South Windsor Board of Education Budget Workshop- February 3, 2026

001I would like to call to order this special meeting uh February 3rd, 2026, our first budget workshop. Welcome everybody. Tonight, um, our goal is to be able to look through our budget books. Um, we will go section by section. Um, I will let you know, um, which sections we will be discussing and everyone will have the opportunity to ask whatever questions they have um, within that section. Um, it's fine if we go back and forth within that section. Um, it's just so that we kind of go through it in chunks um, that are manageable. Um, all of your questions can be directed to Dr. Carter and if there's someone else who she thinks may be able to answer the questions, um, she'll direct them that way. And let me make sure I have everything that

002I need. Um just a note for the public, our budget books um every single page does include explainer text for most of um any changes that are in the budget. So if there are pages that may not come up with questions, um it is very well because there are explanations in here for us. Um but I'm sure there will still be plenty of questions that come up along the way. All right, we will get started with section one. This is going to be pages 1 through seven. And um these sections include the overview of the budget book publications, the superintendent's transmitt memorandum, highle summary of fiscal year 2027 budget drivers, the tiered budget reductions overview, staffing requests not included in the budget, and budget guidelines. And then I would just ask that when you do

003have a question, put your light on. I will call on you and start with the page number that your question is referring to so that everyone can get to that point in the book and we can all um be on the same page literally. All right. Um let's get started with section one. >> Uh Mr. Armstrong. >> Sure. I I I believe this was I I know this was discussed at a previous meeting, but just one more time on page si page four, we're adding a literacy interventionist at the middle school and at the high school and English teacher and then on page six there's the the positions that are not filled. Could you and I apologize because I know this was mentioned, but could you just again why the English and not the other

004ones? what what was the compelling reasons for the English >> sure >> inclusion? So um four content area uh teachers were requested for the high school and that is of course due to our increasing enrollment and as you know we're slated to grow by another 351 I believe at to our from now to our peak. Um and so ideally we'd be funding all four of those positions. Um but in the end we just tried to get the budget down as low as we could and um it was agreed upon through the high school principal through our team and looking at class sizes and looking at course um offerings which department was in need next in line um to be getting the staffing. So the others are needed and you will definitely see them come back

005there. Those are not just extras. Those are teachers we are and will need. Um, but English was determined to be the one that was the most um had the most compelling reasons based on class sizes and offerings and stu student requests. >> And and to repeat, there's no implication that any of those other positions are not needed. >> Correct. >> But it's just those >> they're deferred. They're deferred. And I think that's a really good way for a lot of us to think about this budget. Um it's not that they're not needed. They are needed, but we tried to keep it down. I know 791 sounds interesting as down, but um and they are needed and you will see them again. So, these aren't cuts. The list of things that didn't make the budget. Many

006of them aren't what I would call a cut. I would call it a deferred cost to a future year. >> Thank you. >> And Mr. Marks, >> thank you. Uh I'm on page four. I'll be here for a little while to ask about clarification for various positions. Uh can you explain what a behavior analyst is and the differences between that and a behavioral specialist trying to see where the behavior I'm going to have Dr. Szo speak to that. I'm looking for what you're referring to. Do can you grab that Dr. SO? >> Sure I can. Ms. I believe you're asking about the difference between a BCBA, a board certified behavior analyst, and a behavior specialist. A key difference between those roles is um one is a non-certified position. That's a behavior uh specialist. Uh BCBA

007is a highly trained individual that works uh in responding to special education needs primarily around behaviors across a variety of different student needs. uh behavior specialists again a a lower cost option that we've added in the past to work uh related to behavior intervention more at the tier one and tier 2 level uh and again as a non-certified position given the needs uh across the district right now uh a BCBA and that level of expertise is needed for next year. >> Thank you. And then uh lower on the page where it talks about school safety and security uh Dr. Carter, can you maybe explain why that was a priority for you this year and why that was a particular focus? Um, and I guess some of those position positions why you chose to include those,

008whether it's the compliance coordinator or the custodian floater. >> Sure. So you'll notice that there's um some uh facilities related positions and you know sometimes people forget that our facilities department is a major major critical component to our school safety and school safety is a broad range of things including having safe clean buildings. Um and so we felt that our custodians across the district were just being stretched too far. Um PV is a very large building as you know. We felt we needed more custodial support there. Um we also the custodian floater is so that when there are absences we can fill in those positions and and have direct that staff to where they need to be. Um you can imagine that if a district if if somebody calls out sick or we don't have

009a custodian a lot is riding on that custodian making sure that day goes smoothly for kids for teachers for visitors for everyone. Um so you'll you'll notice that there was it's not that the other things aren't equally if not more important. this became our focus this year of what do we need in the facilities area. Um the ones that are the office clerk the reason why that is listed under safety is that is not because we have additional secretarial work that needs to be done. It's to cover the time that there is an adult answering phones and being available to kids and parents after school. And so that if something were to happen at an afterchool uh event and the parent is trying to uh find someone and make a phone call and all those

010things, we we're trying to have more coverage um for that uh time period. The recess monitors, you can probably imagine why that's considered a safety issue. We just feel we need more supervision on our on our playgrounds. Um the facilities compliance coordinator, I'll have Miss Chamurka um just give you like a high level overview of what that person would be doing. >> Thank you, Dr. Carter. So that position um we're finding there are you know more mandates that have been coming along through the state as you know for many many many years and a lot of them happen in our facilities department and the level of uh reporting that we need to do and the level of compliance that we have and even though you know our school projects at this point are complete at

011the elementary level there is still a lot of the auditing work that needs to go on a and just a lot of state compliance. So um to work with me this would be a position in my department who would work with me closely at um just compliance overall mainly in the facilities department. >> Thank you. Uh hope if you guys don't mind I have like two more questions for the recess monitors. Uh two more questions on this page but for recess monitors um I see on [snorts] page six where it talks about staffing requests not included. It says two part-time were not included and three were. What schools were those threes at? Um, and I guess what was the justification or the work that went into determining which three needed those the most? >> Sure.

012So, and this is a common theme that was also true last year. Sometimes we are we are um adding a partial ask and not the full ask. So, for example, last year, um, there were two uh, guidance counselors requested at the middle school, but we funded, we proposed one in the budget despite the the need and the request being for two. Same thing with the recess monitors. There was an ask for what would probably be six, I guess, and then we we um adjusted that and reduced um the effort. I know at a minimum u one of them will be at PV um because of the size of of our recess. Um and I believe O would probably be next in line, but we'll the the principles know that it's not as robust. Um but

013we will sit as a team and and figure out where where the needs are. um which can change um from year to year because it's not just the sheer number of kids which is a major factor in how many adults that you need but it can also um be a situation where in any given year is a certain recess um grade level have more paras involved because of the students involved in in that. So um that will be determined you know with Dr. SZO and the principles, but it's not the full ask. They they would prefer more. >> I would definitely prefer more adults at recess in general. Um and lot and and really any unstructured time, we could definitely use more adults in our buildings. >> Yeah, agreed. Um and then finally on page

014four for the language arts teacher, I see when you guys project the salary, it comes out to 85,000 and then you look in the salary schedule and that's let's say it's a master's degree. It's between a step eight and nine for a teacher. So, can you may talk about how you arrive at those projections and um I guess the requirements that you seek when you post jobs. >> Sure. So, we use that master step eight um as a baseline. And you'll see when when you go through the budget, you'll see, oh, the reason it's up is because we hired at a higher salary. And sometimes you'll see the reason the budget's down is because we hired at a lower salary. So, we choose that as a likely scenario um in terms of where we'd be

015hiring. uh but you can never know who's actually going to be the successful candidate and who's going to fulfill the the position. So that is why um you'll see in the budget sometimes we're fortunate and we can hire staff at a lower um cost. Um sometimes there's a just a really strong strong teacher candidate that's coming to us with experience and we make a calculated decision that that investment is worth um being able to recruit that teacher to our district. But we use the master step eight as just a it's basically as a baseline to um to build the budget. >> All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Mr. Nettles? >> Yeah, I just had one. Uh Miss Dr. Carter, um the special education and pupil services, I mean that's a big number that

016came with that. Um I understand some of it is replacing money that we took out or didn't use last didn't put in last year, but what's driving like the overall increase in staffing there? are we is it you know the program getting bigger whatever. >> Sure. Um you are correct to note that um special ed is definitely up this year um from last year and it's in part for a variety of reasons including reliance on reserves last year. So we relied on reserves which then bumps this year's budget up because we're we're trying to fund that through appropriation not through reserves because that's not a sustainable solution. um the positions in this area just for the public to hear um certainly outplacements as you see is a significant um uh source of funding and I

017believe in my presentation I shared that in this budget there's $4 million alone just for our outplacements um and then we note the reliance on reserves that is in here so that people understand that this budget has to come back from relying on $500,000 worth of reserves and then the positions are a school psychologist uh the BCBA BA that Dr. Szo just referred to and a speech and language path pathologist and those are um justified by case loads. So when the special ed team comes and says we need another speech um path, we will sit and they will literally bring us the data of how many we have, what are their case loads, what is manageable, what is not manageable, what are the IEPs telling us. But these are really IEP driven um positions based

018on what we know our requirements are uh to service students. But that is why special ed is one of the major drivers this year. >> Any other questions on this section? >> Oh, I was didn't have to wait to say my name or you just letting me go. All right. Um on page I'm sorry. Page two, what are the asterisks for under uh mental uh medical and dental insurance and then under special ed? I just didn't see like where it said and I want to make sure that it's clear. >> I I will have Mr. Marka answer that question. >> Thank you again, Dr. Carter. What that was was that chart came from Dr. Carter's PowerPoint and what those are. Um the first asterisk is uh related to the medical and dental insurance line and

019that's making a note that that um line is inflated partially due to the $470,000 that we increased the budget going into this year for reliance on reserves. And the second item that has to asteric is special education and that is due to the $500,000 of reliance we had on reserves in this year's budget. >> Thank you. Um Dr. Carter, I think I I probably didn't do as uh well of a job as I was trying to the other night, but I think it's important to explain to the public how we get to here. So, we're about to go through this, you know, this book and I'm sure people will see that Mr. America's got a a a even bigger book, but I think it's important to realize that this is not something that you just,

020you know, when you have all your downtime create um that there is a process to this that starts well way before you really get involved. And I think it's important just to kind of explain to people like what the process is. >> Sure. So, this process, you know, starts back uh well into early October. And um the way that if you're wondering like why would some positions rise to the top? How are those positions requested? So all of our um building leaders and our curriculum leaders, so your principles and your curriculum specialists will put forth requests in their budget and um and all of that goes through to Chris's office. But then we meet with every budget owner, the entire CO team, and we go through every ask that they have, not just personnel, but

021everything. um and making sure that we understand the ask and also so that we'll be informed when we have to make hard choices about which goes forward and which doesn't. So um every single budget owner prepares a proposed budget that then comes to central office. We meet with every single one. We go through every single request that they have. Um and then of course there's a whole bunch of follow-up meetings usually with, you know, hey, we met again with special ed and we you know what can we do? how could what can we defer? Um we also um will meet as an entire administrative team so that the entire team knows what everyone else is asking for and sometimes that results in an administrator saying you know I really was advocating for this in my

022department but now that I hear what the needs are at this other school or department I would concede that that needs to be a higher priority. So all the administrators have say and an awareness of of what's coming in for requests for for next year. Um you know this was a little bit of an unusual process um for us in that uh as you know many of you noted the other night there there's not a lot in here to discuss that's new. It's really just trying to preserve the programs that we have. And that 791 um may sound high to to folks and they may be thinking, "Oh, they must be making improvements." Um but really that is just to make sure that we're not eliminating programs or reducing services for for kids and families.

023And the 791 essentially represents these are the bills that we have to pay if we want to keep what our current level of service. Um so it's a little bit different. And what's interesting, and I I think it's worth repeating, and on that page that you just alluded to, when you take contractual obligations, medical and dental insurance, and special education, just those three, we're already at a 7.07% increase. So, while we talk about increasing enrollment a lot, and we should because it matters, um that's not this year's story really. Um healthc care is significantly driving up the budget. Um, and so as our special education, you saw that most of the FTEES that that were added are in that department. Um, but when you get at a 7.07 just out of the gate with those

024three things, I think it shows you the the less flexibility we had in responding to the requests that came forward. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, out of everything in here, what do you think, and I have my own assumption, but what is the hardest? Is it safe to assume? I guess I should ask that is special ed the hardest thing for us to zero in and come up with with a total because it's constantly changing. I know you know look referring back to your PowerPoint we talked about a in district programing that changes where six students uh highcost programming had moved out but then 24 moved in. Is it safe to say that special ed is probably our biggest question mark going into every day? Probably. Yeah, special ed is is our most volatile account

025and and you you've absolutely correctly um described it. It's because kids move in and kids move out and by law we are required to provide the services that IEPs have. We have students that move into district who already have IEPs from other districts that then we then um absorb and have to by law follow and provide those services that were determined uh by pre previous IEP meetings. Um so yes, special ed is extremely volatile. It is student dependent. It is not a choice. Um, as I said, and this may be hard for for people to understand, but if we didn't budget for something in special ed, but the need arises and it's a mandate, then we have to find it. And um, that's why I said that public education budgets need to be nimble because

026you have to respond. Um, and that is also why we recommend having healthy reserves so that um, if you have, you know, you could have a student move in that you weren't expecting that has a $400,000 outplacement. Like that's the kind of swing that can happen. Um, so we we need to have healthy reserves for for that reason. And then of course the other volatility um is healthcare because you just don't know um what the usage is going to be. If it's a year where there happens to be I'll just say like a lot of health issues amongst our staff then you may see claims going up. Um we've had years where um the claims were really good and was not a driver of the budget. But unfortunately this year we have the combination of

027a healthc care increase and needs in special ed that are driving us to this 707. >> Okay. On page five, it on tier one of the reduction, it says forego pension payment. Is that the same thing we did last year and we're able to do that responsibly again? >> Yes. So, we did that last year and we did say that was a cautionary tale. That's not a sustainable solution. We could not do that year after year after year. And in fact, we didn't anticipate doing that again this year, but desperate times call for desperate measures and we were trying to get the budget down. And I know Chris could speak to this better than I could, but there were some factors in some um some some favorable outcomes with our um with our pension that

028allowed for this to happen again. But the idea that you could do this every year is just irresponsible and not good planning. But we were able to do it responsibly this year. So we did do it a second year. >> Okay. And I just a follow up from what I asked you and then I was going to say I think the other part of the process of the budget process of this is after the requests come or even let me start out the teachers are giving their reports and and tell their principles and all that. I think it's important that then after they meet with them those principles have to go back to tell all the teachers hey what you kind of said was important we can't we can't do right now. And I think

029there's a whole other process of a bunch of a lot of people in our district that maybe uh uh take that on and they just continue to do their jobs and and do everything that they have to do that maybe we don't ever see here because they're in the classrooms and and and wherever they, you know, they're not the ones that always have to stand here and answer to us. But there's a whole other side of this. Um I think sometimes we you know all the questions come this way and and rightfully so but also the ripple effect kind of goes through the the entire the entire school and I think that we get this we look at it we have questions we don't have we we do our stuff but there this affects people's

030every day and everyday lives so I think it's just important to acknowledge that yes they fel feel that they have to bring this stuff to them but then whether it gets through or not they have to then go live it and go do what they have to do with whatever decisions we decide to make. Um, and I just think it's kind of um, it's just it's a much bigger process and it affects a lot more people than I think people think. So, that's all for those pages. Thank you, Jen. >> There any other questions for this? Oh, Miss Cha. >> Hi. Uh, for Dr. Carter. Um, just kind of going back to page four and six. Uh, looking under the increasing enrollment. So, for this year, we've added two FTE for increasing enrollment compared to

031about 10 FTE last year. Uh clearly looking at page six, there is plenty of asks for additional FTE in all the schools that we have. Um and I know our driving force or driver was to keep the budget at at the lower percent as possible because of the increases in contractual salaries and special education. So is that what drove for a lot of these FTE asks not to put forward is to keep the budget in that range? Yes. I mean you when you look at the list of what was not included um these are all very defensible asks. These are all reasonable asks and not all of them in that list is what I call um enrollment driven but many of them are which is why you'll see them again. And um so you know

032I've been very uh transparent and direct about this that this budget does not keep pace with enrollment. I think the number was 0.17% of the budget is now for increasing enrollment and um and that's unfortunate because that that's deferred costs. That's not savings. That is just meaning we will we these things are stacking up. Um but again we felt that we just we worked really hard to get the budget down. But if you're asking me whether the increasing enrollment if that's the only needs the answer is no. um not even close. Um we're we are this budget does not address the needs that we have and will have related to increasing enrollment. >> Miss Danway. >> Um so Dr. Carter, you've mentioned we're deferring um some positions and deferring some asks. Um, looking at page

033six, there are over 30 positions that were requested and aren't being uh uh filled this year. And I know some of what we're looking at in the budget is um replacing some of those reserves that we used last year. Just looking forward to the future for subsequent budgets. If we continue deferring these positions, what impact will that have? So, if we filled more of these positions this year, would this be in subsequent years, would we see uh a smaller budget increase? Um, just out of curiosity. >> Yeah, absolutely. Whenever we defer costs that we know we're going to have to incur, then we're just sort of what we the the phrase we use to kick the can down the road. So, um, it, you know, if you make a choice not to add a new

034program and you just never add that new program, then that's not deferring. You're just making a decision not to have that resource for our kids and families. But when it's something like the content area teachers at the high school, that will just come back. And you um you know we've been really we've tried to be uh very forward thinking about not just waiting till the peak year of the high school year and come to you with 40 FTEES in one budget cycle. We've been trying to fold these positions in in a way that makes sense based on the needs of that particular department and what we're seeing for student enrollments in those courses. Um the consequence of of not funding um these positions is that your staff will end up our staff at the high

035school would increasingly just be able to offer graduation requirement classes and not the ver variety of electives that that every high school I know offers um and is certainly expected by our our students and families. Um, but you would just keep shrinking and shrinking the opportunities for students to take certain classes that we probably all would want them to take. Uh, but but we would just keep shrinking our our resources. Um, and I I did want to address when you said, would our budgets be higher if we defer? Yes. And and I think a good example of that I I believe and correct me if I have the number um incorrect, but I believe if if we had funded the 597 last year um which was comparably a more modest ask than this year, um

036if that had been funded in full, then this same ask would be 6.45%. Do I have that number right? I think it's in my PowerPoint. [laughter] Um so um so it you can see the difference that because we um if we had funded that and not relied on reserves then this same ask would be a lower percentage point. So when you when you artificially suppress a budget in one year then you are lifting it up the next and so what we try to do is have more equilibrium from one year to the next. But if you really suppress a budget in one year and and you're in a district like ours with increasing enrollment, it's just going to pop up back the next year at a higher rate. That's why we're at 791 and not

037at the number that we're all looking up. >> You remember correctly? >> I did remember that. That's a shock. Um so yes, so 645, which I have a feeling sounds more reasonable to a lot of people listening. And that's exactly what this would be if we had fully funded last year's ask of 597. Um, and so just to make sure like if this metaphor works, this would be like you have your car and oh, we're just going to do the oil change and we're not actually going to address and we're going to put off basic maintenance until the incar entire car breaks down and you have to replace it. >> Let's see. Let me see if that I have to think about that metaphor. But I do I would say this much. um the idea

038of when you're only doing maintenance, right, and that and you and you don't have any extra room, then when something when that big thing happens to your car, you have no resources where to go. Um you could also use the metaphor, you know, that maybe last year it was like putting things on a credit card and so eventually you have to pay the bill for the credit card. Now, it may help you get through that that moment that you really need that car being fixed and you put it on your card, but that cost isn't going away. And so, hopefully I could combine my credit card analysis and your car analysis like into one metaphor. Um, but that is the idea is that when you when you put things on a credit card, it doesn't

039go away. It will still be there. And and really I I do consider this budget to be, you know, we talk about it being a proposed budget because usually you're proposing uh things. Um but really uh this is really basically a description of the bills we need to pay if we want to keep our services where they are. >> Miss Manilia. >> Hi. Thank you. On on page six, um the uh the staffing request not included. Um Dr. car, could you explain the difference between a coach, an interventionist, and a specialist support staff person? And like what what would the um financial implications be of each one of those? Because um they were not they were not put into your budget this time, but we we are asking we are getting an interventionist hopefully and

040a language arts teacher. Now, um, so an interventionist looks like they're they're the same, um, pay or mast's aid, um, as as a teacher, but how about a a coach or a, um, a specialist support person, classroom support at PV? There's half of those. >> Sure. So, um, a coach and an interventionist are both certified teachers. And a coach is someone who works with our teachers to make sure that they're getting the professional development that they need to be able to execute their work with kids um in the in the best way that they can. So, a coach is someone who works with adults on curriculum, on strategies for teaching. They're embedded in the classroom. They might be modeling lessons. Um they they're working in the building to help our teachers. And it's our veteran

041teachers benefit. But of course, with new teachers, that's also an area that we target our our coaching. support. So coaches, when people hear the word coach, it's a very common term in education. And so if you looked at looked across the state, you'd see lots of school districts that have coaches, but that's what they're called when they are working directly with teachers in a non-evaluative way, helping them be better at their craft. And then an interventionist is the opposite in terms of um a coach is is is supporting adults which then in turn helps kids. But an interventionist is working directly with students um who may be struggling in either math or or literacy. And that is um and that is what an interventionist does. And I believe there was a request for um two

042at the middle school and we moved one forward. Um but they certainly could use more. And this goes back to Mr. Macky's point which is the interventionists when their case loads become unmanageable there it's not good for kids it's not good for the the interventionists and so as the needs rise in our district and and I think that is something you know because of our unique situation we're we're constantly talking about increasing enrollment but there is something that isn't directly tied to enrollment necessarily but it's increasing student needs and the intensity of student needs so you could have some expenses if you if you want to say it that way. Um that may come with just the significant needs of some students. That's not related to growing, but it's related to the that the needs

043of this student or students are so great that we need more resources to um to address that. And I believe I I thought if I heard you correctly, I think you were asking about the classroom support specialists. Those are non-certified positions that are supporting uh K and one I believe right now um in our buildings. They had asked for more. Um, we've funded some of them. We have some, and to Mr. Mackey's point, if you ask teachers about what it means to have extra um, support in the classroom, especially at K1, um, that it is a significant help to teachers and students. And so those are non-certified positions. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions on this section? Mr. Mackey, did you have an additional? >> Okay. Um I did if I can add a

044metaphor to the table. [laughter] Um I am seeing the staffing requests not included in the budget as really a log jam and last year's requests were almost half of this in dollar amount. I think it was 1.2 or 1.3 million. Um, and so we're really trickling these really necessary positions through this log jam and it's only getting bigger and more problematic and it's going to affect our students even more. Is that is that one accurate? >> Yes, we'll add the maybe the car was facing a log jam and the road No. Um [laughter] the uh yes, but you're right in terms of we're just stacking up these costs and then we're deferring these costs and so your metaphor works in terms of um what this does for future budgets. And really that is something that

045um I've always tried to communicate um to the public that our responsibility isn't just this budget. We're trying to be forward thinking. We're trying to think ahead. We're trying to anticipate needs. Sometimes you can't anticipate. It's public education. Things can happen. mandates can come through in legislation and suddenly you got to find the funds. But um but we we are trying to be forward thinking and ideally if we can smooth out the experience for the taxpayer I think that is in their best interest versus suppressing and then raising in the year versus maybe being here um to smooth it out for the taxpayer. >> Thank you. And then I just wanted to ask for a clarification on page four. Um when we're looking at the contractual obligations, we all know medical and dental insurance is

046a huge expense this year. Um and we also have this line item um basically um to recover from the reliance on reserves. To be super clear, we are not actually recovering to that recommended 25% um that we're supposed to keep in an account for our medical claims. Is that correct? >> Correct. So, this budget does not add in funding so that we can get the reserve back to where it should be. The reserve is at 20.68. There is no funding in here to increase that. The way the reserve would go up or down would be experience with claims. So this budget is based on what the forecasted claims will be done by you know professionals outside of us. These are these are people that forecast these things. And so this just covers what we are

047being told will be our claims. Now if our claims come in lower than that then the reserve will get healthier. If the claims come in higher than they're projecting well then the the reserve goes down. So there is there we would have loved to have included funding to write that ship. Um but we felt that couldn't be the priority against all these other competing priorities and that hopefully as as I said in the um presentation the other night. I mean ideally if we did have unexpected funds unexpended funds at the end of this year um that we would be able to make that reserve healthier which is something that we always do. Um, I I spent a lot of energy talking about that because it's important to me that people understand um that when there

048are leftover funds, we don't just say, "Gee, how could we spend this and what could we what could we do with it?" We have a plan and we know where the needs are and we we factor that in um into our thinking that hopefully ideally you would have um surplus funds because remember the alternative the alternative to that is that you'd be going back to the town and asking for more funds because you've run out of money to pay your bills that we're required to pay. So um that that is our hope that that will be one way to remedy it. Um, if it doesn't and if we were to have a bad year in healthcare next year and that were to dip lower, then you would see us having to actively factor in money

049into the following year's budget to write that ship. Um, but right now I whether you want to call it a gamble, I don't know if that's the right word, but um, we're moving forward with the 20.68 despite that not being industry standard and not being ideal, but we're hopeful that we'll find ways to build that back up. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we were real clear just because there is that line item. It is not actually bringing us back up to a point where we need to be. Um, thank you. All right. Is everyone Oh, Mr. Max, >> uh, do you have a specific number or I guess dollar amount at which we would be able to replenish the healthcare reserve back to the recommended industry standard? >> I'm sure I

050can figure that out. Uh, let me just take a quick look at it. Sorry, I don't have the top. >> Thank you. All right. I guess we will move on to the next section. Um, this is going to be pages eight and nine. Um, the budget summary 2026 to 2027. This includes the proposed budget summary and the summary and distribution of increase. Do we have any questions on these pages? Mr. Mackey. >> Sure. Okay. Um Oh, can you I I I can you explain the difference between regular programs and special programs? >> Sure. In within the context of this book, when you refer to regular programs, you're referring to regular education and special programs would be special education or special services >> which would include people services as well. >> Thank you. Have any other

051questions on this section? Seeing none. All right, we will move on to the next section. Um, so we will be looking at enrollment staffing and revenue information pages 10 through 16. This will include enrollment projections, elementary classroom staff projections, staffing chart, revenue analysis, and planned use of reserves and the revenue descriptions. Starting on page 10, do we have any questions on any of these pages? >> Mr. Marks, >> thank you. looking at the revenue analysis on page 15. Um, so for the Stinger High School parking fees, uh, I know we collect, I think it's a $100 fee from students to be able to park in our schools. Um, what is the parking fee used for when we collect it? We offset the funds collected um against our regular transportation budget. >> Thank you. Um and

052then when we project it, I see it fluctuates every year. I assume we have the same number of spots and the same number of money we're charging. So I guess what's the the reason behind the fluctuation? So, I know over the years they have also moved the parking around a little bit, but I also do think it depends on um I think there are certain times of the year that certain students um get their licenses and so some of that can fluctuate throughout the year and and also I think the parking spaces how they've changed. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and then looking at federal grants, um, I mean, obviously, you know, federal dollars are are extremely volat volatile right now, um, and will increasingly be volatile over the next couple years. So, Dr. Carter,

053can you just explain uh, I guess our our federal revenue and federal grants and the forecast for the future um, of of how that how that may look, how it does look. >> Yes. So, um, for for the public, there is a page revenue analysis that will show you all of the grants that we receive. And our largest one, um, is special education grant. That's a federal grant. That's the $1.1 million that comes um, from the federal government. Um, and then you'll see a variety of other much smaller grants like Perkins um, and the title grants. Um, there's a difference and sometimes people think that grants mean that we're applying for them. These are not competitive grants. These are um entitlement grants. So your title grants, there's a formula based on them, based on number

054of students, based on your demographics that determines that amount. So it's not that we um I know someone wanted to give give us credit, I think at one point, for having sought these out, and we really can't take credit for that. These are um entitlement grants that that come our way. Um to your question about um the volatility, uh certainly every superintendent is paying close attention um to what grants uh could could go away um from the federal government. Uh right now um we feel confident that these will come through um for the budget for next year. Uh but of course we're all listening and paying attention and and and hoping especially around special education um that that grant will not be compromised. Okay, thank you. And then finally, um, for the planned use for

055reserves, um, obviously it's a it's a zero for healthcare, but for the 107,000 we're using for special education, is that is that to make up for costs in the budget or can you explain what we're using that money for? >> That uh we have placed a salary in that budget anticipating that we would use funds to offset a salary. We did the same for this year and we're going to carry that forward into next year. >> Thank you. I guess my last comment is I remember in my first uh first year on the board in 2024, we were very proud, rightfully so, that we weren't relying on reserves at all uh in the budget. And as you can see in the budget book, it says zero and zero. So, it's disappointing. The town council and

056our town leaders have put us in a position to be using uh those reserves again. And um hopefully we can change that in the next couple years. But yeah, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Marks. Miss Shaw. >> Hi. Um, just question on page 11, uh, about the elementary classroom staff projections. Um, so when we look at the actual enrollment versus staffing, uh, as of October 1, 2025, I'm doing simple math here, but we're looking at from 1 to 20 for teacher to student ratio. Whereas in projected enrollment for 2026 to 2027, uh we're looking at a staffing ratio of now 1 to 21. So what what drove that change in number? Miss Jaw, the way that we uh plan for our elementary uh staffing each year is we look at our

057projected enrollment and we apply um the board of ed contractual class size maximums, the policy and contractual maximum. So that's 24 at the K3 level and 26 at the 4 to 5 level. And simply based on the projected enrollment at each school in each grade level divided by those numbers will uh provide us the number of teaching sections that we need for next year. >> Thank you. And is there um such projections for middle and high school as well? Because I didn't see that in here. not explicitly because it's it's more complex at those grade levels because you're uh either projecting based on teams or individual courses or department levels uh at the secondary level. >> Okay. Thank you. And I'll just follow up, Mr. Shaw. Um the other story here that that may be

058helpful um is that you'll notice uh that we're down um in staffing. And so I've said in my in the presentation earlier, so we've plateaued at the elementary level. And I just think it speaks to the idea that you're going to see increased asks for staffing at the middle and high school because those cohorts are still coming through. But this but what elementary showcases, I guess, is that this isn't forever. [snorts] I can't, you know, don't pin me down on which year, but it isn't forever that we're going to need to be adding staff. Um we're adding staff to keep pace with enrollment, but when you see we're not asking for additional elementary classroom teachers. facts is down um because that's what the population demands. And so we will see a leveling off in the

059future. Um you know the the next superintendent um uh will have the opportunity and the and the future board will have the opportunity um to decide if as we start having declining enrollment which is bound to happen at some point um whether you reinvest those savings um into the district a or whether you start um reducing uh the budget because you need fewer staff. And that's what you'll see a lot of a lot of districts who have had declining enrollment, but yet you're seeing that they're, you know, they seem to be investing just as much as they have been and their their per pupil is high and and they're maintaining their investments. They're making a choice to say, "Yes, we could reduce the budget, but instead of reducing the budget, we're going to take the

060savings from those five teachers that we don't need to replace, and we're going to invest it in a STEM program or whatever that district may do." So, I think we've seen a lot of districts um be able to take advantage of that. And then that's also why I said, you know, in my presentation that it was dangerous to compare us to other towns because another town may have been able to reduce their their teaching um load in that budget and that's why it's at 3% instead of 791. >> Thank you, Mr. Marks. >> Last question. um on this section. So, I I notice on on page 15, again, going back to the reserves, uh when we look at budget drivers, it says we're relying on $500,000 for special education reserves. And obviously, again, this is

061107th. So, 107,000, excuse me. So, I mean, unless I'm I'm missing something, uh what's the discrepancy between those two numbers between the planned use reserves and and the reliance on reserves? I'm actually gonna ask if you can repeat the question. >> Thank you. >> So, um, on page 15 it says 107,000 is our planned use of reserves. >> Um, and then when we talk about budget drivers on page four, it says $500,000 is our reliance on reserves. Um, so I guess what's the discrepancy between the 500,000 and the 107,000? So, um, and I'll have Chris chime in if there's a better way to say this, but, um, the the plan use of reserves is for FY27, the proposed budget. The reliance on reserves that you see, um, in that column is because of our reliance

062in FY26. So, it's creating the fiscal cliff from FY26 into this year. So, we're we're noting it in that other page, but in here, our planned use um is is to use 107. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for this section, Mr. Nettles? >> I just said one on page 15. Uh the excess cost and agency placement. Uh we did really well there. How do we do better or how like what what led to us to getting more money from that? >> So it's not that actually we we've done better. That calculation is based on our expenses. So what that means is that our expenditures have gone up. So now we're going to receive more reimbursement back from the state based on our special education costs. >> So something of a percentage of what

063we spend gets coming back. >> Um yeah, there's a formula associated with it. It's not exactly a percent. It's a calculation that's that's u the state requires that you spend a certain amount per student. Um not I'm sorry, they don't require that you spend a certain amount. Once you've reached a certain amount, the state then says we will reimburse you for those funds over that amount. Unfortunately, the state never actually reimburses us of the full 100% of what uh that cost is over that amount. And over the years, that percentage has been getting lower and lower and lower, but this is clearly um you know certainly you're going to see and have as you've seen we have a high increase for special education for next year. And so this is um a piece of of

064of Yes. It's the reason that that's up is because the cost is up. >> Thank you. Any other questions for this section, Mr. Mackey? >> Uh yeah. Um go to page 11, please. Um [clears throat] on a side note, kind of following up a little bit twist of uh Mrs. Shaw said, "Personally, I think having 24 kids in a kindergarten class is crazy. I I I'm I I know that's probably not what anybody wants to hear because that would mean we need more teachers, but you try getting uh 24 kindergarters in a line." And um there's a reason I teach middle school. Um just something maybe we need to look at in the future once that starts going down because there's somebody at home watching this that's a kindergarten teacher going, "Please." um uh when

065we are looking and I know the teachers are down if if let's just say Eli Terry needed a teacher do and Orchard Hill had somebody and again as a teacher I I I I hate saying this but do we would we move a teacher over rather than find somewhere or cram those kids in somewhere at one school because we don't want to this is a bad choice of words but like displace that teacher or move them. Do we do that? Well, we try to do it over the summer. So, um so if we know that we're overstaffed and and again with registrations, things can change over the summer. And if we determine that we're we anticipate being overstaffed at Orchard Hill and understaffed Eli Terry, then we would be making a you know a transfer

066um of a teacher from Orchard Hill to Eli Terry. So when we need, we look at the broad look of all of our classrooms and where the teachers are needed. And if there's excess in one school and a need in another, then we're going to balance that out. We're not going to just um uh keep the same level of staffing if it's not warranted. It is tricky um trying to watch this. You I'm sure you know, as a teacher, a lot can happen over the summer. Uh certainly kindergarten is the hardest to predict. Um and we're in the middle of registration right now. Um generally the other grades we have a good sense because those children are physically with us and we can see where they're moving uh to in the next grade level. Uh

067but we can have some surprise moveins and you know I know um we've talked about this in many meetings. People want to say well if you've added 20 kids then you add one teacher. It depends where the 20 kids were added. There could be a school that has class sizes, I'll just say, of 20, and they could have an unexpected increase of students, but they can handle it because their class sizes just went to 22, whereas another school could just have one kid um move in, but that tips the maximum. And then once we tip the maximum, then we add a teacher. So, it is something that we really have to be we track all summer. Dr. understand spends a lot of time just monitoring enrollment, monitoring where we are, looking at where the staffing

068is. Um but yes, the um we've done it many times that staff has to move in terms of where the students are. >> Okay. And so again, still on page 11 under um Pleasant Valley, it says 33 total teachers. Does that include pop, iPes, all of that? Okay. So that would also mean that I safe to assume that Pleasant Valley at the top where it has the enrollment has 60 uh 688 student that does not include IPOP pop and sales does not. Okay. So if you allow me to kind of think back a little bit back to page six where we talked about what we aren't putting in. And this is I want to make sure this is not me um asking to put something in the budget. This is me for advocating uh for

069Pleasant Valley. As a as a parent, as as somebody here that has been looking at this, I I just want I hope it doesn't come across as I'm trying to, you know, demand that we do something here. But I I do think for someone who's advocating for the importance that we are doing this. Um, if it's at it's our biggest elementary school compared to our smallest elementary school, there's an additional and I did the math here somewhere, 237 students more at Pleasant Valley. But what we also kind of just learned is that doesn't include POP, which has I won't make anybody guess exactly the numbers, but I know there's a morning and afternoon. It's great. My kids have all gone to it. um including the teachers which I'm going to assume is staff or maybe

070a hundred more kids that is not even shown on this. So what we're also asking is our administrators there to manage, supervise, and be present um to more than this shows. And I think it's just important to advocate for the um amount of work. And this is not me trying to say that anything against all the other elementary schools that have exactly what they might need or that what they're requesting. it's not taking anything away from them. Um or saying that the the the people at Pleasant Valley aren't doing enough. What I'm saying is I just think that when we look at the numbers, if you're talking about an our biggest elementary school compared to our smallest elementary school, there's a big difference, yet the administrative formula structure is the exact same. And if you

071had to be that person, which school would you prefer to be at? you know, it's just something to think about um for the future. I know I brought this up last year um and and hopefully next year. I'm here saying other things, but [laughter] >> that's all. >> Well, Mr. I'll just say that um I agree with everything you just said. This is not this position did not not move forward because we didn't think it was a legitimate ask. It's you saw all the competing demands, but there is certainly and you just laid it out beautifully. There is absolutututely rationale for additional administrative support at that building. Um the rationale is there. It you you did a great job um characterizing it. And so you wouldn't hear an argument from us. It's just so many

072competing demands that we felt we couldn't move that one forward. >> Yeah. And I and again I it's not I know you know we've had many talks about this that I know that you support that and would love to put that in. I do think though that maybe that should be noted somewhere not just in the back but somewhere in this staff or or student projections the pop stuff I pop and for I I I assume everybody might know what POP is. Um I won't go over it myself but I just think that that might be helpful because I think this doesn't paint the full picture. At least it didn't in my brain and maybe for other people it does. But when I look at that it goes, "Oh, PV has 688 kids." You walk

073into PV, there's more than 688 kids and there's more than just the 33 teachers there. Um, and while I'm kind of on that, I also think that, and I'm not sure if this is in here, and I'm just not finding it in the best way, but this only includes the classroom teachers. this does not have like our special ed, our specials or all this. I do think at some point, and this isn't maybe a budget, well, maybe it is. Um, I'd be really interested to see the totals of each school and how many teachers are there. If I'm I am a specials teacher and sometimes we're forgotten all the time. We're forgotten except in South Windsor. um that I'd like to see that that somewhere in here. Maybe it's on a separate page. I'm not

074saying it has to it ruin our nice thing here, but I do think it'd be important to see like how many total staff does Eli Terry have, does Orchard Hill have, PRS? I mean, if somebody said to me, "How many how many teachers are at your high school?" I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Um I know Rich could probably give it to me pretty quickly, but [laughter] I saw that. Um, but I just think that that could be somewhere that we could find it. And I know you're always saying like just ask. I guess this is my ask. >> Well, I think one I think it's a great idea that we could add preschool to this page. Um, I will tell you though that the difference between preschool and the other

075programs is that those kids age in. So, our October one enrollment will be smaller than our June enrollment. >> Um, so that's why we can do the snapshot, which I I think is fine. Um, but you just have to remember that's a rolling thing and so that the numbers change as the year goes on. Um, but I I think it absolutely we could keep a line in here for preschool and that would just show the number of staff members, the classrooms that we have and the number of staff members that we have. Um, and and I agree with you because it is misleading that Pleasant Valley is certainly bigger than 688 kids and the the POP program does bring a lot of responsibilities. Now, we have other special education administrators that support that program. Um

076and then to your point when you when you raised the issue around um specialist teachers um that is probably a great example of the question you asked earlier. So you might think well Pleasant Valley has X number of classrooms and I'll just say Eli Terry has Y and so Eli Terry has fewer classrooms. So does that art teacher at PV and the art teacher Eli Terry the sections would be dramatically different. So, in order to have things be equitable, we look at ways that we can use our staff. Some we have PRS um specialist teachers that comes over to Pleasant Valley to supplement the specialist program there. And then we also have Eli Terry staff that are now supporting the preschool program that we launched at the high school and they're going up at the

077end of their day to support that program to bring some enrichment to that to the that program. So, we do look at ways of how to stretch the staff in different directions because each building is going to have a different demand. >> Yeah. And I and I I will say that my middle son does have the all the specials from PRS. And I do think Pey does a really good job of of still making them feel a part of it, you know, and if you ask my my sons will, you know, they'll who do you have, you know, who do you I think it they it can it can be a difficult thing for teachers. I mean, I I when I first got hired, I had to go from the middle school to the high

078school. The benefit is I didn't have duties, but I also had to not have a home, you know, and that can sometimes not always be the best. Um, and just I I really think kind of goes off of a little bit what uh Mr. Nettles brought up earlier about special ed and the funds and kind of everything we've been talking about special ed. POP is is such a um an important um I hope one day that we get a presentation from special ed and they can talk about POP because I was just happened to be just a few weeks ago talking about POP because um my last son had to do his um interview or I'm not sure what it's called. What is it called? >> Intake. They they had to go and and see

079so they could watch them. And I just think that that is such an important program that we that we have here that not every district has. And as somebody who uh has had a son go through it as a modeled student and another son that's going to go through it as a or a modeled student, I think is the technical term that we use. But then I've also had a student that went through it as um a special ed student. And I just think the work they do, all our special ed, but at POP particularly is um really really special. And I I I really hope that we can get a presentation on that because I think there are people that didn't know that and my and my wife and I had to explain to

080them like what it was and how it offered and go on the website and find all that stuff. And with everything else we talk about like sometimes that stuff kind of gets forgotten, but that is one of those things that I think is just really really really important. And um I don't know exactly what that has to do with this budget right now, but she let me keep talking so I did. >> I was getting ready to kick you. >> No. Okay. [laughter] Miss Manili. >> Yes. Um I want to echo part of what he says because not all of it was relevant, but like the part about um Pleasant Valley um does have a lot more students and a lot more staff that that's um not really shown on this paperwork even though this

081is very impressive. But um and going back to what the superintendent said that some things just keep coming back like year after year and it's just um other things become more not more important but just um take higher precedence than than like another administrator at the at Pleasant Valley because I know they've been asking for this for a couple years almost since they opened up. So eventually hopefully um it will reach to the top where it will become a priority because that school is just huge just it's it's magnificent to drive up to and I wish my kids went there now but um but they uh I think we really need to um make sure that we're equitable when it comes to not just like the numbers that we see here like Mr. Mackey said

082there are another bunch of students that are not accounted for right here that are the responsibility of the administrator administration over on Pleasant Valley side. That's all. >> Thank you. Mr. Armstrong, >> could you just I mean I think you've done that to this group probably five times, but when would it be at what point will it be noticeable in the elementary noticeable in the elementary schools that the numbers are lower? Um well there's evidence in this page and in terms of the staff coming down in terms of if you're thinking about like walking into the building and how does it feel? Um it's hard to say because we're plateaued. We're not we don't have data that's showing that we're going to go down significantly. So, I would think that the first things that you'll

083what you would start to see initially is some lower class sizes and then eventually you'd be able to collapse sections and actually um either reinvest the funds for that staffing level um or create that as savings. Um some districts who have had declining enrollment, what they did is they didn't reduce their staffing, they got their class sizes lower, but there's a cost to that. Um and so rather than reduce staffing, they just chose to have lower class sizes. So eventually when our elementaryaries um when that population starts to go down, that's when you'll if you walked in a bill, if you're trying to say like how do you feel, it would be the feel of having um fewer students in a class. But we have, you know, guidelines and you you know financially we're not

084going to have class sizes of 15 across the district. I mean that's just not going to be feasible financially. But you will see um some evidence of some smaller class sizes. >> Thank you. Any other questions for this section? Seeing none, we will move on. All right, we are going to move on to the first half of the regular education budget. This is pages 17 through 27. This includes the adult education, vocational schools, career and technical education, general education, health and physical education, library, media, and literacy. Do we have any questions on any of these pages? Mr. Marks, >> thank you. Uh, page 17, looking at the Rockville vocational agricultural program. Um, how are those tuition costs funded? the dollar amount that's in the budget that you see there is how those are funded. >>

085Okay. >> So, um I think it was uh two years ago now there was a um change at the state level and we are required to pay up to 58% of the tuition amount. So, the tuition amount has been reduced over the last few years but that is the amount for the uh Rockville school. >> So, does this mean we have a a greater number of kids in that program? >> We do. We do. Can that at all be attributed to our vocational event we had last year, Dr. Carter? [laughter] >> Um, yeah, I think that's all I have on that page. >> Thank you. All right. No additional questions on that section. >> Oh, sorry. We're moving on >> with anywhere in the section. >> Sorry, >> Mr. Thank you. Um, and then going

086to page 25 at the library media. Um, for those that are watching that can't see, it talks about uh the budget, the program budget includes funds to remain current with in demand series uh to increase popular Net Mega titles to replace worn and lost texts. Is that only applicable at the elementary school and high school level and not applicable at the middle school level? >> No, that is applicable at every level. It was just called out um at the elementary level because they've increased it a little bit more in this budget than they had in the past. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions on this entire section pages 17 through 27? Miss Shaw. >> Uh just a quick question on page 22 for the personnel budget increase. um with reduction of

087three elementary FTE in the general education, you know, our personnel budget is still up by 4.74%. Is that the salary and benefit obligations that we're looking at or let me just flip to that page, but no salary um benefits are not included on that page. So on the elementary page, um you're looking at the general education elementary personnel line. So that's really just our GWI and STEP for teacher teachers that are moving forward. That's the majority of the increase there. The contractual salary increase that you were seeing on I believe it was page four. That would be part of that. Any other questions? All right, moving on to the second half of the regular education budget. This is pages 29 through 39. This includes mathematics, music, science, and elementary STEM, social studies, visual arts, world

088languages, and multilingual learners. Any questions? Pages 29 to 39. Mr. Marks, >> uh, on page 29 for mathematics, I might be missing it in the budget notes, but what is the, uh, the reason for the $10,000 or 25% $10,000 increase in systemwide for programming? Mr. Mark, can you tell me where to look for that? Sorry, I can't see it either. >> Sorry. Page 30. Uh, it says systemwide under program. It is the fourth section down. Sorry, under program. It's the fourth column down. >> I'm sorry, I see it. So, that's actually a decrease on that line. >> Yes. I'm sorry. I thought you said increase. So, so pardon my pardon my delay there. So that is mainly due just because we had Zoom um in the current budget that we have now we had AP

089statistic digital licenses I believe and so those are were a onetime cost is my understanding. >> Okay my note right. Thank you. >> Thank you >> Miss Shaw. >> Hi uh just a quick question for page 29. Um, under the budget notes, there is a note that says there is an ongoing need to align materials with inquiry and project-based learning that promotes reasoning, discussion, and real world application. So, does that mean that in addition, we we're still continuing to need and what's not included in here? >> Yes, that would be correct. So at all of our um schools when it comes to our mathematics curriculum we at the elementary level we have a program Sanford and math high school I mean the middle school we use something called Desmos and then the high school it's

090very coursebased but in doing that alignment we still supplement those core resources with experiences and materials that we believe students need. So increasing their ability to participate in project-based learning we know is a highly student centered um instructional strategy and so this would allow us to increase those resources that allow us to align our curriculum with that strategy as well. >> So does that comment mean that those resources are not yet added or they are sorry >> not fully. So there are to varying degrees incorporated, but our goal is to have a vertical alignment K12 along those resources. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um and I'm sorry, I'm just going to go back to page 28 as well. Um for the literacy program, there was two addition for TE literacy interventionist and um high school

091language art teachers. Um how will these position reduce the intervention weight list or improve early grade reading benchmarks? at our schools. >> So that particular interventionist is for the middle school and um currently our literacy interventionists are carrying as Dr. Carter mentioned very large case loads to meet the needs to meet our what we call cutoff scores to screen and to intervention. But what we know about that is the research tells us the number of students in a particular group that a classroom teacher can be effective with. So for example, a tier 2 group might be anywhere from three to five kiddos per small group and then a tier three group might be one to two. Well, in some cases to meet the need, we have some groups that have seven, even eight students. And

092we just know that that's not effective practice. Even our tier three students who require the most intense intervention, we have some of those groups have three or four students. And so you might say, well, three or four students in a group, how could that be a big deal? Well, sometimes the range of need in that group can be so great that it's very difficult to make sure you're meeting their needs to the fullest of what their need is and what we'd like to do to increase their um success in their regular ed classroom. Right. Great. Thank you for explaining that, >> Mr. Marks. >> Uh, one LA I guess two last questions on page 31 where talks about the movement of a teacher previously budget and career and technical education to in the music budget.

093Can you maybe explain the reasoning and the process that goes behind moving a teacher um from a certain part of the budget to another? or is it the responsibilities change or the responsibilities better align with another uh program? I guess >> um Dr. Stanzo may be able to clarify this a little bit more, but just from the budget standpoint last year when we were building the budget, it was um anticipated that there was going to be an additional need for an encore teacher at the middle school. And at the time we were anticipating that it might be in um that the particular area that we put it in and later it ended up being in the music department. and so it was just transferred but Dr. Sanso can certainly add to that. >> Perfect. Thank

094you. >> Thank you. And then on uh page 39 where it mentions that um there was a reduction of of.5 FTE multilingual tutor in the elementary school uh budget. I I know we had a presentation last year about um I mean it's a benefit to our schools the increasing enrollment for multilingual students but is a reduction of that tutor um because of less students that require that specific service that that tutor offers? >> Yes. Um our the number of students requiring services for the first time um in a long time is actually flat or flat. Um, so we we do not need increased staffing for our multilingual learners. >> Any other questions within this section? All right, we will move on to the special programs budget pages 41 through 45. This is going to include

095special education and pupil services. Mr. Armstrong, >> just a question. I know it's in here, but in it I know and it changes every year, but in a in an average year, how many students are outplaced from the district? >> Um well, and just so so that um you know, then if you look at that chart um on page 43, that number at the bottom are the outplacements. So you'll see for example if you look at 25 26 year the 699 at the top is the total students the 666 is the are the students that are not outplaced in district and then the 33 is the number of outplacements. >> Thank you >> Mr. Armstrong. Did you have another question? Just wanted to make sure. [laughter] Um any other questions on this section? Mr. Mackey

096>> on on that same page of for uh page 43 is that only in I'm I should say it this way. I would imagine that is not include any of the other issues that can that sometimes I think can get people think falls under special ed. Um meaning this is just kids that either have what an an an IEP and and that that's it. So that doesn't include the kids that may have behavior issue issues or any of those types of needs which also fall under uh the care of our teachers and students that and a lot a lot of times I think those teachers sometimes get pulled from what they have to do to go help the other kids. So those numbers I think also are not that it's done like that but it

097just if you're in a school like that number is probably much higher from the amount of needs that that that teachers have built a rapport with a certain kid that may not fit right in their case load and that they are responsible for. Uh I just think that's also important that when we continue to talk about special ed and that's what keeps getting brought up and when we say that that you know is a big driver to our budget. It's also that because our teachers go out of their way to do things that also save us money and they do things that does not show up in this um but they save us money by willing to leave their job, their lunch or whatever to go help a kid that doesn't necessarily fit into that

098exact category. Um that's all. Thank you, >> Mr. Armstrong. >> Probably not. It's not a budget issue, but it's just fascinating to me because I never knew it it existed on page 46, homeless transportation, that there are efforts made to get students back into their home districts, which is a lotable thing. I never knew that that existed. >> That is actually a legal requirement for for all districts to to fund that if and when the the need arises. >> Thank you, Mr. Mackey. Do you have another question? All right. Uh, Mr. Marks. >> Uh, thank you. On page 43, uh, it mentions in the third paragraph in the budget note about, um, the personnel reduction reflects requiring fewer bus monitors. Seeing that indistrict, uh, indistrict, uh, students remain the same or increased a little bit

099uh, from 24, 25 to 25, 26. Is that we we're requiring fewer bus rounders because of a lower need for for them. Um and I guess how is that uh I guess identified that we need less in the process. >> So this is uh only specific to the special education transportation and it is based on the student need. So the population that they currently have they felt like compared to the budget that they built for this year they will need fewer monitors for those students for next year. >> Thank you >> Mr. Mackey. I and I I would assume this probably goes to uh Dr. Szo, but out of all the pairs, are they split up depending on where they work in the district? Meaning, if you're in POP and you have maybe a RIPOP

100or something like that, is there a CLA? Are they in different classifications? Maybe that's the wrong term. Or is you're a PAR educator, you're there wherever they kind of need you. >> Mr. Mr. Mackey, we we have three primary categories of PAR educators across the the the district that um work with our students. One is a supervisory para educator that um may provide supervision to students in the cafeteria and recess and those types of settings. Another would be an instructional pareducator. Uh those would be pareducators that uh may support students in academic areas from uh K to 12. And then we have our specialty program pair of educators that work in our specialty programs, our IPO program, our EIP program, our STEP or sales programs. Um students that may have uh you know a variety

101of needs and those PAR educators require additional levels of training uh to support that student need. And we if we were to add pairs or add them do we ever is it ever like is it put in here like that or do we just maybe kind of pick a certain number and that's when we just say oh there's there that amount of pair of educators we won't see the difference I would assume the different categories is pay also involved >> correct the the classification uh and and pay would be based on where that need is um the number of para educators that we have and we project for next year are based on an analysis of what the students needs are. Um what their IEPs may uh warrant for the the support that they require

102in different settings. Some stu students may have uh individual or shared PAR educator support. They may have it for the full day. They may have it for part of the day. It's highly individualized based on each student. But based on that analysis in totality, we determine how many para educators we need of what classification, what buildings, what grade levels. >> Thank you. I think we will move on to the next section and we will move on to student services budget pages 47 through 55. This includes athletics, gifted and talented, school counseling, student activities, and transportation. Starting on 47, do we have any questions for this section, >> Mr. Mackey? Um in reg uh 4748 uh athletics we is there somewhere that we could find or know the how like do we pay for every away

103game that let's say an athletics team goes to and does this budget include officials uniforms um this is everything that's incorporated into that I would assume Mhm. >> Okay. >> The only thing that's I'm Yes, for the majority except the only thing that's not included on this page is athletic transportation and that's mainly because that's what pay for play is funding for the majority. There is there is uh there is some dollar amounts in here because right now we're not always collecting enough money to meet the payforplay for transportation. So there we have built in some dollar amounts into this a few years ago. But other than that, yes, all uniforms, officials, all of those are in here. timekeepers and such. >> Do you know how much the pay for play is off the top

104of your head? Sorry. >> I do. I have Well, I've written it down. I don't know if it's off the top of my head. >> Um, give me one second. I have it here. >> So, at the uh middle school level, it is came on. It's um a $100 per sport, $400 family cap for TE students with a $500 family cap if you have um students at TE and the high school. And at the high school level, it's a$1 $125 per sport with a $500 district cap. However, if you are participating in hockey or gymnastics, it's $400 per sport with an $800 cap per family. >> Okay. And I I I apologize for this question because I don't know if why you would know this, but they get new uniforms. Is there like a do

105we wait until they're bad or is there like a cycle like every six years or something like that? >> There's a cycle. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions for this section? Miss Shaw, >> I guess just more of a clarification on page 50 for gifted and talented. um under elementary school and I guess high school also it's zeroed out or not applicable is that just mean that we have not identified students who are gifted and talented in those schools or how does that >> so at the high school level that's the easiest to answer um we don't particularly have gifted and talented because we have leveled courses so students have the choice to challenge themselves as well as with honors, AP, ECE courses. At the elementary level, the gifted and talented programming

106is very different. It's a um self- selected program. So, it's not during the day. There are students that work with um various like for example there's an art program that works with some of our students who are more gifted and talented but academically at the elementary level we try to enrich and extend through our tier one curricular experiences. So the majority of programming for our gifted and talented students occurs at the middle school. >> Got it. Thank you >> Mr. Marks. Thank you. Page page 55 is in the >> is in the section. Okay. >> Yep. Transportation. >> Um so on page 55 for transportation are I know we were switching um bus companies as we talked about in an earlier board meeting this year. Are those savings or or costs associated with that reflected

107in this budget? >> Yes, they are. And that's you will see that the increase associated uh on each line is the increase that has been provided by um our new carrier. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I knew it. Mr. Mackey, >> when does that technically start? Like for our summer things, will that start? Like July 1st. Our new bus company will be starting. >> Yes, July 1st. >> All right. We will move on to the district operations and staff services budget pages 57-71. This includes business services, central services, facilities energy utilities, facilities building operations, facilities building maintenance, building and site project list, recommended capital projects list, technology support services and staff services. And that is 57 through 71. Do we have any questions for this section? Miss Manelli, >> not really a question, but on

108page 62 when it talks about the electricity and um we always make a joke about like let's keep the lights on. Well, there has been quite an increase in um electricity across the district. I just wanted to make that note just because our own electricity bills go up as do the schools and we can't do anything about It's costing a little more to keep the lights on. >> We have to Yeah, we have to pay it at two. >> Mr. Marks, >> also on that same section about uh electricity rates, how long does the PV energy efficient building credit last for? And is that only uh I guess applicable or existing for a certain amount of time after a school is built? So that credit uh was able to cover or span almost two years.

109It was a total of about $250,000 and it will end this year. So partial the h at least half of this increase that you're seeing is because we've been budgeting zero for the PV building for the last two years and it will come online into our operating budget next year. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I think we didn't might have been last year but we had a presentation about uh I guess the savings that that our solar panels on our schools provide. Is that included anywhere in here in this budget or >> Yes. So those electricity the electricity that you see there is already offset by solar and um I think I calculated that out to be about $100,000 right now um in the year. And just to add a little solar piece if

110that's okay. So we do have solar now on our high school, Orchard Hill, um Pleasant Valley is coming online probably this week, next week. Um Eli Terry PRS and we are working on the TE building. So we have done a lot of work on solar. >> Yeah, that's great to hear. And I don't know if it's possible this year, but in future budget, can we maybe see the offset that you know cleaner energy including solar effect on by general electricity rates? Thank you. Any other questions on this section, Mr. Marks? >> Sorry. Um, page 63. I know last year dur uh during our joint budget meeting, there was a big deal made about the the food waste disposal project and how we're being mandated by the state to do this. And um that was one

111of the reasons that I guess the town council a town counselor or various town counselors used to justify to cut our budget. So that is no longer required even though it was again made a big deal last year. >> Yes, that is the case. So when they came out last year, school districts were told that we were going to have to do this and many are. Um however, what they didn't provide at the time was a formula. So we were using a formula. We were looking at as business managers we were looking across the street the state many were looking at how Massachusetts were using their formula and um as the CASBO group we've sort of adopted that and started to use that as our calculation. However um I guess gratefully so perhaps or not

112gratefully so depending on how you look at it. Um the state did create their own formula just this year and when they provided it um we were not included on that list at this time. I do know however that there has been there at least we're hearing through the CASBO grapevine that there are some talks that um the state has realized that there aren't very many school districts that are going to be required to do this now. So they may revisit it. >> And is that this legislative year? Uh I'm not sure if it'll actually make this legislative year, but they are talking about it to try to get it into this legislative year. >> All right. And even though we don't necessarily fund it, is that still still a practice we do in our

113schools is food waste disposal? >> So recycling is a requirement um in certain aspects and I know that we certainly we follow any law that we need to when it comes to recycling. >> Okay. Thank you. How we doing everybody? >> Any other questions for this section? I can't Oh, I can't even see your light. I figured it was on though. [laughter] >> Um page 67. Um phase two, add the 50 lockers. Is that like a whole new set or is that a That's not a replacement. That's And where do we put 50 new lockers? >> So that's part of the phase in because of the increasing enrollment. So we've been phasing in lockers over time. Okay. Does the high school already have bottle bottle filler stations that we're we do? >> Yes. >> Okay.

114Um, Mr. Murka, you and I and and Mr. Marks, uh, and Mr. NS have the pleasure of being on Capital Projects, and I see that this I don't know if it was always in here, but I I thought it stood out this year. Could you give, if you don't mind, a quick how things get in here, why these are in there currently, these projects, um, just to have a little bit more transparency on why we're we're putting this in here and and what you can tell us about it. Um, so each year we put together a list of building and sites requirements or items that we would like to move forward as projects. And this particular year, there are a few projects that then exceeded the dollar amount that we were thinking we would put

115into our operating budget. So often they will roll into what we want to do as a proposal for the capital projects list. As you are aware sitting on the committee, the capital projects list is very lengthy. Um we have several asks that we move forward and in the last few years we have have been able to perhaps at times um have the funding to move forward say our top two priorities and just like we kick the can down the road in our operating budget is the same thing on the capital side. So we put the request in, they get deferred and deferred and deferred. And I think there were other examples of you know the maintenance the car the car idea is this is one of those situations if you don't keep up with your

116maintenance something catastrophic can happen and have and you have to have a contingency plan. So the reason that you're seeing these particular four projects um in the operating budget are we knew that we would be asked to only move forward say our top one two three. So, we decided to at least put our top four in here to have that as part of our presentation. And um these would be, you know, the top four asks that we would ask at the capital meeting. Although I do know that I believe we've they've asked for our top two, we are now using our top three. >> Okay. And I think it's also important just for people who aren't aware like this is not necessarily decisions that this group makes and what gets through or not. that is

117uh kind of I mean there are certain people that have a a say in that committee but ultimately it's a dollar amount that comes from the council and then kind of split up between all other departments within the town. So it's not like um the board of ed is going to get this whatever it's going to be it's a much bigger conversation for the whole town uh and a certain dollar amount that unfortunately kind of gets split in many different ways but I think it was just important to to point that out. Thank you, >> Mr. Marks. >> Thank you. On page 67, when we specifically the high school, when we uh it says repair chimney and the uh replace the stair treads, is there a facility study that we use throughout the year to

118identify when those things are necessary? Um, or is it similar to although it's not obviously part of capital projects, is it similar to capital projects in which we do have a wish list or things that need to happen and we kind of cross off the list as we're able to in the budget? >> Yeah. So, our director of facilities um certainly has a long list of things that we would like to get to. Uh, this building and sites list, I can assure you if we were to have all of the asks would be significantly longer than what you see here. this is just what rose to the top to be um the most pressing. So, you know, replacing the stair treads in the stairwells, it's not that there this is like on a fiveyear cycle

119to do that. It's if you've been there, those treads are really in disrepair. Um and then repair the chimney is something that just has to happen. Um there's other things that might be more on a cycle, but these tend to be um you know uh more uh reactionary than proactive in many ways. Although I will argue um that some of the things that that we're doing in building and sites andor capital projects um is an expenditure but it's designed to be an offset for other kinds of costs. So for example, when we turn alt six and we spend some money to turn all six into two classrooms, we now just gained two classrooms at a at a middle school that needs more classrooms. If you were to try to achieve those with portables, you'd be

120spending millions of dollars on portables if you were trying to achieve all the additional classrooms that way. So, at the high school, the um modifications due to district growth needs, the 215,000, those are um uh walls and things that we'd like to do at the high school just to try to generate more classrooms. And every time we can generate a classroom through a lowcost um mechanism that is going to save us money from having to do a say for example going with portables. Um so some of these are about trying to within the footprint we have generate more classroom instructional space. >> Yeah. Thank you. And then um for capital projects as Mr. Mackey said the three of us had the pleasure of serving in that uh committee and this year based on what we've

121discussed so far Mr. I'm backing, you can correct me, but I believe we're only moving forward um as of right now. Was the TE Auditorium lighting and was the T renovation move the room. Um, at this time we are trying to move >> at [snorts] this time we are trying to move forward three items which is the TE auditorium and sound, the high school auditorium lighting and sound and the high school classroom modifications that Dr. Carter just spoke of. >> Yes. But am I correct in that they're only giving town bodies the top two? I could be wrong about that. >> At the last meeting they did say the top two. Um, we are hoping to ask for the top three. >> Yeah. No, I I I understand that. Thank you. And would you be

122able to provide us with um the full wish list so we can kind of see what's coming down the pipeline? Because I've made an argument at a capital projects meeting that if we don't fund some of these things now, increasing enrollment only adds more stress for our schools. And these are really the projects that need to happen um as soon as possible. So, I kind of would like to see the full list so we can kind of see what to expect over the next 5 to 10 years. Thank you, >> Mrs. Manily. >> Yes. On page 70 under um programs and communications, how are how are we able to um to um save $90,000 um from last year this to superintendent's proposed budget? What did what did we lose or what what efficiency did we

123gain? We've changed uh telephone carrier services and that's what's generating the savings. >> Thank you, Mr. Marks. >> Thank you. on that same uh communications page too. I know in our your aspirational budget last year, you included um I guess some type of repair or or addition to make uh service at the middle school more reliable. Have we done anything in any capacity to improve reliability at the high at sorry to the middle school or is that not possible without that specific whatever whatever the ask was? >> Um that remains in an aspirational category. Yes. Thank you. All right, moving on to the last section of our book. It is the supplemental information pages 73 through 79. This includes the budget review schedule, bargaining bargaining unit salary schedules, current lease obligations, district reference group listing,

124DRG, our glossery, and our non-discrimination statement. Do we have any questions on any of that, Mr. Marks? >> Sorry, [laughter] calling me a lot. Um so just on page 95 I see that um the educational support staff salary schedule is not included and obviously I understand because there's we are in negotiations and that's subject to change but uh for Thursday can we maybe at least see what the salary schedule was um for last year for this current cycle. Thank you >> Miss Manili. Um going back to the uh Pleasant Valley um administration um hopes and dreams I don't know if this is the right time but um when you uh when they you look at the sk the salary um when we hire like teachers you look at the the masters plus eight what what

125would you look at when you would hire like an assistant principal at elementary school would would it be set one two three up to five or >> um typically um at the elementary level an associate principal is often, not always, but often a beginning administrator. So, they may be a teacher and they'd be on step one. Now, that doesn't mean we couldn't have um applicants from outside the district who have been in a AP and just want to be a part of South Windsor. So, it really depends on the person's experience, but often that can be an um sort of an entree point for people to enter administration through the associate principal level. >> Thank you. Any other questions on this section, Mr. Marks? >> This isn't Can I ask a question about This isn't

126necessarily about this section, but kind of the >> I was going to go back and open up. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Every Yeah, I figure if there are other questions on the entire book, if we forgot something, if something joged your memory, curious about anything that we've already gone through. Um I Yeah, definitely would like to give you another opportunity, Mr. Mark. >> Thank you. [laughter] Um, well, first of all, thank you for all the work that you all do. Um, I mean, we'll have more comments in the future, but I did want to ask a question about something that's not necessarily in our budget. I know in the aspirational budget, one of the things that, uh, both you identified, Dr. Carter and um, Mr. Zimmerman at the time and a few of us was

127the importance of having that additional, I guess, floating school resource officer to help backfill some of the responsibilities that are essential for safety in our schools. Um has there been is there any plan to again request that to the town and is there any willingness with uh with the town to fund that? Um you know the conversation certainly um the chief is aware of of our desire for that. Um he has communicated that there are priorities that would be in front of that. So um if he were to be fully staffed as as he would define fully staffed I can't define that. um that then there might be room for that conversation, but it's not. There are other priorities he would have in in front of that one. Um and just so people are aware,

128the idea is that while they this third resource officer, school resource officer would be assigned to elementary, they would be at elementary rotating through the schools. However, if there's an absence of the middle school or high school SRO, that person would backfill. And really that is that is that is our motivation for wanting it so that we have more continuity at the middle and high school of having SRO coverage >> and that's something that would have to be uh I guess funded in the town's budget and can no way be funded in our correct um former board chair now Mayor Zimmerman had encouraged me to put it in my budget. I explained to him that that really it really has to come from the town side. But now that he's on the town side, that's

129a conversation that he can entertain um over there and that's really the appropriate place because we would not be dictating to the town andor the police department what their priorities are. >> All right. Thank you, >> Mr. Mackey. >> I think it would have been a disservice to this board to go the whole time without talking about Mr. Zimmerman. So, I'm glad that you got that in. Um, but there's a few things that, first of all, the pictures, fantastic. Glad we have them. I think they look amazing. Kudos to all our students that did that. Um, I think it's also there's a few things that I think we need to point out, and this is not specific, so we could take a deep breath. I have no more questions. Um, >> and I bring this

130up, and it's funny because when I have this uh conversation sometimes with Chairwoman Corsy, she says, "Stop talking to people." But I was out and someone was talking to me. She means that fooling around by the way to relax people. Um, somebody was saying, I heard somebody say, "What does the school need? We got four brand new schools. You're asking for 7%. Um, somewhere you're going to need a new school." And I think people often forget that part of the reason we're here is because of how great past boards have done and the team here has done. And it may not seem like a good problem, but it kind of can be. And the reason that we have full schools that, you know, that's often sometimes brought up that we have brand new schools and

131they're already full. Well, the reason we have four new schools is because enrollment went down. And the reason that we are in this building is because it's no longer a school because I believe, and Mrs. Manily could probably fill you in more on this is they you were tasked to close the school because our enrollment in town was go was going down. So be we could blame you I guess for how great our schools are being and we had to turn it around. Um so I just think like sometimes when we hear and I know I often hear like let the people talk, let them talk. we got to ignore it. But it it kind of bothers me when people are complaining when they don't have the full story or the and I can say

132this probably a little rougher than you can. Sometimes you just want to tell people to close their mouth because they don't know what's going on. And I think that we are in this problem because enrollment was down. We were not anticipating needing all this stuff. Um, and I don't know if you want before I keep going if you want to touch on part on that or you're good with that statement or Mrs. Manily if you want to add, but I think people forget that that's why we're here. And it's really really really important that that we understand that it's been a a growth over 10 to 12 years that has gotten us to this point. This wasn't like boom all of a sudden. This isn't a surprise. This shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that

133like that we're doing this yet. People act surprised and it's because the people all of a sudden want to wake up and have a comment about it. Well, this isn't new. This has been going on for 10 to 12 years and if not longer, >> 16 years. And I just think it's it we need to make sure that we don't forget when we are hearing from outside people about what we're doing and schools had enough and schools. No, no, no, no. We this is a a problem. I shouldn't even call it a problem. Well, it's kind of a problem. a problem that is something that we decided to take on as a group. And it wasn't like this. And I just think that we forget about that and we need to say that. Um, also

134when we're talking about this, I would hate to not say the word academics because Miss Esman may be watching and we need to talk about academics. Um, all of our goal in all this is to make sure that not only is our staff and students have the resources and they're prepared to do what they need to do to be able to move on, but ultimately for our students to learn and and and to get the education that they will need in this world, that is really difficult out there. And I think we do a really good job and if you look at the finances because we are in the budget conversation that what we pay per student is far less than everybody else in our DUI and I think maybe because we talk about that

135sometimes that people don't want to hear it anymore but that is really a a really important note that the amount of money and the taxes that we spend we are doing the best amount of mu uh best amount of work with that money and that is because of these guys and our and our teachers in our school. And it's something that really should be um celebrated because it's it's it' be a lot easier for us probably not to do that. Um so I just don't want uh I just think that's something really really we need to do. Um and we're proud of that and I know Mitch uh Mr. Marks talked about it and thank you for the service and and all the work, but it it it when I sit here and I said

136this last year and that is a lot of information and that is a lot to know and a lot of um the unknown of not knowing what we're going to say. Um and there's still a lot of conversation to have, but I think our school district is better um because we have dedicated people and that we save money by Dr. Carter knowing how to hire people and um and whoever hired you, Lisa. Um that those are things that aren't in here. That saves us more money because if you go to other towns, look at the news and you'll see that other towns who don't have the leadership that we have, they may be paying for things in other ways that we don't have to do. And again, it's not in this, but based off of

137the people that we have running our schools and supporting our schools is is um is it saves us saves us money and people don't say that. That's all. Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments? Mr. Armstrong. >> Yeah. What worries me, if we're going to work have to work hard to defend a no increase really a in a budget just to to keep things as they are, if you do, as we all know, if you do that for too long, the cracks are going to show. That's I mean, that's nothing we're going to solve here tonight, but if you're going to just every year, oh, we'll just put we'll just put down a minimum budget and so it'll get passed. You can't keep doing that. And my fear is that we might >> you sure?

138Okay. [laughter] Um All right. Well, I would like to say thank you to all of you for all of your hard work and I would like to say thank you to all of my board members who have stuck it out and done the research and asked really good questions. Um I think it is not lost on any of us that you know 7.91 is it's a big number and um it doesn't necessarily include um shiny new teachers like we got last year. We had a lot more FTEES in that budget. Um but it does include the contractual obligations to pay for all of those shiny new teachers that we did get last year. Um, so I think that can kind of be lost when you're looking at every single line item. Um, no, we're not

139getting what we need to to move the district forward. We're not getting what we need to um make major improvements in academics. Um, we are literally keeping the lights on and trying to maintain the standard of education that our town has come to expect and appreciate. Um, and again, it's it's not a small number and we don't take it lightly that that um impacts every person in our town. Um, but the number not including um what we all feel as as board members, we we run for the board of education because we want to improve our school district. We want to support our teachers. We want to make sure that um these buildings have everything that they need for happy teachers, happy students, um educated, prepared students. Um and I know for the past now

140the past two years and now this is the third for um Mr. Mackey, Mr. Markson, and myself. Every single year, we are we're keeping the lights on. We're keeping the lights on. We're not moving the district forward. And um again being sensitive to the tax impact but also sensitive and frankly frustrated that um we are not able to do what we came for. We're not able to make those improvements. Um, so that's just that's just something that I know is on my mind and I'm sure on the rest of uh my fellow board members minds as we look at the budget. Um, I guess I don't know if it's appropriate to ask if we are looking at making an improvement within this year's budget and we said 7.91. It's not it's not doing it. It's

141not cutting it for what the district clearly needs. that log jam is continuing to get larger, heavier, more problematic. Um, I guess could you talk about like what if we wanted to do something small, incremental to lighten that log jam, um, what would you recommend? What are your thoughts? Um yeah, I obviously it's always a um a difficult decision for a board to increase a proposed budget. Um but I can understand why I know some of you want to um because you've communicated that to me. Um, so it's always striking that balance between the impact on the taxpayer, but also making sure that we're meeting the needs of our students and our families and also making sure financially that the taxpayers who own homes in this community that their property values uh remain high, which

142is um why um so many people are trying to move to this town and how it's very difficult to buy a house in this town because there's such demand and the demand is because of our schools. Um so it's really a a discussion that that you really need to have amongst yourself. Um I know that there was questions about like how does what would if we added this what would it do? So I did prepare um for board members uh I should say Mr. Churka prepared for board members um the incremental increase of $100,000 and what that does to the budget. So, if you were to add $100,000 to this budget, which certainly would allow us to add another teacher or some other position that we would identify as being the next priority, that would

143move it to 8.01%. And for example, if you went up $200,000, it would be at 8.11%. So, we mapped it out because I know board members were asking, so you can see incrementally if you were to add um at $100,000 at a time what that does to the percentage increase. And I know um only because uh Mayor Zimmerman has even asked this in the past as a board member um certainly the town can share with you uh what that what the impact is to the taxpayer. So often they will take say the medium average household uh cost of a house what their val assessed value is and then figure out for every x that you add to the budget what is that dollar impact for that homeowner based on that particular valued home. And so

144you could you know um have those conversations um with your colleagues in the in the town council about that conversation. I'm confident they will have that conversation because this is something that um Mayor Zimmerman, former chairman Zimmerman um is a topic that he's discussed over the years many times. Um because sometimes sometimes people are surprised either way how much it will lower or increase your taxes based on something that can be very consequential. So I'll I'll give an example. Um, if we were to eliminate K5 STEM, which I am not advocating for, um, and our community would be distraught. But if that were to happen, the actual impact that that would have on anybody's taxes would be almost unfelt because it's such a small thing. For us to really move move the needle in either

145direction, either increase or decrease taxes, it needs to be a sizable amount of money before people are actually feeling the difference. Um, and so I'm not advocating for it to go up or or down. I'm just saying sometimes people think, well, if we just got rid of that one thing, our our taxes would go down significantly. And it's I think people are often surprised. Um, again, that's a calculation that I do not do. Um, that would be a calculation that the town manager and his staff would do. Um, but that that is always interesting to folks about they you could do something as what I would call draconian to get rid of our STEM program, but yet the benefit to the taxpayer would be unfelt because it's just not enough money to actually move the

146needle. >> Thank you. Um, and I think I just want to be clear again that um, we recognize the the gravity of a potential increase and we also recognize the gravity of the potential for a decrease not hopefully at our um, decision. Um but we are just also grappling with the gravity of um what our schools are facing and I am not I'm not at the point where I am advocating for an increase but I do think that we are in dire enough circumstances that it's a conversation that we should at least be looking at looking at the tax um the actual um tax implications. Um, so I do think it's a worthy conversation to have. Again, if even if we can get one or two FTEEs out of that log jam um and through

147um for our schools, I just wanted to again be very crystal clear and transparent where my head is. M Miss Manelli, did you have >> Yeah. Um, I've been on the board of education for quite a while and um, very rarely have we like increased the superintendent's budget because as you and your staff have have made it clear that you you give us a budget that that we can defend. Um, and I everyone here can absolutely defend this budget, but everybody here, I'm sure, wants to add at least one thing that they see that was that wasn't included in your budget. um that it's been kicked down a couple times over the last couple years and and maybe now's the time if anything to like it doesn't really increase from 7.92 to 8.01 that's not

148really a big jump. I mean go saying seven and saying eight it may startle people but other than you know that that's so small it's like less than 10% you know like that's not not not that much. Um, and maybe maybe it is for some people like who are in in in a situation where that will impact their their taxes, but um I think um again we could everybody here could be able to defend you know something um a little bit more than what the superintendent coming in. I appreciate the fact that, you know, she kept in mind, you know, the um the town council and the town and the taxpayers, but we've been elected to do what's best for the students in this town and um and and the faculty and um if we

149if we could do something and and make an impact on the students and their education um academically or supportive of of the staff that we have here, uh I think um this would be the time to do it. So, we have a couple days to think about what we want to do and or how we want go about increasing something. I'm not even sure how that goes because we really have never really done it. So, um but that's all. >> Thank you, Miss Manily. Mr. Armstrong. >> Yeah. Being a rookie here, um what what is the format of Thursday night's meeting? What is the task? >> Sure. So, that's a great question. Thursday night. Um I think we will potentially come with additional questions. Um there may be clarifications brought. Um what else should we

150be expecting? So, so really by by getting through the budget book tonight um and and you've already started it really this board is is really facing a philosophical discussion right about um do we just keep the lights on or do we try to do more? Um, so generally in the past the way it's worked is the the first night like tonight is is getting through the book, getting through the details, and then Thursday night is really the board's chance to deliberate and to share your thoughts amongst each other about um where you would want to go with this budget. Decrease it, keep it the same, increase it. Those are sort of the three choices. Um it is helpful to the administration to leave that meeting with consensus. You're not voting on the budget until our

151next regular meeting in February. That's several weeks away. Um, but it's helpful for us to leave the the second night of workshop with a consensus, just a general direction of of where you're going. But your actual final vote for the budget would be um at the end of February in at your regular meeting. >> Thank you. Any other questions for time? Miss Sha. >> Hi. Yeah. Hi. Um so if we were to entertain the idea of increasing the budget right um and you've laid out depending on what the dollar amount is how much percent it goes by is there uh any way we are able to see if that were to happen what FTEES would move forward and how would that impact our schools improvement still keeping status quo you know at various level of

152the increase um because Clearly, when we compare South Windsor schools to other schools in our DUIRG, um with being very frugal with our budget, you know, we still perform at the top 20% in our district. Um in Connecticut, I mean, um our math and reading proficiency are at a high level, but not quite compared to some of the other schools in our DR. Um so hopefully if slowly if we can increase um some of these avenues and areas are we able to get more competitive because clearly we can show we can do a lot with little but maybe we can do a little bit more with a little bit more. So it' be good to see. >> Thank you Miss Shaw. Any other comments, questions? Mr. Nettles? >> I just had one. It's more of

153a request for the next meeting. Um, but can we see what it would like our budget would look like this year if we were to meet the very bottom dur that were behind the like I for I don't have the list in front of me. I'm sorry. It was like 18,000 for like the very the next person in our list. And then what our budget would look like if we were to say be somewhere near the top because if we want to change things and defend it, we got to show somewhere like just to get to that bottom number. Where would we be? Right? You know what I'm saying? And I don't think it's quite the simple like take 5,000 kids and multiply it by 2,000 and >> right um I would say um and

154and we can certainly expand upon it but the slide in my presentation that was sort of a cautionary tale about comparing the percentages to each other did go through how much more money we would need to actually match the per pupil spending of Glastonbury, Simsbury and Avon and the only reason those three towns were chosen is because specific Specifically, it was stated at a public meeting that we should have been matching them last year and they were like in the 4% increased budget range, right? Which is where we ended up landing. Um, and but people often don't understand that. To your point, if you're saying, well, Glastonberry only had a 4% uh increase in their budget this year. Why why can't ours be around that? Well, you have to look at their enrollment, right? Um,

155yes, it's slide seven. And so we can certainly um expand this if if if you're interested, but to other towns, but the reason those three were chosen is because they were identified specifically um that those were the towns we should have aligned our increase with last year. Um and as you know, I proposed a 597 last year and apparent I don't know this to be true. I just know it was said at the meeting that apparently these districts were like in the fours um for their range. But in that case, I'll just repeat it. Um, in order to match the per pupil spending for those towns, uh, we would need to, this is based on FY25, we would need to add 12.8 million to match Simsbury, 12.6 million to match Avon, and 14.8 million to

156match Glastonbury. So, and that's why I say this is more of a philosophical discussion because there's only 10 towns in the state that spend less per people than we do. So, that that that is evidence that trying to just find efficiencies in this budget is not going to be a realistic solution. I'm not saying we don't we look for them all the time, but it's not going to be a solution um to say significantly lowering taxes. Um so it's it's really a conversation of we know where we are um with our spending. We know that from an efficiency model we are dead last well not from it's an efficiency model that they do the per people spending and we know that ours is dead last in our DUI and there's only 10 towns that that

157spend less than we do. Um so that that's information that I think is important context. So, while someone might hear you talking about a 7.91% increase and then they mention towns like these that were mentioned and others and you say, "Well, but they're only, you know, they're only proposing a 5% increase um in their budget. Why would we be 791?" Well, it that is why. And then also on that slide seven, using those same towns, um you would also have to look at enrollment. So, a district that's growing is going to have a higher percentage increase and a district that is declining um may be able to reinvest those funds or they may be able to lower their budgets. uh those three towns which I think is very telling during 2015 to 2024 Simsbury decreased

158by 63 students Avon decreased by 193 students Glastonbury decreased by 373 students and South Windsor increased by 969 during that same time period. That's pretty staggering data to show that you can't just take these towns and compare, you know, our percentage increase for a budget. We're facing very different um context um in towns. So to your to your question, it is significant. You know, people might look at that list and see that we're at the at the bottom and we're only 18,000 in change. Um and they may not understand how much it would take to start matching others in those dur which is why we did that calculation. >> Yeah. And that's what I was getting at less about the percentages because they're so abstract like 7% six who knows. But when you say it's

159$10 million they're spending $10 million less than the next place up just on the students regardless of the facilities that all gets taken out of the equation. This is just student related stuff. That's impactful when we're talking about hiring a teacher for $60,000. >> Thank you. Yeah. And I think it is helpful when we're looking back at that the slide number eight. Um the next school above us is spending about $1,300ish per pupil more than we are. Like it's not it's not even close. It's not a couple dollars. It's not even $400 or $500. It's a that's a significant amount when you're talking per pupil. Um and I I agree for >> last place, right? >> If we could um but if we did want to be tied for last place, it would be illuminating

160to know what that looks like at least. I think if we could get an idea of that. Um any other Mr. Armstrong? Yeah, I think if we're going to get into philosophical discussions, which I love by the way, um [laughter] that I think the philosophical discussion of what we think, all of us, by the way, think is best for our kids versus what might easily pass the town council. >> That's another discussion to have. I mean, some might argue go that way. We, you know, but that that would be an interesting discussion to me on its own on its own merits. Yeah, I think there's a lot of different facets that we all need to consider. Um, and I know we will be considering them um tonight and tomorrow and Thursday until we get back

161here for more discussion. Um, so again, I want to thank everybody. I want to encourage everyone here like reach out if you want to reach out to any of us to talk for questions, reach out to Dr. Carter. You will not be bothering her. >> [laughter] >> Um, we want to make sure everyone is really comfortable and understanding all of this as we are going to have to make some potentially tough decisions. Um, so thank you again. Am I missing anything? We're good to go. Can I have a motion to adjourn? >> All in favor? >> I Heat. Heat.