001All right, I would like to call this meeting of the region 2015 board of education to order for Wednesday, March 18th. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Ice flag of the nation. The mission of reachment team, a collaborative community committed to excellence, is to educate every student to be productive, ethical and engaged in a global society through proven and innovative learning experiences supported by strong community whose decision making is based on the best interest of all students. Um, just wanted to let everyone know that Heather Rogers is remote tonight. Um, and Steve is going to be joining us in a bit. So, um, Madam Chair, could I make a motion to >> change the agenda? Uh, motion to change the agenda. I'd like to move capital plan ahead of people services. >> All right.
002Do I have a second? Second by Sally. Any >> Yeah. Any discussion about that? >> No. Everyone okay with it? Okay. So, we'll do roll call. Go ahead. Start. >> Heather Dwer on. Marks. I >> Danzo. I >> Heather Rogers. I >> Did you hear that? >> No. Try it again. >> Heather Rogers. Eye. >> Nope. You got muted again. Heather. >> Heather Rogers. I The next motion. >> All right. So, we were going to start with a capital plan, Mr. Joe Martino. >> Evening everybody. Um, good thing about the capital plan was this is actually a we presented this finance back in this November or December kind of the layout what we're looking for for the 26.7 here. Um, this is staying inside the current proposal you're going to see. It stays inside the
003575,000 we have in capital. Um, and as Josh said, we are grateful for accounting to exist five years ago or so. So all good stuff. Um several our biggest building of all rock high school. Uh we are going to do another phase a locker bay remodel of abatement $43,000 as the board knows the upstairs. We did um either one meeting center room which the kids have been using as as breakout room. So we're going to do it another another locker bay as well this coming summer. Classroom wall divider. Uh there's actually three wall dividers upstairs. This is the second one we're going to do. Um the current wall dividers don't they don't close correctly. They're they're from the original building in 79. They have a lot of sound issues. They just they don't correctly. So
004place that this summer. I think it's in the social studies wing but minor. Um HVAC second floor. Um the back side of the building there was six classroom that had a steam coil fail and we the identity is on the front side of the building. So we're going to replace that this summer. They're both the same age in vintage. So that'll convert it to what's called a rooftop fired gas unit. So you then move off the steam system, which is really good. Prior price was 50 54,000 for escalator in there to get the 60 replacement on that boiler upgrades and heat exchanger. Um, as the board was notified two weeks ago, the we currently have a hot water loop like you may have in your house, but the boilers are steam. There's an exchanger that
005basically heats the water between the two. Um, we're looking at basically this is a piece of the replacement to really upgrade the sip and actually take out an old steam boiler. So, it's kind of an interesting upgrade. There's pieces to it um that may overlap in both budgets, but this would be one piece of the project. So, uh $100,000 towards that. Um, this is a new piece of legislation that's come around which none of our groups have saw this come through, but it really applies to regional school districts. DE, which is the Department of Environmental Protection, requires municipalities and regional school districts to have groundwater mitigation plans for runoffs. If you have more than 5 acres of hardcape, either roofs or asphalt on a property, um, municipalities have a blanket statement for the roads, everything
006else, but we do not for for regional school districts. So by December 30 uh 31st of this year, we have to file a claim with them for each school that is over 5,000 acres, >> five acres of of hard ass. So it's about $15,000 for file with the state. Um it's not really going to change it. We do. It just certifies the runoff from those areas. Um >> you did try to argue that that high school parking lot is like Swiss cheese. It's really not a solid >> Yeah. And it's and it's not it's really there major breaks. It's not like just like if you go from asphalt a little bit of grass. So I I spoke to you guys deep. Um so I don't really like regulations but >> before you move on the
007locker be remodel and abatement. Yes. >> Um >> I imagine part of this is because students don't use their lockers much anymore. But let's say hypothetically the pendulum swings the other way and textbooks come back um into the uh curriculum instead of you know uh not having textbooks. Do you think that that might change like I don't want to get rid of too many lockers? >> Well the the high school I think was housing 15600 students so I believe there's available lockers for the those amount of students originally. So, if you look at the new wing we did, um I do think even taking this out, there's still probably 900 to a,000 lockers still in the building a lot of this work. And right now, I think the current number I want to say close
008to 20 or 30 kids have actually taken lockers this year. The number is so low, it's Yeah, it's super low. Well, lesson I would argue that wasn't even really about text because students haven't been using lockers for good number of years long before we move to digital textbooks. >> So, there was a time where students walked around with like seven books in their backpacks um throughout the day. So, um I just don't know is it possible that someday that comes back in the fashion, but I don't think that's anytime soon. Yeah. >> Yeah. And there is options. The whole wing for example that way you put lockers going on those walls. There's options that we could do if it really really become like a big >> and and this becomes like an extra study space.
009>> Yeah. The kids signing out for a lot of multi-use stuff and teachers use it as well as additional like pull out time. Yeah. They really get a ton of use out of it. It really is really well. Um I do think this probably the next the rest of them we take any more after this may go towards if we talk about the science the current design we're looking at for the science labs kind of incorporate one of those bays and chemical storage again that's future project but I do think this be the last one to renovate >> okay question um ro shambo um we're going to continue well it's a zoned out placement project we did one wing already had really good success basically it goes what's currently a clutch or broken valve system
010where we don't we manual actually adjust the flow through the radiators. Uh the new system actually allows for a swing space on a thermostat. So a teacher can actually up and down modify their classroom temperature plus or minus 5 degrees uh during the day. So the classroom is too hot there's AC there. But as far as a heating issue, they have a digital control on the wall. So it's been a really nice thing. We're continue to kind of work our way through the building there. So 55,000 there. Um gym wall pads here in the roam ball. The current layout of the wall pads are there really isn't enough room to go around. Um and so we look to kind of add additional and even kind of under the current hoops there really is short. So
011that's a that's a four placement going around the gym 22,000. Um and also same thing Shambo would be over that five threshold. Um so that'd be $15,000 for the deep groundwater mitigation plan. Um, our next roof replacement is a Bal Hill School. So, this will be a roof design bid and the architects will begin to do all their planning and designing for the moral roof. The good news is more than likely same architect work at Long Meadow will do Memorial so that hopefully I can have all that stuff nailed in for this summer and then we can get that into the pipeline early than we are this cycle. Um, so that'll be uh getting cost estimated for that. and boreal obviously same over the five acre threshold. So you'll start that that groundwater mitigation everyone.
012>> Yeah. The elementary long on the edge >> and is to pay someone to do it or that's >> yes that is that is the hire consulting company. You can tell us our environmental work to basically evaluate your storm water runoff. It's not going to change anything we do. I think it's a limited number of companies to choose from that all have connections in part it's a fiveyear permit four to five years we're told yeah yeah I'm not the price may get better as more municipalities do it I talked to a bunch of regional districts we're kind of looking at some maybe get some price in there because the plans are going to be very foc issue um middle ramen the the main entrance floor we're going to look probably um tiling that that's currently
013um carpeting original the building 9000 uh the PA system we're looking to upgrade that we've had a lot of great success replacing the current PA systems with a much more modern system uh window replacement we are looking at kind of we do have some windows that have if you ever have in your house you get kind of this frosted look the the argon gas inside the window goes and seal so you get this moisture kind of inside of it so we work with a window manufacturer kind of replace those windows inside and cut out. Um, so it'll be 10 to 15 windows at Middle Rail Elementary. It'll increase the art value. It's not a full replacement, but it's kind of a modification of the current one. So, kind of good stuff there. Long meadow. This
014summer, we're going to take advantage of the fact the schools will be closed. So, we're going to do a gym resurfacing out there. Um, that is currently an oil finish. uh which is very yellow if you'll notice that where if you look at the two middle school high school went to that that light water-based finish and we'll do the same thing there once they get too much buildup they they really are hard to get back down so take that down the fair wood while the building's closed on your roof uh classroom pal replacement you still have a lot of carpeting out there long metal was actually originally done for the building it's held well but is getting time this year so $15,000 there um the bus company we it's our building it's our That building
015currently is served by an electrified HVAC system. We talked to the gas company. We can actually current gas line runs right by the bus office. So we can actually tap off and hook a gas line up for about a $10,000 conversion there. It's RMER. It's R electric. So we get it's really additional building. Um so $10,000 for that conversion to do that work in longterm will save them expensive. Um much like the repair bond um we will um we'll continue to evaluate the needs of of the two schools obviously depending on how everything goes in our longer term planning but you know with long hog elementary and field are not within the capital plan um but they're also not they're not forgotten in overall maintenance of the plan. We're looking at possibly some options on
016the portables out at uh Mary's portable carpeting and doing some things like that. But um for right now, I know big plans for those schools and our our chair central office. Um we're looking at doing um as we did in that main hallway, the finance office and the conference room across the hall doing additional work there. The business office has a lot of like an old cubicle synchronizing action. They kind of open up some office space there. And the current comments are as you know the carpet is kind of coming apart. Underneath that is about tile that's removed. So $38,000 there. Um and grand total projects 575,000 and total kind of works inside the capital budget. Um you know a lot of get some some more things off the the broken list. that call some
017of the a couple things the high school system for example it's flat this year next year uh the only change I'd say between finance law was kind of that that deep um plan which hopefully will get cheaper I I really think the plans are divergable state >> right thank you any questions for Jeff >> quick one about window replacement. So you're saying 10 to 15 windows. Uh how big is the need in that compared to the need or is there a lot of replacement? >> Those are the ones that have the I call the fogging issue right now. So yeah, so that >> yeah that that alleviate what's there. Um and again depending on um if we do like two in a classroom, one really isn't gone yet, the other one is. So we're kind
018of see how the price comes back, but it gives us some good options. Yeah. And then the second question related is >> um I would know how to do it so I guess the price seems right but 2500 bucks a window like is that a lot cheaper than replacing that like looked into replacement. >> Yeah. If if you go into that the problem is it's all done it's all in case it's all closed and brricked. So unlike your siding kind of cut off the cling everything is brick need a mason where this basically is a they're kind of crank out frames. So you're really popping them out. You're redoing the glass. So yeah, it's it's a much cheaper option. It's not a it's a direct replacement, not like a window insert if you call it.
019So picture a crank out window just replacing that crank out section. Thank you. >> So I know it's not really product, but it seems like there are several roof kind of patches and repairs that happened over the last year. Um, well, I've heard more about EBS, but I've seen GPS as well. About how much do you think that kind of impacts that capital >> if to do like a repair on PS or what? So, like I mean that right now >> I'm just wondering it's not really outlined here, but how much do you think yeartoear like we're kind of >> repairs right now? Probably $10,000 ran for like PDS for let's say so far this year. Um, you know, we have we have a really good actually a really good roofer does a lot of
020really great repair work. So, good success with them. Their documentation is spot on. Get all kinds of photos of the areas they did. Um, they actually replace over a black roof with a white patch and they outline it. They've been really good about finding the leaks up there. Um, you know, I mean, obviously years go on with PS. I mean, there's the the fifth grade, they've had been some issues. Uh, E-wing, which kind of called the new wing. There's a seam leak there. rather than kind of fighting through. Um there's a few up there, you know. Um yeah, I mean we'll buy in time. Um you know, it's not perfect. >> Some of the smaller you don't have to touch the capital. >> Yeah. No. No. Like if we did, for example, the fifth grade
021portables, you're probably looking at like a quart of a million dollar project to to do new EP top on those. For example, >> with the repairs, yeah, maintenance lines, correct? Yeah. >> They'll come out of that. >> Okay. I mean I guess >> yeah right now >> what kind of risk uh you know ratio >> I mean right now it's all patchable the roof of the central example the way it was kind of coming apart it was unpatchable remember that back section a bunch of years ago we reofroofed that section about five years ago um so right now it's it's okay it's not perfect GS actually has more new rubber up there we did St. Josh's first unit, a big chunk of the roof section up on Gainesville. So Gainesville does have a lot of
022fun roof sections. There is a shingled section which is if we had to do it, it's probably a 30 or $40,000 job. Not astronomical. It means that it was older if it was identified in the study. Um yeah, no, we're keeping a good eye on them. I mean, we did make it out pretty okay with with the amount of not up there. It really stretches the rubber out and that's you get the seam that split. And I got to say overall we we did pretty good. So um I don't >> Yeah, once you get to like critical mass,000 then it's kind of a small like PBS right now. >> Any other questions? Apologies for being late. I was listening online. Yes. Windows. >> Any questions? >> No. >> All right. Thank you very much. We'll
023move on to people services with Dr. Sher. Just waiting for That's my present. Sweet. Okay. Um, thank you very much about the budget portion heard from colleagues the last presentation about a lot of work that we're doing. Um, so I just wanted to take you back a little bit to talk about IDPA. My slides are self-explanatory so that you know if you want to look at it later it's fine but the core of what we do in student services and special education is based in this law. Um and really I wanted to highlight what is important for the board of education understands it's that it's a legal mandate it's a funding mechanism and it's a civil rights commitment um to our students and it includes a way that yes of our funding but it in
024control backgrounds who obligation what we should be doing for our students. So I just wanted to reflect back to that but the board level impact I can show you the board level impact is the fiscal responsibility and there's something called maintenance of effort which means we generally can't reduce our support for special ed from year to year it's really based on of students that we have so it's not a large that way um but understanding this helps I get to the budget drivers they anticipate We also um work with risk management. So our procedural safeguards um where our challenges arise where uh if we're not doing what we say we need to do for students there can be due process hearings which are costly um so there's some risk management follow the laws and then
025there's student outcomes which it's the board's job and other jobs to ensure all students graduate ready for what they want you know post high school so it could be education employment independent living um is a multiple rate. What we work for transition services which begin at age 14 um or younger in some states um ensure students with disabilities don't fall through the cracks and we're making sure we're looking to see what their hopeful outcomes will be. Just wanted to do a little background. So truly the budget drivers of student services because we're at land on tuition and transportation. uh there we certainly have line items uh for all different items, but there's no increases for both lines. Uh we're maintaining them, but mostly tuition and transportation have been our our main drivers of our cost.
026Um so, as you see here, we have our current costs for this school year and the proposed costs for the following school year. These were created on actual students uh with about a five to 7% increase. We have just begun getting in uh tuition costs from each of the facilities um that they're giving us their numbers and it's ranging from a 5 to 7% increase per uh tuition per school. So I wanted to give you a little bit of perspective about our out of district um tuition. So there's a lot of things here. So I'm going to explain them. So the bars are the members of students that we've had in out of district um facilities. So those are special education day school, they might be residential schools and they're also for our post um
027high school students as well. Uh the line um that you have down there is about the legislative change that we had where uh the state increased the exit age from 21 to the end of the school year of the child turning 22. Um, and the reason why this is important is that our numbers of student out district could be lower um, if we didn't have to maintain until they're 22. Again, it's what's good for students. Um, but I just wanted you to have that in this landscape. The yellow line is the cost of tuitions at over time, the budgeted tuition. And as you can see, at one point tuition were lower back in 201718. And although I decreased the number of students um that have been in a district because of the supported in school
028programs that we've had here, the tuitions have risen. Um so I just wanted to give you a graph because you know the fluctuation of the students that we have out place and those are students we can't support with the school building. So even with our specialized programming but the costs have increased astronomically. Now, interestingly enough, it's interesting, but the um legislature has understood that this is going um it's just growing astronomically and even 2028 they're starting to look at potential rate setting for out of district schools, but um we still have to budget for our students that we have currently. So, I just wanted to give you a graphic to see that although we've been working hard on doing inschool programming, the prices continue to go up on outside of the district school. I just
029um I always get this question. Why is it that the school districts are respons responsible for added placements that involve 24hour care? like why why is it why aren't we only responsible for 9 to three instead of all 24 hours? Can you explain that? I get that question a lot. Yeah, I mean so we don't have a lot of students that are in the 24-hour care but in general if it's part of their educational plan um that they must have that level of instruction even in the afternoon or even in the evening um that we are responsible for it. Now there are some placements that students are placed for other reasons and we only pay for the 9 to3 education. So it really is individual but it it is fully related to reasons that we're
030educating for their disability then we're responsible for the entire package and courts have rules that we have to do that I guess. Okay. >> Not something that we have discretion. >> Yeah. It's part of the continuum of service. Um, ultimately it's the most restrictive if you're not living at home, but it it's a lot of reasons why they have. All right. So, I put a definition of excess cost here so that you do that as well. Um, it can be very confusing. Um, but this is the uh reimbursement that we get from the state after we meet the deductible for site. Um, and I'll show you some of that in the next graph, but this is what you see as the excess cost reimbursement. Um, if you go to the next slide, I'll run you
031through the example that I have here. So, uh, excess cost is multiplies 4.5 times our per pupil cost. So, our current per pupil cost is the 24,834. So if you multiply that by 4.5, it's 111,000 and change, right? So this student A, their tuition um is $186,000. That's what their cost is. We are responsible for the 100 first $111,000 before the state allows us to put the other piece in for reimbursement. So if we were to receive 70% reimbursement, we would be on 74,000 which would we would get back $52,000. So in the end we are responsible for $134,000 of the $186,000 tuition if we get reimbursed from the state. So our annual frustration is formula is that when I go to the past week promise from the federal government was 100%. Never seen 100%.
032Um in the state there have been not recently but at one point there was times where it was 100%. It was still 100% within the 74,000 u 186,000. So yeah, I appreciate that our nation decides that we better care of our children. Uh but this continues to disproportionately impact our local district and the shift from age 212 compound that again's point public schools do a good job starting kids and the extra year actually is good for kids. Uh but it's an extra in that number if one of the 21 roles was $186,000 we would have remove that cost. Now we're going to extend that for another year. So um I I appreciate the u philosophy behind it but our continued fight part is we need to change formula or funded at a higher rate. What
033we've asked for this session is we the ind district programs that we're uh hosting we'd like some type of incentive where it's like two and a half%. >> Yeah. At this point with this rate in district students don't reach the deductible for any kind of percentage return. We used to be able to no longer. >> I just% that what is it going to be? Right. >> So what's happening is basically it's kind of it's complicated but interesting in that that 78 the money there's a pool of money that state sets aside and the percent so two years ago they promised they came that threshold to 97 I don't remember 94 I think 90 but they didn't add money to the pool right >> so that number then got reduced back to 68 even though legislation
034set. >> Now, the interesting thing is kind of how this slide uh >> well, if you can go back, I just want to also say when you're looking at my budget, you're not going to see the excess cost because it's a it's a revenue line. So, you're not see you only see the expenditure on my budget, but the excess cost goes in the revenue. And then the next slide I've showed I've shown um >> so in that because student lo go up the threshold that continues to go out there. So fewer students actually hit the threshold, qualify for state reimbursement. So there is this kind of like state saying in some ways well we've had fewer dollars requested is because we have fewer students hitting that threshold. Right? >> So this this graph shows how
035the threshold's grown over time. And so we're sitting now at about 111 is our deductible that we have to reach as a student before we can class for reimbursement. So um it's gone >> and it's it's exponential. So for every $1,000 our first student cost goes up. Our threshold goes up four times. So, you know, every year fewer and fewer expenses qualif that that peral rate does that include the students who are also like their contributions to so as their as their rates raise they're raising our peral must raising the amount of money. >> That's correct. >> Yes. So they're hitting a spice. >> Yes. And that four times >> and the reimbursement rate has not similarly risen. >> So they changed the reimburseable rate in statute but they didn't add any money to it.
036So while they changed that rate they said if there's not enough money reversed to proportion. So they changed our rate n more money and then we got reimbured last year was 67% >> last year >> but the legislation said they're supposed to be at 90 or 89 >> and so we we have not changed our revenue expectation based on the state's legislation. Some districts did and ended up with big holes. don't call any names. Um >> we had that year we were >> projected a little higher and the state was way off. >> So the challenge in this year's budget not related to this directly is that threshold and the lack of additional funding is why you had a 5.3 school budget increase but a point4 in taxable 5.4 taxable because our revenue went down.
037So the that's where we kind of talked about yeah have two numbers technically it's 548 but it's a revenue loss that.18 bills. Um and before you move on from that um it seems like Sally will be giving an update about the key bill that she and I went to our next meeting. Um but not to to steal any of your thunder. Um, it just seems like in Hartford they're not really focused on excess cost this session. It seems like maybe there's some more focus on ECS but not as much as >> an excess cost. It almost seems as if they're shifting they're they're looking to shift the cost of special education for local towns. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> All of this continues to shift cost. not absorb any of the cost escalation. There's a
038lot of explaining this no disrespect to legislators. This is the hard thing. You don't live in a little bit. And the fact that it's called excess cost and educational cost sharing confuses people. So even excess cost become interchangeable which they're not. Um and ECS goes to towns doesn't go to school districts. So when you talk to municipalities, they look at their ECS line, which is part of the reason why is focused more on ECS just more universal where this is a little more and less as far as formula goes. Although if you look at the ECS formula, it's not clear and that fight is happening right now actually and shifting that formula. Um, don't want to get out of my ski, but the change they made today, uh, my understanding based on the query of
039emails coming through the current formula, um, has the per student food students spending at $11,000. As you can see here, we haven't been close to $11,000 probably since 2010. Our per student spend formula changed in they did today and effectively makes that $6,000 student spending. I don't think it's going to stay there, but kind of manipulate these formulas. People don't understand how they use the estimators in concept, but they would have to double the current SCF to keep up with these rates and that is not even part >> but even even so it changing the ECF's formula does not help us because we are a regional district. We don't get that money. So in other words, other school districts that are just not a regional district, they're a town district, they get the PCS funding.
040>> Well, it goes to the towns too, but in those cases, the town's directive budget go to school budget, >> right, >> differently than happens in a region. Both South and middlegrade for a few years, the last three or four years saw increase in in PCS that helped to offset the cost of education. Yeah, >> that seemed flat. >> South is very smallish. I think 150,000 very small. Yeah. >> Do do you have the money? I'm concerned estimates of what both towns are going to be getting for the ECF. >> Yeah, the current budget middle risk flat. I do think I think Ser about 150,000, but there is a lot of conversation in Harford about the the floor limit on on the cost per student. So, I I I do think that they were being
041an election year, they're likely something to cost sharing about. >> Okay, back to the ECF and the town versus district. So um schools that are not you know regionalized that are does that show up on their revenue linear increase? >> Yeah. So the cost is basically the state reimbures to offset the cost but it comes in like it's not a direct password. So I mean in theory if in the uh school cost middle area is 30 million if they get 250,000 just reduces that 30 million by 10,000 doesn't matter if they pay roads with it or pay but regardless if it was a a school or just a town school in a single town it wouldn't show up in the budget like they >> well also in the background of all this too we're seeing
042what the federal uh government do the department identification specifically the department of special education we're watching you know they may change which department it's under which then will change the uh financial outlook as well so there's a lot of things are there so um totally the key factors impacting the student service budget are the student needs and service intensities uh tuition rates of specialized programs um again I said between 7% increase um just on average across the board. Um our transportation costs have increased by 7% um this year. So that is what is also given a rise to my budget and property costs. If you go through the line items is up by 20,000 and that's due to durable um durable medical equipment. So if students need some kind of communication device or they need
043a medical standard or something of that nature, we're obligated to uh provide that for them because that gives them access to the education. But it does increase. than uh this next piece um hopefully will give you some more insight about the request for the third social worker. So on this slide I've listed the activities that our two social workers performed. Um obviously not all at once but definitely um within the school year we began with our two social workers added in 2019. Um that's when we ended our services with spectrum at the end of the road where we're getting some clinical services. um because that took away the blurred line between schoolbased services versus outside services. So um our two social workers are absolutely fabulous um and they can do these kinds of things. Um
044I wanted to also show you on the next slide um it's over time. So sort of the first year as I don't have to give data on the work that they did but 2020 to 2021 um the dark blue bar shows um the referrals that they've had and then uh for this year so far the teal are their um referral rates. Now referrals can be one interaction with a student and family or it can be from student families with many interactions. I only represent the data by child super. So um it could be much higher if I one child had like 15 things that have done with that child. So um this shows graphically how their referral rate has increased over time. I also track data seeing you know increases at secondary level increases at
045the elementary level. the addition of a third social worker, we've put out the case load so that we could have more hands-on time with the social workers in all of the buildings. So, currently we have one social worker that slips between the high school and two middle schools, one social worker that slips between the elementary schools. We're currently looking at what that split look like. So, it could be a middle area, Southary split, it could be a middle school, elementary, high school. So we're just looking at how fair them work and work consistently the district that answers some of the questions about the social work. So of course you know I always have my graphics in my presentations students with special needs are not behind they're just on a different journey um and every step
046they take is a victory. insurance. What happened? >> Yeah. >> Yep. So, I mean, you know, in the beginning, we weren't really sure how we were going to utilize them. We didn't have them keep case loads because they had to be spread over multiple buildings. Um, but it definitely was an upward track but they are doing a consistent great amount deal of work >> moment but on the technology software lines >> we had a a decent jump last year and a similar jump this year. Can you talk to us a little bit about that software? >> Yes. So um again everything has a price increase um that's happening. Um my line items are for our social emotional screening that happens um in the district and that is um where uh teachers are rating if you
047look at um I think we talked about it I think Michelle might have talked about it at the at the last presentation. So that's software that we that I paid for um we have software that um are some um curriculum software that are running our specialized program that is increased in a price. I'm actually looking right now at a different uh package to see if I can cut the cost a little bit, still get the same um deliverables that I get um with our current software. Uh what's difficult in special education is there's a limited number of uh groups or uh companies that provide that service and they monopolize it. Another piece of that is one of our tests um Johnson is being upgraded and it's required to be administered on an iPad. So not
048only do I have to purchase the new testing material which is an iPad um to go with that testing material. So you know unfortunately there's a monopoly So I did appreciate the last time around when your colleagues that with the principles and um it's all presented as sort of one big team right where we can see how I think it was Mr. Romeo to talk about the intervention is that how um the delivery of you know when you when special needs students are in the gened classroom how that delivery is sort of coordinated with all this all the staff building. So it's was great to see that or to hear about that. Um and I understand um the presentation you kind of need to stand on their on their own because someone could you know
049access presentation later and you need this information to maybe understand everything. Um I think um no one is arguing on this board that mandates you know the change they increase um state funding is what kind of role um the principles I when they were here you know I think they answered some tough um questions about um effectivists outrights to scores um and I have previously brought up at a previous meeting um the next generation score about the gaps in performance um in one particular case they flagged um the gaps between special needs performance of the gen population um and I'm thinking about you know how we're able to kind of you know ask the principles slightly tougher questions And I I just can't help but feel that when we discuss um the special education budget
050um we sort of I think hide behind um the thought the reality that this is all mandated um and and I mean this presentation I mean it's it it's the same relatively the same slides over here. Um I am just one person on this board. I'm not I'm not denying the escal escalating needs special needs students and the escalating costs. Um but I think you know school budgets our school budget is going us. We have as a board a focus on effectiveness and sort of the return on investment. How do we know? I think we were talking about the IT last time, but how do we know that it is working? I understand that traditional metrics don't necessarily apply to special needs students. Like so I get that there's a nuance there. Um I did
051I did ask for that and like I don't really feel like that that was even attempted. Um here I asked uh at the meeting with principles were here about for example like a comparative social worker ratio between other districts and and again it's just a list of this is what they do. piece of it, you know, and there and and there's more referrals like I I don't I don't know why, you know, I I think that could have been dived into deeper with the ratio of the other school district like are we over or under like based on this? Like I don't know how I could support the additional social workers simply based on the fact >> Yeah, they're not questions. They're just they're just statements. Um they're really not questions like I'm just expressing
052my disappointment. Um so that's why I feel like yeah I think of talked about um well I think going forward like we talk about we're talking about effectiveness or you know how do we know that we've invested all this money just broadly speaking we're talking you know PNC we're going to talking PLA those department heads and we're going to doing that and we're trying to think of metrics like I really would want to know like how do we measure the effectiveness of the money that's being spent in special education like is it should we measure it you know with ASPback like I mean I kind of think the answer would be you know mostly no but like I I'm looking for some way to maybe just understand um like I said how how do we
053know that this money is spent that we're getting out of >> actually so I kept this book as it was upcoming and I'd be very happy to talk about that policy and curriculum meetings because I have a three-year plan always do um and we can talk a little bit more nuanced about students what I did here is I kept it to the budget numbers for a budget presentation um the pieces about the social worker actually where I didn't hear that question about you wanting to know about the social worker. The problem is that social workers aren't used the same way in every district. So we have school counselors, we have school psychologists, our social workers are in a different model than in other districts. So it's not really apples to apples, but um you know
054I felt like that that's not the issue, but I really wanted to make sure that what's driving the student services budget is what's right here on this slide. That's what I was just going to add like to your question about return on investment. So this slide highlights what I would argue is the largest driver budget. This had zero to do with any student performance metric and zero to do the the ROI in here is the lack of due process. So if we fail to serve these students um and end up in due process, then it's the legal fees that are flat in this budget uh that really again compounded. But like the challenge with that question um is that this budget is almost flat with the exception of two places that have nothing to do
055with any student performance metric that the the students that we serve in these numbers have significant challenges that can't be served by our school district and there the only metric here is are they safe and are shouldn't say the only metric but the metrics that we measure each student by are as individual those numbers. There's 32 different metrics. It's based on the school. It's based on need. It's based on the challenge the student has. Um so like there is a little there is the return on investment that we're serving this next year 32 students in our community that we are not capable of providing uh instructional services for. uh and that I think the the disconnect that we had before we put this chart together was the assumption that over time uh we provide this
056Cadillac model where we send students out to whatever school the parent wants them to go to and that's not true right like in the last 10 years our numbers have remained I don't know 49 spike there 21 uh but overall our numbers have remained relatively flat we're paying almost six times more for three four times two million six million I guess three times more in out of district cost that mirrors every school district when you look at the proportion of um dollars in a school district budget or come up in this regionally now but it's between uh 24 and I think 30 in the district that respond to the survey that's percent budget going to um the special education And that's what we're saying in Hartford like that number is moving faster and faster to
057your point like and not in the I'm going to send there's no assessment data that's going to speak to that and so I do think we could come PNC media and talk in detail about like all the programs and the services and how we measure that um the individual education plan all goal and look at how students are on that goal but there's not going to be like a linear piece. So, we did struggle kind of some of the questions about that return. Um, and really we work really hard to keep the special education budget of the things that we could control, they're controlled in this budget. Um, the drivers which I guess is the soap box there in the entire the 5.43 there's really little in there. um the administrators and and staff the
058district worked hard to reallocate things within kind of last year's lines with the exception of things that were somewhat out of our control. I think the bigger picture if you want to have that conversation is do we start putting other programs to mitigate the cost like this line here the conversation happening among school districts is how sustainable is that no one wants to students deserve services no one's like challenging that but if the local communities those costs uh we have two choices either absorb them or we start to cut the programs and this budget maintains those other programs. Um, but does that grow again? And even the social worker is still a reallocation of that being taken out, but um that that's the that's exacerbates or helps. Um except just one one person voicing you
059know my concern you know certainly best thing for offer to come to PNC chair you know well I think she'll she's very nice she'll be seated I'm sure the chair right so that would be you know I think that would be that's the bene this morning. >> Um, you know, I'll I'll briefly counter with an acknowledgement that um, you know, I do see the out placement going down um, in large part due to centers set up over the last years of your presentation. That's a creative solution um that um you know I know it's being done in the district too but I appreciate us exploring that um as a tool to help control those costs. I think at the board level last year when we made the commitment to set up a special fund within
060our um our contingency to help us insulate uh ourselves against unexpected cost as opposed to just passing that along to the public. That's creative solution the board came up with to try to minimize the impact. Uh but I look at that chart and you know you'll probably hear me use this word a lot tonight for later discussions. It's not sustainable. So more creative solutions that's going to be needed and I don't know if those come in the way of you know kind of regional solutions and partnering with other districts. I mean I guess the takeaway is I appreciate the effort to this point to do what we can to control costs. Um, however, we're getting close to a breaking point. And if we're not going to rely on caliber coming from the capital, we have
061to continue to pursue, you know, there's more work to be done. And um, and that's that's a heavy lift because it's not a specific do this. Again, I'm acknowledging that we've already done some of that work. Um, but we're just going to have to continue to get more creative. So, it continues on this trend line. Um it's just it's not something we can sustain as a district. >> But in um last years ago, last year the transportation consortium uh uh two years >> uh you know which is interesting in that so one of the challenges with transportation as Dr. Shar said there's a limited number of vendors. So if you have a child move in or a child that needs transportation and you call around um they kind of had a barrel and we were
062paying I would argue extortion type prices for some of that transportation. Uh and so we created a sort of school district to try to share and offset those costs. Arguably that has insulated us from unexpected cost increases and kind of some of the extortion prices, but it hasn't really saved, you know, it's kind of prevented things from growing faster than trends, >> you know, but yeah, it hasn't really like turned the tide in the other direction. Um, so that consortium continue to look for ways to find more efficient ways to do things. Uh, but having how we can share buses. If a bus is going from, you know, Watertown Dan, are they driving through and we happen to have a student? There's also like that student elementary school student here and then Watertown as a
063high school student and where are they going in Denver and how long like there's all these, you know, they purchase do they live on Main Street, you know, and so we we're working through those challenges. Um, you know, but I do think that these costs and it's not just special education. There's a other places. Health insurance is the other one. They're moving at exponential rates and they're outpacing everything else. Uh and so there are questions about how sol and you know while this is our budget at our time the larger the district the faster those cost. Um and smaller districts have a bigger percent of the budget. So, um, you know, the swing district that has a $13 million budget, you have a student health base of 300,000, it's a much larger cost budget. Um,
064so the legislation that was passed last year at Hartford is going to try to mandate cap cost increases. Um the cynic in me says that the services and these companies that provide these services have the same labor issues, same insurance issues like just capping cost seems like a simplified um so I don't have the answer that you talk about the insurance and special education every meeting every not have insurance u but every one of Mr. Martino's meeting is due and you know every one of our meetings include those two drivers that is more we can find efficiencies in other places um so that we can insulate against some of these costs that is every conversation legislators um there there has to be a more efficient way of cost so um there's no answer there but
065you know I appreciate the green programs and helps right as long as you can staff it good for kids, it's good for the community financially, uh, and it allows us more flexibility in hosting to enter and exit those programs. Uh, we now we now have them at all levels, which we didn't have a couple years ago. Uh, the next piece is how we start to leverage some of those 18 to 22 year old programs, try to find scale there. Uh, but there is no u simple offramp to this cost. >> What's difficult too is you know we want to increase and grow our transition program that make increasing staff which changes all the other metrics but it also increases the need of supervision of of staff and students. So with everything comes something else. So
066I what I what I hear Steve like I I do appreciate the offer to come to TNC and I would support that. as well. But what what I'm hearing in Steve's question is how are we doing compared to other districts? These would be special education. How do we know what we're doing works? That kind of thing. So do you so when we look at our elementary schools or middle schools, we do comparisons to other districts to see how we're doing relative to other districts. Do you do something? So I mean the only things that I can do are the scores to compare to other >> the next gen scores. >> Yeah. And the ESPback score things like that. Um but one of the things that I'm doing this year is actually a leadership institute where
067I'm looking across the country to see if there's other ways that can look at these things to see if we can be more efficient or whatot. So I'm hoping that is helpful too. But it's comparison. So the comparison then I brought them to um draft in our cabin meetings to talk about well you know could it be could we change the advisory structures could change how we do x and such um those are some of the things that continuously look at to see if we can change those structures um to see if we can I mean our goal is to have students back in Jed you know not extra supports so that's why this year we Um we've got a very tight relationship with math coaches see wayize that um special education moves forward as
068as well as um what how tier one does. So our tier one in the school moves along better our special education also will along but I can explain more about that. You look at identification rates for example like you look for data metrics on comparison usually it's case rates rates rates identification rates but the exit rates aren't calculated the same way the student performance um metrics are there there is a state report that we do pretty well on I feel like we use that in presentation there was the state special or where we did favorably on that one. Uh but they're not like again the students that are in these lines here aren't in the so like I don't want to bl if those 32 people are just you know are the vast amount of
069the budget that that is what it is but I think kind of what I think like what is it one out of six kids have an IEP like it's some really high number isn't like it's one it's what percentage >> we're 18% of the district. >> Yeah. So much right. So like to to everyone's point like a great thing to look at from a a metrics perspective would be and so if you're you sort of sort of barely you know tipped into the into the system like how how is that and you mentioned about the support itself. Yes. Now we have a data warehouse and a person to run it like are we tracking the effectiveness of how people or which students are kind of you know moving in and moving out of the yes
070I think that you know so is that making sense that's I think that's a great it's a great that's a great and that's really what I'm asked like I think that's really like I'm not saying like you've spent you know there mandated these 32 students know like you should have shopped your house for a cheaper tool. That's not really a cheaper placement like like that's not that's not but I mean I'm sure there's limited options. >> So um it's it's I think the other probably everybody at least 32 students and and just and I appreciate the point about um like I know like I think at one point you talked about the man and how you were the transition student being driven to which was great to hear about. I know several years ago was
071like the I forget the the acronym there's a room in the high school I want to say the the the classroom with your behavioral um you could inhouse something I think recently >> oh collaborative learning program >> CL >> and that's what we now have at each level so that >> so how does that is interesting like it's kind of old data at this point but you know how does how does that is and make it doesn't keep cost down or you know those are the types of things I think can draw on and say you know we're trying to make growth and and and you know I think I think there's a lot of good answers that came up so I don't want to bel it seems like spot >> no but I really
072like engaging in these conversations because I can reflect on like last week's presentation where when we were talking about the collaborative learning program and how it it offsets or what could have been, you know, and that's what we do a lot of is what could have been. So if we kept students in, it could have been. But even we have a continuum. So even if those programs can't work and help the student, we still have to do the outs. But we could have we have avoided a couple. So it was like I think at the time was like cost avoidance of like $300,000 because that would have been three placements or two and a half placements or something of that nature. So, that's kind of like where we're talking about that area. Um, I think
073some of the things that I would love to talk about when I do go to PNC because um it's about supervision and supervision abilities too. Um, Mr. Rapalano and myself cover um K8 and we have um Mr. who does the high school. um you know, we would love to have more facetime in classrooms. And those are some of the things that we're trying to work on and how can we be more present and how can we train other people to be able to uh help leverage in the classroom, you know, um when you're, you know, dealing with emergencies or state paperwork deadlines or these other pieces or, you know, title n or um you know, anything else that we're doing, then we're not in the classroom doing that supervision. So that's some of the benefits.
074the improvement plan because for me the ultimate success that a student developer has in is receiving good general education um instruction but my next metric for me is our time with non-disabled peers increasing so our percentage moving closer to the 70 72 75% of time in gen that's success to me because that means less time we have to pull kids out for specialized instruction all of that I can completely outline I purposely separated it out to keep this just the budget. >> Jeff had his hand up. >> Steve, just what I was gonna ask, but I was I love the chart that shows how many um students are are out of the district. I'm just curious what exact comparison is to the other districts. Like you said, 18% of our population is in some version
075of the program and then 32 students are outplaced. Those are metrics compared to others. Doesn't mean anything necessarily other than how much of course budget draw like it's lowered over time here, but I could get those numbers of what other districts now you have to try to get similar districts too because um you know how many special ed students do they have because percentages and ratios and things like that as well. Um but like some districts have entire out of district programming in their district so they never send students out. So I can try to pull something together like that. Um try to do comparative data. I mean I'm proud of the fact that I have moved when I started here um we were in the mid 40s of people and so we built programs
076and we're down in 30s which is I think fantastic. >> I remember those from the budget. That was those were smart decisions and I think this gives us perspective as to how maybe the landscape is shifting as well. >> So that's not a number that's reported statewide. So it's like call >> is that is the count. So like the bigger the district the more in house programs they have. So yeah, like if you have u an elementary student uh with a specific challenge, uh we wouldn't necessarily build a program for one or two students uh because it would be cost effective. If I was a large urban city, I might pull two or three from each school and now I have 10 program and now it's worthwhile and it's 10 every year. uh where we
077have a child at a specific age or grade even program for it three years later there might not be anyone so scaling up so like it is um and if you're a really small you're never going to build that house program um but again I think of a specific district who had a child uh that was placed in school they're already in school year before we have the conversation stay there but a relatively small district close to a student event at $300,000 their entire budget small. So that's kind of the challenge is like that like we can pull it but that's kind of one of the one of the hard parts about metrics is there's so so we how do you the time with non-disabled peers a good metric right like that that's a constant
078definition that everybody has whether you have one student or 100 students it's the same definition so I think that like one of the things we tried to do tonight and we'll we'll continue to try to you know find a lot of page temperature but uh you know a lot of the drivers of this budget are not related to anything to do with student achievement or student performance and so we try to to separate what I'm concerned about is that somebody uh will take our budget and say that um somehow connect the services that these students are deserving of that as a nation promised and some type of performance metric because you know whether or not these students served by this grant by this why I know you know even take an assessment ever working >>
079well and I do have to say there's at least students who actually perform a three and four on their backs that are out out of district place so they're actually not even against our metric they're incredibly smart children that just have incredibly high >> needs >> but I think the state does measure some metric right the state does back or They don't have to do that, but depending on the type of disability that they're out with or, you know, if their emotional availability, it's whether or not they participate that test. And then um the state does measure, but if you have students that are on an alternate, they only take a percentage and they give everybody else zero. So like there's all these kinds of metrics that do count against us. >> Um I'm sorry,
080I don't understand what you just said. >> Yeah. So there's an alternate uh assessment. It's called CTAA or the SBA. So, it's alternate and it's a checklist um that we have for students um who have significant cognitive or uh language impairments. And so, they only allow 1% of the district to be able to be on that checklist. So, we have to be very careful specific measures. But I've still yet to figure out their metric on how they measure this that they only take scores for a certain number of that 1% and give everybody else zero and that's what's calculated. And all of the school district has to do the same thing. >> Okay. And at one point I here's one was it two years ago we were at 1.4% 40% kids that were on the
081checklist and we had to sit through a webinar that we couldn't participate. We just had a listen to tell us you have to stay below 1% and Emily but I have a child who's over that 1% and so it's it's a lot of interesting things. >> So right so if you have let's say whatever number of children that are not >> you're only allowed to have 1% >> to be on this alter. So, so there's a challenge in there how that 1% is calculated because it doesn't take everything about special education individualized education plans except the 1% definition. So like that's where there's some challenge but you're right everybody falls under that same definition. The time with non sayable peers is also a metric that is >> I think it's the most reliable one. >>
082I I agree. It's not a It's not how that works. It's about how how mainream it keeps. >> I'm sorry. >> No, because I was going to change about social order. >> So, I had a question because I think that's, you know, a lot of is kind of cost drivers that we don't have that much control over that we need sort of outside of the box things that Tom's talking about. But, you know, I mean, I I I'm as promental health as you can basically get, but I also want to be thoughtful about kind of like demonstrating the need for this and and some of the numbers that Steve asked for to I understand like that, you know, statewide 80 to one social worker recommend to one. But again, how we kind of sort of
083play those resources resources would be helpful to understand because I do think, you know, with one of the other major cost drivers being insurance costs have keeping a position there is something that we need to think about. And I and I feel like I want to understand exactly how that will be used and and have some more data to support it because I know that effectively incorporating another social work probably could be very helpful. But it would be nice to have the data that be nice to have a little bit more of a plan for what that would look like to be just well and they'll probably kill me. Um, I don't think they're listening, but I can bring them to PNC. So, you can actually have the conversation with the work that they do
084as well because they also do trauma groups and bounceback groups and the things that other staff members can't train. So, >> but to so the PSC meeting won't have >> the budget. So to help inform that uh if you want to look at ratio our social workers to some around knowing that there's some trepid employment ratio is >> because like this is really kind of keeping a decision and budget it's not an addition but it's it could be a subtraction and they're not subtracting it and that I just want to be thoughtful about that and because their ratio um they don't just do students special it's the entire population so it's two to three >> but I want to make sure like we had another couple of nights, you know, April 6th is our budget
085kind of adoption timeline. We're not locked into that, but uh in order for us to help you. >> So, it's a comparative social worker uh data perhaps the district around us as far as case loads as far as implementation plan. >> Yeah. Um sorry, they don't have a case load. So we'll have to >> or some >> we have time on Monday. >> We do. >> I don't know if that too quick of a turnaround time, but I've never a meeting on Monday. This would be helpful information to to provide as well that same that was my next point too is like how do we compare to other districts in terms of the social work services that we provide? And I know that it might be hard to compare, but it would still be helpful
086to have, you know, you know, for for me, it really made an impact to me last year that we were one of the few districts that had a data person that to me like we were outlier. I don't want to be an outlier and I don't want to have too many. I don't want to have too little. I want to be somewhere in the middle. Um, and I think it's very important that the social worker like you know, you talk about helping with attendance, helping with not having school avoidance. These are very important things. Like we can't have kids doing well in school if they're not here, right? So with that, they're part of the state mandated attendance team. So I have a district-wide attendance team and social workers are part of it. Then they
087the schoolbased attendance teams and then they are part of the intervention. So yeah. Yeah. But I I would be interested in all this that extra day or two before um we have to vote on the budget so that we have an understanding of how it's needed and and and to me like yes I I hear that there's extra referrals why is it is it that it's being utilized more that people understand what they're there for? Are the needs increasing? Like what's what's driving you know with referrals? You know it's just um they're really two great people who take on more and more and more and so now trying to put that data to light to show that they're actually doing more of what we do see an increase in need. So I think kind of
088to your question let's look at how we could talk about the types of referrals and how they've grown over the last couple years. Um I do think like our attendance rates have got better um in part because of the work happening in those committees. uh you know to stay as health and social work right social work critical piece of that committee but the work of that committee brings light to student challenges the school to home connection in social work >> yeah I think we have to flush that out because people don't understand like and that the struggles that some students are dealing with like I think we need to have an understanding >> um more of of descriptive those and I'm sure the descriptions of the what we're looking for over time but they do
089a lot of work on sources >> yeah put together Monday there's always I guess like soft chairs like we type like how we track referral type school >> I was looking they share their referral tracking system and I've got it through yeah a lot of discredit we'll work questions just because we've mentioned PNC a few times. So, um, >> yeah, I I mean I I kind of I kind of agree this this was a budget presentation, but um, you know, not maybe a place to a lot of the ROI stuff certainly agree that you know we are kind of um, we are asking questions about overall achievement of students um in the interest of improving um you know our students experience their education um and you know not so that we can say one of
090the chiefs and we're gonna we're going to cut their budget we're going to stop teaching so I think similarly with special education you know um questions about you know uh you know how find our think should be in the interest of you know how do we improve their um experience of their education. Um, I definitely understand that a lot of children in special education have very specific needs and very specific goals and very different possib. So, it's hard to um say overall even if we looked at, you know, a bunch of other districts with a similar population, it's very hard to um say in defin about what's working, what's not, because those needs could be very different across their districts. Um, but I what I guess what I would be interested in um going down
091that path is kind of looking at systems that other districts employ um and and what is different, you know, here working somewhere else and learning from or or vice versa. Um, so that's just a, you know, that's kind of just like a a thought, you know, as if we're going to go, you know, into a smaller committee and talk through some of these things. That's my my thought about how to work with this. Um, I'm really excited about doing this. I know Harry was much more vividly excited than last time, but I'm very excited about this conversation. Okay, ask the same thing. >> I trained with trained. >> No, I >> I like to ask questions. >> Um, yeah, lots of interesting stuff here. not kind of echo what Sally said about the social worker
092or the additional social worker and again I would say like um maybe what I would want to understand better too is the system you know like so our system and how we put social workers maybe different >> but why is that pain point that we have in our district you know they may be supported by psychologist you know other district or counselors or whatnot but Why is this the pain? Why would we add another psychologist? Why is this the pain point doesn't? >> All right. Thank you. >> Great. Just like you so much. Um, next on the agenda is a revenue. >> So, as we talked revenue to get part of the table into specific athletics. Uh, and so the handout we gave tonight is a working document called >> yes live and it's really
093for discussion purposes uh so if you looked in the budget in in the athletic budget the yeartoear change is flat with the exception of one line it was up about 45% that line is the professional service line and that is where we reflected the $50,000 uh had in the budget that eliminates eight did not put it in the budget because of um anything more that a board conversation and to offer to you for discussion whether that stayed in whether that helped out or I know philosophically it has a bigger impact than it does financially uh but we wanted to have that here the breakdown so one of the I understood the conversation uh it was what would it take to um increase paytoplay fees to offset some of the other fees that I don't know
094that every board member said that but there were a couple of different versions of that conversation and so what you have here is on the top where the revenue comes from from pay to play at both middle and high school right now all pay to play fees are the same uh and then you have the increase on the bottom. If the question was how much do you have to increase pay to play to remove middle school pay to play uh it would be $58 per um you have to raise pay to play by $58. Uh that would generate 48,000 necessary fees. Uh if you wanted to remove uh gate fees which is uh the 50,000's currently in the budget. If you wanted to take that out of the budget and offset it by pay to
095play, you have to raise pay to play by $60. Um, if you wanted to remove the cost for middle school music, um, you would have to raise pay to play by $25. >> Um, just to ask a question. So, you said to have the $50,000 go away for the gate fees, we have to increase pay for by $60 per student. Does that include middle school students? No. >> So it's just increasing it for high school students. >> So if you increased it, if you didn't if you left it at middle school, that's I don't know. That's a good question. >> Yeah. If if you left pay to play as is right now, everybody pays and you increased it. Uh in order to offset the gate fees, um it would be about 8,000. >> Yeah. >>
096Well, you have to take the $50, right? So, he's probably $50 something like that. $48, right? Um uh and then this is the impact of what is collected in revenue from music that it's facet Josh I talked to you could go $25 increase in high school fees and reduce the middle school fees some limit all together just there's a you know kind You know, obviously >> what's that percentage of increase? I don't know what's off the top of my head. 150 for both middle school and high school. It's 150. But we >> 150 to 208 or 150 to 210, 150 to 180. What would you compound all those do? Is that on like I mean your code if you if you like that's what lead to want to get rid of if you want to
097say I want to go to middle school and gate fees >> you move all those really take from 150 to go to really >> oh yeah >> I know it's working I'm sure understand the dollar some direction from the board model better 150 currently and >> I know we have data from other years. We know it's 150 low high right now depends but the point we we check with the areas I mean as far as the area districts they're we check in our >> the document we have that we collected last yes >> last year around this time um felt that was pretty flat so it was trying to update >> uh Beth Beth let's said $150 statements cost for the family tap of $450 $50. Ours is $600. Uh, middle school pay $80 fee
098though. Ours is $150. Monroe is $300 and new town is 205. Their family cap is $450. Okay. So, like New Town, they hit that family cap right quick. One more question. Are there any exceptionally bloated rosters or anything like that? And you start to pay more out of pay to play and you've got this really really deep start to have that other effect where I'm paying all this money and these kids are just buried amongst 200. That's part of the argument participate. Well, no, I'm just wondering we don't have anything that's exceptionally egregious in everyone's opinion is right now. >> Um I guess >> there's not 200 kids on the swim team or anything like that. I was like 60. Yeah, I think they're attractive in a great time. A lot of kids not single
099them off, but like there have been concerns that parents raise that I pay this well and my freshman on team A doesn't get a lot of playing time, you know, um I mean on the team sport access like there's no guarantee that when you make the team and there's no guarantee that you get specific playing time just as you know the middle school If you pay to play, you may not give the the clarinet, you know, uh it's a participation fee. So that but that is you know then compound part of the reason I understand here the other concern my parents is pay for my act play but I have to pay the family to come and watch. I do think we can do a better job with just quickly quick advertisement for all those
100folks working at home. Um so we do have uh pass stand pass I don't know that this taken advantage of it as much as um so I think we do a better job let go uh so but what are they pay 150 for my child to play on the team then I have to buy another pass at $110 for my family to come and watch them play that my niece played on another team I value all sports but >> I would not argue that all sports need to be equal in fact I could argue the opposite all these looked at individually to a certain degree >> but uh having that context you know you might have six kids on the track team or cross country >> as a little different than the 22 on the
101volleyball not saying it's worth it or not worth seems to think that because when prices are low people just kind of usually roll and when prices start to get higher then they're starting their ROI on it too. So like much as club ball but like my kids in club ball get one out of 20. >> I think it's >> we want to create a new >> I don't think we're anywhere near the price of the >> it's like $450. And did you and what you remember what the research what the average um the other districts aren't doing right is that they do they are >> most rare to have >> no thank yous are a little inconsistent in that like softball for example, right? There's no way to manage the venue. So, depending on the
102sport, you know, cross country, you know, unless someone else is like a dollar, I'm hearing that fees are kind of in line with other districts that are Go ahead. Can you explain the pass a little bit more? just I mean we've flashed it on but you know to me one of the the things that um you know one of our our community commenters had brought up was um showing up to a game and like missing your child's play because you're standing behind waiting to pay a gate. Is does the past help in that? Is it something you can just kind of like flash and get in or is it also like there's a line, you know, >> it's like >> I am who I am. >> Well, you know, there's only really one to be
103fair, we don't as as TSA preack might be interesting that might be a conversation that we have. I mean, we have limited staff on some of the venues that the manage the gates. Uh, but I think that's an interesting question for us to to look at. You know, this is the cash only line and this is the repurchase or family pass because not only the family pass like so the shift to go fan has been a statewide initiative, right? super cute mode where tick you can get a QR code scanning indicate and not have to pay there a lot of them only take and that's where frustration parents I didn't know that that I show up and I only have you know cash on me they're holding table you have to be either you have
104to stand on the phone and try to buy it that's great um I do think some of that will get better you know and It's much more widely communicated now. >> Um, but having a separate line, but on the top of the page, it does say so to your question, the cross country track and it's called baseball, softball, there are no games. And then for hockey and there say sports that charge versus >> although I can like why do you pay boys basketball game without a girls basketball >> is it doable to have a like an increase in the um pay that encompasses a pass too. >> Yeah. 200 bucks get around. >> Well, is it optional that registration or >> No, I would probably just be included with that. >> Wait, that was a
105plus. Two rates like 15 175. 75 passer that together the only well yes I guess so there is a processing fee for no fan uh purchase so uh it's a $1 processing fee I guess absorb that cost to cut that close to the budgeting But >> I like the idea in the past to the play then having that separate line. >> Yeah, you should go back for one sport. No, I'm just saying Minnesota everyone's paying that and it's kind of including the past and so baseball you don't have to pay, you know, like there's no sort of baseball doesn't have to pay. So, >> well, I was going to say, you know, two of our larger programs are track and field and cross country in part because they're no cuts. But if you're gonna start
106to do that, I did think like already I feel like those sports are subs like to for cross country you don't need pants, you don't need referees, you don't need a track field, you don't need lights, you don't need uniform. I mean, you need uniforms, you don't need an open way. Yeah. >> Right. You don't need equipment or right. You're really subsidizing it for sports and you don't have because guess what? We don't even have cross country course here because the trail line is damaged. So we we ship the kids off at 7 park. Um you know we do have bus transportation but they only have five or seven. Um you do have coaching costs but they're shar they're shared between the boys and girls teams. So they're really low cost sports that I don't
107know if you're going to do that. If you're going to get that deep into it, then I almost feel like, okay, well, then we have to kind of carve out almost like tier pay to play because it's already not fair to charge a football athlete the same way to play cost as a cross country runner or a track and field athlete the gate fee at that event. And I'm assuming I'm making the assumption that football is the most expensive sport. So, it's not >> cost. Well, golf and hockey have sir charts on top of the 150. So pay more. Yeah. Hockey and golf expensive. >> So we're looking to minimize gate fees as it came as the proposed budget to football and that would make us the least restricted in the whole of SWC by
108this chart. Most people do football. I don't know if the basketball goal there or not, but and then some schools do all the sports, but I would be nervous about increasing pay for play to subsidize fees for sports because sports don't require as much I feel like are already subsidizing programs. So like so I would say if you want to explore it we should have a larger conversation about tearing paper except I don't really want to have that convers like and that's high school makes sense. >> Yeah. >> I I think I encourage you to go to other sporting events too. I'm not talking about, you know, like you're wearing, you want to go to a football, you know, you want to go to soccer, whatever. It kind of pushes that community, you know, participation.
109And I want to definitely make clear, I think the board is very supportive of sports. It's like it's integral to a good education, I think. Um, and it's a very important part to any student's development. I think the only thing we're wrestling with is because we've been asked to take a look at the heat piece and and you know uh like less than them in part because of the inefficiencies at the at the gate. Um and I I struggle with you know again I to me it's a big deal like how do we compare to other districts? I think that would we would be an outlier if we waves all over. So that makes me somewhat comfortable. I don't like being an outlier, right? Said that before. I want to be somewhere in the middle.
110Um, at the same time, I also I agree with Sally's point. Like I think there maybe should be a differentiation between the middle school and the other school in terms of pay to play because the middle school does not give as many dates. They don't have as many referees or you know games like it's not the same and everything. >> Right. Right. So I could see a difference in the pay for play, but to me that would not mean lessening the cost for pay to play at the middle school. There's still a value there. I would increase it the high school. Um, but you know, not a lot of money. I think even like 20 bucks would be something, but like I I'm just at a loss as to how to move forward with this.
111I don't want to be bogged down. kind of a crew of time. I really don't want >> you know um if there is some kind of a way that we could look at efficiencies and speeding up the gate process that might go along the way do >> they don't have no because you have to use >> you have to go so I mean is that the problem is goofan the problem >> well I I think the problem is folks don't have I think if you are a regular parent as former swim parent we have on our phones if you went to a meeting you know the phone call the conversation you already download tickets I download is that my job I supposed to do that you know um and then but I I do think
112as as families kind of go through the process as this becomes statewide consistent at all venues no matter which league you're in it's more ubiquitous I you know every year better but I would say folks that have pre- purchased the goof tickets that >> well I mean but even if you have the goof fan ticket you still have to have them take that person like click on the thing and then you're still waiting behind line the person who has doesn't have the exact change in cats. >> Yes. Yeah. TSA preies have that conversation. Are we required to charge a premium if you pay attention to get in cash versus I believe I'm wondering like $75 and if you $527 real >> that's >> um is Goofan is used commonly like how are other districts doing
113this like with all due respect to the commentator from the last meeting like just get there 10 minutes sooner like so that you're not waiting you don't miss your kid scoring a goal like I don't is it fair to be like I the game starts at 5 I woke up at 459 just breaks right through like I don't what do other districts do because you don't want to be an outlier like do other district have two people they have a regular pre I don't know >> we're trying to solve the wrong problem >> is the goal more to reduce the middle school fees for the kid. I mean, is it because like for $30 if you increase the high school, you could take the middle school fees in half. So, you go from 15 to
11475. If you have high school fees, $30. >> Would I say that one more time? >> If you have high school being paid from 150 to 18, you can then take the middle school being down from 150 to 75. We didn't really do that math equation, but that's basically you would take the pay to fly >> and just cut it like there's more supervision. There's more that's a beg to work with. It's just the time. So that's that's cheaper than most it keep high school but there being some differentiation. >> Yeah. I but I don't think that's necessarily a budget like that's not going to affect the bottom line. You just kind of try to >> No, it's okay. >> Yeah. >> So, but it's like the DVC offset. We're gonna try to do something
115for that or just leave it there. Yeah. contract. >> I think I feel more strongly about the middle school versus high school differentiation than >> the I'm not Yeah, I think nothing I've heard makes me want to do away with just because I feel like I'm being told that we're similar to other districts. I think there are some that just do the threat like the basketball and football and not you know senior night the swimmers and you're bringing you know sports and grandparents and whatever and some $100 night. >> Um I think that's the that's at least that's what I hear from people when they're frustrated about these sort of like the family. So we we put this together for a conversation. I don't know firm philosophy or stand but whether or not you keep
116that money out you could leave some of it to do almost like event I don't know a homecoming game maybe there's certain things we red circle and is um >> I love that idea. You could also take half that money offset for the middle school. Bring that board. Again, there's >> I I would I would almost rather like keep the middle school, raise the high school a little bit, have some of these senior nights, homecoming nights, >> middle school. >> No, increase the pay for play at middle, I'm sorry, the high school. keep the middle school where it is because we have not increased our pay to play rates for a long time, right? So, our costs have increased significantly with coaches, transportation, but the families have had no change in cost. So, >> I
117feel like we creeping into outlier territory. >> I don't know 10 20 bucks out territory. >> Yeah. A lot of money to us from outlier territory. I don't think anybody charging other district charge like chamber requires. >> Yeah. Yeah. Bethl noted just middle school that that was um sports because she raised pay for play at high school would be an outlier for pay for play. So >> the challenge is that the people's caps are lower. So Beth's at 150 the family cap is $450. is 600. Um, Monroe is $300 for pay to play. Their fan cap is $1,200. New Town is 205, but the family cap is 450. So again, really only like you can play like if you have one kid and three tap. So you get the >> for the year. So yes,
118I think raising it a little bit at the high school level. >> Do you remember why um we have the money charged in the middle school that >> I don't I don't remember when >> my understanding is that it's about equity across sports. because it was a class >> difference in middle high school. So if we were to just do a 180 the high school that allows us to not charge school creates a difference between the >> schoolor you could use the 50,000 offset could the shifting in diabetes is neutral, right? You're actually not paying high school, >> right? >> Absolutely. >> But we are in some in terms of senior night and homecoming. >> Yes. >> Homecoming football. >> I think the senior nights are the big ones for Yeah. >> Like to your
119like how much does it cost to run the middle school music? >> Like I mean this music teachers I want to say it's like a five or $6,000 teacher who seems to run my core program. >> But the coaches all get too kind like what else? Like there's no equipment there's no referees or no buses. It's just the blood after school practice, >> right? So like I think the argument about well it's par sports like they really really it's it's really not >> because we add school program too. We're not >> sure >> we're not adding fees to them too. They added a theater program to middle school. It wasn't like to my knowledge that wasn't an additional fee that we said because we didn't care. >> Um to me the thing that is a
120really big output. Um Heather wants to say something. I want to let her have a Sure. like I >> I think I don't mind looking at lowering the cost for middle school, but what I would really rather do is give them a better experience and make sure they have the referees and the right number of events. Um because it's the experience, you know, differential that I struggle with more than the actual $150 fee. if we could guarantee that they were having a better experience, I don't think is as big of a deal. Um, but there is a big disparity between the high school experience and the middle school experience. >> We have to have perfect middle school. >> I know, right? So they can have practice when it rains. >> Yeah. >> And you guys
121don't have the same coaches are hard to find. The teams like in our interim girls are easier to run and we run between middle schools. We run a couple of games, but setting up like a roster like a middle school that would be and so we have enough surrounding district right amount of teams to really full >> but even ensuring that they have a referee when there's a game. There there are quite a few games that there isn't even a referee and they're losing out on the coaching because the coaches are having to do the refereeing and that's a problem. Why why aren't there times? >> I mean, I feel like what Heather is saying, it's almost like a separate question like I I'm okay with I think so after all this like yes, we
122could remove the middle school music and Yes, we can increase the pay for play high school, keep the kids, but have um three days. >> Can we see that proposal? Yeah, I think that I think there's a lot of people who are on board with that, but also like if there is I would also be interested to hear if there's some sort of efficiency that we have to check as well. We just need a QR code scanner like is that something? >> Can we go back to the hard card where they just got a card and you just flash the card when you go in? No, because the goof they have to go to that goof app >> and and that's universal. Shouldn't that be like shared in one form or another? Like yes. >>
123Okay. Yeah. >> You just have to find like find them again and then share it. It's a little bit cumbersome, but it's that's the format that most other districts are using the text to screenshots because then it also allows us to like football game visitors that a lot of people you know and some of the not having also some of our community and then we're paying go there. So I'm sorry. I like this. I like the idea where we are. I'm just saying I like I like eliminating them because it's >> I just want to clarify one day bring the answer kind of the TSA pre-check equipment for that. There was another question. The other thing that >> I just told you two things can bring up. >> Um, how would it look if we
124kept the middle school sports pay the same? Increase the middle school slightly like high school like 20 30 bucks. Can we have senior night where the students can come support their friends, families come support their friends and homecoming where students can go to that and whatever that parameter can we have that what what would that look like? >> So hard for us to calculate like so what like I hear your question what revenue loss would be projected if we did not charge seniors and their families or senior night or students for homecoming? Like I don't really have a good way to Yeah, project what the loss revenue would be. What I would say is within the 50,000 we built in here, we can carve out some margin that would cover us within a margin of
125error, you know, brought by 500 bucks or something like that, you know, >> yeah, and that would be not charging and not charging. >> Yeah. not trying to misal that's that's 20 23 >> 23 and we are an outlier doing that >> and we have 50 here at work >> right >> yeah so you z that's so you can zero that out that's on those special nights I mean realistically what's the most you bring in a one event >> um let's see like I don't know how many you need with seniors but I'm thinking like >> no no I'm just saying a normal everyone in Friday night football game ahead. You know, there's 2,000 people there. I mean, probably. >> Yeah. Then multiply that by six, three for basketball, three for football. That's the most
126I'm comfortable. So if you take the 23,000 out, we built 50 in. We're going to raise the pay of the high school. So you're already kind of better. That'll offset the 23 that you're getting out. We built 50 in. We're not going to lose more in revenue than seniors that built in. So figure there's 20,000 25,000 still in that line that's warrant >> you said it's in the budget as a revenue that's no longer >> it's no longer part of the absorb the revenue with the operating budget >> for the proposed budget >> all right so to be continued on Monday we Other questions on revenue? >> Yeah. >> Um, okay. Next item is budget discussion. Um, which we typically have, um, we're now done with the workshop presentations, right? Um, so we would kind
127of I think would be helpful if there's any outstanding questions to let Mr. Smith know. um what board members might want um before we have you know a pulse of where people are on the budget. Um I think it's also a little hard to have this have three board members um not here tonight. So we did and I were talking about having another budget discussion on Monday night um in addition to all these other text points that we're going to do about the social worker um and revenue um stream. So, I guess the most important thing is that if you have questions on the budget um to let you know, speak up now or you can email Josh um because like they obviously if we need more information that would be helpful to let them
128know sooner rather than later. Um but I you know if board members want to do a pulse we could do that but um we might do a pulse again on Monday. So up to you guys what you would like to do tonight. My my proposal would be to take the pulse on Monday. Um but if you do have questions, you know, >> I'll just Josh with me. I'll just one of the discussions I asked have earlier in the year. Now Josh question was I wanted to take a look back at the most recently audited which is 2425. where we did finish with a pretty sizable surplus put a pot of money in capital uh we put into excess cost capital we had another excess cost junk which is that refund from the state um we
129did about 400 grand in summer projects um and then we still had a little bit of money left over we bought out the budget so we finished that we were big challenge and you But that was after some budget discussions earlier as we're setting that aside to reduce it. Um so what I wanted to do was just the post about kind of how when we end up with a surplus like when we end up that kind of money left over at the end of the year. Um if we could kind of understand you know if that's an outlier so be it. But just a quick postmortm that explains kind of how we got to that number. Um and then is there any lessons we can take from that and move forward to discussion process so
130the next time someone wants to have discussion about reduction you know we can maybe better predict if we think we are higher in some areas um I'm guessing the answer is we don't know so you know but the fact there's such a disparity you know and such an kind of a hesitance to reduce the budget here but in hindsight seemed like it was a reasonable request So if there's any learn that we could take from that year and apply to this year given it's another number in mid5s you know I'd like to I'd like to have that discussion so yeah we'll bring the finance reports we will have meetings right that as well the we can give you a better breakdown the two big pieces I would say are we held dollars that year because
131the excess cost grant was cut Um and all year we were projecting a half a billion dollar shortfall excess cost and then late main session uh the legislators added money to it. >> Um so that was part of that service I think that was 450 or 550,000 >> 47 I feel like the cap expense. >> Yeah. So I mean we'll kind of post more than that for you but that that was a big chunk of that. Um and then the other piece that is already kind of baked into this year's proposed budget um is the hedging of staff numbers. >> Yes. Um so you know we took 550,000 out of budget of that 445 budget and this year proposed budget uh based on hedging for some open staffing positions that are in that year balance.
132Uh so it it's not a practice that I'm massively comfortable with. Um I think it does increase the amount of risk the proposed budget but I think to your point we didn't want this year to start with six uh and so I would have liked it to start with a four uh and have been different insurance uh numbers of the transportation cost that we faced. you know, that was at least on the table of conversation, but um I think that was those those two pieces count for about a million dollars that year in balance that isn't in this year's budget. So, >> well, we can do we we also had a lot of tuition that year. >> Yeah. >> Um how long was was half million surplus that year? And we obviously that service fees
133were $400,000 as well or transfer. Um the you did have um a pretty sizable chunk of tuition for movement of kids. We actually at one point I think had kids that were serviced in district couldn't place that here. So there was we actually had like basic money tuition we were holding on to to service those. >> Yeah. I'm not asking for a dependent accounting question. >> Yeah. A little better than I just gave you. Um, so I just from a kind of pulse perspective, I'm just looking at and I know we're going to talk about the social worker, but from my perspective like the sort of the math teacher needing and it was explained that we're getting by, you know, without it. It to me is basically accidental efficiency. Like if we had asked to
134remove a math teacher like I don't know we would have found anybody right so we would like no we can't do that. So when we go to talk about adding a social worker like to me we're adding one FC like yes I understand that there's a point like we're adding like we're going to decide to add one FCE um period. Uh and to me that's still you know that that is good. I think from a a budget perspective um I am not I'm tired. I'm not up for like protracted discussions on things. Um unfairly though I will say that I just principal struggle with the fact that it is over five and I know I% and I know like there were really nothing except maybe for social worker we're not adding anything. Um it's basically
135almost kind of like a maintenance budget and everything else gone up but I like it should be under it should be under five. I think from what I'm read like that's kind of more in line with other districts and I just but that's where I'm at right now. So I don't know what kind I don't know just telling people that's the pulse for some regional comparison that >> uh I mean from other districts. Yeah, I mean I I try to avoid there's other nuances there, but you know, when you say that I think there's a range, you know, I don't think we're out. I guess what I would say I guess that I I've looked and I I didn't I saw like a bank was that but I don't know if finance had make them
136cut it. Uh I haven't seen anything over me personally, but I >> Yeah, we can grab it. >> Joe and I are on >> We'll get another Sorry. So everyone else social worker information being sort of important to see that as well >> and perhaps for very good reason I just want >> you know I just want so the the one so we've been so when the person transitioned for But we've been so I don't disagree with you. I just it is a 1.0 1.0 as far as but I hear you say 1.04. Okay. All right. Heather Rers, anything you want to add before we >> No, thank you. >> Okay. >> Maybe you're saying the finance the joint meeting, but you often show the right as the educational cost of that change. >> Yeah.
137I know that goes right to the towns. Yeah. had start getting $7 billion more like flat that the conversation happened this week. Maybe they're getting,000 software is in personal land. Yeah, it's it's in the was in the government. >> Last year there was like a million and a half for a big >> So there was an increase last year. There's probably no both last year and a half this year flat. >> So will you have a slide again about that? >> That's we can still I guess flat. It's flat. So probably doesn't matter. I guess I think if the budget is going up and the ECS went up I guess no >> we have space to add to that. So and in this budget also we the last five years we've been increasing our pension
138contribution this will be in the board finance uh we are now funded at 73% we kept it flat so we did not add that 25,000 to increase our next year which philosophically may not make everybody on the town side happy but to your point like five arguably 53 or 54 you know like like you got to say the problem with four is that we always one one year in a page it's not right it becomes a habit >> and we're at 73 so like that's why we're like in our risk management structure that's >> companies a lot of hard And our pension advisor or our bond advisor said they were funded better than most. So you know to me that we didn't reduce it but we always reverse sell the oil and block that and
139sell it back in the market starting off. So thank you so much for letting us 100,000 gallons worth of diesel fuel is 250. Yeah. >> I released it. >> Do the math. Yeah, that' be another number 100 plus. >> All right, so this conversation will be continuing unless there's any other questions. Okay, so next comments from citizens the board of education will recognize citizens. Anyone >> should ask why? >> I know, right? I have no idea. All right. So, for the announcements of future meeting, so Monday, um we have our um on March 23rd, we have our public hearing for the school building project at here at the high school media center at 6:30. And then we have our regular meeting that same night, March 23rd, um at 7:30. Um, by the way, where to
140finance was supposed to be that night at 6:30 that got cancelled and have has Shannon res? >> No, we're not. >> Okay. So, we're still determined about finance. Okay. Um, Wednesday, March 25th, we have our budget workshop with both boards of finance for Mberry and Southbury starting at 6:30. Um, followed by our public hearing on March 25th on the budget, proposed budget at 7:30. And then Monday, April 6th, PNC's meeting at 6 o'clock at the high school media center and followed by the regular board of education meeting on April 6th at 7:30 where hopefully we will be adopting um 313 school budget. I have a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Okay, so Sally, did the motion adjourn? Speak second. Observer.