001[music] Good evening everyone. I'd like to call to order our January monthly meeting of the board of education on January 20th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. If some of you have been with us previously, you'll notice that we do have some new faces at the table. And I'd like to acknowledge that we actually held our very first meeting of the year a week ago. We had our second budget workshop and at that time we had to um reassess our executive board and make sure that we had all those positions in place. So, when I do the roll call tonight, you'll hear names that are already situated, but I wanted to call your attention to that because we certainly do welcome our new board members. Um, and we welcome Nicole into her new role here as well.
002So, if you don't mind, I'm going to call the the meeting to order so that anybody who's new knows who's sitting up here at the table. I will start with our board of ed members. I'm Deborah Chute. I am the chair. We have Dr. Thage Sing, our vice chair. >> President, Deb, thank you. >> Nicole Russo, our secretary. >> Present. Thank you. >> Lynn Katz, >> present. Thank you, Deb. Sarah Heath >> here. Thank you. >> Susan Zakaris, >> present. Thank you. >> Chris Campbell >> here. Thank you. >> Jessica Julieti, >> present. Thank you. >> Dr. Kevin McGary. >> Present. Thank you. >> Thank you. And now for administrators, we have Dr. Carnomola, our superintendent. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Medic, our assistant superintendent. >> Present. Thank you. >> Miss Russo, our business manager.
003>> Present. Thank you. >> Miss Sardinskis, executive assistant to the superintendent and our board clerk. >> Thank you. If you would all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you everyone. I always like to start our meetings with the mission statement because I think it reminds us of the work that we do here at the table together. Our mission is to inspire in each student a joy and passion for learning and a commitment to excellence, personal integrity, and social responsibility. This is also always our perfect segue into our recognition. And we have three amazing people that we are
004recognizing this evening. I would like to call forward Miss Wallace if she wouldn't mind recognizing a student to begin. >> Yep. >> Good evening everyone. Thank you. All right. So, I have the privilege tonight of recognizing two outstanding individuals from the Avon Middle School community. Going to start with a student. I'm gonna ask her to come join me up here. She's thrilled. Everyone smile at Emma. There we [laughter] go. All right. Emma Noera is a seventh grade student at Avon Middle School. A You see how my hand is shaking up here? I just want you to know that my hand is shaking because I'm so excited for you. Emma is a seventh grade student at Avon Middle School being recognized tonight for her incredible communication, collaboration, critical thinking, independence, and adaptability, and cultural competence. Does
005that sound familiar to anyone? >> The portrait of the graduate as she led the charge in bringing the first ever special education youth advisory council to Avon public schools. The Connecticut is my hand the Connecticut State Department of Education Bureau of Special Ed and the Special Ed Resource Center is in its eighth year of implementing the Special Education Youth Advisory Council at schools across the state. This council is designed to increase student involvement and voice as it relates to supporting students with varying learning profiles and to help students develop strong effective leadership skills in order to make positive changes in their school and community. The council meets at various times throughout the year with a faculty adviser, in our case it's Austin Busby, and representatives from the special education resource center to gather student feedback
006to provide at the local and state level participate in leadership trainings. and they will attend a leadership conference and college tour later in the spring. To date, there are 22 school districts in the state. For for reference, there's 196 towns in the state of Connecticut, 22 school districts who have active advisory councils. And we are grateful to Emma to be one of those 22 school districts, lifting up the voices of our students to ensure we are providing them with high expectations, high support, and ensuring that students remain at the center of what we do each day. Emma, thank you for your passion, your advocacy, and your commitment to student voice, leadership, and learners with various profiles and strengths. Congratulations, [applause] Emma. That's very impressive. We are definitely going to be giving you a certificate tonight.
007So, we want you to come forward so that we can officially shake your hand. But before we do that, I just want to say how proud we are of you, hearing that you're in seventh grade and this is all that you've already started achieving. We know you're just getting started and I can only imagine what you've already done even prior to this. So, thank you for being who you are. We're so proud of you and that you're part of our family here and we definitely are proud to recognize you tonight. So, please come on forward so we can shake your hand. [applause] picture with you. >> Do you mind standing over this way so we can take a picture? >> You don't have to. You can go around. >> And the parents, please come forward
008if you want to take a picture as well. You can I just wanted [applause] Oops. >> Congratulations. Thank you, Emma. And thank you to the Nosero family for sharing your daughter with us. >> All right. You want me to just keep it rolling? All right. I also have the honor of recognizing Mr. Rowan Suma. [laughter] >> Hi, Rowan. Everyone say hi to Rowan. >> Hi, Rowan. Hi, Duncan. All right. I also have the honor of recognizing Mr. Mark Zuma, Avon Middle School assistant principal and Connecticut's middle school assistant principal of the year. Round of applause. [applause] I am going to make you stand up here while I brag about you. Um, well, while Mark is making his way up here tonight, we joke Mark's one stride is 17 of my strides. Um, I I was
009going to like say something as you walked up, but it takes you half a second to do that. Um, I also want to take a moment to recognize Mark's family who's in attendance tonight. We all know that our loved ones have a profound impact and influence on the professional selves that we are each day in our careers. Kelly, Duncan, and Rowan, thank you for sharing your husband and dad with us. And congratulations the to the entire Suma family who's here tonight. [applause] And if anyone sees any dino eggs anywhere on the premises tonight, please let Rowan know. Thank you. So Mark joined Avon Middle School. I Yeah, there's an entire page. Uh in October of 2022, I had moved from assistant principal to the principal role that August and my first order of business as
010AMS principal was to work with Dr. Carnamola, Mr. Medic, and the central office team to conduct a search process for my assistant principal. From the moment Marks walked through the doors of Avon Middle School, yes, he did fit he cleared the entrance. Um, it was like he had always been there. His passion for and experiences supporting middle-level learners, his keen instructional background, his sense of humor, and the very natural way he interacted with various stakeholders. It was not long until we started our journey together as the administrative team at Avon Middle School. After Mark's second year at AMS, I reached out to Dr. Carnomola to suggest that we consider nominating him for Connecticut's assistant principal of the year. I did consider it after year one, but I don't want him to leave with too big
011of an ego tonight. And we were in agreement that he would be an outstanding candidate. Well, then I learned that Cass requires that an administrator be in their position for three years before they're eligible. So, we waited another 365 days before and the day the nomination became available, I was on the phone with Dr. C immediately. After a grueling application process filled with recommendations from students, parents, colleagues, and administrators, a three and a half hour site visit in December during which the committee from Cass interviewed students, staff, parents, administrators, board of education members, and finally Mark himself. The word that came to mind before the decision even came back that Mark had been selected was proud. See, Mark Suma is probably one of the most humble, calm, cool, and collected individuals that I've ever known.
012Mark leads with a quiet confidence, shies away from public recognition and attention, and does this work purely because of the impact he can have on the lives of children, families, and educators each and every day. That's what makes this award even more important. Mark, dramatic pause. Despite your best efforts, you can't shy away from the fact that you're Connecticut's middle school assistant principal of the year. You deserve this recognition for your hard work and every day you inspire a joy and passion for learning, commitment to excellence, personal integrity, and social responsibility in all that you do. I'm so proud of you and happy to share the talent that you bring every day to AMS to a larger stage. Congratulations. [applause] I believe Mark has a scroll that he's going to roll out with his all
013of his thank yous. >> Thank you all. When I had found out I won this award, it didn't take long for me to inform several people that I don't enjoy the spotlight um and I don't seek it out for sure. Um, but I'm going to take the time now while I have it to stand in it and and share it. Right? Although this is an assistant principal of the year award, um, it's really an award for everybody. And I wanted to take this time to share some of that limelight um, with the whole district to be honest. The central office and and building administrators here tonight, all of the staff and educators in our building that do this work on the ground, our our foot soldiers, so to speak, with kids every day. um the
014families and the community that support our kids and most importantly all of the students themselves um that make doing this work enjoyable and easy. Um in the summer of 2022 I I recall going on a journey of various interviews and plugging away and plugging away over time and then towards the end of summer I landed at Avon Middle School um for my interview for this role. The journey reminded me um of my high school basketball journey trying to walk on to a state championship contender as a junior in high school. Put the hours in, refine my craft, and continue to put the hard work in behind the scenes, hoping eventually I would get a little bit of time on the court. Dr. C, Mr. Medic, Miss Wallace, thank you for the playing time. I appreciate
015it, and I'm happy to have made the most of it. The past few years, I've had the wonderful opportunity to become a dad uh twice over in 20 months. It's been fun. [laughter] Bye guys. Um and through that process, I've been reminded that the role of husband, dad, brother, father, and and son is more important than any job title. Uh so I'm very grateful for my family to be able here be here tonight to support me. um grateful for the love and support of my wife um and the inspiration that my boys have provided me to keep doing this hard work and be the best version of myself. Uh growing up I looked up to a lot of people uh both of my parents for their unconditional love. Uh my sister for her guidance, support
016and tough love. She's good at it. And Kobe Bryant of all people, but he was an inspiration to me. um a quote that stuck with me a long time ago that he had said he attributed to a middle school English teacher of his um in regards to his his drive to continue and it read uh don't rest in the middle, rest at the end. Um it's not lost on me that last Monday our admin team took time out during our admin retreat uh to do just that. It's also not lost on me that Friday is our 90th day of school and we're halfway there. It's also not lost on me that I'm being recognized tonight. Um, I take this as an honor, but it's not time to rest. Not for me. This is however a
017time to reflect, a time for gratitude, and a time for recalibrating so that all of our collaborative efforts um and Avon public schools as parents, as board members, administrators, and teachers continue to create the space that kids need to grow and thrive and become the best version of themselves. Thank you all. [applause] >> [applause] >> Don't sit down yet. So that's okay. It's all good. Yeah. So Christina Yeah. Yeah. Please don't on the Thank you. That's perfect. So Christina did a great job of saying so many of the things that I would love to say as well. It's such an honor to have you amongst us and the fact that you did apply in so many places and we were fortunate enough to get you for ourselves. This is a huge honor. This is such
018a fantastic moment and I know again just like we just said for Emma, this is just the beginning for you. You are too young for this to be the end, right? So, you're in the thick of it all and I see the joy and the passion that you have for this job. It was a calling and you answered it and we are so happy that you chose us. Nicole and I had the advantage of participating in that process and it was so easy to speak highly of you. It there was no effort really at all. We were just grateful to be a part of that. Um we are thrilled that your family does share you with us. We know that that is real. You are being shared and so we don't take that lightly. We
019have a certificate for you as well and if you will accept a congratul congratulatory hug and a picture we would love to do that as well. So and oh >> Dr. Carmel would like to say something too. I I Mark, I'm going to leave it at um none of us could have said anything better than you just said to to congratulate you because everything that you just stood up and said to us about winning this award is exactly why you have won this award and it's it speaks for itself and your professionalism and I really appreciate working with you. Thank you. >> I just I have to ask a clarifying question on the record. this whole like not being done. I just want to play in front of a live studio audience. It's gonna be
020a great next 25 years working together, right? Okay. Just want to get that on the record. Okay. Rowan dino eggs. >> Okay. Someone take Okay. Ready. Thank you. All right, my turn. >> Ready. >> My voice went up for Rowan. Not [laughter] the rest of you. Great. Thank you. >> And now we're excited to have another member of our staff be recognized. And I'll throw it to Susan. >> Thank you. And I'd stand up, but I don't have my reading glasses, so I can't read it digitally from my phone. And Christine is a hard act to follow. But I'm very happy to um introduce an exceptional leader in our in school nutrition, not only in the state of Connecticut, but also nationally. um just recently appointed to the national board of the school nutrition association.
021I've had the pleasure to work with Maggie Dreer um in dual rows in both Avon and Canton for I think almost 10 years at this point. Um so it's really excited Maggie and I know each other well and have had a great relationship during that time. Maggie was recently honored with the National Innovation in Preparation of School Meals Award presented by the USDA Healthy Meals Incentives and action for healthy kids. This is a very prestigious national recognition that celebrates her commitment to serving nutritious scratchmade meals profession with prepared with fresh locally sourced ingredients transforming really what a school meal can be and what you think it is. her awarding recipes including pasta bolognes, turkey chili with black beans, and my personal favorite uh her roasted harvest vegetables which she does for us every Thanksgiving meal
022and I ask her to do. So, thank you Maggie every time. Um have been also not only honored for this, but that roasted vegetable recipe was included in a cookbook that's out there. In addition to this, she's also, as I mentioned, um been nominated um to be on the leadership committee for the National School Association of Nutrition, and she's going to be on the leadership development committee. Uh and this is important because Maggie is not only a leader, as I said, in in our district, but also in the state. She she really takes the time to develop new talent. Uh as new directors come up through the ranks, she spends time with them. She mentors them. And in fact, one of her mentees is the one who pushed her to submit her recipes to be
023recognized. Um, so we're very glad that she did and I want to recognize and congratulate her on this really distinguished honor [applause] to talk after Mark. >> Thank you. I'm really honored. not my comfort zone. I'm really honored to for this. And when I started this job, um Bridgette and Susan and the administrators, they gave me the freedom to create a program that I believed in. And I believe strongly in doing the best we can with what we feed kids. And you hear a lot a lot on the news and a lot of crazy things and a lot of it's not true. And we're, you know, there's a lot of changes that happen all the time. and to have the support means a lot to me and to be honored. Thank you so much for
024taking the time. And I just want to mention my staff who work so hard. It is not an easy job in that kitchen and sometimes I come up with some pretty crazy ideas that they deal with, but um thank you so much. I really appreciate the acknowledgement. [applause] Maggie, don't sit down just yet. You know, we have a certificate for you, too. But I just want to acknowledge that I've gotten to know you over the years, and you've always been so lovely when you come to our meetings to answer all of our questions, and we finally got to a place now, we have some newer faces, but we got to a place where we all understood what we were doing when we were voting on these healthy foods every time and making sure that we're
025giving our students the best that we can. As a mom who had three kids go through, that matters to me. I'm so grateful that we are a district that can proudly say that. Um, we're really trying to feed their minds and their bodies. So, thank you for being a part of that and thank you for being so lovely to work with. So, we'd love to have a um a moment with you as well. We'll take a picture, too, if you don't mind, but come on up. Congratulations. So, thank you. I love starting our meetings this way. I always want to let anyone who came tonight to for the purpose of celebrating your loved one, we are not at all offended. If you want to excuse yourselves, we know you have the rest of your evenings
026to get back to. So, thank you for celebrating with us. We are proud to be a part of this with your memories as well. So now moving forward, we'll move on to approval of the minutes. Can I have a motion to approve the board of education special budget meeting minutes of December 16th, 2025? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Suzanne. Do I have a second? >> Second by Lynn. All in favor? >> I. Passes unanimously with nine. Thank you. Next. Do I have a motion to approve the board of education regular monthly meeting minutes of December 16th, 2025? >> So move. >> Thank you, Chris. Do I have a second? >> Second by Sarah. All in favor? I. Passes unanimously again with nine. Thank you. And finally, our board of education special budget workshop meeting
027minutes of January 13th, 2026. Do I have a motion to approve? >> All right. I heard Nicole and Theage. I'll take Nicole. >> Second it. >> Thank you, Theage. All in favor? I. Passes unanimously with nine. Thank you so much. Next is our communication from the public. We'll wait to see if Mr. sees any names on the list. >> Yes. >> All right. So, before we get started, if you just if you don't mind, I'll just read the um what's I don't want to call them rules, the guidelines, I guess, that we follow for this section of the meeting. This is the section of our meeting where Avon residents have the floor to share their thoughts and our concerns with the board. It is not an opportunity for conversation. Rather, it's the board's chance to
028listen to feedback from the community. Please add your name to the list and Miss Erdinskis will then call on you in order. You must state your name and address for the record. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. In an effort to hear as many of you as we can, we must adhere to this time limit. You can certainly state that you agree or disagree with a previous comment if you'd prefer to be brief. Brevity will allow more attendees to be heard. After 15 minutes are up, the board may choose to extend public comment or not. No speaker will include charges or complaints of a personal nature against any individual Avon Board of Education member or individual employee of the Avon Board of Education, whether the speaker names the individual or not.
029Please refrain from clapping or cheering. Miss Sardinskus will be our timekeeper tonight. If you should reach 2 and 1/2 minutes, she will alert you with a 30-second warning. At the 3minut mark, you'll be alerted again to signal that your time is up. We welcome your engagement and participation. >> And this is Mirha. >> Oh, okay. Together. Okay, great. And on Hi, my name is Mera. I'm five and I'm in Royenberg School and today is my half birthday. It's >> my half birthday. >> Thank you from for considering Eve as a holiday. I would love to celebrate with my family and friends >> and I'll share my sweets. >> A um good evening everyone. My name is Mahek Matani. Um I've been a resident of A1 for the past 5 years and I'm a mother of
030two beautiful girls who one of them goes to the kindergarten at RBS. First of all, I would like to thank you for giving the opportunity to speak tonight and thank you for the time, care, and thoughtfulness that you guys have put together for the decision that impacts the entire stu school community. I want to express my sincere gratitude to the board for considering recognizing Eid as a part of the school calendar. This decision means a lot more than a simple holiday in the making. It represents inclusiveness, understanding, and the powerful message of belonging to so many students and families, including me and my family. For a Muslim child, seeing the faith acknowledged by their school system sends a clear and an affirming message that you are seen, you matter, and you belong here in a
031part of this community. It allows students to fully celebrate Eid with their families without conflicting about missing school or falling behind. What makes us even special is that this recognition invites the entire community to share the spirit of our holiday of Eid. Eid is about gratitude, generosity, joy and togetherness. The values resonate far beyond one faith by recognizing Eid. Our school helps foster curiosity, empathy and respect respect among all the students. I do want to say thank you to the board for considering commitment to equality and inclusion and for listening to the voices of our family in your district. Your willingness to engage, reflect and take meaningful spec steps towards true leader shows true leadership and care for the well-being of your community and your district. So thank you again for your decision, dedication and
032building a school community where diversity is not just acknowledged, it is truly celebrated. So, thank you again for your time and your thoughtful leadership and I really hope that Eid becomes a part of our calendar so that we can enjoy our time together. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Nice job. Anyone else? Christine. All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to share that with us. Moving on to items of information and proposals. our student representatives, Syra and Madison. >> Hi everyone, this is Syra. Um so just some things that are going on this week um or sorry this month. Um so let's start off with Roaring Brook. They began their bridges program in January and um I believe that's where um just AHS students come to kind of uh just
033formal um to foster kind of growth in younger students. And then I believe this will continue every other week. Um the the American 250 assembly was also held and um it seems to kind of go along with this message uh for all the schools about kind of continuing to celebrate America's 250th birthday throughout the year. Um and I believe specifically at Roaring Brook presenters um met kids and there was a display I believe of colonial costumes and um other things just kind of to celebrate um our nation. And as for Pine Grove School, they additionally had a town meeting to kick off the Avon 250 on January 9th. Um they had a speaker on Revolutionary War spies and it kind of this assembly is seemingly for all schools serving as a launchpad for the activities
034to follow. Um something new that they just implemented that I thought was cool was an American history trivia every Tuesday which will take place during morning announcements over the loudspeaker. Um something that also happened this month was um seven students had the opportunity to have pancakes with the principal which even I remember I think being a thing um when I went to PGS and they set a new goal of 150 piney paws um which is just kind of demonstrating good values of the school and just of the district in general. Um, something else that's beginning this week is they will begin to take Ames Webb assessment screenings and the teachers use these this data from these screenings to kind of lesson plan and see um just the general trends I believe. And now as for
035Thompson Brook School, um something that began was um they had a history without walls presenter at um at their 250 assembly. again just covering um kind of clothing, flag history, um uh interesting facts about um revolutionary spies. And something that's happening next month is a PTO sponsored glow party which is being held at the school on the 27th of February, which is um sounds to be very fun. And something that that is also happening is second step um is in their stage where they're exploring reoccurring situations of strong emotion and kind of just managing your emotions and that's for fifth graders and um the curriculum is a little different I believe for sixth graders where they're kind of having a more focus on a positive sense of self and just self-concept in general. And the
036music programs are also um moving along fairly well with the concerts I believe for fifth and sixth grade being Thursday. So that's from Roing Brook Pine Grove and Pumps Book Canal. Okay. I did um AHS and AMS. So at AMS, similarly to all the other um schools, the AS web testing is going to be taking place the last week of January. Um, there's a town hall assembly on January 26th, and all students are encouraged to wear red, white, and blue to show their support. The AMS robotics team will be hosting their very own competition on February 7th, which is pretty cool. Um, in terms of the high school, we are in the midst of midterms, so that'll be going on all week. And then semester 2 starts Monday. The sophomore class is having a Valentine's
037Day fundraiser, which helps raise class money for things like prom, graduation, all that. Uh, spring sports registration is open. The Avon High School band concert was last Wednesday and I believe that was a success and we have a small break coming up in February the 16th and 17th. >> Thank you. Know you do have your midterms. So if you do have to excuse yourselves early, that's perfectly fine. We value education here. So that's good. >> Thank you. All right. So for our financial report, Susan, we didn't have our finance committee meeting. We had our second budget workshop in its place. And tonight we're discussing the budget. So I don't know if there's anything else you feel like adding at this moment in time. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Moving on to our curriculum
038or the committee reports, curriculum and professional practices. Lynn. >> Yes. Um our next meeting is coming up next week, January 27th. >> Excellent. Thank you. Finance, as um stated, we did not hold our meeting, but we had our second opportunity as a board to discuss the budget that you will see this evening. Um our next meeting um is on February 10th. negotiations. Suzanne, >> yeah, there's nothing to report, but uh we will be beginning negotiations with the administrative assistance and safety security specialists, but those dates are not established just yet. >> All right. Thank you, Suzanne. And policy page. >> Yes, Deb. We'll be meeting again March 3rd, 2026. >> Excellent. Thank you, Chris for Craig. >> Yes, we meet tomorrow in Hartford. I'll be there for a few meetings actually. >> Excellent. And also
039Chris has been um helping to invite someone from CRE to come to one of our meetings in the future to discuss some of the funding and make it clearer for board members. We always need that refresher. So we appreciate you >> being the liaison for that. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Thank you. We'll keep everyone posted as to when that will work out. >> All right. For the board chair update, I just want to state if you weren't able to watch the meeting or read the minutes of our last budget, we did have the opportunity to assign new um members for our committees. We have four committees that everyone um serves on and so I'm grateful to the board for getting back to me so quickly so that we were able to resolve that so
040we have that moving forward. Again, we welcome our new board members. Thank you for being a part of the team. Um we are incredibly proud of our district for so many reasons, but we had three really excellent ones tonight with our recognition. Um and I'm also excited not only to discuss the budget, but also to discuss our calendar for the coming year. So, thank you for all the time that has been taken to come and inform us and educate us. We look forward to acting on that this evening. Um, after that, I'm going to throw it to Dr. Carnamola for the superintendent report. >> Thank you. And Mr. Medic, the hiring report, short one tonight. >> Good evening, everyone. Uh, the monthly hiring report for January shows that we are welcoming two new non-certified hires
041to the district. First, I'd like to welcome Karen McGriny, uh, who joins us as a PAR educator Avon High School and Gabrielle Susi, who joins us as a school nurse at Pinerove School. In addition, we do have one resignation this month. I'd like to thank Miss Tracy for her service to the district as a PAR educator. At this time, we are actively working to fill several openings across the district. We have several seasonal hires here at the high school, particularly athletic coaches that we're looking to fill, including freshman baseball, freshman volleyball, and assistant coach for crew. We're also working to fill a nutrition service position at Pinerove School as well as several PAR educator positions across the district. And as always, we do continue to add to our subpool for daily custodian and substitute nurses.
042Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Down to the enrollment report. We are up seven students since the last time we were together. And we are continuing on with our kindergarten registrations. If you know anyone that has a student who is turning five by September, we encourage you to let them know that registration is rolling. Thank you. Moving on. Try to be as brief as I can tonight because we have the budget to go through. So, just a few things um on our strategic plan update. We're planning for our half professional development day for February the 11th and we have another full day on March 20th. Um, one goal that we have is to revisit our vision for technology use in the Avon public schools and to develop additional guidelines for its use both in teaching
043and learning uh, considerations as well as screen time on devices, cell phone uh, usage and so on. So really all-encompassing taking a look at technology. you want to thank uh Elizabeth for going with me in my crazy ID even though it's January and I'm hoping we have this done before the end of the school year. So, thank you. No pressure. Um and at our upcoming CPP meeting that um Lynn just mentioned, Justine Ginsburg is going to join us from the Farmington Valley um health and she is going to talk about the mental youth mental health first aid program that >> uh we actually I had hoped this one because of the materials we do in person, but Justine actually has an issue with doing it in person. So she asked if we had her come
044if um we could be virtual. So, I did have her drop off nine of the books. I don't know if they've Have they come yet? Have has she dropped them off yet? I asked her to drop off there's manuals and I asked her to drop off nine so that you would have them in advance of the meeting. Um, and then that won't be the other only thing that we do. We have a couple of other items to take care of, but wanted to make sure I put it out there because I think it it'll be a nice update also on what we've done thus far with the training with faculty and staff in the district related to youth mental health first aid. [gasps] [sighs] Just in some general updates, um there's there are two field
045trips on the board agenda tonight. The field trip for junior achievement. Just wanted to take pause and shout out I guess to um Maria Mascoli and our team here. This is the first time that our school has participated in um the stock market the junior achievement stock market challenge. There were 318 students at this and our teams came in second, fifth and sixth and this was the first year. Um, so we are pretty excited about that and our team that came in second place is the one hoping to go to compete in Boston. I say hoping because it isn't a given yet. They have there's an there's work that they are continuing to do on their own as a team and they have to complete that and turn it in and if they make the
046next level and we expect they will the way they have been working together then they will go to Boston. So we just wanted to ensure that it was approved because it is an out ofstate trip. There is no cost associated with it for us. Uh Junior Achievement is paying the entirety of it. So pretty exciting for the students and for us. The other trip that you see also an out ofstate trip. Um we applied for a grant uh related to open choice and this was a supplementary grant I would call. This is not a normal grant that we get. They something they put out was it last summer? >> He's Yeah, he's not here tonight. >> Mr. Haynes has been working uh was working on it throughout the summer. Um and they kind of he's
047been championing trying along with what the work that Mr. uh Chris is doing um trying to find funding at Kraken through the open choice program any additional grants that might be there. And he said, "Can I go for this?" And >> we said, "Yes, >> sure." >> What did you say? >> It's it was Tissan. Um well the grant was sent to us and we shared it and you had to there are specifics like every other grant. This had to be utilized. You had to do something that was uh for open choice students and you had to it had to be above and beyond norm of what we we do and and innovative. So, um, we went through a few iterations of it. And the one that we finally turned in and was approved is
048a part of that is what you see tonight, which is a field trip to um, historically black colleges, HBC's as they're referred to, um, and is being funded entirely by this grant. And, um, Mr. Haynes and our high school staff has already been talking to students and parents about the possibility of drumming up interest to attend. We're hoping that students will take us up on that. >> Um just a question in regards to that. Is there um is that open for all students that might want to attend or is it limited just to open choice? It >> is limited to open choice because the funds had to be used for open choice students. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yes, he is looking at grades 9 through 12. Yes. Since it might be a once
049in a blue moon opportunity based on the grant that was given. anything else that >> uh no um all the funding uh transportation, food, everything is included and Mr. Haynes is working with um one thing I did want to point out is he's working in collaboration with some other open choice districts, believe Simsbury, Farmington um and they're going to do a joint trip to make it um economical for everybody to use the grant most effectively. Uh and that those students could then work together as a as a bigger cohort of students across the valley. You heard our student reps mention U Avon 250 and I have to say Avon 250, not America 250 because America 250 is still copyrighted for the entire United States and we are working through that process from one of the
050latest emails that I've gotten. So we are referring it for now as Avon 250. Um we've been working closely a committee of us, Mr. Macy who's with us tonight is one that's been working alongside of us um in conjunction with the historical society and um on the back end some other folks in town who are on the American Avon250 committee and one of the things we decided to do was to have a kickoff if you will at each one of the schools and that's what you heard tonight um it has already happened at three of the schools we have uh Avon Middle School and Avon High School still to go within the next couple of weeks But it's it's been pretty exciting for the kids, I think, is is just one way to lead into
051the celebrations and the um acknowledgement of America's history and path forward. So, thank you, Mr. Macy, and everyone who's been working with us on the committee to keep that going. uh the calendar, the draft that you have for tonight that is later on the agenda as uh discussed shows you um what Eid L fetier would uh be as a scheduled holiday. That would be that schools are closed on March 9th and that is on the calendar [clears throat] for you to see on March 9th. Other than that, there are no notable changes. We went through our calendar from this year and looked to next year, made some decisions in advance about professional learning days and so forth because we like to provide parents as much lead time as we can for child care is reasons.
052I assume if you have any questions, we'll discuss that when we get to the new business. That's all I have for now. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right, moving on to the consent calendar. Just for the sake of our new board members, I will be clear that this is um designed that we can vote on it as one lump item unless any board members want to remove an item and add it as an agenda discussion piece. So, barring anyone wanting to take one of the pieces off. Um, do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar as is? >> Sarah, make a motion to approve. >> All right. Thank you, Sarah. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Chris. All in favor? I passes unanimously. We're incredibly
053thrilled for the students to have this opportunity. This is really exciting. Um and I'm grateful that we have staff that look into these and to offer it to the kids. So, thank you for that. We do not have any old business. We are now into new business. And here we are at our discussion and possible approval of the 2026 2027 school year calendar. So, Dr. Carnola, is there anything more you want to say regarding any of the items? There's >> questions. >> All right. Are there any questions? Go ahead, Kevin. >> Question I have is as you look at the um calendar and adding another religious holiday, what's the criteria that we're looking at in um in adding that? >> Do you want me to answer what we've been doing in the >> Yeah, if
054you don't mind. Um so we the set criteria is starts with looking at staffing and this is what we've talked about um over the course of I don't know how how many of the previous board meetings so I'm trying to recap um there are no givens I should say except the state holidays and the federal holidays with which we comply because banks are closed other, you know, institutions are closed. They're already in union contracts. Schools are closed. Um, when we look at religious holidays and really is up to uh board of ed in town by town or district by district, however it is set up, to make decisions based on one staffing and to the population of the town. And so over time, we had looked here, this this um group has been lobbying for
055this holiday for several years. I I don't even remember the first time that you came to the board or to me and I think you came to the board and the superintendent before me um looking to add in Eid as a holiday to the calendar. Um I had asked them years ago to help the board by doing some research into how many students this might impact, how many families. and they were able to do that based on looking at um the number of registered families that they have in the uh area Muslim center. So they did that. They brought over the course of actually two to three years and they brought those numbers forward to the board of ed earlier this year. I believe it was the end of last year school year one or
056the other. Seems like we've been discussing it for a while. I can't remember which meeting it was. And so all of that to say, Dr. McGary, that the main consideration is staffing. From an operational standpoint, it's about staffing. Do we have uh would we have an issue staffing the schools if they are open on the Eid holidays? The answer is no. We we already are open on the Eid holidays. The number of faculty and staff and ad andor administrators that celebrate the holiday are not enough to cause an operational issue if they take the day off. Use personal time and take the day off which is what happens now. If you do celebrate Eid and you are an employee, you utilize personal time to take a day. However, on the other hand, there's the recognition
057piece related to the number of students and families that are celebrating the holiday. And we found that we have at least 100 families that we knew of in Avon celebrating this holiday. That's not students, that's families that have that all do have children in the schools. And that was the conversation of the board. So if you choose to add it into the calendar, it would be for that reason to recognize um our students. It it also has the impact on our faculty and staff that those who celebrate that holiday are recognized and don't utilize personal time if if they have it to use depending on their bargaining unit or whether or not they are in a bargaining unit I should say. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Do you have another question? Yeah. Other question maybe
058just for the board is like at what point do we add another holiday should another religious group come in and say, you know, we want to have let's say like they're Buddhists or Tauists or whatever and want to have an additional day off to celebrate their religion, right? Like it's um at what point do we stop, right? or do we look towards federal holidays versus um religious holidays within the school the school district? >> Well, I know I have my own I don't know if anyone else wants to speak to it first. >> I think um it comes down to hearing the community members and how many people are affected. What like Dr. Dr. Carnival was saying um taking it um intentionally and not making a quick decision but again hearing everyone's feedback how it
059would affect the operation but also reflecting the portrait of the graduate and and fostering cultural competence and that sort of thing as well. >> I guess Oh, do you have something else? No, I just think it's so to I pay you back actually because it's so important to look at Avon because this is not just if it was a national thing, sure, but this is what Avon looks like. >> Um, so being that we are an inclusive school district, I think it would be a powerful thing. You know, one of the concerns I have is as you think about, you know, additional families that might not have, let's say, additional vacation days. Maybe they only have a two week vacation and with additional religious holidays that they have to take off and they maybe they
060have child care issues or need to be able to take, you know, take care of their kids. They're taking three days off for a religious holiday, a professional day, snow day. they could literally burn through their entire vacation day, vacation days for their for their job where they might not be able to actually celebrate holidays that they'd like to celebrate uh on their own as a family versus having individuals take the day off from school uh to celebrate holidays that are meaningful to them, >> right? I think it depends on which families we're talking about because the families who are needing or asking for this holiday are also taking >> their personal time off. So again looking I think what Chris is saying too um looking at the overall makeup of the school of the
061district of the town and you know looking at how this affects families as equally as possible. So you know some families are taking off holidays or having to take holidays and they're not religious at all. some, you know, maybe are leaning toward one religion, but it's just that issue of equity, I think, is most important. And, you know, the number of people that have stood up here and and testified really toward the importance of this. Um, that's to answer your question, that's where I take it into consideration. If it was one person, maybe it's a different conversation, but it's many, many people in the town. So, >> and I guess that's the question which is is there maybe another group that has additional you know maybe they get another 10 15 people that's come in
062it's like do we then add an additional holiday >> um >> I think at this time if you don't mind Chris >> so this has been a very thoughtful process for us we have had people come and different people every time they haven't even been redundant it's been amazing quite honestly we have a lovely relationship with the um community and Dr. Carnomola when she first came reached out um to I'm gonna get the name wrong but the um just up the road on West >> yes the so even through co we've had quite a relationship and so this has been growing and this has been incredibly intentional and thoughtful this isn't something that we've done just off of feeling good about it we really feel like we're recognizing the community of students we've had alums
063come back and speak to us of their experience when they were care of students and how they appreciated that the staff did give them the time to worship in their space when they needed it, but how much more meaningful it would be if we recognized them as individuals in their faith. And [snorts] I think because we've done it for others that it it just is completely in line with decisions we've made in the past. And it's not something we do often. Um we do the federal holidays and then this is an opportunity for us to recognize our community as it presents itself. And so I don't see any harm in that. If there are other groups that come forward, I think as Sarah and Chris have mentioned, we would take that into consideration as well
064and listen to them and look again Dr. Carmela asked for numbers. She said how many families would this impact? We looked at the staff, how many people would have to take time off or not in order to participate. So we did our research. So I think that shows that we vetted this process and it isn't something that we just do out of slight of hand. So >> Sure. And I mean I think like I'm looking at this decision with respect to people's religious beliefs for sure while also not continuing to have a focus on just one extra holiday, one extra day uh added to the calendar. Uh and I it might be helpful just to give people background like I started a business 5 years ago with three other individuals and I tell you this
065just from a standpoint of this is not religious. One of my business partners is Muslim, one's Indian, the other is from Brazil. And we are very focused on understanding each other's religion, what we do, and what we are uh what we believe as individuals. Um but when you think when you start to look at, you know, the country, obviously the first amendment, you've got the rel the freedom of religion and the ability to actually focus on your religion. Um but when it comes to understanding you know individuals taking a day off of a for a major holiday um that they don't necessarily celebrate what is the impact to that family of of having a day where they've got one extra day taken off that they they can't celebrate or do something uh additionally on their
066own as as an individual family. Like I'd like to see us leverage federal holidays, providing individuals an opportunity to take off when they want to celebrate their own holidays um without having to celebrate maybe a holiday that they don't u normally celebrate and potentially impacting their overall vacations as well. >> Right. Well, thank you for presenting your side. I think you've spoken like >> I'll just say as someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas or Good Friday personally, I enjoy those days off. I have no problem with it. And I imagine that other people in a community like Avon would feel the same way about um Eid or Yam Kapor or other holidays just because our neighbors and our colleagues um as your colleagues as you said are celebrating those holidays and we can join them and
067celebrate together. So I don't I don't think it's a hardship for people who don't celebrate the particular holidays. I I think just to speak a little bit more to what Dr. McGaryi was saying because I I think we had some of this conversation at previous board meeting. I think it was actually Romesh sitting in the same seat that asked about the um the ability for people to take off the holidays kind of the more corporate model the PTO model I call if you will the paid time off. Um, and what we talked about was operationally that would not work for us in the sense that there are there are other populations of people that are that represent more of the faculty and staff that would take off days that would not be considered necessarily been
068considered federal holidays and then we wouldn't be able to open. So kind of the opposite >> um impact. Um, the other thing because that is working I think well I don't work in the corporate world anymore but it sounds like it's working out there for people to do but I from what I understand still there are times when they're closed regardless and they're they're forcing people to take time off because they don't have enough >> correct work and and with our maintenance staff, our nutrition service staff and number of other smaller staffs. We have a few folks take off because they want to recognize that they may be of the Jewish community or they may be Christian. >> If they take off, we we can't serve food. We we can't we can't clean the buildings.
069We there's highly impactful days. So, you know, I I worked in corporations long time. My husband works for a corporation where he just gets a bank full of days. He's not even off federal holidays because it's a foreign company >> and he just takes off. But there's a big difference between um doing that for someone who works at home on a screen every day and calls his customers across the country versus running an operation where you need people in front of students and those students have to have proper supervision. The schools have to be open. They have to be running. Um so I think we take that into account at least operationally when we look at all these things. And >> it seems like this this holidays is not an issue with staffing. However, >>
070correct? This is this holiday is not an issue with staffing. I was just answering it from the bigger picture question of what you were saying related to um paid time off that operationally if we went in that direction we might have a a different issue. It wouldn't necessarily be with this holiday but there are others. Um we did have this conversation here also um over time. One of the things for example that we we have talked about I we have had a growing population of um families that are celebrating Islamic holidays. I think we don't see as many families in town celebrating Jewish holidays as we did at one point for example. Do we know that those numbers at 100%? No, not in either of those cases. Um but that was one of the conversations
071that we had also as a board. back to your point, is there a is there a standard to look at that it would be, you know, no religious holidays were observed? Um, I think that there are some school districts we've seen attempt to do that and I don't think any have been successful yet at this point. Um, is it something to think about in the future? I I think it I think it could be, but I think in the grand bigger scheme of things talking about this one tonight um has, as I said, come to both this board and the one before it for at least 10 years. And um so it didn't happen quickly. It didn't happen um it didn't happen honestly for a while because we really were unsure how many people it
072impacted. And um I think one more families moved into town over that period of time and two they were able to get us better numbers. Um back to the the days and the taking off days. I certainly can understand. I think we all can from the childare angle is why I just finished saying we were you know we need to put a calendar out there this far in advance. I I like that this is how we do it that we are putting out half days in advance and professional development days. You look at a lot of um towns and the calendars don't have those on it. says TBD and you're you're punting as a parent trying to figure that out, you know, with sometimes within a month before, but at the end of it, whether
073this holiday is here or or not, we're going to have 180 days worth of a calendar. So they a parent might have to take off March 9th, but now their child is going to be here one day longer than they would have otherwise. So, in some ways, I don't know that might be a wash, but just putting that out there because I think it's related to what you were asking. >> Are there any other new comments or ideas? >> All right. Barring none, then do I have a motion to approve the 2026 2027 calendar with the addition of Eid? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Sarah. Do I have a second? Second by Lynn. Let me just make this. All in favor? I. Any opposed? We have eight in favor and one opposed. All right.
074Thank you. All right. Our next item is discussion and possible approval of the Avon public schools 2026 2027 budget. [clears throat] >> It's easier for Susan and I to move over there so that we can see the screen. You Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. So, as I said, when we sent this presentation to you earlier uh this evening, we made some minor changes. um to have more clarity really. Not a lot of changes really any changes actually no changes in the numbers from the last discussion we had at the workshop last just last week. Um, but we did make some changes to what we have on the screen and in your hands because we wanted to bring some more clarity around some pieces that we had some conversations about including insurance both in the workshop and
075offline answering questions for some of you. And so we'll go through it again um for the also for the sake of the public who will be able to watch this. I know some of it will be redundant for you because we've discussed it so much already, but I'll try to move through it efficiently, that said, and pause where we have a few new items for you. One of which is I called it kind of an insurance primer, if you will, that Susan put together for me just today. Um, thank you. When I said I think we might need to revisit this again because given the dollar amount that the benefits, the health insurance benefits um, seem to encompass, I think it makes sense to pause here and to have that conversation again so that the
076entire board understands what the options look like when you are dealing with self-insured a self-insured plan as we are. Go. Um, go ahead. Are we controlling or is Christine Christine can you? >> Thanks. So, as with every other year, we prioritize our needs around the portrait of the graduate and blueprint for excellence. Blueprint for excellence being the board and the district strategic plan. As you know, uh we are looking in this budget to maintain existing programming for students, add some necessities to continue moving the district forward and also of course utilizing zerobased budgeting which makes it even more difficult to be perfectly honest getting here by January 21st. Um having to try to start from scratch again this year. But we did do that. And I again want to thank both Susan and all of
077the building leaders and the administrative assistants, uh, department coordinators, team leaders, everyone out there who helped go through every line of their respective budgets before they even came um to speak with Susan, me, uh, Mr. Medic, and previously Mr. Janini. Um, that's an important part of the process and one not to be overlooked because we have folks out there that are counting glue sticks and looking very closely at supplies and ordering critically, I would say, as we move forward. We've talked more about this some years versus others. Kind of depending on how the changes in the board have been, I guess I would say, because this sometimes is um a different way of doing it and certainly it was for me when I first started in Avon because we did not in the district I
078came from before here as superintendent do the budget in the same way. Um you see these terms gross budget versus net budget and what we turn in as a gross budget includes basically everything the revenues that we are projecting forward also. So when we submit our gross budget to the town, we are saying here is everything we expect to have to pay for and here is what we expect to get in revenue. And basically they are then when once that budget is finalized on the town side um there's been the referendum and it is adopted officially as the budget. You can think of it like all of that money is frontloaded back to us. And so here in there as we go through this and you see gross versus net on the increase, the bottom
079line is to remember that the gross includes the revenue and the net does not include all of the revenue with meaning some of the grants that come through after the fact that we don't >> incorporate into the lines. >> Everything you see will be the gross number. It's the net number is more on the town side. So just we we'd like to make sure that we're transparent with everything, but the growth number is our funding, what we've received. >> Town receives all the revenues and when they present the budget, we've often had questions from board members, why is the number different? Why is the number different from what we approved? And that's because they've netted all those revenues together that we proposed and that equals what a net budget is. So, they've added those numbers
080together um and come up with what the net impact to the town's budget is because we don't receive any of the revenue. The town keeps all of that. >> Okay. Sorry. Yes. No. Yes. And I'll I'll explain. >> It offsets our budget. Sorry. So, >> I'll explain it again when we get to [laughter] I just want at the end of the day that's all correct. I just want you to know that the gross and the net you see here tonight reflect what we are doing so far. When we get to the further down the end of the line, the net will look different. Yes. Because they will be looking at grand lists and so forth. But what we are talking about here, >> our net. >> Yes. >> This is what we are talking about.
081So for example, I'll use this because I just want to make sure everyone understands. Um parking fees, right? We have no idea right now exactly how many parking fe parking permits will be sold to students next year, but we can come up with a projection based on the current year what that looks like. Projecting forward how many students will be the age where they can drive to school. We we look at those things. We look from year to year and we say here's a a conservative because that's how we like to do the estimates. A conservative estimate of what we expect we might take in in parking permits. we will put that in as revenue. It could be that amount that that comes in. It could be less. We won't know that until we're actually
082in the in the year where they are purchasing the parking permits. However, it's January of 2026 and we need to project forward what this will look like in the next school year. So, that's one of the things I think people don't fully understand. We don't have this money on our side. That's what Susan is saying. When the revenue goes to the town, we might be the vessel for collecting parking fees, for example, but the money is being deposited in the account at the town. It's not actually in our lines to use when we are operationalizing this budget, but we are projecting the revenues forward. Does that make sense? >> Go ahead, Jessica. So out of the list of examples that you have of the non- tax revenue, >> is there one particular area that is
083um that varies significantly from year to year over over the past history? >> Special education excess cost >> can vary a lot. Um our open choice grants can vary quite a vary quite a bit. It depends on the number of students we have participating. Um, athletic pay to participate really depends on the number of students in a given class because generally speaking, most of our students participate in some form of athletics and so that we can man we can project fairly close to what it would be based on the number of students that we have in every class of coming into the high school. Um, and prek tuition. It's not a huge amount of money that we take in, but it can vary based on the number of special needs students that we have versus
084non-disabled peers who are not they they are the reason the program exists. So, you are only paying tuition if you are electing to send your child to prek, not because they are required to be here for the services that they need. Okay. So, as you've already seen, these are priorities. Um, maintaining the literacy program that we already have implemented in grades K to 4. Uh, we do need some supplementary materials for the ELA program. Um, our curriculum's about $17,351. We are continuing to fund the program as a whole. We've utilized grant funds. I think we've talked about that quite a bit already. So, we'll go there unless we have more questions. Um, our think math program for K to 5, we need to put in another $45,768 to keep that program moving forward next year.
085That has been going well. As you know, we did not have a math program for consistently for K to five until our committee was put together full of uh district educators to select the materials and they did that over the course of more than a year and then we rolled it out and we're happy to say that it is going as well as it is. So, this is the funding need to continue that. We just pause for a second. Do you have is there a question? I'm sorry. I thought it was looking at me. >> No. Oh, sorry. have my paper. I can't >> Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I thought No, no. I thought I saw your hand. I thought I saw you're in Cole's hand up. Sorry. Uh some additions. Yes. For uh Think
086Math in grade six. That's a small addition. $4,968. Um the athletic uniforms we talked about quite a bit. Also, this is you'll see two things and and I think I answered this question for you, Kevin, um offline. When you look in the line by line, there is a reduction of athletic uniforms. At the same time that you see there's an addition. There's a reason for that. To be clear, it is because last year we had to reduce this 23,000 because we did not do these uniforms last year. So the $22,000 reduction you see this year is taking out the uniforms that we would have done we would have done if we had done what we should have last year but we could not because we reduced the budget. We would have done basketball, cheerleading and
087crew which now we are doing this year. We just pushed all of them forward one year. So if we had stayed on schedule this year we would do baseball, wrestling, swimming and girls lacrosse. So that $22,000 reduction that you see is taking out baseball, wrestling, swimming, and girls lacrosse. That was already in the budget because it was scheduled for this year. >> Um, do we historically purchase new uniforms every year? So eventually we will catch up. >> Hopefully. >> Yeah. Yes. Not the same uniform. >> Yes. There there's a cycle that's included in your binder. >> Yes. Um >> so my question is so we'll from now on we'll see a reduction and then an addition each year or >> we should see stable funding and if you see on that um schedule it has
088a estimated as of today what those uniforms would cost. It's it's um it's an increase this year because we cut it during the board of finance session last year. >> So the board had already adopted it with it in it. >> So normally no you would not see um that eb and flow. you would just see consistency in funding and maybe a little increase up and down depending on how many uniforms, how big the teams are, but we like to consistently fund that and hope going forward we do that. >> It's also possible that next year we come and ask to fund the year it should have been and next year if we're able to do that based on what the budget looks like that year to catch up. Back to your point. Yeah, that
089was kind of the question I had is if it if it's the opposite now we are asked to reduce again or something like that just keeps getting pushed. Is that right? In other words, >> yes, we want to catch up and stabilize. But >> theoretically, it could keep >> it could though now that we are into a second year where these haven't been bought. If we were making reductions after the budget gets further down the line, I would still not recommend that this is what it was, right? because the students should have had these new year last year. You don't want them to wait another year. >> And Bridget, it's a four-year cycle. Is that right for each team? >> Generally, >> we've expanded it to six years to accommodate them last year um and
090then to push this year in two. So, I I believe it's a six-year cycle now that Mr. Fryon's come up with. And I appreciate >> would have been four. I appreciate his his um diligence and looking at it and really taking a look at the uniforms themselves to see which ones we could push out and expand that schedule to make it a lower burden. So each team, just for clarity, uses the same uniforms for six years before they are replaced, but because we have so many teams, each takes a turn as to where in the cycle they get their new uniforms. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> That is the way we are doing it now. >> Yes. Um, moving on some other additions. Uh, can go back. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Yes, please.
091Thank you. Sorry, it jumped ahead one more and I got nervous. Um, this looks like an incredibly long list. I This is one of the places we added some things to after we went back. We didn't add these into the budget. we added these to the slide so that we could highlight some more of what the equipment was that was being added into this budget. Um I should say that as much as this looks to be there was more than this that we did not add in that was requested. So that said though I think it we should be as transparent as we can about what we did add in for multiple reasons. one so that you know you have this in the line by lines but everyone out there is not going to go
092through the thousands of pages. So to be clear about what we are recommending is added in in regards to equipment. Um if we were at a place where we had to reduce would we look at some of these lists? Possibly. Um do I think that we should? No. because some of these again are are items that we've reduced in previous years and we've gone through and sat with the principles, the athletic director um to determine which ones to actually add in. So, I just wanted to be clear that these are the majority of the additions you see um to the equipment line. And then we discussed most of these, but I we added a few in to to show you, such as the wrestling mat that again that was in the line by line, but
093it wasn't on the screen when we met last time. Uh the track covers, the track hurdles you didn't see last time. The floor scrubbers that we are looking to replace. Um it's replaced, right? >> It is replaced. Yes. at AHS and RBS. There's a tech camcorder that um they've asked for in the technology class, which we've discussed in previous years, too, but did not do. Um science lab equipment, some of which we put off in a previous year also that we're again trying to catch up and went back about the tuba, asked again about the tuba. The tuba is um broken, can't be repaired, and they do need it next year. So, that is the reason that it is here. We will entertain as we discuss I think Nicole had a question during the workshop
094that if the um opportunity for title four funds or um I'll be I'm sure working with Miss Ferry she doesn't know it about pedia grant um if there's any opportunity to do any of this um any of these items or maybe even some of the items that we cut we would explore that. So the total for all equipment minus IT equipment in this budget is $149,463. That's all equipment besides it. >> Yes. How do we determine which athletic teams get part or all of their equipment? Because I know like crew buys their own boats. So >> from fundraising but wrestling like the mats are we using those beyond the wrestling team using them for their matches or >> I can speak I'll speak to the crew piece first and then we'll go. So that's the
095agreement with crew. Much like we were just talking about with girls hockey, boys hockey. There is an agreement that we have like there is with the parents and the booster that runs crew. When I first started, I don't think we paid for anything to do with crew. Maybe maybe just the insurance. Maybe. I don't even remember if that's the case, so I don't I don't want to go on record saying it. Um but there were so many students participating in crew that um we met numerous times with parents uh with with the coaches and actually this is pre sus this is before Susan signed even and made some determinations about how we could move forward owning owning the program but in conjunction with the booster club because those the boats and I'm not using the
096right word right now. Remind me. >> Skulls. Thank you. Skulls. Skulls. Skulls. >> Scouts. Yes, skills um should know this by now because we've had to talk about it so many times. Um they are incredibly expensive. So for us to buy them would be a huge financial um wouldn't say burden because I think the students need them, but it would be a lot to take on in the local budget. And so our booster club back then said that's okay. We've been doing this. We know how to do this for now at least and to the foreseeable future. we will pay for those and we picked up other pieces of it so that we did truly own it as an activity. Um how do we decide? So that's that's the difference there. For example, girls hockey
097is another difference because that's a co-op that exists outside of the school district. It's primarily funded by parents and booster funds. The rest of what you see here are teams that we sponsor. as a school district entirely. So the boost they yes we have the booster club that will raise money and give additional items to the teams but the main items that they need we would argue we should fund as a school district and we shouldn't be putting to the booster clubs to fund. So these wrestling mats are an example of that. >> They need them to compete and they can't compete unless they have them. And the the mats t Mr. Phylon asked for these mats I think first year I was here. I was I was going to say this is a request
098that's come in >> and every year I've said no and no and no and now they're they're just barely usable. I think we're getting through we're limping through this season with them. Um they've done all they can and thank you to Mr. Daly and his custodial team here who cleaned them and you everything possible to keep them usable. Um and the other equipment, the track hurdles and they're broken. So anything on here, Mr. Phylon does everything possible to kind of push it off or repair it or do whatever he can because he knows just how delicate the budget is and is an incredible partner to keep the athletic program running. Um, and only brings to us what must be done. >> Thank you. Does that argue answer the question about the the other thing I
099just point out an example on here of PGS the fire retardant rugs for $1,200. No one had asked about that, but I thought about it later and said I might have asked about that if I were one of you. You had so many lines to go through. You might not have noticed that one or you might know already what those are. But in the elementary schools, students spend quite a bit of time in circles and and on the rugs. And we had our faculty and staff very well-meaning buying beautiful rugs. And unfortunately, a lot of them were not fire retardant. And so when we went through the fire inspection, they every rug had to be looked at to determine whether or not it was fire retardant and compliant with being in a public building. The
100ones that were not, we had to take out immediately. So this is why you see that here for example and over time [clears throat] they need to be replaced. Also >> questions about any of those mention? >> Are there any other thing any other items that are safety >> quotequote issues that we need to take >> that are on here? >> Yeah, I know there are many more line items in the in the book. >> Um, safety related. Um, we have in the in the safety supply lines, we we continually we have a broad category there because I rely on Mr. Connelly and Mr. Ultimus um like just today I had a conversation with Mr. Connelly about the AED devices and the pads. We have a rotation cycle of devices and pads. Mr. Medic's going
101to work with the nurses as well on this. Um we have pads that are expiring. So we we may not have in that line by line AED pad replacements, but I have safety supplies because we have to continually monitor those devices. We make sure that we have enough um funding in those lines to do those sorts of things. But it's more as needed, just like most of our maintenance and repairs are as needed. I'd love to tell you that what's breaking and so I can plan for it accordingly, but I never know. >> And also the capital improvement projects have saved. >> Correct. If that makes it through, we do have security funds in there every year. >> Just the floor scrubbers. Um, is this something that's just used like once a year? >> No,
102they're used daily. >> Oh, daily. Oh my gosh. when they ride on the things and go through the floors. Um, yeah. So, most >> not just the gym floors that they're >> No, no. I I probably looked Mr. Sterm I think it's probably broken in a some corner somewhere. >> It is. >> Yes. The one at RBS. Yes. And I know we have one. >> Really need one. >> The high school has um a number a couple of them. Um but it does put a burden on the team and doesn't um allow them to clean the schools efficiently without those items. and Mitch their ultimates has been asking for these as year for years as well. So >> because ideally all the floors are done every night and there's not a crew by hand it
103doesn't get that done in any of the buildings not the size of the crews that we have and and these are seen more hygienic to use utilize on the floors also because they are picking up the water and so forth. I thought you meant on this list, Sarah. Were there any other safety items? Is that what you meant? >> So, I No, no, that's okay. I I just want to make sure that I address it. I I think that >> No, I I wouldn't say that anything else here is necessarily besides the fire retardant rugs. However, they are operationally necessary. Some of them, not just, you know, uh good to have to move our programming forward, such as the STEM table, you know, that's that's something we need to move programming forward. The cafeterias is
104some tables is something we need operationally >> and they're actually uh they're breaking. So I think Mrs. Borio is behind me and asked for twice as many as I fund it. So we are having issue with those. So I would qualify those in safety as well. >> All right. Now having said all of that, these are the priorities. These are the additions we'd like to make. They are not largecale additions. When when you add up the dollar amount and we are talking about they are primarily equipment. We are not looking at additions that are related to staff at this point. We had many conversations about possible additions of staff. There were there were requests that were considered and this was not the year that we thought they should go in. And that's where we pause
105and pivot here to what will primarily drive this budget is none of what we just talked about. none of the rest of what we will talk about tonight, [clears throat] but it is health insurance. Um, at this time, as of December 11th, um, we were given a number that represents a 34.9, just about a 35% increase in our health insurance costs. Reasons for that, you can see on the screen, and we we've discussed um, previously in both workshops, we have an increase of pretty much everything to do with medical. stop-loss premiums, catastrophic claims, which are claims that are high because it's a major illness that an employee or a dependent is facing. Um, cancer, certain kinds of cancer are a good example of that could rise easily to the level of a catastrophic claim based
106on the kind of treatment that might be necessary. There's an increase in the number of claims. Um, as Susan has said previously, we are told by the uh brokers and the insurance uh administration from Sigma that nationwide, statewide, they're seeing an increase of people utilizing health services. That is still being likened by many to postcoid. Crazy to me that we it's 2025 and we still have to say that. I wish I wish the time would come sooner when that was something we didn't talk about anymore, but I think it is just a fact and there were people that put things off and are picking them up. Um, when we talk about being self-insured again in a moment, then it'll be more obvious why that matters as much as it does. Um, it would matter in
107even in if we were fully insured to an insurance premium if there was an increase in the amount of usage. Um, but we are seeing it like everyone else is. There's also just an increase in what the market is in insurance which is about 9%. And again important to note that we are doing this at this snapshot in time and so we don't know for certain as we sit here tonight but we never do when we are at this part of the budget. The final number for health insurance has never been determined at this point. It is sometimes determined as late as early May. We hope for it earlier than that. But what they are doing is still working through the claims utilization before they will produce it because we are projecting for it next
108year. But they are basing that on the experience this year. So that 2.9 million that you see that is the increase that is not the cost of the health insurance that is the increase the dollar amount that alone on the bottom line of our budget. If everything else were zero, if there were no other increases, budget increase would be 4.09% just based on that insurance premium. As we said, we worked at coming down as close to zero as possible. talk more about that after and show you what the differences look like. But I want to pause there and say I know you probably don't have any questions right now because of how much we've talked about this already, but I want to pause and this allow Susan to kind of take us through some components
109of being self-insured so that all this is more transparent and accessible for what it means to be self-insured versus fully insured. and where we are in the process of that as a town. >> One of the questions I know we've talked about last week and um ahead of this meeting is in regards to RFPs for the administration portion. I don't know if you're going to talk about that now or if you want to address it here with some of the increases because that's obviously going to make an impact but not a huge impact as it's just the administration of the cost. >> Maybe we step through the the slides perfect first. That would be great. >> Okay, Deb. Okay. So, I I don't want to read what those slides say to you to everybody's got
110a copy of it, but I I wanted to step through the difference really between what a self-insured plan is and what we all pay probably personally as our fully insured plan. There there are two different models. Um the first slide we have talks about what a self-insured plan is. And what that is is the town municipality funds and pays for all the claims. They pay for the administration of the claims to a third party administrator. In our case is Sigma. They pay for any premiums for a stop-loss insurance. So that actually is an insurance plan. We market and go out every year for every year or every other year depending on how long our contract is when we do a renewal because when you do a multi-year renewal, it also often is more beneficial. We
111then we also have the actual claims themselves. So, I go to the I I had a doctor's appointment this morning. So, I went to the doctor. The cost of that doctor's appointment will be paid directly by the town of Avon, not by Sigma, by the town of Avon through a a wire transfer to Sigma to the um to the doctor. So, it's just a pass through. Sign is our pass through. They're our third party administrator and they administer those payments for us. By having a thirdparty administrator that allows us to utilize their benefits of their policy with each individual doctor practice, Hartford Healthcare, the Trinities of the world, the Yale medicines of the world, they negotiate contracts with them. Often you see those on the news when those negotiations aren't going so well. Um, we
112receive we see the result of that when the higher costs for the doctors. So, Sigma does that. They also have pharmacy rebates which we are able to utilize again because we're paying the claims. So if there's a pharmacy discount on a drug because the um manufacturer is promoting the usage of it, there may be a rebate that comes to us for the utilization of that particular drug. All those come back to the town of Avon because we are the claims administrator. We are paying the claims. So we get all the bills and we get all the rebates. what the difference is between Next slide, Christine. I thought it was really important to highlight how they analyze self-insured versus fully insured plans. I have a lot of So, just to step it through, for a fully
113insured plan, the insurance company pays the claim. Self-insured plan, the municipality does. the cost structure and this is what's most important I think what Mr. McGary kind of was talking about in terms of where the impact would be the cost structure when you are a fully insured plan there's a fixed premium yes we would probably have the budget a lot sooner we have the we may have a real budget number now that real budget number would be p based exactly on the data we're looking at which is a really expensive past 12 months that premium would be based on that in addition that premium will be based on profit an insurance company does not sell us an insurance plan for free. They're looking to make a profit. So, not only would we be paying for
114all the claims through the insurance company through the premium, but we would also then be paying for the insurance company's risk and for their profit. Which is why when you step down the grid in the table that we've looked at, the risk is low. The risk when you're looking at insurance company versus fully insured, the risk is all on the insurance company when it's fully insured. The risk as we're seeing it on a municipality, we haven't seen this in the all the years I've worked in school finance. So since 2014, I've never seen this kind of experience ever. It's unique, but not unique to us this year. Transparency. Another thing you gain by having a self-insured plan that you don't with a fully insured plan is the ability as Bridgetette has mentioned um in post
115we talked about in the workshop the amount of times myself Bridget Mr. medic have all met with not only our broker but SA sign works for us. They work for us as a third party administrator. So we can sit down and individually not by person but individually go through claims and look and look for those strategies. Is there a wellness program we need to add? Um that may or may not cost anything. Um, is there more outreach we can do to employees, to families to say, "Hey, did you know that we could help you manage your long-term condition such as diabetes? These are the things that are offered through Sigma's program." We're able to have those conversations and really step through everything with Sigma and have that ability to see that information because we own
116the plan. We own the claims. >> If we're fully insured, we would not have that transparency. you would just pay your bill and move on to the next thing. Also, plan design when you're buying, and this is really important for a union atmosphere. When you're buying an insurance plan, if it's set, that's what it is. There is no, you can't design your own insurance with a large company by like the town of Avon where self-insured plan there's a lot more flexibility. Is it completely design your own? No. But there's a lot more flexibility in what we could do if that is negotiated with the unions. And as all of us step in here, there's there's a lot of things that are already in union contracts in terms of plan design, plan coverage that have been
117there for a while. And they has to be like unless um a plan change. We can change from Anthem to from Sigma to Anthem to Blue Cross Blue Shield as long as the bones, I'll call it, of the plan remain the same. The impact to the members has to be minimal for it not to be negotiated. And that's in every one of our union contracts. So, we can't just choose to go to the state partnership plan, let's say, because that is not a high deductible health plan. Every one of our union groups has a high deductible health plan negotiated as part of their contract. It would be a substantial change in service if we were to change to a Blue Cross Blue Shield traditional model. Um and it's it's been a a goal of mine,
118a goal with Dr. Carnamola working with our team um all of our union teams, our partners to change that they started it before I got here. being continued through all the negotiations and I thank all the board members who've been on those committees with me. We worked long and hard to get our district onto high deductible health plans for our membership because it's better for the members and it's better better for the district to be on those plans to to step back and to go to a Blue Cross Blue Shield traditional model is not fiscally sound for us. It's not the right way to go. And when you look at long-term savings potential, and this is the the reason why most of the municipalities in the state are on self-insured plans, it's because there's greater
119potential for savings and it's very limited potential when you're looking at a fully insured profitbased insurance premium. >> Next plan. We We'd love to have the next plan. >> Yes, please. Um, as I did my research, uh, what you're seeing on the screen are the the drivers of changes, uh, to the increased cost to municipal, in particular, self- insurance plans. And they're all these are all the reasons we already stated at the workshop. All the reasons we had in our original slide. There's nothing different. These are the reasons driving every cost. It's experience. We we are going out for a full RFP. And again, that's through our our broker through the town who manages those those requests for for proposals. That is for our stop-loss and for our thirdparty administrator. Our third party administrator we
120pay fees for. So, SNA doesn't work for free. We have to pay them per employee per claim. So, there's a cost each month for the number of employees we have. Um they they forecast that out for the year. We set the budget and we're build monthly based on that. When we go out to RFP, we're looking for someone who has a robust plan that matches our current bones, maybe gives us a little something extra, but also is a lower cost or same cost. We hope we could we could go out for RFP and all the bids could be more than what we have. And that's what we've seen industrywide in other things like transportation when we discussed at the workshop last month uh last week and a lot of other things that we've gone out
121there to to bed people are really surprised oil prices fuel everything costs more we've talked about this a lot over the last 18 months I think inflation that impacts all these items as well our medical providers insurance companies no one's insulated from the inflationary increases and pressures that have happened over the last 18 to 24 months and we've seen that again in the higher claim cost along with the high higher utilization which is resulting in the experience we've had. Really the only way we can go step down from the 35% 34.9 to be exact is if the claims experience we've had in November, December, January comes in by the time we hit board of finance or before referendum. If that experience is better than they project it, better than we've seen in the previous months,
122then we can talk about perhaps that number can come down. And that's why we work with the broker. We don't set the rates or set the premiums with um even our employees until May to open enrollment happens. That's after the referendum because that's the most current data we will have before there's no turning back so to speak and where we set the rate premiums with our with our staff. Um and we only have that time to enroll new staff, make changes to um our employees coverage is in May. That's the time where kind of the the ball stops and that's where the final set. We usually have that hopefully late April. So, we have that opportunity to make any pivots if we need to do that at board of finance. Um, I'm not highly optimistic.
123We're going to get much below 30 at this point. Um, there is some outstanding uh isolated uh claims experiences that have some legal ramifications that we're working through that may resolve that resolves. We may get down into the 25% range, but I'm not sure we'll have that answer before April. And so the town, we Bridget and I have talked a lot with the town about this. We've asked for their guidance. It's the plan is their plan that we're part of. Um and they've asked us to move forward with this number because it's the best data we have at this point and they need to move forward with their process and so they need a budget to move forward with the town's budget as a whole. Does that answer the RFP question? Yes, I think you
124touched on it. It was more just the uh the admin portion of it. >> And I guess the in addition to RP questions, you you'd mentioned obviously from your perspective self-insured is uh cheaper long-term than fully insured. Is there a plan to go out for an RFI to to really look at the difference of plan plan design in the future so that we can negotiate differently with different union contracts? >> They they look at that when even just most recently when um Dr. Cornel and myself and Mr. Medic met with Sigma, they they have recommendations and we're working through those recommendations and whether or not they have an impact to bargaining um and and that's how quickly we can do it. There also is plan design changes that can be only made at a plan
125level and that would impact the board of ed and the town and that is a very very heavy lift um to do. We will try to do it um if that recommend recommended savings is worth worth the effort or concessions that we would have to give long term into union contracts to change that bar to change the impact to those those uh union members. I think what from our conversations I think what Kevin is asking and and we we've talked about this in offline questions but I think it's important to answer it here >> is >> there are times that the town puts out as part of this process an RFP for maybe we want to utilize not just utilize someone different as a claims administrator but can can the the plan be looked at
126as a whole to make a determination of whether or not we should stay self-insured. That's really what you're asking. Like is there any benefit financially to say joining the state plan or to getting fully insured through Blue Cross Blue Shield or or fully insured through Sigma? That is a part of the process at at times. Yes. Right now >> that is not a part of this. >> Not the current one. um giving our claims experience, there's absolutely no way that we would save money. Um given what what we're experiencing right now when they look at the data. Um we have looked at it though. We do have data that we've looked at both my time in canon both and in Avon. We've looked at it. There's never been a time where it's been less expensive.
127>> I believe twice since I've been here it's been done. I I did just talk to the town manager again. Um, and I know that it's a it's a consideration, but right now it's not the consideration because they're more concerned with resolving the claim that we have that have some high impact on this budget and also looking through the administration piece of it and the stop-loss piece without doing it all at the same time. But we have gotten recommendations first from it was Millleman that was our >> oh before lock in. >> Yes. Before locked in it was Milleman. They ran all of those numbers for us what it would look like if we went expplan fully insured change plan design in this way. And that is a a cycle that they have done that
128in town. What I will say is I believe that the town is not looking at doing that right now because there's also a cost associated with going out for that kind of an RFP and the advice has been not to put the work and the money into that right now because they're already pretty certain how it will come back based on what the claims experience looks like right now. Um, but I would be willing to surmise that in the near future they will do again what you're asking just to make sure that >> yes, >> we're not missing out on anything. It's just they're not doing it with this one. >> I think if we resolve some of the outstanding issues and our claim experience looks a little better, >> it would be then beneficial
129for us to do it. We don't want to market what we have right now for that sort of plan >> because to be able to get the information, you have to give them what your claims look like right now. And now would not be the time to try to do that. Basically, I think Lynn, you had a question. >> I didn't know what to >> Okay, sorry. With our with We try not to use the lingo. Sorry. Request for proposals. Yes. >> Did you have a question? >> No. Okay. All right. And we can always come back and answer more questions about that. You know, it's a lot of information, but again, I thought it was important to have the discussion here based on how many other discussions we've had about it. >> I think
130this just wrap just wraps up what I think we already just touched on. So, you could thank you. So we put this together just to show you um again we are looking at the the potential the increase of nearly 35% and that would have a 4.09 impact on the bottom line of the budget. Um as Susan said trying to be hopeful that we'll at least get down to 25%. Don't know that. that as you can see would be a lot more favorable of course to the bottom line um the 12 to 14% range is what we have seen as an increase that most of the time not all of the time that I've been here um there may have been a year that it was below that but we we put the nine and a
131half on to show as I said earlier that's kind of a base trend right now 9 to 9 and a half increase I don't think anyone is seeing unless they had the opposite experience as we did where this just happened to be a great year for their claims that could happen in a different municipality. Um, but generally speaking, the market trend right now is about a nine to a 9 and a half% increase. So, we wanted to show you that if we were only at what the market is right now, that's what it would look like. And I will add that I've spoken to colleagues in other lake districts. They don't want to be named yet, but they're they're [snorts] um they're experiencing 16 to 25%. >> Um I know we've spoken about this at
132the budget workshop, but if you could just explain again for people watching or here, if we pass the budget using the three the 34.9% increase, but it does come back lower, can you just uh talk to what that >> it will be adjusted later. Um, and you as the board for that don't even have to get back together to to do that. That will just be adjusted. Whatever the exact number is will be adjusted as we move on. They do that every year. If more conversation was warranted from the board about it, God forbid it came in higher even than that and we wanted to come back and have a conversation. Did some of the equipment that I just showed you, you know, are we not going to buy the rugs, you know, or the
133or the floor scrubber again or so forth? We that might be a conversation you came back and have had like we've done some other years. Um but you don't have to worry about passing it tonight because you're passing that this budget if you if you do that tonight on the projection of that number. The rest here many of it are also projections but they are more solid projections than that one is. Okay. Go ahead. So, continuing on in the budget driver category, um our workers compensation has risen a bit also. That's about a 10% increase over the previous year. Uh the disability insurance is up just over $8,000. And that again is due to actual premiums and what we are projecting right now because they have also this is another number that's not finalized until
134later in the season. Um again we have to estimate what our social security and Medicare employer tax will be because we are not living in that year. We're basing it on current employees and projections for them being a part of the budget next year. So salaries um that includes everything that we know going into the 2627 year. Any contracts that are already settled um the reduction of some of the staff that we haven't gotten to yet tonight because we're still talking about what what's driving the budget. Um and as we talked about before and you'll see again as we move through this actually salaries are a lot less of a driver this year than they are in some other years. And part of that is because of the reductions that have been made over the
135past couple of years. We'll talk more about that in a moment. The special education uh tuition increase, there's two things at play there. One is an increase of student needs and the other is the costs are increasing out there in the market for outplacements. Um, as we've said before, we work hard at maintaining our students here with us in Avon because generally speaking, that's what's best for them. And when it is not, that is when we have to revisit their programming and make a decision about whether or not alongside of a team and and parents if a different um setting is better. and we have seen an increase like I think we've seen in the entire state and arguably the country of increase in student needs. So that is a that is a large number
136as an increase, but I think it's at this point from Susan's projections a a good one, a solid one for for now because we don't only look at who we have outplaced at present. We look at where we are in a process with other students that we may be already involved in making decisions. Try to keep up on my own. So, thank you Susan for putting this together. We've had a number of discussions over the years about where the majority of the money is spent. And yes, that's in the lines and it's in all of the other um graphics that you can see, but I think this one gives you a better sense when you look at the big picture because it's hard to read from up there and maybe sitting back where you are,
137but the largest part of our budget salaries are instructional staff. And if you break that out, as you see, we did that this time even into school counselors, school psychologists, social workers, um administrators. We we tried to really parcel it out so that it would be very obvious. Um I think we have to consider the fact that we are a people-driven organization. So salaries are always going to be a driver. Generally speaking, we've talked about this before. In school districts, they tend to be about 80% of the budget. This year, we are less than 80% of the budget with salaries. Um, but the specific numbers have in front of me, which you can't read there. For example, um, if you look at the instructional staff this year, that is 72.39% of the budget. >> Oh,
138of the salary budget. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Just only talk about salaries on this. Yes. >> Um just thank you for making it clear, but this part we're only talking sellers. Um the counseling, school psychologists, and social workers. We just thought that was important to break out because we have talked a lot about that over the years and adding in supports for students as necessary. That is um 5.74% of the salaries. So just that together with the instructional staff and those so those are both all all certified categories we are looking at 707 78 plus% of the salaries are between instructional staff and certified support staff. Um the rest again hard to read from where you are on this graph but administrative um salaries represent about 7%. Salaries. Um advisors for student organizations are
139about 0.55%. The school offices support staff account for about 1.6%. So that's the administrative assistance, secretaries, so forth that work in the offices. They're about 1.6% of it. 0.92 is the school safety officers. Again, that's that's a numbers piece of it. How many of them there are it 1.24% of the budget. Uh administrative assistance, secretaries, any any support staff, courier, you name it, at central office, that's 1.7% of the salaries. So by and large our salaries are going toward direct contact with students. >> That's such a powerful >> um graph because I think we talk a lot about the other people >> um because I think the instructional staff are a given in our community. I think everybody knows that piece of it, but I I think we talk so much about the other categories
140that you forget that they're just minor. Not that they're not important, they're important people >> in in driving the budget. >> Yeah. Yes. Yeah. >> Just a couple more. Transportation. We talked about our contract. We are actually fortunate to have such a low increase because of the decisions that the board of ed made years ago to extend that contract and secure a lower rate for a longer period of time. Most school districts in the state are not this fortunate right now. Um we have had some increased need in specialized transportation that goes handinhand with having more students with special needs because specialized transportation can get fairly expensive. So again, this is an increase in that. This isn't the total dollar amount. Um those are a few of the reasons that you see there. Go ahead.
141>> Do you know when that contract is up? >> Two more years. >> 2029. 2029. Yep. >> So from this budget year, two more years because this will end fiscal year 27. >> That'll be fun. >> That'll be another >> We'll have to start talking about electric buses. >> Yes. Now we're going to have to talk about electric buses. >> Can't wait. um supplies and equipment almost $25,000 in increases. You saw majority of what those were on that page. That's why I was trying to elicit more of them to be clear. Um software, we are still looking at our IT pieces. We Mr. Klein probably wants to have some words with us about how much we attempting to reduce some of the technology lines, but we are still looking through those. But what we know
142right now there is an increase no matter what we try to reconsider purchasing or look to put off a year or less, you know, IT equipment just in what we need operationally to continue running the student information systems in the district. We're talking about a nearly $50,000 increase. And those are things we've talked about previously. Power School for example. Um IV is that in that same line? >> Uh yes, infinite visions which is what the we use for um personnel and payroll. Um what else is in that line? >> Microsoft. basically any any piece of programming both for infrastructure, our um virus software, our security >> securely the um that we have to get alerts students. I'm just trying to think of give you a better idea of again it's in the line by line
143but >> those are some of the pieces that are in there >> and some of them are multi-year renewals. There there's a very comprehensive list in your in your binders of both software lines. Um but also we Mr. find this very also negotiate multi-year renewals sometimes because we get a much sometimes it's cheaper to do three years and do one as silly as that sounds but they want the guaranteed business. So you may see a little eb and flow with that because one three year might come up but the next year we don't have anything as different will come up. So you'll you'll see that um but recently given our budget constraints we've been making less of those decisions because we've just been haven't been able to afford it. But you will see some of
144that. So again, a new way of showing it we thought might be helpful this year to look back in history. Again, you can see previous fiscal years very detailed within the binder. Uh >> oh. Um, however, thought it was important to I guess this means we've gone on too long. We've we've extended our >> 8 n o'clock. >> Yeah. It doesn't care about what we have to say anymore. Um >> electricity off. >> Good job though. >> Yeah. >> Luckily, our computers didn't turn off. [laughter] So, um it it is he is being serious. We have things on a timer to turn off to save the electricity and the witching hours here. So um so any at any rate let me just explain before well it pops back up. So we wanted to show um
145the 2020 25 year the current year that we are living in at least to the extent that we can with what we have already adopted and expended and projecting forward because I think that's another way that you can see the differences in how this budget overall has morphed in each one of these years based on some of the drivers like benefits and also some of the ways we have looked to reduce what we could um when Tom eventually is able to get this back on the screen you'll see for example in the 2425 year um salaries were 56% of the driver the overall [snorts] increase they were 56% of of the overall increase in the 2526 year they were 40.19 the the year that we're living in 188 Excuse me. And as we're projecting it
146forward, they're 24.68% of this increase. And I thought that might be helpful mathematically to see, as I said, how this has morphed and progressed. Um whereas benefits are exactly the opposite. It's 30% in 2425 and up to 54.35% of the increase this year. Um utilities that varies from year to year. We're down 1%. Uh one of the things that has happened that we hope stays the case when we talk about uh utilities being reduced is those purifies that we had had a lot of conversation about um those have been removed. That's one of the reasons we have seen utilities go down particularly electricity. Um another reason this is on a different slide but since we're here I'm pointing it out. Another reason is the energy saving pieces that we've put into effect as a district.
147But contracted services, I know we have a lot of conversation around that. Um, that as you can see again, we're down at 7.2. You might remember last year though was was there was it was a different sort of year with that 13.24% increase because there was a large increase to the athletic trainer contracts. And so we had to absorb that last year after the budget had already been produced. And so now that's normalized and we're back at what we would consider a normal increase for contracted services. Transportation same. See that increase fluctuated but certainly was a lot larger of one in 2425. Tuition more than it has been in previous years. supplies and equipment. You can see what we've tried to do with that line. For as many of those additions we just talked about,
148we we've worked hard at reducing other lines. And then all other something that's hard to fit in any of those categories 7%. People usually like to have examples of what's in the other category and I didn't think of that till just now. >> Um dues and fees, uh our liability, our property and automobile insurance that actually is the main driver of other this year. um on top of every other insurance we're going to talk about probably for the rest of the entire year. Uh those categories went up too. So our estimate right now is significantly higher. In fact, it's it was already high of an estimate and then they came back to me and said just wait go that up another three and a half%. Um so and that's included in the numbers to be
149I had that number before last Tuesday. Um but there we're seeing that it's not set in stone that and I won't even have that number till July. So that's why we project that as a um as the number they've given us. That's one of the categories that we never have until July 1st. And when we talk about that first budget transfer, usually in September, I do a lot of moving around between property and automobile and liability insurance and workers comp and that because that's when we finally get those numbers and we try as a board to keep them together in those categories so we don't impact students, but we're just using all those operational lines to offset those projections. >> Thank you. Sorry, sometimes I don't think of questions until we're sitting here. um like
150to anticipate what they might ask. So, um now moving on because we've certainly talked a lot about what's driving it forward and we knew that um fairly early on that the benefits were going to look this way because as Susan and I have said numerous times, we have been meeting about the claims many we've met many many times. We do every year but more this year because of the way the claims were tracking. So, while we didn't know what the number would come in like, we did know that it was going to be higher than normal. And so, from the get-go, we were looking for what we might be able to reduce. Um, I want to be clear that sometimes there's a question like, well, is that really a a reduction or is that just
151something somebody asked for and then you took it out? No, we wanted to be clear. These are actual reductions yearover-year. We have a a whole list of things that were requested that were taken out. You they were we were considering them at some point earlier on in the process. We've talked about some of those what those were already. These are actual year-over-year reductions to the budget, the ones that we have on this list and that you see in the line by lines. And there are more than these. These are the ones that we're highlighting. Um projecting forward on our tuition. I'm sorry, I'm back one I'm back one slide. Yep. Sorry. Sorry, I was going to say that we're staffing. Um, we are looking at some smaller class sizes in some of the cohorts that
152are moving through elementary schools. We've talked about before those numbers are all in the binder. What we are projecting forward next year. Thank you to Mr. Medic who does that all year long for us and part of you see that on the enrollment report also each month. That's what we utilize even as we project forward into next year, moving the students up one grade. Um so we know that as of right now at least what we're projecting forward the there are three elementary teachers that are retiring we are looking to not refill those actual positions pe that still will mean that there might be some movement within schools or between schools because it's not necessarily a one for one um say a third grade teacher retires it's not automatic that you don't need a third
153grade teacher it might be another year that we're looking at where we know we need one less and so we do all of that shifting as we move later on. We don't have that conversation now because we are waiting at least to get through tonight. Number one, and we usually wait a little further in the process to start talking to staff when we have more solid numbers and asking for when people might want to transfer to a different position or if not ask them to take on a different role as we did with numerous people last year as you know. Um alongside of that, elementary teachers, teaching assistance, we've got attrition through resignations andor some reduced hours there. That's always a moving target. Teaching assistance kind of like pair of educators is because we base
154that a lot on not just the number of students that are in classes in particularly in kindergarten, but also on what the needs of a particular class might look like. Nonetheless, this is what we're projecting right now. Um, as you can see, when we talked about this quite a bit last time, um, for the 27 year at least, we are projecting forward with the reduction of the assistant superintendent. That was the position that Mr. Janini was in and Dr. Rousac was in before him. We are still in the process of going through what that looks like for us and changing some responsibilities of people that are already in the organization um myself included trying to figure out what else people can take on to make this happen. We're we're having to live it right now
155actually um because there is no one in the position since um Jess was gone from us as of January 5th. We didn't see him again after the board meeting. But um we have we started the new year um minus someone in that position. Are is has it been easy already to do that? No. Um we are planning professional development um doing going through the curriculum professional practices committee agenda trying to go through all of those materials um all of those things that Jess was more involved in than uh Roberto me um and even Jod Prosansky in some ways he worked alongside of her andor Elizabeth Ferry. Um, I would say to you that I on the one hand am concerned about what it looks like moving forward without someone there because over the years since
156the director of human resources was put in which was the position that Mr. medic occupied when he first started with us until the position was changed. The position title was changed, but the job mostly remained the same except some additional responsibilities were put on related to um certified staff and and student investigations and so forth. Um I think that with Mr. Medic assuming more of the responsibilities that uh Mr. Mr. Gini had or whoever was would be in that role had that some pieces have to be inevitably removed from what Mr. Medic does and they are human resources related pieces. So um we have uh an assistant at central office who we are talking with to attempt to pick some of the pieces up that she'll need additional training in and so forth and um
157does not have to have a certification for as Mr. Medic does. um the rest of us are involved in numerous pieces of human resources. I think one of the larger considerations is when we have a complaint to look into for example um whether that is raised by a staff member um a parent a student um very no matter what again we are a peopledriven organization there are always things to discuss and and look into whether or not they are actually an issue or not someone has in the end after we've gone through a process Um I think that is where we might find ourselves needing to do I don't think I know that's where we will find ourselves needing to do something different. So for example if we are looking at um a particular complaint
158related to personnel in the future that uh Mr. medic would have been the one to um investigate or be very involved in the investigation. Barring his availability to do that based on the other pieces that he's doing, we might need to utilize people from outside of the district to do it. So, is that possible? Yes. Is it always the most costefficient? No. Um it is more costefficient to have someone who is certified and and in-house to do it as as we have done. But I think as we move forward for the next year, we can try that when we need to and call for an independent person. It would be usually it's an attorney from a firm that would come in to do those kinds of investigations. I've seen some districts where a retired administrator
159might be employed to come in to do it and be paid predium. Um sometimes that's a a gig, so to speak, retired superintendents take on. I'm going to work at the counter at Macy's or something. I don't know why anybody would want to do that, but um I think [snorts] basically what I'm saying to you is and we've talked about this quite a bit in the workshop, but again for the sake of tonight and the public um piece of this, I don't have all the answers for this yet because this all came as it came. We've worked through it. We are working through it and here we are on January 21 20th meeting to bring a budget to you. So, can I tell you exactly who will do every piece of the work moving forward
160tonight? No, [snorts] I cannot. Um, can I tell you, for example, we talked a little bit about um talked quite a bit about actually the current uh role of diversity and um inclus inclusion coordinator position. Um, as an example, that position does not manage everything to do with open choice at this point. um the person that had always been in that other assistant superintendent role did that um from the grants to oversight of the lottery seats and so forth because it is a it is a program to manage and particularly in the grant funding that comes along with it and being exact on what we are utilizing the funds for like the question Kevin asked earlier there are requirements that come along with all of those funds some of them can be used by the
161way for all students just kind of depends on what the purpose of the grant is um but we have to be very exacting in reporting those back. Um that is something I have talked to the current the person in that role of uh diversity and inclusion coordinator Mr. Haynes. He's not with us tonight. He wasn't feeling well. Um or be behind me nodding I'm sure. Um he is looking forward to picking up that piece of the work. He'll need some additional training in some pieces of that to work through it with us. people that have done the grant management piece of it before, but he's already gotten involved in that in some ways, as you can see, like by the grant we talked about earlier tonight, but this is this is different. These grants are
162larger um and they go from year to year. So, he will spend time with Susan and I and perhaps um I think I'll be reaching out to Craig for someone from Open Choice maybe to come and sit with him also to go through some of those pieces to make sure that we are all on the same page because it takes even people that have done it a long time like Dr. Rousac or Jess when he learned to do it as he came on board or me to learn how to do that. Um, title N coordinator is another example that has always been for the district. We are required to have designate someone to be that in that role and to take up those responsibilities. That has been Mr. Medic since not long after he started
163because it fits in with human resources and what that position had done. Um, that is something else that we think we can move into the umbrella of um that other position. And I'm saying that other position because it exists already as the diversity and inclusion coordinator as a title. I don't think that should continue to be the title of what that position is um based on what the first one will be doing. What exactly do I think it should be? I don't know tonight. I mean we're we're we're talking about it. Zan and I are talking about it. Uh Roberto Susan, we are just working through that. Working through the organizational chart, working through job responsibilities. And I think that once we settle on all that, of course, I'll bring it back to you. But
164the fact of the matter remains that tonight there is a position that is removed from the budget. And I think we should be transparent and also say that will there be a financial impact to some of the changes I just mentioned? I would yes. You know, for example, we have a human resources specialist that works alongside of Roberto and Susan that I mentioned that um may pick up some additional tasks. The person's not already a part of the job description. So, might the salary for that position have to change depending on the tasks that are picked up? Yes. How much? I don't know. Depends on the tasks that are picked up that we're still working through and that' be something we talk about later. Do I think that any of those would add up to
165the same dollar amount as the salary? No. Otherwise, wouldn't be recommending it. That would be foolish. We just recommend put the position back and keep things the way that they are. Um, so I think there are cost savings to be had, of course, by reducing the position. And in this budget, we have taken out the complete salary from the bottom line. But I would expect that you might see that some of that might be eaten away at so to speak by some changes to salaries of other people that might have to take on some different responsibilities or if as I said we have to call in people over the course of the year perhaps to assist in some of those investigations that will be at an additional premium so to speak. um you know, pun
166intended, how much we've just talked about insurance, but I can't tell you right now what that would look like because what's our hope that no one ever has to do any investigation that looks like that, but it's not really a realistic one based on running an organization with as many people in it, little people and big people. Manhatt >> I think you we would see some amount of increase in salary. So this is out of salary and I think you would see some amount of increase in salary. And again I'm not talking a tremendous amount but I we should still say it anyway. Let's let's just say for argument sake that it's you know $3 to $5,000 on the HR specialist. I'm just putting that out there as as an example based on some of
167the tasks I've been we've been talking about that the person might do. That's still not the cost of this salary. Um, but where else might you see it? Most likely in legal fees because those would be the people we would have to call in to do the investigations impartially. And I think Jessica had a question also. >> Yes. I was just curious as to um when the last organizational charts that were drafted like what is the most upto-date >> or chart is the one it is the one that we have in the policy and I can share it with you um >> yes 2022 and we just well that's not true actually because we just re have a draft again of what it looks like right now but we haven't >> and finalized that or
168shared it out yet. >> Go ahead. I'm sorry as well. Um and then are there um just job descriptions with each role what the responsibilities are >> that exist the positions the way they currently are. Yes. >> So they'll have to be yes switched around. Do you have a projected um date or goal for when you would like to complete what the new uh structure might look like? Our main hope um was to get through tonight and putting these budget materials together because this you know while we are doing this to some extent whatever we can cease doing there's you know there's always something there's many other things we're doing besides this but if there's anything that we can put I say on the side burner while we do this process and make sure that
169we're answering all these questions and going through all these lines and so forth that's what we focus on until tomorrow morning. So, I would we've already started it. We do have some drafts that we are um going back and forth with, but just not anything to share. When would I expect to have it? >> I mean, the absolute latest I expect to have it would be March. And I say that because if there had to be changes in staffing, that's when we change, you know, start posting jobs and so forth anyway. But I will we will have it done sooner than later because it's something that's necessary even on the inside. People need to know what we're doing. And I haven't, you know, our our team that's here with us tonight, our leadership team knows
170as we come here tonight that this is what we're talking about. But we have not discussed this at large in the school district yet, what this might look like because if it's not approved by the board, I'm not going to go down that path of having those conversations. Sarah. >> So, I'm really glad to hear that there are career or professional development opportunities for people in the district if this position is removed. Um, I think maybe this has been answered, but one of my questions is I say that because I always try to focus on the people more than the number, the the salary or the the budget number. Um, but if we were to keep that position, and you might not have this now, but I'm just curious in the coming days, what would
171the percentage difference be in the budget? >> 28. I knew you would know that, Susan. [laughter] Should I give you a little bit of grace period, but 28 and the overall? >> We knew that would be a question. We're ready. >> So 28 in the overall. I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. And I know you're talking about possibly having to add to some of these positions for added responsibility, but >> yeah, 7.07% would be our new >> gross our new gross percentage. >> Okay. I still have a hard time with this one because I I just don't want it to be underestimated what that position takes. So, all the responsibilities, I think this is a very creative approach. I think it's positive to help develop people who want to to step
172into larger roles, but I would love to go on record to say it's a huge position to be able to run a district. So point 28% or whatever the differences is something to be noted and and considered when we're talking this through. So anyway, thank you for giving that. >> Well, you sat with the person doing that job for the past three years. Um and some of you sat with the person doing that job at the table for the time before that. So you know the work that that position has always led and it is a lot of curriculum and instruction professional development work. So >> I just worry that if we take it out to get ever put back in is going to be a an uphill >> I agree battle. >> I agree.
173But I think what I would also say is and I I I do always say this that it's like a living organism you know to run school district um or or any big organization and the needs change and I don't like to recommend things or make decisions myself based on entirely on worst case scenario although many times that's exactly what I do for a living is project out what the worst case scenario is and work backward from there. um because there have been other things that we have put in that were not here and there have been other things that we've taken out um and come back and said well we may need to revisit that. I think if we are being reflective and planful then we are consistently looking at what the organization needs
174right now and a big part of that as we discussed in the workshop is it is who is in the roles. You know, it's hard to separate the two because you if you're going to make these kinds of organizational changes, you have to also believe that the individuals who might have to do work additional or different than what they have done are capable of doing that. And I think we're fortunate enough that we have that we have that flexibility. I I'm I know that um m between Mr. Medic and Mr. Krosanski still moving forward, we we will keep moving curriculum and instruction along. Um I'm certain that Mr. Haynes will pick up everything else to do with open choice and be able to keep doing that. And as I said, he's happy to do that.
175Um I ideally we are taking away some responsibilities at the same time that we are adding them on. So back to the idea of what does this mean for salaries I think in some ways it will it will net nothing in terms of salaries but in other ways as and I keep bringing up this HR specialist for a reason because there's nothing to take away there from what she already does without having another person. So that's an example of I see an addition. We pause there for a second. But there are other things on this, right? Okay. Benefits. We actually This is hard because we talk about benefits being increased, then we talk about benefits being down. This is a different section of benefits. So um we are at a reduction here in um the
176two categories that you see in front of you. But one of those reasons is OPED other pensionable employ excuse me other post-employment benefits that we talked about in the workshop. That is um us reducing what the recommended contribution is. Um we have talked to the town about that. Yes. However, and they are um in agreement that that be done. I think they might do the same on their side based on what we have seen over time in terms of how funds are performing and the utilization of the same. And that is one way to further reduce this budget by taking that down $375,000 from what we originally anticipated. Go ahead. I think we should also consider as we think about budget, not necessarily just this year but into the future, that number could drastically go
177up, should the market correct, and we need to find dollars to properly fund that pension plan. >> And you as we think about the the cost of healthare increasing year-over-year and the cost of >> potential cost of those benefits, we just need to be mindful of what that actually means for the budgets, not this year, but next year and the year beyond. And I'll just cl clarify for the pension we are so just I want to make sure everybody's on the same page. The pension we are fully funding what they're recommending. >> So we're taking a decrease there. I know you understand. I just want to make sure everybody the public does pension. Um the town was pretty on board with that. They want us to fully fund that. That's something that's we have active
178members that are actively contributing, actively pulling. >> You don't want to be that town that can't meet the obligations. No. So that is just a that reduction of $50,000 is the recommended amount that the actuaries have given us. So so that's fully funded. OPED though I agree 100%. Um we are kicking the can um and had to do this a couple different years when the board of finances cut us late late in the cycle. Um and the town >> has decided to do that >> and that's what they have recommended to us and and an avenue to do. um they're pretty confident where we stand right now. Um the board of ed side in terms of our liabilities is has a higher funded percentage of our postemployment benefits pool of money. The town was a
179little behind the eightball uh in funding theirs. They had kind of kick the can a little further than we did. We had made the decision, at least I believe since I've been here, to try our best to fully fund both of these, >> but the last two years we're seeing this hit. So yes, we will have to pay for it going forward. So thank you for that. >> Go ahead, Christine. Thank you. Um started saying this before because I was ahead of myself. Um we've had a reduction in the number of students that are attending magnet schools, BOAG. Um so projecting forward with lesser tuition that we are paying out. So more tuition on some specialized programming, less tuition on magnets and others. This is what I was referring to earlier with the utilities decrease.
180I won't bore you with it again. Um some of our contracted services that you see being reduced. Uh we hope through uh the drip grant funding which we talked about last time and put up again in a second rentals that we don't need. That includes I mentioned in the workshop containers that we didn't need anymore. that also on the assistive um end of it. There are times when we begin perhaps by renting something that uh a student might need for example and then when we know it's more long-term it makes more sense to buy it and not to rent it and that's some of what you see here. We have made some changes there based on student needs. Um just reducing some of the professional development as we already talked about last time. Um technology
181hardware this I was saying Mr. line and Susan Sperry and I still working through what this actually looks like and uh that $50,000 reduction some maintenance supplies just based on what we've used in the past. Go ahead again I just another way of looking at the drivers. So to be clear again, every category of the budget, the entire budget if without the health insurance increase is 2.69%. All other increases, we talked about this already. uh our special education seed grant. These are we are still listing them as opportunities because they have not fully been granted to us at this point. Expect to get them based on what we've been told. Um but we don't actually have the paper the check is in the mail. Maybe the paperwork is too. I don't know from from the
182state. But we are looking to utilize even though it's a small amount of money that $3,197 to um do a little bit more with our students um who have needs out outside of the buildings. We talked to you already about utilizing um a part of 200 Fischer Drive for this. This is kind of a small leadin to that to some alternative programming for us, but we're still hoping we're able to do it. Um and again preliminary allocation ofund almost $29,000 for repair and improvements particularly to HVAC plumbing and electrical but um no official word on that yet. Nonetheless, to be clear, you are not seeing that in the budget. So if you the next question would be, so are you going to reduce the budget by $128,000 if that doesn't come through? No, because we
183are going to do things with that money that we don't otherwise have in here but need to get done. Go ahead. Um, this is just overall picture of grant revenue. This is also in the binder. I know you've already seen this, but we didn't put this up on the screen last time. I thought we should tonight. Um, again, these are forecasts, right? We're living in the current year, so we say expected it will be whatever it is at the end of this year. So conservatively what do we do? We say the same for next year based on what we've seen in the trend. Again looking over the trends the actual from the uh previous two years what we expect in the year that we're living in and then the forecast uh moving forward and Susan
184thankfully is awesome at projecting these forward looking at the trends and making the changes. So, I think that when she does these forecasts, they're as close to what we can expect as possible. I have a question on the revenue. As you look at that, you're forecasting it out obviously year-over-year. Um, and as a budget beyond this year, you know, the the bigger issues I see are healthcare. As you kind of look at the rising cost of healthcare, that's going to impact the budgets into the future as well as I think the pension is going to make a difference if there's a market correction and what the recommended um contribution is to that to keep it fully funded. OPED I think >> both but that >> more I say I say that just to be clear
185because >> we're phasing the pension has been phased out in [clears throat] Avon and I know you know this but just back for the sake of being clear and public so we don't expect to see that cost rise it's the same way we might see the OPED but it but it could based on actuarial and market correction >> if we had a market crash then yes >> yes and so as you look at into the future looking at these revenue drivers open choice attendance is a driver of 88 $88,000 or 88 million >> $88,000. Yeah. Um how many students are in open choice? >> That is projecting uh 101 students. That's how much we that they were the number of students we had as of 101. So we're paid in all of our grants. All
186the numbers that were paid on a per pupil uh amount is based on our 101 what's called PSIS number. So that's our state. >> State reportable number. >> Our state reportable. So I took the state reportable number of what we had. I looked at our um falling off 12th graders. I looked at the seat projections for the next year. And that's how I came with our 101. >> Um that's what we use for going forward. [clears throat] Our the early beginnings grant is a grant at 6,500 per student for our open choice students in preK and K. I use the same methodology for them looking at the current enroles and our three and four year old program as well as our open seats for kindergarten. >> As you look at that, you have a, you
187know, that's 8,000 per open choice student, and I know we've talked about this a little bit, but what's the overall actual cost? I mean this is revenue to the budget but what's the the driver in all allin cost to participating in open choice as we look into the future from a par cost from additional staff from overall cost to the district and do we need to look at that as a something that we should be participating in not not not necessarily this year because the budgets it is kind of is what it is but as you look at >> 20 27 28 829 and truly understanding what the actual cost per um open choice student is. >> I think you can speak to the per pupil expenditure in general and go from there. >> So
188I guess I would say um the way you're asking I I don't think I have an answer but I would say any student that attends Avon public schools is an Avon public school student. Um, and the per pupil expenditure we have for that those students is what it is. It's it's a little over $21,000. Um, the special education cost for any student who's part of the O open choice program is reimbursed 100% by the town of Hartford, city of Hartford, less their 8,000 per people because they've already paid that to us. So what you see delineated out in the tuition reimbursement is any town or city that sends a student to Avon Hartford. This year we have a couple other towns where we have students that are placed through foster care um into a home
189in Avon's one of our lovely families that takes them in that's reimbured as well in full 100%. So there is not additional special education expenses per se because they are offset with reimbursement from the city of Hartford and any other town that sends BCF students to us. >> Okay. But there's you know from a overall per student within the district it's 21,000 >> a little over 20,000 for any >> open choice is an $8,000 reimbursement. So there's a an at the end of the day there's a cost to participating in that based on what the actual cost per student is within the district. >> It's a bit more complicated than that. I don't think >> yeah I'm in my head just trying to make think through the >> In essence if if it's 21,000 per
190student >> right because >> and we get reimbured 8,000 >> but it's it's more complicated than that. There's a lot of other grants tied to open choice which is why there it's not it's not an easy answer nor the early beginnings grant is directly related to open choice students. We have open choice attendance. We have the chef settlement which is an open choice related grant. So there's it's a multi-layer which is why the town has chose to treat it this way. >> They're there are per pupil and that's the per pupil cost for any student attending Avon public schools and this is revenues. I I'd be interested if you could kind of delineate that out for us in the future so we could look at what those actual costs are per participation. >> Um I
191think Chris has a question but let me I was just going to trying to process this while you were asking at the same time. Um the the PU per pupil expenditure is a basic formula which is the total dollar amount of the budget in any given year divided by the number of students on October 1st. That's how you come up with a per pupil expenditure, right? >> No. >> Generally, no. >> Okay, that's my that's my for dummies version. Not that mean you are, but that's the way I usually explain. >> I just don't want anyone in the public to take the math and and do that because it won't work for us. So >> I I don't want to get called out on that. >> Generally speaking, that's >> it's the total amount of
192expenditures. So if you were to go on Edsite or any one of those it so that could include grants, it could include other expenditures which is puts together the whole >> because it also but it also has revenue in it >> because there's grants included. >> Correct. And that's what that's what I'm getting at that it's harder because >> it's a harder delineation to make because some of the grant funding is already also in there too. So you're you come up with this number and generally speaking yes it's the expenses and I'm saying the bottom line of the budget expenses in the budget but also some pieces of grants. So, as we've been talking through this and there's been some questions offline too, been trying to think about what that would look like to parcel
193out because it's not the math won't work exactly in the way that we're talking about it right now that it would be 21,000, you know, minus 8,000 and none of the way the accounts are done. This is why Susan's answer is what it is from the finance perspective. an Avon student costs what an Avon student comes and as soon as a choice student comes they're an Avon they're an Avon student and so the way that our finances reflect it is in that way right now so if we are going to break it down in a in a further way um we have to figure out a little bit better of how to do that so if if we want to move forward and break that down further Susan and I are going to have to
194do some work to figure out what that looks like if that's what we what we're talking about. And we we started it a little bit because of some of the questions that that we've gotten. But I'm just putting out there that it's not it doesn't exist in the way that we we do it right now by by pupil. And and to clarify the the per pupil 21,000 is done by the state based on data I report at the end of the year for our what's called our EFS report. It's not even a number that Avon comes out with. It's it's on the um the state's website. It's >> done by the state based on expenditures I report at the end of every year based on our audit. >> Same with every school district. >> Every
195school district in the in the state is on here. So that's the data we have and that's the data we use for per people pup people for everything we do excess cost um the the um ECS grant they take all these information into account when they come up with those figures >> to be fair to one step further with Kevin's question though some of it is contained in the system in one way or another because of the billing back to Hartford So some of the per pupil expenditure related to individual students would be easier to come up with in that way because we are billing back to get reimbursed um in the same way that we get build for our students if they need special services and they are at one of these magnet schools
196for example. Um but we would have to do a little bit more work to to look at at that. I'm sorry. Go ahead Chris. I was just trying to think through fully I was going to say that that's why I think that we would all very much benefit from having a presentation from correct done because as I said in those um meetings it is a very convoluted thing is not easily understood. Um I've been on there for three years and I continuously learn new things. Um but I will also say that these students don't come as a cost to us and we also benefit. So as the new math program that helped fund that that was through the open choice funding that we got that benefits all of the kids. So there's a a lot
197of things yes that are set just for the open choice students but a lot of it has to go to all of the kids and if we didn't have that those those funds we wouldn't fund some other things too. And that's what I think it would be helpful to have that level of transparency to understand where that is. >> Yeah, >> Lynn had something. >> If I understood Kevin correctly though that you're not suggesting a change to this year's budget. >> That's correct. >> Okay. So maybe that maybe that information is will be useful and I think having a presentation from correct would be useful but perhaps we could move it to another time after we settle this budget. That's just what I heard you say, too. >> Yeah. >> And I would also add,
198we have very thoughtfully brought these students to Avon. We intentionally try to get them at the preschool level so that we keep them all throughout. They are ours and we have families who are here that have been here for years. And so, I don't think we should lightly offer up removing them from our student body. And I think that's a that's a vote that has to take place with all nine. that can't be a task that you're given to the superintendent to do when I don't think you have support for that. >> So, I think you have to be mindful of that. >> I think it's a a look at the budget into the future and what the costs are and what the budget increases are going to be on a year-by-year basis and to
199truly understand what the line item budget items are and what the revenue is. I'm not saying I'm not saying we should eliminate open choice today. I'm saying we should >> want us to consider it. >> I think we should identify and consider each of the line items within the budget. That happens to be one that I've heard individual folks from town ask me about and that's why I'm bringing it here today >> and we can have conversations and we can have more training. But I need you to also understand that these are students, these are human beings. These are families that have invested. Parents don't make that decision lightly to send their child out of Hartford all the way to Avon. the number of hours they spend on the bus just to get to us
200and then to be returned home. The amount of effort that we put in to give them a fullbodied experience with not only academics but also athletics. I'm just saying it can't just be a a conversation that let's just get a number and find out how much they cost us. You're missing out on the benefit piece that we get from them. So >> I just want to be clear that I don't want it to simply be a line item that we're researching. We're talking about kids. Well, I mean the last discussion was about an individual role, a position, right? So that's a person as well. And I'm I'm saying looking at >> still so we respectfully um I would I would implore you to um come to a correct council meeting. Um we have presentations upon
201presentations from students and their families and what this program has done to change their lives. In a perfect world, this wouldn't have to exist because all of the schools in our state and our nation would be equally funded. And we, as we all know, they are not. I am thankful that my children and all of ours gets to come to Avon where we can talk about millions and millions of dollars and programs and everything that has been in in this hasn't taken away from our students. what you're referring to is not just taking away from our students, but taking students away from us. So I I would I would I would I would I would very much have have someone come not to talk about the funding, but it's two separate conversations of it's not
202just funding, it's these are children that we're talking about that that are often I don't want to get off into the weeds of it, but there it is very it's indepth and I get to be so not only am my own correct, but I'm also on the correct foundation board of u directors. So, we're the ones that get to do um we send kids to school, we send kids to college through scholarships, everything else to hear the stories of how this from I got to read a a letter from a girl that went prek through 12 from Avon. Remarkable thing is that we help do we help facilitate that. So I I sound um passionate because I very much am because these are human beings. These are some of of my kids' friends. Um so
203I would I would just say that we probably it it I would say that I've done it in justice and not having someone come here earlier to explain all of this because it is it is in depth. Um so I but any converation to just take a line out I don't think those are the correct words might not be the correct words but I think you also look at what um students in that are participating across the district whether it may be uh robotics or athletics or some other activity that might need to be cut because we have to make cuts to the budget and I think we need to look at what are the the programs, the impact to the students because they are people, right? They have individual opportunities that um maybe others
204don't. Um but then also we have to look at what are cuts to the budget that might need to happen in the future and where what are our different options. >> Um let me help if I can. So this isn't this isn't for this for tonight. understand. I think we have to have a larger conversation. Um, you know, I talked a little bit to Kevin offline too trying to understand how this funding works and so forth. Um, I think it is a good idea to have someone from crack come in so that we can talk big picture and then we can make some decisions about what else we want to look at. Um, and go from there. I I think we I think we should start with getting some sense of you know Susan and
205I will keep thinking about how else to look at this data so that we are prepared to be able to give whatever we can that we might need to discuss. Um again need a little bit more time for that because we don't have it the way that we're talking about it right now and we might not want it that way. We might want it a different way after you hear the presentation. You know, I I don't want to go too far down a rabbit hole with producing the trying to produce the information in a way that we don't have it right now without knowing exactly what would be helpful to look at. And I think the what you're saying, Kevin, is thinking about big picture um expenses versus revenue in general. this is another um
206source of that even though it is also a a programmatic um decision that has been made. And so I think we can take a look at we can take a look at the big picture and then go from there and Susan and I will try to give whatever we can or Craig can because they may have they may have information at their fingertips that Susan and I do not. Does that make sense? because nothing about this is going to change no matter what. If if you if someone raised their hand on the board right now and said, "You know what? Maybe we should pause participating in an open choice until we figure out if we're able to sustain it financially." If that that was the concern, we wouldn't be able to do that tonight. We
207we are we are already engaged in the process. We have the students here to your point. We have a lottery that's already been done. There are more students that are already applying. And so if that was something that the board did want to consider, it wouldn't it wouldn't be for some time. So I'm just saying that so that we can move forward. Not saying that is what anyone does or does not want to do, but if that's the conversation to be had, it's it's probably not for tonight. So that we can keep this moving forward. We're projecting the revenues the best we can like we do every other year based on the number of students we have right now and what we expect to see next year and based on student needs of of all
208of the students and we'll dig into some more pieces of it as necessary I think after do you need me to reach out Chris too >> correct I will do that okay so um again another way to look at because there yes there are charts and there are graphs but here are the exact numbers pulled out in summary from thousands of pages and we've discussed them in numerous other ways so I'm not going to read them all to you from the screen again again you know we like to produce in as many different ways as possible to make sure that it makes sense to those who are looking at it and again this includes what we expect the medical renewal to be as of 1211 go ahead And so for 2627, the health insurance increase
209represents at this time a 4.09% increase to the budget. The remaining gross increase being 2.69. Um and again back down to net and this is why I wanted to get into that conversation earlier. The net amount is is different. it is um because we are talking about the difference between projected revenues in in gross and and not so take any other questions if you have them. I don't want to keep the laboring points that you may not have questions about anymore. >> I think it's worth pointing out that the 2.69 is incredible. I know >> this process starts in July. I mean, you guys work tirelessly and it's an effort that is taken on by everyone that's sitting in this room and we appreciate that. We know how intimate you are in your buildings with
210all the supplies and all the things that you engage with and that our students touch and we appreciate um the integrity of this process. Um, I know that whenever we take these votes, we are standing behind it because we know the work that went into it and we can say honestly to anyone who asks that we believe what we are asking for is fair and what is appropriate and is fiscally responsible. Do we like that the benefits is as high as it is? Nobody's comfortable with that. It doesn't change the fact that it's required. And so as advocates for our students, um I'm prepared to vote in favor of moving this forward unless there are any other questions. All right. Then I will make the motion to um approve the proposed gross budget of 77,747,362
211dollars as a living number that we work within. But this is what we'll put forward to the town council. Um do I have a second? Thank you, Lynn. All in favor? I passes unanimously with nine. Thank you. All right. Any more communication from the public? No. Any communication from Avon board of education members? >> Sorry, I know it's late. I just want to say I'm very glad to see Eid on the calendar. I'm very thankful that we were able to do that. I will never support removing open choice. And I think that um the creativity and the skill that's gone into getting to this point is unbelievable. So, thank you all of you that are part of that and administration. I think you've done a phenomenal job. >> Chris, >> um same. I will never
212vote for the takeaway open choice. Um congratulations to the students and their families. is I get to celebrate Eid now um and have that day off. Um and thank you to all the faculty. I wish I was able to stand too. Uh and lastly, what is the beeping? That's all I wanted to know. >> Oh my goodness, [laughter] >> the beeping. >> Everything needs a battery. >> Anyone have that in the budget? [laughter] Any other board members? >> All right. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> All right. Chris, do I have a second? >> Second. I take Sarah. All in favor? >> I. Passes unanimously at 9:56 p.m.