001[Music] all right good evening everyone it's nice to see it um I would have expected a few more board members but uh thank thank you for being here well you know yeah you know if it stays in this room and it won't because it's on TV but of the ones that I wanted to be here yes I'm very satisfied but thank you uh for being here superintendent thank you um we're here tonight to talk about the Board of Ed budget so I will call tonight's work session to order budget work session I don't know if there's anything I know we had the um we went through the slideshow last Tuesday gave the highlights of of the budget you're presenting tonight I don't know if you have anything in addition you'd like to say do you
002want to open it up for questions the balls in your court so I think we're comfortable opening up for questions okay think there's and we're going to make you talk in the system thanks Mr yeah so I think I'm okay with us opening up to questions I think the you know the reality of this budget is that almost 2% % of the increase is uh wrapped up in insurance and transportation both of which are not necessar they're not ads to the budget from our perspective they're dealing with the the environment we're dealing with right it's the the climate um I realize that you still have to pay for that those climate shifts um at the same time um it just makes it go from you know in the threes to in the fives and and
003obviously we'd love to be lower um and found that really difficult to do so all right um before I do have a quick question because I you know we had a a letter submitted from a board of ed member who and I read at the last meeting or read at the public hearing um and she talked about the jump from 4.75 to 5.53 if that's close enough um and I guess you guys added three security people I don't know their officers is that's not the right way to say it security people security no they're not resource officers yeah they're not resource officers I I made that mistake earlier in the week so but is that the the difference between that 4.75 and the 5.53 that you guys approved that is the difference those three security
004people so could I answer the question what's the difference between the 4.75 and the 5.53 and would that help okay if I miss anything let me know but I think that might it was stated that it was due to the security people so and and that's partially true so there there it it adds an additional two security people um there was one that was still in the original budget presentation um it also um we had looked at possibly um allowing class sizes to rise a little um by eliminating an elementary position um and it restored that Elementary position that was another area of change for that it also addressed the whole change of insurance because we had taken a um maybe what I'll call an optimistic approach of 7.5% um and realized that um it
005was actually going to be uh in the nines um and so we had to adjust it for about 167,000 of that is solely health insurance um as it turns out that got that's very close to what the current number is which is the number we're probably going to go with yeah we made that adjustment correct whatever night now so we're about we're actually 30 about $37,000 over what the the 9.94 percentage um increase would be um those were really the key adjustments um trying to look if there's anything else um and there were minor minor other adjustments as well but that really is is the all right no that thank you that answers my question so and if again if I didn't get to the answer to the question let me know no you did
006I just thought that might be helpful to you okay anyone else with any questions or comments uh Mr chair yes go ahead I have a question about that letter that was read the other night did that did that board member offer any suggestions on what where to lower I mean where to lower the budget I'm I'm just confused by her letter to be perfectly honest with you well I and I don't know if I should put you that yeah I don't know you guys know what letter we're referring to yeah um so and I just had it and of course I lost it um we just we got a submission from board member Buchanan and um she just she she just made an indication that she voted no on the budget at 5.53 but she
007was fine with it at 4.75 um and she goes into some other things but I guess and that's in the context of what councilman Gman is asking is that you know she clearly liked it at 4.75 didn't like it at 5.53 was there any discussion I guess on her behalf as to you know not approve what was I don't know what yeah Becky looks like I I've gotten her riled up so just if you don't mind make sure the mic's on so we prove you were here tonight yep um so I mean I 4.75 I hadn't really heard her say yeah let's go for that either so there really wasn't uh a consensus there that that that was what um she approved of um and I believe the night that we discussed the increase I
008think she may not have been there um does that sound right I feel like she might not have been there okay uh and the increase came um as you know what the superintendent mentioned um and so we didn't you know we were a little surprised that we had a couple no votes because everybody seemed to be of like mind um and really like the idea of increasing the um proposition originally our our um our uh security folks recommended an additional staff member every year for three years okay and you know the thought was why do that let's let's you know security security let's just do the right thing and get them in there right away and that seemed to make a lot of sense so um but as far as recommendations of what um she
009would reduce or anything like that there was there was never any mention of anything like that so yeah I was just I was just conf taken aback by the letter that she if she didn't offer any suggestions I don't understand the point of the letter that's yeah so uh I found it I did have it see that makes me feel better that was I was just curious if there was anything that she offered up nope NOP okay no I think the only thing we could say is we did talk about all of these things and I think in um you know nobody on the board said oh let's not do security that's not important everybody felt that was important um and I think there was a unified front there I I think you know the
010numbers larger than we're used to right and I think that was um I did not speak with Miss Buchanan about the letter but you know I think um there's a there's a hope to try to get it lower so okay that's how I would put it okay thank you so could I talk about special education with with some of the changes the state or discussions the state was in regarding special um education and I know it was changes were for this fiscal year correct any potential increase in or funding from the state for this particular fiscal year not next year so let me try to throw some information out make see if I catch it right now so the legislature for the FY 24 year 25 year that ends in a few months um put
011in an additional 40 million to support excess cost now I was at a meeting yesterday where one District raised their hands and said yes and 2 million million of that is ours um so just to give you context so that is ours planville School District No No No 2 million is that districts okay that it was an urban area Okay so so just to give context to that money will get split across about 200 organizations SL1 and not evenly I imagine and not evenly because it's based on how much we put in for special education uh high level costs okay um so so that's one piece the governor in his original budget proposal put in FY 27 two years out a $40 million amount for the same thing okay um to try to address that
012so right now the states the legislature put in um after some back and forth 40 million this year um the and the legislator put legislature put it in for uh or the budget has it in for 40 million in 27 yep so the conversation right now is about how do you go from one level and then you drop it down one year and then go back up towns are not going to appreciate that y right um so I'm optimistic that that will get worked out but I wouldn't want to speak for the budget process given that we're where we are currently you know the state's in the middle of their budget process yep no I understand it'll probably be beginning of May before we actually get so here's the hard part about making decisions based
013on that even if we knew it was 40 million it's all based on how much the town's put put in collectively so so a speculative amount for that is about $100,000 it might be to the positive um but again it relies very heavily on how much we put in um so it's a it's a moving Target for us so let me follow up where I'm trying to go with this I if if this current fiscal year you do realize additional monies that cover whatever shortfall and if there's then some on top of that you know is there a way for you to kind of pre-purchase stuff for next technically for next year's fiscal year you or encumber it for this fiscal year but you know really it was something you were planning on doing next
014year so there are limitations on that but yes possible I know you have to be careful how it's done well you want you know we like to keep the Auditors nice and happy no right and it's not so there are limitations and beyond that I think one of the people with financial credentials might need to jump in for me so I don't get myself in no that's fine all right um anyone else with any questions or comments yeah Mr chairman yes go ahead is it safe to say that salaries and benefits was the biggest increase in this budget this year so I noticed here that the uh salaries went up $1,541 th000 at a 5.29 increase and the health insurance or the benefits I should say went up uh 666,000 7.18% absolutely so um in
015terms of gross our our budget is about 83% salary and benefits if you put those two together you're in the 80s so when you increase those even even with salaries which I think average around 3% in the total uh increase um you know it becomes the largest um increase of the budget what's the average CL size we run around 15 16 on average throughout the district and has that increase or decrease over the years so my understanding is it's stay pretty stable so and it shifts so next year we have a shift um where High School will increase a little bit um because about 20 kids are less at the middle school and 20 students are increased at the high school because of a bubble moving through um so we'll actually shift some positions even
016partial positions from one school to the other to try to manage that number shift so another question security guards each school has a resource officer so right now the high school has a SRO the middle school has an SRO and there is a security guard for the high school um for the middle school and then there's one shared by the elementary schools can you tell me how difficult it is to enter a school building I know you have a security guard or a resource officer walk us through what a person has to do to get into a school just so the public is aware of it so um essentially uh we're working on it for our middle school but in every other school you have to walk you have to push a button at the
017door and you have to ask um let them know who you are and they buzz you in um and then you come into the office area and so in the office area you have another round of kind of checking out who these people are doing credentials that's where we do the background check uh work with the licenses to make sure um they're not on a list anywhere um and then they're allowed into the school is there a direct line to the police department in other words if there was an incident in the school would that security officer have to call 911 or does he just push a an alert button that goes directly to the police department so he could push an alert button or he could be on his radio and one of the
018big differences is that the the SRO is literally has a radio that connected to uh the whole police infrastructure and then the other question was I think it was Chris that mentioned security guards um were hired what what are they use for the same thing or so security guards are really uh to present uh a safe front um at the front of the building you know to make sure people understand that there's somebody there they are armed um and and somebody there to to address issues as they come about they're also there to look at Perimeter issues um in terms of doors being left open Windows being left open um uh they are our first line if somebody's acting out of control things like that in terms of the community which I'm not going to
019say that happens all the time but but they're there um to bring uh to deescalate situations um they are all by they have to be in order to be armed they have to be um retired in good standing police officers who've kept their credentials um so they also provide that kind of knowledge base and skill set that you would get from an SRO thank you sure all right anyone else with any comments or questions just outside of the um the two security guards and you restored an elementary position when you moved up to the 5.5 are there any other brand new positions in the budget yes and if you can't answer it now feel free to get back but I saw that saw Mell put can I just say something else about uh class size
020so class size is very diff you know to say like what's the average class size across the district it's very different in what's happening in an elementary school and what's happening at the high school where you might have an you know an advanced class and you've only got 12 kids in it because that's that's who wants to take that advanced class but if you got your basic you know basic math classes basic history classes all those kinds of things you're going to have a lot more kids right so it's it's kind of hard to say what the exact uh you know what the exact um enrollment is in every class but our elementary schools have creeped up some over the years we used to do this you know 15 or under from I think it
021was two to two to K we're not there anymore we're a little above that um so you know there has been some creep up um but we still maintain uh you know nice class sizes at the elementary level where we know we've got to uh make sure that we do give those kids the kind of attention they need and when you say creep up yes is it still closer to 15 or 20 15 okay at least at those lower levels I just want to make sure we understand what creep means to you yes and me make sure we're talking the same yeah um yes Mr chair just you know wanted to clarify in terms of the new position uh in the budget description um two of them were actually able to be um uh established
022uh due to attrition so those positions were reallocated right okay yeah so that was one Elementary um and one uh World Language position that was reallocated right so um so that was the original 4.7 right right right that was the current the current model is that we reallocated One World Language position to be a multilingual learner okay so that's became that students multiple languages at the high school level sorry okay um two um uh resource math positions that support our students um we're really trying to attack that issue of math achievement um and the security guards we already talked about okay and the um the elementary teacher was the one that you decided in the end to to restore that's the one we had restored correct correct okay okay thank you of course all right
023any other questions or comments um at this point I mean we're probably not taking action tonight there's obviously we're missing a council member who will be here next week we do meet again on Tuesday I would anticipate we'll try to do our best to finalize the budget Tuesday night unless someone's going to interrupt me and tell me something different no no you're fine I just wanted to remind you that uh we also have the Board of Education capital budget yeah oh yeah I'm not ready to Jour oh all right okay but thank you for watching my back like T because it could go sideways real quick sometimes but Mr chairman yes I have another question the transportation went up $189,600 have you made made any phone calls to other transportation services to find out what
024they would charge and would it be any lower so we spent about four months um trying to figure that out uh We've we've looked at all of the bids coming in um we um we've done really really well uh right we signed a transportation contract five years right before the pandemic kind of did its thing when the pandemic hit the transportation companies got hit really hard um so for the last four years um most districts have seen sizable increases um with the increase that we signed on to um in the newest negotiations um our prices that our end prices are still lower than the majority of towns around us um are already um we we skipped that whole jump that everybody else um painfully went through um in the last four years um so and
025that's so we have some of the best rates in around um and but they still were we had amazing rates before that so but we've we missed that whole jump so thank you all right so you do have some Capital items um and it looks like most um as far as what's being recommended is under the information technology uh SE ction I don't know if there's anything you want to share regarding you know we have uh you know the network upgrade uh some District Labs District staff laptops and Chromebooks is there anything we need special you think we need to know so the only thing I would say is that the reason that that's scheduled that way um is to essentially have everything be really predictable for the town so Kevin does this terrific job
026our technology director of kind of having this cycle of replacement so as things run out their warranties um they get replaced um and so as we move through instead of seeing like you see some districts where they come out and say oh we need a million dollars because all the laptops are not working anymore um you you kind of have this this regular routine investment um that keeps it from spiking and also keeps us up to date with our technology so I think so when you look at it it's part of a bigger system um and the board certainly looks at that bigger system um when they go through this as well great any uh any questions or comments regarding any of the capital items just just what one question there's another one that said
027Network upgrades eate Oh e yes now is e rate paying for part of them is I wasn't sure what the E rate me um was a reference I know what e rate is but you know um is I'm not quite sure what it means in this this Contex means that it's being that's exactly right e pays for a portion of that cost and so what's remaining here is just a okay that's that's what I assume so what's remaining here is what eate is not covering thank you anyone else with a comment or question all right is there anything else any anybody in audience anybody that's here from the board anything anybody wants to say anyone on the council that wants to say anything all right so um I think we're all set I would encourage
028if we do come up with questions over the weekend I I imagine go through the superintendent get them to him and they can get them answered um and like I said I would anticipate we'll reconvene Tuesday night and try to finish all this up is that work for everyone yep all right all right thank you very much thank you really appreciate the opportunity seeing is there anything else we need to know before we adjourn for the night no nobody wants schedule meeting tomorrow so we could see each other every day there this week no Cindy was complaining we're not meeting [Laughter] enough okay all right well thank you everyone for uh staff thank you for this week we got through quite a bit of information I know we have another potentially busy week next week
029but you know we got through a lot of information and thank you again for being here tonight and we'll see everybody uh Monday night for the next regular council meeting which by the way I heard is what three pages long but we'll we'll get through it yes yeah all right uh motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor I we are adjourned have a good weekend everyone [Music]