January meeting of the BoE

001okay mrs jolish you are live you can begin the minute okay good evening welcome to the shelton board of education virtual regular meeting via zoom today is wednesday january 26 2022 and it is 7 001 pm uh special notice about procedures for this electronic meeting pursuant to the governor's executive order number 7b there will not be a physical location for this meeting this meeting will be held electronically and live streamed on the shelton public schools youtube channel the link to the live stream will be published on our district website and facebook page immediately prior to the start of the meeting the meeting agenda and minutes will be available at www.sheltonpublicschools.org the live public comment portion of the meeting is also temporarily suspended however members of the public can submit their comments to the to be

002added to the public record by emailing the board of education chairperson kathy olish k yolish at sheltonpublicschools.org okay before we call um the meeting to order um i would like to respectfully ask for a moment of silence for marianne bell a shelton public school teacher and principal for over 30 years before retiring in 1996 and also including your thoughts um mrs malay mother of perry hill school principal lorraine williams who passed away last night our thoughts yes our thoughts of comfort and peace go out to each family we'll take a moment of silence please okay um all right uh before we call um the meeting to order i need a motion to amend the agenda item number three to read consideration of the board to approve bylaw number 922 which was presented to the board

003on 9 22 21 and 12 15 21 and it's attached can i have a motion kate uh motion is made by kate cooch asked a second please oh second okay okay seconded by lorraine rosner all those in favor aye aye aye opposed abstention motion carries okay uh roll call please mrs mccune okay um joseph pagliero here lorraine rosner here kate coutash here diana meyer here patty moonen here james orazetti here carl rizzo here amy romano is that he's here okay amy okay i think we lost kathy i don't yeah we did yep i'm telling you you'll be back okay and she'll be back he'll be back going okay the meeting minutes will also reflect um present at the meeting uh ken cerenich carol pinozzo todd hufflefinger fred stanek and joseph santafonte uh mrs koutash mrs

004joelish said she's having issues to continue and she's gonna try to log back in so she said don't you know keep move the meeting forward she'll get in a second okay i'll stand for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty liberty and justice for all okay motion for the approval of the consent agenda items a through g are attached on your agenda is there a motion uh just i have a question before we approve are we allowed i i hate to bring something off the consent agenda but i just is there a way that we could just ask the superintendent a quick question or is that forced now to take

005it out of the consent agenda mr superintendent how does that work um to discuss any item in the consent agenda it has to be pulled from the consent agenda so that it can be discussed all right i i it's not life-threatening i i don't want to make a mountain out of a mohawk so it's okay i could ask later okay we're waiting for a motion on the approval of the consent agenda okay do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda i'll make a motion okay motioned by carl rizzo seconded by patty moon all in favor post abstentions motion carries okay agenda item three consideration of the board to approve bylaw 922 which was presented to the board on 9 22 21 and 12 15 21 and it's attached okay can i have a

006motion so move madam chair okay motion made by kate coutash seconded do you have a second oh second patty okay by any discussion okay all those in favor aye aye aye opposed okay we have two opposed i yeah i saw three three opposed four opposed okay four opposed um in order maybe you should do a roll call to be sure okay good suggestion thank you all right mrs mccune roll call um joseph pagliero no lorraine rosner approved kate coutash approved diana meyer yes patty moonen yes james or is eddie no can you hear me i can carl rizzo uh no amy romano now kathy yolish yes okay it is um i believe five to four yes therefore um we need according to uh bylaws we need to have uh two-thirds so the motion is um

007denied at this time and uh will probably be brought back or revisited by the policy committee mrs rosner okay it might be helpful if the people who voted no would forward their concerns to mrs rasner so we can address them okay that's fine um also um i should add that there was a um attorney stanek was um he was asked for an opinion on this i believe and he did uh give a letter of opinion correct attorney stanic yes good evening good evening do you want to just explain a little bit about your letter that you addressed well i believe the letter that everyone has read it is self-explanatory however i'm willing i'm available available to take questions um i would like to comment i do think that the policy as it presently stands 92-22

008is very inadequate in that it does not afford members of the board adequate protections and due process protections if the majority of the board decides that they have an issue with a member of the board i would urge you if you don't like what was presented to you this evening to work on creating a better policy that incorporates due process considerations such as procedure better procedures and setting forth causes for dismissal or accenture okay one thing from an office an officer as an officer for censure right this is not a this is not a policy to um kick someone off the board of education you're an elected official it can't be done this was actually meant i believe mrs coutash you could interject because you were on policy this was inch this was made to

009actually clean up the language and as attorney stanix said this was also made so that if we could be more specific about why uh and how we would conduct conduct um this policy it only i believe it only affects um officers correct actually uh mrs yolish it was twofold one part affects um removing a board officer from office the other thing that the revision was more directed at was the fact that censure is mentioned in our standing bylaws but there is no detail as to what that means or how you can do it and this came down from cabe as recommended language for cleaning up and giving more detail as to what censure entailed right and as attorney stanek pointed out and i don't believe everybody got a copy of the letter so i would

010um i will make sure that i um get it to get it to you so that you may see the letter okay all right um moving on presentations and uh recognitions what kev i did have a comment um to make about that yeah so i i do appreciate uh mr stanic's uh letter and the explanation and i do appreciate the policy committee working on the policy uh i do agree that it does need work and i understood mr stanic's letter and that it is an improvement i did have an issue with just one area in particular sorry about that um and the one line for me that i took exception to or was concerned about is in the area of the center um area it says the line that says such failure shall constitute cause

011for censure or other such action as deemed appropriate by the board i i thought that kind of opens up the um possibilities of some kind of reprimand and i just i just don't like that line i don't agree with it well um as kate uh mrs coutesh said um once you all have a copy of the letter because the letter was not sent to every board member once you all have a copy um look it over take your concern put it in an email to our policy chair mrs rosner if you can see see me on it as well as the superintendent that would be good but at least get it to lorraine is that okay with you carl can you yeah no thank you thank you okay is there anyone else that wants to

012make a comment about that i'll just do what you said kev i'll send some thoughts to you in the rain okay thank you very much you're welcome all right with that yes i just wanted to make a comment regarding what carl just said yeah it part of the reason why the bylaw does need to be changed um is the fact that uh it's not just board action that needs to be covered by this bylaw it this would refer to a board member let's say getting in trouble with the law and nothing to do necessarily with the board of education but you almost need to have that um escape valve in order to uh i know they're calling it censure but this would be a case where a board member may have to be removed almost

013immediately because of action that that's all i wanted to say okay got yes attorney stanic board member who just spoke talked about remove again the board of education cannot remove a member of the board you can remove an officer from office and cannot remove a member of the board so if the member of the board commits an offense outside of this scope of the board of education film that might be something that you want to consider with regard to censure but it cannot be considered to remove the person you are elected by the public and only the public can decide not to re-elect you in the future or you you resign yes and to add to that attorney uh stanic i i also in in the various newspaper articles i've seen where there have been

014circumstances with just that issue and usually the person in question is usually the one that um resigns themselves and they take it upon themselves or they wait until they've been proven guilty and then they resign so an elected official um really can't be kicked off okay that's it any other questions okay you have your hand up i think jimmy's was up before me unless he already got his question i'm sorry i didn't i'm just waiting okay go ahead jeff okay um yeah as a member of the policy committee i think you know we have such an active uh meeting tonight we have another meeting tomorrow night i do [Music] just move on and get on with the meeting and we'll take care of this in policy this will come up again and we'll uh that's

015what the subcommittees are for coming up i got my i got my school computer charging so tomorrow i'll be back on that rather than on this little ipad okay you still look wonderful on the ipad all right i i was just going to add that i think through from what i read on the three appendices for censure that into writing one of those if someone was in trouble with the law the uh board could encourage the person to resign the president yes you can't do it but you can encourage them right okay because we have so much more to to attend to um attorney stanic i believe that we are gonna have uh long presentations so um you are welcome to leave or stay if you wanna hear a long presentation but thank you for

016attending the meeting thank you madam chairwoman i will take my leave at this time it was great to see everybody good night stay healthy okay thank you as well thank you frank okay presentations and recognition recognitions um okay i guess ken do you want to introduce i i would be happy to so as the board is well aware um a few months back um we took some action to fund uh mr joe sentefanti who will be presenting tonight the report that you all received last friday about covering the procedural audits a procedural audit on how we operate in our financials in this district administration has has been briefed on this particular audit by mr setafonte um we are pleased to say that you know there was there was no misappropriation of funds um no malice

017on the part of the board of ed um these were just recommended of how we can do our work better and uh they are great suggestions that we received i want to remind the board in terms of what i informed them the other night at finance regarding tonight's presentation and how we're moving forward um since mr santafante was the author of this report he will walk you through the report so that each board member is understanding what they're reading i encourage any board member that if they have questions relative to how this is going to either be implemented or not implemented in the actions of the board of education please write those down um mr centerfonte is does not work for the board of ed so he can't speak to specific um implementations on our

018ends more than making recommendations from a financial piece um as i explained in the last finance meeting at our next board meeting um mrs pinazzo mr hufflefinger myself we will discuss the implementation process from administrative point of view well about actions we have already taken actions we plan on taking and actions that we would need consent from the board to take because as i as i mentioned it may in turn talk about personnel issues um to implement some actions so um really the purpose of tonight because you know as as indicated by our board members and as indicated by the report you receive you know we we don't want to lengthy drawn out reporting um because we have other business of the board but we want to make sure that what you see you understand

019as it's being read and that's mr centerfont's job to kind of talk through it and and if you have questions specifically about the implementation of it write those down you can email them to me i'll give them to carol and todd and we'll be prepared for next month when we present on it if you have questions for mr centerfonte about him explaining the report that would be appropriate for tonight so with that being said i'd like to turn it over to to joe and are you sharing your story you have that ability um how do you want to do this or are you just speaking to every board member has a copy of i can share the report or you can share the report however you'd like to do it all right just to be

020clear on you want me to literally walk through every item where i i kind of was prepared to kind of some of it similar or what just i think i think the similar way that you went through with the administration how you kind of i mean i don't think we need to read every paragraph and piece but just explaining to what what this aspect of the report is covering so they have an understanding of what they're reading okay so yeah if you could put it up because it's difficulty multitasking to as far as no that's fine i'm gonna i'm gonna share my screen just give me one more to do that um and then what what i will do is if you would just tell me when you want me to flip the page per

021se um since we're talking and i'm controlling then that'll help us move that along all right so i'm getting right there i just had to close something out okay i i believe thumbs up everyone can see the report okay all right um go right ahead so we have a cover sheet so i'm just gonna starting on you know the scope of services there's table contents and then the scope of services just to kind of high level what what what the project was and the biggest part of the project was you know looking at the district's financial related policies and procedures internal controls and identifying opportunities for improvement so we don't really use the word audit here it's more of an operational review internal control review risk assessment that type of uh process so we looked

022at those eight areas uh from an internal control and policy procedure standpoint and it will there's sections on each of those that we'll go through we just looked at the 2020 budget just just kind of given there's a schedule that was put in there to show where the 500 1 000 500 or 2 000 what lines were under spence so that detail is on one of the exhibits uh and then we did the similar thing for 2021 it was unaudited but just you know based upon the reports that i had at the point i was doing the work just to kind of see uh the similar word 21 if it's really where the budget looked like it was going to fall at that point so the next section is you know it's called compliance with

023state statutes and and this relates to uh budget transfers and this is something that i spent a lot of time on in my career multiple districts as far as what the state statutes say regarding budget transfers and it is very confusing uh it would be nice if the statutes were kind of written a little bit more plain english language so everybody knew exactly what uh they're supposed to do but unfortunately uh we have to we'll have to interpret here so um regarding budget transfers what what this statue my interpretation is saying is that at the object level scroll down uh just a little bit at the object level any trance whoop just at the bottom here right okay good so those are the objects so since that's you say that management cannot overspend the object

024levels only the board of education can approve spending above these categories uh so it's not line out of control or department control like you know like we'll say the town side is these nine objects uh cannot be overspent without getting approval from the board so that that that's kind of the high level of course there's emergency provisions and every every board event has that if you mentioned cave that's a standard thing so these are the non-emergency policy so basically i looked at for 2020 and were you in compliance with with this policy so i think if we flip to page four so so basically the answer was you weren't in compliance with this policy so for the objects that have the s so basically you're seeing those objects were overspent we did not see any

025budget transfers that approves that you spent 90 000 more on salaries than what the budget said the board didn't approve to spend more than with what the revised budget was so so this was uh for 2020 and then it simply did this a similar analysis for 2021. so the next couple pages are just more detail if you could so if you see the 89 000 on the on the first page and then you see the green highlight so the 89 000 salaries and the green highlight 89 000. those are just all the detail lines that just kind of gave you here's the high level and then here's all the lines so if you look at where where you overspend it's it's mostly in certified teachers you know that was offset by another one but that

026just gives you more detail but but the issue from a policy and procedure standpoint is that before the line goes over uh management technically should be coming to the board saying okay we expect we need to hire more teachers we need employee benefits or higher and estimate or whatever the reason is that we need to move money from from one object to another or too too eagle to uh be in compliance so i think for 2000 if we flip to 2a so again they're similar happen in 2021 unless transfers are made after i i read the reports you know this in case salaries was was okay benefits was over utilities tuition so those are the in this case of the five objects that were were overspent you know from an auditor perspective as of june

027of 21. again that's just kind of putting a formal process in to bring this to the board for your approval when when when when these things happen and this is just a internal control a monitoring type mechanism that that the board is uh looking at improving what what what what management is doing from a best practice standpoint all right and then to be again is similar it just shows you the detail line by line as far as which uh lines may have contributed to what was overspent so in that case health insurance was over by 344 so that wrong the whole benefit section all right so start going to the next section it's on page 10 so these are review of the internal control areas so just as an overview and then we'll walk through

028the sections so those are the eight areas that were looked at in this process again i i call it basically it's a really a risk assessment process by reviewing how the district does business and looking at what are the best practices where the weaknesses and then what controls can be put in place to make sure uh that there's the right you know checks and balances and monitoring that that nothing goes wrong or it's detected if something does go wrong it's detected in a reasonable amount of time so again this when i do these things i'm aiming at best practice so i'm i'm very critical as far as is the best way to do it sometimes there's there's other things that can be implemented that aren't exactly uh that that will be a compensating control or

029will reduce the risk even if it's not up to the level but i always provide the best practice as far as my recommendation so the next couple pages list the areas i looked at so from the finance department to talk to you know sat down with seven different positions in the finance department three different positions in the hr department four different employees from special ed and two in technology so that's what the first couple pages are just giving you the background of who i talked to and the types of uh processes that i i reviewed what the responsibilities were and then again how how all the transaction cycles so getting thirteen so that that's the cash for starting with cash receipts that's one of the bigger cycles one of the more risky areas so for

030this uh area i think there were seven recommendations uh guest receipts is an area that is just higher risk because cash receipts are are easily convertible and when we talk about cash receipts we're talking about cash or checks uh because checks are where we convertible it's there's a misconception that the bank is in control and if the check's made out to somebody else you can't deposit it but after doing 60 or 70 fraud investigations it's uh banks don't look at the payee i could deposit a check made out to shelton public schools into my bank account the bank's not even going to ask me a question so it's always had to make it clear the bank is out of control and the endorsement and all that stuff is is kind of standard procedure but it's

031very easy to uh checks to go to the wrong place so looking at this area is critical for control for monitoring and reconciliations so looking starting with the first recommendation just you know any time that there's register reports the registry reports are not being sent along with uh the deposit so all the information that this cafeteria is is is that the cash receipts are being recorded based upon the amount deposited so basically the best practice is to record cash receipts based upon what you expect to have and then you make sure what gets the bank so again the registry report says you collected a thousand dollars that's what you record as revenue and then then you make sure it gets to the bank and the extreme example i i use with with cafeteria is i

032was involved in investigation down in the canyon in the cafeteria where a half a million dollars were stolen and the reason it wasn't detected is because if you only record what hit the bank in your gl then you're never going to have a difference and you're never going to identify what you don't have so it's critical that you record what you're supposed to get what the report say you should have followed to the bank as far as making sure it got to the bank you do have a third party at the top of the next page cr3 the third party that does help as far as processing some of this and just to reconcile their reports again they are a vendor and the best practices to make sure if they say this is how much

033they collected and that's how much they deposited that that did get there and cr4 is just is more of an accounting issue but you know everybody all the pos systems how parents pay into the system and student have balances and and those balances should be recorded as a liability and monitored to make sure that the pos is a system says that you have fifty thousand dollars in student money that that's what your general ledger says you have fifty thousand dollars in student money again it's just the accountability cr5 relates to uh tuition for a certain program it's just the accounting records are more of a spreadsheet and there's versus accounting in the general ledger and again the other thing that's noted that we'll talk about the end is that programs had a deficit for many

034years so again that makes it hard to monitor and have correct expectations if the program's not being funded correctly or you're not charging next page cr6 uh invoicing is a risk and that's being prepared by the maintenance department and the invoice is not sent uh to the finance office so so basically when it comes to billing we like to centralize billing so that somebody doesn't bill and then get the check and and the district is not aware that somebody billed and then and the money was received so so that's the control there again same similar with the work study program for special ed and it's just the accountability it's it's kind of done in on the spreadsheet and there's no support provided to the finance department to make sure again that whatever is happening is

035is actually getting into the into the bank so the similar theme of cash receipts is it just needs to be better accountability and having an expectation of what you should have and measuring that against what you actually do right next section is cash disbursements so some of these comments relate to efficiency as far as you know using the uh accounting system and getting away from producing any types of manual checks the accounting software that the district uses is one of the top softwares as far as uh municipal software's has a lot of capability and and trolls that are built in that should be used for all the checks versus manual checks and again that also adds efficiency that increases accuracy uh cd 2 is is a comment that i may consistently across towns boards sometimes

036it comes down to staffing but the personal processes cast disbursements should not yet be able to add new vendors to the system this is a standard lack of segregation of duties where there are some compensating patrols but again the best practice is the person who cuts the checks shouldn't be able to add a new vendor because that's how fictitious vendors could get into the system uh so by by having somebody else involved that increases or decreases the risk and the monitoring that that type of thing is going to happen all right the next page just relates to inventors uh form uh tuition reimbursement payments are based upon a spreadsheet again just what we're gonna you know that's the kind of standard order thing is we just want some sort of uh supporting documentation for any

037type of fast disposal purchasing that that that's a comment which is just noticed an inconsistency uh with uh i guess the city and change policy so i just need to know that from the board's consideration a role next page so then payroll has some of the similar lack of segregation issues again the personal process the payroll should not be able to have the ability to change employee rates and again this that's just the standard internal control uh it's it's common and in a lot of my clients but but the best practice you get is that hr does all the employee changes and the payroll clerks are only able to process and not change rates again a segregation issue as far as printing payroll checks the payroll court should not be involved in the printing of

038the checks or distributing or mailing the checks the recommendation is kind of a compensating control where payroll systems have change reports so those change reports can be reviewed to make sure that uh anything that was changed was authorized to be changed so that's the recommendation that that would mitigate some of that risk right as well as number four just to review and monitoring again standard just got to finance the business manager review the finance office before final processing electronic time systems again it's an efficiency issue which is pretty much uh a pretty common recommendation now to avoid the amount of time it takes to keep punching and enter to process pretty well same with the time [Music] all right uh hr this is relating to just uh hr one sec sick time just basically to

039get the information into into the municipal system instead of having an assembly system only so basically it has to be updated twice that way then the hr2 is just you have that you have the software so it's just recommending you consider using the the program that you have to manage i'm so responsible right so this one uh the budgetary you talked about we saw salaries over were overspent and again there certainly may be need but there should be kind of a formal budgetary position control so that as people come in and out that you would know what salary dollars you had to spend and when you were approving a new position you would then know exactly where how you were going to pay for the position you transferred from a different line or savings or

040or from open positions that type of thing financial reporting in the best practice [Music] and it's not too too hard to read as we recommend versus the actual information that that comes out of the accounting system that the board see that versus which uh versus it being formatted excel only so the recommendation is at least that you get you get the system report and if it's easier to [Music] consolidate some of the information and present it in excel then that would be in addition to but you should be getting the full detail so again the monitoring can happen each let's just get again as far as the four policies and what reports should be percentage before just recommending that the bylaws kind of be pretty clear on on what the work should be receiving so

041it doesn't change with each business manager and things or information that's presented is consistent or financial two that we talked about that one again the board policy is only referencing a few of the funds there are uh on the next page there are other funds that the district is positivity in soy the best practice would be the board they got information at least on some periodic basis it may not be needed to be monthly but but they got some sort of reporting on all the different funds and all the different activities that they that you're responsible to know which nature four just relates to audit adjustment that's more of a process thing as far as getting those in the system but providing support to that so again we talked about the manual checks which is

042saying auto automate there's a lot of things that are a lot of journal entries that are going to record manual activity versus just letting the system do the accounting and processing everything thanks age so the district does process checks for for the adult education center uh it doesn't really follow the same exact system as any other funds that is reported in the audit and the financials as as a fund of the town or the city and the district so the process for that our recommendations is that it follows the same process approvals reviews as any other other fund disregards um number eight is just the best practice is you know from a budget monitoring and control is that departments you should should get a monthly budget status report and review it and make sure everything

043makes sense to them uh it's a good control as far as making sure something happened that shouldn't happen or that something was posted in the wrong place all right next page so we did just look at some of the procedures around the financial accounting software which is called munis we just recommend that uh that some of the system writes and then some of that is managed by it which is more normal versus someone within the accounting department best practice would there be some segregation at some level between what what the some personal processes and does accounting can do versus i.t just like we said in passwords and that type of thing that there should be um a segregation there and then we did recommend that you know the accounts be reviewed to make sure everything

044is inactive that should be in that that each employee only has rights to the areas that they need a job and they don't have extra rights so someone who does payroll should not have access to the revenue or uh or ap type thing and just uh another best practice number four is just just look at your chart of accounts and make sure in compliance with what the state state of connecticut the department of education requires uh just to uh minimize the number of accounts so that there's a higher level of a probability that things could charge to where they should their luxury system i have no recommendations on that budget developments so basically this is just to have kind of like a formal policy on how the budget should be developed what type of support

045should be supporting the numbers what types of depot details should be in there uh just what what type of information like a minimum of three years so you can see what the trends are what the responsibility is department heads capital replacement plans so again the best practice recommendation as far as having a policy that says this is how we manage the budget so again as there's turnover in the finance area then the policy will drive to make sure that the board gets exactly what uh they should be getting from the budget process just from a cross-training standpoint we didn't notice that the finance assistant was not involved in that process and normally there is at least some some some support in there just kind of helps again uh if you have turnover composition so just

046same recommendation just kind of what should the budget be look how should you retain what information should be we talked about the salary object having a a policy on managing that the position control will help with managing special educations the excess costs that's page next section this is the best practice i've just done a lot of work in this area and you know real your your policies and procedures because you all your students are placed out so it's a little more simplified system and it seems to be working well the person that that's there so this is just kind of best practice recommendations if you have to educate students in district versus placing them out and then if you have turnover in that position um that there is some monitoring in place would you recommend

047that the finance department access cost grant is a reimbursement grant and it's a cost cost report so so finance should be involved at some level and making sure that those reimbursement requests get prepared correctly last section was um special revenue analysis we just kind of looked at some of your special revenue funds this gives you background just the statutes what what funds are referenced in the statute uh so looking at i guess i'm just going to jump to the chart the last page here because that uh kind of frames the discussion is just looking at several funds have deficits and they've had deficits for quite a few years and in some cases the deficit have gone down some cases they haven't got off so this is kind of really spending outside the budget in the

048best practice again be that you're not spending money you don't have there's no money in that fund for rental funds we shouldn't be charging expenses to the school rental fund should we get charged to the budget so the recommendation is that these get uh addressed and either addressed through changing your rate structure or eliminating the deficits from from the operating budget and then making sure that department heads are not overspending if the money isn't there for summer school and that's important uh objective of the board to provide that service then then a certain amount needs to be budgeted in the operating budget and not continue to create a deficit outside the budget in these separate funds all right so that is the highlights i'm happy to answer any questions okay are there any questions i'm

049looking for my hands no one oh yeah oh okay jim i don't know i'm looking for the reactions okay that's all right i see i okay i see you when i recognize it for the button okay yeah thank you um yeah joe thank you very much for being here i appreciate it jim morrissetti um the um i i do notice that from year 20 to 21 we went from five line item fine light five line items overages to four which is an improvement of one and that um you know we we've had uh we're on our third finance director we've been trying to implement some of these things that you've been you've been talking about and i've i've had uh good luck talking with mr cernage about this been very very cooperative and getting these

050um uh getting it so that it's easier to read and if i if i can just make an interpretation and tell me if i'm wrong but every subcategory that you mentioned should be balanced as i'm reading it from you it's kind of like the old um when i was on a t we did it every every line item should be you should be able to trace that transfer and i think you said something about the category should all the categories should be balanced within the spreadsheet and anything that changes should be documented and authorized that correct yeah yeah nothing should should be overspent and really the statutes are at the very those nine categories but again things change they just need to come to the board and get approval and say this is what changed

051so i need to move money here to here and this is why and that would be up for the board to approve that type right yeah i i think we're we were heading that way as as a group i was actually pretty impressed in where we came from uh from three years ago to to where we're going now and i you know i've talked to all of our finance directors in the including mr beld and alan and now todd so um i really appreciate your report i was anxiously looking forward to this and it's very very informative and just so all the other board members understand that any line tr any line transfers should be authorized from within the board as a best practice that's what you said correct the statute the requirement are the

052highest the line items you can give management some level to manage within those objects that that's a board decision okay i i just wanted to be be clear and thank you very much i can't tell you how i was waiting for this a long time thank you are there any more questions for joe yeah me ken i didn't i'm sorry i didn't see your little hand yes carl that's all right yeah thank you joe i do appreciate the report as well one of the questions i had was in the area of our benefits which we can almost predict that it's unpredictable that it's going to be over at what point or how do you handle like we never authorized this spending this spending just happens because someone got sick or someone had to go to

053the doctor so how do you what do you do about that i mean we're not going to improve that spending we're just going to we're going to absorb it somehow right right i mean your benefits like you said they kind of you know they just happen to you but it should be at some point you know whatever 10 months into the years that the business manager would be able to project okay this is going to go over and kind of say i think this is going to go over and we're going to have to take it from here here's where we can take money and move it to the benefits line so again that not overspent and you're in compliance but yeah it's probably late in the year but your monthly cost by by tracking

054that and trending it at some point they'd be able to tell you a little bit ahead of that and it's going to go over and this is what what we think we should do to to address it thank you joe i appreciate that anyone else okay mrs romano hi joseph thank you for the report um you might have said this but there was a lot of things going on and trying to absorb it all and i know you were saying things are done on spreadsheets and municipa and i know the problems that we've had when with these line items being over do you think and again you might have said this and everything so i apologize if i'm repeating um do you think that it was our program that closet or did we actually know

055we were overspending and we just did it without permission of the board does that make sense yeah i i don't know that i could i don't think it has to do with the software it just has to do with at some point it ended over spencer i don't know when information was available that i was going to be responsible right i just didn't know it because i know that we you know munis is not so user-friendly and then we do things on spreadsheets so i just didn't know if you saw trends of i know that we're moving forward in a positive direction with mutants with our new financial advisor i was just trying to see if it was you know i mean it's not like anybody's to blame and it is what it is we

056had to move things around but i was just curious on if you saw like so that we wouldn't make the same mistake again yeah i i think you know my recommendation that you get that means report every month it will help you see what's happening because munis is going to be more right than the spreadsheet so well that's right getting information into munis again which again why i recommend everything go through munich so it's there's no time lag in the reports that you get so instead of getting something that's offline that shows in excel if you get the munis report in addition then you can see all those lines and you can see how they're trending every month and then you would be aware what what's coming if uh as far as you know certain

057lines in the department may be overspent maybe not total but uh but that's why i'm recommending that you get that immunist report so you would you would have that information more real time right more real time so it's probably it could have been a mix of everything a mix of a couple of reasons on how we were working thank you um any any other questions joseph i i do think that we we did discuss that munis has a lot more capabilities than we've used in the past and i believe todd when you were interviewed you were going to pursue all of the other opportunities available through munis correct right okay um are there any other questions last i jim do you have your hand up or down uh you know what you asked my question

058i was gonna ask todd how it was going with munits okay did you hear me i don't know if i was on music hello everyone hi let me give you a quick brief uh we are in since i've been on board for six weeks now we've been in greater contact with tyler technologies which is the owner of munis in about a week or so we're going to be having a sit-down meeting and starting to review more updates that are coming we're in a current version that is going to be obsoleted somewhat soon and we're going to move to either the next level up or two levels up from our current version as part of that i plan on asking more about the budgeting module as well as other modules that we do not have as

059a fact-finding uh discussion and the goal is to put more into munis so absolutely as part of what we talked about uh the last couple months that is one of my first and foremost goals especially to help us with this situation thank you chad you're welcome good information that makes us happy good good are there any other questions yeah can't i just have one more comment and i'm sorry i didn't see your hand it's okay um i would just like and i'm sure we plan on doing this um with todd and our superintendent ken um that we get some type of progress report on these recommendations uh cns we went through so much trouble to to make this list apprecia maybe in the finance meeting making that part of that thing maybe um and if

060i made that that that's exactly the intent as i said the beginning of it we wanted you know joe said to fonte to explain the report so everyone had an understanding and then next month you know we will delineate because some of these um recommendations have already been put in place you know so we're they're already in effect and some of them were in process and and still others as i said earlier um it's kind of going to be a board discussion on how we want to move forward i mean administration doesn't have the authority to develop board policies that's the board's right so if you want to make the policies then the board needs to make it if if there's recommendations for personnel if the board wants to hire more personnel that's a board

061decision so um but the but the easy uh ones and and the the biggest ones that you see throughout the report and i think the ones and we've already alluded to is just the reporting in general you know to be able to better report uh on tracking of all the systems um and even some of the you know line item issues of that mr centerfonte mentioned at the beginning versus state statute i i think is is a development of of properly reporting you know and and i talked about this at the budget meetings in the finance meetings you know being able to provide the board not only that like that binder on the general budget but the tracking and capability of of grants and student activities which has not been done and i think is

062contributed to um some of the circumstances that that have happened is uh the the lack of either understanding of how um grant money has supplemented the line items um versus what what we've done on the general budget because as you know we've despite the past two years that were there we had had surpluses in the budget but then it's showing deficits well that's because of and i'm going to use this term very in a layman's term the co-mingling of the grants um and that's why you know we develop a surplus but then according to the statute run run a deficit so i i the the reporting has to be much better than what has happened and i have to say you know bringing todd on board at this time was ideal uh in this process

063um to implement all these new changes and the idea of of implementing munis i think todd has more of a working knowledge of newness in the past six weeks than i have seen in past you know um personnel that have worked with us with the immune system so i'm very encouraged in terms of where we're going great i'll say it years yes thanks ken that was great okay i'm looking for more hands all right last call i just like to thank you know uh again joe superintendent uh yourself john fitz john fitzgerald uh you know people who worked in the on the finance board uh committees the last the within the last two years you know everybody that that was involved this is the way that um you know we we knew we had to

064go we had to align ourselves with the immune system i think the superintendents did a great job and i thank everybody for you know we as a board all voted for this report and this report just confirms everything that uh you know we were thinking about and as the superintendent alluded to we are going in that direction and have been going in that direction for the last two years so thank you thank you all thank you and with that said mrs josh to kind of wrap up in the presentation piece you know the board needs to understand too that um some of these line items and these deficits in these counts this board inherited they they are developed years before um by previous superintendents previous finance director previous board members so it's not necessarily that

065this is something that just happens you know in the past year or so so it is just something in terms of keeping an accurate reporting system and being able to rectify these these and i firmly believe that we are headed in the right direction into into rectifying all of these things okay um with that all right um ken i was just going to make a suggestion that i think um um president anglais would probably appreciate receiving a copy of this information because he's very interested in all that that we do with our finances um and whoever whatever aldermen are you know the mayor whoever isn't you know would like to have a copy but i know i'm sure mr english would really he seems to love it was my intent when i spoke to him

066last i told him that this was on our board agenda and that i would send him a copy shortly thereafter in fairness of process this is the board's report the board paid for it you guys should see it first so right but as of today it's public record and tomorrow i'll be sending it to the appropriate people thank you very much and with that i guess um we can um thank joseph for coming and doing a great job in and helping us uh achieve the goals that we're trying to set as far as uh straightening out what needs to be straightened out and improve whatever needs to be improved um i guess we can let you go if there's any other questions i suppose we could you could send him uh uh mr george eddie

067said he's waving goodbye i don't think oh you're waving goodbye okay all right goodbye and thank you good night be safe be well thank you thank you joe so the last part of this presentation i just kind of want to wrap it around full circle um that reminding the board that administration would like our chance now to to talk about this report next month and to help that process please send us your questions so we can address those questions at that board meeting it would make for a smoother and easier meeting for us to know those questions up front and us be able to address them then for us to have to say to you at next month's meeting we'll need to get you back to you the month following then you know so we

068we want to really kind of move forward with this recommendations on this report and the easiest way that done is just sending me the questions to be able to address them as as efficiently as possible and that ends the presentations madam chair okay thank you um we are now on to agenda item number uh five student board of education representatives report is postponed until february due to midterm exams number six public comment i believe uh mrs coutash received a letter for public comment correct yes i did madam chair excuse me it is from uh denise deeds on walnut tree hill road my name is denise deeds i reside at 65 walnut tree hill road in shelton and i have been a shelton resident for 40 years i have heard and read about the possible banning

069of the book the glass castle from the shelton curriculum while i have not personally read the book i have friends who have and they report that it is a very uplifting book about the struggle of young people to overcome neglect and abuse to go on to a successful life that sounds like a great message for our youth to hear i am mainly writing today to express my great concern about the idea of banning books in general while i agree that material used in education should be age appropriate we cannot shield young people from all the bad things in life they will be exposed through the internet other media and their own experiences and i think it is better to be able to discuss these issues in a safe and nurturing environment i am opposed to

070the banning of any ideas even ones i disagree with and especially the banning of books when we start down that road even with good initial intention the destination will always be repression and that is not good for a democratic society i have trust in the excellent teachers of shelton can i have trust that the excellent teachers of shelton can show good judgment in the materials they select for the education of our children as they prepare them for their future roles in society best regards um mrs mchugh and i'll send you the copy of this for the minutes okay thank you onward to the superintendent's report thank you madam chair uh i have a brief report with only two points um knowing that we had a presentation tonight i wanted to be succinct but i think

071there's two reports two points that i really want to report out to the board and the general public um one obviously is you know we're where we are relative to our coven protocols we know we've all been dealing with the omicron virus and the uptick and now what the reports are going uh slightly down um the adopting the five-day cdc recommendation has really allowed the opportunity for students and staff to remain in school as opposed to when we had the 10 days contact racing so i think this has been very beneficial to our community we've all agreed that in-person instruction is the best and we've really been able to allow students and staff to remain in school or return to school in a safe manner so i think that i believe that's going very well

072um we still are seeing the effects of omicron and in the uptick although the data is going down there was a slight tick this week um in terms of up but you know uh stout i just want to remind the general public in the board you know staff is still being affected we still have uh a slightly higher um absentee rate than we normally would this year it's not as high as it was at the beginning of january you know student attendance is going well but there is you know a slightly when you look at trends um and of course our drivers are being affected which is affecting transportation which i'll speak to in one second um but it is getting better we're monitoring the percentages um mrs pinazzo in our office monitors you know

073the attendance i've been talking to the principals um it's not the best it's been in past januaries but it's been better than it has been in the past few weeks and it's all a matter of us working together um supporting the system keeping keeping education moving forward for our students keeping the environment safe for our students and staff but i always want to remind the board and keep it in perspective especially in our community as well when we think about these things when we look at because just last week you know my staff were being trained in the administration of of state assessments as the state moves forward you know and and we're going to continue to go that and we're going to continue to have reports on on student performance um at the end

074of this year um we must not forget the effects that covet is still having this year as it had last year and the year before that you know we believe with the in-person instruction that we are going to see up but but we are still going to see aspects of learning loss there are gaps of times where students and staff have not been in school um we're we're hoping and projecting growth academic regrowth but we we always need to be mindful of the effects that when staff are out and students are out that that can have on our academic achievement transportation has been a big issue i know as of late it's been a frustrating issue for our parents and students who have been impacted with the drivers um the biggest related aspect of routes

075being cancelled on a on a daily basis or the update is directly affected with the with drivers being affected with covid um it's something that we can't control we are not alone as in terms of shelton being the only district this is something happening in all districts in in connecticut and other states as well um we are working very well with student transportation services and our ability to provide um transportation as the best we can we looked at some significant route cancellations and driver outages a few weeks ago um as of today and yesterday we only had one bus route that was canceled so that is you know improvement leaps and bounds from how we started this year um i know it still has effects and and we apologize for those who are who are

076affected by it student transportation is providing a sweeper bus you know when when all the routes are done we do travel through for those who cannot transport themselves so it's fulfilling our obligation to providing transportation to students to school as best we can but no student is being impacted in terms of truancy or attendance in any way if they have been impacted by the routes we're hoping for for better situations um i talk to student transportation multiple times a day relative to driver situation and then getting backup drivers and calling on or when their staff can return um and we're hoping for the best i mean it is a process that we try starting as early as 5 a.m where i get the phone call from student transportation services we find out the routes i

077relay that to the principals the principals send out the appropriate message to the um routes affected or the schools um to try to minimize and and have less confusion in terms of what buses are running and not running um we have it in a pretty well-oiled machine but i think my principals would love the morning where they don't get the phone call from me um that a bus route is happening and we're all eager to to hear that and i believe that that day will be coming soon you know so um we're working on that it is not a direct effect of our transportation service it it is the effect of covid um we still have a higher rate if in the state itself and shelton is feeling that but it is going down and

078we're hoping for um better better results with that um tomorrow i am meeting with student transportation in a meeting to talk about the versatran system and the implementation of that and i'm hoping to report on that soon um but we're moving on and and that is my superintendent's report okay thank you mr superintendent my goal is that we're done by 8 30 so um comments by the board chair uh my commentary this month will be very brief also due to our audit presentation i would like to once again reiterate that as board chair i have a responsibility along with the superintendent to sign off on all legal bills in the minutes of our board meeting on december 15th i reminded all board members to please notify either the board chair and or the superintendent before

079they contact our board's attorneys this was also included in the superintendent's update we are not attempting to ban or prevent any board member from seeking answers however the superintendent and i need to have knowledge of said contact or we cannot well i will say we will not sign off on the bill hopefully this will be the last time a reminder is necessary and i thank everyone in advance for following the established protocol since we have consolidated some of our meetings to alternate months i am asking for each board member to sign up to attend a monthly board of aldermen meeting you can do it either by yourself or in pairs please advise me of the month or months you would be able to attend i feel that this would not only show our willingness to

080work collaboratively but also ensure that we have a representative voice if questions related to the board of ed should come up and finally i've spoken with attorney teodocio and he provided me with the following bus transportation agreement update it lists all of the items in our present contract and will satisfy the school district's responsibilities for the safe transportation of student services year one will cost 3.15 million dollars as the mayor has publicly stated we will need to agree upon the term of the contract in other words the number of years and and a cost it obviously won't be the 3.15 and a contract draft will be available soon for us by or before our next board meeting and that's my update all right with that i'm going to go to agenda item 9 reports of

081standing committees teaching and learning committee yes madam chair teaching and learning committee met on tuesday january 11th at 4 30 p.m via zoom the first item on the agenda was discussion of a concern with regards to glass castle red and freshman honors english i read into the minutes 10 letters from the public staff and students in support of keeping the book in the curriculum discussion ensued regarding the issues of censorship and banning board of ed chairperson kathy owlish explained the protocols regarding concerns over books and the curriculum mrs santilli introduced mrs gennetti neen who shared the teaching objectives for using the glass castle and the shs curriculum i reviewed the policies regarding the board's role in curriculum issues and read those into the record policy number 1312 regarding public complaints about curriculum or subject matter

082number 6161 about textbook selection number 6161.1 on evaluation of textbooks selected and board of ed bylaw 9300 which states that the board of ed can only be concerned with regards matters of policy it was determined that such complaint as was made was not a board of ed member so no and was not a board of ed matter so no action was taken after that mrs riddle presented five new courses for approval the committee voted and supported the course offerings and they will be included in the course offering book to be printed shortly teaching and learning committee will next meet on the second tuesday in march that's my report thank you mrs coutash um finance committee mrs meyer what's up mrs yolish can i raise my hand who's racist yes yes can i make a comment

083on teaching and learning uh i have a i have two concerns i don't see where there's new business or uh unfinished business on our agenda i'd just like to make a quick comment on on we've we've gotten a lot of letters if i may no i'm i'm going to i'm going to take the chairman's opportunity to say um address your concerns to teaching and learning i think this matter with the book it's gone on it's going on um if you have a concern send it to our our teaching and learning committee no no i have the right it's my meeting this is not about the book but i still have the right to to to conduct the meeting if you have a concern with teaching and learning i think you should address it with teaching

084and learning okay you want me to go that way yes okay thank you all right with that i'm going to call on mrs meyer finance committee yeah finance committee met exactly a week ago january 19th i'm just going to go over the real highlights in the interest of time um the track and field proposed equipment the mayor has asked us to pursue quotes bids on that we went over the monthly finance report and as always we're keeping a close eye on the special ed accounts as well as the health insurance um there was a suggestion made by mrs romano i think that was well received as far as restructuring that report so we can get a year-to-date uh projection as far as where we stand during the year rather than what we have left to

085spend on that online items in the budget um todd was able to identify someone up at the state who can work on reimbursements that we have that one last reimbursement waiting and they have uh connected with a new contact up the state am i correct todd that's what you said yeah okay and um that's really it it's it's budget season that's you know that's really where we're focused thank you and we have a budget meeting a workshop tomorrow at six o'clock um next i'm going to call on excuse me chair i i'd like to make a comment in regards to finance if you if you don't mind on a subcommittee on us and this just goes back to what pretty much what our audit uh into some of our audits that we just went through

086i listened to a sub a subcommittee and i won't go into the subcommittee but and at the end of the subcommittee it was recommended to the um the subcommittee would take um a curriculum and authorize it without going to the finance board and that's just kind of like what we came through on the audit and i just want to i just want to point out so that we all were all in sync here that subcommittees can make recommendations or referrals they need to go to the entire board for consideration they cannot authorize anything that is that has especially they cannot authorize anything that has a specific charge of duty that's pretty much what i wanted to say i know that at one of the one of the subcommittees there there was reference to some curriculum

087being authorized and put on without um without being properly financed okay um i believe i believe that the curriculum committee approved the um five new courses recommended however um as the superintendent pointed out and mrs riddle these are just recommendations to offer the courses however if we do they have to see how many children how many kids are students are interested and before we offer those those programs they do have to be voted on by the board am i right mr superintendent what what the decision was was to publish those courses in our course selection book and then see if those courses would be eligible to run but um to mr orzetti's uh a point there were there were courses that had no financial bearing it was just uh informing the board and as it

088was made relevant at the last meeting there's a policy that the board doesn't determine curriculum so we were just informing them of courses that were being offered that had no financial impact so in other words those courses would be picked up by teachers that we presently have correct correct okay yes mrs kotash also on each of those proposals if there was a monetary effect it was quoted and most of it was for um and correct me if i'm wrong mr saranich was for textbooks that could be covered under the textbook line item the only the only monetary thing were textbooks but they're already budgeted for within the teaching and learning account where we do fund textbooks right no new expenses to the board and there was teacher training but that would be under professional development

089line item that is correct no new expenses to the board based on the approval of these courses yes ms doris eddie yeah um okay um yeah i i did hear that and i did hear that that the money would be moved and from so you know it wouldn't be uh like for for i think there was a french teacher um you know and and i know i i would recommend that when you put them in the curriculum that it be you know there'd be a note alongside of these subjects upon approval or or making a notation i don't know what type of notation you would make but some sort of no just to clarify some of these i know that they were coming from within the family but but no money would be moved there's

090no money to be moved we budget for textbooks the money would come out of textbooks right it comes out of the textbook account there's no movement of any money there was a couple that uh there was some there was some minimal financing that was associated with it at least that's what i heard on the uh i i listen again again money that that's already money that's budgeted for nothing that's fine that's fine then if there was no money associated with that's fine but again subcommittees they they do not they make recommendations they should come before the full board actually from from any subcommittee okay that's just my point thank you okay but in the in the past i will say that in teaching and learning the past 13 years that i've been on teaching and

091learning um this has always been the protocol that uh new courses are presented if there's a cost the cost is either absorbed through um the expense account of of the teaching and learning office or if there is an expenditure for that that is needed then it goes to the full board and as far as as i've seen i'm good with that okay i'm good with that good okay i just want to make you that's all thank you all right um mrs rosner policy committee i know you don't have a report yet right no we do not we did not meet in january but we are meeting in february in fact it's tuesday february 8th the meeting begins at 4 30 and as you had mentioned earlier in the meeting if there are any questions or

092concerns about policy um that you like brought up at the meeting um for a particular purview or review just email me and we'll get it right on the agenda um and if you could please cc madam chair and the superintendent that would be great thank you thank you for following the protocol buildings and grounds we did not meet either this month madam chair but we will be meeting prior to uh i believe february 15th right after um after finance right okay thank you you're welcome not after finance before finance oh before finance okay all right uh item number 10 reports of liaisons um ces yes madam chair ces representative council met on thursday january 13th via zoom there was a great deal of turnover on the council after the recent municipal elections so new members

093introduced themselves new officers were elected president andy george from stanford vice president kate coutash from shelton secretary debbie lowe from wilton finance and building committees are to be determined as new people get their feet wet reported the negotiations with sex education association was made sediment was reached without going to mediation there are 151 certified staff the contract was settled with 11.3 percent over three years including step ces teachers are paid third from the bottom of fairfield county towns a report was made on the final purchase of a 65 000 square foot building at 40 oakview and trumbull for slightly over 7 million it will facilitate expansion of sun programs consolidation of others to one location and some much needed storage space the rest of the meeting i found so informative it was devoted to each

094of the department chairs acquainting new members with the services offered by seth and even though i am a retired teacher and newest i learned so much from that meeting and i took in a page 62 in your packet after the financial paperwork on the audit is the report i put together from the information i learned please take the time to read it it shows you all the towns that are involved it shows you a map of the rest throughout the state um it itemizes the programs and the buildings that seth works out of as well as additional services that says provides to all its member towns and it also shows the funding sources i'm sure your eyebrows went up at the at the seven million dollar purchase so it even shows you a pie graph

095of what their funding sources are but instead was definitely valuable information i learned so much um seth does not meet in february their next meeting will be the first thursday in march thank you very much and congratulations madam vice president of ces um our next report um mrs monan uh cave yeah i'm going to keep it short um it's been a long meeting so i'm just going to say that it's still not too late to sign up for the cave seminar the art of listening it's tomorrow at um 12 o'clock to 1 15 and it's virtual so you can just get up sign on that way just go to the cave website so the art of listening that's it thank you very much all right and for your information i under number 11 you have

096included in your uh packet vacancy report staff and stipend actions enrollment report bus data log and now it is 8 33 and we are now adjourned good night everyone be safe be well see you tomorrow can