1-8-24 Special Groton Board of Education Budget Work Session Meeting

001it's 6 pm and I'll open the budget work session we've open the meeting who wants to begin well I'd like to orient everybody so um this first um budget work session is going to be really to kind of give you an overview of some main factors main drivers of this budget um we have shared a little bit um about some of the drivers not only for next year but for this year that we're going through um and they are continuing next year um inflation is a big ticket item and there are certain costs that we're dealing with and and Health Care is not in the budget yet we're waiting for a March I'm sorry a January 25th meeting so we'll have have more information we were on today with John Bert and his staff talking

002through some of the health care concerns with them um so we will be getting that information as soon as we receive it so that you know really the the multitude of what the budget's going to look like so um I think we had the budget calendar there's another backup one that kind of gives more details and lays it out a little better um and we call that a budget review sessions um that come next in your book and then um we had Rebecca B Bas and um Dave worked together on this District overview we thought that could be a handout or a flyer that can go out to the public that can go out to the PTO um to get people more involved in the budget process um even before we go to a public

003hearing so that we can kind of tell the story of the district and um Dave I know you worked on this was there any anything you wanted to highlight I think the curricular um programs and highlights are very important um you know looking and we've talked a little bit to you about the Early Childhood Program and the possibility of having a TK transition K program with legislation the way it is um you know there are a lot of things that come in as unfunded mandates and we met with legislators I think I wrote about it in board notes and try to kind of brief you on how that affects the schools so we basically then have to figure out a plan on how we're going to roll these things out so um you know the

004the in distri magnets are really what's caused us to balance our schools it's been phenomenal um and we've got really very involved families who care deeply about their schools and having Choice International balarat middle years High School programming advanced placement doubling our numbers in advanced placement while giving pit support that they need in order to do that work um world languages in the elementary through a do Grant of course this is a very steaming District I call it we've got a lot of stem happening it's not by accident we're surrounded by it in this community and the Arts is big if you haven't had a chance to go to one of our strings or orchestra or um band or you know any Coral music it's just incredible we got entertained a little bit at caps

005by some of our course students in the honors court so that was a highlight so those are just I think it's a way to look at the district how many students are there um you know talk a little bit about our Board of aded and who they are who you are and you know justop some statistics about our district 53% free and reduced lunch 52% you know racial minority um number of el students so I think it's just a quick view of that and then we go into FR of our presentation and of course this is superintendent's proposed budget it won't be a real budget until it has your name on it and so that's why you walk through this carefully with me and it's really through this working together that we're able to say

006you're asking questions you're seeing things maybe that can be brought to attention that we can look at more deeply that will cause us to be able to you know take the budget to a a a better place and I never expected it to be although east line whatever the the superintendent proposed they usually go for but I'm used to in broton that we really go through this with a real fine to fman and a really good lens and I think that's a good way to do business and then of course um your mission statement the board goals um and then the belief statement cultivating cultivating an environment of diversity equity and inclusion and um this the highlights which I kind of spoke to you can turn to the highlights um on that first page but

007Bill you're going to help us get through the first major page of things um a lot of your work in in curriculum and instruction as you could see a lot of it and and Susan did take us through some of these but it's just an idea you know of some of the work that we're doing some of the things that you'll see as you're making your way through our schools um and in the first few bullets are all wrapped around curriculum obviously literacy instruction at the elementary level is a is a big project of ours right now um we're we're continuing to uh work with the math you know K12 as well um we're working with our um our science task force in in terms of bringing more science curriculum into our elementary um as

008well as strengthening them you know strengthening at K12 a lot of it you know will a lot of this will run through our curriculum subcommittee in terms of our consistent rewriting um task you know that we uh we work with our teachers and our principles to make sure that our our curriculum is consistently updated um as you know you know that's been spoken about our international baloria program um and you know the middle years program diploma program careers program that run through uh through the district up through the high school um our steam enrichment opportunities k12 and career Pathways 912 these are all things like I said that shouldn't be new to you and and you'll continue to hear about as we move forward not only through the budget process you know but through the

009school year into the summit um you know we've talked about the nncc which is leading to our our Junior RC program um and then of course you know you most recently heard about the ideas for transition K across the district in response to that statement kindergarten and we continue to support our Elementary magnet schools with the Community Partners and in this last Oda Grant we received funds to cultivate that partnership I'm bringing the partners around the table to talk about how they can lend to the partnership with maybe Transportation maybe they can find some resources and grants too to marry with this so that we really have a comprehensive partnership um and then the our onetoone technology um that has you know I had really app parted that that was really afforded by the dod

010supplemental um impact Aid and that because of our numbers and maybe the votes that are happening in Washington DC at Porton P you told us about um that may be at risk in this next year so that's something that is to the tune of a half million dollars and affords the technology it's really important so um Courtney wants me to write a letter so I will know been do anything but I'll write the letter um and then it's social emotional learning with covid it's not only academic um loss and and some academic challenges that kids have had but soal Al emotionally it has really been a challenge not only for young people but for grown-ups too so working with families and students and making sure they're supported and feel like they belong in that school

011is so important and then we have the high quality Treehouse but it's a um just like Food Services it's you know a self-funded program what do we call that um but right um and then of course we do have the resource officers um at the middle school and high school they're really very much part of the community they don't do anything without the other team so they really are part of a team and we do have dare officers that I've talked to the chief of police about making sure that they're really part of our elementary schools and check in with them and my principals have their phone numbers so that they can you know at least we feel like we have some support there too now Dave some we take it from yeah so the

012revenue on this slide just just to ground everyone so this is what we call Revenue to support education so it does not include any Town contribution and it does not include any federal grants that we receive competitive or entitlement grants so um you can tell by the chart here you know 80 80% of our Revenue comes from our ECS it's been roughly to $25 million number for 10 plus years or so this hasn't moved much um when you get into the state side there's also the excess cost which special for special ed yeah which is sort of a reimbursement from the state for students in which are required sort of the highest need so this year we think that's going to be about 1361 million a little bit higher than before that's gone up from

01317% yeah you know the the ratio of reimbursement has changed I think it was 70 to about 88% this year for grotten just based on our wealth Factor that's another excess cost that goes to the town not to the board so this one just last thing so this is a little bit unique because we spend the money up front and then theoretically file with the state for reimbursement um also on there is our federal impact Aid which is 4.4 million it's about 14% of our Revenue it's been it's been running around six to 44 over the last few years you know this year we'll hit that number if not a little bit more so we're going to be mid four Millions this year Alone um so that's good news and that this does not include

014the supplemental piece this it's just a Core Federal impact in and Congressman Courtney did give us the information that that's expected to continue at that same rate so we're not going to not necessarily see more but we're not going to see glass either so we felt pretty confident in that number um Medicaid towards the bottom 200,000 um a little tricky this one is this one has fluctuated from low 100 thousands up to 300,000 you know just depends on sort of the the demographics of the town and what the needs are and also some of the self-reporting that we have to do internity so this number um was taken off the latest state report that we received in December so it's new information for us but it's about 90% of what um the most recent reimbursement

015might be so we're being a little bit concerned with here the last two on the bottom the other sources the 61,000 it's really two pieces the first is it's about half of that 31,000 for uh what we call IND District tuition so someone coming into our district from another District another student coming into our district they'll pay tuition to us and then the second piece of that is for any facility use that we might collect over the years so fields or facilities yeah you can show them the picture first you know I always look at that that pizza pie and um the thing that always jumps out to me is the 74% of salary and benefits what do we give our kids in school these days we give them the highest qualified teachers parents staff

016custodians to take care of their buildings and you know secretaries and principes all those people um and that's what always shows up in a school budget and this is without the health savings which is part of the vacle size so I'm sure that number is going to be higher than 74% um but then you also have the non-contractual um you know expenses you have utilities networking Transportation you see the transportation piece of the pie has gotten bigger um and then the tuition and those tuitions are the outof district tuitions for students who need a special placement whether by BCF or by the district um you know by the state to support their educational needs that we we might not be able to take care of and then this page gives you some more and know

017if we can zoom in on that but I I like this page because of of school budgets built by these numbers so the 100s are your salaries your wages the um 200s are your benefits 300s are purchase services 400s are Property Services you're going to learn all about these um 500s are Transportation communication tuition then you have your supplies which is your 600s and um equipment 700s and then does and fees at 800 and what we tried to do is give you a footnote to share with you why you might see some of these increases or decreases in certain areas but I'll turn it over to you that's just my little superintend sure we can um budg we can go through some of these and I'm sure we're going to hit some more details but

018let me give you the sort of curs review um so salary and wages you see it's up about 8% 4 million um about half of that we're going to talk about in a minute are some of the transfers coming in from ARP so resources that were previously funded by arpa which is our last Corona virus um grant that will be closing down this year so about 50% is from there 50% also comes from the other side of that are really contractual increases for some of our staff as well as some additional hiring that we'll talk about and I just want to add a footnote to that footnote is that um many of these positions were put in place when the first AR came in so we had probably three different versions and one of the

019things that we felt really a need for especially with L of academics was having highly qualified tutors who usually were supervised by special Mentor teacher Specialists um and we've even gotten our most recent Grant in mathematics to have high does tutoring and that has really served us well I mean the tutoring happens during the school day it happens after school it happens during summer and um that was something that I said may be able to be shaved down when we're when we're doing this transfer but right at this point we put it in there so you could see um and help us with that um another version of those tutors is Seal tutors and there's only one one or two per building and the principes say that these people who are really highly qualified some

020coming from the prison system some coming from you know Social Work systems but really knowing kids and being able to interact with them and deescalate situations and give them you know an ear give them someone to go to so just wanted to say that one of the things I do see the largest number ofers I'm gonna I'm going to jump to the middle here just for couple other points if we get down to the middle of the 500 series that's that's really our bus contract that's the majority that so will be going into year two which are another set of rate increases remember that's really kind of two pieces where to see sort of the Big Bus during the day as well as some of the the buses used by FS so that's been fairly

021pricey for us the next one right below it where it says supplies we call our 600 but the reason that's a million dollars this year so right in this version of the budget we're assuming um that we do not receive additional funding of the dld supplemental next year so we're close to the numbers that we received but we're not exactly there yet so we're being a little conservative right now and assuming that what we used to fund in that but we used to fund in that piece of funding will now be funded by the board and that's primarily all the technology software that we use as well as some of the leases we use for Hardware so those are the really big changes there and with the software um Phil and Clint are working on

022a usage report and also a survey going out to staff I really need to streamline that we haven't done that this far because I want to get the staff's input so I want that and I want to see how well it's being used and really how Val valuable it is for education for what we receiving for so that will be an area will do a deep dive will that be a report that we all get absolutely y yeah and you can see the survey too all like you have so you can Tre the kinds of questions it needs I can mention one thing I like to always mention sort of new items that are in the budget in that 600 series we do have $20,000 placeholder right now for any um unexpected unfunded lunch balances

023so you recall on my blue sheet there we've been talking about some of the the challenges we're having issue we think that might hit 880,000 or so this year but we wanted to put some sort of placeholder in next year but hopefully cover ourselves should that start to escalate again and this is the worst case scenario that we would lose 500,000 do s for and that's not only because what's happening in Washington where it's being zeroed out but it's also what's happening in gron because I'm missing between 12 32 so those impact aid forms me so they're not you know we did really well at the elementary 80% have been filled out but in the high school and middle school it's more like 60% so we still need to do a Val and really find

024out to make sure we we've accounted for every student but if Congress should reinstate the de second liation can you still pick up those students because it doesn't have to be the October first number right well there there was talk about that at that last conference I went for doia um we haven't looked at any other potential but I asked for a report to be done of all the coming in and out of military kids to find a high point that we might have had the most and they have to be active related to active duty they have to be dependence for the DOA DOD supplement so that's specific to active duty military children not on federal that all counts for impact a that but this is specifics for those districts that are most impacted

025by active duty service so and I know um Sam is going to be doing um more of a deeper conversation with you later on I think it's been February is his turn but just to kind of see an overarching um we've been told that um when it's in the millions of dollars that those things get to be bonded and so you can see that the Fitch High School ageback upgrades and Charles Barnum they might not have a a pace Bud for but we've just dealt with an agback issue so one of those priorities is that and with Northeast Academy and CK we have to run the heat while air conditioning especially in the summer time but we had escalated cost and everybody said why is the Heat and I said because if we don't run

026it there could be a mold with you so these two schools that were just built 15 years ago absolutely have to we we can't keep putting this off so it's really something that the town has to recognize that we might need to start this project sooner than later and was there anything you wanted to say about the capital reserve fund or so yeah are we there so that's your Nifty chart you talk about that yeah sure so U I think you've seen this but now that you've have some numbers in front of you as well um hopefully it we start to at least directionally make some more sense of so if I just start left to right we just briefly talked about the wages you know some of the primary drivers are existing contractual increases

027which will have yearly you know the state minimum wage increase that we've just seen as well as FTE transition from apress I mean that's kind of the punchline there for wages and the transportation as I mentioned we're going to head into year two it's a 12 and a half perent rate increase on the regular buses 20% for Midday and 5% for field trips Athletics so that just assumes same routes just increases in rates um Healthcare you know we think as Susan mentioned right now we're still zero we're waiting for a renewal meeting coming up uh we had one change just in the property insurance you know they asked our broker at least told us to to plan for a 15% or so 15 to 177% rate increase but we also have a co-share change with

028the town in that um on the property side the town wants us to pay for our share the value of the property and how that equates to the insurance cost for those properties so and historically to give you rough numbers for property insurance we've been paying about 34% of the bill but the property value is the Border about 65% or 64% of the overall property value of the town so we're not going to make the full swing in one year but the town would like us to get to that proportionate share so we've got an equal amount of the bill that we're paying versus the property values um so this year it's going to be a 10% increase just on the co-share and I can give you a document that shows you that the numbers

029around this too but that'll be a change for us so you're going to see you know the rate increase plus the change in the C share for the you know the property insurance that's the bulk of count 400 40,000 I look over for a second so that is um not what's going to be in your 500 there where it says Transportation Insurance Comm okay it's going to be in there it's not a we500 number but it's it's a change for us we can kind of highlight that when we get to the ACT budget itself and show you there's confused Co property insurance cost of property insurance is X you're about million mons two3 point in future but doesn't this all come having the same taxpayers we're just moving we're just moving rocks so really and

030property really belongs to the to the town property is it the one group can claim that they're doing better where really nothing changes um I I don't know that uh My My My Hope was is to get cost align with property values kind of leave it at that because we're whatever the increase is that we're just going to turn around and esort back per the taxpayers pay for tax accounting it's goad so but by the board absorbing the cost or increasing the amount that we pay out that's less money that we can put towards students and staff well not necessarily that was your question question me understand this so this is the town's property and instead of it taking it out of the town's budget taking it out of kids learning help me understand that

031well if there's a cut yeah but they're just they're just reallocating we've always paid insurance and the value of our buildings he just wants Us increasing yeah it's increasing but so is our ire budget so you explain that to I comes along can I try it again is this just redefining the portion attributable to which town agency right right so it means that if we did it the way we used to do it we'd have a 1.4% increase this hypothetically and if we did it the new way we'd have a 1.5 5% increase so it would look as if our budget and our expenses are higher than costing the taxpayers money when you ta the cost is not Chang so iocation of those costs that need to be paid from the town side to the

032Stace side I mean there is going to be a rate increase on the underlying Insurance understood but aside from that you're absolutely um that we should pay our yeah I really think it was about that simple yeah and the and the maintenance you could make we did try that one especially with some of these emergencies they are the buildings of the town and these are unforeseen and you don't really put in this kind of money in any budget that I've ever seen you know it just happened to be like the great storm Perfect Storm we have to sit and take us or very good question well I think as we move through if you have questions please ask me I'd be happy to bring them to the appropriate people in town that might be able

033to help us yeah I mean to be honest I mean looking at it from a matter of principle you know it doesn't seem right that to Balance Books the town would take money away from supporting students and staff just for correcting and accounting I mean surely like me it all goes back to the town any you just invest in school systems and I'm sure and and and some and someone's got to pay for it because you know the schools are where we do our learning so yeah is necessarily the cas they said POS all specul and what they're doing is what they're doing is trying to get a hand this the same way that NE broken have this lovely presentation and broken the numbers down by building so look at things another way sh the

034they're trying to get a handle on on what do buildings cost what do you have various operations cost so by allocating to another town Department except for theas Department they're getting a clear picture so if they in fact said you're going to pick up and again making up numbers you're going to pick up on your side of $500,000 but don't worry if you're going to get that $500,000 then there's really no change badly feel remain best of doesn't necessarily take away if it gives the 500 now you be correct if they said we're going to allocate this cost to you to recognize the cost of the building town buildings oh look you naughy boys and girls you're charging the tax another $500,000 you should cut $500,000 out of some other portion of building program that

035gain I'm with you on that one but I don't know either way they're doing so yeah prepared so building off that I mean how do we know how do we get clarity on you won't know until you present the budget of the Town Council and they put their hands on the hips well what is this you have some ner to us with this increase say but it's it becomes a question of Optics nothing we can do about right now speculate one if they cut the budget then we can bring this up this increased right like the buildings that we not even using that really it's all the buildings that we use yeah not the ones that have been turned back yeah and the new the new buildings guess what folks they're the ones that are

036costing us more money because they're more expensive buildings they're newer building so I think that was one of the big things when I think about the gr 2020 is you know that we have larger property sa one yeah I know I heard that story I also want to make note I didn't see who it came from but somebody in the chat just said that not everyone is on camera I don't think there's anything we can do about that here no there's a static camera just to acknowledge the comment well if Dean moov one seat this way you might or maybe just identify right that we're hoping for a better system here very shortly the cameras have been installed and we're hoping to launch they will your own all right so it's coming move off this

037one or I mean yeah the last two were just you know utilities we we've spoken about month of month and then the the one off to the right there the magnet is there's been a house bill that changed which really eliminates the inter District student tuition being paid between each one of the districts so what's going to happen now is um each district will receive a grant directly from the state so we don't have to almost similar to our last conversation swap money back and forth between districts it's a it's a great great move by the state um quick question on on the transportation situation um we're in year two we're entering year two okay so the way the contractor structured there's is there a break point at some point where we can look critically

038at at that contract so it's a threeyear obligation but of course they made four four and five look really Nifty like where it's like so the way it rolls out is that you know it probably would be to our advantage to go the five years but we have been regularly communicating I put this in board Notes too and plan came through and I brought the whole management team around the table and you know I I always voice my concerned with that contract that we're paying much more with less services so that you know I've kind of been expecting more we do have some of the field trips being covered this year and I'll probably propose that that continues so we'll see how that goes but know that we are in communication on a regular basis

039with them that contract did go out to bid they were two big and this was the low and it was the same one that we had had before so so if if you're at the end of the three years you you you could I guess go out to B again and that might make I don't know to so I just wanted this was really um kind of a brainchild of Ag and um Rebecca Bas worked with him on it and just because we really we've talked about this quite a bit like how much are our schools costing us now this does not have the benefits does not have utilities maybe next year we'll be able to figure that out but I think it's good for the taxpayer for the board for the community to realize

040how much is it costing us to run our different gr programs in our our different buildings um so I'm excited about this um I'm excited because in um the next meeting is going to be um on Tuesday January 16th after Martin Luther King's official birthday day and um it's going to be allaround instruction for elementary and special education so our principles will be here to talk to you about their schools and to tell you what's in that time print and why that's needed so I think that will be a nice conversation you're certainly able to ask some questions about that and then that'll be followed up by the January 29th your secondary principles um and probably special education and then Support Services I think that's Phil with what he does with teaching and learning and

041how that works so we've laid it out and we've chunked it out for you in hopefully bite-sized chunks so you can really do the Deep dive and each of these areas to see what are the costs and what are some of those increased costs and how are they being played out so we will go back to this when we have those meetings with our principals so we'll be able to do a closer look at that but at least it's right in front of you so you can kind of see even the makeup of our buildings these schools when I first got here there was a school that had um 20% free and reduced lunch and a school that had 70 something per free and reduced lunch and because of GR in 202 we're really aligned

042with our um our average which is 54 certainly at the middle school and at the high school we had two high middle schools that were quite different too if you recall so it's a beautiful thing socioeconomically racially that we're balanced even into the classroom and up into those advanced classes we're doing a much better job so to me that is really an accomplishment that I want to see continue and that has to do with the interdistrict magnets at the elementary and having everybody in One middle school and everybody at one high school quick question schedule um you'll be next Adrian when is uh when is the public hearing that's so that is what we're doing is February 12th instead of having people come out two different nights we're going to have our joint what we

043have is a joint Board of Ed Town Council RTM conversation about the budget and that's really I don't know have you ever participated or seen that so that's I've been in the audience so you've been in the audience now you'll be at the table so um that's really a very valuable um meeting I think to have that conversation and then we'll do the public hearing so that's when the public can come in and parents and PTO and you know people will say what they need to say and you know and listen and um so that's going to all happen at one night and that's I believe at 355 that's where Joyce that out and uh Adrian you want to ask a question yeah um I I am wondering how many total staff do we have

044in the district does anyone know that number about we we have that in a chart we can share that Adrian as we go along all right and then my my other question though um which is kind of where this was going is um can we get it these are the sheets for all the schools um but it would great it'd be great in my opinion to have a sheet um with the central office staff um like that central office staff Consultants positions that don't show up on these schools um you know like the bcbe do they end up on the on the School staffs or or is it like on a central office type thing so I'm just wondering if there's a lot of staff I mean I think I found uh 752 staff members

045adding these up and I'm wondering if that's you know close to the total number of Staff we have in the district or if we have a lot more staff I'm just trying to understand what's outside of these individual school um you know breakdowns hey Adrian it's Dave hey I um in the email I sent you today with all the PDFs you will have a PDF that's called FTE sort of the back page of our book and that's those are the active FTE currently being funded by the board that that'll get you started at least we did talk about Adrien um that this was something we discussed um at the director's team meeting about putting a sheet out like we've got for the schools but that's really a central office page so that you can see

046that as well so that's something we're going to work on um together so you can see that do you have a list of those questions that you can um send me so I can kind of take a look at it as we start rolling other ideas out would you mind I know you talked about a you know central office page a full page um that we might even have tonight yeah we'll just um all right well I see I just pulled up the email that Dave sent me I didn't know what that was before but now it's it's saying there's positions um total so it looks like um what's that 40 or something like that for central office 45 and I think um Lori leine who is you know our head of um HR and

047does a lot of operations with me um has actually identified that one of the pages will looking at tonight yeah um is in here that will show us do you know what page number it is um it I don't know it's under do they have this exact same book okay it's under the green tab so we can spend some on pages of our book um the PDF that you sent to Adrian s to the whole board I certainly think yeah I just put it together are those PDFs the on out already I don't know if she sent them on or not she has them sent them to the board I'm just not sure yeah did you just a PDF of your is last did you see the digital version in because I had asked for

048her to send the digital version and I got a copy because I didn't I wasn't on there CC did you receive anything digitally from Joy but I can send that out again I think she linked it out of the board notes yeah some of them were Linked In the board notes but not the whole comprehensive thing all right we were waiting for we'll get it yeah yeah just to have it on top of everything be great and the idea of having like an expandable pdf version of each object or of each department is moving forward yep like um is that a thing that's happen so we're going to go through what we call function codes um which are in the old book we'll just bring them as we go through each topic we're going to

049bring the function codes related to those so we can walk through those so it'll just build to what you're talking about all right so it'll be a document that I can kind of open up and look at and drill down into each function code um I I don't know why by drill down but you'll be able to see each function code and the financials and you have to use associated with that and then a little narrative that goes with it yeah when I think a drill down just from a business anal perspective it's not a click and it'll blow up for you it's going to be a static document is it ever would it ever be possible to do this can grow it I would love that I mean technologically speaking is it possible you

050you have that that you work off right I don't know about this year I'm not sure I just don't know if we have the technology I mean this is this is an Excel right now Excel but I'm looking that have you been in Harford where they've done it a little differently yeah I mean in in Harford we had a we had a an fpna software that would allow you to access it from anywhere it was shared with the community and it's point and click you use it right off your phone um but you know you're talking 48 schools and a big district and a lot of activity and it's it's fairly pricey but it was the it was the only way for us to be able to manage communication across all the zones and powering

051and all the folks that were part of the the process yeah it's called alib it's an alab software it's wonderful and just a quick Circle back to the narrative question um you said narratives will be coming with a function code the narratives are we going to get um some sense of the initial asks that came from the Department um those were really mostly conversations I think when the final wrap up was that was an agreement that was made um with everybody so I there was never anything published on paper that was a conversation Dave actually he was just getting here new in the summer and he was going to every principal every director sitting down with them talking about what their needs were what the challenges were and to start Forward Thinking into next year

052so those were conversations that were happening um I think the oh sorry I just I think the site budget the site budgets are based on the number of students there was a formula for how much each School site budget would be based on the number of students per people cost we wanted it when Mike and I first got here they didn't have site budgets everything was done here at office and it was kind of first come first serve so when we rolled out site budgets we really worked with our principles about what their needs were but then we had to really make it Equitable so looking at our students and their needs and the number of students so that we really rolled out the formula so even in what was asked for we really tried

053to stay around that 2% increase in their budget from last year so they they might have moved things over to a different you know different thing or held off for a year or whatever they did to make those numbers work right keep job so the narratives that we'll see will be uh modified narratives there won't be the the direct um initial asks coming from the principal or the department heads no those usually by the time you get to a budget just like we go through this with you you know you're seeing what our our kind of initial ask because prior to that it was a conversation but then we have to kind of get into into uh legitimate possible proposal for you um I was looking I think I was looking at some of these

054numbers from the same types of numbers as I I understood Adrian to have said but doing it slightly differently uh I was looking at the numbers of of covid related priors that we made with federal funds uh recognizing that some of them we've been able to obain because they've gotten grants from the state and um your team theyve gotten pull together some grants I was trying to get a sense of uh what was left and what you said now I'm a bit confused because I was looking at the federal and Connecticut state of education department statistics that say that we went from 750 9 FTE in 2018 2019 to 1043 in 2223 and I presumed I know that's a dangerous word that's a big number it is a big number but I I have the

055print outs um I presumed that that number included all the hires that were made with non toown dollars I that's that's a presumption of mine would was the title of it co related could it have been no it was not it was the title was ft it was a diversity study of how we were doing in equities as far employee racial characteristics but it gave the number of FTE that we had in the district uh I believe of September of each each Academic Year so that's where I pull the numbers from uh and I was going to take it in a different way uh I was wanting to know how many co hires we currently have what roles in what buildings and at what cost the number of Co hires for whom future external funding

056has not yet been assured in recognition that some has been assured and the number of current Co hires the administration believes we need to canete our job of academic loss recovery that we that justify being attained in the budget so yeah and there is a presentation coming tonight with that proposal okay what will come out of our fessor and will go into the op operating budget which will have to be approved and so we'll have to decide what those priorities are whether these FTE come forward or not so that is part of tonight's presentation okay I thought later on page six tonight yeah but I if you would share where that report came from so I can take a look at that I don't I will do better than that I will mail you copies

057of them you includ me and just where where wherever you found it like if I could find out so I can check sure sure thank you okay to orient us to the so we're gonna go to the yellow tab in your books and page number five right page I'm just trying to find it myself and we're passing over some of those seats that we had talked about which are the excess costs that have come into the town on behalf of the board that go right to their what do they call it their general fund general fund I was going to call it the rainy day fund but it's the general fund um and then there's all the different grants you see we've received I don't know how he got it on one page but I

058need my glasses to look at that and those are both things that we will um I know we're going to talk about that this one particular in finance disabilities first um and we can even talk about the grants but then we'll be talking about that on one of the labor dates coming up yeah I think on schedule so if you're on page five I thought I would just ground you um um again just just for everyone's um sort of update you know this is our last Corona virus related grant that we have and the benit that to all districts for that matter except some of those recent that we little one targeted the targeted one just little bit Yeah but the last big substantial so this one um you know effectively according to the federal

059government goes through 930 2024 our plan is to really have this liquidated by the end of the fiscal year 630 um if you look just at you've seen similar format like this in the past but just for fiscal year 2024 this is our estimate for what those costs look like for this year which will tie us out to the bottom right hand corner of a total Grant of 6.5 million um not much this year in terms of some of the heavy lifting that we incurred in 2022 which I'm sure some of the board members remember in terms of technology and HVAC upgrades I mean this is this year at least it's pretty standard supplies and a lot of most most likely mostly people CA people so um nothing here other than that if you flip

060to the next page it'll show you it'll answer sort of Matthews start to answer Matthew's question in terms of you know what's what's in that funding today that we have currently in the first pass of the of the board budget so the first top piece they're just people expenses I call them people expenses moved so there's 43.25 FTE in total with salary and taxes you know Medical Care Social Security it's 2. 2 million and then there's just a few non- people expenses that move over as well um but the majority of it is really on the people's side and I think most of those folks have probably been in that funding for a few years now so um just to ground you on the big changes you can read it as you're going along but

061really it's a lot of the tutors so there's 27 tutors in there 19 in English language and math and eight sort of social emotional there's seven teaching personnel and then there's sort of I'm going to call it a sprinkling right there's a point and a half is social workers there's some security guards Community coordinators Etc but the majority of it is really on the on the tutor side so again if you refer if you remember back when we were talking about the what I call the object codes the 100s the 200s and you looked at wages it was like a $4.1 Million number and just just Mar presser alone I mentioned about half of that and it's probably a little bit more than half of that number coming over from this gr and some of

062these would be benefit yes yeah we don't insurance insur but that's we don't have we don't have that in right yeah this is just the basic salary and taxes do you have any sense Susan as to whether this would be permanent employees or whether we're extending what we're initially thought to be transitional employees for year two years three years I would say that um when I look at this list the majority here are really in what I was hopeful would be transitional and I was really hopeful that we might not need it at this point I do still see there's a great need and male um our kids are not all the way okay I mean there's still a lot of work to be done the social emotional learning tutors the principal said please do

063not take those advice they really have been worth Rel Le go and really being um you know great people that the kids can go to and they really assisted the social work team and um kind of oversees that and then of course English language arts and maths we have that high do tutoring for math um and that's not even in here those are extra map tutors that are separate that are paid for by the grant but um we've really seen a need to give kids more kind of small group one-on-one support with the tutors teachers do this too during the day and even after school and we have the Falcon Academy and lots of other resources but um you know I know they're in the elementary schools too and looking at that so she knows

064kind of how they're able to assist in the classroom and throughout the day so I would say I was I was hopeful that at this point I would say oh yes there because I can remember people asking me about the cliff and I said well the largest amount is Personnel of personnel is with the tutors and we're hopeful that they there will have been recovery and there has been but not not enough so I think we are going to be seeing this into the Future Would I love to say in the next couple two three years yes I would love to say we'll do everything with for and that's part of what we're going to have to to talk about in with that series okay so that this is kind of like a road map

065yeah I see Adrien has his hand up I'm just looking at this and I see um you know roughly a third um well maybe a little less than the third but um is teaching Personnel student support what what exactly are those positions um those those are teachers so I don't I don't have the list of FR me I can give it to you but it's if I recall it's a math a science CLA yeah so so they so they're classroom teachers or are there um teachers that kind of move around or no they're definitely in the schools I would say more in the middle school and high school Adrian um yeah and I know that when we built the new Middle School we assum that we could take away a team at each grade level

066but that did not work because we had just the same amount of kids we didn't have as much space as we had in the two schools coming into one and that was a problem but so really and even designing going way back to designing the schedule for the middle school and you know at the beginning of covid because that all happened at the same time we needed to have these expert features we couldn't run the building and run a schedule without them and so many of them came at that point some even shared buildings you know they were at both middle school and high school but I wrote to you about um how we're doing a scheduling project this year it's different than the ones we've had in the past because we're training the administrators

067and the counselors in how to run the schedule and they're working side by side with us so we're hopeful that we can gain some more FTE through that process but we won't be sure until we actually run the schedule so that's all kind of happening at the same time but those positions were really very needed in order to keep our class sizes at about 20 to 24 but there's still some work to be done we still have some classes out there that have run with fewer than that and so we're trying to make it more stable so that every class is between 20 and 24 middle except for some special areas that require less number of kids all right and then um and then ju I just see security guards here where are they and

068how is that I mean I mean if we added security guards um was that done for a reason was there a security risk or um was that just something that Co added you know do we need that so the middle school the high school always had security guards it's our our largest school and you know there was we need it for before and after school getting parents and kids in and out with buses for safety reasons we need it for hallways we need it for some of the labs you know checking in on kids so I would say that that number did grow with Co it did grow that we needed um the extra support and then bringing the two middle schools together in one they never had as many security guards I don't even

069know if they had any um they might have had two resources they had a couple um so now they're a school of nearly a thousand as well high school is over a thousand and so they've really been very supportive they actually are um they get to know the kids and like theal um tutors you know they're another person another go through person for our kids in the building and they're really all over the hallway so that they're in very good access points to be able to reach out to kids or for kids to reach out to them but I'm not saying that we can't cut back even further Lori so I just wanted to share oh sorry you do you have something else Adrian oh no well I was just going to say so this

070number of you know 43 positions these were all positions that were added with covid and was there was there any more that were added that we're not um proposing to carry on our own now or yes yes so thank you Adrian that's kind of what I was going to share next so what's not on this schedule is we did actually take a pretty critical eye and actually identifi positions that we would not bring over to the board so um there were um probably close to this number in various positions so while yeah so while we have some of these positions here for example we have streamlined some of our enrichment budget you know so um we had more security guards we've cut back a little bit um same thing with Community coordinators same thing with

071tutors we've come up if we had anything additional Beyond maybe one per school we streamline back one per school so what's not represented here is probably almost as many positions that currently exist today under our in the district that we're not going to take forward to the board budget for next year so those those those identifications have been made identified and Dave's budget took into account that we wouldn't be bringing those over and those uh folks who were hired under the the grants knew that their positions were Grant funded and were not permanent correct correct they were aware that these positions were funded through our funds and that at some point they funds would run out um and they would have to look for other opportunities in the district you know um there could be

072some attrition meaning resignations retirements where we won't refill positions um so we're already kind of working through that um knowing where we are as attrition occurs this year we'll start to plan in advance for next year so our job would be to turn what we think the priorities should be for these positions quick question about that is there a way to get a summary of all the positions that are not being carried forward sure we can identify those we work through those so we could put together a list yeah absolutely thank you and then there have been like this du this um high dosage tutoring has come in so I think there's at least six um Mass tutors in that this year so we've been able to to take up some of the funding yeah

073so with the with the large AR going away unfortunately like Susan said the need Student need isn't going away but they are coming out with what they're calling these are Target grants so they're many grants targeted towards certain initiatives so the high does tutoring the mental health services so we've applied and and received those and we are shifting those costs to those grants so that's not included in this list um we we're shifting those over to those art funding grants much smaller it's a position here or there not to the not to the level of this larger fund that large scale fund but wherever we can identify those mini grants we have app for them to help kind of provide some relief to the board budget where we and this District um really having a

074grants coordinator and she's part-time but she's you know here with us a lot helping us out seeking some of these grants has been extraordinary from Doos that teachers have received go to far and way places and bring back that information to kids to you know all of our military grants all of the state granch he's on top of things always looking for opportunities and we kind of work as a team to look at that so I know that grants are a big deal in this community and certainly um you know having someone on staff who can who has that expertise in writing these GRS and and finding things about how you know how how um available are they to us how are they you know are they accessible for us so she reads all the

075F print and then does a really good job writing just a quick follow about the you the AR Target grants here you would discuss them you said there going to be used for high do or you say highend math High you mean by high do like the the you know tutors for advanced classes well they're actually for um it's called high do tutor because of a concentration it's very short period of time with concentrated tutoring that very but some of the tutors that you see here in the game plan are the tutors that are working with our high school kids even in the advanced classes so that's why you know whether they're kids are an algebra one that are struggling and we know algebra one can be a great G people I used to teach

076the course so it's something that I want all kids to be successful in so they can kind of rise and continue um but then you know also in some of our higher end courses where kids are trying some of these for the first time we want them to be successful and we want to give them the support that they need and are these the grants that are listed on page four under competitive Grant no are these the the ones you're talking about that are going forward to 27 yes I see the arpa high do tutoring arpa right to read on Mental Health Services those all of those Aras are targeted um basically continuation of art funding in very specific and they don't just hand them even the right to read we really work with State

077Department to define the decodable text that we needed the um youly University of Florida program some of the Hagerty materials so we really carefully scripted that but they didn't just hand you the money they you know you really have to apply for it and show evidence that you're moving in the right direction to be able to get the the grants so even some of the multimedia projects that Clint has and Shannon have worked on and Sam have worked on in order to um you know make sure that our cameras are set and our mutual link so that security system that partially through the CIP mostly through to CP but then we also found other funding sources that could match up with that so we could get everything that we needed would you say that's right

078you want to [Music] add that we be opportun and the upgrade I think you mentioned for this room in terms of the cameras the can zoom and pan yep and the improved audio is also Grant funded yes p p is state fund Grant we got $3,000 roughly for 2023 we just filed all the data for that so we will qualify for future 2024 which is not an announc yes and then and then we did borrow some of the camera and sound system Mo to for our Fitch high school because like I said there's a lot of music happening there and you know that is one of my vintage wig um you know that Auditorium boy would I love before I retire to see that reconfigured and to get those kids what they need with the

079sound system and the lights and the camera and the action and by it was booked every night it two each run up to and it was really something to be had everyone I could go to I went to it's awesome so you know that's something that you know here we bought this for this room but honestly we weren't able to install it because we had to put the kids first and they needed to perform and I wanted them to perform their best way and and have what they needed so that the performance could could come out wonderful and it did each one but now we got them back but then what do we do in the I keep saying the Clint so what do we get for the kids now and how do I get

080it so I thought I'd take you through same section you can flip the page eight just to to ground you a little bit up top on just what our budget history has been um lots of zeros you know last year was 2.97 before that 2.22 so six years averaged just over a point but if you go back another five years it's a0 five half a percentage because there were a lot more zeros that came and some ones and so running a district on a zero or a one you can call it flat but it's not really flat it's a decline because you're taking away you know robbing Peter to pay fall so you're taking away from that budget in order to afford it so and this is where it puts us um you know hence

081at the same time of covid relief funds going away we're seeing this 8.27 and that's just rolling it over it's not really adding a thing to this budget right pretty so you call that black but it's escalated Black Level Services level Services yeah level services so the bottom is just um there's a couple charts I'll show you on the next page but just an indication of what our expend expenditure per pupil you've probably seing this but if you look at 2016 2017 the first line we were pretty much on par with the state average um we dropped down to the bottom at 2223 we're now about 10% behind what the state averages on a per pup basis in terms of funding so if you flip to the other the next page it'll just illustrate to

082you in a couple different comparisons just what our net expenditures per pupil look like the one up top are just local districts so just to orient you all the way to the left is old Sabri which funds at about 25,000 per pupil we're third to the bottom at about the 17 917 which I mentioned to you before there's the average so we're kind of sliding towards the bottom there and then even versus our our drg similar size similar reference type type of districts you can see with the drg average is at 194 pretty similar to the the state average and we're second to the lowest outside of nogat talk at at the 177,000 if you look at it by I've looked at it by quartile or sort of in the fourth quartile not the belor

083the point but just um so of the other districts have surpassed us at this point okay oh I'm sorry oh can you just move that microphone down to Jenny I know oh the School District budget is ex pound I'm really concerned about the you know of property they get off of that oh School 80% of the to budget or and then people like go crazy and say like this that control um ons like the first can you do you know how much school budget is of for their so that we could combat what potentially may or may not come down s yeah there so there is some self-reporting you know the state Cas though um we might have a little bit of historical it's self-reporting right so not all the districts report out but I

084can certainly pull some of the districts that have reported it won't be for this year yet because they're just starting to Triple in but we can look at last year just to kind of get an invitation for sure yeah and um also what we should look out too is what best we shouldn't you know we should try to P for this is what this and this is what good looks like and this is how get to so I start um what's a Target your District maybe that want to sort of like I don't know that's already one of the schools I think that you can look at when you look at the um neighboring schools there's certainly some of those neighboring schools you know that but when you look at the dur that's really districts

085more like us in what they can afford and you know and really in their student population um so you know when I talk to my superintendent colleagues which is Austin a lot of us are doing some of the really good work um they're a little jealous of me because I get thosea Grant and I can do some really cool things with them that they might not be able to afford but you know a lot of us are doing some of the same things is initiative with pfree literacy with science of reading we're all doing it and we're all getting better at it and it's still a work in progress um but you know with with some of the the other um best practices I would say that we're we're kind of um the state does

086put out um model curriculum and they base it on the common cor and we're assessed by the esac and and ngss and sat so those are all things that are kind of we're directed to do yeah now trying to get like our Aral you know like our tools out um and then remember um SE so I just went through really quick and most of the teacher averages student did teacher average is like Val six with the exception river which is pretty much one on and then I did student Cass to um this instructional budget that's all I had um where weon spending 37,000 at Mystic River and everywhere else we're spending about 12,000 you're hear about the specialized programs and so there's a reason behind those numbers and that's why we're going to tell the

087story it's really important that the principles are here with to needs do little there are some programs that do require an adult for every child okay and they're very specialized um programs with autism an autistic children so you'll you'll I think it's going to help you to understand these numbers so do we put all the autic children into one school is that why they all serviced in one school in Mystic right that Mystic River okay they actually have their own Suite their own wing and all the related services are right there for them so we able to take care of their needs better that way then rather than flooding them what what we used to do was well they were always at SC Butler so I can't say they were spread out so you always

088want to help them okay Susan we do have other students with autism in other schools in the district but these are children with more significant autistic needs right you're right thank you for saying that to me you're right and it's a spectrum disorder so there's kids who are gifted and on the Spectrum it's almost just like if you're looking for something like that you have charts that are like this compared but not on funding for pretty that but on um test performance you want to look at that the trend lines move in the opposite direction might almost make the argument that we do the most correlate test scor through expenditure the best now I heard something I don't know whether you was going for this one we're in a dirt is there something that says

089that we must remain in the dirt it's just a district reference group it's a way to organize I guess and all of our dur partners are also Alliance districts although we're one of the last ones in and sometimes they they've asked us to remove thinking question what like moving forward it used to be called the ER economic reference group and it was really based on economics and um you know the economic make up about the dist and in in Granton um it reminded me so much of Stanford where I was the associate superintendent only I had 20 schools I can't tell you how many million dollar budgets I've had but but it was a real you know from the new andaran Greenwich and you know the North and it was a lot of great wealth

090and a lot of great poverty and and in between and I see Mystic and and our Mystic River to our F River really and I love that kind of community that's why you know this is just a little smaller and just back home so this is perfect for me but I love that kind of community because you really do get a diverse um culturally and economically it's just I think with the thir they're just trying to identify our dist around the stre so then put that you're looking at similar demograph and economics but it's still that really shows you that if we're right next to n that you know we are doing a lot for a you know we're doing a lot Andre I have more of a comment and it's something you've all heard

091before except B and when I look at these things I think of of like a family coming in being reassigned you know to and Mom and Dad are looking at this list and Mom says to Dad oh honey let's let's go to Bron with her from the bottom almost they spend on on each child and then she says oh we let's look at the dur and we can always move to some place in our dir so either Let's either go to Glon or we'll go to blomfield that's how useful this is might or they might say let's move to east line because they I think they say that a yeah so I think the last thing on our list on on this um budget Workshop is to talk about salaries and retirements and I think

092we going to orient us to that yeah are we I think we're using this page one under the red tab that you were thinking we start with them um so we've already talked about kind of the overall Salan range increase but just to you know uh bring those back to the Forefront for everybody um the salary and wage increase 7.92% um as we shared earlier about a little more than half of that is the rer identification of positions transitioning to the board or those that we felt should be transitioned to the board um excluding those which we will not transition over um and the um so that's a little more than half of the 7.92% or the 4 million or the 4 million increase and then the balance of that is really just contactual incre

093so what we have negotiated um as a district we you know DAV has rolled up those contractual obligations and that is really what's um you know built into that 4.1 num from 2 million to under two million is the contractual obligation for the district has for wages and we just negotiated the par contract with iners that was good an important contract um we we avoided arbitration by mediating in the middle and um feel like it came out to be really fair um I'm just saying Fair it's you know it's what it is and you know it was I think about what 6% and that has been um they accounted for that in this budget so that has been built in so that we can meet our cont obligations with parents tutors with this new contct

094and that needed to be done we needed to lift the bottom gr because we weren't even getting people hired we had people in the middle who had been working for years and years and felt they needed a boost as well so everybody along the Continuum really benefited from this negotiation yeah I mean we were competitive that was the reality right you know so we needed to make some pretty significant um shifts with the par incl their contract to make sure that we are competitive in the area so that we could these higher this because we were not being successful with that given that is not so that has been addressed successfully um you've taken that into account the other thing that is built into this salary and wage number is an anticipation of 12 certified

095staff retirements those uh range annually from about 12 to 25 depending on um each year you know we don't really know how many we going to get but we do build in because what we do is by building in a specific number of retirements just naturally through that attrition typically a top step teacher will move out of the district and we will hire uh a teacher at a lesser salary so we do take things into account so when we say we've got Sol require um retirements built in we've taken those salary savings for we currently have seven in of seven confirmed so far at the 12 so we hopefully we'll get a few this speed and they have in builing the contract that we have to let us know by January 15 by January so

096we will know the outcome of that and kind of know where we stand before we kind of March this budget forward you know those savings will fully develop but we need to make any funding adjustments for that non-certified staff we really don't know on the retirements they just kind of come in obviously the most happen if it's a par professional or some other nons noncertified staff member certainly it's the same concept someone Lees typically is making a little more money than the entrylevel person and those C savings but certainly the noncertified staff um we have no way to predict those until they come and typically don't take some question all um in regards to the uh par cont um if I mean a good number of us here would not were not here when that

097was negotiated or didn't have much input in um so if we felt like there was something more to be done um we'll do the process of reopening that sooner than later um I think that's something have to um you know talk about and that could possibly be an executive session conversation because of the fact that you're talking and looking at the budget going forward there's not a lot of room in this you know next year budget but it's certainly something we can talk about um I would like to make a prog to that we make some time and discuss that so we can look forward be prepared um another question with the salary and wages um how much of that is like just increases in wages and how much is that bringing on same yeah

098so um if you look at the top line of salary wage so 4 million 173 about 2,200 was on that Arc schedule which will the addition and um just under 2 million was the contractual thank and the only additions pring come but the only staff additions in this budget is on the aret no others no others as we go through this process though like I said with the scheduling opportunity with looking at the kids coming and going and looking at our numbers even Elementary School there there could be some benefits that we'll we'll go through we will do a a really close monitoring of that to see if there's other areas that can be reduced with the FP so that F on our agenda questions or um you know and even if you don't have

099questions tonight but you think of something you know like me I'll think of it at 3 o' in the morning don't do that though um you know certainly send Jay an email and he'll get it to me and you know So the plan is uh next week we're going to meet the um Elementary um principles and also I believe Denise will probably joining us for special education and so at that point where we start to see the roll out of the uh function to function we might want to squeeze in a financing facility if that's possible so that I can talk to you guys about the access um Revenue that's come in through impact Aid ECS and um excess cost to special ad um that really is like you said it's not a grant it's

100reimbursing us for the monies that have gone out in the name of special ed for kids really who have significant needs and you some of those out placements are up to $100,000 a mon and easily and then so to get 88% back on that would really pretty good if it can be used for so I'd like to be able to talk to the boy a little more about how that works and I'd like to see more information about these um building clost would being proposal right we can do that so I'm feel I'm sure that we can think of a good agenda for that there might be some things in between since we have a little bit of time in between and those function codes will include the the narratives if there's changes in the

101to and we'll get that out ahead of time for you so like the elementary folks will be coming in and we'll probably review with them um the function coaches say Phil and I will probably take time with them to kind of get them ready um and then same thing is true with the secondary folks um we also have Denise in there I know coming up on the 16th so you'll get all that that kind of detail um specific to those areas oh I'm sorry Adrian yeah I I mean I just have one question going back to the slide um and I sorry if I didn't ask this before but under supplies um I mean there's a pretty it's a 31% increase of a million dollars in supplies is it possible for us to get a

102a breakout of why that much more needs to be spent on supplies like what that difference is um short answer yes um but I can ground you real quickly so in in the supply number is um the expectation that we do do not receive the dold supplemental funding for next year which is then you know a half million plus so what that means is the the cost that we would normally spend allocate towards that funding for software and technology is now covered by the board all right any utilities or anything that so that was paid with out of outside of the budget before yes yes all right yeah that's the uh the dod supplemental that that the current budget Washington is zeroed out but at the same time unfortunately we're right on the cus for

103whether we would have been eligible for it even if they did fund it this year um by what was it 12 students well my number has changed well 24 yeah I mean we're close we're close close enough that I'm not I'm not stopping looking because you never know what can happen in Washington and in gron so I'm going to keep looking so the so the number here though that just so I understand it the 3229 um or 3.22 n million um it we actually spent somewhere around 3.8 but there was a half a million you know in 24 is that is that what you're saying so we're yeah so we're only going up a half million all right even more complicated than that just to give you a little background story with that supplemental um

104impact or the the dod supplement it has really been kind of a nice Nest Egg for us it's been like over a million dollars I think approved um you know maybe even two million dollars at one point so even if you're taking a half million you still had something to fall back on um but really we've been encouraged by the town you know by the town to go on and use that money as a matter of fact they actually at one point said just take that and put that towards the budget glad we didn't do that but now we're down to really just enough to for our um technology leases for next year so that's going to be covered by that could be and even though many of our schools are part of the community

105um eligibility program for lunch we're seeing those uh unfunded lunch balances go up considerably what are you projecting now about 8,000 880,000 so that's contributing to that line 600 and then what about utilities yes so that includes I'm G to give a little more color commentary and I can certainly give you a schedule as well but this if you recall some of the earlier conversations around utilities for this year and just the risk that we that we're faced with this year on electricity Natural Gas gas and oil um so for next year we've increased some of those budgets not not all the way to the top level but increase some of those budgets to hopefully cover ourselves just just given what our the prices are in the escalation so although we escalated some of the

106electricity cost we've also discounted that a little bit by some of the solar panels going in but you know Adrian 2. I mean a half million comes quick when you have additional electricity oil and gas prices we've got the unfunded lunch balances we got an investment in Roc um so that's and then you've got the site budget as well py back yeah let yeah do that afterwards yeah yeah that would be good um one sorry to be broken record on this one but it's C going back to the narratives coming from you know sites and deps and directors um the having the the modified narrative that's coming through the filter of the administration is that just is that just past practice or is that a policy or is that legality situation tell me a little

107more about what you mean by narrative um like being able to just get the um say you know on the ground initial request of what they asked you for like I said it's a conversation that I don't even have Dave actually has it with the with the team and and really get and especially because Dave was new um but they've really kept around for the site budgets we've really kept it around 2% for the since I've been once we got it structured so that it was Equitable for each of the schools and we kind of really assessed the needs now do certain needs come up at different times that might be a little more they do um you know so we have to kind of take care of that but we do try to keep

108it very Equitable correct me if I'm wrong but you we we determine the site budget based on the number of students there's the formula so each school is Equitable the principles have a certain discretion I mean some principles are going to spend money in different categories than others and you don't veto that no I don't they know he asked exactly tell me what you need right they're like given a budget but they actually have authority to allocate within the school within the school where their needs are and he doesn't really come down and say no unless it goes beyond the parameter ofd yeah so if they have some new initiative they will build that into their site budget but they may see opportunity in in another area of the budget well I SP a little

109bit of cost here to put put this in that's new they have all that ex and at they have also the athletic component too right you know which is a huge piece athletic and extracurricular we've gotten some grants for that too to help you know with the extracurricular both at the middle school and the high school the 21st century grants but um so yeah I guess what I'm trying to to capture is the idea that you know as a as a board of education my perception of it is that we're we're we're here to kind of oversee and manage and you know the the poll of the school district you know not just one side of negotiating people but you know the whole the whole thing right and so I guess I was just hoping

110to get some sense of of what the on the ground staff are asking for I know there's always going to be some natural push back to maybe you know what initial ask is to what you know Administration on site or higher up may feel is a better number to allocate or more affordable um and I just wanted to kind of get a sense of that as you go into the budget um if there's been like some back and forth or if there was you know an initial ask I me from the certain Department um or program or you know site Al together that was then you know I understand map but I guess I'm I'm looking to to understand more about like how departments within those sites ask for funding what I can doers when

111the principles come I'll ask them to speak to that because that they do meet with their Department chairs on a regular basis they have them mfit but they don't haveen you know at the middle school but we have 612 coordination now for both schools so that's very helpful so that is really a process that's kind of ongoing throughout the year and then they get it sign tuned so and I think the departments are kind of used to a certain amount of money but if something new comes along or they have something else that's when the principal's able to you know figure out a way to make that all work and sometimes just add sometimes they'll raise something up especially like at the elementary s how these magnet means they work with Community Partners and they

112might say Hey you know I want to work with this community partner I haven't worked with them before and they might raise that and we'll you know work with them to say okay does it fit the site budget or is it more appropriate to use the new the new do Grant to fund some of that initiative so then we also have title funds but I hope Washington continues to good point Accord our title funds and we have four schools that are title um CK Captain Koski was really the only type of school when I first got here and um and then and CLA Chester came on board but now it's St River Mystic River CK and roton middle um that are considered the title um we have to look at it kind of each year

113to figure out how to you know we always look at the the ratios with their um free induced launch is a big piece and part of and part of um establishing title brand each year is asking them kind of what their needs and wants are so you can understand you know what programs you'll be supported in those girls that get right and so some of those Community Partners come up in that um and then some of their other initiative family engagement and then IES not that they have they do have a few more dollars to spend on that but they all try to have very similar family engagement opportunities and you know Partnerships with community and that kind of and of course we could increase we can increase what I still didn't hear you we

114can increase the psychop the psy you want to say that to um you know coming from the other the other parts of government in this town where like you know we could help deliberate on the overall number that the board um was allocated but not specifically where that money went within the board now I'm within the board like is it a similar relationship as far as site budgets go where you know we allocating a certain amount towards that site and then it's up to the administrators on that site to make final game time decisions or are we looking at each object code within that site you know I want to be telling paper clips here but no you know uh in you know in general like you know if we're going to allocate money for

115certain programs or certain funds or certain clubs or certain activities um you know you don't get into the weeks with that no so it's more like a Chann yeah and even I don't I mean I really I I manage the district and the Departments and the schools and we work together with the principles um but I don't try to micromanage those kind of things you know they'll come to me or they'll ask the suggestion but so I you know I I just feel like that's the best way to to leave um is to let them have some autonomy and they were so grateful because when I got here that wasn't happening they weren't they didn't have that kind of aony over a budget and they do appreciate it and they're very careful with their budgets

116you you saw that right they really know their budgets and they know what they need and um and they would come to me honestly and they'd come to Dave if they felt like we missed a step or there wasn't something or even when you know when parents have come and said boy would you consider this or that we do look at it and having a mark Romano as a you know an athletic director who really oversees all things after school you know between the two schools it's so helpful so from a board perspective we're depending on the department heads uh to Rel to us what their they relate to the principal this is called um the chain of command and I'm an AB kid so I know all about this but really it's you know

117your teachers who would work with their departments and departments that would work with their principal and then the principle to work with the assistant superintendent me and you know we you know we we find ways and we don't just do it with an operating budget we find other ways to you know if there's something that's really necessary I so um but and certainly but we share back with the board and the board helps us you know with getting this budget together and really actualizing a budget that we can live with we can live with it in the schools and the to sample that would be the the work that's being done bu the year with identify it's a new program we need just put some fund to support it and I think there's $50,000 in

118the budget for Jr through the school they identify how much we need to run that program need to added it to the budget because we didn't have one so the number that we see is what they're asked for like I said if we get to double those numbers there's that real potential because the um military know this isn't on the agenda but the military is looking to recruit more not that that's for that purpose it's really a wonderful leadership military science you not have better than anybody um I mean I just look at these young men and women and how theyve grown during this year with their commitment um and you know I think the Navy is going to be investing in more TC units the last time when they um when they had their

119inspection we got word of that so it's really about growing this program we want to see it grow we want to see it flourish we want kids to talk to other kids about joining up and I think it's a great pathway for kids when I ask them to stand up if they're going to be serving our country and 30 kids stand up it's pretty amazing yeah no I think it's a great program so yeah so we do want to take care of it and um and if things come up in between that haven't been budgeted for you know we definitely listen to parents and listen to others about how can we find ways to use those me so I do have scheduled meeting Terry p with we find out more it's good to hear yeah

120any other questions I think Andrea has something well before I move toour I want to remind everybody that the Martin Luther que e medical service is this Sunday at 3:00 at St James in New London and we have three Scholars um motion forair you you saying that just reminded me of something else um there's a another there's also another EV um at uh January on January 15 um at we don't have three Scholars John Jan drab Katherine Reagan and Calvin McCoy I got to say that that's most important all right so um January 15 at 12m at St John's Christian Church at 346 chass Road there'll be a big um speakers and some singers January 15 day at St John's Christian Church okay um 346 shet Road that's the church right on the on the

121corner of Grand Manor and States y I encourage everyone to go thank you we have a motion tojn all in favor thank you everybody thank you everyone