001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The mission of region committed to excellence to put every schoolive ethical and engaged in the global society through proven and innovative learning experiences supported by a strong community whose decision based on the best effort for all students. So tonight's budget workshop is for [Music] budgetable most of the assets staff are assets but salaries in the budget And then we kind of condensed We weren't duplicating. We've got an interesting technology afternoon. Um that should be with that I'll turn it over. Starting good evening everyone. Um we're excited to be sharing our budget presentation with you this evening. As Mr. Smith noted we did have to keep it brief for
002you um and we'll just be sharing some of our um highlights of our budget and our academic year today. So as Mrs. Mzo said 15 public school mission statement of April 15 collaborative community can lead to excellence. is to educate every student to be productive, ethical, and engaged in local society to include them in innovative learning experiences supported by a strong community whose decision making is based on best individuals. We have the familiar print and redevelop. hope that you'll see the through lines of the values and the mission of region 15 throughout our budget presentation tonight and we definitely strive to welcome inclusive strong advocate engagement and achievement of our kids and the ideas that collaboration communication and transparency is something that we try to really try to school we are very fortunate here in
003region 15 that we've been able to um once again present a budget this evening that means maintains a continued implementation of the strong um academic areas that we promote in our school in elementary school as well as the middle and high school. Um so we're going to continue just for our reading and writing programs K through five. Um also the phonics programming that we have implemented beginning um this school year. Um math we have our IM mathematics that are across all four um of our schools this year and all grade levels K through five. Um, we're also supporting the NextGen science standards, our social studies framework. We're continuing to support our social emotional learning in a lot of different ways um with a lot of different personnel as well. And we are extremely lucky to
004have our strong coaching and teaching support um as we have implemented um during this school year. All four of us have our four math coaches, our four um um ELA coaches in our building as well as um Dr. Burton who works as a coach with us as well. So, we're very lucky to have those supports and um in our budget, you'll see implementation of them as so overall very little has changed in our final budget number compared to last year 2014. And the lines where you do see some movement is within textbooks and within records. Um, as our mission statement of the region says, we're we strive to provide proven and innovative learning experiences to every child and that means keeping up with new curriculum and new pedigogies as well for every student differentiated to
005meet their needs. Our new math curriculum comes with new math textbooks and schools are now paying for that one year or two of implementation. The shipping cost is a little more than our previous shipping cost. So that's a bump up in our textbook line. Um, part of our innovative practice is integrating the science of reading in our new phonics program and that includes a new material called decodable which are tailored texts for younger students. Two of those pictures on the left show some of our younger students and join those decodables which are used very explicitly within the program. It's one of those musthaves to teach it well and teach it right. And on the right we'll see some upper elementary students enjoying our new math curriculum. And those workbooks are part and parcel in retaining
006those skills that they learned from the different classrooms. We're going to turn it over now to the middle school and even um as mentioned we also been very fortunate at the middle school level that the board has support our budgets over the uh many years and they take they continue to offer uh much of the same initiatives as we have over the course of these years and encourage us to present on these. Um these are still in progress and we feel that they are well underway and very most supported by this project. One of the key pieces of the instructional program at the middle level is the value of the teaching approach. So, we uh appreciate the board's support and confidence in the work that we're doing at the middle school level to provide uh
007smaller learning communities for our middle school students that maximize opportunities to for our teachers to know the know the children in front of them the very best. Uh for the children to develop quality relationships with each other, also quality relationships with the adults in front of them. So, at the at the core of a middle school, a high quality middle school experience is that cleaning structure. But clearly we benefit by the support uh for the instructional initiatives that we've been uh working through over the course of the last several years uh with the board and the community support. So the changes in the middle school district we want to just give you a quick overview. Um relatively it's a very flat project for the middle level. Uh there is a decrease in the property line
008in the Memorial Middle School uh library media budget and that is due to the renovations that we did over the past couple of years that are pretty much complete. Um I know you've seen the breath line so that is something that is just coming into our budgets and then any of the materials that we need for programming there might be some slight increases in instructional supplies due to the rising costs of inflation. Additionally, there there'll be some uh additional uh funds that are allocated towards uh furniture for our property lines uh as we continue to modernize our our classrooms and look to continue to engage students uh with innovation. Uh looking at uh seating, uh looking at tables, uh science areas where we could um ensure that there's equity in the experience across across our
009u department. Uh one of the areas uh that you heard presented in the superintendent's budget is the the addition of a CL food program. It's the collaborative learning program. Uh we're excited to uh have uh this program added to one of our schools. We're we're in discussion to determine which school this program will be added. Uh it's a therapeutic special ed special education program that Dr. Gretto here a little bit about her presentation to provide supports and services with students with needs that allow students to push in and out of this particular program providing them opportunities to be successful access the core academic program or unified arts offerings but also benefit by the therapeutic uh uh supports that would exist within that program. It's a smaller learning cluster that would attract um students who qualify
010from both memorial and Roshambo um that will be housed in one of the one of our particular buildings. Okay. Well, thank you guys for having me. Um I'm going to echo what has been said before. I cannot thank um the board and our communities enough um for the support that we've had over the past several years with our budget and some of the improvements and upgrades that we we've been able to do over the past, you know, several years and look to continue to do. Um recently we hosted uh basketball tournament uh CIA games and the amount of compliments that I got from people from all over the state that were coming here was just amazing. nothing but positives and things to say about our our facilities and and the school in general. So, um
011again, I just can't thank the guys enough and and the community for supporting us um over the years. Um our other purchase services um this line um is basically a continuation that we use from year to year. Um the increases um of about $11,000 in this line are due to increases across the board board in all of the different line items. Um as you can see in here um it has to do with all fees associated with athletics fees associated with officials um hiring of police um EMTs the ambulance for um certain events our athletic trainer impact testing are all included in this in and everything else there. So, um there is a slight increase this year in that and basically it's it's an increase in those services and the um fees that we have
012to pay to those uh different groups that have risen. Um I've also put in the uniform. I know last year um one of the things that you as a board asked for was the um uniform um inventory and how that cycles go. So, it's been updated obviously from last year with the purchases from this year um and the plan moving forward um next year and the year after. So, if you want to take a look at that at your convenience, you can as well. There's no added cost. It's just the same amount of money to site. Our athletic supplies line um has remained the same. Um we have no increases again. Um all of the different things that we purchase for supplies are listed in there. Um if you have any questions with that, you
013can um let me know. The repairs and maintenance um this is probably the um the one line item that has seen the most increase as far as um costs are concerned. And um basically these are all of the repairs and maintenance line um care and maintenance of all our playing fields, our athletic facilities um at all um any repairs that are needed and and basically this comes down to the increase in labor and material costs. You know the same thing as you know with with anything else. um these lines have thought up um in tune with what everybody else is charging across the line. Our athletics property um this consists of any bigger tech the items that we um purchase and or install for athletics both at the high school and the middle school. Um
014there has been no increase in this line item. Um some of the items that we're looking to um get for this year is a new volleyball net system. The the system that we have is just it's it's old and and needs to be replaced. Um as far as uh ballpark that is for um our athletic trainer um and we also use it in our PE classes and you know athletics. The one that we have is I believe 20 years old. We've repaired it several times and it's just on its way out and and not really doing too well. So, um field hockey goals at RMS, uh we replaced goals at um both Memorial Middle School and at the high school um this past year. Um we sent one of their sets of goals down to
015RMS to get through this year. Um and now it's just time to replace and get them a new set of goals. on the split air unit for our press box. We've had um in our press box at down at the um stadium. The um technology that has been put into that for so many different things that encompass the whole campus um is a lot of it is located in there right now. and the degree temperature changes in the summer and in the winter are so um telling me that we need something in there to control the uh temperature. So Mike Murphy um went out and got a quote for us for installing a split air unit in that press box so we can have a temperature control in there just to control all of that
016uh technology that we have in there right now. um that we are putting new fencing um to kind of enclose the area where we um put the new um shed down at Dayton and storage facility down there. Um just again for safety purposes, this is one of the things that um when we met with um Brian McCourier or SRO and if you guys have ever been to a football game um every kid I think in in the whole region goes over into that area. we kind of want to block it off um just for obviously safety purposes. And on top of it, it gives us more area for storage for bigger items like soccer goals or field hockey goals if you get them out of the way and then that will be all enclosed in
017that area. Um both middle schools um are in need of scoreboards. I know the Memorial Middle School scoreboard was not working at certain point times this year. We had to take our controller from the high school to bring it over to Memorial to get it to finish out the basketball season. The RMS scoreboard has been, you know, on its last leg for the last couple years. So, I got quotes for new scoreboards for both middle schools. Our ice machine at the high school up in the main building here, um, has been on the fritz that has shut down, uh, several times over the past year. Um, and we've kind of mandated that together. So, um, we're looking to get a new ice machine. Um, the auxiliary gym basketball hoops right now, in order to raise
018them or lower them, um, it takes the custodians to come in. They have to hook up a, um, mechanical device to get those up and down. It It's a very antiquated and older system. Um, so we looked at a newer system um that basically could be worked on with a remote control to do that. So, it's not something that if our PE teachers in our PE classes need to raise those or anything at night, it's a really simple task rather than taking I think it would take about half hour to 40 minutes to put all the hoops up or down with the custodian going from each hoop right now. So, we're looking to um get a new system to make that a little bit more up to date. And then, um our lacrosse goals. Um,
019these are just something that we need to replace every so many years. Ones that we currently have are about five years old and they just they get used so often and I mean nowadays with our practices being allowed in the summertime, they're even being used more. Um, so they just need to be replaced next year. Those basketball hoops some of y'all when you were in school, that was the same hoops that were here when you were in school. So just like they work great basketball so we don't have that as an excuse. So good evening. Um I guess another way we can say thank you to you as a board and as a community. um you have uh the seven principles um and an athletic director of which um only one of us um is
020new in the last seven years and and that was because we had a retirement and Stephanie's been wonderful as a replacement. Um you don't get that kind of consistency in school districts these days. Um definitely not in the state of Connecticut. Uh if you look up the average time for a high school principal is three to six years. Um so I made it. Um but uh but that's also a way of saying thank you all to the board. we're still sitting here because of the work you do for us. Um, and we're still working with this community because we believe in this community. And so, um, so again, thank you. As as all of my colleagues have said, um, I have some some consistency in the presentation here. Um, it's a it's a pretty um
021maintenance budget. Um, starting with our core values that we like to always remind people of. I will say this will shift a little bit um to the project or the portrait of a learner. If we go to the next slide there um that we will be at. So we start with our core values that were defined back in 2014. Um and then you go to theories of action which are um relatively done every year um where reviewed every year to build that school improvement plan. Um we have school improvement plan that's online that reviews kind of where we're looking to go this year with goals and with objectives um with the idea that we're meeting that portrait of a learner. Um I'm really appreciative that some of you are able to be at our senior
022year experience. Um when you look at what the senior year experience is aimed to do, it is aimed to do exactly what the portion of a learner is trying to say we are. So how do we measure the fortune of a learner? We're going to measure it through that senior year experience. They they started learning critical thinking in those reading groups that Heather was talking about earlier. They started learning communication skills or they honed their communication skills in those same classrooms that Michael and Jen were talking about. and we're showing that as a senior they have now graduated with the portrait of what we want a region 15 learner to be. Um in our budget this year uh the three main things that stick out um and I I'll start at the top other purchase
023services is an increase of 19,900 I believe that's a 50 um the um this line is largely an increase because our dennial visit uh for NAS is next March. So as you remember when I presented to the board uh last year about the process, we had our collaborative visit last March. We then do our denial visits. That's the actual accreditation visit um next March. Um all of you will have more information about that as we get closer. There's actually places and and meetings just like in the last one where board of education members are involved in talking to the team and committee. It's a larger committee and they're here for more days. Um, part of that process does involve us putting them in a hotel, using them, and us preparing all the stuff, whether it's
024staff development or those things. Um, and this increase is largely due to that accreditation that occurs next year. Um, the um instructional supply line uh is uh an increase of $23,600. Uh this increase um is largely due to what many of my colleagues have shared. um materials and um cost of living um is high. It's higher right now than it was. Um I use the example we buy eggs. We buy a lot of eggs. Um we all have heard the stories of how high eggs are. We have to budget um for where we are right now. Um and we want to be able to give our students the instructional supplies they need. The prices of eggs have doubled. We know that. So, um, in some cases, especially if you're buying them in bulk, um, we
025have the same challenges that restaurants have in buying those. Um, that goes across the board, whether it be paper, whether it be other supplies, things are just more expensive than they were. Um, and I'm actually happy to say that it's only 23,000 when you look across all the different curriculum we offer. Whether it be a certification for drones, whether it be a robotics class, whether it be a physical education class that's literally learning how to hike in the woods, we're offering all these experiences to students. Um, meanwhile, as Dr. Chia hada presented earlier this year. The the achievement scores that we were able to do um on our school report card showed that our school has rebounded since co at a greater rate than many of our colleague or many of our schools in our
026dirt and in many of the schools that we compare ourselves to. So when you look at those test scores, you look at how we've come back, the staff in this building have done a phenomenal job of getting the students back where we were um five, six, seven years ago. And and that's proven in that data that Dr. that I presented earlier this year, whether that's SAT scores, AP scores, NGSS, um, or any of the other fitness tests on all the things that we measure, including attendance this year, which is drastically trending better. So, I'm I'm hoping that rides out. I hope all the seniors are watching and and hear that, but um I'm hoping that rides out. Last one is software lensures. This is not an increase. That's why I wrote the word transferred there.
027Uh, this was in Dr. Chiaetta's budget that she presented last year. Majority of this majority of this were new software for world languages. Much like anytime we do a new course, it stays central office budget for the first year. It then transfers to the high school for the years following that. This is that same process. So this is not an overall increase to the district budget, but it is an increase at the high school. Those are the three um that you will see as a substantive substantive uh increase. All right. Thank you so much um everyone for your presentations. Um anyone have any questions? Yeah, go ahead Steve. Uh again, thank you very much. Uh it seems like the length of the presentation is inversely proportional to the amount of people that are presenting. Uh
028so maybe we have like 30 people come all at once, we can be over like 10 minutes next year. Um, I do appreciate the comment about the the length of everyone's uh tenure and I get I never seem to tire of saying it, you know, I've been here longer and I remember every one of your predecessors and I would completely agree uh um and I will repeat this if anyone asks that this is by far I think the best group I've ever seen in terms of from my from my perspective where it seems like you all work together and aren't necessarily trying to one up each other or resources and or you know things that just I absolutely would hear about when I first was on the board and also the amount of parent complaints
029um that really should never be coming to us anyway as we'd have really no kind of control over responding to them other than to direct them to the superintendent or back to you. But anyway, those are like practically non-existent. Um, so yes, it's not an invitation. Um, so I did have uh some questions for Mr. um, Blaski specifically. I'm just out of curiosity, what were they complimenting like when they came to see just because because it's nice to hear about that just like what were they like because they were in the gym I'm assuming like you know was it they complimented I mean obviously they have to come up through the whole you know up Jug Road and around the school and when they come to the gym they get to ride drive around the
030whole entire uh school but the compliments were you know what a beautiful uh campus we had um they complimented our facilities you know down at the um playing fields and stuff as they went by. I actually had a guy that I know from Southernington. Um when he came here early to drop off his friend's elderly parents so they could get in early, then he went down to the field with his son and another kid and they were throwing the football around and they were, you know, complimenting, you know, how nice the facility was and and everything else. And then just everybody just raved about um you know our facility, the gym, the indoors and and again tribute to the crew that um I'm able to put together for for these events just how well everything
031was run. The CIA was um extremely appreciative and I received many emails from um members of the basketball committee and the CIA um and just you know being able to host a big event like that. Um, we had the semiinal for the girls and double header and we were able to bring in four schools here. We were able to, you know, accommodate them, meet all their needs and and go above and beyond what most schools are able to do. Um, and they they said the facilities are just, you know, roll their eyes. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then, uh, do you have, um, like I was thinking about the athletic property slide where, uh, you were talking about all the different things. Um, yes. And then uh just like when we talked about the what
032was scoreboard at the the high school deal um like is how do you have this ability to like JT money and all like is that I know that's that's I think tracked through your office or through I think but like why wouldn't that have maybe turned into one here and and the reason I'm asking is I think from a a board perspective I found it very surprising that um you know we because I'm I'm not down there whether we need it or that's fine and then that we had money to pay for it that was like from kind of all these different funds. So personally I would love to sort of have get you out of that you know have you know you need a new scoreboard like make sure it's on here and so
033how how do you how does that work? So, basically the need for the scoreboard at the um main field um came up this year. That scoreboard is was antiquated and went down. So, Dr. Jones and I met um M. Martino and Mr. Smith, we all met and when we kind of looked at, you know, what we had available at this specific time to be able to get that done for this year. That's why we were able to come up with the funds that we take through gate receipts and and and so on and so forth for that specific thing. Um again, you know, from year to year that differentiates, you know, depending upon, you know, the um how well our teams do, how, you know, how well the games are attended and stuff like that.
034Um, but yeah, I mean, so I guess the question you're asking is can we Yeah, like we're we're doing all this capital work like and we're trying to track these big line item projects and then we've got also these things too and it just from a board perspective, it would be nice not to be surprised that a we were in need of something and then b that the money came, you know, from these other sources. is like what if we didn't have that and you needed to I mean that that was one of the one of the things that we looked at several years ago like being able to with that money put it back into athletics in back into the schools in in any way shape or form. So, we've been doing that all
035along, just in smaller increments. And then we didn't have to purchase a, you know, a $50,000. Again, the scoreboard, the crazy thing about the scoreboard is scoreboards less than $20,000, right? The installation is about, you know, 30. Well, the original plan would have been the scoreboard to be here. When we started this year, we thought it would live along and then over the course of the fall, it continued to fail and our bandaids didn't hold it together. And so what would have happened if we didn't have the money and those accountable to purchase it, it would have been on this list and it would have taken other things off this list. I guess we don't need to use the word like again transparency. If someone says to me, why are we collecting those fees? like
036I could either say, well, we bought a scoreboard with them, or like I don't know, but I know where I can go and find out and it's just a little more transparent when you sort of have the visibility that continent really is the just the genesis of it because we had all sorts of emails about athletic fees, right? And um so nothing's wrong. I just I think we should just have a better eye. That's all. I'm sorry, I'm a little confused. So these are line this the line item in the athletics budget is to help support the property. Are you basically saying that if we are having gate fees and a pool of money that's being generated as revenue, why isn't that being used for this? So it minimizes the line item. I just think
037we need better better visibility to right. So there's we can do an audit of and have an auditor come and talk about all this, you know, however 99 whatever the budget was and we can have a bond and labor over, you know, and I don't see why that doesn't translate down to that there's this pot of money that I'm not saying anything nefarious is happening at all. I think we talk about two different things. One is a line item property in the budget and the other is we've got money that's being collected from a different fund that goes into the operational budget, right? And how is that getting utilized? Is that kind of what you're asking? Money is being collected and just being utilized for like scoreboard paying paying like referees and all that. And
038um that's I don't I don't want to spend any more time. I'm just was just want to make the point that I again the rest of the board maybe could care less. I just felt like that's this is something that maybe we should have a a better eye on. And then so my follow-up question is just um was going to ask if you had any opinion on payforplay fees being lowered for the middle school because some people had written in for that. Um and I and we promised that we would discuss that. And so like why might I lower or vote to lower pay for play fees when for all I know there could be you know a lot of money sitting in some account somewhere that could that could offset some other expenses that
039could in turn you know like you know we move. So so I guess my question is just your your opinion on has has anyone ever do you have you ever found that it'd be great to lower those payments because people have come to you I have had a lot of conversations about it and my past life as a teacher and working in in a different district, the paper play fees for the middle schools were a little bit lower. Um, and and to me it kind of makes sense because they're not getting the same and they don't require the same amount of um time. They don't require the they don't play as many games as as the high school teams and stuff like that. But it's again, it's one of those things where I think you
040have to look at the the big picture to see if there's, you know, pros and cons to it and go from there. But okay, I've never really, you know, studied it. I I've seen it done both ways in in different districts. Okay. Okay. And and just to be clear, like in anything I've asked, like I'm not upset about anything. It's just trying to get a better handle on. Um and then lastly, and it might be a question for Josh that has to do with the book. Um I'll just direct it to you. So the because I was forgot I had this question. So there's line items in definitely the K through schools. So line item one 127 uh 111 which is instructional data coach and all the schools except one have like big increases and
041then there's another one um 211.11 which is certified special ed teachers like those is that like a significant like a re reclassification of the math the math coaches. So before we only had two math coaches they weren't allocated one building. So now they've been allocated. That's fine because honestly that's a lot of but that makes total sense. Just one second. the student activities. So obviously that that allocation of money gets audited every year as far as the ins and outs inside that fund and and that that one year I think we had a like a couple years where extra money acrewed I think was that was when we switched over from when the parent the the athletic passes went from the PTO to the athletics department and that was the chunk of money that um
042we used to kind of drive this conversation because with student activities you shouldn't let the money stay in there for years and years. it should go to the students who put the money there. Um, and so it doesn't have to be immediate. This that coupled with the sponsorship, the new sponsorship signs, which um since it's a public meeting, if anyone's interested, uh there is a sponsorship program if people are interested in having a sign at the stadium. Um but uh the those two things um are really where that amount went. And so then um while we used student activity funds had and have forever on purchasing smaller property items that gave us a larger amount of money that we needed to spend and that was something we need to spend. Um that's just for those
043interested that this will be our third scoreboard at the stadium in the 50 years of this school. The first one lasted 25 years. Um the second one was um and the this campus obviously started in 79 started as papar high school transition there. So um it's it's about time when you think about the increase of amount of sports that have played on that. Absolutely. And but 211.11 is certified special ed teachers. So that would not be a reclassification. So are we just adding more? Which schools? like all of them except PES like that 211 has gone up by I mean I can look it up and someone else can talk and I can come back. We did we did have some additions I know um and some if you can see some shifts just in
044general salary too depending on who position got vacated and when shipped over. So there's two factors in that. one the sharing of the reading um services that Jessica talked about with the Wilson train but the other some of that is also due to like special ed left district we're trying to do one at a higher rate one of the things that you're going to see in the the refuge services is kind of the most obvious example we always had garbage services in the district uh but you'll see like an increase at the elementary school from $10,000 it's not really an increase the state does a report is called the BFS report where they want to calculate the cost per building. Um before we aggregated that garbage into one line of items for budget purposes and
045then had to go and recode everything in order to submit that report. So we started breaking it out before we submit the report. That's our So it's disagregating. So MEES is up 99,000 at that ME added a teacher GES 43,00 was the classroom that we added. We added the CLC classroom at MEES. GES 43,000, LMES 82,000, MMS 106,000, and RMS 24,000. Those are a lot of thousands. I just wanted anyone else, Sharon? So, thank you so much. Um, I think I asked this question, but I just, um, put my mind at ease. the COP at the middle school. Can you talk a little bit about the impact to space and where I'm specifically going is is there any impact to instructional learning for class sizes and we don't including that into either of your schools
046as far as space. We have to determine which school can house their program. uh how many students will be um college will participate in that building. So that would draw both of our our schools. Uh as as far as impact um with students pushing out into would you take any existing classrooms and repurpose that space ultimately resulting in a reshuffleling or recalculation of existing class size or projected class size? It it would require us to take a look at existing space. No, we would not be consolidating instructional spaces, but repurposing space and looking at how we might um carve out appropriated uh room for that particular program that's more central. We just where's the available available classroom space and drop it in. We want to be very mindful about where that's located so students feel
047supported and accessed. Um but as far as accessing their core academic uh a successful program allows students to go into the core academic classes and be more successful in those settings because this program provides the therapeutic support that quite honestly that we're missing uh at the middle level. This is also a program that exists uh at the elementary level and exists at the high school level. It doesn't exist uh in it in its fashion at the middle level. I will say with the elementary we do have a CP program on there and there is always a seat in the home room classroom for that student for when they join the classroom. There's a desk to them. There's a name tag to them. So they're still a part of that community and then they flex in
048and they flex out. It's new. So it really has a a net zero impact on enrollment when you talk about making classes for next year. Okay. But that would be worked in to any class size that you project. So there is that level. So regardless of where it's housed, we would be able to see that and you showed what the anticipation of that. Okay. My other um this this is kind of a logistical question. I'm just curious. Um at pickup, we often have traffic issues, right? Um and some of those become very dangerous situations and sometimes we have police officers that are out there directing traffic. Is that a cost that is incurred by region 15? Yeah, the situ that sits in professional services. That's part of the ro the two rovers that exist. Um
049but the town of South integrates that into kind of the rover bill. So it's not years ago it was a separate charge like $15,000 with traffic. Um but now they folded in the overall rover position. So I want to say approximately $60,000 you would pay selfies and that would include like them directing traffic on Main Street and if there was a need due to safety to increase that that's a conversation that you guys have with the town and then you would so there's that's currently left. I bring this up because it was a very interesting situation as I drove down past middle school today. I'm never down that road at pickup. Yeah. Over time very dangerous. the pickup lines are long and it becomes a one um lane road and it's very easy to get
050in. So it made me think like as I move across so like PE Long meadow has uh Milberry Elementary we have direct memorial is actually a pretty good place. Um you know uh Gainfield we we often back in the mornings are pretty good but in the afternoon we back to that one lane bridge um over by Gainfield. Yeah I do and we've noticed postcoid uh the amount of parent drop off and pickup has increased for a lot of different reasons. You know, I do think depending on where you live in town, some of our bus runs are 55 minutes. So, sometimes it's more efficient, but um you know, as as I look at my table there of um administrators, the amount of time they spend trying to make efficiencies um some of it is structural.
051You know, MEES has improved a little since we redid the parking lot. You know, Long Meadow needs significant EES, you know, there there's only so much we can do uh to pick up. Okay. I actually think that that number should go up from the safety perspective because I don't think it's enough. I mean when I not the money but just directing traffic and making sure people are safe but well compounding that especially in like even if money was no object the amount of available officers Oh yeah. Um and then just um so it was really I appreciate your comment about the science um room and the equity to our children in the classroom. I know when we did the tours I was like I really hope to see a science lab. Um hopefully that will
052get baked in in future budgets. Um but I appreciate that you're pointing to the lab because I think that students really need to have that experience. Um and if they're teaching science it should be in a lab type setting. So, I appreciate that. And then just to piggyback on Steve's comment related to um we heard a lot about gay fees and pay for play. Um if there's any way we can kind of look at that um and really I think the middle school when we looked at the facilities use policy. I think that was and I appreciate you see bringing that back up. That was a significant outlier and I think if we can reduce those at the middle school that would be really very valuable. reduce gate fees or the middle school pay for
053play Sally and then Tom is this discussion or fee discussion because I just wanted to bring up also as we're kind of talking about gate fees was the um uh was gate fees for potentially kind of adding like a adding to the cost of the paytoplay but including with it um like a the access card the for the family so that it's so that you're not paying for a kid to play and then paying to go to every game and pay to go to senior night and pay to and how that adds up. We had talked about trying to work something out with other I would hugely in favor of that. I don't know if that's something we'll do this year, but I just want to put that out there as um that's something you
054hear a lot of my train of thought on this, but since we were talking about parent pickup, uh Steve Mary and I were at an event in Heritage Village uh a week or two ago, and the number one issue that was brought to our attention was how come in the morning we drive by the buses and we see so many buses half empty is being generous. We were also told with two or three kids on them. So I know it's not budget related but since we were talking about parent pickup and since this is something that was recently brought to us could we just take a moment to uh just talk about what we are required to provide in terms of transportation especially in a changing environment where more and more people are dropping off
055during co Yeah. And I would say it's a a multi-prong approach because you also have the length of ride. So when you look at the fact that um I don't have the math on the top of my head. I think when you combine South Berry and Middlebury, we become maybe the fourth or fifth largest. Did I say six? I couldn't remember. Did I put it in my answer there? Um because I plan on going through some of those questions quickly tonight. But we're the sixth largest geographic town. Um you know, we talk about busing. So one is that we have to provide a ride to school for every child. Um, and how we do that when there's no sidewalks is frequently we were going door to door. Um, there was a period of time where
056the district tried to stop going down going down all the sacks. Um, that that did not go that was before my time. Um, and it did not go over well within the community, especially when you look at some of the the long cold that. So there are some choices, but we do have to provide a ride for every child. We there are some districts that hedge. We hedge a little bit too. Um we don't necessarily if every child was to get on the bus tomorrow, we wouldn't have enough. So we do hedge that a little bit. Um but you can't hedge it too much because then you get into like if we want to do hour and a half bus rides, we could cut some buses. Um we also don't pay per run, we pay
057per day. So when we get a a bus, um maybe the the middle school bus doesn't have a lot of students on it, but the elementary school bus has more or the high school bus. So like and and it can't be like I signed a waiver and I don't need a bus this year, but three weeks from now my job changes or my you know and now I need a bus and we say too bad, so sad. You know, you sign this waiver. That doesn't work that way. The family needs to drive. So that is the the back and forth that we have every year with the bus company. How do we get more efficient? There's tipping points. So um you know if the bus is half full or even a third full uh it's
058not like we can get rid of the bus because I still have to send the bus down that road. And so unless we can find efficiencies this year um after I think the first month of school if no child got on that stop the whole month we called the family and said you need us a ride. That didn't necessarily save busing though. Let's say the length of the bus ride. So maybe they were faster getting to school or the bus ride was shorter, but that would have to happen at 50 houses in order for us to get rid of the bus. And the logistics of that just are seldom. You know, I think that the the fact that we're the sixth largest geographic area. Um you know, I came I came from the largest um
059in my time prior to this and the bus line is one of the highest in the state of this territory. If I could ask one followup and this is another question that was asked of us. Is there any cost savings to be achieved by moving from the large school buses to smaller bands? Have we looked at that? Yeah, so we have like some of our hardto-reach stops we we send vans down there. Um some of them we we have 55 student vans or buses instead of 65, you know, some of the they're smaller buses. I'm looking at the Smartos, as I always say, it's the it's the cost of the driver and the liability. the the the bus size there's some but it's not much I want to say literally the price is like $10
060fuel savings very very low liability mean insurance liability insurance all the driver training obviously drivers benefits and salaries yeah all those things really go for the biggest cost next time we go there we're yeah we less I mean it's it's by the end we're like yeah they should why are they empty like that makes No sense. I did stand up for you guys though and say that you guys do ask parents to like ride the bus and that parents choose to, you know, drive their kids. Then one of them said to me, "Do you drive your kid?" And I was like, "It's bonding time." Kai drives. Kai got all red. I secret not anymore. It's like confession. Um I I will say too that part of the problem with the um I know by the
061middle school I don't know if it would matter if we had a police officer out there. There are so many cars and if they're not pulling in and parking and waiting or they all show up at the same time. I don't know that the police officer there is going to make a big difference in moving um things things around. It just sometimes it's just the timing. you've got to got to time it just right or you've got to bank on that person that's taken a right into the parking lot to let you take a left and um it's it's rough but if everybody did kind of pull in and moved up I've been there um it it does make a difference I just don't I think if they're all lined up on that side waiting
062to turn it were you in the morning or the afternoon conference oh afternoon it yeah it's timing is everything now I was just curious where it hit if it was town if it was region 15 you answered my question um certainly it's an infrastructural issue as far as I'm concerned right but it only lasts about seven minutes offline we have optimistic plans to be able to when we redo the parking lot you might be able to change some of the traffic pattern but the bus lot's there too so long have buses returning so it is smiling things that we talk about a lot. Yeah. Just a mini bus is $430 a day and a full size is $433. Wow. And and we pay the cost for the entire bus is about $63,000 a year, right?
063You know, so when we add a bus size, but it is also it's beyond the it's also the volume when you think about the size. We just cover a lot of ground. I mean there just there's no but I mean like a large bus takes up a large space. Oh yeah, right. I mean truck I have to answer Steve's question about who salaries. Oh, thank you guys. So the the if you take a look at PS for example page two the lines up $103,000 4.28% 28%. There's 28 staff members in that line and I'd say approximately 65% are moving on step. So the way the teachers contract is done that's actually raises against that line against the certified special ed. Uh well the south which page you roll the whole 100 uh yes oh further
064back yes it was there's like but dees has a higher percentage of special education teachers because of the concentration program theirs was the only one that went down but yeah that's I think because we have a new staff member so you know like when you hire a new person I think because we didn't lose I think I think it might have just been that I think it You can tell I just read it. Any other questions? Thank you all for coming in. Um I kind of wanted to piggy back a little bit on what Sharon said about um just acknowledging the strength of the middle school um science program that we hear a lot and and wanting to be supportive of that. I know you talked about the equity and lab space and um and
065I don't know if I'm just misremembering this but was there something about open sight ed and access to some of the materials and I'm just wondering if that's covered in this budget or if there's any if there's anything else for see sort of like changing down the line in terms of the science curricul I don't see over the course of the next few years anything really changing and I do think that um right now we are very well equipped for the group yet um resource. Um one of the increases in our budget is that we purchased non-conumable items. Therefore, we're really set up for our success. Um it's been something that we continue to work on and any other questions? Um I I have a question about the CL space at the middle school. Um
066I was I was surprised to hear that we have seal pizza base in the elementary schools and at the high school but not the middle school. How have you guys managed that need without having a program? Like what's been the impact? So if we look so if we look at our our current structure, we have a learning center program for our highne uh special education students at RMS. We have a flex room uh set up at Memorial to support students who flex in and out. But both of those are do not have the benefit of kind of a therapeutic type setting to provide the students who need it. I think this is something um we have supported students who have come to us that have experienced challenges in a wide variety of ways. One, we
067have a very talented uh special education staff. Uh we have tremendous counselors. We have a social worker. We have school psychologists. So, we're triaging constantly. Uh but the work that we're doing is not therapeutic for the child's needs. So, we've been trying to make do as best we can and I think we're seeing students who have benefited from that type of program at the elementary school setting now coming to us. Um, and we need to ensure that we provide them that same quality of program support so they can be successful and it really is a case-byase basis for students who benefit by that type of structure and that type of support. I think I think Michael said everything. Um, you know, I think as we mentioned, our special education staff, our school counseling staff, our
068school psychologist, administration, we all step in where we're needed, when we're needed. Um, but providing that flexible space for students who, you know, might be trauma affected or might have um some needs that are go a little bit more beyond than what we normally address. I think that is such a critical it would be a critical help to us and to the students so that they can um you know have every chance to set them up for success at the next level. So the extreme case is also that we found alternative settings for students which you know that that's not the best setting for them to be in. It's really hard to transition back once you're in that place. It's also the least cost effective alternative settings meeting sending them away to a different school.
069Just want to explain it to anyone listening. So, can I piggy back on that a little? So, we're talking about one um CLB class or classroom to be shared by both middle schools. So, would there be an instance where a child may move in and then move back to their respective middle school? Um, and if you're thinking numbers wise now, is one classroom at one middle school enough? I I think um Michael so Michael's um this sort of flexible program that he currently has a disability um is available to students who live in the memorial district. The program that we have at Memorial um that is also flexible is available for the students who live in district. So we're kind of doing it but not with the tools that would make it better. Well, we're
070doing it, but in terms of different needs. Uh, so there's a specific program uh at Michael's building that addresses a certain level of need. I have a different level of need at my building. Very different students. Got it. Um, very differently designed program, but with the ability to flex into the general ed classrooms and then flex back out. And we think they could flex in wherever this classroom is and then back eventually to their home school. Yes. And the the beauty of a flex program is that the students are they do have a parallel schedule where we try to always have them flex in and then we can flex out when we need to. And the only one of the main differences in uh the CLP program is that we would want a therapeutic setting.
071So it would be available to those students all day. So the same structures and things at the elementary. So Chris has the program the case building where if there was somebody in one of our buildings that benefit from the CL program, they would kind of magnetize to the CL program um very similarly to what the structure would be at the middle schools. Right. And it's still it's only year two of our having that student program. So it kind of will be rolled out below the high school. When we think about space, we only have one classroom high. So all students that are in the middle school when they come here, we only have that one classroom. That's what we need. So I do think space here. Thank you. So would would the plan be to
072keep the that the program should you have now and add the additional and and is there a chance that those could almost serve as like step down if students at Memorial say the CLP class was at Memorial and then they go to more Shambo would there I'm imagine that's a big jump going from CLP over to another school and not having any support like is is there a way to continue that certainly I think anything is always possible you know but really these placement in these programs is IEP driven based on testing that varying degrees I'm thinking about the transition that whereas the program that I have in my building I would not see kind of like that overlap you know my students were currently in my in our learning center because that is a
073much higher need uh support for those students that I don't see that there's a lot of overlap between I see like two very questions. I'm gonna close out Steve's question. Oh, okay. So, no, but it's it's an interesting point too with just salaries in general. So, in that line, you had look at either transfer retirement happen like a long meadow for example or you know top set teacher incoming um beginning bidding salary teacher the shift is like 50 45 50,000. So, you know, that that alone is what moved that line, you know, raises. So, it's kind of like that's where the sum of salary tricky because with retirements and transfers and ins and outs, um there's a lot of shifting inside. So, yeah, no FT change, just it looks like um one possibly two retirement
074or transfers out of that those positions and we then replace it with some lower salary. Okay. Wouldn't the line item go down? It would replace some lower sound. No, the the from the um sorry, they're shifting in. Yes, sorry. Correction. Um you had teachers that were um looks like you had two transfers in higher salary. You're f 522 and prior from one meadow. Now you're 610. So wrong. We'll touch on it again when we question if there's an answer to a question that speaks to that. Any other questions? Thank you so much for coming tonight. We absolutely value um everything that you do for our students. Very much appreciate you coming tonight and very much appreciate everything you do for our students. Thank you. All right. Next, we have review and discussion of budget questions
075led by Superintendent Smith and Mr. Martino. So, appreciate um everybody sending us questions. Some of them came in um late in the week, so we did our best to try to adjust and uh answer as much of them as possible. Uh thank you everybody. Pass out um and what we're trying to do some of your the questions that came in touched on questions we had spoken about before. So while I try to keep it clean, it's not as clean because the first question for example around class size, one of the questions um talked about this year um and originally we had put in there only the projected numbers. So I went back and added in current numbers so that people can see uh and then we tried to put some uh context in here uh
076that class size projections. uh we look at the number of sections that we're going to need based on demographers report and current enrollment. Um kindergarten has the largest volatility. We don't know the rest of the students are here so we have some conversation. Um so beginning in February when kindergarten registration starts we monitor that on a pretty regular basis. Um and then beginning of July, we look uh weekly we have enrollment updates at the elementary school level because if students move in, we're kind of close to margins. And when you start getting into um some of the schools that have two and three sections, uh one student shift or one teacher shift one way or the other has a a different impact on the class size when you can as opposed to have five or
077six sections and you pull a section out. So um after the budget passes, you can try to the extent possible to work within the FTE number that was approved at the budget time. There have been a couple of years in the past where we couldn't do that and we come to the board and we say we're going to add a teacher. I think one of the charts um that we have in here will will highlight that. Um so that's where we were uh last year in 20 or where we are now 2425 and then where we are subjecting to that. Um I think that was the only piece um that we didn't answer before. So, I'm going to skip um all the way down to um page 10 and a new header. Starting with my
078questions updated page here. I think that's page seven. Uh uh so one question that came in was this perception that region 15 it was over budgeting and that could we explain difference between overruns and so I put some uh some differences between us and a traditional municipal school district in a non-reional school district if the school district has un uh unexpected cost overruns they can go to the and ask for a special appropriation. It happens. One district had a a million dollar over run in special education two years ago. One not too far from us had a $300,000 overrun in special education. They went to the town court finance in that town, voted and gave them a special appropriation and that was it. We don't have that luxury. We stand alone. And so if we
079have budget runs, there's nowhere for us to go and we would have to go to a full referendum and ask the community to show up for do that. that would be a really bad place for us to be and we never never want to be there. Um and so um that may be some of the the question that's out there. Um like talked about the shift um in the non-laps account that we're working on a policy for. Uh before that non-laps could only pay for capital items. who could not use that for any other overrun which partially created our need to have that specialized contingency fund. I think there's been some confusion about the year-end balance. So, as to the extent possible put links in here to minutes from finance committee, board meetings, budget meetings,
080wherever there's a link, we're trying to put people right to where they want to um look at. But the assumption last year or I think it was last year that we're over by 1.2 million didn't go to the third page. Um actually on the second page we also highlighted in yellow you have to look at the revenue shortfall. The uh reason that we're so hot with Hartford and the excess cost is the impact to our revenues. So you couldn't just look at year end balance without looking at the revenue. Part of the reason that balance was there is that was manufactured and we slowed spending in other places to absorb the the cut that we took from uh uh and then again there's a link in here to the June 24 finance committee meeting that
081you can point people to the end of year spending law was something that we reviewed with the finance committee. Um typically we hold back dollars over the course of the year because we don't know what kind of winter we're going to have. We don't know there's going to be overtime, there's going to be a flood, if there's going to be any other natural disaster, and then as the year kind of starts to come to fruition, we start to be able to say, "All right, we have some space in these areas." The u the list of things that broke during the school year or about to break now, we can start fixing them. Obviously, if there's any emergency, we reallocate that early in the year, but the things that um are concerned, we start to address
082that. One of those uh last year was the gym uh AC unit. That was a $300,000 repair. That wasn't a surprise. It was it's broken. We need to fix it. And what's the best way to fix it? So, that was talked about at that finance committee June. And we put the minutes in. Um the question on the $232,000 and fiscal year 24 um year end balance, that was part of our audit. We haven't moved on that yet. my understanding of that the board wants to create the new non-reoccurring account and set policy before we transfer that money in. Um, but we always wait until we audit make sure that our year end balance is in audit with year end balance. I talked a little bit about the the surplus. I don't really like that just
083to go back. So after we made capital repairs with the surplus that we ran last year, there was to this amount 232. That number has yet to be transferred to an account. That's correct. As of right now, it's sitting on the caffer in the correct place. If the board chose not to allocate it there, it would then the next audit would flow to the town. We took no action on that on that. So where is it sitting now? Right now it's sitting on the calfer in the correct in the educ sorry our our big audit filing our our certified annual audit. Okay. Um so in there right now it's in the educa education expense account in the audit. We've not moved the money at all but I'm that doesn't show up in the balances. So
084right now it sits there. It doesn't sit on any last year. Last year it doesn't show up in audit. So if the board say took no action between now and June 30th, we do our next audit that 232 would flow back to your member town that you would take a no action on the money for that transfer. So if I understand that correctly, at some time between now and June 30th, the board is likely to realize that $232,000, right, in either educational expense or in capital non-recurring. Yes. So we are due to receive another quarter million into one of those things. Yes. Y'll take action, put that in. That's good to know. Y there's another way of doing it which I think is more complicated. You could authorize the transfer before the audit closes. So
085you could say we authorize a transfer up to 2% of the operating budget. The problem with that statement is that would assume you you would have like a $1.8 million surplus and our surplus is generally never that high and it's that's a big number. So I think if you you do like a blanket like transfer statement, it doesn't show the real balance. We do it kind of after. I think when the audited balance is done, we know that's a solid number and then you make your transfer by doing that for Yeah, that always goes into a non-lap. Yeah. Can't drop transfer into an operating. I for some reason I thought that already capital non occurring. So it's nope. Nice to know that um I not a big fan of the word surplus, you know. Um
086unexpended amount. I'm not looking to be technical on it, but um surplus means we didn't need it. And really, this is the winter. We didn't use as much heat as we anticipated. It's a little different than than a surplus. Um so I put in just some answers there. But all of this at least every month we go through the finances at the finance committee. We talk about the accounts that are under encumbered, the accounts that are over encumbered, and what expenses we expect between now and the end of the year. U the debt service piece. Um, I know that there's some questions out there. We I did put a link to the March Capital presentation in there. The other thing that uh Mr. Martino did was when um he met with our bond consultant the
087other day just about our current bond, but we had him run a scenario that if we took those roofing projects in the Turk that are in that uh capital presentation and we went to bond for that $5 million instead of paying it with the unrealized bond debt payment like we planned it. Well, that is one process that Mr. Martino and I think we should look at. Uh you're talking about a $450,000 annual payment in 20 years on that bond debt. Um and $2 million of interest. So, um that's on the roofs. So, you know that the four circles we showed using the bond debt to you didn't want to do a bond, you thought it was not worth, correct? And we right. So, the overhead we said, let's go get a number on that overhead.
088That overhead is $450,000 a year in debt service payment for 20 years and $2 million in revenue. So by keeping the So if someone says, "Hey, you're overt taxing me because you're not using your bond debt. Give that back in a tax credit." We could do that. Then fixing the roofs would mean we'd have to look at a bond. And I would argue, and I think Mr. Martino is on the same page. We'd over we'd be overt taxing the community by paying $2 million in interest and a $450,000 annual payment for 12 years um to do the same project. So we're saving $2 million in interest alone, right? You say $450,000 payment and two like when I pay my mortgage, it's interest like why you keep saying $450 plus 2. Well, it's not so much
089plus, but in that $450,000 payment would be $2 million over the 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Makes sense. That's helpful. Yeah. I mean, we've long talked about the debt service line and the dollars that are there, and I do think it's, you know, it's prudent to salt those away and then we'll pull them back out, do moves and stuff. And to just echo the movie's presentation, they were quite impressed that we already had our payment structure set up where it didn't need a bond to pass, a budget to pass because we already have money allocating debt service for all future payments of the bond. So, please to be talked about more than future question. All right. Um there there was a question about the u the revenue and that appeared to be under budget by
090410,000. Yep. Exactly. That was the excess cost that um the state had promised and then reduced um the um current proposed budget that you have in front of you originally realized that $410,000. Um however the Friday before we gave it to you when tea leaves said that they were going to add that back in we went and did the budget budget you have in front of you would have been about a half a percent higher had we not realized that. So the the ex now the the risk is that there has been no legislative action to restore the 40 million into next year's budget. were taking it on faith a little bit that because they did it this year, it would make sense they're going to not take it less than that next year. Um,
091all right. So, this is kind of a long I'm going to not dive too much into it, but there's a digital record here. It's online. These questions have been posted. Uh but there's some charts going around that tracks and this is specific to the town of Middlebury that several of you asked questions about uh that the school budget as a percent and grow over time. So there's and I do not want to get into somebody else's sandbox. I want to give you the information you asked for um and do so without judgment. the documents that are being published by are here um and they start in 1995 96. So I did go back historically to um 9596 um and I hope ECS got dumped above it but um they're they're related. Um so the ECS
092uh ECS calculation is a state grant that goes to communities. It does not go to the school district called educational cost sharing. Very confusing. It's different than the excess cost grant. I don't know why they make them sound the same, but very confusing. And you can see that um from the last three or four years specifically um what happened back in 2020 2021 the formula for ECS was re-evaluated and it was determined that certain communities were underfunded and so the calculation redone and the districts that had been kind of restricted in some of the funding they received um starting to get an increase in that. So that's where you see this kind of big uptick in middle over the last three or four years since 2002. It looks like here. Uh the other piece that
093um the chart above that was created outside of the regional school district is it doesn't take into account the enrollment ship. And so, uh, I pointed back to the ADM, um, that's the average daily membership in each community. And the way the regional school district charter is set up is that on October 1st and every year, we calculate the percentage of students from each town. Um, going back to 9596, that's when the chart began. And in 9596, Mbury's ADM was 26% of the school district's budget. Um, in the budget that you have in front of you, it's 34%. So there's almost a 10% increase in enrollment. So the other kind of compounding factor is you had a lower percentage on a lower budget. So now you have 10% more on a budget that is whatever
094that is 30 years. Makes me feel bad to say that that's 30 years ago because that was after I graduated high school. But um 30 years of compounding budgets. So you're 10% higher on a budget that's basis higher. The other interesting thing in reading through minutes from 1995 was that at the top of that year the ADM shift middleberry was 045 and Southbury was 12.1. So when you look at this chart here that is been in our budget um presentation for the last five or six years the 90s had a lot of um above the line is in South Berry's red and above the line means that Southbury had a positive uh student enrollment and below the line is the proportionate um shift and then after the 2000s that enrollment shift really went towards middleberry
095And so they don't have the next 20 years. But it is interesting that if you think of the life cycle of some of our families that move here with young children and then when they're at nesters, they sell to a new family with young children. It tracks with some of the demography um on that. Also in here are there's building projects and houses. There's a lot in this, but I just thought it was interesting. I wasn't necessarily looking for the enrollment shift, but they they were talking about it um at the time. uh like tried to put as much information from those minutes. Um there the other piece is um in item C, the town budget separates their capital uh budget from their operating budget. I don't know how uh that chart was developed. Our
096capital didn't exist a few years ago, but um it's in our operating budget. So I believe Middleberry's capital was about 1.2 million or something like that. So, and it didn't appear that it was in that chart. So, um I think all of those kinds of comparisons are a little dangerous to make over signal. Uh there was a question about um state regulations and some of the requirements. Um and so a couple years ago I gave to the finance boards when they um came to our meeting a packet in 2016. Uh there was a study commissioned to look at unfunded mandates. um I think it's 16 pages long in small font. Um it's on our website. There's a link to it there. That was almost 10 years ago now. Um none of those mandates went away
097and there's 10 more years of mandates that have been added. Uh but it gives you an idea of some of the things that contribute to the budgets. Um and I there's another question here uh about the uh difference in school district budgets and towns. I don't manage a town budget, so I don't want to again play in somebody else's sandbox, but when you look at the amount of uh legislation that's required by school districts, the the and again I'm not looking to like the transportation is an interesting one, right? Like the school the town doesn't run school buses. Um that's a big line. The town doesn't run special education services. There's a lot of mandated things that fall into our budget. The training um and and we're just a lot bigger, you know. Uh we
098have 700 employees. I don't remember each town, but it's a lot less than 700 in the scope of what they do. Um medical pooling. Oh, Jul, we didn't get back to this question. We talked who's going to answer it, but um the medical pooling piece, I'll speak quickly, but South Bay no longer participates. They went out on their own. um being a selfop medical pooling I would argue we have a lot more consistency yeartoear over our medical while this year is high and I say high 13 there lots of my peers would be very excited to get a 13 uh one is over 30 so um we have a little more control and and ownership over how we manage those costs and if there's savings we're able to realize those costs where if you're not
099a self operator and there savings those are not realized by the district but by the company. Um, so historical staffing. Um, so couple things I put in here. Um, all of these positions are outlined in budget presentations since 2018. And there's a lot more detail on these, including the rationale. Um, the positions below do not indicate if they were funded by the operating budget or by grants. It gets a little more like wonky to put on charts the more we start parsing it out. So this is kind of like 50,000 foot view. Uh the other piece that I would encourage people to go and look at the budget presentations from those years because a lot of these positions although added came at cost savings. Even the CL2 program we're talking about adding now as offsets
100and outplacement that are going to have return on investment and great efficiency. Um I tried to put an asterk next to some of the positions that are tied to mandatory services. For example, pair of professionals. We're going to see what is probably an eyeopening number of almost 40 paras added over that time. We don't add paras unless they're part of an IEP that is driven by a student. Um that's true of some of the nursing that we've added to the district that they're there because a student has needs. Um, and then I tried to put some notes in the bottom um around what types of positions we added and where. Um, just so you had a little bit of um line of sight without having to go to each of the um budgets for the
101years, right? All of those believe all of them there was one second grade position that I think was added in 2019 or 2020 that was enrollment driven and added mid midstream like we added it like the second week of August or second week of September or first week of somewhere right right before school started. Um I didn't do the research for that yet but it's in the it's documented somewhere. It just didn't go big enough. But I believe other than that one, we haven't added a midstream out of budget cycle position. This is a very helpful chart. I really Yeah. Thank you for putting it all together. I liked it. Thank you. Sure. Well, one of the interesting things I hadn't looked at it this way, but you know, we've talked about and you've heard
102it tonight about the shift in social emotional. Um, and while we've added some staff, and people will say declining enrollment and you're adding staff, the elementary positions we added were to protect and maintain those class sizes over the last five or six years. Um, and then the majority of those positions are really about social emotional BCBAs and social workers and instructional coaches. Um, so it was just interesting to Oh, sorry. One more question came um question came in about non-reoccurring expenses. Is there a way to kind of fund next year's projects through some of the unencumbered money left at the end of this year? And what's interesting is there's really not a lot of our budget is reoccurring. Uh and there's been a shift over the last 10 years that our vendors are moving to
103a licensing standpoint. So even more things you used to be able to like buy textbooks and bring down do that anymore. Um so the the three things we talked at the March financing a little bit I think the last budget meeting about adjusting some of the earned interest revenue uh based on actuals. That's something to put out there. Um, so this year the we increased the technology lease by 40,000 um to take advantage of a state reimbursement to upgrade some of our switches. We could keep that flat and buy some of those switches. Uh, that would save about 40,000 and then it's interesting that you asked Mr. Blasy about some of the items on that property line. I think some of those things we could offload. Um, and depending on how the board wanted to
104look at that revenue, um, you know, you have, you know, maybe 200,000 or so, um, if, uh, if that's a place that you wanted to look,000 and realized. Well, no. Well, I think that's a that would be a risk tolerance conversation for the board to have. I think right now we're about 100,000 over projection on thresh, right? We budgeted 150. I think we're at 280 now. Something like that. Um, so there's like a real 100,000 there. And then if you do the 40 and the 35, you're 175. Maybe you're like 125 on that revenue. But again, that's kind of like risk. I don't want to I'm happy to support you. The risk tolerance that we're at is that the revenue, the actual revenue we've collected so far is pretty safe. Um, I think there's probably
105a discussion, you know, of risk tolerance above that. Uh, but there's probably some, you know, we're not going through the year. The stiff account will probably grow a little bit next year. I don't know what interest rates will do. A couple rate cuts coming, but we did we did kind of give a conservative estimate in there. So, I do think there's there was the possibility of a rate cut today and the Fed took Yeah, they didn't. They said there's one one milestone down. They said there's two two coming this year somewhere. But on the other hand, I thought it was interesting. had a discussion where um you know principal on which we were earning interest is going to be greater next year, right? Yeah. So that offsets that risk as well that we're earning money
106on more money, right? Any more questions on the questions? Can we go back to the debt service mind and because I think one of the concerns that you raised is sort of why would the roofs be in like is there why would the roof be there versus like their own because it's not because debt service I think like to someone it kind of means like okay this is a debt we have to pay on this and so it's like it's non-negotiable not that the place is but it but it conotes a certain thing versus actually kind of putting in what I plan as a separate line. So I guess I'm just wondering about that. Yeah, I think that's a like a philosophical like so where would we transfer these most likely to like capital account
107and then do the move from the capital might transfer that to the non-reoccurring capital based on like state reimbursement cycles and timing and things. There's different ways to manage that. I think the the long-term goal is that, and I did put it in there, is that eventually we're gonna have to do something with PES and GPS. We don't know what that is. It might be repairs. It might be replacement. I don't know. But at that time, you're going to need a bond. And if you decimate that account, then what's going to happen is when we execute the bond for those schools, you're going to see like a nine or 10% school budget increase where if you can maintain that debt service line and smooth it, maybe you'll see an additional say 3%. And you won't
108see that huge bump. But I do think that that question is are we not being we're trying to not not be transparent by by saying this is what we're going to do. And it's it's almost like avoiding that service account to some extent. And that's um a practice that the pay as you go model is you park it there because if you don't pay as you go that's the one that any more questions and questions. Um so that concludes our workshop. um and any other presentations that are going to come to the board. Typically at this time we do like a pulse check where board members are um just to have an idea of you know what board members are thinking or what more information they would like or um so what do people feel
109about this proposed budget for Go ahead Tom. Um well to answer your question, I feel better about it this year than than last year, right? So um let's back up and thank everyone who kind of put this together. Um I know it's tremendous amount of work that goes into it. Um and I'm really appreciative of how the budget was built this year. like I don't I think it was is conservative and everything here is defensible and you know we've now spent the year kind of outlining the path for why we made the decisions in this budget cycle that we did. So I'm really appreciative of you know all the time leading up to this and then the actual construction of the budget. Um I would say that um you know the the budget aside the
110school district does find itself in a really unique position this year which is we have a very strong cash position as we approach the ending year. Uh we're anticipating big surplus. Um and that's thank you again for you know managing the budget this year the way we did and staying within our line of you know a couple other factors we've talked about that you know advantageous rate environment that we're in and uh the legislative action. So those three things combined have put us in a really strong cash on hand position. So what I would like to have conversations about at this table is can we use those advantages to reduce the budget for next year in a responsible way and by responsible I mean uh I wouldn't look to touch anything that is a recurring
111one because you've you've drilled it into our heads that if you do that it's only going to catch up with you later down the road. cliff. Pardon? Makes a pistol clip. Makes a pistol cliff. That's right. So, um, but as I I hear about, you know, some of the good fortune we've experienced, it's clear to me that you would very easily find 300 plus,000 that we could apply in a responsible way next year. And I recommend looking at three things. one. Um, yes, like we are on track to realize 130,000 $135,000 more in interest income than we have budgeted next year. We don't have to. We can risk, you know, we can do risk tolerance and not claim that whole 135,000, but there's a big uh there's a big range between where we are at
112150 and where we are projecting to be, which might be as high as 300 this year if we're not going to have a rate out here today. Um, but call it 280, which I think is what you're projecting. That's 130 grand. So, for the sake of this argument and round numbers, let's say we realize another 100 grand in revenue next year. It's just free money and there's a good chance there's going to be some increase over. Um, if we look at what Josh just gave us in terms of things we pay down, you know, we can have that discussion. We don't have to get too granular, but I think there's at least $50,000 here that expenses that are nonrecurring that we could just use our surplus to pay down and take out next year's budget.
113And then the last thing I'd say is we now have this educational expense fund. That policy has just talked about writing um a policy for which will be coming to the board at our next regular meeting I think for first read. Uh and we've talked about how we can use that as our special education contingency. Right now that's set up as a $290,000 recurring line item. And I don't think that's the most efficient way to do it. um doesn't give the board good feedback in terms of whether or not we need it and how much we're using. But if we're to put that into a nonrecurring account like this educational expense fund, we can monitor year-over-year and hopefully that grows because we don't the fact is if we kept it the way it is. We
114don't know if 290 is enough next year or if it's too much, right? But by transferring that from a recurring item to a non-recurring item, we have better control year over year of what we think we might need to back stop any additional costs. And now action at Harvard if we're not getting the the promised amount we're expecting. So, you know, you could take 200 of that 290, you know, and make that and seed that fund and let's seed that fund above and beyond the 290 we're talking about. That could be the entirety of the 430 that was just sent back to us. We'd be working with a larger educa special education contingency. Hopefully some of that carries over year to year and continues to grow and we can take some of that out of
115this year's budget. So if you took 200 from there, if you took the 50 in payown costs and 100 in realized revenue, that's a very easy 350 grand that we would not feel in terms of cutting any services or programs or staff positions. It's just using the ser and I'm hearing the questions people are I did not submit those questions but people are asking are we overbudgeting in a year where we're lucky to find ourselves in an advantageous position it could be a really nice gesture to take some of that money put it back and lower the tax burden next year question on the numbers I wrote down 135k interest I wrote down 280 and then you threw some where did that no he had 100 130 in interest 100 in revenue So, I believe
116if I looked at the attachment correct from the last finance meeting, we're projecting $285,000 in interest revenue. Next year, we have projected that at $150,000. Actual revenue collected this year. We're going to be around two weeks. 280. We budgeted 150 next year. at the time we're not trending as high as we are. So over two might be budgeted 150 at 280. Yeah. But we can just project to get to take in more interest which it looks like we're on track to do. Yeah. So so if you went the example we had projected 280 285 we're budgeting for next year for revenue 150. So again, very conservatively, you can pull 100,000 or higher at projecting 250 as soon as a rate cut or or some squaring there. But again, there there is there is a higher
117base you're going to have two. So it was going to be that. So yeah. Okay. Still confused though. I mean I well just because there's a lot of there's Okay. We have extra money from interest this year, right? Is that is that true or false? Yes. Okay. Yes. So where you you were talking about maybe buying down the things on the last page. Yeah. Not with the separate item. Just reduce the budget $100,000. We project up revenue drop a budget that goes through. So now we're going to talk about the budget. So how much did you have budgeted for interest in this budget we're talking about right now? 150. And we're saying that is un possibly unrealistic because it could be we're checking 285,000 this year. This year this year. So the assumption is that
118we it's safe to say if you change next year's budget from 150 to 250 we're still that's still less than we are collecting this year. Yes. And that will still be seen as conservative at the interest rates that we're collecting. So we projected a 250 for next year. How are you saying that's going to how would you like to use just that 250 that impact the budget? So when you raise the revenue collected by 100 but it lowers the principle that we as right. So so that's interest. So for example you did that 100,000 you get a four four.38 if you if you up $100,000 on the then you went on because there were more numbers that got us recently. Yeah. So, so that's one bucket and then the other two buckets I'd like to
119look at um would be applying the expected sur you don't like surplus what was I going to say expected dollars right um to you know the very few um property items that we could buy down that wouldn't recur your reader so it's not going to necessarily harm us right you said 50,000 on referring. Yeah. Josh has 70 on this page. 75 on this page. Make it whatever number you want, but I put 50 for a nice round. All right. So, I'm at 100 plus my 50. Yeah. And then you were talking about the So, yeah. Special education contingency, which right now is a $290,000 recurring line item in our budget. And yes. Um, and you wanted to I'd like to reduce that, but the reason I feel like we can do that is because we
120can now seed and build up this educational expense fund which can backs stop and serve as our um special education contingency, right? Which we're going to do. You would do this to seed. Yeah. So, the contingency was 290. You weren't suggesting eliminating the whole you were No, I wouldn't I wouldn't bring it down to zero because I do think year-over-year we probably want to keep something there so you can continue to directly seed that fund because it's not a onetime thing. We want it to accumulate. So if you left it at 100,000, you know, and then next year it's still 100,000 or maybe it even grows, but that money goes directly into that fund. So it continues to grow or replace what we might have to do. What do you seed? Where are you going
121to get the seed money? Well, like we could take the whole $430,000 check we just were going to be receiving from. So, you're talking about trying to use the um the special ed the $40 million. Yeah. Uh and and trying to use some of that money to seed the education expense fund, which was going to be limited to special ed. And then you can lower the proposed budgets sped contingency by a certain amount, right? Because we already have like some money in a reserved pot, correct? Yes. Right. And so there's the question about the the I so we were expecting a 72% reimbursement. Then we like, oh gosh, they just told us it was 60. So the difference between the 60 and the 72% is is that 470? Not not exactly. So there's one step
122you missed in there. We were expecting So this year we budgeted 65%. Oh, okay. In October they told us we were going to get 60%. So when we built next year's budget, originally we budgeted at 60%. And then the day before we were a well, we were able to readjust that. But the delta for this year, well, this time last year, you were then you were thinking 65%. And so that's really going to be 70. And now in next year's proposed budget, it's 73%. Yes. But in terms of the $40 million, our share of that $40 million that return this year. Yeah. 73%. Right. So you were thinking 65 and now it's really got to be 70. So the the found money is the difference between 65 this year's budget this year's budget. Yes. But
123that speaks to if he is suggesting to move it into a reserve. Right. So the the difference of this 65% to 70 something 3% is is I just want to make sure it was truly like found like I didn't. Yeah. I just want to be careful. So yeah. So, one I want to be careful to say it was found because in in October when the state told us we weren't getting that, that's when we started turning down some of the the dials. The other thing that helped us this year and that the why this is a good year, you mentioned two things. The third is that we budgeted for two students to be outs that moved out of town. And so, like I would say like that that is not a regular occurrence and not
124something that my peers say very often. So, um, we did catch a little bit of lightning in a bottle between all those things. Um, and the difference between the 65% and the 73% would have been higher if those students were here because our excess cost money that we applied for would have been higher. So, just thought I was going to ask this question. I think you just answered it, right? Because if you're at 65, you find out in October it's 30 and I mean like there wasn't like a ne like I remember you being wary but it wasn't like a panic that we weren't going to well in part we had 290 special contingency that we would have went to that would have helped help us. So our $460,000 hole 46 290 whatever that is.
125Question student um is it the fund that you said is it student education fund or education? So that would be basically a holdover year over year. No different. So in the 27 right 26 27 budget that could offset if the reimbursement significantly drops. I think that's the concern right like they were teetering this year. It came through but I'm concerned about 26 27 ultimately raising our overarching budget wicked high. And so the idea here is some of this would potentially offset how much it would do, right? But is that kind of the thinking I just well the other piece so the like the good news about the 26 27 that that's the second year of the bienium so we'll we'll have a long lead time to know how much the we don't know how much
126the ask will be from districts so there's always a risk with that line and that's the piece that I worry about because I appreciate the thinking and I I and we don't Oh, right. There's no crystal ball, but I I am concerned for 2627 and how some of this impacts that. Well, and if you were to take like the like 425 in um unexpected turnaround funds from the state this year and you took the 232 in last year's, you put them both in that account, now you'd be sitting on a pretty good number that would start to generate interest, too. um so that that fund could then kind of grow even if we added nothing to it the interest would start to generate I don't know 30 to 50,000 a year to help grow that
127account I don't have my actuary I don't know don't quote me on the 30 to 50 but 680,000 at 4% a year anyone else So, um I would just echo Tom's introductory comments um about um about the budget. I still and I I've tried and I I still for the same reasons last year cannot get really past the fact that the last several were so high relative to our history and that this is still you know high um again relative to our history. Um I have a concern I think when we we look at this chart we see like you know it spiked and people didn't want to vote for budgets in here because they kept looking back and at some point I don't want to be you know several years looking back and then
128saying it went up you know blah blah blah and um and maybe that causes us some pain in the future but I mean in truth I the and the really the reason I I I appreciated the answers about the um about the per pupil. Um and I think you went to um the edit to pull out the the difference um how like how would you know what gesture spends on transportation? So then I went to Edite too thinking like oh that's that's a great idea. Um and I using the towns that we used in the assessment uh assessment presentation when we compare the SAT scores and all that sac um sorry there's four or five towns cher new town Avon couple but um Monroe when you look at nextgen like our just like whether you
129look at students to FTE or whether you look at students the total amount of employees or whether you look at student total amount of employees less don't factor comparisons in and all that information is in the nextG like we have more like our ratios are we always have more per than anybody else we have more FTEES um than those people we have more like just more employees we and it has like special education funding um and what the districts spend on special education funding. And I I know that it probably can be you know reported differently but all those towns spend 25% or less say on special education and we're spending 32% our entire budget on special education. I know we're bringing those people in house that might drive down some numbers but I I
130just we've added not counting paras like 17 people I think in the last four budgets and I understand the need for those like social emotional support special I just I just feel like these four budgets over time like it's like over 20% that we've counting this talking now. Yeah. Well, over time or if I did Yeah. The last four of them counting this one, we're talking about, you know, over a 20% increase. Like I I just it just still doesn't sit well with me that even though that probably would pass. Um and I know we need those capital repairs, like I just I just struggle with with putting that out there to the to the to the taxpayer. That's right. Um, I would like it to be lower. Um, I might sound capriccious, but I
131think, you know, I would love to try and get it cut by a half a percent, but I think what Tom was saying gets us at least halfway or more than more than halfway. Um, I'll just conclude. I really, you know, I was thinking about the, you know, towns that are municipal school districts and those towns are told, I feel like, you know, superintendent comes out and says, "I need 9%." Well, nowhere, you know, Barbie land maybe it might get the 9%, but that's not that's not going to really happen. those supers ask for the world knowing that I think that the boards of finance are going to come back and say what they and then they they decide what to cut and that that works for most districts that you know that we share
132the dirt with and have similar test scores with. Um, but what we end up doing is like coming at it from the reverse where we're well like what about this or what about that and everything like in just these little chunks is never really got to matter because like we could talk about 100,000 and that's that's nothing, right? Like if if if you're going to try and like what what could we cut like we could cut the the data management? Well, it's only going to be 70,000. Like what's that really? Like we come at it that way. I just feel like at this point I'm just gonna be like this is I just think it should be lower. It should be and I've come up, you know, I think we should try and shave a
133half a percent. How we get there? Honestly, I if we can't even agree that it should be lower. There's there's just no point of even discussing what we might what we might cut. Like I don't I don't want these protracted discussions like we had last year about all these different things. like either I either feel you either think it should be lower or not. And if you think it should be lower, then let's let's work on what we're headed to. So I it I've struggled with this and if the if the assessment data hadn't been as strong as it was, I I really would have been like, "Yes, this needs but I feel like that's hopefully troughed." And you know, we've added extra teachers to support teams. um teams model of Ro Shambo and when
134we added them it was we got this chart it was like oh all these other districts we went to and oh my god like I was like I can't like we absolutely need those teachers so we added them in um we added the coaches in because I believe like coaching model is you know is something that other districts were supporting um and now you know we want to add a facilities man and it's like oh we should have had one we want to add a data analyst like most districts have them like we are always behind in April and yet we still have more more administrative people more employees pursue like how does this happen? So I just that's why I just let's just I want to take it down half like that's just right
135and I just I don't want to detract from the good work and I always feel like if you want to cut it it's like it's I'm not saying that there hasn't been growth and it's we've had a wonderful report and they're all doing a great job but at some point I feel like we have to draw. Right. Thank you. Thank you for listening. What is a percent? Anyone else have anything to say? I don't think I'm as strong as Steve, but I do think that with the spring financial position, some of it was not anticipated. I would be in favor of reducing it a little bit. I'm not sure that I have% to me it's more responsible thing to do with having the funds available rather than actually I mean I'm I'm I'm hearing that
136too. Um I'd be okay reducing um somewhat. Um, I'm not I don't know if I could get down to the 0.5. Um, I'd like to see it more. Um, probably at the 150. Um, you start talking there. Um but um I also I do I do struggle I'll be honest that um the towns have such high reserves um and we don't and we have bigger facilities um and you know we have a million dollars in our capital reserve right like million three depending how you count the the um educational expenses. Right. Okay. So like we have approximately 1.3 million in reserves. Um right. Right. But but is at 14 million, South Berry is at 30 million. We're not even going to reach them anytime soon. That's true. So that that that just is like I
137I'm very cognizant um that we have aging buildings um and not a lot of reserves to address that. Um and and when Joe was talking about was a couple board meetings ago about the air HVAC units at the high school, I was like starting to twitch um hearing how many multi-million dollar units we have that are from 1979. Um, and I have been on the board when one thing busts and it, you know, was a $600,000 boiler at Gainesfield and it just it just that would take care of you get two of those incidents happening and there goes our reserves. So, I'm very nervous about that. At the same time, I'm very open to the idea of, you know, taking advantage of the earned interest um situation um and um and the revenue. So, I'm
138definitely willing to talk and consider um like Sally said, reducing it a you know, a little bit um said, but I don't know about 1 half%. So, one point I want to put in the record is some of the reasons that we had those low budgets that you refer back to was because we did defer a lot of maintenance and we had no investment in our repairs. Um, our maintenance accounts were $100,000 over. So I do think part of the reason that this budget um was uh better than last year's from that is we have over those t over that time been able to heal some of those counts and bring our maintenance accounts where our act goals and budgeted are close and so I don't know just the world that we're in if we're
139ever going to return to 2% budgets. Uh you know but I also know that we can't live in a six. So I think that our work for the last three to four years, five years um since 2019 has been really about healing those accounts. So we have furniture replacement plans and we have uh playground replacement plans and all of those things so that it is built into an annual budget cycle which is part of the reason the downside is that there's not a lot of non-reoccurring but it does smooth out the peaks and valleys and you know two or three years of zeros and ones you feed off of you know your your muscles and you damage the core. So if we can heal those, you know, three years of zeros creates 15 years of
140of pain. And I I just want to be responsible about how we we can certainly find ways to bring the number down. And that's why we built it. Risk tolerance should be a collective conversation as should maintenance. You know, I don't want to ever cut a maintenance line and not be transparent about what might break. So uh you know, we're happy to help however we can inform that conversation. just want to acknowledge that there are four board members that aren't here today and I think that that's an important consideration um it's definitely worked for me and and as much as I value the perspective around this room I definitely want to hear from the other I think that's frustrating for me too because we're here having this conversation we're going to be having the same
141conversation next time if we're all here again so well we all know where we are integrate yes for you to discuss this so the new educational expens What are the restrictions on what that can be used for and like what would be the downside to funding it? I guess. So there can you just review that? Chairperson Manzo said we when you compare our reserve we're not a regular school district. We are a standalone fiduciary agent. Our reserves are comparatively low to other fiduciary agents even even the irresponsible ones. Right. So, uh, when you look at a $94 million budget and call it two million in reserve, if you want percentage wise, that's not a lot. So, I would say there's there's no downside in generating I mean, again, as a as a taxpayer in the
142community, if we don't fund the reserves accounts and we don't have a rainy day fund, when it rains, we're going to go back or we're going to destroy programs in order to to fix the leak. Um so having is responsible. Um now the a piece of the capital reserve the educational fund is the restrictions we put on are mostly ours. Okay. That's right. Right. Like we we actually one of the um concerns when this was passed in Arber was the fiscal discipline of orgs and not build it up and then rate it to buy down a budget one year with reoccurring costs. So we should be buying nonreoccurring that account and whether that is um but it it can replace the capital we can buy capital out of that it could be special education special
143education I think is one of the reasons that's there because the volatility and we were fortunate this year to be fortunate two students we planned on um supporting in an outpac facility didn't they move usually the opposite happens you know um where you have students move in and you don't have a back stop and then you get into a very unfortunate conversation about not doing something. So, it's a unicorn here. And what's happened with the the stiff account is that that investment account that that if you get to a certain number, I don't know that a 4% or four and a half percent return is something that you can bank on long term, but I also think that it's not going to go to 1% any 5% soon. So the more you have that account,
144you're now generating kind of free money for taxpayers that help build a backs stop and doesn't cost us anything. Yeah. Capital reserve gets about 35 to 45,000 a year. You do nothing that and the town do that. Yeah. The towns out there middlebury well do that every day. It's a far larger dollar value. I will give you a preview of the policy since you know I know in the dark about she left don't tell her and Steve misses one finance meeting he's like how does interest work um so the policy like the policy that we put that we've drafted that'll come board for review um the language suggests that we intend to use this as our special ed however ever a two I think it's a two3 vote two3 two twoirds okay so with a
145twothird vote of the board it could be used for uses other than special ed so we wanted some kind of control on it to guard against what Josh was saying like who knows who's sitting in these seats years from now money sitting there you don't want people to grade it but um if there's an emergency those funds would be accessible for any educational expense so there's I I don't think there's any that's helpful because All right. Any other discussion points? I think um the next uh I I've been saying for the last two meetings um that I was thinking about cancelling um March 24th um our regular board of ed meeting on that Monday, March 24th um because we've had so many meetings um us and special meetings lately. Um, so I'm inclined to cancel
146March 24th, which means that our next meeting would be March 26 and that is our combined board of ed board of finance meeting. It's our public hearing on the budget and then we can have another opportunity for discussion um, similar to tonight picking up where we left off here and then our budget vote would be on April 7th. What I ideally want to do is have a discussion at a board level prior to April 7th. So if there's anything else the board needs, any more information that we have that prior to the actual night of the budget votes. That would mean next cancelling right a week from today. Yeah. We have our board of ed board of finance meeting the public hearing on the budget and then we can have another discussion on the budget.
147Are you looking for a motion to cancel Monday? No, I'm just cancel because normally we don't speak during speak but there's not a dialogue. Um when the boards of finance are here, right? So we're kind of talking at them, they may ask some questions. Um I would be I think there's an issue about reserves. I think it's a good question to put to them like if they are saying, "You know what? Yeah, like we think you really should like get some of these reserves like take care of your rooms." Like I think that I think I think that says a lot. Um I hear we've I don't First off, it's there's never enough time because the other meeting scheduled to start at 6:30. So, unless you want to or schedule like soon as we're done,
148we have like a five minute recess um or something and then we go into the public hearing. Um so, yes, I if there's a space for me to ask that question. Okay. Well, I'll try to make sure you have the space. All right. So, Sharon, did you have any questions? No. All right. All right. So, um, I'll let the other board member Oh, I haven't gotten to comments from citizens. Almost did that. So, the board of education will recognize citizens of Mbury and Strawberry and citizens are asked to state their name, their town of residents, and to limit their comments to three minutes. I I knew that you weren't a comment. Okay. All right. So, um, we're canceling the March 24th meeting. Um, so our next meeting will be one week from today, March 26th.
149Does it start at 6:30? 6:30. 6:30. Thank you, Jennifer. All right. May I have a motion to I didn't even ask. I was waiting. All right. Who's did the second? All right.