March 3, 2026 Board of Finance & Town Council Finance Committee Budget Hearing: Board of Education

001Mhm. >> All right. Good evening, everybody. We're going to get started. Uh if you would rise and join me uh in the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So So Nikki, you're over Hang on. You want to grab chair and your stuff or you want to stay there or Whatever you want. All right. Good evening, everybody. I'm going to I'm Lanie McHugh. Um I'm the chair of the Board of Finance in front of you this evening. You have uh members of the Board of Education and their administration. You have uh the Board of Finance and our alternates as well

002as uh members of the Town Council Finance Committee. Um I'm going to start with just a few remarks and then um we'll move to our presentation for this evening. I want to welcome everybody tonight. Tonight begins the Board of Finance phase of the 2026-2027 budget process here in Trumbull. This is my 10th budget season on this side of the desk and I spent 10 years involved from the other side of the railing prior to that. I want to take a moment and acknowledge all of our department heads including the Trumbull Public School Administration and most importantly Maria Pires, our director of finance and her department for all the intricate work and detail that goes into this process. I am and have always been in awe of the amount of work that it takes to get

003a budget proposal to this point, all while the day-to-day operations for the current year need to get done. Mrs. Tesoro has agonized over each department's request and the delicate balance between needs and wants. It's my personal goal as chair that all come away from the process with the feeling that this board has treated them with the respect they deserve. I also want to acknowledge my board and thank them for the work and time that they put in. Volunteers all, they have well prepared for these discussions by attending the Board of Education budget meetings, other town meetings, and participating in sessions from the public. I'm sorry, from public works to learn about everything from paving to plowing and the flow of poop. This is a new board of talent and experience. I am privileged to be

004a part of it. I ask you to acknowledge their willingness to ask hard questions and think outside the box that demonstrate a commitment to work in the best interest of all of Trumbull. In accordance with our charter, the first selectman has transmitted her budget proposal to the Board of Finance as of the first Monday in March, and the Board of Finance begins our review by hosting the Board of Education for the first of our department hearings here this evening. We will continue our meetings with all town departments on Tuesday, March 10th and Thursday, March 19th. We will be mixing it up this year, meeting with our larger departments in person on the 10th and the rest via Zoom on the 19th. Those meetings will be available to the public via TDTC YouTube and Zoom. Those

005schedules have been posted on the town website. We will also host two public hearings. On the first, um sorry, the first on the Thursday, March 12th at 7:00 p.m. The second on Saturday, March 21st at 10:00 a.m. While both of these are scheduled here in Council Chambers, but are planned to be hybrid meetings with an opportunity for the public to attend and comment remotely. I am amenable to hosting the second meeting at a larger venue, should that be requested. Just note that if I do that, we lose the ability to have remote comments. Every year, I think that we are in the most challenging of budget cycles. Hopefully, that the coming year will be easier. Yet, here we are again with the most daunting task to meet the demands of providing for critical services, public

006safety, and education in a most unpredictable economy. Before us sits a total proposed budget of $221,235,816. The Board of Education ask is $137,773,114, which was an increase of 6.65% over last year's operational budget. The recommendation of the First Selectman is to move forward $134,344,746, which is a 4% net delta of uh $3,428,368. So, before tonight's presentation, for some perspective, almost a decade ago, one of our Board of Finance members lamented that the cost of education rises exponentially faster than is sustainable. And if we continue to expect 3 to 4% growth every year, before we know it, the budget request will be $130,000. That was back in 2013-14. We had 6,824 students, 602 identified special education, and a total Board of Education operating budget of $90,789,175. That's a little more than 50% increase in 10 years.

007Let me be clear. I truly believe that every dollar we are able to spend on education is a worthwhile investment. That's me, personally speaking. We can never pay our teachers what they are truly worth, and the extracurriculars, and I put extra in quotes, are the heart of turning our students into good citizens good citizens. I also believe it's not how much we spend on education, but how much we value education in our community and in our homes. That's what sets Trumbull apart. It serves no purpose to present a we versus they argument, to mischaracterize the first selectman's commitment to education, or to catastrophize the impact of any reduction to the Board of Education request. We all know what's at stake. The need has never been greater for us to work together to make sure Trumbull

008remains a community of choice. So, as we begin our discussions tonight, I want us all to take a breath and pause. Let's reset. Let's level the playing field with an understanding that we are all on the same team. No matter the outcome, we will need to look beyond Trumbull to conquer ECS formulas and external factors to make growth and progress for TPS sustainable for generations to come. And with that, I want to welcome Dr. Semmel and the Board of Education this evening. All right, good evening, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McCue, for giving me an opportunity to walk the Board of Finance through the budget. I also do want to thank everyone who took the time to come out tonight. Obviously, with the weather being as it is, I was a little worried because

009it was a little slippery slippery for ourselves walking. I also noticed that there's actually quite a large crowd outside of the meeting room, and I'm I'm disappointed they're not able to be physically present here. My goal tonight as we go through this budget is definitely not I think I just heard the word catastrophize. The whole purpose of what I've been doing this year is trying to make sure that families and the community itself is fully aware of what I see is at stake for the education program. I am hired by the Board of Education to be the leader of the entire school system and I take that responsibility greatly and it's my responsibility to make sure that the students get what they need. And so identifying the needs for the students and what the expenses

010are for that is important. And I do think not just in Trumbull but across the state of Connecticut we're facing more difficult budgets this year. I'm talking to other of my colleagues and they're facing some similar situations and the temperature has risen in different towns. So I want to make sure parents are aware of this because once as I've told you once the first selectman's budget is identified the only group that can actually make an increase at this point would be the Board of Finance. And so I want to bring as much of the information as possible and then it's up to the community to share with the Board of Finance their feelings about where they want to see or what they want to see here for Trumbull. So I'm going to go just through

011a few slides today. I'm not going to go through a long drawn out presentation. There's a few slides that if you've been playing along and been watching you're going to see those slides again. I didn't have an I didn't make enough copies for everybody but the presentation is on our Board of Ed website under Board of Ed budget you can see the presentation for tonight. I just didn't want to make all those copies and and use up that paper and ink. So I'm going to walk through this and then we'll happy to answer any questions. So obviously we're about empowering the students in in Trumbull. We use the vision of the graduate for a baseline for our work. This is done not just by myself, but in cooperation with the entire administrative team, the entire

012Board of Education, and many more folks that are not listed on this slide. And the question I want everybody to ask in the room is what kind of school district do you want moving forward? What do we want as a school district moving forward? So, in tonight's presentation, I'm going to walk through the approved Board of Ed budget. Just some quick highlights in terms of what we're asking for that's new. We're going to talk about some possible reductions given the previous history. We're going to talk about non-certified pensions expense. Not a very exciting topic, but it is something that's eating away at our budget. And we're going to talk about a little bit about return on investment, and then answer Board of Finance questions. So, sorry about why it seems to be a little off

013on the screen here. I don't think I have any control over that. Um but it's on the the other TVs correctly. So, you see our request, which is 6.65%. One of the big issues we're having is around medical insurance. And now, I think anybody dealing with insurance costs just know that they're skyrocketing. And we have over 1,200 people who work for our district and responsible for that insurance. So, out of this 8.595 million request, 3.3 million of that is just to take care of an insurance increase. We're part of the state partnership plan, exactly like the town hall staff members are part of. That's 38%. I don't get anything. We don't get anything more for that as a district. We don't get to buy new stuff or things for the for the students or staff

014to put in front of them. There's also contractual increases for salaries. That's taking up 40%. That's 3.45 million. The new stuff we added, which is very modest, we've been trying to um add world language. We think that our our elementary students deserve to be um uh have world language at that level. There's plenty of districts around us that go well beyond grade five. We're trying to introduce it to grade five, and we need a couple of staff members for that. We also have heard from a number of elementary parents about trying to stay to the guidelines, which is getting harder and harder each each year we try to balance the budget. So, we're trying we're asking for three elementary staff given some of these size increases we see for next year. >> [snorts] >> We

015also, just to make it clear, we Some people will say like, "Well, when teachers retire, you must find some savings." And we do, and we actually build $635,000 into this budget on savings for for staff turnover. So, that's built into this budget. Utility costs, anybody who opens up their their electricity bill probably has to pause every once in a while, especially given the cold winter we had. So, the electricity costs for the district, especially given the age of the buildings, um are high. All the athletic um money that comes from pay-to-play fees and the gate receipts, we suck that right back into the budget. So, when people ask, "Well, where do those pay-to-play fees go?" They go back into the budget and to offset the costs. And then transportation has a 4.5%. That's generally speaking

016what we're asking for in this budget. You would think with a 6.65% increase, I could get more for that, but I really can't given the costs of um other items I have no control over. So, I think it's important about just talking about what's happened in the past a little bit. Last year the Board of Ed asked for 5.89, we received 3.73. What did we have to do? We had to increase pay to play costs. Anybody who's involved in that, you know your pay to play increased. Uh we had to take 290,000 out of our non-lapsing account to pay for Bookworms, which is going phenomenally well in our elementary schools, but it was still an unfunded mandate that we had to pay for. We also used $300,000 of our non-lapsing account to cut the budget

017so we could pay for the technology that we have in our technology plan. So, we had to use 300,000 from the non-lapsing account to do that. We also fought really, really hard with state legislators to try to get more reimbursement for excess cost. And we got 207,000 back late at the end of last year, which helped us reduce um the budget at that point. We had to eliminate a a second-grade teacher at Daniel's Farm, eliminate a staff we were trying to do at Madison, and significant dollars in supplies and furniture and textbooks. We used to buy textbooks for a 6-year period and save money on those. We can't afford to buy 6 years, so we're buying 2 years and 3 years now. So, we're not paying significantly more, but we are paying more by by

018doing that. So, this year, if this has been a slide that's in been in my presentations to the Board of Education. If the Board of Ed receives a 4% increase, how would you balance the budget? We would need a $3.4 million reduction to the request. And since 82% of our staff um cost or since 82% of our budget is staff cost, you can imagine that a big chunk of this has to be staff in order to make that happen. This if you've been watching our presentations, this is not a new slide. I've been sharing this for a while. If we I was saying if we got 4%, we would get rid of all those new things we were talking about. I forgot to mention we are also adding, I apologize, two additional buses. We hear

019a lot about our middle school and high school buses very jam-packed and they are. So, adding the two buses was going to help reduce some of the length of trips for the students and also decrease capacity. But, if we had to get down, we'd remove all those new staff members that I mentioned before. We'd have to eliminate likely two administrator positions, 16 teacher positions. I'd eliminate three Long Hill support staff. Freshman sports would either be eliminated or have to raise pay to play by another 40 to 50 dollars per per per uh athlete. Um we'd have to look at all of our secondary school activities, um middle school, high school activities in particular, and really limit the activities that we're able to do. We might close elementary schools, try to reduce custodians that have to

020be after school. Um I don't like doing that either because of the enrichment that our our PTAs do and all the work that happens after school. Security guards, paraprofessionals, the late buses that we do at the secondary school might even be moot at that point cuz we wouldn't have the activities. And then we'd be looking at curriculum writing. So, you can see all that adds up to 3.4 million. I don't say that this would be definite. This would This is our best thinking at this time of the year what we'd be looking at. So, in order to get 3.4 million dollars in reductions. Um I was also saying if the Board of Ed receives a 5% increase, what would happen? And that would mean a 2.1 million dollar reduction. And so, you can see how

021the calculus changes a bit. We would still get rid of all that new staff and the two but keep the two buses. Um eliminate one administrator, eight teacher positions, three Long Hill support staff, raise pay to play by 25 dollars, and you can see some of the other stuff stays the same. So, that's what happens if we end up with a 5% increase. The first selectman budget for the Board of Education, which was shared last evening on the website, was 4%. So, that brings us back to the original slide, which is showing $3.4 million of of reductions. That's where we stand as we open the Board of Finance meetings. So, I told you I was going to talk about um retirement uh pension and stuff like that. This has been an interesting thing. Back in

022'14-'15, I became superintendent in September of 2020. Um that's when we were in the middle of COVID and trying to get kids back into classes as quick as possible uh and safely as possible. But, in '20-'15, some decision was made where when when they went to a 401A instead of being a defined benefit contribu- a defined benefit pension plan, which is fine, but somehow the expense ended up in the Board of Education line item. So, that year there's only seven people, but every time someone retires from a non-certified position, they go off of that plan and they come to the 401A. And now the board's paying all that, so you can see the increase up to 189 people who are now on the 401A. And in terms of costs, it's over $500,000 now. This is

023$500,000 that we never used to pay. It was always paid by the town, and somehow it got put into our budget '14-'15, and um that's over six teachers right there. So, my request is that the the Board of Finance take the 401A back into the town side. Um and We have a We have a deal for you. We're willing to make a trade. We'll take that right now, and you can take the workers' comp, insurance, sewer usage fees, Board of Ed field maintenance, fire hydrants, crossing guards, public nurses, debt service, pension for a total uh minus revenue to the town of $7 million. So, we're happy to make that trade. >> Right. So, just to be clear, >> [clears throat] >> lots of other towns have have that same uh breakdown. This is an expense

024that the Board of Education did not have and now has. And I think it's important My point about showing this is because we we the Board of Ed does get um beat up a little bit because we do spend a lot of tax dollars. But this is a dollar that's going to keep increasing. It's it's You're going to see this number continue to increase. I think we were at Was it 2/3 the number of possible non-certified staff? Um This this ends up being a potential over $1 million in today's dollars when we have all the non-certified go to the 41A. My point is that our budget doesn't just go up because of things I'm adding. There are costs like this that I have no control over that we at least have to be aware of

025cuz they are eating at They are eating at our ability to do what we need to do programmatically. When you look at salaries, employee benefits, purchased other So, I'm not taking that deal. Um purchased other PURCHASED PROFITS >> [applause] >> MAMA DIDN'T RAISE NO FOOL. UM WHEN you get down to the other, there's really only a 5 and 1/2% of a budget money that's left for um non-discretionary type things because all the things that we do in a in a district cost money. So, I'm going to take a just a uh a breath for a second while I know that the Board of Finance often has questions about special education. So, I'm going to have my uh Director of Pupil Services, Dean Catalano, come up and take talk about the next three slides. Good evening.

026Happy to give Dr. Semmel a break here for about three slides. So, yeah, cuz people personnel services budget is crucial to our operational budget in its entirety. It's also one of the more challenging aspects of the budget to actually develop just because it's one that's often dictated by unforeseen circumstances. So, with that being said, there's it's a bit of a balancing act between ensuring that we are complying with federal legislation and state statute, demonstrating fiscal judgment, and also ensuring that we are providing an exceptional education that our families come to expect from Trumbull Public Schools and our special education services. With that being said, the first step we really take in the budgetary process for people services look at our students with disabilities, the prevalence rate, the number of students. And interestingly enough, if there's

027been a stabilization, so we're looking at just upwards of you know, 1,100 students with special needs in Trumbull, students with disabilities. So, with that being said, just looking at the programmatic needs, we are not requesting any new staffing for this the 2026-2027 school year. And we really feel like we can comply with all students' individual plans and really provide that quality education to our students in Trumbull. Let me see if I get the right button here. There we go. I do want to talk a little bit about out-of-district placements cuz it's a bit of enigmatic >> [snorts] >> topic both in the news and as far as Board of Education budgets cuz of what's been transpiring both in the legislator and in our own school systems. And the the first set of bullets really entails

028one of the issues that was was occurring as we were planning for the 2025-2025 school year, we were noticing that we were accustomed to increases of out-of-district the base tuitions of 3, 4, 5%, and then all of a sudden as we're planning for the 2024-2025 budget, we were noticing we were getting 8, 9, 10, even 11%, which actually was coming from some of of risks, which is tip- they're they typically more stable with the increases. So, for instance, CES, um you know, being our our local RESC or um So, with that being said, that was a one challenge, and of course, it was a challenge to manage that aspect as well, because we were getting those increases as we're planning for that budget. The good news is we've seen a stabilization in this matter as

029well as we're seeing on average a 3% increase um both for this year and for and for the next year as we're getting those rates in from our approved private special education programs or apps apps. So, um the other aspect of out-of-district places I wanted to mention was that typically we we do track the number of students um placed out of district. So, we're looking at a at least since I've been here, it looks like the last 7-8 years, we're looking at the lowest number we've had at 37 students. Usually, we're in the mid-40s, sometimes the low 40s. So, I do feel that's due to our our teams of staff and our administrative team really building programs in which we could bring students back to district. I think that's a big part of what we're

030doing, so that entails a cost savings uh to the Board of Education. >> [snorts] >> And you know, just talking about the PPS budget, and it's often one, like I said, dictated by unforeseen circumstances. It's dynamic, students' needs change, the need for a one-to-one paraeducator may come up, the need to outplace a student may come up. So, what do you do to manage those unexpected costs um to to manage this aspect of the budget? And I believe and I think that the administrative team believes that building a continuum of services in district is the way to do that. It's the most robust actions we can take. So, in other words, if we have students that are outplaced and we could build a program in district, get them part of our community, uh let them be

031exposed to our quality staff, that is how we can say that's the best bang for buck, as as you can say. Uh I did list a few of our programs. We have REACH, SRP, Elite. I know in the Board of Education meetings as well as the last few Board of Finance meetings, we've talked about those different programs. They're essential to our continuum of services here in Trumbull. Um one one uh initiative really this year is building our REACH program, which is over at the Madison campus. We're really looking to extend that through grade 6 through 8. Uh we've been utilizing the special education expansion uh and development grant, which is a newly legislated grant uh from um this year uh that we have access to those funds to really build out and make renovate that

032space so it's some place that our staff and students are proud to go to. So that's just one of our bigger initiatives for for this year. And again, those programs really do allow us to avoid cost of outplacing students. With that being said, there are times when we do need to outplace students because that is their least restrictive environment, and we always comply with their needs and with the law. Some other initiatives we're taking, we enroll students from Monroe into our in our REACH program. Um I was actually when when I first started here, I actually found out that that's actually one of the oldest regional programs uh in this in this area where we actually take students from Monroe and enroll them on a tuition basis. This year, we actually have the most students

033from Monroe that have actually enrolled in this program, which is fantastic. We have a great relationship with our colleagues over in Monroe. So again, that's a way that we actually generate revenue to offset the cost of the PPS budget and the overall operational budget. We have been expanding the use of our Elite spaces over on 2 Daniels Farm Road uh including uh and also utilizing e-commerce to sell our fantastic goods. Uh I don't have the website up there so I can't plug it, but it's a great website. We have really great t-shirts, sweaters. So check out the website. Shameless plug. Um we're also we're utilizing our class V endorsement drivers. These are our job coaches that are part of our Elite program. We had a handful of them uh get their V endorsement allowing them

034to drive the Elite vans for uh to take over arrival and dismissal routes. So instead of our bus our bus company or contracted uh transportation companies doing those at a cost, we actually are using our own staff and our own vans to do those routes again, avoiding those um expenses. And again, Dr. Sem alluded to it, we're going to continue to advocate for full funding of the excess cost reimbursement grant. Um we feel like it's an obligation of the state. It's definitely something that's been transferred to the taxpayers. So uh we're going to continue to advocate. We're really happy that we got the 40 million for the last few fiscal years. That's That's bought us back to where we were. Uh but again, that's definitely something that we feel like is an obligation of the

035state and will continue to advocate to at least get us to the tiered level of 85%. And again, just State Department of Education monitoring those approved private special education programs, ensuring we are that their rates are set reason- reasonably um based on you know, our neighbors, our our neighboring states, and to ensure that they're providing supportive uh environments, safe environments for our students that do that new that type of programming. And I will invite Dr. Sem back up after his break. Dean, before you go, um I just want to acknowledge two things. One, thank you uh for everything that you do. That those are so important and that I understand that the special ed dollars touch more than just identified students in the tiered programming. And I also want to recognize the fact that you

036have the hardest job in budgeting because your PPTs don't happen mostly until the spring. So in October, you don't even have the solid numbers. So I do want to recognize that as you're going through your budgeting. Thank you for that recognition cuz I I can tell you that Mr. Catalano and his team does an excellent job helping us work through a number of these elements. And the fact that it is that it is the lowest number of outplacement students is really a testament to our programs and our staffing, allowing kids to stay in in district cuz that's always the the most important thing. Um if we can. So how did we get to where we are if our recent approved town and adopted school Board of Education budgets have been more generous than they have

037been in the past? And that's a true statement. The Board of Education budgets have been more generous than they have been in the past. So, why are we here in this particular situation? I've been sharing this particular slide as well. Everything okay? No, it's okay. It's It's slippery out there. They got us a chair. So, we wanted to take a look to see how we compared against other districts that were similar to us and around us to say, are we like we always like to see how we're how we're spending compared to others and what our increases look like cuz you do have to just not look within but look outside. So, Trumbull ranks in this analysis in the bottom third in the cumulative increases. The rate of investment is moderate and not aligned with

038the rates of inflation and regionally we all know that costs are higher in Fairfield County than the rest of the state. So, this means that even for bare necessities a higher rate of investment is needed for Trumbull if we want to maintain the same level of service. You can't read this but you can go back later and look at it but the the highlighted piece is where Trumbull fell over the past four years against all these other districts. These are all other districts that are like us or in the in the area. Actually, these are all dirt B districts. So, they all have the same socioeconomic status as as as defined by the state. So, you can see that um in 2023 Trumbull had a rolling off. I think it's 3.22% increase. um The next

039year Trumbull had a 3.3% increase. Trumbull had a 4% increase the next year, and Trumbull had a 3. uh is that 73, yeah, increase last year, bringing us to 11.44% increase over those past 4 years. And that's what some of this slide talks about. So, normally speaking, that would not be a bad set of 4 years. Most of us would agree that that's generally speaking pretty good. When you look at at other towns though, who are facing and facing all the other inflationary challenges that Trumbull was, you see that that Monroe over those same 4 years had a 15.67% increase. Fairfield had a 15.09 increase. Cheshire had 15.45. West Hartford 17.75 and Regional 15 16.69. So, and you can look at all those other districts to say, well, what what do you think we're more

040like? But, 11.44 versus 15%, that actually ends up being quite a bit of buying power that is lost. So, we continually to have become have to become more and more um just really creating tight budgets as we went through this. So, this is another slide that we've shown. This is all the DRG B socioeconomic status districts that are similar to to Trumbull. And this is how much that the town of Trumbull through the State Department the State Department collects this information on every town in the state of Connecticut, and they will tell you that this is the best apples-to-apples comparison. May be not be perfect, but it's the best apples-to-apples that the state has. So, you can see that Trumbull is spending 19,924 just over South Windsor. And you can see where all the other

041districts are, with the average being 22,375 per child. That's per child. And then in the area, we do the same thing. And you see Trumbull is just above Shelton and Bridgeport when it comes to spending. I always show these slides because again, education gets a bad rap that we spend so much money. But when you look at this, you say, "Wow, but Trumbull appears to be spending a lot less money than its peers." And I'm sure you'll hear other information about that tonight, but this these slides tell a pretty good story of we're very efficient with the money that's given to us by our taxpayers, and we are very appreciative of the money that's given for the students. So, I also have been sharing this slide because we've been showing these net costs for the

042past bunch of years, and actually even when other members who were on the Board of Finance and other positions, they used to show the net cost per child and make the argument. But this was done this was part of my slides for the 22-23 budget. And I wanted to show the difference for the net cost child for the average Derby districts that were about the same size as us. We were spending 17,005 at the time. The average for Derby was 20,455, a difference of $2,800. So, we would have needed $20 million just to catch up to the average, and I was never saying we needed it. I was just making the point that we weren't overspending. And then we do the same thing for the area districts. I thought it'd be interesting to do the

043same math that I did back then for now. So, back then it was $19 million difference, almost 20. And 14 to the area districts, updated it's now a difference of 28,470,000 that we are. And I'm not asking for $28 million, we're asking for $8.5 million or $20 million. So, you can see that the gap that is growing has has been growing, and we've been forced to become more efficient, and families are feeling it. They're seeing it. I'm hearing about it, and we're doing our best, but I can only do so much with what we're given. And then, I also hear people tell me about what's on Facebook. I do not read Facebook comments cuz I probably um probably wouldn't be good for mental health. Um so people say, well, they always say that this is

044going to happen, and it never does. But, what happened while everyone was dealing with COVID is it did happen. Right before I came in the the Board of Ed was dealing with a very profound budget um issue, and they had to eliminate uh a lot of money from their budget. And this is not everything that actually happened. This is what was presented by um It must have been Ralph Izzaguirre to the Board of Education in May 6th Town Council meeting. He was saying, "We've got a real problem, and we need to reduce all of these positions and all of these items." So, this was a list of uh certified personnel. Um I'm sorry, except certified personnel. So, you saw custodians, uh secretaries, um they had I think the one that is that people remember is

045that they eliminated all the kindergarten paras. Every single one of the kindergarten paras was eliminated. Um so, I walked into Trumbull Public Schools with no K paras, and kindergarten teachers telling me, "You got to get these back." And parents telling me, "We got to get them back." So, this did happen. And during those during the budget seasons during then, I was saying, "People aren't feeling it. They're not feeling the cuts because one, there's COVID, kids are all home. And that was a very different type of education. And two, um two, when when you were going to come back I'm sorry the the second part is was we also had federal dollars that were coming in under what's called the ARP ESSER grant. And so we were able to have some of the staff repurchased. Now

046what ended up happening part of this is because they closed the schools the bus company actually owed a ton of money back to this district. So I I think that the the the district got a big chunk of money that year given to the town and there was decisions to give some of that money back to the board of education. So all these cuts didn't happen. But this is when people say it's not going to happen it did happen. And COVID was actually masked the issue. So I don't want people thinking like they were putting 29.6 teaching positions up there at that point. And and there were definitely positions from here that got cut. So and if you've been around long enough you know um what was what was reduced. So we also have a

047changing population. So our enrollment is a little bit higher than 10 years ago from 6600 to 6800. Uh the diversity is definitely we've become a much more diverse uh district which I think is only beneficial to the town of Trumbull. Um but you see that the diversity has occurred. English learners though which it's definitely harder to teach somebody who doesn't know any English at all and we need staff to do that. So that's gone from to a 307. Special education has increased but it's actually below the state level so we're we're below the state average. And your free and reduced lunch population has gone up pretty significantly from 483 students to a and 155 to 332. And that's perfectly fine with us. We just need to recognize that we do have children who have more

048needs that we as the public schools have to make sure that we're providing the education um to make everybody uh hit the vision of the graduate before they graduate. So, we believe that lack of funding will significantly impact our schools. You've seen the cuts that I've been talking about. And one thing I probably has haven't said enough is, you know, it's not about me at all. I love that I believe at heart I'm still a teacher, but I know that really where the work comes down is where the teachers are working directly with the students, whether that be support that they're providing or working with the correct size classroom that they can make a difference. And also the building leaders who are helping make sure that everything is well organized and everything is moving as

049as it should. That's really what we need to make sure we don't lose. And unfortunately, if we don't get the funding we need, it will be impacted. I won't be able to run scenarios that save us the $3.4 million. So, I asked you what kind of a school district do you want? That's something that you all have to ask yourself. The Board of Finance has the power to make an increase to the number put forth by the first selectman. What can you do as people who are watching or here physically or watching at home? Um there's no public comment tonight, but on March 12th, there's my understanding there'll be public comment. And on Saturday, March 21st, there'll be public comment. In the past, there's been almost zero public comment when it comes to the budget.

050That's not me casting aspersions or anything like that, but I really appreciate that you're here tonight. And I really think the next thing you need to do is make sure the Board of Finance members know how you feel either way. How There's There's going to be community members who feel that we really can't raise taxes. They The Board of Finance needs to hear from all members of the community about what they want. So, I really want I want it to be a very long day for our Board of Finance members on public hearing days, so that you can share your thoughts. Don't say that this person will be the spokesperson for 20, 30 people. Make sure that everyone takes the time. You all You all have children or you pay taxpayers here. Make sure they

051hear how you feel cuz you're hearing my voice tonight, but my voice is but a small wee voice amongst the entire community. So, please make sure you do that. What else can you do? Yes, you can. Um the other thing that's that I get on a soapbox with is I believe the state, and I don't think I'm alone in this, they have really been pushing taxes to the local taxpayers. They constantly say that we're going to do all these great things, but they don't pay for it. So, who ends up having to pay for it? They make laws that make it so we have to pay for it as local taxpayers, which is unfair. So, there's two major grants, and I know that Mr. Sorrell just did I saw some um public testimony that she

052just did. I think it was on the education cost-sharing grant, and I've been reaching out to our state representatives as well. You get about 3.3 million dollars or so back in in your education cost-sharing grant, where other districts are getting 100 million, 120 million. They do it based on how much wealth you have. But, they're finally getting some traction that they're listening that we need to increase education cost-sharing grant by inflation by some measure of inflation cuz it's sat stagnant. So, I also need you to reach out to your um local folks, your rep your reps at the state around excess cost, which is the special education grant, and education cost-sharing. Just take this slide, tell them that you support education cost You want your dollars that you pay that go to Hartford to come

053back to Trumbull, so that you can see some tax relief there. And here's all the folks that you can reach out to. I've been putting this in my newsletter information as well. So, to the Board of Finance, we're recommending the Board of Education had adopted a $137,773,114 budget. Um I know in my heart of hearts you're not going to be able to get to 6.65%, but I really hope that you're going to be able to get well beyond the 4% um and be able to to put forward a budget that is not going to remain at the at the 4%. So, I appreciate your you know, your time listening to me go on about the education budget. Um and I'm happy to now take my seat and answer all kinds of questions that you may

054have. Okay, here's what I'd like to do is just give you all an opportunity to um get your questions together. Um and if you would uh we'll start with Board of Finance uh first. Anybody who has questions? Um Town Council Finance, also Nikki. Um anybody who has questions? Um Who would like to start? >> [applause] >> And just for reference, there's um 155 people watching from home this evening, approximately. Any questions? No questions. Al, you want to go? Go ahead. So, uh first off, thank you so much for your presentation tonight, and thank you uh to yourself and for all the teachers for what they do for our students. Um I had a question about um bussing. I think you mentioned it in your presentation. Can you tell me what you or the Board of

055Education has done so far? No! To address uh bussing as a whole and maybe uh a tiered bussing system and what that might uh show for impacts to the um to the budget. Yeah, I think I think bussing is a is an area that's been discussed quite a bit. I can tell you that um lots of districts do have a three-tier bus system. Trumbull Public Schools has a two-tier bus system where we essentially use buses for our middle school high school routes, and then we do 47 um buses for the educate uh for the elementary routes. So, if we wanted to try to find savings in a three-tier bus system, >> [clears throat] >> we'd need to find a way to balance the three tiers so that we'd actually be able to reduce the number

056of buses from 47 down to a certain number. So, we do we are working with a a consultant to look at this in multiple ways. We're looking at it as just high school, just middle school, and just elementary school. I really don't That's not going to save us any money, unfortunately, I believe because you're going to need the 47 buses to run the elementary tier, so you're not going to be able to reduce. So, that leads us to having to move a couple or one elementary school to a middle tier. So, the a three-tier could also look like high school, middle school with one elementary school or two elementary schools, and then the remainder of the elementary schools. And what what we have what we're looking at is trying to make sure we can see

057the pros and cons. We want to make We believe that that would reduce the time of the routes, um but we also don't want to see the last elementary school's kids go home too late. All right, so that's the information we're trying to pull together. Um there's some potential savings there. I don't have a number yet. I'm guestimating at this point it could be between $500,000 of potential savings. Um Um, would we'd have to bring that through the Board of Education um, in order to make that move and if we were to do that we would do it for the that we would have that conversation and do it going into the 26 27 school year. But we'd want to give our families enough um, heads-up. One of the benefits also is that if you

058take Hillcrest >> [clears throat] >> off of the same time that the high school arrives, you will you'll also reduce some of the um, the uh, all the congestion that occurs on Daniels Farm Road at that time so you're not trying to put all those kids and families at one time. So there is some benefits. We just have to look at when those late elementary schools would get home by cuz we don't want them to be um, in the dark as they're getting off buses during the winter. I too thank you Marty for your presentation. Thank you for what you're doing for our school system and thanks as importantly if not more importantly to everybody that works for the school system and the Board of Education. We have a quality school school system. All of

059us should be extremely proud of that. Extremely proud of your results. My question relates to the cross district budget analysis that you Mhm. have done since you've been with us. I think for the last four years we hear this. We're concerned about it. We're interested in it. We're intrigued by it. We in fact spend less than a lot of districts around our our region. Um, but I'm concerned over or I'm intrigued by two things. One, we do spend less than a lot of our other districts in our region, but our results are better. You guys ought to pat yourselves on the back for for achieving what you've been able to achieve with the resources that you get. Our results are terrific. I'm told we're we're ranked number 11 in the state in terms of the

060quality of our school system. I don't know offhand who provides that ranking and what it's based on, but we should be proud of that. Yeah. We don't spend as much as those schools, but we get a better product out of that expense that we do make. So I'd like your commentary about that. That's number one. And number two, are we certain that the districts that we're being compared with are in fact apples to apples? We have a list that Vicky I think Vicky's office created and Laney recited earlier that there are about 7 or 8 million dollars worth of board of expenses that are actually in the town side of the budget that we don't add to that 137 million dollar number that you've requested. Part of the other districts that we're being compared with

061in terms of the DIRGE analysis in in an apples to apples situation on that score. Great questions, Mr. Tempe Mr. Tempenelli. And I appreciate your your thoughts about our teaching staff and all of our staff because they do really work so incredibly hard every day to get the results. And I will tell you that I've been here now this is my sixth year. I see the level of stress that has increased each year. When I work with the building principals and I work with others, they're they're feeling they know that getting the results that we've been getting that that's our goal. We we want to keep doing that. It's getting harder and harder because we're we keep taking away from what the teachers have to do that. Um so in terms of you're asking about

062the when when they when they give us like an accountability ranking, it's all based on the um the there's an So, you can go on the what's called EdSight and there's a place where there's all kinds of metrics that that the state measures um schools against. And so when we look at the accountability index, they can actually give one per school and then they can give one per district. So, when we talk about our rankings, we looked we like to look at how are how are we spending our dollars? So, unfortunately 11 is a little bit lower than we've been. We've been higher up that the past couple years. We actually dropped. But some of us near the top are very tightly gathered. So, there's like hundreds of points a wave from, you know, 8

063to 11 and set, you know. So, it's not like it's we've dropped some significant amount. So, our teachers just work really hard. Our curriculum just keeps getting better and better. Um trying to get tighter and tighter. Our grade level teams at the elementary schools are constantly meeting. Our Our teams at the middle school and high school are constantly working on how they can um have students achieve. Um but I do think, and which is why I'm I'm raising the alarm bells a little bit more, I don't see I'll I'll share a couple things that I see that might help, but I don't see the things that are going to help us um get through this budget cycle. And I worry that if we have to reduce that kind of staff that I mentioned before, the

06416 staff, you're not going to see the results. Uh it might not be year one, it might not be year two, but you're going to see likely a decrease in achievement, and you might even see special education numbers start to rise, which will come with additional costs. Um and we don't like to wait to fail, or we don't want our kids We don't want to be waiting for the kids to fail. We want to get in there, proactively get to them, um deal with whatever uh we need to work on and get them on grade level and and continuing to progress. That's the best way and likely the cheapest way to to make sure kids are thriving. That's first question. I don't know if you want me to If you want to say anything like

065that. >> I clearly >> [applause] >> Okay. I clearly understand what you said and appreciate it, and I I I too think we're at somewhat of a pivot point. Thank you for for seeing that. And then the apples-to-apples comparison. So, um Ms. Pierce, our business manager, um she just came in new this year, but um she might be able to add some color to what I'm about to say here, but the the net cost piece tries to tries to measure out all everything that's equal across the districts, what districts typically will pay for. But then there's this whole thing called the EFS. We have to do a whole schedule every year on how all the money is spent. So you've got the education line item for us, which is this year what 129 177. Um

066and then you've got other items that are in the total education budget. I can't say for every single district or town in the state of Connecticut, but you're going to be able to go into just about every town and you're going to see other items that the town pays for, which are which are the items that Ms. McCue was rattling off earlier. Those are going to be but they may not be exactly the same in every town. And that's where on the EFS, we're supposed to report out what's an in-kind service versus what are we paying for directly out of the budget. And then they use that EFS directly feeds the net cost per child. So that's why it's as um best comparison apples to apples as can be. I don't know if I'm missing

067something important in that, Ms. Pierce. Uh no, I think you explained it very well. Um I would just add that I pulled all of the numbers from the state report, the EDO 12 the EDO 12. It's the MBR, which is the minimum budget requirement um report. And that law it pretty much says that a town outside of extenuating circumstances can't give a board of education anything less than what they get gave to them the prior year. And it's to ensure that the towns are sufficiently funding their education programs. Having said that, you'll see that some towns can play games with this in order to keep MBR pretty stagnant um whereas they may keep um the the board of education increase very low, but then the board of education has to come back to them when

068they go over budget and have and then more dollars have to be appropriated to them. However, not part of the Board of Ed adopted budget, therefore not part of minimum budget requirement. So, there's there's different things that towns and boards of eds can do in order to help um offset some Board of Education costs, but ultimately someone's got to pay the bill and it comes down to the the taxpayers that the town or the Board of Education, whichever budget comes from. Yeah. I think that as a town that we've been pretty committed to not letting things like that happen. Um and also uh supplementals actually do add to the base for your following year uh when we approve a supplemental. So, that's kind of the discussion we had had over the non-lapsing account and whether

069or not that was a necessity. I don't ever foresee a time where something happens in a building and the town doesn't fix what needs to be fixed. I I I think that that's one of the relationships that the town and the Board of Ed have always done really well. >> [clears throat] >> I do have a follow-up question uh for Mr. Kachala though. Hi. So, you know, when we talk about um funding and what we are able to do, we're always encouraging things like looking at tiered bussing that don't affect kids in the classroom, may actually have some added benefit and may may provide some efficiency. In other years, there have been talks about looking at things like early retirement incentives. And I understand that there's a cost to things like that. When was the

070last time the Board of Education had an offering? What was the upside of that? And to and can is that something that could be examined as a potential area um for saving and growth? I know that you don't want all of your teachers of eligible for to retire to retire at the same time, that you want to keep a good breadth of experience. I'm not looking to, you know, strip the teachers and to to do that. But I I do think that's something worth exploring that the board should look at. Um and in that vein also, um I had asked at some point if you could provide the board with a 3-year run of FTEs by department and then where those uh where any attrition has come, whether be from retirement or resignations and what

071areas those are in. Um I think that we'd like to be able to to look at that and how steady the staff is and what impact budgeting has had, um if any, on staffing. Yeah, we're we're looking at that analysis and we'll have that to you by the end of the week, for sure. Um and I think as far as the, you know, incentive, you know, it depends on how many people would like have to look back at trends. I know there was one offered prior to me being here and I think prior to most of us being here. So, we can do some homework on on, you know, how that worked. I mean, if it's something that would be beneficial to the district, we would look into it. It depends on how many people

072we'd have to look at how many people are in that position, you know, based on their the end of their career and that would be taking up that incentive. I know I looked at uh during the presentation, but can you tell us what's estimated for resignations for the end of the year for uh coming up? Yeah, right now we have nine. And those are all retirements? >> Retirements. Okay. Yep. And on an average year, it's between nine and 12? >> 10 10 to 12 10 to 12 typically. Okay, and there's currently nine at this point in the year. And do you have a deadline that you ask people to submit for? No, we we have an incentive if they've been here for a while and that that that date has passed. Um so, we we

073still we're expecting to probably get two or three more, typically. And and just I just want to add a piece about that. Number one, um we will start we could we'll look into anything that will help us become as efficient as long as it's not going to impact the the overall education that we're trying to provide our students. We want to make sure we provide them a baseline high quality experience. But when I think about early incentives, the way teachers at the teacher retirement board works, if you are a teacher who've worked for 32 years, you're you're at your 32nd year and you wanted to go to 35 years and you wanted to get 70% of your cuz there's a whole there's all kinds of formulas. So if you wanted if you're at 32 and

074you wanted to go to 35, you were going to get 70% of your salary for the rest of your life. Um based on the teacher retirement board. If you retire at 32, you're only going to get 64%. So you're you're you're agreeing to take 6% less over the course of the rest of your life. That's one thing. Then you're going to also have to now start paying for your health care, which we know can be extremely expensive. So therefore, the incentive has to be large enough to get some to incentivize someone to do such a thing. Um and then you're hoping that when that person leaves, you're actually going to hire somebody at a lesser rate that covers the incentive um for a while, right? Because these are usually multi-year incentives. So while they sound

075good on paper, they usually don't they usually don't end up saving you significant dollars. So it's something it's that's something to think about. Plus, I really like our experienced teachers. Like they really have learned a lot. We've given them a lot of training and I don't really want to usher them out the door. I actually want them to stay as long as they can and continue to do what they love to do. So um we we can certainly look at that and see if there's been one and what if we can figure out what the net savings were, but there's a lot of moving parts there. So it sounds good on part on paper do a retirement incentive, but there's a lot of other elements to be considered and those are real costs you're paying

076to people who may have been retiring that year anyways or the year after. So I don't have the answer whether that's beneficial or not, but that is an area that could be explored with potential for savings. We've talked about the tiered bussing longer than just this budget cycle. So, I think it has to be a willingness to look at hard decisions. >> Sure. Um and not always an appetite to do that. But, we're kind of at critical mass. So, I'm hoping that you'll take those suggestions not as this is something you should do, but as options to look at and to have some information at your disposal as well. Yeah, we're going to reach out to CASBO, which is the business officers in Connecticut, and ask them about their overall experiences with retirement incentives. Cuz

077it shouldn't just be about what Trumbull's experience has most recently been. It should be about generally speaking over the state, is this a net good or has it been net neutral or has it actually and we'll we could end up with 40, 50 different responses from business administrators from across the state. That helps us get a bigger picture of what actually has happened when people have done incentives. And we're happy to do that. Good evening, Dr. Samuel. Um I think I'll uh I'll echo everybody else's sentiment and thank you and the Board of Ed and the entire district for all the hard work you guys do. Um I have four children in the system, so I know how hard it is. Um thinking about ways or look areas we could look at efficiencies and cut

078that's not staff or impacting the the the the students. One of the areas I think you talked about a bit is energy, utilities, electricity. Significant increase. I think when I was looking at it, it's 5% of the overall increase just because it's a non-controllable. I wanted to just ask um you know, if what options we've pursued for um performance-based energy contracts to see if there's any optimization opportunities there, efficiencies that really, hopefully, wouldn't cost us anything, but there's a potential upside. >> Right. Great question. Actually, if I could ask Mr. Dion to speak a little bit more about that. He's our director of operations. Good evening. Um so, when it comes to energy efficiencies and looking at performance contracts, some of those were already done in 2015, believe it or not. LEDs were done, occupancy

079sensors were done, boilers were done. Unfortunately, in that time, there were many increases in the cost of utilities. So, some of those savings were offset. Um also, we've had replacement costs. So, large capital investments, but most of those performance require you to either sign a monthly contract with a company, so you usually do like a 5-year contract. Uh you purchase their software, which is an ongoing licensing, uh or you have to have a million dollars up front on a two and a half million-dollar project, and then you can pay it out over three your utility bill over 10 to 20 years. So, we're interested in looking at all of those, but a lot of the what I call the low-hanging fruit have already been done in the district. Um so, where to go from there,

080we would have to bring a consulting company in. Um most of the times we see, again, they require a large capital investment. But, we're open to that. We just would like to find something we're we're talking to UI. Um we have Hillcrest going online. So, we're looking to get some Energize Connecticut money for that project. Um but then, that's for a new building. It's hard with an existing building. You can't just suddenly put ductwork and upgrade electrical and put all thermal vents throughout the whole building. So, usually those incentives that come through now are for modern, brand-new buildings or rentals to new. And again, those are over $100 million projects. But, we are interested in those. It's just finding what fits for Trumbull, uh doesn't require us to increase our operating costs. I appreciate that,

081uh Mr. Dion. I I'm I don't know a ton about it, but are there other opportunities with other um engagements like a company like um Cinergistic where maybe there isn't an upfront cost that they look at optimization opportunities and I've done this before in my lifetime um obviously in the private sector where it's kind of a cost saving sharing where they take a percentage of it. Has anything like that been explored? So that was one of the ones Cinergistic I remember I looked at a couple school districts um and they were about $180,000 a month some they would require you to pay that and sign a 5-year contract with them. So that's again an operating cost and it's offsetting. Are we truly getting that? When you start these projects and you're talking about energy those

082numbers are very abstract and you really don't realize those numbers until a year or two and you start to look back and see what we've actually accumulated and saved. So we could look into that. I just know talking with other districts that they have done those that research with similar companies like that and they have backed away because again adding $180,000 to our monthly bill that's just not feasible. Even though we may be saving 10 million at the end of that project it's what can we afford today? Thank you. I won't do as many as usual. Um just back to the energy. Um I know Fairfield has a company that they work with and their um their payment schedule I believe is based off the savings that they incur. Um they also do the virtual

083net metering. So I don't know if that's something that I know they've changed the names of that um work with Green Bank. So I don't know if there's something overall that we can look in that way and it seems that um the most benefit is from the older buildings. Yeah and then there's also PPAs there's solar uh which the state also supports. Um there's Z-Rex but again when you do a PPA that you're actually asking a company to come in and upfront all the costs. So Z-Rex and those kind of rebates that you get back from the utility companies don't come back to the board or the town. So, you lose those and basically leasing space for 20 years. Um so, there yeah, I mean I can reach out to Fairfield. I'm definitely interested. There's

084always programs out there. Um it's just doing what's right for us while still keeping the cost constant. >> Yeah, I saw a quote they saved 3 million a year, so I find that not believable. But, it's >> [cough] >> seemed a little interesting to at least look in and see what other towns are doing and and again the the you know the I think the virtual net metering is a is an option. We do have a lot of extra space and selling back to the grid and things like that. So, Understood. I've been doing facilities and operations for a while and I've done I was there when the LEDs started and we were promised millions in savings and a lot of that was not realized for many reasons. Um but, you know, what you see

085tomorrow it doesn't materialize 5 to 10 years out. So, just want to make sure that we're making the right moves and we're getting the savings and not just giving money away. Thank you. Um and then for the business manager, um just a couple things. Your finance meetings unfortunately sometimes are hard to hear. Um I do try. Um the 205 accounts for the um uh for going back we are going to 475 now for the um interdepartmental transfers. Is that coming from the increase in the athletic fee or are we adding to the rent for the food service? Uh it's coming from a combination of things, but let me get to there and I will hold that for you. You know, athletic was 300, so I'm just not sure if it was coming from that change.

086This is a bathroom break, I guess, for anybody. >> [laughter] >> So, we are pulling looks like 400 from the athletic pay-to-play and revenues. 60,000 from magnet transportation and 15,000 from e-rate. So, are we So, we still probably have an opportunity for extra funds in the athletic account? I'm assuming then since we don't we're not taking out any trainers or anything anymore. Usually we have an overage in that account. In the 205? In the 205. Uh we believe that that'll probably You think that'll wipe it? Uh maybe not necessarily wipe it out completely, but it will bring it down significantly. And with the 205s um building use back in the day, what we used to do was when people were paying in for the fees, it would then go right back into the operating budget

087to compensate. And it doesn't seem like that's happening as often. So, and I again our what we had was from uh the end of November, so that may not be current. Um but there was almost 100,000 in that account. Um AgSci has 200,000. Um I know last year we were discussing that in the budget um when we said we need to feed the animals. So, we have these 205 accounts and I feel like sometimes they're building up and they're not being put back into the operating. So, I don't know if there's a way to discuss a little bit more of that into, you know, Yeah, we do utilize the uh the 205 accounts to um at times offset the general fund. Um however, the 205 accounts usually are set up with specific um guardrails and

088guidelines in place for the for those specific revenues. So, for example, the agriscience revenue is the additional tuition that we we receive from the state that's over and above the um what the town has received. And then that goes into help offset non um general fund expenditures, but it cannot be used to supplant general fund expenditures. So, there's different parameters um on each 205 account depending on what they are. Okay. Um and then on non-lapsing, our favorite subject, I believe you have about 350 left. Um at your last meeting you had made the transfer for curriculum and for tech. Yes. And it was for bookworms. I know it was um 100 and like 93,000 and 300 was put in. Is that because there is an encumbrance or was that just in case we need? And

089the same thing for tech, it was 109 and you put in the 290. Right. So, as part of the the adopted fiscal 26 budget, the um the now that those um items have been realized in the general fund, those were put back from the non-lapsing and transferred back in. I believe at the end of December, there was a negative 190,000 in the textbooks account. So, that 300,000 would go in to replenish that plus whatever else needs to be ordered. The same thing with the um district-wide equipment for the wireless routers and internet, um I believe he was 181,000 over budget. So, with that $290,000 transfer in, that will put him back in the black and then he can utilize that for the remainder of the year. Okay, so none was anticipated, it was encumbered. No,

090we we anticipated using it. Yes. >> Okay. Um and then this I don't know if this is you or Dean. The grants that we have, are we ever able to increase those or do they stay steady? Because I know there's there's sometimes there's ways that you can be a little more creative to say we could fund oops from like the um the IDEA grants or um the title grants to kind of change the parameters slightly. Do we try to increase those or are we set based on um our numbers or you know, the needs for spec special ed or regular ed? You want to take it? Um so, the majority of the federal and state grants are usually um based on formula grants or based on um the the demographics and um what not of

091the town. So, it takes a lot of different uh aspects into consideration regarding the town's wealth, ability to pay, demographics, um median income, household, um you know, average household um income and um uh pricing. So, uh it it pretty much gives each town uh will be then given percentages of what they're allotted. Um and we always go for the obviously the most amount to um submit for. However, they then give us a grant award, and then that's the only a lot We can only spend up to that amount, and it's all reimbursable. So, we have to spend it first and then submit all of the supporting documentation to request reimbursement. I'm trying to find little funding chunks somewhere. I think Can you Can you guys talk about how those IDEA and title funds have changed

092over the past few years? And so, certainly our title funds pay for positions already. So, if you're wondering, can we shift some of our positions into title grants? You can't supplement You can supplement, you can't supplant in grants. So, you cannot put something into a grant that the district already paid for because they're supposed to be helping for the the people that are Many of the title grants, for example, are supposed to be extra to help those uh as Mrs. Pierce just referred to, those populations that might need extra help. So, we do have positions in title one, title two, title three, and um not title four, which is an enrichment grant. So, that one really looks more at um how do you really enrich your education and provide different resources. So, that's at this

093point we have uh as much as we can um put staff into those grants um very strategically in particular title one and I do actually see some of the people who are supported by that grant in the audience today has literacy and math specialists and tutors math tutors and we also have our title two which is professional development so Trumbull's very good at not using a lot of our sister districts pay thousands of dollars for outside people we use inside people that we've trained who do a lot of our training which saves the district and the town a lot of money in professional development costs. That also comes out of our title grants as well and lastly title three is ESL and we use portion of that it's a very small grant because our population

094while it's triple tier in Trumbull is still relatively small so only a portion of that can pay for a part of someone's salary. I hope that's helpful. Yeah, I just wasn't sure if we were able to try to increase those like say best based on our ESL so we can't go back >> They take our October one numbers and they formulate it based on what we report for free and reduced lunch and other economic and diversity factors that the state has a formula they just put it all into a hopper whatever we put in and then it comes out from there what they will give to each town. There are some competitive grants that we can apply for which we try and I'll let my colleague talk a little bit more about that cuz many

095of them have been in his wheelhouse. Yeah, well I could talk about the the IGA grant which is probably the it was the biggest entitlement grant that we get the shy of two million dollars so that is like she was saying utilized mostly for staff has been historically here in Trumbull this year we actually did see a down tick in the amount of funding so which is concerning because that is utilized for staff so and the the nervousness I get with that is that that's going to shift more of the the salaries to the operational budget especially as the teachers go up in salary and that's going to go down so you have this like dual effect this this negative impact so we are going to have to look at that. Again, it is an

096entitlement grant, so it's a flow-through from the federal government to the SEAs or state educational agencies like Connecticut. And then they use a formula. It's like a big trickle-down. They use a formula to allocate to um the different LEAs based on um or regions based on the our our needs and the formula. So, that's that's kind of how it works with the IDEA grant, but that has gone down. I just wanted to mention that cuz it is a very large entitlement grant. And then last thing, Elite, um which is fabulous, um but I know other towns that we were trying to model after could either be a you can lose some money, break even, you could make money. Uh you never know how it's going to go. So, we've increased the space. Uh is there

097a way to um rent the space, do something else with it, more creativity? I know we've tried different things that you the kids have made wreaths. You know, you've got the online presence and a lot of things like that, but um you know, obviously we want to keep it in town. The numbers have gone down for usage. They will always fluctuate, but is there a way to somewhat offset that so that we're not taking that from the budget in such a significant way? Um yeah, we're [clears throat] always looking for creative ways. I think I mentioned the Class V endorsement, so that's that's a great way that's that's a creative way that we use to offset using our Elite staff. I think that we are absolutely entertaining looking at ways of utilizing and renting the

098space within the parameters of the actual lease contracts cuz we do have contracts and there is subleasing provisions in those. So, you just got to be you know, you got to understand that aspect as well. Uh but we're absolutely looking to utilize the space creatively. We're looking to build the e-commerce up. You know, we're looking to you know, we're looking at other regions and what they're doing to kind of offset the costs as well. There's a few partnerships uh between districts that in the region that we're also kind of looking at and we I've been in communication with not recently, but last year, so we are looking for ways to offset the cost, but again, that program, even though the the population in that actual program has kind of decreased recently, the programming that that

099offers is very important for us because we want those students in our community cuz most likely that's where they're going to either have employment or they're going to be integrated into the community after age 22 or during 20 and 22. So, um and it it definitely does help us to avoid those costs with very, very costly outplacements cuz that type of programming is probably the most expensive type of programming because it's it's not necessarily in any one space cuz you got to you got to have students go out into the community. You have to make sure they're integrated, you're working on their social skills, their functional living skills, so it's very important, but I agree, we're always looking for creative ways to offset those costs, which are substantial. Thank you all for being here. Just

100a follow-up question on grant funding. Are there any other areas that we're concerned that federal dollars are not coming as they're supposed to have been or promised? Is there any potential There was a confirmation, there was a big fear that we weren't going to get some of the title grants. There was confirmation that we were going to get the the title grants, but that is a consideration that could change. We just don't know. We did lose almost $30,000 between last year and then in the last fiscal year, this fiscal year we went back up to a little bit about where we were, so we're a little bit under where we were 2 years ago. Um but they they tend to that that can also fluctuate based on the population as well. So, it's not just

101where the state goes, but it's also based on our population at the time. So, if we had a different In other words, if we had different students in our schools with free and reduced lunch, we might get more funding that year than we've had in a different So, it's it's it's hard to know what the reason is in terms of that. That was my second part to that follow-up is our um numbers for free and reduced lunch. It is um it's always concerning to me that we have the numbers that have that kind of need here in Trumbull. Um, but there is concern that we have been under reporting in the past. Um, mostly because people don't file for that because they're embarrassed or for whatever reason. Um, do we feel that those numbers are

102accurately reflecting the need here? I actually reached out to um, Chris Molyneux because you had brought this up to myself. So I I think you had mentioned in another community like Fairfield that you felt was um, was able to get more accurate numbers. Um, in our conversations with Fairfield, they learned about some things we were doing. Um, we went online with our process and they had not realized or not been able to do that. So we've been trying to reduce any barrier that there is for a family to uh, so I really don't think that we actually have um, missing a number of students. We're um, we've worked very hard to try to make sure families understand that they also get other benefits potentially like um, reductions in pay-to-play if they're, I'm giving a little

103pitch right now. Uh, reductions in in like pay-to-play and um, elementary music if they uh, are on free or reduced lunch. So um, you can't be sure that you're going to get 100% people. But anybody, there's also a whole group of folks who are directly certified. So if they have any kind of a state benefit, they're going to get direct certified. So that's an immediate. We don't have to do anything in order to get um, them on to uh, you know, to get their support that they need. Okay, good. Um, Christine has some follow-ups. First um, let me just thank you all on behalf of all of us parents with kids and my two kids are certainly enjoying um, and benefiting greatly from a variety of different services. Um, my first question was really just

104uh, about in some of the narrative in the budget book about consultants for um, under special ed. Um I just was a little confused. Uh you're mentioning $325 for consultants that are in the current year budget, and I just didn't know if you're keeping that flat for future or if that was a change to this current year. Um and what I And my second question was just trying to understand everything that's in there. I think my son's used some of these services that are within this consultant line, but I just didn't know how much of it is people in terms of psychiatric um uh support people from outside the district or how much of it is just the expenses that come every time you someone's filling out an evaluation form and if there's a licensing

105fee related to that. I was just curious [clears throat] what kind of goes into that 325 number. And again, if that 325 was last year's and this year's or if it's a change. It should have been a flat funding for $325,000. >> Got it. Yeah, so and and it's exactly what you mentioned. They're utilized for evaluators, outside evaluators, outside consultants. Um if we need a certified staffing member to provide services outside of our our staffing that are on our payroll, that's really what that's utilized for. Um so yeah, but it's been flat funding though. Got it. So you don't have need to change. Well, that's that's good that you think what you have in place is sufficient. I guess my We do and we I'm sorry, we do use um so the IDEA funds that

106we do utilize, we utilize our salaries, but we do earmark um a little a little bit of that recently for that purpose as well. It's it's not a lot, but and you know, these evaluations and these consultants have gone up you know, profoundly over the past 5 6 years. So um but we've we've been able to get you know, that's it's about appropriate funding for that line item. Gotcha. Thanks. And then my other question related to um special ed as well as um when uh we're when um Mary was asking a little bit about revenue accounts, I was just curious about the tuition that comes in for um those folks from Monroe that are using reach. Is that an offset to this or is it in a revenue account? Just for clarity's sake. >> Yeah,

107that's an offset to the added district tuition line item. I believe it's called a reverse expenditure. It is. Good job. So, I just wanted to get that right on the record. Uh Dr. Sam, relative to the possible reductions list that you put together, yeah, if in fact we end up at a 4% budget increase as opposed to the 6.65 that you've been requesting, there are 11 potential areas of of budget reduction that would result from an action that brought us to 4%. I have three or four questions for clarity purposes or some more specific specificity with regard to them if you can. The first one, uh all new staff, seven FTEs, would be eliminated from the budget. Can you tell us what kind of staff would that be? I'm assuming they're not teachers. I'm assuming

108they're uh something other than certified personnel. That's number one. Number two, the 16 teacher positions that would be reduced, um what would that uh result in? Would it result in higher class sizes? Would it result in less teachers in specific areas that you want to improve upon? That's question two. Question three, a reduction of three full-time folks at Long Hill, uh support staff arena. That's three out of how many that are currently there? Do you have any idea how many support staff currently exist in that building? Uh I think the eighth one down on your list of 11, security guards. How many security guards do we currently have in the system? And would a loss of two leave any school without a security guard? Be my question. And this the one following that, paraprofessionals, reduction

109of three paras, System wide, I'm assuming that's a system wide number. And again, that's three out of how many do we currently have within the system? Feel like I'm on an interview, Mr. Campanale. [laughter] See if I caught all that. >> No, you've passed that stage. So, the all new the all new staff, what I maybe I didn't explain that well enough. Our budget, and I went through this kind of quickly during the presentation, has seven new staff that we're trying to add. Three of them are the elementary teachers to try to make sure that our guidelines are met moving forward. Two of them are for the world language at fifth grade across all six elementary schools. And the other two, one is half-time payroll. And I got a handy dandy person here helping me.

110The payroll analyst, which was recommended from the operational audit that was done back in 2020. And then um there was a part-time para that the high school's been asking for to do in-school suspension. So, it's it's seven positions, they're not all full-time. So, that's what those seven positions would be. So, some of them are in fact certified personnel. >> Yeah, but they're they're staff that I'm trying to add. Got it. That I recognize in a very challenging budget scenario, it that would have to be the first thing that would go is items that we have yet to add to to that. In terms of the 16 teachers, what it would result in for sure would be larger class sizes. And I don't want to speak too specifically cuz I don't want to box myself into

111any um corners where I'm saying exactly what I would cut because I really want to be able to sit down with my administrative team and talk about least impact. But for sure, it would do a few things. One, it would increase the class sizes Um, across K-12. I'd have to look at least impact. So, if you look at the elementary schools, I'd have to say is there any any sections that are like, if I remove that teacher, it'll be above guidelines, but not grossly above. But, the parents would tell me anything above is two is too high, right? So, I recognize that that's an element that I'm going to have to face potentially as this. At the high school level, you're and the middle school that well, high school level, you're probably talking more about

112um, class sizes, but also elective type opportunities for students. So, you're going to see some some of those opportunities that we're really proud of in our district that would be reduced. Um, and then third, but just as important, you're going to lose some support staff that are critically important at elementary schools and and the middle schools. We've talked about folks, um, that really do so much to support the classroom teacher and provide direct service to the kids. We would have to look at those types of positions, too, that that support type certified position in order to get to 16, cuz 16 is not an easy easy feat. Um, even though we have 650 teachers or so, um, that 16 would be felt, cuz we're not overstaffed. See, so these are all positions that I would

113not want to lose any one of them. Um, the the security guards you asked about, um, we have 18 security guards. We've been pretty static there. The two that I'd that I'd be thinking there is we actually have two at Madison and only one at Hillcrest. So, you would take one from Madison, so there'd be parity at Madison and Hillcrest. Uh, they added the second one back in the day because of reach, and it's not it's not unnecessary, but it it that would be something I would be looking at. And then, you'd have to look at the high school cuz there's I think seven security guards at the high school. And they're all over the place. It's a massive campus, uh, but you would reduce likely a high school security guard. You couldn't every elementary

114school just has the one security guard and we wouldn't I wouldn't leave a school without the security guard. And then um in terms of the the paraprofessionals, so we have we have the special ed paraprofessionals who work directly providing service with students, but we do have a couple of paraprofessional positions that don't work with students and so we'd be likely looking at those cuz they don't have a direct connection to the students. And what is the total number within the system? Uh 200 and 209 209 209 Thank you. Right. And remember we have 1,200 special education students, so it's it's it's 209 which sounds like a high number and we're always Dean is always looking at trying to find ways to get that to the lowest number possible. Um even when the principals fight and

115yell that they need more of them, Dean's always saying, "Well, we we have to stick to a budget. We need to make sure it's absolutely necessary." Um so there's some push and pull on that and we try to work as a team to always do what's right for the kid at the end of the day. The child. Thank you. If I could just follow up on I'll wait. Yeah, Miss Timpanelli is just reminding me that the state is trying to pass legislation to reduce the opportunity to do outs out of school suspensions which might increase the number of in-school suspensions at at different levels. Uh the high school when they do an in-school suspension for a student, there's no specific place, so they go to I think they go to the house office and they

116would like to have an opportunity where a student can work in a separate location. Most districts would have a in-school suspension room, especially when you're 2,200 kids. We don't They do a phenomenal job trying to not suspend students, but sometimes students earn the right to be suspended and uh um we we we want to make sure that kids are always safe, so we are always looking to make sure we have an orderly school system. Yeah, it's another unfunded mandate if they say we can't. But I don't know where that is with the in the um in the legislation at this point. Only because Mr. Timpanelli asked the 12-part question. >> [laughter] >> I think we the one thing that I maybe did I didn't hear or maybe we missed was the number of current support

117staff at the Long Hill administrative building. >> Oh, yeah, thank you. Someone took better better notes there than I did. Um I was looking back earlier. Right, so I'm hearing from Mr. Tella that he believes it's 13. So, these would be people who are who are supporting so these would be positions that are supporting um administrators or offices um there. And I don't know how I'm going to eliminate three, but I know if I'm going to have to eliminate teachers, I'm going to have to eliminate staff at Long Hill, too, cuz it's um I am certainly not going to just taking from our teacher staff. We need to be looking across K-12. In follow-up to that that payroll administrator position from the um audit in 2020. >> Yeah. That finding was because you do not

118have redundancy in that department. That was [clears throat] a significant finding for controls. Can you just um follow up? It doesn't need to be now. Um on that I know that um the former business manager >> [clears throat] >> Mr. Hendricks had a running list of things that had been um taken care of and there were many audit findings then. Can you just check on the update on where you are as far as those audit findings, what has been completed and what has not. Yeah, there was like 66 audit findings. Most of them were pretty easy to suffice. This one was pretty significant for the controls and um redundancy. So, if your payroll person is sick or on vacation, there's no one else that had access to that. So, um I'd be interested to follow

119up on that. That might be something based on controls that needs to be there. Right. We did partially resolve that. We have an insurance manager who I keep demanding when Mr. Hendrickson was here that she do multiple payrolls so that she would be doing the whole payroll process um at least once a quarter because people like to get paid. And so, we want to make sure that process is done. So, Ms. Madden has been doing that and I've expressed that same concern to Ms. Pierce to make sure that um that Ms. Madden is able to do a a payroll. Um but at the same time, we know by doing that that there's this need for this half-time assistant payroll person. So, you have a person who does insurance admin? Yep. She's shaking her head, though.

120Can you just explain what that position is? She's our benefits specialist. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Um we in our payroll department, we have one payroll um she is payroll and insurance manager and then we have a person that is our benefits specialist. So, she does all of our actual health benefits, the retire benefits, dental, vision, um she also assists uh payroll with like the 457 benefits, 403b, um 401a, things such as that. And entailed in that, is that an automated position? Like, do teachers sign up for all their benefits online? Is that something that Oh, every I I believe everything's all paper still. Um she then manually enters everything and um, puts it into a lot of different types of systems, right? You have Anthem, you have um, our Quantum, you have Cigna, you have

121So, depending on, you know, which software that she has to work with. She also does all of the uh, bunch of TRB um, calculations and stuff with payroll. Okay, and has it ever been looked at being automated? Uh, in what way do you mean? >> So that So that there was a portal that staff could access to do their sign-ups and all of that. >> So, part of our um, financial system MUNIS actually has an employee self-service piece, of which um, we are looking at um, purchasing, implementing, and um, so in order to it wouldn't eliminate her position. Her position would still have the [clears throat] need to be there because she's the one that um, like reconciles the monthly um, statements from the medical insurance plans and all of that type of stuff. So,

122um, she would just be receiving the information electronically. Everything else would still be manual. Okay, sounds highly inefficient. I'm I'm not you know, doing that. I just what was wondering if there's a way to to look at that that would be more in efficiency and then she could possibly be your backup payroll person as well. So, just curious how that would might look. Um, Could I just add? Yeah. So, Lane, we have basically we shifted everything to electronic onboarding. So, it doesn't auto-fill into MUNIS. So, there is some manual piece to it, but everything someone, you know, interviews for the job, they they get hired, we send them a link, everything is, you know, uploaded, auto-filled. We We are working with MUNIS to have all that information automatically be loaded into MUNIS. Right now, they're

123they're working on it for us um, and for other schools as well. But, everything is automated. We're not using pen and paper anymore. Yep. And and then once once it is entered into MUNIS though, that does not speak to all of the different um insurance softwares. So, all of that has to be reconciled separately. Yeah. Okay. I always forget one. Um since it's not listed in the current budget reserved for negotiations, what did that end up costing us? I know I mean it's in there, but it's not updated as to what was used. So, there's about 474,000 that was in that line item. Do you know where we ended up on that if we used all of it, some of it? Or still maybe open. I'm not sure what else is being negotiated this year.

124Yeah, I know some of it was having to pay people back. words too. >> [clears throat] >> Sorry about that. Just took me a minute to >> asked I'm sorry. to find it. So, you're right. In this current year's budget, we have $474,919 budgeted um for the reserve for negotiation. So, when we pay out those negotiated settlements, it does not come out of this line item. So, I would have to go back and do some research to see um exactly where we landed on it, but it would be I believe both the para um paraeducators and the custodial maintenance and security um and I believe the the custodial maintenance and security had maybe 1 year um in arrears and then this year as well. Yeah, I know it went up it went up pretty significantly

125from the year before because there were multiples. So, just curious for the, you know, when you do have that if you can let us know what's still in that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions? No, everybody's good? Do you have some closing comments that you'd like to make? I'll keep them simple. Um, as I've said before, my responsibility is to 7,000 students and the families in in Trumbull and I take that responsibility very seriously. And so, my what I've done this year is try to make sure that families are aware of the situation with the budget and what I believe I see coming forward if nothing changes. I really hope that the Board of Finance will, um, be able to sharpen their pencil and find some ways that they can do

126more than the 4%. You have a sense of what I would have to do if you don't go beyond that. The other what I call them white horses that are possible out there, we have that, um, bus tier situation. If we move in that direction and if it's going to save us money, that obviously something we have to keep in mind. I will update the Board of Finance um, expecting, um, some more information in the next couple of weeks that I can provide, uh, what they what they share with me and if we think that there's a good chance that it makes sense for us to move forward with that and what the expected savings would be. I think that's fair for the Board of Finance to hear. The other, uh, uh, uh, white knight

127that might might come would be the ECS. Perhaps, um, the state does find it the money, that we know they have the money, um, but that they find the money to move some of it towards back to the towns. And so, that ECS dollars could end up saving, um, some positions as well. And then finally, the insurance is a possibility, but only I would say minor. We've seen sometimes the insurance save us money, but they keep coming back to us and telling us that the 15% that we have in our budget is a good number and that we shouldn't expect it to come down. So, in the past, when I've come to this these meetings, we've seen some significant reductions in insurance. We don't see that coming this year, which is another one of my

128reasons I'm just that much more worried. So, I know that Trumbull feels strongly about their education program. I know that people move into Trumbull for the educational programming. I believe that our families want to make sure that the education that they've been receiving, that they're at least receiving that level of of education moving forward. I really hope that families reach out to you and continue to share their thoughts about what they want for the for their education moving forward and and telling you that it's okay if you increase their taxes a little bit to make sure that happens. So, that is uh >> [applause] >> And I guess I recognize that as a taxpayer myself, this is not easy. It's not I I don't flippantly say that taxes should be increased. I don't say that

129with some simple just just do it. Costs have gone up for everybody. Go to the supermarket, your utility bills. So, I know that people are are hurting more than they used to. So, I know it's not an easy job, but I I hope that you'll take a look at all this and that you'll make a wise decision about what needs to happen for the education budget moving forward, because really the the the parents are relying on the Board of Finance at this time. Thank you. Roll Yes. >> [applause] >> Would you want to make some comments? Good evening, everybody. So, for those of you um I'm the first selectman if you don't know that. Um and for those of you who don't know, um I've lived in Trumbull for 35 years. Um and 33 of

130those years I have been fighting for education. First as a parent, as PTA president throughout the district, PTSA council president, um on the town council as an elected official, on the Board of Finance as an elected official, and as first selectman of this town. I don't take this job lightly. I am an education advocate, and you may Those of you who are sitting here probably don't think that right now, but for all the people that I have worked with for years in this room, including many of the people up here and many of the teachers and principals in the back of the room know that I have fought for education and continue to do so. I've said it many times, if I could give the Board of Education every dollar they asked for, I would.

131But I need to balance the needs of this entire town. So, that being said, what I budgeted with today or yesterday when my budget came out with came out is what I know. I know as Dr. Semmel just spoke about two things. The partnership plan, the insurance plan has a 15% increase. For the town, that was almost a $2 million increase. So, we on the town side share the same problems as the Board of Ed does. Our our energy costs, same thing. We are both dealing with the same issues. So, I can only budget today with what I know. Now, the partnership plan, I know you alluded to that just now. I heard today that we will not know the final number until March 17th, which is crazy that we wouldn't know that now, but

132we don't. Could it come down? It could. Could it stay the same? It could. I don't know. But, I can only again, I can only budget with what we know. Things could change here. This is not the end. This is the beginning of this process. So, it could change for the better. I don't think the at the partnership plan's going to go any higher, hopefully. Um but, I want to talk about one other thing, and that is the ECS funding. Um I know that Dr. Summer put up a a big sheet up here, and maybe we want to put that back up, where you showed um the amount of funding that a bunch of districts have done over the last 4 years. And, there was about 39 different districts there. They're not all the DER

133B. DER B is about 20 of them. And, within our DER, that's our district reference group. Those are the towns in Connecticut that are most like us, and are compared to us all the time. The ECS funding for Trumbull and many of these towns, we are at the bottom of that ECS funding, which is totally unfair. I have been fighting since I was elected in 2017 to increase our ECS funding. I actually stopped them from accept putting us on an accelerated track to reduce the ECS funding. So, we're now in what we they call the hold harmless category, where they're not touching the amount we're getting, but we are that we get far less than other communities. And I'll just give you a comparison of a couple that were talked about tonight. Uh that makes

134a difference in our per pupil expenditure. The town of Monroe Just hold on. Have to put this to the light so I can see. It's very small. They get Uh Monroe gets 5,272,000 in ECS funding. Trumbull gets 3,417,000. It's almost a $2 million difference. Town of Glastonbury, the town that we are compared to the most of any of our DRG B towns. Again, we get 3,417,000. Glastonbury gets 6,717,000. So you can see the difference right there. If we were If we get our fair share of ECS money, you all wouldn't be sitting here tonight. I wouldn't lose sleep for the last 6 weeks that I've lost worrying about this budget. So what I need you to do is to go onto the town website and and put in some testimony and say to the state

135of Connecticut, to our legislators, "Please increase the ECS funding for the town of Trumbull." You'll see my testimony there. There's also something that you can look at that you don't even have to write anything. You can just use that and use that form and submit testimony. It can make a difference. It can make a difference for your kids and for my grandson one day who will be at Middlebrook School. I want your children to get the education they deserve, which they have over the last 8 years that I've been in this office, and I will continue to fight for education and our ECS funding to make sure that happens for your children. So, please do that. It's for your children. And one other thing and just to the comparison, the town the city that was

136at the top of the list for making for what do you call it? Making payments to their town for their kids, their their board of education was Danbury. 21% over 4 years they were able to contribute for their for their schools. Well, Danbury, just so you should know, ECS funding of $62 million. How can we compete with that? We can't. So, everybody has to do their job, go and ask for more ECS funding for the for our town. Thank you. >> [applause] >> All right. I want to extend my thanks to everybody. Um if you have sent emails, I hope you have received a response. We try to make sure that every email is responded to. Um if you have not received a response to an email that's been received in the last few days,

137um and you will. Uh thank you for coming this evening. Thank you to the um superintendent and to your administrators and your teachers and everybody who's here tonight. We see you, we hear you, and we appreciate you. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Say your speech now. Natalie, goodbye. >> Oh, yeah. following me. Oh, no, I mean Yeah, 13-year-old Brian. I just got this second. No. And even the white board So, What is that telling you? I don't want to be >> Mhm.