all of the department leaders and faculty for taking the time to be here tonight to celebrate the achievement of our students. [applause] We have a group of seniors who deserve to be recognized for their achievement as Eagle Scouts and Gold Award scout. Please welcome Eagle Scout Masters John Delaney and Tim Orca and Gold Award Advisor Beth Roth to honor these students. [applause] The Eagle Scout rank is uh scouting's highest rank. It's a seven-year journey that um culminates with earning at least 21 merit badges, more than 100 service hours on various projects, approximately, you know, 100 or more camping nights, a variety of leadership positions.
However, a regular piano is with they need the one of those because if you're a serious student, that is the way to go. My dad's instrument first instrument was violin, his second was piano. So, he knows quite a bit about he knew a lot about that. I also uh helped out in finding instruments for the school. We found a grand piano. I found the grand piano and Dr. Hitchens said, "Be sure to get that." So, we got it for the school and they used it for a a number number of years. Uh I'm myself I'm getting older as you can see, and I I don't play the piano. My my mom played piano and my dad was the great piano player. I was a percussionist. So, anyway, I'm I'm I'm been willing to donate that accord- accordingly. Um conclusion I thank the board the teachers for another school year in educating the future citizens of the USA.
So I think the data you're going to get is going to be super useful. I think we know that there are going to be certain areas that we know we're deficient. We expect that. I've been in this district for 5 years. I've heard some of those same deficiencies every year for the last 5 years. So it's out there. People know it, right? And and I do think to the point of if it was to get to the point where you did need to go to the community to ask for more money. I'm not saying that's imminent right now, right? But there are quite a few districts in our area that are having these conversations that are planning to go for referendum sooner rather than later because of the economics. I think it's going to be super important to have that data to be able to make that argument to the community.
Well, how it works is um they are still able to go ahead and take the day. It's just they would then have to wait to see if you as the board approve it or don't approve it. Again, it's messy. I can't say I'm super thrilled over how that works. It feels, you know, a little off to me. Um, so what we are looking at is with our new policies, cleaning some of that up, getting it streamlined a little bit better. We are not there in our policy adoptions right now. So we are still living with the policy that we do have in place. And so to keep us in compliance, I would like to bring to you some of our leave without pays that we have had. Um, again, anything that is FMLA related, you guys have a board policy in place that says that we are going to follow FMLA.
If you're familiar with Indiana school finance, we have to code all of our expenses to rather granular codes that tell us whether it was a general elementary expense or was it a high school athletic expense or was it a you know, light bill that we're paying and so on. And so, I'm able to drill down by pulling exactly what was considered a special ed expense. So, we looked at your special ed expenses in your financial system, and then I spent a good amount of time discussing, interviewing, collaborating with your staff member your staff members your special ed staff members as well as your finance team, you know, your superintendent, your assistant superintendent, your CFO, treasurer, business manager, and then your special ed staff. So, I was able to ask quite a few questions of quite a few different people to make sure that I wasn't forgetting to include something.
Pellegrino runs it in, turns around, and takes a shot. Nice Nice save by the Minnechaug goalie as they quickly get at the ball up the field. They get the ball up to Kozip. Kozip with 30 seconds left. Kozip only one defender to go. It's Gianna Byron. Good job by Byron in staying front. Good good job by the Spartans to Good job by Gianna Byron to slow that play down. Kozip looking to to force the shot, not having the the scoreboard to her uh in front of her. Tough to know how much time is left as looked to force a shot off with 15 seconds. Julia Grace smartly just holding on to the wall to have the Spartans taking a eight-to-two lead going into the second half. Stay tuned, everybody. >> Mhm. >> in our half action as the Spartans have an 8-2 lead. Mack Whitwer comes up with a draw.
Um they do a lot of language interpretation for us. They support attendance. They help with home visits. Um they do a lot of document translation. They'll go to events and translate when needed. um they are big on getting resources for our families. If my families have been displaced due to a fire or due to um any other type of emergency, um if we know families are struggling and they need food or they need clothing, our parently are right on top of it. When a family member passes away or a student um family passes away, we uh coordinate with the culinary department. We bring them food. We get them what they need. Um they also are very big advocates for engagement for our parents. They want our parents to come in and they want us engage with their parents. They want students to call excuse me teachers to call home.
Okay. Great. Um, so let's say we're able to get these materials out next week, um, be able to advertise, do some communication pushes uh, through the ways that we can communicate with parents, and hopefully again, like we did with the superintendent search, being able to work with the city to do like a press release about it. I think that was helpful. Um and if there if there is a way to communicate with all of the boards and commissions and things, I think that those are also people that we would you know, want to do outreach to potentially participate on this. Um I think there are like we talked about last time, there are some definite individuals as well as specific, like the like the planning board. Um, like there are some specific people that we want to especially prioritize have having represented, so I think that those might be better like there's some individual outreach that can happen as well.
And the fact that administrators get paid, you know, so much more than teachers is outrageous, generally speaking. And I understand that it is they're getting commensurate pay pay that is commensurate with other communities. But clearly, if if you cannot find, you know, a lot of creative ways to add up a bunch of small cuts to make the $375,000, you have to look at administration. And the thing is is that teachers people that really and truly care about children stay in the classroom. People that choose to leave the classroom very often do so because they are looking for a lucrative career that is on the backs of the taxpayers. Now, we have had some excellent administrators in Kevin Case and Joe Scheidler and maybe some other principals. But clearly, the current superintendent isn't doing a good job and that he hasn't made sure that these grants were applied for.
Um the scouts swear a duty to God and country, to others, and to theelves, and they live by the virtues of the scout law through in all aspects of their life. The uh the Eagle Scout rank is one of the few ranks that is recognized by employers well beyond um the high school and college years. I I know in my own experience I've seen Eagle Scout on resumes from people who are in their 40s and 50s. So it is a definitely a well recognized award. So tonight uh we there are three Eagle Scouts in the class of 2026 from Troop 92. There are two um the first is Joshua Kovitz. [applause and cheering] One of the key aspects or final requirements for uh the Eagle Scout rank is is doing a it's it's planning um leading and implementing a major service project that should be around for 10, 15, 20 years.
Thank you. >> [applause] >> Our next speaker is Courtney Hayes. Hello. All right, I'm going to try to talk quickly cuz I I'm going to fill my full 3 minutes here. Um I will back him up though. We need a real piano. >> [laughter] >> Um okay, so so very quickly, um there had been a post about a transgender politician. I wanted to say that I highly support the post. It ended up getting deleted because of hateful comments and I just wanted to express that we should continue to teach those things in our school. We have a legal obligation to teach things like that. Um and to make sure that students, families, and staff feel safe and welcome in our schools. And so, the actionable point to that would be what are we doing to make sure that our trans and queer families feel safe and included.
In terms of the contracted staff, um just by way of a brief update, we have currently 12 staff in the district who are through contract agencies or individual contracts. And of those 12, for next year, we've already hired seven as uh of those positions as in-district employees. So, for next year at the moment, we have if we can't hire any of of the rest of them, we'll only have five instead of 12. It's a huge change. Huge change. >> And I'll just piggyback off of that. Um our budget for contracted services for this year was uh um just under um 1.2 million. Um we've overshot that, so it's going to be about 1.3 or 1.4 million for contracted services. So, the reduced number that we're looking at for next year, that that's huge savings. It's not going to be reflected in your budget that we're going to present to you because we have to leave that in there just in the event that we we need those in that line item.
So, we don't bring those to you. We did bring one to you um last month because it was turned into a medical leave. There were some more components that went with that. What I do have in front of you, and you have an updated copy um in your folder, we do have a non-certified staff member um who ended up thinking that had more leave than what the employee did and ended up taking a half day in the middle of the shift, which left without pay for that one. We have another non-certified staff member listed on your personnel report who did have an FMLA covered leave earlier in the year which the staff member had days saved up was able to do it but at the end of the year it had depleted the employees leave and there are still things that come up in life.