2-10-25 Groton Board of Education Meeting

001i' like to pull the meeting to order this is a the first part of the meeting is a public hearing and this is um Monday February the 10th 2025 at 6:00 and we are conducting a public hearing for the purpose of hearing from the public about the superintendent projected 2025 2026 school budget comments from the public will be welcomed after the presentation uh of the budget from the superintendent all right all right so I will get started I see that we have our slide one second I just want to read the posting this is a legal notice that was in the day rotten Board of Education public hearing on projected FY 26 education budget being held on February 10th 2025 at 6 o'clock Central office Room 11 and that was posting that was in the

002day all right so we can get started um the orienting you the slide shows our Board of Education members our chair is Beverly Washington and our vice chair is Adrien Johnson so we can move to the next slide and um you know our mission statement is teaching and learning providing goals are providing Dynamic rigorous curriculum for all ensuring effective engaging instruction and embracing excellent learning environments and cultivating an environment of diversity equity and inclusion and then when we look at some of our program highlights um all four five of our elementary schools are intradistrict magnet which means that parents have Choice um in signing up for lottery or going to the school that they're designated to and this is um each school has different Partnerships and a different theme one of our partners is electric

003boat and just recently I wrote about it in my weekly update board notes and it'll come out in my um School matters for All Families but the boat program um was is going strong in the elementary schools the middle school and the high school for the high school it really becomes um a a quest in the trades and an instruction in the trades and it's basically field experience for several days um doing manufacturing doing you know learning about all the trades that build a submarine in the elementary it's really learning about what we saw um this past week pipe fitting and they have different stem activities that go along with each of these um and we really had CBS coming down the news station to video and to to talk to the kids and talk

004to the teachers about their experience with our Partnership of electric boat and I think it's going to be noro O'Donnell who showcases that in a few days so I'll make sure the board sees that we're very proud um and you know having electric boat as a partner especially at the High School we're looking at the old shop becoming a manufacturing center our career pathways are going strong um because it's all about college but also about career because it's really the careers that our kids aspire to that we want them to be ready for um and find their Niche so um you know all of those other things with the rigorous curriculum amplifying science with the ngss standards having an international balarat program seeing our numbers grow in e in ibap and ECC um and then

005of course those career Pathways and we have our national Naval defense Cadet Corps too that we're hoping will grow and grow um they just had an inspection that went really well and so we're very proud of them as well um also enhancing literacy um and this you know with the science of reading which has happened K5 looking at it as it continues literacy in the upper grades um will be our next you know Endeavor um making sure that our Technologies we have the onetoone for our secondaries um and of course special education making sure that we have appropriate Staffing for the IEP and that we are delivering the services that need to be delivered social emotional learning is still very important it kind of lays a foundation for kids so they feel good in school

006and um we have a treehouse program and we have sro's at the middle school and high school and I just recently met with parents at both CK and themes River about a threat that was made in our school and you know about our schools and um just talking to them about some of the safeguards we're going to be putting in place are no trespassing signs came in we're looking at um the potential of a grant to support SRO or or public or safety people in the elementary schools so we're we're considering that and and trying to figure how we can support that this is a sheet that talks about our financial obligations what are we bound to for next year's budget that we have in this year's budget that needs to continue so we talk

007about legal fees which um between con you know contractual negotiations we're getting ready for negotiating with it and maintenance custodial and secretaries so that's a very big group that helps support our schools um special education requires some legal expertise as well as do board matters so there are many ways that we use our um board attorney health insurance um we continue to monitor the health insurance claims um I know Lori leine is working really hard on getting you most updated information which will come through the town and through our health um Health advisors and we might even be looking at um you know a a better um increased percentage than what they had originally given us so we're just waiting to have those numbers confirmed to bring back property cost um there have been increases

008in property cost and we are monitoring that Transportation costs we have increases um with a new Transportation um bid that or the new Transportation contract but it it's a contract that really up uploaded up front the the biggest cost increases in the first two years and now they are you know kind of coming down so 5% this year and then I think 3% the next two years um DOD supplement we have always with our high military population been able to get resources Revenue in the town through impact Aid and um we also get it for children with disabilities and um the third area that we get it is through um DOA and that's a supplement and that has been used in the 10 years 11 years that I've been here to support technology and other

009equipment software um this year was our final we got a final payment in the summer and we're actually choosing to use that on our nurses um but in the past it has supported technology so you'll see some increases um with equipment due to that utilities we're watching those electric bills just like I'm watching it at home um they just seem to just go up and escalate um and sometimes for the service more than the actual electricity so um you know we're we're monitoring that um and wanting to make sure that we have the resources available in the budget last year if you remember when we brought in the 7.91 budget there were some things that were shaved down a little bit probably too much so so you'll see in the 25 budget when you compare

010the 26 you might see increases but in some areas you might see that 25 just we didn't put enough in so there are some areas like that and we're just trying to make sure we're we're accounting for what we need for next year um contractual and wage inflations um we have those obligations um including the state minimum wage and we've tried to get ahead of that for next year um and in our negotiations we tried to also get ahead of that um however there is an obligation on the board of ed budget side that had been on the town with the nurses it's no change to the taxpayer um it's not an increase in the overall budget at all the over Town budget but it is an obligation that is now on the board side

011so um you know I'm just stating that as a another contractual um increase um District Trends we're always looking at the comings and goings of our students um if we look at the projection for FY 26 it's slightly up compared to FY 25 um it's a a kind of revolving door between military and a highly mobile Community we see sometimes 750 children 800 children coming into our district and 650 leaving our district going other places so it's constant in and out and keeping track of all of that with the with our students there are some students who come in kindergarten and then graduate from Fitch but there are a lot that are transient we can turn the page now so our proposed budget there a point and point of privilege um is there any way

012to to make the slide a bit bigger oh can we make the slide bigger Caitlyn please we're not running it I'm not running it it's oh okay never mind thank you oh there you go okay so good yep that's better this current year we're in the budget was nearly $88 million next year the new budget is 93,676 420 and it's an increase of f over five million 5.7 and a 6.5% increase you can see that um really the percent increases in salary have been mostly contractual um that you know we're up 5.6% and that's for certified and non-certified staff and everybody that we employ um employee benefits are up 6.9% although I mentioned that Lori leine who's our HR director and she's um really um looking carefully at insurance and works with the um folks

013in the towns side on insurance and works with the business business manager manager around that as well so um we are expecting to have numbers in March that will help us really realize what what needs to happen more clearly purchase Services is up 6.3% Property Services is up 16% um and it could have been that perhaps in the um 25 budget it we didn't provide enough um for this year and that's why we're seeing the increase Transportation um Insurance communication and tuition is only up 1% supplies are up 177% but I would say in the past couple years our schools our site budgets have been held tight um and really at about 75% have been spent of their total budget so um you know they have tightened their belts when we've needed that to happen

014on supplies so this year we're trying to give them what they've asked for I talked about the zero um budgeting process so that they really asked for what they needed and um you know so that's part of Why th that has increased equipment this looks tremendous because it's a $483,000 increase but we had only budgeted $74,000 for this year and um we've always had that half million 500,000 helping to provide technology equipment and software and those kind of things so that increase is really directly related to DOD supplement not having that come in for this year or we're assuming it's not coming in just with the the numbers of military connected or military dependent students we could be in for surprise but I don't know that we will be and then dues and fees um

015when we look at the um budget in 24 and the budget in 26 we see a $114,000 increase which is 16.8% in dues and fees so the next page is the revenue page and the re um that we receive from the federal government and the state government goes directly to the town this is these are the funds that offset for the taxpayers because it's coming through the town but it supports education and the education budget so the one of the largest contributors to this is really our state fund of excess cost sharing which is kind of middle of the page $25 million and it's guaranteed for next year um it's one of those things that has been held harmless since we are an alliance District we might have been one of the last ones in

016we might be doing very well amongst our peers in the alliance districts but it also contributes the $25 million and doesn't reduce it in the time that we're in Alliance District another thing from the state in the middle of the page is special ed excess cost um Magnet School transportation adult education and non-public um services so the total amount of State funds in the middle of the page is 26,1 168,000 and um it accounts for about 27.9 close to 28% of the revenue that comes in up at the top where you see the federal resources we have do D impact aid department of education which came in at $ 6,876 MediCare at 225 225,000 so the total federal monies that have come in is 600 6,312 373 there's also EFS federal grants um and state

017grants and the total of all of those grants is another 41 milon 500 41 m530 996 um so when you look at all those Revenue sources you see that about 55.67 per of the total education budget is covered by Revenue that is coming into the town to support education and that's a better number than we've seen in the past several years so I was happy to see that kind of support coming our way all right we can move on the next is really hard to read but I gave you a more detailed page so that you could see it the presentation and the entire budget is on the website um the board continues to look at it and we'll be looking at it all month long and making adjustments we're going to keep track of

018it on a tracker sheet and they've already made some great suggestions about the um the actual narratives giving more information to families and that's being looked at and um recorded and we'll be updating that as well so that by the end of this month we'll be bringing our budget the new it'll be the board's budget and they will um be voting on it and um you know appr approving a board budget not just a superintendent's budget I just got them started and now they're going to do some heavy lifting with me and and we'll go back and we'll see what we can do but this is a budget that supports everything that we have today for our students doesn't take anything away and um but we will look to see if there's some other efficiencies

019or some other things the board might want to add into the budget so um but it really goes through and it shows you all the salaries in more detail what we're paying for administrators teachers and other staff substitutes custodians so it it breaks it down a little more and I'll make sure that I get this up this whole presentation up on the website as well um and the bottom line is the same 6.5 increase 93,676 so that's that's it in a nutshell thank you very much superintendent um now we will welcome public comments comments should be limited to three minutes or less citizens should State their names and addresses for the record um do we have anybody online that would like to speak raise your hand if you like to speak if you're online we

020don't see anyone with their hand raised okay okay anyone here would like to speak going once twice just we're asking that you sign in and put your address for us that would be great um hi my name is Porsche bordon I live at 24 Jefferson Drive for full disclosure I'm a town council member for full disclosure Ian Thomas who also is on the board of education is my husband I'm a mother of two sons who graduated from Fitch also a Fitch Fitch high school graduate myself um and for full disclosure I also worked in the school system as a perah and have done some work with learn in the past so I'm very familiar with a lot of the internals and the process proc es um again I stand before you with just my concerns

021I'll speak tonight as a paid taxpayer um I'll have my chance at looking at all this when it comes to me um just keep in mind you know I think to the board of edge members that this budget is about 68% I believe of the full Town budget yet I feel like it has the shortest amount of time of deliberation as a whole in comparison to the entire town budget um to me it's one of the most important pieces of the budget outside of law enforcement ambulance and other major health things for our town to function education is the key so I think you know it deserves more time with that I am concerned about the amount of time that the uh Board of Ed is getting a chance to really go through this budget

022um in a full process of deliberation um I commend the uh policy uh the uh group that looked at trying to make this uh referral as a budget uh the committee that worked on looking at ways to improve the budget process I'm sad to see that a lot of the things that they recommended and that was voted unanimously on most items hasn't even finished through the policy committee meeting to me my opinion it seems like stalling um in a lot of ways and a lot of things not going through I'm just absurd uh Community has spoken and said that they were concerned and you work you know for the town and the taxpayers as the Board of Education first and foremost so those are my concerns and that's when I'm here I've heard from the

023community loud and clear um it looks here like one policy barely made it through at the last policy meeting when I watched 13 can you do me a favor stick to the budget that's a policy it's about budget you policy though 3120 is about the budget um and I you know but what in the budget do you see that you want to address and not a policy I'm speaking about the budget and how it's being rolled out that's my concern which is about just add my time back please um so I I'll add that back um so my concern is about how the budget's being rolled out and my concerns with the whole presentation of the budget absolutely so 3120 um barely made it through um and I'm concerned because the committee uh voted unanimously

024on having that obviously the language was changed and it was you know put through but things in here what the community wanted I was shocked when I heard Board of Ed members seeming as if they didn't know why some of the language should be in let's go back again you're talking about policy at the budget money let me get there get right there there concerns is a financial concern that we should be addressing um that's why the wording should have went in there because the audit was not given to the board of ed members in a timely manner also looking at the uh numbers here not just audit but the nurses when you talk tonight you said the nurses uh funding is back in um that wasn't very transparent or there was a lot of

025who said what that happened with that so that's why that language needs to be in there that's to protect the Board of Ed members as well as the superintendent to make sure that policy there so that things are deliberated in a fashion um with that my concerns always is closing achievement gaps I hear that this is a somewhat of a level budget you're saying nothing's changing really um I wanted to see enhancements where we are looking at our most vulnerable and making sure that we're providing remedial support um based on those math scores that you guys presented that were outrageous um I'm surprised that this presentation doesn't show more support in that area there should be huge number changes in that yet I don't see them um that is the concern again we speak about

026I ID programs U Ledger was just name what 29th out of top schools in the area uh f with out nowhere in the top 30 on those findings that were just posted um and yet they don't have an IB program so it doesn't it's not the end all be all it's a great nice have but it's not a must um with that um if we're going to have programs we should be funding funding our remedial support just the same caliber as we do the high enrichment programs um so I don't see anything I didn't hear anything about improving those math scores anywhere in this presentation and that is a concern also another one of my big things I've been asking for the last three to five years is um a full-time career counselor we have

027a part-time and other neighboring schools have a full-time career counselor so you want those enrichment programs and those high-end programs like the IV well we need to fund a person to make sure their help students um you know get to that level so um again if this is a level if nothing's changed in the budget that you presented then that means that that's still a part-time career counselor um so those are my concerns and making sure our Sports and Athletics are funded equitably and hearing that you're just matching with um minimum wage I'm I'm shocked that anyone that works in a public school system is making minimum wage so what are we doing to enhance because we can barely get peras to St learn Norwich New London all surrounding areas pay way more than Bron

028so I I am concerned about that as well and I'll I'll take a stab at this the next time but again I thank you for your work I Look to watch the Board of Ed members now take a hold of this and see but definitely am concerned about the promises that were made um that this was all going to be cleaned up and all the things that the board of EG asked for was going to be put into here and it's not it's still not clean and hard to read um so with that um I wish you guys the best of luck to the Bo of and um you know I empathize with you guys for having very little time to tackle this budget um and hopefully maybe those policies that are sitting there collecting

029dos that people worked on will come to life and not be dragged down or sit any longer I I don't know what's going on thank you anyone else that would like to gu the boy hello and thank you for let us know about this meeting and I think more people need to can you state your name and address please oh my name is Joanna I am 21 West Al and um I think when I received this notification was really sure like inste it and I think more people need to be here and and speak also another speakings that they have Spanish as a s language that you provide a translator to be able to be here and I'm trying to do my best right now I have three children with Specialists um one in high

030school and two in elementary school um like I speak Spanish at home so my kids first language is Spanish so my middle son need a lot of help with English as a second language um learning and uh I don't see as much help with um that particular area also I have a lot of friends that they don't understand a lot about the child patient and um they need to know about these meetings because they have a lot of cuts and I know they have shoulders of par professionals and our kids Special line of mind so need a one onone so we need to make sure they have the quality because they don't be able to come back home to say you know I don't have somebody work with me they don't have that communication with

031me so and I think there are a lot of things that are going on my son was restrained 19 times this currently year and I ask a lot of help and I know if I request my son to be out of placement it will cost more money to the town and I have the tools to do it but I choose to be here in the special um he a school because he what he's supposed to be so pleas please make sure our kids be able to get what they need and one one for a professional and I know they live in because other towns pay better like Isam or nor so make sure they are the ones who work with our kids one not the teacher the teacher is supervising but they want to speak

032one in one with him he's a professional and I know a lot of kids and teacher left because this is too much they low a lot of kids in a room for one teacher and no matter professional maybe it's supposed to be one-onone but it's not oneon-one so please make sure our kids get what they need I don't understand too much about numbers because I don't have time but I trying to be make sure they get what they need um last thing like I repeated I don't want to send my son to be out rep placement because it cost a lot of money and it's also in my in my money CU I pay taxes so make sure parents they have special kids they'll be here also and talk about what they the kids they

033get what they want they need no um because they want because they don't have that communication to say Mommy I don't have a professional thank you thank you thank you thank you anyone else anyone online again would like to speak raise your hand okay with that I'll call for an adjournment of the public hearing have a motion to adjourn Andrea and do I have a second all those favor areour public hearing say iOS exension We Now call the order call to order the special meeting of the mountain Board of Education being held well after 6:30 it's almost 6:40 at central office on February 10 2025 it's a budget work session the superintendent has presented her budget and now it's in the hands of the board of education so I will you want to do ft

034I can start with ft y thank it's under Behind the Green T this is not up and I'm going to take you through that um what was done was it was a roll up of the other two schedules on this page so if you look at two large Pages they roll up to the first page if you look a parliamentary privilege uh we need to broadcast this publish like what are we doing we normally project the thing up for people to follow along Clint what happened in Clint Clint are you there want me to go and see if I can get him um we'll put it up in a minute but I can talk to you all if you have your books in front of you um you see that for the um top page

035it's all of our certified staff teachers and administrators if the FTE report was prepared at the end of January the 30th of this year in the elementary section you see the same amount of principles and assistant principles that show up on the on the school pages and show up on the roll out page behind it so there are five principles and seven um assistant principles for elementary underneath you see two principles for secondary and six assistant principles total if you go across the page you see the total number of Administrators in elementary which is 12 and the total number of Administrators in secondary which is nine you also see that um on the right hand side you see the number of classroom teachers at the elementary level and special Educators and that 151 point six

036classroom teachers plus the 34 special ed teachers equals the 21.1 um total teachers teachers and administrators 223 point. one it looks like and that all ties in with the rollup on the top page for teachers and administrators at elementary and secondary the total being 443.101 [Music] grants that we've received we also have Enterprise funds and in the Enterprise funds they're self-sufficient so whether it's the Food Service program or whether it's the Treehouse program they afford and their Enterprise fund affords paying for their staff and um you basically it's showing you the number of Administrators that they have on the non-certified page you're going to see a breakdown of all our noncertified staff so we have our PA of professionals Library techs our tutors our classroom and bus AIDS and when you add those all up

037at the elementary level you're talking about 144.5 that are paid through by the operation grants there are some that are paid for by our um idea below you can see idea under Grant funded that's another 45 teachers that are pair of professionals that would be added to the 109 189 109 pairs at the elementary and the 41 at the secondary level so the subtotal of all the board of deed funded um pairs is 14.3 plus the 45 which is your 195 so we take a look at the number of total tutors as well and if you see down below the total tutor staff is 37.5 for the whole district and then classroom and bus AIDS amount to 37.25 at the bottom when you total them up there are four Securities there's actually they they do

038half day splits so they do early morning with kids coming in and transportation to kind of middle day through through lunch and then they the others come in a little before lunch they do overlap during lunch and then stay till the end of the day so there's actually eight people um we have our community coordinators athletic trainer bcba um and the districtwide I think is the bcba isn't that right yes under that and then [Music] um we see additional um Community coordinators and um support staff under the title grants to to have a total of 9.5 and that's because you don't have a full-time Community coordinator at every school there are 10 to 20 hours they sometimes will also if a secretary is out especially at our elementaries where we only have one secretary the

039community coordinator will also help support the building if someone is out you see our cler staff now for the elementary basically every most of the elementary schools except for the large ones have one and then the larger schools the themes River and the Mystic River have two at the um secondary level we have three at the Bron middle school and five at the high school so um and then we have um certainly our our secretarial staff or clerical staff here at a central office which is an additional 2 21.25 and it looks like we have a districtwide person um parttime as well so the total number of clerical is 3655 our custodians we were just talking about that in facilities meeting um we have reduced custodians after covid and the arester funds um being eliminated

040we went down back to preco um custodial support and we do have um a couple a one in .5 position still outstanding in maintenance um because it's kind of hard to find and we were able to find a part-time person who could do um some of the work but we don't we still have that outstanding area um but if you look there's 16 at the elementary 19 and A2 at the secondary so for a total of 38 custodians um our maintenance are considered districtwide because they have certain expertise for instance you have someone who's really good at Plumbing you have someone who's really good at HVAC some you know they all have different roles to pay some who are like General Contractors that can do a lot of different things but the total District number

041is 11.5 for maintenance um there's also it teexs and um we have 11 of those that are really also just like the maintenance they serve all of our schools nurses and health aids um there are nine at the elementary level they basically have both a nurse and a health aid um at each of the schools and we also support Sacred Heart um as well and I think that's probably where you see District why is for Sacred Heart and then in the secondary we have two each at each of the schools with nurse and and Aid and so a total of 15 nurses and school health aids so when you kind of go across the line looking at Total Clerical custodial maintenance you see 32 there plus 144.5 with our tutors and um Paras and classroom

042AIDS and um security Community coordinators for a total of 176.50 at the elementary level a total of 94.5 at the secondary and when you put that together um we should have 336.00 when you add up all the 176.50 the 94.5 The 37.6 and the 27.25 you get that 3361 number and then there are some people also in Grants so we have it looks like idea that 45 crosses over for the Paras um so there's another 60.5 in Grants and um the Enterprise fund like I said was self-sufficient you saw the administrators on that other page and here you see really the food service and The Treehouse staff that supports the programs treeh houses in every school Food Services does you know takes care of feeding all of our schools and all of our students so

043um you know the total number of staff for both programs is 55.5 when you add up all total of non-certified Staff you see the 42.1 o which ties out and it ties out on the schol sheets order there is one nurse missing from Sacred Heart so the nurses are actually 16 we we discovered that at our last meeting because the position at Sacred Heart was vacant at the start of the year so Northeast Academy should have two a nurse and a health aid and then the district wi would be the float nurse and the Sacred Heart nurse so if you would just adjust the total nurses from and health aids from 15 to 16 there is no health aid at Sacred Heart just a nurse do you see the Sacred Heart nurse added here though

044she the Sacred Heart nurse is in District wide oh okay we're going to bump the nursing supervisor back up to to Northeast so instead of one Health worker at Northeast to you'll see that in your final budget book sorry Mark thank you everyone can unmute and we'll just pull it down if you're making so you'll see in your final budget book but I just wanted to update you now that there's two health staff at Northeast Academy for a total of 16 and District white should be one two the float nurse and the sacred nurse we had originally put the nursing supervisor there but we're going to put her back up in northeast of P she is also the Nea head nurse and she also helps support col yeah you said we'd be getting it in

045the final budget book um when are we actually going to get that book well we're working on the narrative now and the final book will be your your actual um budget all right so I'm sorry that how do we so how do we I mean we just had an ad of one nurse salary so with Benefits it's going to add I don't know $80,000 or something on the benefits so how do we see that how do we see that um so we can make decisions now some of us would be looking at percent increase as well as all of the things that we're offering in looking at those two things together and making decisions so if we don't know um now where we are I'm not really sure where our budget is now because I

046know we've made a lot of changes over the last two weeks um but they're not accounted to in any final the funding is the same so the the funds haven't changed I mean the the budget is still the budget will we getting this final budget book what what day I mean we're planning on voting on the 24th what day do you plan on giving the board something to vote on a piece of paper that shows the full budget well I would hope that unlike last year that you all would be able to go through this process and really come to a decision before you have to vote on it right so that we could get the book out to you before you voted on it wait wait B Jen has a hand raised and also

047on you too yeah I would just to finish um looking over last year yeah we didn't have the book until after we voted on it there were some things that changes that I didn't understand um you know from our meetings but last year was a I'll call it a complicated process um I personally don't feel comfortable voting unless I have time to review what I'm voting on um so with I think that we should be able to talk about dates um if we're planning on voting on the budget on the 24th which is that the correct date to everyone's knowledge y then what date will we have an actual budget that we can review to vote on well it you know how it depends on when those numbers stop changing when you stop you know

048tracking it and saying this is for sure so right now you've given me some suggestions for the narrative I can certainly give you the narrative review when that's complete I know they've been working on it but as far as um any numbers that would be changing additions subtractions we've got to kind of go through that process to do the tracker because I can't be making budget books every week because they takes enormous amount of time like central office shuts down to make these books so that's a lot of wasted pay paper so we can certainly give you the narrative update we can give you the updates that you're talking about we can we're going to keep a separate tracker sheet of the ads and the subtracts to keep track of that for yeah but by

049doing that last year then the final budget was different than um what I thought we were tracking I don't know how other board members do it in a Google doc this time we be adding track why can't we just have a document and modify it so that the board can actually see what's happening what the changes are I mean I I was under the impression that we were going to get a new document on Friday that was going to have all the modifications since the 31st which I believe we found lots of Errors so with that knowledge I didn't make hand notes in version three because I thought we were going to have a new clean version now I don't know how to get to that just those changes I I guess I have to

050rewatch all the meetings and try to pick up on all what the changes were so one of the things we talked about was to put all benefit in a districtwide category so we will be pulling that from there and then the other thing I know that we were talking about was the narrative part and so to give more clarity in the narrative so those two things and um you know I know that the um the staff who's working on it have been given those things add to and fixs so can you give us a date when we will have a final budget vote on well have a final budget wait you don't understand so we have to vote on something on the 24th can you give us a drop dead date on onwi you will

051have a modified document so we have time to look at it and see if the modified document is similar to our would you like it Adrian I would like it now the only thing we've changed I would like the superintendent budget right now so we can have your budget all the changes to date I I was under the understanding and maybe I'm incorrect but that we would be getting a final copy of the superintendent budget and then it gets handed over to the board so what I feel like has been handed over to the board is a marked up document that everyone probably has a slightly different version at least everyone has a different version than me because my marking up was not as complete as I would have done and I known we weren't

052going to get a new document another week that's what he's asking for all the changes that we made so far you want some new budget okay I'll get it for you on Monday well Monday no Friday not that was another week another week's G yes in time okay um I agree with Adrien like we need a new book like a clean like I keep saying it it's like mailing off your tax return right and whatever is in that book whether right wrong or indifferent we're going to fix it so that it becomes the board's budget right now like I have scribbles in here um in our marketing Pages the certified staff is close the UN the non-certified staff is different that was one of the first things I asked for and some of these other

053slides it's left Justified with decimal places but that's the minimal extent right the the greatest extent is we proposed a document we had originally said December 16th is we are going to get a final draft this board was gracious enough to move it to January 6 and that was the version that we should have been working against never never and I know certain things happen right so we can excuse that never have I ever been on a board where the board was part of the sausage making process of the budget like this should have been completed and provided to us and then we can make adjustments so that we can track our changes so the fact that you gave us a budget and we are changing numbers constantly it was never final it was like

054sending a tax return and putting an amendment an amendment an amendment and so we don't know where we are at least if we get a clean book on Wednesday then whatever scribbles we make we can justify like each page this needs to change this needs to change and so by the time this binder comes back to us we can all go through it and say yep they removed the decimal places yep um the FTE in the green section matches the marketing document I think where the board is getting frustrated is that we've made a lot of changes and we all take notes in a different fashion some of us more than others and some of us less than others but it's not complete so Adrian might think that we've invested a 100,000 in I don't

055know somewhere and I might think like oh we cut 200,000 somewhere just based on like our understanding of the meaning so nothing is clear and nothing is concise and we just need to stop this right now of like oh we're just going to move benefits to a single resource it's not that's the that's the most minimal of the issues at this point we need to be able to address like are the numbers FTE correct with the salaries that are there because it's been brought up by Dean and I think Ian that the percent increases and the change is greater than what is negotiated in the contract and I like basically said oh yeah because there's probably x amount of salaries there in order for us to get comfortable and say that this is the board's

056budget we need to be able to start um if you want us to start from the January 6 one we can start from the January 61 and scribble all the way through that one and hand it off um um I don't know like if you think it's going to be um like a lot of resources and I can appreciate it like having a lot of resources right but um so I don't know about my fellow board people cuz at least January 6 we know all the issues we all have our notes and we can all go through it you by one I will try it's we're shorthanded but I will try I don't think they would I would try well I'm G have by Wednesday well like I said we can go through the January

057the narrative that so can you get us one without the narrative and add the narrative later but get us a hard budget it's actually for call it the wor is it snowing tomorrow you ask Matthew could we get a hard budget with and get the narrative changes later so we have the numbers to work with I think the numbers are okay but I will double check I'm Sor I'm out of order I think okay I don't know I hope you know the depth of the frustration of this board it was my understanding that at the end of the process that we finished last week that the superintendent's budget was to become the board's budget and that we're able to move line by line through the board's budget now we're talking about I'll try to get

058the the this the Lord it this is the superintendent's budget but not with the changes that we made have you given us your final complete absolutely done budget yes or no that's that's the problem I'm I'm so sorry I really want to support you but this is very difficult Madam chair thank you it myself I don't think the numbers change that much but the narrative narrative did and on that I can get you the narrative but you know if you want me to produce a whole new book I will Madam is it up on the is it up on the net is it up on the net for the public to look at yes where it's on the website it is no I went to there and doesn't show those numbers it's in the presentation

059it's on the front page so um I I want to thank my colleagues for uh stating um and expressing their frustration uh because I share that deeply um as Jen identified I mean uh I don't we worked as a budget procedure committee to come up with a framework based out of the compet uh confusion of last year we wanted a different framework to approach this budget and we worked as a team trying to be part of the larger team as the board working in concert with the administration in order to come up with a better framework through which we could get a complete uh superintendent's budget early enough in the process where we could acquaint ourselves with it and then begin to critique it and make adjustments in a very structured systematic fashion so that

060we all can understand what we're changing and how we're changing and we would have all have the opportunity to speak to numbers and vote on numbers none of this has occurred and I have tried to be a team player but now I just feel like we're getting played and and excuse me please let me finish um and and now I am gone from being disappointed week to week to week with this whole process as a delay delay delay and quite frankly it feels you know as Jen also identified we are way too involved in making the superintendent's budget this is not what I signed on for I signed on to review the superintendent's budget incomplete in in incompletion you know the the total thing and so like you know I'm no longer no longer disappointed

061now I'm officially disgruntled because I feel like this is not what's please let me finish my thought um what we we that one there's a fundamental change that that is occurring one the the the benefits are being pulled out of every single function function code that includes employees and being placed in District wide that's going to change the math in almost every single function code so all that is is that's a systemic change foundational change you know and and that's going to change our perception of each function code as we look at it so that that for one to get done and when we parted Ways last week I'm I share my my colleagues uh impression that I thought we were going to get an electronic copy on Friday and you know and hopefully a

062paper copy by Monday so that we could go through it in a systematic fashion as we discussed also last week where we were we had all decided as a board consensus wise at least that was my impression that we would have sort of an opening session tonight where we talked about long term goals overarching you know percentages that we wanted to Target and then go through function code by function code so we made sure that everyone had an opportunity to look at every single code and move a number if they felt so inclined um you know there's also the questions of like the the the you know fy2 numbers you know some of the fuel stuff that was changed you know know again like all I wanted was and I'm not the only one it

063sounds like I was expecting it just a clean document to come in and start fresh you know and start in a very organized fashion and that um so is not the narrative and the health benefits or the two well I'm not going to limit it to that because we had a whole series of notes on various different departments and things I mean I have a lot of notes in here I mean um I'm not gonna I'm not going to limit to just like the one or two things that we're identifying now as the the the standouts I mean there's supposed to be a system where and honestly like I I don't know we gave feedback repeatedly on all this over the period of weeks and it just feels again like we're just stalling out and

064now we're being told that we're not going to get the final if we get my Monday then we have one week left to do this let me ask you we have no meetings scheduled we have one meeting tonight we have a meeting scheduled Wednesday where there would be a work session and then um there's one more meeting uh scheduled uh for next week on the 19th and then on the 20th yeah so that you know I just we are the main ask of the budget procedure committee was that we had a complete comprehensive and cohesive budget delivered early and as Jen noted like we initially were asking for before the holidays but then accepted it after the holidays but then after that like we found ourselves at least I'll say that what it looked to

065me is like the board was going through doing the proof reading that the business office should have been doing so and and we found numerous errors and typos and and and and miscalibrations and things like that and you know shifting numbers from fy2 so I mean I don't know how we I mean I just wanted a clean shot and I was hoping by tonight we would have that opportunity to be able to get a clean document with all the adjustments made up until the last time we met last week and this has not occurred I have my interim director address some of this since he is in the no well he can but fact is we didn't get a clean document I thought we were going to get one too I was looking for that

066on Friday and I know I've sent another the other clean document that already came to you and I know that they were working on the narrative and the benefits we've had admin assistants listening to the recordings and looking at the notes so that they're going through that um Ray are you there yes I am um I know that um you kind of and Lori had been working with Peter on the narratives and that I think is accomplished I'm wondering about um how we are with the benefits as far as bringing them into the districtwide as recommended we have them all summed up they're part of the worksheet uh modifications that we have as well as the nurse was added in I personally added the nurse in last week to start the uh track those are

067the major changes now the benefits uh really have no effect on the bottom line the nurse will have an effect of about a seven and a half percent uh excuse me 0.0075% change so your overall change is uh 6.58% to the bottom line of the uh to the bottom line of your budget right now increase of what so how how difficult is it to get all of that information and get out a new budget even electronically to the board as you know I'm not in the office tomorrow um Wednesday or Thursday at very best I need I need to see where Peter's at he's doing pay he's working on payroll right now um so I'm we'll switch gears and bring them back into it again okay if that if I know but you're working from

068home right no I'm in okay tomorrow oh that's right you've got a day okay um well if you could email him and I'll check in with him tomorrow I'll give him a call first thing tomorrow morning okay thank you we'll take care of it okay we'll we'll remodify things but to my understanding most of the changes have taken place within this current book that I have there was um other than the consolidation of the um healthc care and pension Pro uh numbers and the narrative those were the items that I thought were the Bigg Nares are the big things from the last meeting in the narrative and then those are all updated and then to move the um health insurance which it sounds like you guys are working on the health insurance we've actually pulled

069them I I'm looking at it here now we've pulled them started pulling them out and we've got them Consolidated so that we're going to bring them to one I think we're bringing them to the 1700 function and that's where we're going going to be displaying them uh we just haven't put that out yet because it's part of the process of the change normally in a change log we maintain these changes and then we publish one last book but it's obvious that they want a new book now so we'll we said that last week I'm sorry that was the consensus last week is that we're GNA start fresh that we're going to get a new document I don't understand why this seems like it's a new conversation maybe we can it didn't happen let's see what

070we we're GNA have it Wednesday work toward getting it for you it's not a new conversation if fation you're making and we'll we'll take it from there we'll move one step at a time and I'll get it for you nobody's trying to hide anything nobody's trying to move things and I feel like the board ability I came on board at what time of the hour at the 11th hour I'm trying to do the best I can to help you the best I can how don't yeah I don't think anyone's I don't think anybody's CRI we happy you're here Ray all right Dean okay I started with my hand up thinking one thing and I'm thinking I'm just G to focus it on this the bottom line other than the nurse's benefits the 007 whatever other

071than that um yeah the bottom line hasn't changed none of the numbers have changed we may like to change some numbers we've never voted on any dollar changes we've asked a lot of questions one thing that has been changing well other than can we get the real 2025 numbers that that was an issue can when we to the extent we want to compare with the prior year it was important to have at least in a couple of key areas the real 2025 numbers not the not the uh the Phantom numbers the alternative numbers uh but the one thing that I've tried to match up is is the ft tees and uh again I I've been trying to play with some mathematical models because I don't know all of for example the 1101 function 1101 all

072the elementary school the K through five salaries again no one as far as I know is getting a six and a half% increase and yet it seems like the average between the two populations moves six and a half percent I'm trying to think of a way to like engineer a scenario where nobody sees that percentage increase in their pay and yet somehow the group on average moves and I it may just be like I said an arithmetic phenomenon some an artifact of Statistics but leaving that aside for the moment um should there be and and others have addressed this as well I presume that there is like a a correspondence between the first page of a section the FTE and then the dollar figures associated with the ft so that if I see so many

073certified teachers under you know under 101 when I look at 101 on the dollar figure that you know 127 uh proposed K through five teachers uh are going to cost us 11 just salaries alone you know 11 and a half or 11.6 million uh and that's the assumption that I've been going on that there's always a matchup that may or may not be the case um but I want an assurance there the corollary to that is when I'm just looking at the FTE pages that we've just reviewed should there be and what am I missing when I look at uh total Elementary classroom teachers we've got 151.90 is that instead of the 127 for for uh code account 101 or what's missing there that's a kind of thing that I'm that I'm looking at and

074I'm not saying this a mistake I'm saying I I need to understand this before we move forwarder any other night so you see where I'm saying that okay so should there be a match between you know when we say classroom teachers 151.90 under function 110 what page are you on special educ so I'm on 4.2 te columns total says 151 Elementary right and then when you go to 5.6 under 101 certified teachers for the elementaries we list a total of 127 that are not in the board's budget okay so your mte might be larger because you have people funded GRS okay but we don't but the 151.2093 um we asked that so so I'm sorry parliamentary privilege uh do we have a fully uh what's the latest electronic version of the full budget that's been

075sent out because I just tried to find one I can project up and this one is the one that dates back it doesn't even have the 1506 number it's it's this is not the right version are you online did you get from online no I was going through my email so if you go to the bo finance department I think that's the yeah it's on the front page oh it is should be one version wherever it is it should be one version of whether it's correct or not there should be one version of the budget two is makes really confusing did you I'm just trying to find the the latest electronic version of the of the FY 26 budget draft so I can project it up and so people can follow along with what we're

076talking about and um no I have to go on the website yes it's up now so how do you want to proceed you want to start with the whatever's behind the pink tab or do you wna go ahead I I still have questions on the green tab I was just letting play out is that okay yeah thank you and so I found I found the green TP helpful with that breakdown um and just on the so I guess this is or to the certifi teachers and administrators um if I go to in the blue the subtotal Boe budget funded we get to that 443.101 so that's up by 4.6 um and then the if you look over the next con with the teachers one that's up by um 5.1 I think I if I look

077at it I think most of the the additional teachers are in um if you just go over to the left and that's special ed teachers and then the bilingual hearing and PR psychologist speech language um special education Support Services I think that's where the the plus five is from last year we did have an extra special ed and an extra speech language which Denise I remember that and that was per you know from last year to this year yeah so it's up five just like talk about that riew it though yeah in the ABA program you have two instead of one there's always been two no I'm talking about even special ed teachers oh special ed teacher 3 one yes that's correct so added so there's like it's up by in and that was at

078the I remember you mention GMS right language I think was up and then there was some unfilled positions that brought middle like we couldn't find a Spanish teacher um and we finally hire a Spanish teacher so they probably had Sub in there for the year but there were some of those situations where we couldn't find a staff member and you had a sub who was certified but those would have been in the budget before I think I think maybe the Spanish teacher could be in the the bilingual but maybe not I'm so so anyway that's my my question there is just um we've gone through the function codes I think we've talked about adding stuff but just just those that plus five so that's an addition um from last year in those two columns the

079special edge featers and a bilingual hearing impaired um and and those those are certainly valuable uh Services just like to know at at this level where they are it doesn't have to be denied though um and I will say if you look at the last year's budget um book those two columns in particular I think we just combined together actually actually like the breakout I do too it's better yeah um so it's nice to see yeah every small thing um just notic it's t i in the upper right corner it says fy2 budget that that up column that's just supposed to be F5 26 right I just caught that something we passed by a million times and not catch um and then on 4-3 that's where it's the non-certified staff FP report um and if

080I go down this one's not in blue but if sort of in the middle of the page the subtitle be subtotal sorry it's my other job sub total Boe budget funded and you go across all the way to right we get to the that's the next page we get to the 336.00 five. one so that is up by 31 positions and and you've mentioned this as we've gone through yeah yes so it's additional tutors I had a net of plus 11 in the tutor column which is that second column from the right um we just added the other health the nurses but they we didn't have them in yeah that was there but but the nurses are do reflect that's like 15 of them of the spots and then it would be 16 and the

081nurse is eight so so the nurses are half of this um so the tutors I had is up 11 from last year's budget and then the classroom bus AIDS were up um um 12.5 uh I've got a question on what that what really is a classroom BL a but I'll just um I can answer it real quick oh yeah I'll just say this other part um the PA professional is if that total is down not much by but uh 1.7 and I I do have a concern like strategically for us as a as a school system are we shifting our Workforce away from um uh Union Care Professionals uh to nonunion I presume non-union tutor classroom and bus AIDS or or are we shifting away from H full-time to to part-time um and and then

082if so why but um so anyway those big changes the tutors and the classroom bu AIDS if you could just talk about that as well as so the bus AIDS we had a hard time getting bus AIDS last year and so we've done better this year and hiring them so we we do have the number of bus AIDs that we need the classroom AIDS are really your kindergarten AIDS um that are with the kindergarten class or your um prek AIDS as well and and maybe lunch and every lunch AIDS too or is that something separate yeah the lunch AIDS if they're only for lunchtime and recess and recess lunch and recess so this is all that's Elementary right and then the part of the question that you were asking Mike about um parttime sometimes if

083the way a PA becomes part of the Union is they need to be able to take an assessment to qualify and uh if they haven't taken the assessment yet or they're working on getting the assessment done we are able to hire sub paars and those subp paars start working for us and they're non-union but as soon as we get them assessed and they are able to pass that test what is it called Theo Pro then they become part of the Union so it's kind of like getting them in getting that training getting them ready for that assessment and then once they take the assessment they're part of the union and that's part of grow your own it's kind of grow your own and yeah but that's separate from the say the tutors um those are

084distinct the the subs wouldn't be no that no we have building subs and then we also have tutors and tutors really um some of them are teachers or they're certified they have college education and you know and they are tutoring our kids and a lot of them are are e tutors we mostly have El tutors we have some SE tutors some math tutors and some literacy but not nearly what we had in during Co of course so could we is there like a different blend uh rather than just adding rather than exclusively adding on um say tutors would there could there be a different blend of adding on tutors and Pa professionals because the total pair of pair of professional numbers is going to go down that's a concern I have there uh there's some

085overlapping duties uh between tutors and Pa professionals even though there certainly their job descriptions are distinct I was just wondering if there's a different blend that we could kind of accomplish the same educational goals with well we we tried that during covid when we couldn't find the Paris but that was really part of um you know we really eliminated that because that was not the pars weren't happy about that because they really wanted pars to do par work and tutors to do tutor work so that's what we have going on now and tutors work with small groups and they're instructional you know they instruct and in a par of situation they really help provide the student everything they possibly need in all kinds of ways to so they can access education and they support the

086child but they're not necessarily tutoring the child okay the teacher's still teaching or the special educator still teaching and then they assist and then the increase thank you and then the increase in the class Maids the is the need what's the need driving that I mean I I can see it's important to have many bodies in kindergarten classrooms yeah so our preschool programs enroll students through the Early Childhood assessment team and often it's when they turn three um or when they're referred to the district and we get to know them and evaluate them which is a process so we will add a part-time paa as our enrollment increases if a student needs it based on you know the severity of their disability so we don't know when we're budgeting how many Paras we're going to

087need because it's really based on enrollment but you do have some some idea because they're it's at when they're three and then they're coming through this we don't know who's going to come in though it's it's it's it's a it's kind of a um the enrollment is hard to predict and so where there needs that makes sense um that was my last question oh so I wasn't here of this part of the bu process last year but I know there are many Cuts due to Arps are going away um is how by say adding on you know 11 tutor positions and 12 and a half classroom plus a it seems like we're probably still below what was funded two years ago but how we lost 124.5 positions on that so so this is this is

088kind of inching back up well it's not even inching I think it's based on need and like I said out loud when you have 800 kids coming in and 700 some going out each year you've got a lot of needs shifting so um and then when the kids come to us if they already have an IEP we honor that and we bring them back to the committee to the team with their parents to assess what are their needs and what are the programs that we have available thank you I'm personally cautious about um adding Workforce um but I do like to see that you know the the certified teachers are being added in special ed bilingual hearing impaired psychological speech special Support Services we're adding tutors classroom Buss I would like to see us add

089in a pair of professionals as well that mix but but it does see seem that the needs we've been talking about closing achievement gaps that's where the additional staff those are all those are all highlighted in that PPT process and through a child's IEP so everybody around the table figures out what those needs are for that child so that's what's going to drive us and it can change all year long based on every I PPT annual PPT that goes on so we're constantly you know I've had um Denise and I have worked through adding several other paas because of the needs we also have a highly mobile part of our population is mobile so students leaving students moving in and really kind of I think we addressed this last week really kind of adjusting our

090Workforce where the need is thank you um I I just want to kind of revisit I guess like get a sense of the overall game plan here from here on out like I mean are we St doing looking at the budget well according to what we discussed last week the idea for this meeting tonight was primarily to kind of talk about the overarching goals and what adjustment and the percentages we might want to try to attain and then we're going to drill down and do it systematically from function code to function code that was my understanding from last week and unless that's a misunderstanding I'd welcome anyone to correct my um perception so so that being the case I mean I guess I would open the or I'd be interested to hear people talk about

091like what are our goals for the uh overall percent increase and what are our um priorities as far as like what we want to bolster as far as uh you know where do we want to see the allocations go within the budget generally speaking and I'm just going to remind you you did ask for a principal wish lfts which you received their priorities so I had said make sure you review that and make sure you look at that budget ahead of time to say what are some of those areas that you feel like could we should look at to reduce oh increase or increase Jen is just I can go out first all right who wants to startop you want to startop Michael oh no no Matthew I said I could I don't that I

092don't want to but I will um I'm looking through this through the frame of I don't want to use the word Mission our goals and I think the standardized testing reveals that there's a lot of work to be done the teachers are not thrilled with the results but the teachers are great teachers don't get me wrong we have good teachers I've been to lots of classrooms I've been ter I've been really impressed but somehow we're not getting the results that we want and I was looking the other day this may not be a fair place to go but I I looked one at the site budgets and I saw that the per student allocation on the site budgets at the elementary level was $181 and change at the middle school level was $220 per student

093and change and at Fitch High School 395 per student in change now I do realize that elementary school doesn't have electives I do realize that elementary school doesn't have inter Scholastic Sports there's a reason that the Fitch high school budget per student is higher so uh I think to just say Equity demands it be equal is is is incorrect that being said we are investing a tremendous amount in the high school and none of it is wasted none of it is wasted we're but the challenge is if we have kids who finish fifth grade and they're not able to do math master and age appropriate uh science performance or English language performance they're I don't want to say condemned their chances of success are really impacted so I would like to see us to come

094back to what I would want is to really ask the hard question of should we be reallocating some of the funds we spend at the upper level to the lower grade level there always going to be losers in this because if we take some money away from the high school there will be less offering but at some point we just can't keep saying well we're going to keep working on it we're going to keep working on it we know that the problem starts in the elementary school because the results start in the elementary school if we can catch these kids young you know Adrien talks about catching dyslexia early and how much that can save us by catching it early if we can catch math early if we can catch English language arts early we

095will but it's going to take three or four years to work through but can we have this discussion as we look through the budget items because this is our policy document this is the board's set of priorities for what we want to have to the district and if we can't we're not going to get there in a year or two but if we can't begin to make some significant progress on academic performance at the elementary school level I'm just SLX that's it uh I just want to thank Matt for bringing that up that's uh in line with what I was going to comment on is is I believe that uh we should uh seriously consider how we can reallocate funds in in a way that that uh enables the lower grade levels um you know

096K through three in particular and also you know four and five shortly right after that as a priority of uh building up the fundamentals you know math numeracy and literacy um you know if if you you need reading fundamentals reading comprehension uh language comprehension um being able to read and write and manage numbers uh without those foundational skills um there's going to be gaps popping up all throughout and uh my personal feeling is that you know when you have high achieving students up on in the upper levels upper grades um you know those classes could be Consolidated uh to to some degree more easily than uh classes um where uh students May struggle more with the material um when students struggle with material that's when Behavior start to arise also like when the numbers as

097far as like uh ratios from teacher or professional staff uh to student are you know slanted upwards of 20 to1 or you know uh you know 25 to two um that's a a recipe for for problems uh in my experience so um you know I think there there's a worthwhile Endeavor to look at ways we can bolster Elementary education um trying to reduce class sizes and or or short of that increase inclass supports so that the ratio of professional staff to student is decreased to a point where we can really focus on building fundamentals in numeracy and literacy um and we do that we may find ourselves doing better on the far end and not having to to do so much invest so much in remedial it would be a long-term project um but I

098think you know we need to start thinking critically on that now and overall I think uh the 6.5 uh proposed percent increase overall relatively speaking um I think that that's probably about the number we're going to end up at uh the question is like where the money goes in inside the budget which is why I'm very particularly interested in being very systematic on going through the function codes um so I mean if you look at the overall context of things with the overall you know inflation numbers and rising cost of electricity and all this and all that plus like the standard contractual uh raises uh increased cost of benefits you know uh a five and then looking across the region too like we're seeing five to sixes around a lot and as you noted earlier

099um 1.5% of our increased Board of Ed budget is is represented by the this is the first budget that we are fully incorporating the nurses into the budget on the front end um as was noted and has been discussed a lot you know there's communication issues you know we over the past year we did transition the nurses from the town into the board the budget that was presented to the town last year the fy2 budget did not have the nurses incorporated into that budget we made that work over the past year and this was so that this was that transitional year this is the first year that we are now intentionally and consciously putting the nurses in so that that again it's a zero sum for the taxpayer that's the most important thing so I

100think we do need to kind of you know put a little you know a point spread type differential when we look at that 6.5 number in reality it's more like a 5.0% increase Revenue that's come in that looks better than it half 5.4 5.36 okay yeah roughly this is all just benefits are proportional these These are these are broad numbers either way like my my you get my point um so I I think but I'm just very interested in in uh working with this budget in as specific way as possible to to look at how the numbers are allocated within the budget and making sure that we have the structures in place to follow through with what we commit to as and what we approve as a board I want to keep track of this

101like closer track than what happened last year appreciate that I wanted on a Google doc that everybody can see um microphone sorry um gu thank you um I love the idea of uh investing in our elementary students but I just want to caution when we um look to make Cuts if if that's what we're talking about at the high school that they have graduation requirements and so you always have to be aware of what the impact is there I believe that at fit High School our students have 27 credits to graduate and so if you're looking to make reductions either programmatically or in staff um you really do have to be very careful about what those impacts could be if you're you know going to shift in some way or some kind of reduction um

102you have to be careful not to cut something that would impact uh students being able to graduate or meet um not only a requirement that is put in based on our policy but something that would be required by the State Department of Education absolutely so just just warning there thank you okay Jay Jay okay thank you thank you very much um so first of all I just want to quickly note that um uh overall the superintendent's budget has not really changed um I do know that I had made the suggestion that we take all the benefits out of the functions but we all know that those did not directly relate to the functions to begin with it was it was a way of allocating across all the functions but um it's it's a number that

103moves because depending on who is working in that function they may or may not have benefits they might have life changes so it really created a lot of static and a lot of people spent an awful lot of time trying to determine if the benefit line was appropriate for the function which is why I suggested we just move it away and put it into you know rightly a districtwide so I don't see that as a material change to the fact that the bottom line stays the same it just makes it easier for us to uh concentrate on the lines in the function over which we have control and so um I don't see how that keeps us from starting to talk about what we want to do to adopt this as the board's budget so

104I'll start and I'm going to break a a longstanding convention when I say that based on the fact yes we we do collective bargaining um and yes we uh negotiate a uh contract with our Paris a few years ago but things have changed the uh economy has changed and the uh the entire working uh environment for Paris has changed and so I'm going to recommend that we put additional money in the budget so that we can better compensate our Paris uh so there I've said it and I think we need to put our money where our mouth is they are very uh important to our students I don't think anyone who's making um higher wages in the district would begrudge them uh an increase and so I would support that in meeting with the GAA

105and the agsa uh they uh would like to see an increase in special education teachers so I think we need to look very carefully at that um how are we going to pay for it well we did say we were going to go through uh in an orderly fashion I realize we cannot look at every function in the depth we have over the past six weeks we need to be strategic I say we go in order but if there's areas where people have special um interest or believe there's an opportunity we look at those but at the end of the day we go to the town CC in the RTM and we say this is what we need to educate our children and it's not a a number that I'm willing to to put out

106tonight as the Beall and endall we just need to be able to defend the increase uh to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the students and so those are my first two ideas and so I'll yield to hear what the next suggestion is thank you J Andrea bottom line is the bottom line and we've been asking Susan to make all kinds of changes in the narrative and that and and she did that and now we're saying well you did that but why didn't you do this that's not what we asked for and the bottom line is the bottom line I don't know what the problem here is I've never been on a board Lage before this embarrassing J um there were other stuff that we had asked um I'll get into like our

107total goals right but in one of our meetings it was but that but that's where we are with the total gos okay okay so okay so for total goals right like we need to improve the math scores we know we made an investment in language arts last year so I feel like we need to make a corresponding investment in math and I know Adrian you made a case maybe not math but maybe language arts again because if they can't read then it's it's not going to help them with math so either either scenario I'm okay but we need to make an investment in elementary school either in language arts or math I um we also need to make investments like in the high school where um they have mandated items from the state that's not

108funded so we need to make sure that that's covered right um the business finance professionals we need to make sure that our schools have the right amount of nurses um there's one in particular that may be short based on the number of students we also need to take into account like um tutors right because um we need to make sure that the kids who are behind need to get like the tutoring service they need I know there's several um schools like in that principles list at needs TS um so I'm willing to make investments that's why I was highly I'll be honest I was highly disappointed that we didn't get a clean book because I was willing to go through make Cuts in some places so that we can invest in others or maybe even

109go up higher than what Susan um this board is here um to make sure that we can provide the best education to the students of this district with what we can afford and um we are not going to know that right so we can just decide this is what we think is best and if another governing body after us comes back and says you need to cut then we need to redecide but we can at least make a a full-fledged that these are the things that our students need and that may not be like the most um straightforward that I think it's the most straightforward thing this is this is what we need to enhance the scores and benefit the students and I'm not saying be gross about it and ask for like 20% I

110think 7% based on the history of what we've been funded in the past I mean net it came out Dean your math 2.36 I think at one point um total net difference from our base point a 2% increase over a 10-year period That's lower than inflation our kids deserve better than that when you compare us to the dur um to we lower um for the district reference like I said I don't want us to be gross but I want us to be mindful of the Investments so I like listed a couple of items where I'm willing to make investments I support what Jay had mentioned um if we are looking um J can you bring your mic closer sorry I'm sorry and and if we're looking for places at the most senior level places to

111cut I've said this before I'm probably going to get arrows on me but um we may have too many Pathways right let's pick three or four do it well be the best instead of having whatever head right because those are extra teachers that we have that we can redeploy and making something so um let's refocus rejigger I know um you know ibap um the EC credits that's all being looked at so let's look at some of the other you know I saw an allocation here for 0 five Latin Dean and I I think there's no Latin teacher so I don't know why we have a 0 five allocation for Latin but um anyway that's I'm willing to make investments and I I I'll go out there and say and I don't care if I get

112crucified Yeah couple of things just to hear the board uh what I mentioned before about the the FTE is not apparently matching it's amazing because they have a whole column of numbers here and I'm bound to just make a mistake some along the way I added up when I look through all the all the functions I came up with a total of 21.6 FTE all the 101s out up the 291.52 that's exactly what's there for certified staff so even though the elementary doesn't match up in total it matches up so I find that interesting so it's not like we've got you know they don't match up in elementary because we have extra bodies so to speak all the bodies add up to the same numbers ex they're not allocated the same way among the schools

113apparently but I could be looking at it the wrong way uh the average when I mentioned before the elementary seem to be going up like 6 and a half% my aggregate numbers I mean assuming the 2 20 291.50 isn't much different from last year and correct me if I'm wrong the average increase just shows you what kind of an artifact of Statistics this is is 1.1% so when you add up all the salaries last year and this year for the same FTE now maybe the s are radically different but not so different that would it would have yielded a you know six and a half% increase so something interesting is going on I think there may be too few bodies for the dollar figures under 1101 but leave that aside for the moment going to

114uh policies uh I'm with Jay on this one I think we do need to be at least competitive to be able to get Paris in um and I think there's room for that and I say this uh for the following reason yes it's true uh without taking into account uh benefits the benefits section uh which again I don't think is any different than everybody else I think it just which make the pool is the pool I get a 5.3% increase not a 6.5% increase if you factor in the nurses which we now have to factor in so you know yay us it's 5.4% but at the same time I didn't hear it specifically mentioned but because of the grants we're getting in and I don't know how sustainable this is but at least for this

115year if those grants are for real our proposed or I should say the superintendent's proposed ask in terms of tax dollars the town portion not including Federal not including State not including the grants is less by by a couple of million dollars at least than it was last year so you know do we have room in there for uh for bumping up some pay we do if that's what it takes to retain people and retain good people then so be it um now I'm all for increasing uh getting getting kids on board earlier uh and I'll start with the easy one which is remedial we've got $3.2 million for remedial instruction um and when I look at the the the bodies the FTE allocated for that um you know the bulk of them are in

116elementary so as far as remedial uh resources go we've got two 29.6 FTE for that 24.6 of whom are allocated to the elementary schools so a much greater percentage than is represented by the actual population of the elementary schools is is is there so we have we apparently have you know um already a reallocation if you will of the remedial staff for the elementary now as far as regular instruction know smaller class sizes early yes you can do some larger class sizes in uh in in in the higher grades especially with the kids who are doing well that's as a general rule uh that's that's that's reasonable there is of course as we know a limit to how many kids you could put in a classroom both physically and under the teacher's contract so um

117and when when you get down to the other end if you could say well let's take the elementary school class and reduce it by I don't know come up with a number by half would it be nicer if you had 15 kids 15 10 kids in a class or 12 uh 12 kids in a class do we deplo redeploy teachers you know certification leaving that aside can we deploy teachers to Elementary great do we have the classroom space I don't know whether we have the classroom space to significantly cut and when you start to slice and dice you really have to do whole numbers add how many whole number teachers to the elementary school to say we need to add six more 10 more Elementary School teachers to cut down the the class size this

118is aside from remedial this is regular instruction at the elementary level to lower the class sizes do we have the do we have the uh the classroom sizes do we have the do we have the teachers could they be redeployed or are we hiring more teachers these are the things we have to look at because in general yes smaller class sizes more uh more more attention paid to the kids in general as far as remedial goes either we hire more remedial people but as in our $3.2 million remedial budget the bulk of them are going Elementary anyway so uh maybe we need more there maybe I don't know um the other thing I'm I'm I'm curious about um has to do with the number of certified teachers we have and then the figure we have

119for Subs which is just under a million dollars do we have a problem with not it's either not finding teachers either using the subs to fill in for spots that are open or their subs to fill in for teachers that are out what kind of an absentee problem do we have are people tied up personally tied up healthwise they just don't want to come in and I don't blame them honestly if you've ever even just chaperoned kids you know um so I can't say whether the million dollars for subs and I forget what we're paying the subs but but I think like 125 150 a day yeah so you know how many days of Subs is this how many teachers how many you know full-time teachers does this represent so the building Subs are really

120what we're hiring it's very hard to get a day-to-day sub right and the building Subs become part of the school community so they're very valuable right but we did we did take that number down last year as you remember because of you know some were paid in our best I thing yeah yeah so I mean so do we have a problem with with uh teacher absenteeism and what is that problem so the the subs that we have in the building if there's a maternity to leave and we've had quite a few of those across the district then they are out for their time and the building sub covers them so you or you're waiting to get a position filled like that Spanish teacher and you've had someone cover them um but then you have to

121realize that I don't know how your family did before and after and during vacation but there was RSV there was flu there was everything you can imagine so people are still getting sick I just got another Co shot I guess so yeah yeah my my my question is actually U frankly partially and maybe mostly born out of out of ignorance I can't tell when I look at an almost million dollar figure I'm thinking a million dollars it's a lot of money now but I can't tell just by looking at it whether a million dollars is a reasonable bum the same thing would be true with remedial education if you were to go to the edge per average person and say you know by the way we got so many kids and we're spending $3.2 million

122on remedial education their first reaction is what was all the other money for but maybe that's an average number maybe if you go from here to ashkash you're going to find the same sort of proportion it's just you're always going to have a number in there for medial you're always going to have a number in there for uh for substitutes and this is just a normal number so I can't tell but I'm raising the issue do we have a problem um you know with are we paying too much for substitution for substitute teachers uh or are we paying about because you're always going to have the need for substitute teachers I just can't tell it's just a it's a big number and you and we have some of our substitute teachers who because let's say

123a parah gets sick before school and it's little notice that you have to put a sub in the room because that child does need one-on-one coverage so you do have them doing classroom coverage you have them doing all kinds of coverage right so they really are another pair of on Deck again I'm saying this this could very well be hey it's this is what you get when you have a normal population of human beings engaged in this type of work people are just going to be absent once little children and big children right or or maybe there's something else going on maybe there's maybe there's another cause of absentee is okay yeah for now sorry no I'm waiting on my second turn so all right it's your first round on this one all right um

124I'm I'm going to start with the class sizes that fit because I I brought something up that needs uh to make kind of a point but it needs a little bit more clarity um and I brought up some IB classes that have um low class sizes what I didn't get to is adding all of those classes if we could push those if we could cut a few classes um just individual class hours it would total maybe um six classes that we could save so this is um maybe one teacher in total but it's spread out among every subject so we can't cut a tenth of a teacher or something like that so so um I just don't want people to have the impression that we are wasting a lot it was just an example of

125where hopefully we can um you know push some of those class sizes up and and and maybe um use that staff to support children in other ways you know in the short term and maybe we can grow our IV programs in the long term um so I just wanted to kind of say that that there's there's not it it was a statement about some some small class sizes but there's not a lot of meat there like there's not any real or or very much real savings for us um hopefully there can just be increased benefit by um you know with additional support um I would um you know at this point I mean I I I I feel like last year in our bessor we we kind of knew that this was going to happen

126but all of that staff I mean our needs changed from 2019 to 2024 and all of that staff became part of the needs of the district and we went through a lot of 0% increases and that staff helped support those 0% increases so it looked like we could run an School more efficiently but we just had a lot more support to help teachers out in running without having increases and at the end of that we got rid of those staff that we had become that were needed um and now we're paying the price I mean I think that everyone agrees that there are not enough tutors that Paras we don't have enough Paras and very likely the the the reason is is they need to get paid a little bit more um so maybe we

127need to budget some more for that um so I I want to go back to what Jay said I I strongly support um putting some some money in financing for um for some way to increase our pair of staff so we can have those positions filled um the special ed teacher increase um you know when we get there I mean I do believe that we need more special ed teachers in the elementary level at least um I don't know um exactly about the middle school and high school levels but um I think we've heard in the community that we need special ed teachers heard from the principles that we need special ed teachers um and those of us who know people in the community probably realize that we need more special ed support um and

128and that can happen in two ways um Dean mentioned you know function 1270 remedial instruction um and I you know I made a a comment about if we if we can help those you know children at a young age learn to read not just to selic kids it actually we you understand how the science of reading stuff works it's it's something like 30 or 40% of kids need that type of thing and if we can give them that extra help um like it will benefit our district in the long run and more importantly it will benefit those students in the long run they will have better outcomes whether they stay in our district or move to another District we we have we're going to have kids that will um achieve higher you know when they

129finish school and possibly um get better jobs or go to college that otherwise wouldn't if they don't learn to read or learn to read well at those young ages so I'm going to be in support of adding um some teachers in remedial instruction um so that um we have more room for tier 2 instruction for those kids that need it in reading and math in element um what I would like to ask of Susan um you know um clearly it's not easy to find efficiencies anywhere if there are any that can be found um you know I I hate to say at Fitch but if there are any at fit um I mean I I I've looked at the like Matthew was talking about the numbers and how we spend more at Fitch um than

130we do the elementary schools and um I don't feel like we're spending too much at Fitch we're just not balancing Fitch so um if you go on the state report cards um you can go and look at all of the high schools and how much different high schools in our area spend or how much um different districts spend on high school students and I think the report card said we spend somewhere around 21,500 per student at high school that's actually you know pretty similar to a lot of the other districts around us where we aren't spending the money is in elementary school so I so I think this you know our district being 10% below the state average we we were pretty close to the state average 10 or 12 years ago um we have

131just been falling in in where we've been taking the hit is in elementary school so I I don't know where I mean we spent a lot of time on this budget and um I have a couple ideas where we might be able to gain some efficiencies um but I don't I don't see that those efficiencies are going to make up for the for the real need that we have for our kids um so so that's my piece for now thank you um Mike go back thank you um so thank you I agree largely with what Adrian said I would like us as a board uh to go through the um exercise of trying to find efficiencies because as as we all know it's not a limited pool of money that we can have even though

132the needs are great and I think if we did have an limited pool of money we would find good ways to to spend that um I'm and I'm and while I can see that we want to add certain areas um capacity and uh capabilities I'm hesitant to see us um have a larger increase than the 6.5% that we have uh in fact I'd like this to see if we can get it see it's possible to get it down um in the you know the 5 point something range it's not going to be the 5 point low it's going to be a fiveo high range I think uh because of the sort the already clearly necessary increases that that have to happen um and but so some ways I think we could Target that um exercise

133looking for efficiencies is anywhere that um something was previously Grant funed and now is coming into the Boe Town side of budget let's look at that I'm not saying that they shouldn't be brought in but um maybe we just don't bring everything uh back right away for instance um uh one area obviously they mention is a big change is the uh the in previous years we've had the dod supplemental funds which is roughly uh 500,000 a year and a lot of that went to U true needs for for computing and and other other equipment but um maybe we just don't don't bring that all back this year and that's one idea uh the other idea is we have the main budget page where we have the roughly 100,000 in contingency um and I can see

134the need for it based on just our our experien is uh this year as things come up with property loss and everything but um I was thinking if we are add if we we do need to add in an extra nurse to support Sacred Heart that's required by law um that's probably kind of ballpark 100,000 when benefits are included so I would say trade the contingency line for the um uh to support the nurse need at sacred har so instead of going up to 6.58% increase now we're at 6.5 then work from there so so I do think that's an important role that we have as Board of Ed and as um other Town bodies have as well uh equally important maybe actually more so really is make sure that we're uh supporting the needs

135of of the students and um as it's been brought up our per pupil costs are are quite low compared to the state average or um the towns in the area or our our district or representative group um and then something that I didn't fully appreciate until I got on the board is that our student population one way or another and sometimes more than one way is roughly half High needs and high needs needs a high level of support and we're doing it um with less from year to year so we just we need to be uh go through I think we have to go through the efficiency exercise and be strategic and make sure that we're we're applying the funds uh where we can I think this this budget that we have here is a

136good start um and to taking our next steps as a board [Music] thanks thank you I just wanted to express my appreciation for uh Jay Dean Adrian um and others that I know that think this way but haven't said it yet tonight but uh as far as increasing the uh pay for peras and putting that in the budget uh I definitely am also in favor of looking at ways we can do that uh I did I remember bringing it up last year and um you know there was a lot of push back on that um but now it seems like maybe the the will is there so that that is good to hear um our starting wage and the current contract is about $2 less than um areas in the region uh you know Waterford

137starts about $19.52 lead year is 17 New London is um $18.36 norch $1 1845 mon till 1928 um so and also we need to consider seniority you know Recruitment and Retention um so you know you need a better start rate and also we need to consider those that have been with our district for quite some time and uh so when there's a there's an increase at the start rate there should also be a commensurate kind of uh across the board bump for those who have been with us for a very long time um so uh now when we when I brought it up last year there the some of the push back that occurred was having to deal with the contract you know the contract that's been signed so um you know I'm I'm the

138budget is one thing so we can put the money in the budget but we also need to be mindful of what the process is after that to make sure that we can deliver that money into those people that we've allocated it for so um I would look forward to those conversations as well uh when when the time comes um but uh uh I definitely think that's that's a worthwhile Endeavor and pars are needed all over the place they can provide they can help uh you know compensate for the the fact that maybe we don't have the classrooms to break down the class sizes to like you know the ratio we want but we can increase professional staff in the room in such a way that it diminishes the the burdens on on the the main

139teacher with a lot of support staff and can to help also address some of the remedial needs down low in the Elementary grades um so I definitely would look forward to those conversations thank you Matthew two things I had uh this is a Board responsibility but I'd like to argue that this is also a district-wide responsibility and there may be some very good ideas from our employees at every level they may not individually make a lot of money but increase ownership of this process and you know if we're able to scratch a little here and a little there we may be able to pick up one or two people so I would uh ask the superintendent to consider whether it would be worthwhile putting out some sort of notice that we're really looking for feedback

140on ways that we can find some economies uh whether people sign their names or don't sign their names it's the ideas we're looking for uh the other piece is I understand that we're projecting $6 million from uh supplemental DOD and I understand the reasoning for it because we did get that amount this past year uh that may come back to bite us uh hopefully we'll get seven or eight we won't fight it um we have been getting more each year as I've pointed out absolutely that's that's absolutely true but we have a uh a new Administration that whether you agree with them or not has been very clear about some of their intentions and we need to be mindful of that thank you anything else um well I I definitely do want to just Express

141a little bit of concern as far as like the number of meetings that we have set up um I'm not sure what the um I was looking at Tuesday the 18th as a possible um oh that's right sorry my I I work on a different calendar in my district yeah all right so never mind that um but then we do it so we get the Wednesday Thursday the 19th and 20th I guess that would leave the 13th of this week as one possible extra date we could squeeze in there if needed and I'm also curious to know that you know if by some reason we're not satisfied uh or comfortable or confident in voting for a budget on the 24th what's the process then because we have till the 28th till the 28 right so

142we could add some extra meetings at the end um after the 24th if somehow we're not able to get there okay so um I guess is there any interest in in or would there is there any conflict and is there any interest in adding a meeting for the 13th of this week every night I say speak do yeah cuz out Monday Tuesday and Wednesday four meetings in a week is enough three meetings yeah we have five thank you so we can add it on to the end if you don't finish by the 24th at the 25th and the 26th all right and also I guess along with formatting is it possible I understand like printing paper is is incredibly burdensome and expensive um however the electronic version is a way to get updated electronic versions

143to match so that we can at least it's still process they the way that is paginated it takes a lot of time for the staff to put the narrative page with the other page and and to numerate them so I can get you electronic probably faster than I can get you paper and be happy to do that um but um like Jay had said the numbers are really the same we have got someone working on the narrative and I Ry had just texted me and said that's close to finish and I'll check with him tomorrow and then um he also said they were in the middle of moving that health benefits to that one line under the districtwide right so that that will help you to see the budget too in its entirety so that

144I think would be to the most fundamental change would be that because that does change the math on every page right um and you know that's a lot for us to unpack on maybe one more hard copy can I just throw quick comment you done yeah I'm good for now I was just going to say if we're making that kind of A Change Is it possible to put the percent changes after each individual line item when you look at the function codes there's the percent increase at the at the sum of each section um and and I'm just asking this now because I feel like other things might get complicated give me a for instance take me to a page all right so let's let's start on the first whatsoever we're find it okay um

145I think if if this is an Excel document um it might be easy but I don't want to I want to guarantee that um so if we go to 5-7 certified teachers line 101 sorry I meant for this to go quickly that's right okay so we have a percent change at the end of this at the end right you want to presentent all the way through yeah so hopefully that's just a little Excel modification on the column um it is or we can just have Dean do the whole thing himself exactly his calculator I will that's an easy Susan that's that's an easy okay we we have a we have an Excel Superstar all right great he's young but he's courageous that might make it easier if if lines are disappearing and some are still

146there it might just be easier to follow question so the team remember there was like I think 17 I can't hear you J um this is for the team um there were three um function codes I think it was 1723 X whatever it is it spred out as the superintendent budget and then it got um shifted into three different codes oh8 yeah so do we want to restate so that when we're looking at the new function codes it's showing what would have been there in 24 and 25 I think that was an ask I'm not do remember if um we agreed upon that yeah that was going to be an okay uh we received an email from the town manager over the weekend and it had a number of uh anticipated questions or clarifications or

147documentation y um I read through those and and I do appreciate the town manager taking the effort to send those out um they seem to reiterate a number of questions that we already asked and uh documentation we're asking for as far as uh full-time equivalence uh so it seems like they you know he's tracking our meetings pretty closely he's watching and that's appreciated you know um because we're all looking for the same thing we're looking for a budget that is you know sound and well targeted um so is there uh how are we standing on those requests and and you know when those are ready to be shared with the town manager I assume that they'll be shared with the board as well they were answered today okay I just have to get them to

148them for that paper great we did answer them today appreciate it thank you so Ju Just quickly I know as mentioned before and this meeting too there's the change tracker has that been started yet because if the nurses have been the extra nurse has been added for Sacred Heart um is there has that change tracker been added started yet we have we have it ready to go good and we're going to put that on the nurse from Sacred Heart and I'll just give you four I think four that um one we mentioned that's the nurse that's uh function code 2130 which which is what we're just talking about there's a small one that we mentioned from previous meetings um uh 1250 is blind K12 U Denise mentioned that there was there's just a little bit

149of money in there but it should be zero because the the state supports that entirely it's not it's not a there's not a big deal in terms of the the dollar amount believe me it's several hundred dollars um uh 2120 guidance 6 through 12 U it looked in terms of the FTE chart we have the same number of guidance counselors but the question I think I brought it up it looked like in the budget numbers that there's roughly $100,000 less so look like there's a mismatch somehow um in the budget numbers that it looked like there's a cut in the numbers but not ft so that's 2120 just to take a look at that I can think of Mike is when we're hiring new counselors when someone has retired or resigned um their salaries are

150different yeah that's a big change though right so so 2120 just star that one for me please and then the other one I wasn't as sure about I just had a notes when I was looking through uh 2110 that social work um uh I had it there's an increase in dount that seemed too much for the listed I think is half FTE increase and that one may well be correct and but but it just it just looked like is um uh too much there so so those are my four okay I said was quick that wasn't as quick as I thought though thank appreciate it m and I just want to say I'm for elementary education I said this from the very beginning that we should I always said that we have to build a

151strong foundation so I'm really in support of looking at elementary Ed and seeing if we can do I'm for a power in each Elementary Ed classroom from grades K to three but that won't happen but um I agree with that and I agree were um doing something for the parents either give them incentive or up their salary but really do something for the Paris but I think um all school districts are having trouble hiring Paris they are it's not just gr it's it's Statewide and just be careful that if you don't if you solve one problem you don't cause a problem somewhere else so be mindful too you know what I mean being so I mention this I keep mentioning this only because I I didn't realize there would be a sort of a negative

152reaction when I first brought it up and I think you brought it up at the same meeting which is this this seemingly you know large percentage I I added up the former fdes and I did I corrected my averages so we wind up with a 25 to 26 average change in salary of just over 2% % but if anybody out there again I've said this before is thinking that teachers are getting a 6% increase it's a 2% increase just if you just look at the salary line never mind the the rest of it just a salary line it's a just over a 2% in the aggregate increase um I took the liberty of I look at the numbers I said okay how many elementary school kids do we have 2,145 we're saying there's an average

153of 20 kids in a class that comes to 107 and a quarter classrooms um if you were to go down to say 15 kids in a class how many more classrooms would you need to spread those kids out you need 143 classrooms for that that's an additional 35 classrooms do we actually have space that's the thing I would like to see 15 kids or more adults right Northeast CK um Charles Barnum are full to the brim like there is no more space and themes River and Mystic River you know um they have those specialized programs so a lot of those classrooms are being used for the specializ so there's still not a lot of wiggle room they might have eight class and the grant Mill had nothing I I can tell you my experience and

154I'm I'm not gonna tell you how old I am but when I was in kindergarten I justtin remember there were two women in the classroom now it's not like we had 30 kids or something like that there may have been 20 or something like that but there were two women you never saw that again and one through whatever uh so the idea of having two people in the classroom uh is a sound one at least for the very early grades and that's where that's where that's where people kick off you got to get them oriented correctly by by I'd say by by grade three yeah so on um Wednesday we hope to get a clean budget book because I don't want to start the meeting the way we started it tonight I don't either okay

155Soares updated um I don't know if you can get it to us before Wednesday which is tomorrow Tuesday though or we just have it at 9: a.m meeting on Wednesday would you say old time joke yeah what he say I'm encourageable never mind it was an old time attempted humor so if we don't get it tomorrow we definitely need it when we at the meeting so we can start off on a more POS and looking at the budget all right right and um one thing along those lines I I would just like um one of the things we asked for like were some detail like breakouts underneath like the positions to get some sense of like you know if we wanted to increase a part-time position to a full-time position what numerically would that actually

156be you know so salary is positions from his end so you have that Quest EST he's able to do that you know we could give you kind of an estimate of what that would be real time yeah so if we're making a vote and we say we want to add one FTE or subtract one FTE he can say it's going to be $90,000 with benefits or something oh yeah all right okay and he'll be available for Wednesday and and onwards for the work are you still with me no yes are you waving it to say goodbye to all of us are you waving if you like I can share the tracker that I've been as they've been speaking I've been trying to I've been trying to keep up my thank you um but right now

157if the only thing I missed was they were mentioning adding elementary teachers I don't know how many and I'm using an average of about 70 75,000 uh for teachers um Subs I don't know how many so I didn't add that in but if I add the nurse in I put five pairs at at a total of about 100,000 I put two remedial instructors at 160 I uh put in a sped teacher at 880,000 I also reduced the contingency by 100 and I reduce the it equipment all total your budget right now is 97 excuse me 993762 419 or an increase of 5,803 935 6.6% % sounds pretty without taking anything away well he reduced the con take away oh you reduced oh I didn't hear that part okay I reduced the contingency and I reduced

158which I'm not I'm not crazy about the it equipment because we're robbing Peter to pay Paul this year because you didn't have that 4 500,000 from DOD yeah but that that also causes me to say that whatever talk about here I've really got to go back to the director or the principal to make sure they can live without or live you know what it is that they you know are thinking so that you know they're leading their schools they're leading their department so I do have to you know make sure that it's something we can do and also whatever you recommend yeah and also say my comments there are my comments not the will of the board so don't don't trust me with such power um so that was an open to share that Google

159yeah we have the Google Doc so we would be get we get a link to it and we can view it yeah I assume that we would not have editing Powers just course and that's what I would encourage no I don't want the responsibility um so Ray can you share that with me so I'll have it will you share it back I will y thank you okay I'm making a motion right now to go into executive session it's 8:30 Bo waiting for us okay and I'm inviting um Denise you want to come in Denise do a little and Floyd Dugas and superintendent Austin to come into this executive session um we I have a second all those in favor say I oppose we're going into um Susan's office so it's like session have a good

160night all you have to State the reason for the executive session oh yeah oh um we're going into thank you thank you thank you we're going into executive session to discuss pending claims um Irene Lynch thank you all right we are now add the session at what is it 9:4 6 947 and um we had a good discussion and we came back and we have a motion that the board's going to vote on and Matt shman will read motion I move we authorize board counsel to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the allegations asserted by Miss Lynch to determine whether a full investigation is required second Thomas second oh supposed okay all those in favor oppose extensions carry one to nine of us nine to zero andad okay uh we have in our packet a page

161I don't have which shows the budget history uh a percentage of budget increase each year uh I went and was kind of curious as to how that compared with the Consumer Price Index of inflation so I have a new chart that I'd like us to cons first part is i' done a chart that has that piece plus the CPA for each year it totals the amount of the seven years worth of budgets it averages the percentage of the budget increase and it averages the percentage of the CPI over the seven years there's a differential of 1.58% uh annual over the the CPI is 3.63% the average budget increase was 2.05% a difference of 1.58 over the seven years had our budget been at the CPI rate rather than what it was we would have had

1628,873 40 more than we did did that's equivalent to about a million and a quar a year I have some personal um commentary on the bottom I guess my question is we shouldn't be talking about it amongst ourselves because that would be improper but if you see something egregious I've been known to make mistakes in the past I would take it as a great favor if something seemed inappropriate to you or otherwise I'll bring it up for discussion at the next meeting publicly so as a former Town manager was want to say when people would bring up the CPI uh I'm paraphrasing a little bit the town by extension the school district does not buy diapers dog food in other words the CPI is not the appropriate index to use there should be a and

163there there several cpis it's interesting as a Rough Guide that's all there should be an MPI a municipal price index because our basket of goods and services is different than the average consumer's basket of goods and services but your point is a very you know it's not unreasonable and it's done quite commonly people will compare and they certainly taxpayers will compare compared to their own basket of goods and services whether they think an increase in their taxes or a decrease if that ever happens um you know is is fair and reasonable that's certainly how they're going to look at it um so I applaud the attempt but I feel bound to mention because I used to get hit in the head with it that the CPI doesn't apply to your Municipal operations shouldn't apply to

164Municipal operations first of all you're absolutely correct second if you have a better a better measure than the CPI i' be delighted to recalculate and I just know I'm speaking only from myself it it pains me to hear people come to Town Council meetings saying I love the work you're doing don't you dare raise the budget descent and I just want to say look this is the world we live in at least in my opinion and that's that's the figure I used the the I'll counter that with by saying that there are people who understand I supect most people understand why it is the thing budgets Municipal budgets State budgets move the way that they do but again when they look at their own pocketbook they say well I understand that life has got more

165expensive however my income has not changed and therefore somehow in the box that I'm in I have to make it work and the and the taxing authorities have the luxury if you will of saying well it is what it is we can ask and we get by force if necessary more money that's something that none of us can do in our employment so we have to keep that in mind as well just an attempt and I look forward to additional comments and it's not a hill I'm going to die on I just thought I'd bring it up for conversation thank you motion second all those in favor if you don't want this I take no thank you Mar