Tolland Board of Education: March 22, 2023

001like I would like to um starter March 22nd meeting at 7 11 and we could please surprise for the pledge of the United States at this point do we have any um acknowledgments we did the art room the approval of agenda we already did make a couple last minute adjustments just we hadn't gone to the um 180 day proposal and also just the um promotion plan to speak about so we did do that 24 hours in advance just a heads up our board members so we can move to approval of relationship for the March Mayflower entertain a motion to approve the mortgage limits so we'll set in any discussion and we don't have any board members online right no okay all in favor can say aye aye I don't believe that was did you I'm

002gonna abstain you're gonna abstain I'm gonna say okay I wasn't there so okay so although like to abstain so we have a Christina Griffin and uh Jacob we'll have to do programs okay at this time I would like to do the public participation we will have two minutes and because these state your name and address for the record and uh Dr Willett will provide a two-minute timer online you could raise your yeah that would be greatly appreciated [Music] okay well yes because his um okay yes so uh the time if there's any further public participation please raise your hand if not I will close that out okay now let's move on to the Porsche funds report okay just a note the correspondent support covers both the March 8th and March 22nd meetings we had an

003email asking that board of education to look into staffing issues at Tom Middle School the author discusses the situation where the district has said to rely on a long-term substituted to fill a Science teaching position and the author also discusses a staff and change for a fellow middle school guidance counseling position we had an email in support of an LGBT policy that included personal testimony of a child's experience at all public schools we either had another email providing personal testimony of a transgender child's experience on public schools we had an email from a student concerning a recent change to the Felon Middle School bathroom all past policy we had an email in support of a 5.97 or the budget increase and an email advocating for a budget that supports our schools and asks Town leaders

004to do a careful analysis of the impact of their budget proposal thank you at this time we can open up the links of information for any board members if you're willing to speak at this time [Music] I just um Dr William didn't have a question about that bathroom on the pass did we find any information about them I I didn't find out anything yet I'm not happy is that just some concerning too yeah so that was one passed for odds of women yeah boxing is it connected to the slap boxing I think that's what the students thought there was an email that came out from Mrs Grande I'm sorry um there was an email that came out um for Mrs granny just um talking about you know another new one of those Trends called slap

005boxing that was happening in the bathroom with students um and to just have a conversation with your children about it and uh what happens you know if my student was aware of it and um said that I think teachers were trying to limit how many children were out in the hallways and in the bathrooms because this was happening so I don't know if that's fact I just I connected it to that right I'm aware of and I see all of the discipline things come across my desk from the entire history and I did see Zone about slap boxing that I didn't know there was a connection between Starbucks but there's some there might be they might limit access for a short span of time until they get something up results but still I I don't

006you know I don't think any child's been prevented from going to the bathroom if they needed it that type of thing that's not what that team even does thank you um yes because we've got one about the PJs and then yeah slapboxing apparently is boxing only opening yeah it's literally stuff it's our dinner night the other night let's move on to these two students do you want to go first um oh today for the juniors it was Sachi day so upstairs all blocked off if you had if you're a freshman had an upstairs Locker you could only go in the beginning of the day and then everyone else was at downstairs until fourth block which that everyone was allowed back upstairs it's classes removed and it went smoothly I think so another one um I

007do know that yesterday though Juniors had an advisory with their advisory teachers to help go over like to prep for SATs and I know we didn't go smoothly I know there was a lot of computer malfunctions but I think they worked it out because I think that's a keyword that was from what I've heard yeah they have so um the scene the upcoming seniors a week and two ago picked out their classes and are getting them confirmed now the upcoming Juniors AKA us picked out classes about a week ago and are starting to have meetings without counselors going over them and discussing them and um upcoming sophomores are obviously having them right now good like that so classes should be all picked in the upcoming weeks and then there'll be some discussion with parents counselors

008to confirm it is concerning though because the announcements they did say 35 of our class has not their classes and the deadline was a week ago so make sure you pick your classes and then on another note um spring Sports started um the locker room hectic we forgot girls and boys lacrosse girls and boys softball and baseball track girls and boys and Tennis girls and boys no I think that's it and it's a full swing it's very hectic I know there's games starting next week and I think even this weekend they're from scrurges and as much as I love hearing myself talk this is our last one because it is not a very busy week surprisingly but Mary Poppins did perform this past weekend I went saw it it was amazing and this was officially

009their highest attended uh show ever in Talent High School history so they were very excited about that and I hope that everyone who once had an awesome time and that's it any questions or comments can be directed towards us now I know I missed the Mary Poppins I'm so upset I love going to the and they heard that they had them it was excellent it was amazing you made her fly or whatever contractions I mean this was a good one too there was a lot of good food background interviews yeah spring Sports if anybody wants a lacrosse little card that they're doing for 25 let me know because I do have them um because they're trying to raise funds for the knitting around the fields that's what the lacrosse team it's one of the little

010cards different yeah coupons like percentage of different things did any lacrosse player should have them 25 dollars see like I mean in fact there yeah okay thank you ladies very much um I don't think there's anything else right okay let's go into the superintendence report what are you sitting room attendance Japan 12 hours okay all right ready so superintendent's items we have credit for you tonight excuse me the first one is uh what I'm very excited about um I do get to introduce to you Mr Galarza Espinoza um it's been a great pleasure to introduce him he's worked here for some time but um he's been elevated to ER you know a business officer he is um you know to give you a little uh lead into him and then you know you can talk

011for himself and obviously ask him things um prior to his life in finance operations he was a paraprofessional so he knows school districts and he's been involved at many levels and seen many things uh he was he worked at a Distillery so he's got a wide Broadband of experience he's doing their bookkeeping at The Distillery to begin um and he worked for the private sector worked for TJ Maxx um he's worked for payroll you know in the finance World payroll accounts payable accounting um he's always showing great leadership in this district and everywhere he's ever been has the 085 certification to be a business officer in Connecticut he's talented diplomatic Innovative he has made a lot of made a lot of things with the town very efficient and today love love working with here on

012Mr Claus says he's he's really helped to make the town and school connection extremely effective as well um in the payroll and bookkeeping roles he had in Prior districts he actually set up an electronic time keeping system that I'm asking him to look at for us here he trained all the staff to use it maintained amazing and excellent records he was promoted to a senior accountant he managed there as a senior accountant the payroll the budget projections the reports state and federal reporting there's one called 941 there's a whole bunch of them unemployment trb W-2s worked extensively with Auditors in fact he worked very extensively um with the Auditors in our case and I think when you do meet them when they come to the meeting on August 26th I'm sure they will be complimenting

013Mr galarz Espinoza they love working with him as does the town um and he's really forged and repaired on some of the relationships that I think needed that um he's an amazing team player he always goes above and beyond his extensive to detail and his expertise you know we we first found those uh as he became our financial accountant back in 2021 and everyone was full you know impressed by all of the work that he could do and it brought knowledge that he had and the leadership he took right away to really help with the town and otters and otherwise you know is working with the general fund and grants um you know he helped helped us with our self-funded programs uh he did you know reports that are not easy like the 8141 on

014end of year projects and Grant expenditure reports ADR closing entries you know um it was really something that the town and Lisa Hancock you know called over and said who do you have over this guy Iran is amazing and I said yes he is um that's why early on I did also mentioned to the board that became highly recommended from the town everybody at the Town feels that way and particularly Hancock you know if you ever feel like it asks her as a type of radius um he has helped us with accounts payable challenges um he helped us out during a vacancy period when we had someone who was sadly um very sick he really helped out ran all the AP and check runs to 1099s without incident I mean he has saved the day

015for us so many times he's helped their office innovate become more efficient he's gotten right into Infinite visions and he's trained staff and we're doing stuff on infinite Visions we were not doing before these but to diffuse some of the workloads to other people in the um in the office now and they were more capable because of him and so you know he's he's just super highly respected by everyone who works with him um and he came highly recommended by the Connecticut Association of school business officers independent consultant reviewed and highly recommended him and our chief Personnel officer also highly recommended him so you know he's one of the smartest most dedicated most Innovative and most capable business officers that I've ever known in the times I've been working in school so we're very fortunate

016to have him and that's my Preamble for foreign um I don't know if you have any questions for me I think now it's gonna be a good time do you have any questions or he's going to hang out oops for our next discussion which is a much less Pleasant one yeah such introductions he'll be here and then it seems the internet may have be back up if anybody wants to use it on their laptop in their room um this is I'm not going to transition us from that Wi-Fi because it'll cut everybody yeah no no no no it's fine I'm just splitting because I want to make sure Lisa gets her but I don't need to break up this conversation so any questions thank you go ahead so yeah again like Jaden said welcome aboard

017thank you I know it's belated but he's a welcome nevertheless um this is my question in this role what are some of your your big goals over the next couple of years um in the business office first right now I need to move the data straight from paper timesheet to electronic timesheet sometimes we have Asians with the paper timesheet um I had to deal with that before in the other business I'm looking to move the best Straight um to a paperless and keep and save them but the challenge is how I'm gonna accommodate that in the budget so we can do that then we can definitely move maybe for fy24 or fy25 because I think I can get the job done in three to six months so that's the biggest goal right now um I'm

018looking for a vision Series where I can spell for payroll I'm looking right now I'm covering the accounting position because we have to eliminate that position it was taken so I was willing to take over for the moment um so I'm looking for more efficiencies for my basically accounting position so that way I can cover the two positions in a timely manner so because I know for the audit we have a couple of recommendations for the closing entries and I'm currently working on that to avoid that issue from happening again thank you I just wanted to say welcome and um Dr William obviously spoke very highly of you so I'm looking forward to working with you at our finance meetings so Dr Willow this is seems like a good opportunity to delegate so we'll just

019keep keep pushing you to uh you know to say if Mr Eleanor Espinosa can maybe answer a lot of our questions at FFC that would probably be be a great help so we'll be more than happy to answer any question with me you know it's a detailed update report that we can talk about in detail about those over budget and all the other budget benefits that would be nice all right great thank you okay well welcome very much and in terms of the electronic I think that's fantastic because I've definitely been in the filling out the time card sheets with the little paper and I'm like oh boy this is you know so I definitely know that electronic timekeeping would be it would definitely help because to give you an idea sometimes we have employees

020with the same last name so which means sometimes you can process the payment for one for the wrong employee and I have that age before so with the time keeping system you're going to have an employee ID so even if we have two employees with the same name and even the last name they're gonna have a unique employee ID which is going to be connected with IV and when we process payroll we won't have that kind of issues anymore we're still back in the 80s from the way we do timesheets really oh it's it's we're not even doing punch clocks when you sub like it's a new really a piece of paper so what's your name on it you write the things down and you're like no I think Mr Garza espinoza's plans you know

021like you can use your thumb prints you can use your phone you can check in in a variety of way I would do Paychecks right that's what I have for my work and I had to thumb prints all that stuff and it's simple we just switched oh it's sweet I hate it paycheck Flex yes even though I'm fond of the 80s he's going to take us out of the 80s but like we do with the kids lunches right they they buy their lunch with their fingerprint like we could do payroll I mean I couldn't do things on that one like I couldn't agree so you got a great undertaking for you but like I said stay away from paychecks yeah a lot of issues if you can't you can't like time like clock in clock

022out you have problems so it doesn't just kind of goes around and around and around just like get you where you need to be but that's when people chopping okay let's go on to the budget reduction conversation okay so excuse me of course so what I tried to do is um I gave a couple of iterations we had a conversation about this in a prior meeting uh gave an updated version of it and this is my you know the the best effort that I could make today um you know again this is a summary or short summary at the top of the Town managers adjustments uh his proposed budget which um is a three percent for the board of bed we'll see the figures you know reflected on the left table erf utilization just to

023give everybody an update as to where we are in erf as actually uh yesterday at 6 58 15. um also this highlights the utilization that we would be uh making of it for this particular budget 228 for the technology initiative items um an offset of 276 six is at 5526 times are small but yeah basically it's 276 550 for transportation that would leave 153 450 465 or erf so we've already committed to the 228 The Proposal that I would be making to you tonight would be to commit the 276 650 for special ed transportation that would leave 153 465 um and what we've been trying to do is limit the amount of erf we're using so one of the ways that we did that was we actually looked at and this is a model that

024can be done and there's no problem with it and there's no problem in the audit with it um we have Services right now that are outside of our operating budget our food service program and our C program um we're looking around in other places they charge the programs for things that um that we do for them so one of the ways that we tried to recover some of the money here and offset the budget is by charging the FRC and charging food service for various programs various things that we do for that from accounting to other HR services that is completely allowed so this is the extent to which we could do it I didn't want to take that too far but we're able to offset our impact by 46 0488 by such charges um

025to be to be because of the first blue line on reduction thing yeah the amount of FRC I called it Revenue but that's really it's just charges that we're we're charging them from their their um you know from their budget so um the amount of reduction accounted for below is the remaining amount that had to be allocated as reductions that totals one million two thirty three five thirty six which equals the reduction of the Town manager 1 2 33 830 uh well sorry should be 536 there um in any case that bottom what I'm about to show you at the bottom is all of the stuff that gets upstairs okay so Transportation um went back to the company and they are willing to do a 9.5 percent in the first year instead of a 13

026which recovered eighty six thousand four thirty nine um erf offset would be about 273 170 273 173 76 reimbursement excess cost adjustment we're going to get a little bit more back in excess cost this year but it's not as much as was previously thought Kevin Chambers um we reached out to Kevin Chambers at the state and he articulated that it would be more like 76 which is equivalent to about 58 000. energy pricing and Diesel we're going to recover about 75 406 I'm eating about 45 about 90. uh nurse Sublime that we've talked about 21051 unemployment adjustment about thirteen nine sixteen state trooper Public Safety reduction of about 3 000 unemployment actually you know that's why it's minus so you'll see it go up and down a bit abis an elimination of the abis position

027at THS one of them in the fringe benefits elimination of a math Coach position um TMS THS and the benefits lead to THS map and the benefits the counselor was saved and so were the Librarians what we did was we took the offset you know we would hire at an ma7 level the counselor that we hired was a fairly high and you know was apparently expensive at about 88 we would be hiring an ma7 which would be much less so the differential between what we'd hire at what we were paying is 28067 so I tried to pick up a few dollars there and keep that position so in this in this most recent proposal we keep the counselor and we keep the librarian um so let's see why did I leave again okay um Team

028grade leader positions are still here that would be 199 305 uh ropera 19 185 and then the benefits custodian 45 764 and the benefits uh business teacher uh 56 498 and the benefits Child Development teacher I put that position back in because for a 0.5 position it's fairly costly um it's 57 548 um it's positioned plus the stipend um and that brings benefits that go with it and then moving a K2 teacher to a grant that we're going to get moving K2 teacher to an anticipated Grant a little bit of The Fringe goes over too so um we'll have a little bit we can save there all School individual contract employees next year would be limited to a one percent and that would save about 22 000. so between all of these mitigations we're able

029to get to the number of the 1.2 million um but that uh you know and we're able to recover the Librarians and were able to recover the council so this is my current proposal for the board um I'm using everything then frankly I can think of to to leverage for this I don't know um Mr Lars Espinoza do you have any thoughts on this either anything else to add yeah I don't have anything for the budget reductions questions huh just looking back at your proposed potential reductions back on February 1st we had like the Lexia subscription that wasn't used much for 20 000 and then it was the pole vault yeah 26. are those not on the table anymore no we took out the what was called supplemental reflex there's a there's different kinds of

030Lexia and we took Alexia already so that's already been removed and then the five jump pit thing I think is also part three and then the pole vault so now when did we because when we submitted our Board of vet budget I thought we didn't take anything out so I guess my question would be when did those things get reduced I I feel like they got reduced somewhere between the SPD and the Boe that's that was my recollection I don't think I could reduce and we'll put that the child care teach us child care like I think those were already like the ones that we had voted to them but I mean you know that would be 12. you know so I can go back and check it is that Lexia stuff is about 12.

031I was only 12 right I was looking at the 20 and then I was looking at the 12 volts of 26. [Music] we didn't take anything so the left so you're thinking back about what you did with child development it is 12 it is still there it's 12 000 it's still there we didn't take that in order to balance the Child Development so it is okay just I'm just about 12 000 there's a way we can do a couple like 10 000 here 10 000 there and maybe staying a position the Lexia was never officially out but it's about 12 um and what we what I've done here too is there's small items like shot clock is five you know um this isn't the final final and also read through the 12 and the five

032but what it'd probably do with that is I'll reduce our era if you think your erf and pack is basically a plug yeah and what I've done here is everything I can find I try to take our ER and at this point my goal is to take the erf and back down because you're we're just passing that burden on to next year anything we use the erf for we have to make up for next year so um we're still going through to find those little things we won't be able to put the shot clock in the end of your expense here that type of thing um and that 12 and that we're probably going to be between 20 and 40 more but I would take that out of the ER you know reduce erf with

033it now that that makes sense because I'll be honest with you seeing that era where it is makes me very nervous yeah my goal is now that we've got Librarians and Council back which is what I think people really I mean there was a lot of energy around it not that there's energy around that there isn't energy or another thing but those were the two big ones my goal was just to try to minimize that era because that's just next that's just going to hit us again next year as hard or harder yeah I'm just agree with Christine I think when we came on the board the erf was somewhere close to a million dollars like 900 000 didn't change and now it's well like this goes through would be under 200 000 so that's

034huge and you know the way this year is going are you gonna put away this you're like [Music] I thought very much so um yeah that that would be you know my ask if you would whatever we can do now just to Reserve that and maybe build it up a little bit that's where with your would you endorse that is where my interviews go it would just be to try to eliminate the the impact of that because if we aren't going to get any you know I there's an Arpin meeting tomorrow if nothing's happening from that side then the only real opposite you have is your own erf so I would be trying to lower that impact to the lowest possible point and the other thing is if you scroll all the way down in

035this document there are the previous things eliminated um I think that yeah it's like part so that that was just something to show you know show you that you know some of these I had made tables before so I put some clarification because the tables are slightly older and then the red kind of clarifies what changed because we had Child Development then we put it back then we took it out so there's some the red gives you what happened here but most of this is is exactly a stated um so you can kind of see if there's quite a bit of pulling out of stuff prior to even the stage you're at yeah and then the positions you know I included the narrative originally from the spb that talked about the other ones so that

036we don't forget we also did the piperas we did the you know the in Tech staff member for Valley steps teaching position FP um you know their Middle School uh the interventionists you know all of those things were already out that they sometimes because they're not listed in this people forget that we already they're already Staffing are expired today yeah and already many other Productions right so just so you know give a people perspective but this this would be what my team is right now at this time that's what we would be doing and then anything else you know that we can pull out um and uh Mr glasses knows and I've been working on that you know um shot clock came up today and we were thinking well I we could probably put that

037at the end you know can cover it here you know we're Frozen but you might be able to get that done at the end of this year and then by that small amount but again everything that we would be deducting now would be deducting from the Euros trying to get that usage down yeah that same sensible that's the way it looks like to be fine this year kind of but like even next year and you almost have to resolve not to use it in your budget just stop um was there any other updates on insurance and we need the council meetings and unfortunately I haven't had it well I've gone to the admission to Council meetings yeah there's a proposal right now although I I will explain it the way that I understand it and

038we'll see what happens tomorrow night because I'm not sure uh I have not had a chance to read anything today so there might have been some Communications on it today I did not see them but what was proposed um last night or the night before now altering is a kind of mission together um that an allocation from article could be made because our book can be used without operational you know expenses to be considered potentially one of those uh set aside would be um established and then the differential between what we typically spend on insurance and what the elevated Insurance amount is due to the claims that differential would be offset by the set aside each month so if we go over that amount let's just choose a number like 564 to 692. those aren't

039the exact numbers but let's just say the the new amount you know average was 692 or 698 our previous was 564. any month that went above 564 would be offset by the set aside so that then we could lower our insurance budget impact by that amount accordingly on whatever that amount would be you know and that set aside would prevent the board from having the impact of that 1.2 million however much they set aside is however much would be the doctor off of the differential so that impact would be uh you know less or much less depending on the amount and the board could reduce its budget accordingly um that's I think puts on the table for conversations tomorrow night at the arbor committee that's how I understand without having seen anything else on it

040and so if that happens you know if we got a two hundred thousand dollar offset and you could potentially restore 200 000 in that scenario you could choose to do yeah well I wouldn't I would just didn't even certain things but you could you know you could restore the Liaisons because people made comments about the liaisins you know uh or or something else in different stores but again the thing to keep in mind about that is um that may provide a temporary offset if insurance claims did end up being that high and did that was the new Norm then this this would be something that would happen again next year if that were to happen and then there wouldn't be all the money at that point so um it would be an offset would be

041hope that the trend is you know that the uh it's an anomaly and not a you know yeah which is a big concern yeah I'm so glad you mentioned Liaisons well you guys hadn't mentioned it at all so I just thought I'd bring it up because it didn't come up at all no um yes I just wanted to stress that point I'm extremely concerned with that I'm not okay with that um as my no problem my number one thing on this list right now um I would hold the entire board would be considering that um we had a board member respond to a community and us talking about um worried about staff issues and staff retention and things that are in and outside of our control this is inside our control um and I do

042think that this is going to be a very big issue for us I'm still not clear about how these the things that our team leads do which I think I gave as much of a highlight as I include a couple meetings ago I'm not sure where those things are going to fall I'm not clear on how that's going to affect our negotiations again we're going into we're doing pairs right now we're going into teachers again this summer um you know a couple years administrators will be back up so not sure where those responsibilities are all going to lay out they don't see how one we're going to keep our great teachers two we're going to keep attracting Talent with removing things like this and three we're going to avoid that you know having an issue

043in our upcoming negotiations and then I had one other question the K-2 teacher to an anticipated Grant how long would that Grant cover that position one year so we'd be worrying about it again most of these things you will probably do do I need to work through so that's a concern as well I will say too though as a balanced that um you know I take advantage of every brand I see I did see another one drop for a step I have no idea whether they're going to get that or not I'll not be in a timeline enough to take this decision there is one more I can go after for another sap offset and I will go after it um in the process of working on it now but it won't we won't know

044in this timeline I'm not gonna throw something out there because um you know there there's a lot of reasons why that like child development class just truly just hits home for me um I'm still very concerned about that because I still feel as though like I'm trying to find the right word so it doesn't come out wrong but you know it is a predominantly I would assume a female student class that people are taking you know they're they're aspiring to become teachers child care workers a parent like that it's just essentially I feel like that course is not just an internship like it shouldn't be it's it's teaching a life skill to these students and I just that's what I I really am I'm having a very hard time with that so so I know

045Liaisons is one of them but that child care development is something that I still feel like we should not be losing I feel like we're still helping a lot of students with that and I feel it's a disservice not having that as an actual educational instruction versus a credit so so having a really tough time with that um even with this the ma7 higher for TMS are we going to even be able to find anyone for that like what what are the real realistic I mean we have a hard time getting people in and staying paying what we are is it realistic that we're going to be able to get uh I wrote it down but ma7 higher what you know it's realistic but it's not not at all you know 100 percent um for

046instance we have our new staff right now that are in the mh3ma7 zone so it's possible it's just a matter of who's out there if we are able to get on top of that right now um then you know start posting for it right now we have I would say we have our reasonable you know reasonably um optimistic chance of doing that because we would be posting in March April May June and we have a number of months to post before we start right and if we waited on that until mid-summer to post then we would probably have a problem the Market's not huge for any educator position right now it's very very hard and um it is very competitive and it's on their side you know they they call the shots a lot of

047times or wherever they're coming you know so um you know it's it's just a way of keeping that that position and I think we could fill it because we're starting lunch yeah I mean I just feel like there's so much here I mean even the Liaisons I mean I I've definitely agree with that that there are a lot of teachers that rely on that and it gives them the chance to voice their opinions and work through what they have and I just think that that's still something that's like super important but I do know like the insurance piece you know I do feel as though we have to get more in depth with it and find out what's happening because that is a huge chunk of the budget and I feel like something we have

048to be able to do something before we're looking at cutting all the staffs and going after like I just there has to be something I just think you know whether we have a whole meeting just in terms of how it works I mean I know um the town council meeting on Monday I just want to say Monday it was Monday um Murray had said that she would like a little bit more understanding as well of it wasn't pays in for the town side board side so I think that we really should have that information to be able to say you know is this really the best case scenario for us I you know I'm sorry but I just I can't say okay don't worry about the insurance and okay let's just make all these Cuts

049I just I have a very tough time with that well there's four members of the Arthur committee and so oh you know they'd have to have three out of the four vote in in favor of don't even be opposite so um I guess uh representative or Miss nichio Ryan moldy Lisa Hancock okay 4 30. and it was Lisa Hancock's and Brian police suggestion to do to do so correct I think yeah um so that'll be how that gets handled that's voted down or if it's a splint and I think I mean obviously people are going to be rejected but I think even to two it has to be the best yeah because I know that you had written in about the insurance piece but I didn't talk too much of Mr Foley about the insurance

050and that didn't last me I was told no so I'm surprised as far as a reserve as far as on assign fund balance as far as article running so I'm actually very surprised that that is on the table I was told that this was our Board of Ed share a lot of it had to do with a couple years of that kind of being our savior if you all remember the past couple years that always was kind of to stay here at the end so it's just not been funded as much as it needed to be so that was that was my impression so whether something's changed I'm not sure because I actually do talk to him it was probably close to two weeks ago now um so I don't know because my understanding also

051with arpa is it was it's not for recovering expenses and I don't think we can prove that this and even if this insurance is a blip we can't prove that it's too much of an unknown so that was my impression why something like R5 couldn't even be considered for it so I'm not really sure where that meeting is going tomorrow um but that was what I was basically told so not sure thank you for asking those questions which I really did try yeah I did I I brought up I'm like surely there's there's not something somewhere I even said like even if we just earmark it but we don't touch it but then if we have to touch it we'll you know then we'll we'll put it through our operating budget sadly something you said

052influenced them amazing yeah maybe I don't know because I definitely walked out of that meeting feeling a little defeated but um but maybe again so I I guess I'm just saying this to you all because I don't want us to put all of our eggs in the arpa basket because I just I'm not seeing that truly as an answer but you never know stranger things have happened but I think you know Mr bowling made a comment last last night on Monday the most recent meeting um you know he said that the I'm not going to get it right but he said that the you know our lack of consensus for our vote um had an imprint on the decision he made working with the percentage so I do think that it sounds as if that

053we're all in line that we're looking for the town to help us in some way shape or form with this insurance team and looking for more information so I think you know you would hope that the consensus that we have there would maybe be influential in Supply and you know given like you said there are other options as well other than artha and exactly how you put it you don't necessarily have to use this money it can be earmar to make these kinds of detrimental Cuts with with the maybe wouldn't it be safer and better for the schools in the town if we so all what happened at least gave it this year before we did this to our education system so I think they still owe us a lot of answers and they owe

054us a lot of consideration and discussion on this you know it was briefly talked about in the meeting you know I know we've seen and heard these things like you have and and things on social media but really they should be having that discussion in that meeting tomorrow and then we should be hearing from that you know how many meetings are we going to have that seems like it doesn't make an impression on people's original feelings um either way but you know I I just I hope that they look into it I hope that they look into all of the different ways that they can and again thank you for having that session yeah I know I mean I know I also there was a comment kind of what we're going through on the Town

055Council saying that you know over educational system is failing but fine we can put more money to it but I don't think that that's being responsible I think that we need to ensure that our school systems are still up and running and that we're doing well and we're exceeding and we are doing the best that we can it's just that this stuff is going to impact I just want to see our school system go and fail like this one counselor had said in order to get help on funding and the big elephant in the room just a big price tag in the room is insurance and you know I think that without that we would be okay but is the fact that we have that like I said the big elephant price tag whatever you

056want to call it that no one wants to really talk about and maybe we need to make a different decision but you know what I'm saying like we just need to look at all options because now we're talking we're putting stem remember the students and what's already gone on here that we didn't even talk about was the interventionalist in the sixth grade that was already gone and you know even when people are talking about what we've had and what we don't for educational purposes that viable force and IEPs are not what they used to be they are not what they used to be we are skyrocketed in our elementary school so does that mean that we need pairs one to one in order to comply with regulations for the state for our students we can't

057just say we don't need these positions I mean this is an ongoing problem what was the percentage it was 30 something for elementary yeah that was 32 32 of our students right now right now and most of those women to grade one now and yeah we'll see what happens it's still that is 32 of our students that have IEPs and 504s which now means that our principals have to sit in conversations we have the pool teachers and conversations I mean it's not just this like piece of paper you sign and you're like okay you're good to go I mean you have meetings you have all this that did not like in the past 10 years that has changed that and education is not the same so we are looking at things that I mean even

058intervention that wasn't a thing when we were growing up that wasn't a thing 10 years ago and the interventionists help with the special ed boss because they you know perhaps just giving them a little bit of extra help will get them back on track so I I'm yes people get mad at me that I am very emotional about this and that's fine but this is the educational for our future of our students and our district and I'm not okay with this insurance piece like I really I'm I'm having a very tough time looking at this and being like I'm okay with this look I'm okay with letting all this go because it's not right we're not doing what's best for our students so that's sorry I get I get upset because I've seen it change

059I've seen what happens good so I guess my question would be are we going to develop a plan going forward to address this insurance expense because we're calling it a blimp fist here but what if we have a blip next year or in two years because the way I'm understanding it is we have this insurance lit our district meaning the school system is really not getting much out of budget let's be honest what there's no increase there's a blip actually our school system loses so I think we we also need to be proactive with the town about devising some sort of a plan Christine said this could be a recurring expense and so if we're going to be honest about it truly and call it a recurring expense then we need to develop a plan

060to to address that we recurrence best so that our district can flourish even if we have a blip yeah I mean what will happen is let's say your blood goes in perpetuity you won't get hit with the same payment increase next year but you want nothing to offer you won't be able to ask so you'll have to eat it um and then it it adjusts to the high a higher level of cost so it'll naturally adjust to the higher level of cost and live is it is not a win because you'll have to increase the costs and then that's what you'd be paying in perpetuity with the new it costs more you spend more and that would be hopefully that will not be in perpetuity um what I have seen is every three to four

061years you have some kind of high high Insurance since you started it's been you know on the third or fourth year I don't know why it's the third or fourth year but if you look back now you see these word and it goes down a little bit um you know your your program has has helped this District in this town massively so you have had um a really good experience with with each of overall um but yeah but that that concerned me though because if you say it's every three to four years then that becomes what a trend would be long term of three to four years so maybe we need to look at what we offer because what do we have for employees 400 yeah 418 what does the town have so then you

062figure if this is an insurance piece and are we offering all the same packages town and board like they pay the same deductible well so that conversation is a highly accomplished one it's been thrown out there like right you know let's just get them all on the same page well they're the teamsters we're seeing you know we're CSEA we have upsu csca tea and we have like three or four marketing units they have their own bargaining units um in exactly the same position because some of these bargaining units you know they are big and they have all kinds of influence and they also have um you have a lot of data and Sport somebody like your nurses don't have anyone you know so it's important to try to keep that in mind when we're bargaining

063with them because they don't have some big extreme powerful you know group behind them so these these blocks away yeah I would say you know I will we'll go find The Distillery that is here or anyone who can make that all a lot and that would be close to walking on water really to have all bargain units across the board and town alignment um so that might not ever really come to naps but you know having said that sure that would be awesome if there could um you know right now though you can see in our own um in our own our own experience that really what we're challenged by is you know we do have a lot of places that will come along and pay people more than we do so they go you

064know and that's we're in we're in the middle to Mid low range of what we you know it's a fair and competitive wage but it's not and you know once they're in for a few years it doesn't make sense to go anywhere but at the very beginning you know you can lose somebody you train um so it's not like they're getting a rich rich deal here and that's why you see some of the nutrition you see you know you've got to competitively bargain contracts with every unit here it's it's and I'm not saying that's not what I'm saying for the terms of pay and everything I just didn't know if we had 418 verses they're 50-ish which obviously they need us to do the town side because you put in such a self-funded people I

065mean you'd have to have fun no I think they said that they said they said it would cost two million dollars if they had to do it without us yeah and one of the meetings the question was asked and and they answered the yeah you know did it requires an entire unit meaning followed by all of the employees in order to funded yeah no I still go back to the regression and then you know how does it all breakdown we need to really start seeing what's happening especially every three to four years that just helps me that you know perhaps it needs to not be this huge bubble with whatever you want to call it it just there's I have a very hard time accepting the fact that these are the things that we have

066to do in order to do the insurance piece so being super high so I just yeah I mean in the industry lips happen to so no matter who you go with and how you do it with your lips and hurt them this blip you know I I argue this was an a this was a blip that was coming because every you know people put off their stuff and we'll put it off most of the things they were doing during covet and now they're doing them um yeah you didn't go get your cancer screening during covid so we have the people going to get their cancer screens now who didn't do it a year ago plus the people who would have done it now anyway and so you've got double the number of cancer identifications presumably

067so I I don't think this is completely out of whack with what we could have logically kind of seen and frankly you know because of the way that it has been managed so you you have had an excellent ability to respond to it because other places that are not you know self-insured just took the hip without any offset whatsoever I know some other districts that are in the 14 15 16 17 18 range that they're just eating the entire thing there's no offset whatsoever because they don't have any having fun to offset that they don't have any you know any mechanism so this goes way back to the time of Steve worthner this is really something that and I give him credit for the genius of it um you know and worked with the right

068people pulled it together and I kind of you know learned from him and so it works in the way that I thought and she just learned from him how to proceed in a way that's helpful to everyone um this has saved us many times and arguably has already saved some of the impact now the offset that's 16.14 is after 600 and 766 thousand we had that we had that to you so that that's not something we should just you know see that that was a pretty big thing so I'm just making a plug for you chip and the self-insurance has has helped so many times and helped here too we just have a terrible terrible for sure um so I just want to make sure everybody's doing okay about that because we'll be waiting on

069tomorrow's meeting at 4 30 to see what they RP meeting asked to say any other elements I do okay so I just want to confirm Librarians so what because on this list is not a complete running total there's other stuff there so all Librarians from all three all four schools are back in this list the counselor at TMS were just doing a different level right same with all intents and purposes the counselors is restored The Librarians are restored okay uh what we traded for that was Avis you know out of THS and we we we're charging FRC in food service for services okay and by doing that kind of thing we've lowered our erf usage the erf usage um without some of these changes would be 319 000 320 000. so we've got it down

070to about 270 000. probably can get that down to 250. my goal would be to get that down I I mean I don't want to put a figure out there because I don't want it to be like well together my goal would be to get that down as far as possible um so we're using is I I would not change this anymore at this point other than anything else that came back I would use the offset erf at this point so that's what I would do moving forward because that that's gonna this thing is just gonna hang on for next year and hit us so if I anything else that we find I would keep those the same and and bring your usage down so the stuff that's not on this list or the reductions

071that are not on this list is the reductions from your original proposed budget correct well there's yeah so that was already gone interventionist right you know that um you know Miss longwood's speaking about that's already gone okay the 1.5 pair is already gone the the etit between the 1.0 teacher gone all those are already out and that was back here so if you scroll back down to sort of the SPV one yeah I'm just trying to get my back narrative will give you all those positions that were already out plus we made icma opeb of course reimbursement these were already out and so there's an artist use Personnel positions right they're out already that's I would not I would highly recommend not adding back positions right now only because if you did for instance it's

072a difficult conversation you think you can't add it without taking something or escalating erf usage and and erf usage that just pushes it down the road the next year kind of thing um well I guess the big things that concern me is the the leader positions in the liaison so I know that's a big chunk that's two hundred thousand dollars I get it but it's Jen's done for all the points she said you know retention um you know team building negotiations coming up a lot of these are most senior tenured um qual you know very qualified you know high level there's a reason why they're in these positions to help get the next level of lead of our Educators up to be the next liaison so they you know what I mean they're the ones

073who are getting our anyways I I just I get concerned with that um I get concerned with the K2 teacher and I and I get it I mean we've always you you are a bulldog when it comes to attempting to get grants and stuff so okay I appreciate the creativeness with that um but I gotta get concerned because that was one of my questions Grant how long one year so now we're looking at hoping to find a grant again next year um and I don't want to just hang my hat on them and have all my eggs in one basket when it comes to this insurance piece but I think one is we need to hear the conversation tomorrow she was is hopefully you know some of us can be a part of that conversation

074whether it be correspondence or whatever I mean the fact that several people have talked to Chief Foley or who whomever else they've you know corresponded with to attempt to but I hate the word created because the reality is this is junk for our school system um we need to just support our school system and when I hear counselors saying like last night people don't listen to us people don't pay attention to what we're doing you know this has been our history our historicalism thing unless then I get it is it a hard work to to get the word out is it hard work to get people involved is the hard work too to educate people on what's going on and how this is truly impacting your kids I mean there's someone that I know in

075town that has four kids under the age of five and the first year I ran for board event she's like six months later she's like hey did you get the like she was blissfully happy with what was going on and I don't want to say you're hearing such a bad word she was trusting in what was happening but she's got four kids that are gonna go through her school system and she doesn't have she knows she doesn't know what's going on and it's so people that we need to help know what's going on and get involved in what's going on no matter what that level is um I think we need to have a conversation about this insurance that and see where that goes but as Sophia said we need to have some sort of

076set aside or allocation or preparation for business and non you know kind of like we were talking about the turf field we put some money in a kitty you know to create a savings or something I mean we definitely have to figure out this situation but then also not make it but also not begin a situation going forward we have the we can't just be figuring out the eleven dollar and scrambling can't be interactive so I don't know I'm not okay with any with any of these reductions but mostly the the ones that I mentioned specifically really makes sense I'll get back to you one question just one one quick question I probably asked this I don't think I reported in the questionnaire but where do the funds for the child care foreign s go

077um they go back but there's not a lot you know and we can also we can I mean I don't want to I don't want to I understand what you're saying and I don't want to take away the value of what you're saying you know um so that's a 57 000 program it's it's an MA that that is that 0.5 is as much as it would take to bring back the entire counselor but what were the funds you didn't answer my question well that's another modest amount yeah I'm gonna have to know I'm sure it's not much it's just not it won't it's not enough in anywhere near enough it may cover a tiny part of the stipended but it's just uh we can do it with an FRC I mean we can probably do

078this program one time FRC extension and covers a lot of that um I was just wondering where those funds um so I'm going to be the the pessimist the realist um I don't like any of this either as a lot of you know I ran for the Board of Ed because of men it's killing me that the math coach that we just put in is being taken out I just had somebody text me this morning asking me for the name of a pre-calc tutor so that is killing me but I think we also have the confident of the fact that we are going to have to take some of these out whether we like it or not we are going to have to kind of pick and choose the ones that have the least impact

079on the least number of students because let's face them we are just digging a bigger hole we have to come up with now the 500 000 that we're taking out of the ERS we had to come up with the um the teacher contract negotiations the parent negotiations the bus increase and we are probably I'm just kind of doing quick math we might be at six percent just for next year oh because I think we have some grants that are also done that we want to be able to bring back those positions that doesn't even include if there's an insurance list so I just want us to as painful as it is I think we need to still look at some of these things and we're going to have to make some tough decisions and it's

080thanks but I just you know we have to think a little bit about the future that era was great when it was 900 something thousand but we have just depleted that that was our you know catch-all for our Chromebooks for our laptops for our Promethean boards it's it's gone so I I know how difficult it is I I hear you with the tackle development class and the business teacher even that I'm like oh my gosh of all things but I just think we need to look at some of these things and figure out what will impact the least amount of students I kind of you know liken it to when the power goes out of town you know how eversource decides who gets fixed first it's who it will affect the most number of houses

081but I think we just need to look at that it's awful I get it I don't want to see any positions I'm glad we're bringing back the Librarians and I'm certainly glad about the counselor I know a lot of you are very passionate about the Rope but I think the counselor would keep the skills for adolescents is that correct Dr Willett so I think we have to look at it as an offset even though I understand we want it we wanted both I think we just have to so I'm just kind of looking at it from a future perspective I mean to get everything back that we could potentially or to the budget from next year particularly to 25 just to bring everything back we're looking at some really high numbers so I I I

082hate to say it but I think we need to make some tough decisions this year and then hopefully next year we'll even out maybe we'll get lucky with the insurance but there's just no guarantee it is scary to see erf being down 153. that's like painful to me but that it's real that was always our that was our rainy day fund our emergency money and that that's it's hard and we did a lot of finagling if you will during those two Kobe Years to you know really bring that up and like Jacob said when we get 30 out of the nine thousand what's left over because I mean we do have a budget freeze going right now that's a spell who really what what goes in there thirty dollars we can't rely on anything I

083was like um I'm going to be a realist and I'm going to say that I understand that there's a lot of things and we're going to need to take into consideration we're going to have to make hard decisions we pre-invested and that's why we're here um but the team and grade leader positions and the curriculum Liaisons it's not something that I'm willing to take up to the TMS counselor whatever level it might be it's not something I'm going to do I think utilizing your resources I.E having conversations with the town are you having conversations about the alpha funds by you having a conversation about other funds there is a possibility I've seen them do them moving money around and using different funds for different things when things have to happen it's you know people you

084know say that Dr Willett does magic with his budget sometimes when he's got to deal with certain numbers I think the challenge needs to assist us with some magic and I think there's opportunity in accounts and places specifically the same arpa fund and I think that yes we're going to have to make tough decisions yes do I like seeing the custodian gone the brokera the leap Mass the fringement none of the the abists it's not like any of the other ones that you gave us prior to that but we still need to have conversations about it and as I was saying before you know that that's conversation happened didn't get to finish what I was saying was that so like Sophia said we need to create a game plan of preparing to budget and set

085aside money for it this blip or something else comes up in the future so we are not blindsided and we're not stuck in this position of having this sitting conversation that's right I have a question based on what Christine was just saying you know thinking about what next year is going to be like if our insurance number was the typical insurance number what can you roughly what percentage increase would we be asking I mean that was a big driver of six percent right well I mean 1.2 million is you look at 400 000 roughly as a percent so so like three percent of your budget is sure right so without that without the blood we'd be around three percent of an increase right so should the insurance not happening should it be a blip and

086should that not happen again all things relative we would be looking at three percent roughly yeah 2.96 right okay and then I kind of took part of what Sophia was saying as almost this could happen again something else could happen again I took it almost as if she was part of it was that you were saying it's unfortunate that when something happens to us there's no help being given it's just you need to cut positions that's what I like there will be other things there will be other things for the other departments as well why aren't we being provided help in our time of needing we're all supposed to be working together it's a town that school verse 10 verse Public Safety is all together was that oh yes I definitely feel that way and

087I definitely feel that it's just so unfortunate that we can't grow or even fun adequately because of a blitz and the split could happen again even if it's a typical situation then we know what could happen again in three years so are we saying three years from now you know 2026 we're gonna have to cut right so it's not just getting creative or doing the best we can our school district should be back our school district should be doing awesome be more than creative funding things to the to the maximum to so that everyone can flourish that's that's what I would want for I think that's what we all want University for our school system and it's just so unfortunate that we are we are not able to provide you the funds Dr Willett to

088make our district flourish and I think that's what's we're all feeling so sad about which I'm not crying about it I'm just saying that it's just so unfortunate in that this could happen in three years and then we'll be cutting for years because of an insurance but not because something went awry or that's that's all but I guess my question would be is what is the next steps what are the next steps 4 30 tomorrow meeting yeah yes and then after that then we are we doing what Christine said and kind of seeing what positions or what cuts are the most impactful and kind of prioritizing that way which I think is absolutely fair and reasonable I think before that we need Town Council to look at some of the other funds that Christine mentioned

089as well there's other ways to help besides what starts again so that make sure they lose figure out tax stabilization I'm not touching that one because I agree with the town on the other side that's different and they're outside stabilization I think I threw at arpa and then I didn't really have anything specific I just said surely there's some some fun somewhere um and like I said I was more focused on can you just earmark it for us if we have to touch it we'll deal with it at that point but if you don't yay you know but so I'd like Our Town Council to have those discussions thoroughly before we start making Cuts oh I I 100 agree with that um thoroughly because like I said to look at this and it's like you

090know I don't think anyone loves us or well this is wonderful you know yay go Talent you know I I just think that that Conversation Piece really does need to be need to be had fully to the full extent of what we could do like I said I just felt like watching that meeting on Monday like they haven't been shooting even with the joint meeting with what we are saying and what we're doing I just feel like it was let us know your thoughts and I felt a little where have you been in the almost four years that we've been on board have you ever felt differently about that just saying it's true it's true it really is for me it's true but it's just that when you have such a piece of heavily dependent

091on what they can choose to do it just kind of slipper and kick trying to put it nicely sorry yeah I I think everything that I wanted to say has been said tonight um this just feels when I was you know 18 19 I went out of high school watching The Border band meetings began I heard the term kicking it down the road so much and this this the first line of this of this document Dr Miller provided us for the transportation changing 13 first year to night and a half next year and then 8.75 and then five percent years after instead of Thirteen five and five and so that is the definition of kicking it again down the road um and so but that's I mean that is just one example out of out

092of how many edits are here um so again I think everything that I want to say has been said tonight um this is not I don't think this is a um realistic solution realistic budget for our school system ending in the you know fiscal year in 2013. so um that's all I uh so tune in tomorrow um 4 30 after I'm assuming it's not a completion meeting that we can log in so we could just get a update to Dr Willett on the dashboard that would be greatly appreciate it just keep in mind that you don't meet again until August April 26th meeting Wednesday for the purpose of of Tim's principalship but I would have to forward with adjusting our budget probably before April 27th because we have to be speaking to that in town

093meetings and all that um so you know what what I would be assuming right now is I would be taking everything that I've listed and if I get anything back I'm moving it and reducing era so for instance um you know to reference some of the we may actually be able to take 13 more from if there's no childhood development program we might actually be able to get a little bit more out of that one and if I did get a little bit more out of that one as a reduction and I would reduce CRM syntax the impact on the era so any anything else we got that we found would take era down that that would be my operating my order you know my marching orders to replenish the era everything we got there

094and if anything comes up that we can move or move over I would use the RF I would replenish erf or make that impact on the RF less and I would report it out on the dashboard so regardless then you're saying that these positions and everything that's on here next time if well I mean we don't know what tomorrow will be you know if tomorrow happens then you can tell me what to do if tomorrow happens favorably but I'm saying it tomorrow did not let's just take that scenario let's say it's a split Vote or a download and what I would do is off steady ramp with anything you know shot clock yeah you know Alexia you know try to get ERS you know low as possible because we rely on that specialized Transportation Tech

095you know those are the three categories and we've seen a lot of fluctuations in special Edmonds scare me and that would be the place we would go if there was some old bridge in fact that is what we were using it we're here you had a very high impact was special ed and we are using era to mitigate it as it was designed I would like to see that be possible in the future so that's why I would anything new that came in the biggest things that were talked about were like Librarians you know the counselor we've got that back in and now we want to you know lower the impact for next and lowering the our Amplified so Jaden has seen an episode what's so in that case what's the end goal for the

096year after what point that what number do you get to where you say okay we're comfortable taking care of it and then we build it back up this is obviously that needs to be a part of the plan uh in in budgeting for you know the insurance piece and so it's more than just the insurance also if we're going to build that yeah how much of it you know per budget um over the next three years and then we run into insurance so um that's my question I don't know if that's a Christine question or Dr Willett um what's the ultimate end goal or yeah where you're at well I mean if you have anything you ever have left over we would want to transfer to era correct like we had eight or nine thousand

097last year you know we want to make that request transference erf was built up during a time that will very likely never or very well never enough there'll be no probability that it happens again we had 17 18 and 1819 these weird insane state budget years there was money that you could move over we didn't have a budget until November we could spend until February it was really screwed up time the erf was you know there was money pushed into the erf during that time and then subsequent that some of the you know covet stuff Transportation money and other things and that we were able to leverage because the buses around but in a typical year it'll be more like the nine or the 10. we won't be moving tons of money which is why

098you know we want to make sure that you know we're careful about it now you know um and you know that's actually what people generally expect they don't expect you to pass a budget so you can throw a lot of money in ARF you know that's generally the expectation but erf just like the town let's sign an unassigned fund balances you know they can put some money in there when they have some money at the end so quickly into our erm it's as we can but it will probably never be at the chunks we were able to do in the last five to ten years that was unusual massively unusual for some of those years thank you yeah I was just gonna to answer James question it's gonna take us a very very much to

099get back where we were unless there's another pandemic which um but um I personally would love to see that it end at like 250 000 I feel like that's just a little bit more of a comfort level but I don't know if we can get to that point if you know based on what we are but um just to understand the timeline so the council is going to vote on Tuesday so we don't actually know where the council is going to land until Tuesday so yeah when do we have to you don't have to really finalize really because anything is the referendum too but even 10-6 is I think Beyond most of the they start having Town meetings okay what the budget is generally people want to know where what's in and what's up what

100that's what I'm saying unless you know you have major questions it's next week yeah yeah it's next week then they said it then the next iteration is the referendum in May and you know by then we can no longer make public statements Advocate that type of thing on budget um although I have the 29th at the budget is finalized on so that's that's Wednesday Wednesday okay so they're meeting on a Wednesday they're meeting when we do the principal interview oh okay so just to also understand so everything that's on this list right now is what's on the table if somehow never know arba or some other Town money comes through would the liaison positions it sounds like just figure this would be would be the one thing that but I mean it would have to

101almost I would feel like be like 000 to come back that we could then save the Liaisons and put a hundred yeah if I could have something tonight something if I could have something tonight that you could tell me if we got our product where you'd want me to put that yeah that would be helpful because we you won't meet again for a month and a lot of stuff so I can switch on that so like let's say you said hey if you get 200 put the Liaisons and the team leaders back right now then that's what I'll do that would be wonderful if I could walk away with that you know otherwise we're in this really we're in London Ray and then I'll have to be making determinations and you know if there's no

102money then yeah that's it okay with the understanding that everywhere little chunk I get you know uh world of arms just knows that I talk a lot you know we'll look at like culinary these other areas and look at me maybe there's a little more out of Child Development because there's nobody over there because it's two hundred thousand for the team leads leader positions of curriculum liaison is there a way we could restructure that to make it still work but yet not have such a high thank you as bad well I mean if you're putting them back you'd put back there's Liaisons to the high school and then there's grade in team leaders at the KA level so regardless and so I wouldn't vote him back in piecemeal because I was just it's the question

103you have your handle yeah um I don't know I just think that it's we could give you some advice tonight my my opinion is that without knowing exactly what the council is going to do and how much we may get back but she may get no money back but like it's I don't know yeah I'm trying to think in my head I mean I I you know you don't want to wait till it we have we have oh that's right April vacation that's why we had to cancel Sun meeting but maybe we meet the fit before going on vacation because that's a week after they finalize the budget I would prefer to do that and people are available I think that's a good idea I think we really need to see if the arpo does

104anything and what if the tone Council adds right you know we can have this discussion all day long maybe we don't it doesn't need to be quite this painful I guess with my point no that's what I'm saying that maybe we do that Wednesday because we were I know we're talking about you know whether or not we needed a meeting but maybe we just add that on that Wednesday April 5th and we essentially purely make it a budget so that you know because that impact everyone too long from this budget um and so we can do that so uh Dr well if you could um pencil that in yeah let's do that and we'll have to find out what role we can even go to where is all available but I just wanted I I

105feel like what Jaden was asking and there was a piece about Christine asking about the era I wouldn't want to agree to say anything that we get is just going into ERS I think Jaden was maybe asking what's the cap on that you know you know what's this no I mean others that step on point Oh I thought you were saying anything that the town okay okay got it okay um and then secondly I don't think it's a good idea if we start picking stuff out because we've got you know some people paying attention and what if then it goes back to the meeting that we only need two hundred thousand to save Liaisons or we only need 45 000 same channels if there's any counselors that are listening members I love what Steve did

106well looking at the list I think we need to see what the Town Council talks about and votes on because I just know they're going to try to come up with every option they can because they have the heart for our students they want to sit in this room and look at the beautiful artwork and think we want to provide for our students I mean I'm good with that part of yourself yes technical difficulties but I will acceptable difficulties yeah so um was pencil in April 5th we'll have a meeting purely budget and go from there right before vacation see we're gonna go with great news from our wonderful counselors who are going to support our Educational Systems um Child Care thing so that doesn't displace our preschool program it just displaced the the high

107school students learning when those are little kids that would sign up for that won't be able to do it but we have a lot of preschoolers they could do different preschool options with it yeah we could probably create a similar program with a different structure that was managed by the airports and would that be still in the THS building what would that be really good dude that's a lot of Real Estate but we would be able to do that and it would not be as expensive in a different capacity yeah it would be a similar and it becomes an internship right so but I guess my question and I get that I get that part of the students but I was talking about the preschool students themselves what's happening with them with the program and

108you're saying there's alternate there's other Prova available programs that we offer in town that pursue teenagers okay you know like they're not going there they actually had we offer other options I think it's just kind of well because I guess the pack the road I'm going down an emerging a snowball effect the road I'm going down is there's a lot of real estate in the high school that's slated for this preschool program that has the playscape that has the preschool room and all of that like I go to the FRC at GIS which granted they do a phenomenal job with the old home at classroom um there but that's a lot of real estate that could be utilize for other programs in the high school like if we're not going to use it for that

109preschool because if it's actually displacing those preschool students to reallocate them into other preschool programs within the district oh absolutely I mean we definitely can with steam initiatives for instance uh we are right we're in the process right now and I don't want to say too much about it because they don't want to say it and not get it but there is a possibility that we could receive a relatively needy steam Grant and we would be able to create a uh you know special spaces that have um kind of like the Yukon Engineering Building UConn has a special space for over you know to engage in experimental activity and all of that we could retrograde this exactly so it wouldn't be like just dead space and to no we would never leave anything however having

110said that we can probably you know take me a little while but we could get going another version of a child program and that it just wouldn't thank you as with the FRC managed and it would be done as an inter internship well then in theory you could charge the FRC and have more money yeah yeah and you know again to the credit of the district and you know people that Innovative that work for you um you know it's because we have these self-rounded programs that we're even able to harvest that 50 you know forty six dollars those are the things that are adding back to us versus some of the things that we just have to proportionately decide and everything is valuable but in proportion you know but we have to look at all

111juxtaposed against itself and what's the least damaging well that's that's where I was getting so if if that ends up being an FRC program the amount of food FRC Services Revenue could in theory increase yeah credit to the district right but I mean I'm not looking to to terminate a position so that I can get more money after searing no I'm not getting this it's just I'm just trying to think about how we can reallocate it yeah and I look at it I think the the staff is wonderful amazing individual um but the um the amount of students served by it when there's an alternative for the amount of money it's just you know given that you might have to take some other position it's a one pointer but you know you might have to

112take a full FTE for the cost of death so so like my question is is not only the program it's not about limiting the program is an educator is going to be displaced as well as students are going to be displaced as well as the useful so it's not just a program itself like it's a it's real estate I'm just saying all the different things that snowball from removing the program that's all I just want to make sure we knew the gravity of removing the program that's right all right let's uh close this off and let's go to um the update on the greens guys and I don't know um because I know that you're not feeling quite well so if you don't want to stay more than leave us and we won't feel bad

113before I leave if you have any other question for me um I mean I can take it another five ten minutes to be honest with any questions any other questions for him oh welcome yeah thank you for coming yeah I think I'm coming back in June you have to do the financial report for the end of the year yeah five in-depth deep Dives we'll be bringing this so that would be in basically three months almost three months from now so if you have any questions in the meantime just reach out to us and I would be happy to answer any questions because I don't want to wait three months you know to answer any other questions because that's going to be a lot of expert pretty much so thank you absolutely thank you thank you

114okay green Sky solar project and use a second yeah Switching gears for the preschool students but it's not as if something but they don't get anywhere near the number of hours so I know like the churches I've ever seen all day you know basically everywhere say that again like it's probably two hours of classes versus yes um yeah like they would have maybe a couple of hours yeah so I understand some kind of families [Music] all right um okay so the next thing on the agenda here is the green Skies um so everybody gets you remember well green Skies Titan gen generally the same thing not same company but the same um same in terms of uh what we've been talking about green Skies is a Solar Company that Titan gen ended up mining so

115just as a kind of rewind on history and remember the around September we brought um the green Skies presentation affc FFC you know heard it asked some questions bumped it to Board of Ed um November 17th and we had a discussion about it and um you know there was a motion to uh have you seek a no obligation you know personal so proposal proposal from Titan gen um so we proceeded in order to do that January 25th um about again Titan gen to the board um they did a full presentation talked about the results behind the meter in front of them made of the site and plans and suggestion timeline at the time you know talked about you know what this might look like um you know how they would uh you know go about

116an mou and that type of thing and so where we are now is that we have proceeded to um you know get the um the Moa or mou are n res to start the process um and you know that that had to be done by a certain timeline so we could be eligible to even be part of the bid process so at this point you know we did do that um both uh Town manager Brian Foley and I signed it to move it forward you're not committed to anything yet but we moved it forward so we could be involved in that bit um so the option agreement was a necessary part of letting them know that they had or would have some site control otherwise they won't even engage with us at all because they

117have to have some site control and just lets the contractor know they would have a right to use the property if we you know went with that um and so that's basically where we're at with that the green Skies company has submitted the project bids to eversource we're waiting to see the results and uh if our project would be selected we should know about April 14th if I hadn't tried to move it forward we wouldn't have a chance to even try again until after August so you know it was in our best interest to at least see if selected and this is where it's a little tricky um you know we would have 10 business days to sign the Tariff agreement and finalize the license um and then we have our power purchase agreement so

118that would be I would intend obviously to bring those to the board so if we're selected I would need to get those to you um now the 14th you know we will know on or about so if you consider 10 days that's still the April 26th you know that that board meeting I might have to ask you for a special meeting it could be that it is on that meeting that we can describe it because we may not know I might I doubt that we're going to know exactly on the 14th it's probably going to be sometime after that so it's possible that I could bring this to you on the 26th or whatever but the way these things work um it's not like you get first you know you're going to have to know

119about it and then move forward with it within a shorter span of time so the timeline would be tough you could say no way if you do we can't reapply again for another year you know it's by meter so the meters that we applied to engage it to you know in this with we would not be able to apply for yet another year so that's that's going to be the tricky part uh but it is approved the PPA will be ready um shipping and Goodwin is working with us not for not least excellent um who's already we've already started talking about this PPA so I could probably put the PPA in front of you before um any of this happens uh he has negotiated many of these so who knows what to be asking for

120to cut to the Chase and we're in that process right now as soon as I have a draft PPA with our information in it I'll put it on the dashboard so you can see it prior to this um occurring if it were to happen um I'm also going to put the nres up there but that's basically just saying we get you know we're willing to give them site control if they get this um and so you know this this is a this is beneficial for us if we were able to move forward with it we'll just have to see if we can actually have that option um but if we don't take it we're parked for a year and do it again for the year so this is more of an update for you there's

121no action right now um the yellow U is at the bottom it's linked it's called an enres and so you'll see basically there's certain areas that aren't signed because it's not line to sign for those Sparks but this this part here both um I signed it Town manager signed it um so that we could at least get this move forward and then once this goes through that we still get more information before we actually vote though even though you will it'll be uh and this is available to you you can see it um I'll post it to the dashboard but um you will but it is going to be fast it's a it's a fast turnaround but it's not going to be different than what you've already seen I mean we would have a return

122um and this is how these things are really it's not really when I was talking to him this is important good stuff if you want to go solar this is what you're going to be doing and green Skies is a good company guys they go and if you wanted to oh well also a little extra flavor there the meeting would have to be would probably be an executive session because we'd be talking about uh contractual and so I would invite Matt ranelli and you could ask him a bunch of questions but the next meeting we'd have on this if we're accepted would be to look at the PPA and I would ask Matt ranelli to come and you'd have an executive session and you could ask him anything you want and that in cocking with

123him these are this is not an uncommon thing right now he's done many of these agreements any questions yeah just a timeline question um is it possible and I think you might mention this is it possible that it's determined before April 5th or April what would it have to be April 3rd technically to provide 24-hour notice uh is it possible that it would be done by then or no to be between 46. um I apologize if I spent on April 3rd you will not get an answer from these people until probably on or about April 14. and then we would have 10 days so that's why I'm saying honor about it won't be as early as I I don't I have not been given the reason to believe by anyone it would be as early

124as difficult word um but you did by the way I'm just uh but but it's uh yeah this this the most poignant and most difficult part about it is that it's a fast kind of turnaround once it's once we've received it once we get the deal so to speak and we are going to need to you know get that PPA sign now because I mean it is good news that Matt's very experienced with this he's done this many times green Skies a good company he knows what he's doing so the PBA we have the advantage of a guy who's written a lot of ppas and knows how to cut through the stuff um and you can ask them whatever you want you know you'll be happy to discuss it I've felt good about this I

125wouldn't have gone this far if I didn't feel good about this because we did go through quite a process to get here so I am I'm convinced this could have a benefit to your district and I'm also convinced the green Skies is a good company to work with so otherwise I would have bailed on this and not even gone this far you got even you're in a decent position here if we're able to move this forward so we had to do a lot of stuff really fast and get here so we're in a good place it's just I don't know what the when the next when that comes I'm gonna have to reach out to you all and say you know we got this timeline we got to come back together April could be a

126busy month yep I'm just gonna throw it out there we do have FFC on April 19th so I don't know since four of us probably already have that on our calendar perhaps we could do an executive session right after if the book if it ends up falling that we can't wait until the April 26th [Music] um is it and business days or 10 calendar days this is 10 business days business days yeah it's a little more okay yeah that gives you to the 26th but not a whole lot of room and what else anyone else let's move on to the aasba all right um so this is just to let you know you know they give you this kind of boilerplate um this is you know to notify people if you wanted to do a

127press release or something but basically it just lets you know that you know the program has been completely successful so you may recall that we invested in this program that I would be doing it over a two whatever two to three year period and so I completed that program I have the national certification um and you know and this is their letter to to let you know how many months you know actually I will listen to two years um you know I'm not I don't want to try to look like I'm doing my own hair but stay building and managing you know some of these things that they talk about if yes I'm doing already um but that uh it was a good program there was a lot learned a lot of people interact with

128the superintendents across the United States a lot of work that you do a lot of work we did a Capstone project um how do you find the time seriously it was difficult to find the time it was it was a lot of work yeah so what do you walk away with well one thing that you're just gonna say that three minutes or less you know what but it's like you know energies in the country New England is far in advance a lot of places in England education in New England is very good compared to education and a lot of other places in the country so um you know that would be the number one thing is just recognizing that piece and it was we're fortunate we've got a lot of great stuff going on in

129England I recognized that some of the things that people use for data in other areas of the country are kind of interesting you know they'll claim success on certain things but um you know to me the the data is very very anecdotal um the requirements in other areas of the country are not quite as um you know um not as quite quite as strong as they are here so we have we are expected to do a lot here that that not necessary not a lot of other states are expecting of their their education systems um so you know I suppose that's why you know you've got some great systems going on but you also have a lot of things we're required to do in some of these other places around um so that was interesting

130and in some places superintendents are elected they're elected officially you want to try it out yeah it's fine we'll get your signs so that is an interesting to see across the country how it's done um you know but it was good I mean you must have had a really a blast a whole room full of superintendents it's 35 years who's got the best Board of Education stories though [Music] um no it was uh I think you know the budgeting sessions are really good to people but um I'm sorry your question was specifically did you make your friends the early ones at the beginning of the 20 months were virtual then they went you know a person but I yeah that's right because you were supposed to go home yes you know other thing happened but

131um this one in person all right together um and you know a lot of elephants but we're we're actually dead I got yeah some friends that Nick Clements is a great person a great guy he was uh you know he was by a science but you know mentor and he's a good guy and I have a long he's we've established relationship that will continue for a long time and a lot of the other ones too but um I think overall you know it's just it did increase my capacity and abilities so it's good you know a lot of great stuff I can bring back to us for ideas about some things we can do that I'm going to be working into future agendas which teaches subcommittees there's some really great stuff I think we could

132do here that I saw in other places um but um but you have a great system I mean compared to other places in the country we're very fortunate about you know what happens here um and it is harder for some from our your workers because there's a lot of mandates here that actually also don't exist in other places so I mean it's just an interesting thing you know to see and to see the differences I just want to say just because we're fortunate in this area of the country doesn't mean that we're still not going to fight for a budget and will anyone to say oh and Dr Willett says we're so fortunate yeah I think he also said we're expected to do so much as well so yeah what was that about candidates you

133know your education systems do put a lot of people in a lot of good schools yes what's going on and in order to prepare to perpetuate that we need to need to properly run through yeah yeah there are places that are so bad that people can't even send their kids to public schools and they have to figure out how to spend money on Catholic schools or private schools because their public school system is just noticeable yeah yeah so a lot of great things I can bring back to us and I'll do so over the next coming year um and uh you know I did make a lot of connections listed that way um very very uh useful and it was great to be able to get that certification so that's nice too it was a

134very good program perfect congratulations yes congratulations now you know how those sat Acres we had to watch all of each other's Capstone videos so when do we when does your board get to see yours they I follow the rules you're supposed to do like a two minute you know like oh oh there was a time limit there was if you were under the time limit you should see how some of these other movies [Laughter] 18 minutes somebody did 48 minutes how fast was your Cadence pictures and it was really that the work you did during the sessions was most of it the Capstone was a flashy people at the end of it the work that was part of the session this was really good stuff so you will be sharing that one when you're born

135two minutes two minutes yeah I have to say I'm impressed yeah gross say that timer maybe came in handy yeah Lori okay any other comments yeah okay oh June 14th uh TMS promotion ceremony that we were just going to say that we did as we uh did in the past since that went to the same night that we will meet here at eight o'clock so that everyone has time to partake in the ceremony and then get back here in time worked out well yeah yeah well at least you had a little time to just uh get everyone situated and back here and then I think we should order a pizza yes are voting today on wmsb um it depends on every single one of you vote for Camillus on the WFSB all right you know

136I want my tacos which is the THS graduation well that was um I saw that right before all of the snow days which when this is the next precursor for our conversation of the 180 day conversation because that was already picked like what a week before I saw something on social media where's my calendar it's accessible once the high school graduation the fifth of the uh GMS is a fortune the last day of school's 15th if we do the 180 days otherwise you know but we have 182 on the calendar yeah the tea I talked to the tea they're the other piece they'd have to be willing they're willing so 215 is how many days June 15th it puts us under 180 100 if we go right now right now you're you're to 19. you

137do do that yes if you go back to 180 you're after 15. because what the conversation is for this by six of the 180 day combo if we want to end on actual the graduation day or we going to the 19th on that Monday speaking is a recent grad if my personal opinion is we avoid that Monday the 19th yeah um this is my opinion all right thank you all I heard was no no you listed um anyone wants to we could do um emotion abort action of doing this but we wanted to see what our goal and thought that 180 because you know I know they try to get the graduation date out there and of course with March we have of course had a nap so after they selected it and I thought

138to myself I saw that I said we're gonna get snow it was just too soon the snow rain Phantom snow how much money did we save by not going to school those two or three days buses and well because you do the normal number of days anyway you don't really save on snow days if you don't bow we may save a little going from 180 to you know 180 ones yeah yeah that's what I'm saying though but it's not a ton because you have to you still have to pay people you can't deprive them I mean I'll be honest there's no kids that are going to be coming back after they graduate like that's especially the 19th like you said that Monday like people are already gone well I think the seniors wouldn't have to

139come in on the 16th I think they're done so it would really just be but I mean it is a conversation to be had yeah you know so and I will if somebody would like to I will certainly entertain a motion to move I six down to L1 motion to move I say down to L1 second any comments you have a hand over there oh yeah I had a discussion um just just being cleared and the reason why we're having the conversation it's because the dates went out after or before snow days okay all right I was just gonna say because usually that would be where we can technically graduate or we can have graduation whenever we want you didn't used to be able to grow yeah now we can so we were able to

140call that date sooner but some people really wanted us to own their face but they sure did yeah um and the seniors whether they come back or not or they won't be open there won't be a problem with the state so like even if you said no I want 182 days we'd still do the graduation on the 15. this post will be happening a lot of all kids especially in one day maybe people will come on privately no one's coming up the weekend and then go back to school I mean just finished my comment like normally I'm not a fan of like cutting days unless we're like running up against July you know um but I mean this is kind of a unique circumstance I mean maybe just for the future I know there's always

141pressure to get a graduation day but maybe a little bit Yeah because well it had been so that's not the it's happened in recent memory too you know we've had snow storms and such fun but this boat is in order to move it to L1 yeah but that is my discussion okay so going to move it to L1 and we had a discussion so let's go ahead and do the vote for Lisa so go ahead you can start voting bye bye bye bye I as well just to make sure that she okay so we will be voting on this for L1 we'll have more conversation on there okay so curriculum and liaison uh reports I know that the policy meet today policy at a meeting curriculum had a meeting the communications made in between the

142two you know okay I don't think so no well the house he still doesn't have the minutes in from September or something Jen said like five emails already and we got one from the court clerk um the town clerk sent the email too that we do not have those on file so that is going to be an issue um so we do need those in but if you met I don't know if you want to have an update we did meet I mean I I like Tony to give the updates you know he's the chair but we did discuss um we had a discussion regarding the lgbtq [Music] um policy and forgive me if I left on some of the initials but we discussed the policy um and the regulations that are being implemented or

143putting together to be put into the school system and we talked about another one that was a little bit more clerical updates yeah I know what was it um wow that was just a few hours ago it was more of like changing verbiage to make it more up-to-date versus changing policy yeah yeah Dr bullet added some strength very interesting I was scared that was freaking me so now to clarify us yeah um but I did mention that we did have a conversation about the fact that at one point there were there was one right we used dogs to detect the boss um and it's within the realm of the search and seizure policy within what the scope of the policy that this is going to can make decisions to use um that kind of a

144resource sort of search dogs and so um my apologists were doing the red alert I don't know but she you know to your point you know there's a lot of reasons to talk about there are impossible so that was mentioned Dan um discuss the superintendent has the authority to have dogs come in so I did mention at some point here in polygon as we could program the process you know we may have them to come into the drugs kind of situated you know searching drugs pretty cool but it wouldn't be searching individual kids it would be a like it would be a secure building and then you bring the dogs in they walk around the hallways and then they leave so like in a high school 84 minute period that would happen within 20 to

14540 minutes it would just be for the purpose of detecting anything in the life are dogs no longer really spent four stuff like CBD either it's the heavier stuff and that's what we're kids are some but just to real quick the dark web and things like that into our browser kids are able to order stuff and have them sent to their homes through their Postal Service so there's there's stuff that that it's happening that never happened before when we were kids um so you know it may be move us to one so you know twice a year just have you know uh search dogs and they're not the big canines that the people can secure building while everyone's in class they stay in class they're still learning and then that would be twice a year

146not announced so people would not bring it in because they would never know isn't T is just anthemus so um it could be both food right now my focus would be THS but anyway search and seizure came up that conversations I shouldn't have used the four-letter word that I used oh no you were good I want to give you the context so people don't think that there's an imminent or a situation or anything like that would the dogs be out of Troop thing uh troopsy would be organize it with the resident group commander and troopsy but they bring the dogs from the canine units are different I was just going to say that they would bring a um one of the dogs to the spring yearly so that one is a very very nice friendly

147yeah the dogs very smart but very very nice Doug yeah they're cute they're not uh ominous but they will City lockers you know they find something under reasonable cause we could look oh it's perfect so there's one more thing because Tony won't be back because I agree that our chair should be reporting but Pete flag came to our meeting and is this on the dashboard because I know it's in the Google thing for um policy committee but there's a p Flags uh transgender day of visibility Pizza social on March 31st from 6 to 7 30. in um Mansfield yeah that was made reference to so I wanted to put it into the policy folder so it's available to everybody in the policy pool but I think it's available at this school right yeah well that

148that was just brought up today just mentioned so uh and Mr Holt said he wanted to see it I think you guys did too yeah so that just came up just in the email and I just threw it and uh a thousand problem so that would so yeah and then we're going to share with the community freaking right curriculum so I think we got a pretty productive meeting we talked about two big items um number one four members remember back in September or August we've had a general update about legislative changes that were coming down the pipe um one of them had to deal with new model curriculum requirements which covered I think there's close to a dozen different topics included mandating SEL personal finance Native American studies some of these are things that the

149district already does others are unclear um so we had a discussion about when those changes come into effect um and what the impact the district is going to be unfortunately the statute is very vague and for many of these things we don't have a whole lot of information at the moment the state's supposed to come up with this model Curriculum by January 31st October 24th is that correct uh again those 29 it's January 1st 2020 or is when they have to complete it for the state yes and then so at that point and perhaps sooner because that's the deadline uh where they're going to start doing it you know when these resources become available we're going to have more in-depth conversations about how this will affect the district and um how we best implement this

150to our curriculum so that was one item the other item we was about our structured time um and how to encourage you know unstartered play time with kids particularly younger kids topic that's come up a bit mental health committee the Johnson talked about in a full board discussion um so it's kind of a general brainstorming session that we had Dr Willa had an interesting idea which I think Jade and I both liked which would be to try to uh do kind of a try Department effort between the Schools human services and the rec departments to try to get Lifestyle by group events for kids um maybe like a like a lock-in not a lockdown a lot again no kids can have a you know like a big sleepover for the schools or or do something

151that utilizes some of our resources to try to encourage some good um no screen time um socialization for kids to get together which I think would be great especially on the fields of the pandemic a lot of kids are struggling to socialize and you know we have a lot of General problems with technology as well especially in 100 kids so very provable conversation we want to kind of fine tune those ideas a bit and um talk to the other parties and see if we can we can work something out so that I think was a great meeting but stay tuned okay yeah yeah that sounds like a group [Music] the login operation entertainment services and camping nights and things that just got people out and get them out and you know out of hand about

152out and you know just getting putting the devices down spending the time you know together thank you okay um thank you yeah I'm not gonna go through all the updates I'll just do those ones but I do want to give a plug I volunteered at the tis book fair yesterday it's fantastic I saw a third grade a fourth grade and a fifth grade class it's so fun to see that even the fifth graders are so excited to have the book repair back kids are walking by Looking Through the Windows um lots of great books I mean just everything that looked like it used to pre-pandemic it's all just it's all back I think they had hours tonight for parents to go in and buy and then the kids come in and start doing their work

153tis does it where like they come in for a viewing and then they come in a later date for purchasing um so it was it was fantastic the wonderful librarian Mrs Hill was was helping the students at the book fair and also running classes um at the same time and um that was one other point and I wanted to touch them oh the I'll just give a quick shout out the book fair long time book fair chairs Alicia bishop and Matt Garrett are leaving this will be their last book there um it's being taken over thankfully by um Jamie Daigle and Chloe Coles and they are also taking this is a big year for PTO it's a blip that likes to happen in many years where they're like losing all of their chair because people

154age out you know their kids age out so they're losing a lot of chairs and a lot of board members so if anybody wants to volunteer or watch this recording later please reach out to the ptos um but they already have two women who have volunteered to do the two Book Fairs at Birch Grove and the two Book Fairs CIS going forward so let's Band cast who have done a wonderful job for years yeah the book fair is always fun the kids get so excited to break down what they have on the list and then of course you open up the pencils and all the other little things and of course that's just where the money wants to go huge fundraiser and um actually the the book fair has the opportunity to um make their

155profits in dollars or in offer books through Scholastic and the smart boards that were originally bought for birchbrow and tis all came from all four books um profit from Book Fairs so yeah so the teachers always have their little folders to to get books and I think that that's always good to help the classrooms everyone as well kids love buying books for the teachers so I'm going to do so yeah great fundraiser great support that's great okay I you know I have a report today just a lot of stuff going on with the budget concerns so stay tuned at around 4 30. tomorrow a um stay tuned um like I said like just make sure that everyone does have the what do we say the fifth and also um put that 19th just in case

156we need that for the solar just make sure you guys are adding that to your calendar because the budget I do have that the budget is going to be finalized on the 29th so just make sure we have all that and also to mention tomorrow are the TMS rounds yep so instructional rounds are Tomorrow there's a reminder um and a submission form if you wanted to participate uh we're going to be starting at 8 25 at CMS and and doing the rounds on Whitten wisdom this will be the third rounds for the year out of the four the Latin the last one will be at the high school um you're welcome to attend I put a kind of uh please respond by 8 AM this morning if you wanted to just so we have you

157know we know how many material packets to make and things like that but if you want to if you want to come just tell me text me you know we'll make I'll make sure tomorrow you have you know we'll make an extra copy or whatever so for that for you right now we've got two of you um and you're all you know as many are welcome because that's the whole purpose is to get you all into the school I see everything so let me know um well if you do you're not going to get a pass okay let's go ahead and um do you have a motion written up for the 180 day that you want to just pop on the screen I guess you know just how we could just make it you know

158yeah just you have a little backstage box on there sure and essentially we're just a voltage to go down underneath these and they are on June 15th yeah I wouldn't put necessarily the date specifically of something really but just that you you know the motion to reduce the school you know student school year from 182 to 100 years motion to reduce the school the student school year from 182 to 180 days for 2022 2023 thank you well thank you for doing that however you cannot make emotions so if you say yeah like he said some some of them just yeah would you like to add any other options system I mean I think we're okay if we just go ahead and say you know all those in favor can say aye okay I think that

159was majority that was everybody I saw everyone saying yes so therefore we would be um closing this out here out with 180 days so at this point um we will open up the public participation at the new one online would like to speak please and then you will be given a two minute timer just go streaming and your address for the record okay we have um married hold on let's just get the timer up okay [Music] your hand is too big to see the time yeah it's all the way down the corner there you go just click the enlarge oh yeah yeah right there oh um this wasn't part of the certification program all right for them yeah okay okay um so we did have uh Mary Rose if you could please just state your

160name and address for the record and you'll be given two more minutes thank you everyone um Mary Rose dubarak she her 37 Ryan Road just wanted to say it's actually nice to hear you guys um having a little bit of fun uh while working hard at the same time um I just want to make a passion plea uh what I said the other night at Town Council is that when you um have finally when the budget has finally been determined if you could use your influence and your Social Circles to promote um a vote and not just to have people vote but encourage people to vote Yes um you're elected to help guide our community um as noted many times not a lot of people are really truly paying attention I I would imagine you

161spend upward of a hundred hours individually in budget discussions so you really know you know what it takes to run our school system and I know many of you [Music] um were hoping it would be more and and as a personally I would have supported that as well but um the other night at Town Council someone said um there's an average of 700 people that vote no every year no matter what so we're already starting with 700 people voting no uh for whatever their reasons and unfortunately um maybe a lot of those people are informed but based on my experience and the times that I've participated I don't see a lot of folks um at meetings so since you know what it takes to run the schools and operate please encourage people to vote Yes

162you have Influence People you are respected please encourage people thank you very much thank you let's move to Colleen you have to maybe unmute her yeah I get it thank you Ashley um demon Board of Ed members I'm calling you to check 12 Blueberry Hill to Holland Connecticut um first I just want to say um appreciate all the hard work that you guys do and sometimes doesn't always get recognized so I do appreciate that but I was really one just to make a clarification um regarding the app of we do vote in our votes obviously everybody will know but if it does go through it still has another process to go to the Town Council for them to review and take a final vote on so it's a two-step voting process so if it passes

163tomorrow I have no idea obviously if it passes hopefully it'll be on Tuesday's agenda so just keep that um on the back of your mind for tomorrow thank you Colleen um I think that is important about that so thank you let's go to mark maybe he needs to be on that Mark you need to unmute um can you guys hear me now yes yep okay Mark respeck at 41 Cortland Drive in Thailand and I second uh the other participants um feedback great job here all the hard work you guys have put into this definitely doesn't get appreciated um couple things I noticed the health insurance is a large percentage of the budget I know there's a lot of discussion on that tonight um and I understand there's some cost sharing associated with the town but

164I haven't seen any breakdown of that cost sharing between the town and the Board of Education um is there any documentation on how that is broken down since that's such a large portion of the budget and I know the town's got a five percent increase sport events got three I'm really not happy with that breakdown but I'd love to see some more money come to the board of ed um just wanted to know if there's any more um visibility and transparency around that you can uh speak for the whole um two minutes and then we it's not like a back and forth dialogue we throw in a points of information if um anyone wants to speak to that but at this point do you have any other points um I guess that was it that

165was it and then the nine million dollars unassigned funds for the town um I noticed they're gonna use some of that this year and it started in 2011 with about a six million dollar uh uh um budget amount and it's now you know over 9 million just wondering um if if somehow we can petition the town to leverage some of those funds to save some of these positions I know it needs to be between 10 and 15 percent you know from a uh from a rating perspective but I think we're going to be around 14 so seems to me there's a little bit of some funds there that could use be used to preserve some of these um uh positions thank you for that um Dr really do want to speak to them because I

166think you know there was the insurance piece with the car sharing of that picture yeah I don't think so is it about what the process yeah with the more breakdown and more transparency which I guess is ultimately what um I think I was saying the other guy yeah right now um it's 91 or 9 percent um um is that that's what it's been established to be uh any change in that would have to be you know discussed with the town at this time any other board members I think you have another question in here but I think that would be I think your question about um general fund would be best posed to the Town Council [Music] no I think it was the um the unassigned fund balance for the 1400 but then something that

167I just took a couple quick notes the car sharing and that was something I will just comment as far as the unassigned bondages in my discussion with um Lisa Hancock they will not use that fund balance for recurring expenses so any of the staff positions are all recurring so um just to let you know that that is kind of where they see it but you might want to reach out to Lisa Hancock at the town she might be able to give you a little bit more information as far as why and I know that they're very very determined to keep to keep it on the higher ends of the percentage because of our AAA Bond rating so that's their rationalization that's that's my understanding but you might want to reach out for further clarification to

168Lisa perfect any other board members have anything that they would like to say because if not I will interview them thanks to everyone who've been advocating for public schools thank you all very much