001[Music] I like to call to order the March 12th 2025 Town Council me can you please stand for the pledge superintendent greeter would you lead us please i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible libery and justice for all thank you we will start with public comment anybody inside the council chambers would like to make public comment please come up to the podium state your name address and you have 5 minutes at the end of the 5 minutes if you could please stop at that point would be much appreciated Tim Kelly 62 Westview it's great that you have the shot clock there so we can kind of know where we are on timing um first of all happy budget
002season uh I know this is a very challenging time for you folks as people come out of the woodwork requesting funds maybe you only see them once a year um I believe your first agenda item today is the school budget proposal in Farmington the school budget has always been an emotional topic we all have kids we all have friends who work at at Farmington schools some of us even have close relatives work for Farmington schools at budget time we need to separate our feelings from the facts so the latest uh CPI inflation reading came out this morning at 2.8% in your budget review any line item increase over 2.8% hurts the home team and any cost increase lower than 2.8% means you're helping the cause in your role as the fiduciary arm of our community
003I'm not going to spend time today calling out line items that's your job to address I I trust everyone is prepared um the core driver of cost and funding in our school system is enrollment number of students it basically determines how many desks you need for pupils how many classroom teachers you require how many special ed kids you may expect how many square feet the state will fund on a building project how many french fries you got to order it's etc etc I understand this budget cycle we have opted to use the enrollment projection from a different consultant or methodology than the one uh Peter prow that we have reliably used for decades the new consultant and I believe the name was slam was really engaged to help us with outlooks and plans for rebalancing
004attendance at our four grammar schools I don't believe the initial intent was for them to derive a full District enrollment projection I could be corrected on that so why the concern uh there is a meaningful discrepancy between the historically accurate Peter prow projection for this coming school year versus the slam Outlook the new Slam projection was about 2% higher than prow who we have a long track record with uh of course here at the council we always inspect what we expect so I I looked to see if there was another school system in the immediate area that had some experience that we could learn from as it turns out a neighboring School District utilized this new consultant slam a year before we did when I looked at that District's data points for the current school
005year it showed that the slam enrollment projection had been about 3 % higher than the official October 1st District enrollment for that school system so I mean if the Board of Ed were to say hey we you know we have two projections and we're going to average them we got a high and low and just kind of average that then that would probably be okay uh with everybody but I think we elected to go with the highest enrollment projection the one from the new consultant slam why is this important well a 1% factor or discrepancy against an $80 million budget is an 800k funding difference and we spend over 20k per student so you know a 50 pupil difference is a million dollars our school budget has grown significantly over the last few years we've
006increased $10 million over the past four years um so we now unfortunately suffer from the law of large numbers where a small percentage of a large number still a big impactful number so I I look forward to hearing what our path forward is um I I didn't want to give you another handout because I think you're probably deep in budget reports but I do have some of the data and uh I I'll stick around for the breaku for anyone who wants to uh discuss it thank you thank you very much and Tim if you want to you can leave a copy with cap thank you anybody else inside would like to make a public comment please going once anybody online cap I do not see any hands raised all right then we will close out
007public comment we will go to d uh make a motion to consider and take action on the proposed fiscal year 2025 2026 budget second motion as second Joe do you want me to kind of run through what we usually do please okay so tonight we have the education um people here so you typically they come up to the podium you go through uh the education um and ask any of the questions and then that is it for the evening that sounds like a plan simple or not so superintendent please uh come on up with your entourage feels like I just saw you yesterday if you need me just call for me all right superintendent we have a chance can you introduce your staff please yes um well we'll go around and introduce ourselves and then
008we'll start with the overall budget and then we're going to go uh see series by series through the major drivers of the budget and then any questions you have along the way please feel free to ask those questions I'll start with I'm Beth I'm the business manager the assant superintendent Finance operations Human Resources coordinator Veronica rusak assistant superintendent Matt Ross Director of Finance and operations thank you lead the way superintendent all right so um as you can see uh last night I went through the budget uh with you through the presentation and at this point uh after thorough uh building level meetings uh this budget was much higher to start with and then we work really uh diligently with our leaders uh to try to uh say okay we're going to hold off on some
009things for this year and go forward with you know the most important priorities as we go forward so you can see that at uh this point we're looking at a 4.65 overall increase uh it is important to note that over from original budget submissions about 500,000 was uh reduced and then there was another million red over million reduced uh due to a self-insurance uh collaborative uh uh situation where we were able to make some shifts and it turned into to about a million dollar savings so this budget would be much higher um if we were not able to find uh efficiencies in in there and also Cost Containment and just reductions we've reduced this budget to get to this uh particular uh level so uh you can see that we're at $83,200 n83 which is
010a 3, 6967 44 increase or a 4.65% increase so we'll start with our first series which is uh the salary series I do want to welcome the Board of Ed members too my apologies thank you for coming out so on this slide you'll see all of our associations increases for next year um and this is the 100 series it is the Maj you know it it uh takes up 66% % of the total budget and it has a 4.26% increase um and so we are um here to answer any questions that you have within the salary series to start [Music] with if anybody has anything please ask away as we go through these pages I was going to ask about the um changes on uh preliminary professional staffing so I just at the I think
011it's page four where it has the pluses and or the the minuses or the positive numbers so those are so every one is a is one staff member right or or equivalent in hours and so with the biggest shift being um East farms in no walis and I just want that's indicative of the the change of uh redistributing people looking at it so East Farms is some of that staff is Shifting to no W because they're getting a bigger portion of the elementary population and then um the special education one which is uh a plus 1.3 because I know special ed has been a big um um important issue that everyone wants to support in town so that those uh employees are shared by the district so it doesn't specifically go to a school it's
012a it's in all programs or how does that work it's a little bit of both um you know for example uh right now in the budget we have a 1.0 increase for SLC specialized Learning Center at West District elementary school because of enrollment increases okay so some of those uh positions will be school specific but then there's other ones that are kind of more uh you know District you know another example kind of within the special services uh uh occupational therapist is something we actually contracted out and so that was you would see that's in um that would have been in the services uh area we're actually now believe that there's enough in there where we hire somebody there'll be more efficiencies and better service by having that Fe so you're you'll see that increase
013in the salaries um line area but it it's going to be offset later on in service okay thank you anybody else I I have a question um just kind of speaking to that same page um is it am I reading correctly that in total you're only adding two .9 um like full FTE right can you maybe just speak to how um enrollment effects thinking about hiring new um new staff and kind of maybe to some of the public comment about the the differences between the prior enrollment predictions and the newer enrollment predictions and what those differences may be based on and how that may just overall affect your budgeting process yes um do you want sure um so you know every year we you know obviously we look at the enrollment and we look at
014you know the projections and you see and some of that the carry forward some of that is we use you know the enrollment projections whether was you know the Prada one or the Gallagher one um that that we did this year for the elementary to kind of really help us with the um uh you know kind of redistributing of students in there to try to really get a locked in there so you'll see uh for example in West District I believe it's a second grade classroom you know we're reducing uh a teacher level because the enrollment there is going to be there but then offset by you know a kindergarten you know increase uh in numbers so constantly looking at that you're look always looking at BTO bed ranges for for class sizes uh that
015that will you know kind of impact so there's always a range right so for you know I don't have the specifics there but I'll just use Noah Wallace if you have uh you know four sections uh you know 18 students per in there you could carry for another four sections to the next year up until you know let's even say comfortably 22 so you could really get 16 more students just at that one school in that one grade level where you wouldn't be increasing any FTE or any staffing because they could absorb that number sometimes you do get to that and this is where we have the um um what do we call it the the floating you know the the teacher in there because sometimes you have that where you know all of a
016sudden based on the numbers maybe it's Union School where they're at you know three sections of 23 and all you get some late androll e and now you're at that 24 and you have to really kind of make that decision are we going with some higher class numbers in that one section or do we need to put in another teacher and then that brings you know the you know takes the pressure off that and brings the the sections down so that's something that you know really it gets dictated as we as we monitor over the summer it's always hard to dictate you know movein and and and various things but you know we usually have a pretty good idea of which spots are comfortably there and we don't anticipate at anything and then which ones
017are um kind of these you know for lack of better hot spots that you kind of monitor right up and through you know early to get on sure so I mean I think you're referring to the elementary not deployed position that one that kind of floats depending on where the um where where the need is once enrollment is more determined and I noticed there's only one of those this year and I know in the past we''ve some sometimes had more than than one staff member who's not not deployed at this point in the budget um I guess my question might be um to just a little bit broader does the enrollment projections affect other aspects of the budgeting process other than Staffing obviously you're going to it's going to affect what you're predicting in terms
018of your personnel in each school but but does it does it affect other portions of the budget does that question make sense no it does you know it always going to have some level of impact you know I think I don't I don't think it's you know as simple as if you if you you know if you have that you know for for example we I use that example of you know four sections of 18 we have furniture for you know up to the 22 students so it's not like okay we got a new Ro Le now we have to you know it's not like now you have to get a new teacher a new desk a new CH you know like we we have the infrastructure to be able to absorb some of the
019new students that that would kind of come in with the E and Flow of of the numbers in there um you know typically when we buy supplies uh you know the various you know resources you know we we would be able to kind of absorb those pieces so it can have an impact you know in certain areas here and there but for the most part I think we've created the infrastructure to be able to um you know handle a variance within a couple degrees of of of enrollment just to go off that um just in the East Farm School alone I know there's you know at least three different building projects that are in the midst of starting in the in the middle or almost completion so is that enrollment projection looking into those even
020though there may be one b or two B Apartments obviously there's no way for us to say there's only going to be one person or two people living there so they look in those projections of up house on the apartment building and barison park the new apartments on Route 4 you know is that part of their projections or are they just Gathering out like a a sensus of what's going on throughout you know Connecticut they're different the reason why we do the Peter pra is that is a 10year projection and we do that you know every decade of you know saying okay we need to kind of look at the next 10 years it with the Peter Proud we actually did it um before a 10e cycle because we had the high school and part
021of the requirement to get reimbursement uh from the state is to do an updated 10-year projection and then they take the highest projection year of those 10 years to determine the square footage of the new building so we have Peter pra but that's a long range it's a moment in time that Peter pra puts that together would not know about those projects a few years back right correct so we do that um for long range planning and if we have a building project because it is required we also do every year our own projections using our own retention ratio um and we do pushup so you you'll normally see in our enrollment report every October you'll see a retention ratio number that we're projecting and just pushing up numbers from one grade level to the
022other and what that would look like but pushup numbers don't consider that students move in and out of our district every single year and each cohort picks up additional students as you go through the grade level so a kindergarten cohort starts off at one uh number and it gains children over time and it's a much higher number by the time you get to the high school and as I said in a previous meeting we have had incredibly stable enrollment while other districts have had declining enrollment we did not experience that so the difference this year is that we have had the retention ratio we still did that we still did the push-up numbers and then we asked an outside consultant who had helped us with the enrollment ad hoc to then create their projections with
023everything that you're talking about every updated project that's going on in the town and what's projected in each of those projects to add students now those projections could be right on point the projections from adding a project or they could be much higher uh we're just using whatever was shared okay about this project is going to have about 20 more students it's just a projection it's not really based on anything but typically what the um group that's proposing the project provides to the town to say we estimate this many students would um result in this project whether it's retention ratio whether it's push-up numbers or it's this consultant coming in and helping us our yearly annual enrollment projection is the most accurate it's not a moment in time four years ago when Peter pra did
024his or three years ago or five years ago it's Bas it's basing everything on our enrollment today what we know and then any projects that are going to uh happen within the next couple of years and all of that is considered in our enrollment report and the reason why we do that is to have the most accurate numbers when we come to you and we build a budget off of those numbers um we definitely in this year didn't want to do it on our own alone because we had for the first time moving families from one school to another to balance enrollment we needed an outside expert to provide that for us because that expert was the one who helped us determine how to balance enrollment so that's just an overview of how we look
025at this um and we build our budget off this year of that um that the uh Consultants enrollment projection because it's an anomaly year will we have them come back in the future no we will then continue to do it ourselves because we're we're very accurate um when we go from year to year there's not a big difference from what we project to what we actually have on October 1st um but this was just a year we wanted to get an outside parvis because we're moving a large number of students from one school to another and just to kind of give some added context um you know the methodology uh for this immigration of new students so kind of like you know the rollover piece of it they do look at births they go for
026recorded birth at the town clerk's offices you know all the way through uh they look at building permits and Housing Development and you know kind of capacity there uh and then they look at K12 private school enrollments in fact are in you know some you know uh level there so so those are just uh you know all the kind of different U data points that they kind of look to come up with their perceptions thank you anybody else with a question Patty so kind of along the same vein but a little bit different um it's have a couple of questions rolled into one and then probably a followup or three um so on page 15 it's the Staffing by categor as opposed to the professional faculty that was on five and there um the total
027change is 13.72% worries all right so the 13.72% two and looking through the added information it shows 5.01 um special services per professional shifting to the operating budget from Grant so I assume these are individuals who we had on staff last year but now we have to move them to the operating budget to fund um but I also just how I mean in my understanding is a lot of the instructional support and others are related to special services I know that this identifies the grant as idea so can you explain how your Staffing and is impacted by um special need special services need students that are moving into the district and what that looks like um if we probably could go to a previous PowerPoint for the board just to show the FTE increases and
028how you could see how that plays out um in special education and we have our director special services here um every year you know we are projecting again a moment in time who we have right now in front of you know our our students who are in our classrooms right right now um we are budgeting for the existing students we're not adding any additional money thinking well if new students come in we should probably put extra money in this budget because every year we have additional students who come in with IEPs who need a you know services and some of those students come in and we use existing staff that we already have and so there's not a big impact on our budget but that is not the case because an IEP is individualized and
029every child that comes into our district with an ie has different Services which then has different costs we could have a student um again that we're using existing resources we have a special education teacher and they're just going to fit that child into their schedule but then there are students who come into our district already outplaced in outplacement and that is in their IEP and we are unique in Farmington that we actually have specialized programs in our district not every district has been able to achieve that so often we're we're um getting to know the child and if we feel that the child because what we always are Achi trying to achieve and it is by law is the least restrictive environment for for our students with IEPs needing special services so we're watch you
030know getting to know that child and often we can bring that child right back to our school district even though they were outplaced from another school district and we use our existing resources and um you know they're they're uh being integrated into our programming in the district other times that is not the case and that outplacement can range from $100,000 to $300,000 or more plus Transportation these are really significant costs for us that we did not anticipate um the state acknowledges that they acknowledge that this is a very challenging and volatile budget situation for us so there is a state excess cost grant that any child who cost our district more than four and a half times are per pupil expenditure uh they will uh provide a grant back to us anything above that now
031the the promise is that it's 100% above that number in Farmington um we have in the past received in the 70 70% range in the past the state implemented tiers recently that is that those tiers are based on our grand list and because we are one of the top 58 towns in Connecticut as far as our grand list we have a health Grand list we received the least amount of reimbursement for our excess cost we only now this year received 59% of those costs as to be reimbursed so imagine how much funding we not only is it four and a half times but then we only receive 59% of any any of what we submitted of those you know amounts we only received 59% 41% we did not receive and we have to cover now
032in our budget so gen I mean just generally this is a very difficult part of budgeting and I always say there's three things I I really worry about in any budget Year and that is facilities because something can happen with a facility that can be very costly self- Insurance something could happen in Self insurance that could really throw off our budget and then it's special services um because we have students who move into our district that might not have been expected to move in we also have our current students whose needs may increase from year to year and we end up having to you know not having to but we need to ensure that child's needs are met and so we uh will change the IEP and provide more support and that wasn't anticipated so
033it's constantly evolving it's constantly something that um you know we're working to ensure every child gets what they need in Farmington and um that that's something that we take very seriously and um you know we're we're going to do whatever we need to do to ensure that that happens but I will say if you look at farmington's out placements compared to other districts it's far less because our Board of Education Our Town Council supported adding specialized programs the state now is going to incentivize districts to create in District programs we did this a while ago because we knew and we know in the least restrictive environment is in our schools where students can not only access the education we provide but all the other things the club activities Sports all the things that students should
034have in an educa a K12 education so we really work hard to try to create those programs and keep our students with their peers in their community in the least restrictive environment but that is something that has um helped us a lot over the years is to have built those programs Kathy you mentioned four and a half times the per student expenditure is where the reimbursement kicks in what is the per student expenditure for the purposes of that calculation because I think we talked about this last year that different numbers we have it in our budget book in the back I think okay it's actually the this last page of the FAQ it's in the comparisons I think right yes so it's $2,158 so it' be four and a half times that okay thank you
035um one other I was just going to add and the one page would tell you that that's 107 out of all Connecticut districts so out of 166 um you know we're 106 right thank you the one other question on the instructional support Grant um it says it's references the idea Grant so does that mean they were funded by idea and so this question is kind of going into the question that was raised in public comment last night to Federal funding and everything that's going on right now and threats about idea so is this can you provide a little bit of background or I don't know color on idea and whether or not this is grant money that we knew was going away or that we're anticipating or how is it being structured could I add
036on to that to because I cuz I think I was also going to inquire about this I guess the way I would like to maybe see this is how does that Ida grant money come down through the stream and how does it get connected up with the kind of uh you know this the special services that we need I think that's what you're driving at right just we're we're going to show a slide that shows all of our federal funding just for your information the community's information um we have we build our budget then we reduce our budget by what we anticipate for Grants so our our budget is underfunded by the amount we believe we will get for idea which is a Federal Grant and by the amount we anticipate getting from the state
037which is the excess cost Grant the one I just talked about so we take you know this is what our budget is and then we reduce it and we reduce it so there's there's really very little uh room for error in our budget because we' already reduced it by what we have anticipated the town does the same thing what we anticipate we reduce our budget by and so we have a uh we provided to our board a uh just a chart to show because our the Board of Education had the same question you know what do we get for federal funds it is in our financial report every month just so everyone knows but this is essentially uh what we get and I'll just have Dan uh go over it just so you get a
038uh an idea of the impact of what some of the public comment uh was the other uh last night I will say we have been in contact we are in constant contact with the state um and you know at this point we are budgeting uh with the these amounts in mind we are anticipating these amounts and so that's how we've budgeted this year we have not changed that for this year's budget so overall you can see we have uh approximately it says 1.5 million uh that it's it's probably hard to see it's a little shaded in yellow there's about you know close to 250,000 that's part of that ARP Esser that was part of the you know kind of that Co Esser money that it's going to be expiring there so it's really you know
039uh 1.2 1.3 million that that we get from government through you know Title One um you know the title 2 3 4 Ida 611 Perkins um ida6 and then the continuing ed pep grant that they just uh received this year what the title one with so with the Ida that's $16,000 we have for the year but we also have the ability to kind of have that uh carry over and so that's why sometimes you'll see with us moving from Ida to operations sometimes when you have uh years where you don't have you have those unexpected costs sometimes you have to pull a little bit from next year to pay for this year year which then reduces you know your kind of year two money which then we have to kind of put into the budget
040right so you're kind of paying for for this year because you need to but then you got to pay for you know the the following year and so it's constantly that balance you know the struggle for that a little bit is um when you have you know the increase of whether it's teaching salaries or pair salaries through contractual uh agreements you know Ida doesn't always kind of go with that so you know we pretty much the levels kind of stayed flat you know pretty consistently so you get the same amount of money but it doesn't go as far as it did in previous years and so that's why you see you know not being able to um you know to to utilize it or sometimes a little bit more dependency on operation budget than than
041you can there uh so that's kind of where where that piece lands and you can see there it's you know District demographics dictate the the levels and the numbers uh that that go there and so it could be you know like XX gos which is from Connecticut that is you know based on Grand list others looks at your free and reduced lunch population other you know you know other variables that that kind of dictate your your allocation from the government thank you that's helpful I have one last question I on salaries um unrelated to that but I know that we have Union contracts um do you have you done any do you have an idea of like what percent of this increase for salaries is simply because the union contracts have an have an increase
042in the upcoming year yes um so the uh um let me TR I try to give kind of the the best number because once again salaries is that driver of the you know 2.2 million you know overall some of that is based on obviously the increased FTE whether it be through you know Paras or or in there so um you know like I said I don't have the exact but probably um you know I don't know if maybe Beth and I will do a little calculating for you and try to give you an exact number in there but um okay I probably I'm gonna probably say probably like 1.5 1.7 million of that is probably just contractual okay you know agreements maybe even a little higher than that all right great thank you Brian you
043have anything uh I do not Dave yeah and staying with the ID Ida for a second so then just when you build your budget and you're anticipating these Federal this Federal money that come down is it a formula that you already have that you're kind of earmarking money for like how do you how do we know I know the numbers I can see the numbers the connection between building the budget and that number is yeah I know that's a great question so you know the you know we'll get the allocation amount that that we'll have and like you said usually when they give you the allocation amount it you know you have it for the the two-year so you have a little bit of flexibility about where where you want to put it um you
044know once again sometimes if if things are are working well then sometimes we can even you know move money um you know back um you know two kind of uh you know operation so you can save that money and then put it back into the next year's Ida right if if the things are are are working well so then you have a little more for for for the following year so so you have that piece of it so it's really based on them giving us that that allocation and then we start factoring that into our calculations uh for projections and if for some reason this gets driven right back to the States now from the federal government and goes down to States that's exactly what the policy is being discussed right now would is the
045state ready I I I mean is I mean in general because you know these these folks who come here last night and app parent that has somebody that needs special services this would weigh on your mind you know this would weigh on your mind because obviously Farmington has put forward a value system to be able to include these people into the network of school for all the right reasons no you know it's an outstanding question uh you know one that I don't know if you know any of us could give you you know a solid answer you know we would uh you know the federal government would you know make certain decisions and then from there the state would have to respond either you know creating more you know fun or whatever might be and
046then you know from there we would also have to look you know you know I know as a team we've done a lot of we call it like thought exercise sizes right where we start kind of playing around with various scenarios um you know I think one of the things that I've really enjoyed uh working in Farmington here in my short time is we're always centered on what's best for the students and what's best for for for all of them and so that have that singular Focus that singular vision is you know what we'll continue to do and figure out what we need to do to make sure all the students get the services they need and and you know and and kind of make it work so you know there's a lot of different
047directions and a lot of different scenarios that kind of play out um but you know like I said we we don't have the the answer so we just kind of go based with you know what we have in front of us right now and and try to make the most thoughtful decision we can right and then kind of going to the specifics you're you're adding in your preliminary professional staffing you're bumping that number up in 25 26 to to to to like a 1.5 you know equivalent is that like 67.6 4 for 25 26 versus is 65.7 for so I'm just saying are you adding somebody or is there if we go I mean I we can go over some of the specifics I would say in special education uh just alone in positions there
048that we are adding It's a combination of the new position that Dan talked about which is an SS position that's one of our specialized programs and we have a very large en en rment increase for that particular position and then we have par of professionals on there there are some costs that are a wash because we're just reallocating money from one account to another but we um basically and salaries it's about 336,000 just in salaries for speal new special education positions but again they're not all new the SLC position yes but some of it is coming uh positions coming off grants and and Dan alluded to that uh grants pretty much stay flat for us at the federal level but salaries do not every year there's an increase in the gwi for every uh employee
049and so when you have a flat grant that doesn't work for a long period of time you have to start moving people off the Grant and putting them on your operating budget so you would see here 7.20 pair of professionals now five of those paas are moving off idea due to um the grant funding and the fact that these positions keep increasing wages and you just can't keep them on there forever and 2.19 Paras are due to increased student need and what I'm saying is they're already those pairs are here because we had to add them this year even though they weren't in the budget budget because student need you know dictated that we needed to add those positions so that is one example of yes there are some positions that are current but new
050this year that we have to bring forward that's the 2.19 for Paras and the other 5.01 are current Paras but they were on a grant and now they need to move off the grant because the money is just not there for that many FTE um so that's that's this is uh a list of all of the positions that are noncertified these aren't certified positions that we uh you know some are are decreases some are increases and overall you can see you know the bottom line is uh 10.82 FTE M we try to show which are current positions which are reallocation of funding um a an example uh of that um try to think of it was in nurses we you see a 1.0 occupational therapy position but it's really just a reallocation of funding it's
051not an increase it's a reallocation because we took it um we as Dan said we used to contract out but we feel that we uh it will be better for our students to have that position as a district position we'll have more flexibility for services schools but it's offset by account 320 that used to be in those consultant services and we're moving that money over to salaries but you can see each one of these and it's in your Q&A we we included those charts in your Q&A so that you can see both the certified and the non-certified increases for this year and why they're being increased okay thank you Amy do you have anything simp question I think technology integration teachers can you uh explain what that is and are is that three positions and
052are they temporary or permanent so they have always been in our FTE they're not new they're we're moving them from school POS you'll see decreases in each School of 1.0 at Westwoods 1.0 at I and 1.0 at FHS they're decreasing we just feel that they're more District level positions so we're at we're categorizing them as districtwide but they've they've been in our district and um it's not an increase in FTE thank you Keith slightly piggyback on Dave and um I'm probably being redundant but we did have some public comment um we've had a a bunch of public comment just about the special services stuff so just for whatever it's wor for the record we feel confident that the budget is providing enough staff for Farmington students with special needs that they're we not skipping in
053that area with this budget you know I think the concern about Ida a lot of it is coming from just there's a lot of um media coverage right now and you know we I meet along with all superintendence with our Commissioner of Education here in Connecticut every month and all of us are reading what's going on we're also getting a lot of guidance from the State Department of Education here and from our all our legal council um Ida has been in place for 50 years it is something that has been a promise to you know the children and families of the United States for that many years and you know we we I think our commissioner and all of us feel that that commitment uh is is going to remain um and if there were
054any change in that I think we would be alerted uh and we would then have to address it and that would be a combination of working with our state working locally um but it has it's been a promise that goes even Beyond when the state when the Department of Education was created here in the US it's even beyond that time so um you know I understand if I were reading all of this as a parent um our parents aren't in meetings that I go to and the rest of us go to and we you know we have to um listen to those who are even closer uh to the federal level and and what they're giving us is information so right now you know I'm planning and we're all planning on that idea money being
055there uh if anything changes we would definitely have to speak with the state of Connecticut and locally we would have to have discussions about that but we are committed and I know all of you are and our board to meeting the needs of all children children uh uh you know with IEPs and with in need of special services that is a priority and we follow the law and the law is very clear about the support that we provide to those children whether it's at the national level or the state level thank you thank you superintendent last call for 100 series I have one more question all all right um this this is a little bit different but it has to do with the um the director series and the increase in the um The Residency
056and security coordinator positions and the coordinator technology position I think were those positions if I'm remembering correctly that were added last year but only for half a year and now they're being fully funded for this year yeah okay so there were some reductions we made but we said we would uh put 0 five in so this is now putting the other0 five in um on the tech oh you can see it here we reduced the end user technology and um have added the 1.0 technology coordinator which is uh taking on some of the responsibilities that I had under the as director of Technology as I move into the new role as Director of Finance and operations gotcha okay and then just one followup question I know I I believe it was discussed last year that
057the um The Residency and security coordinator position um there was hope that that would kind of that having that position would lead to other efficiencies within the um organization have you been able can you speak to some of those and how that's been working out as a new position absolutely um that's been allowed for uh them to you know uh security person to look at some residency investigations and try to determine if there were students who you know um you know weren't legally living in Farmington to to kind of um you know for for enrollment purposes and such and resources purposes and so you know we're always dealing with students regardless if they're you know from Farmington out so you know try not to go overly into specifics but um you know the position has
058been able to um you know do its role um and and do it there also the uh residency clerk uh has allowed for some efficiency now because the registration for new students is now streamlined into one person so as before it was done at the building level so all the administrative assistants at that level uh we're kind of doing you we're doing it at their own especially for the kindergarten registration and so now having it one has not only taken some of the the stress at the building level off from from the administrative assistant to allow them to do some other things but also just to make that process more consistent because what we are finding is you know how it was done at one school was just slightly different than another school and and
059uh there so creating some efficiencies there in that process because it's all kind of coming in from from one level so so from both the positions now in the the security and um residency position we're finding a lot of efficiencies thank you last call all right next series please so there's some said last night some good news here this is not what you would see in every district for insurance um so we have a very slight increase of 74 uh% in Self insurance and uh this was really after we had set the budget uh the budget was at a 5.6 and then we had been working with Joe on a potential say and our uh Insurance Consultants on a potential savings and we were able to you're going to I'm sure see this in in
060the town budget as well we were able to uh make a shift and it had uh about a little over a million dollars right uh uh savings so um I think I always say to uh the town counsil and board uh our self you know being self-insured obviously comes with risks but it also comes with benefits too when we have good claim years we can put more in you know our reserve and we have uh both at town and and the board side have collaborated on those reserves and this is a good example a good year that gives that example of just how beneficial it has been to you know the taxpayers of Farmington to be a self-insured school district some school districts uh kind of move from self-insured to the State Insurance go back
061to Self insurance as things get more challenging uh we have not gone to the State Insurance because it would be much more expensive uh for the town but also for our employees uh because we do share cost with our employees of you know the cost of this plan um so you know there's not much to say except that it is an example of uh Cost Containment and reduction without changing the quality of our health care uh you know we it's still very high quality um but just have been able to uh you know have the savings this year and yeah I was just going to add it I mean that's another uh benefit of sometimes kind of investing um you know in your programming so you know we we utilize one digital kind as Insurance
062Consultant and so they were able as they do the analysis to kind of identify this area uh for us to switch to from our uh a retire a retiree cohort to switch from self-insured uh Pharmacy to um to fully uh funded U fully Ure Pharmacy and so it expect and some of that I think is also adapted to some of the the changes in in Medicare over the past few years and and allows those opportunities to kind of um you know take advantage of those opportunities so looking around you know like I said about a million dollars you know anticipated savings and actually the the premiums for the retirees is also going down and so you know it's one of those win-win wins right no no change in service to to the you know the
063consumer and it's actually they're getting it they're also going to spend less and we're going to get um some savings so those are those opportunities that you know you really love um I wish I could promise to be able to provide these every year um uh but like you said we were able to kind of identify that and that's really been a significant driver in in us uh in our budget any questions Dave no Amy good news not on this category no Keith no thank you Sarah no just um one sorry Jo you didn't call my name but I assume Patty um the notes within the budget reference the patient protection Affordable Care Act and the need to provide affordable insurance as that's I'm assuming defined did we have to change any of our insurance
064or did we already meet the requirements for providing aord on it's on page 17 there's a my understanding is we haven't my understanding is that that we've we met it done you know I'm happy to you know being the newer guy I'd be happy to kind of check history to see if there was change in there but I don't believe um you know there's been any modifications needed to that requirement great thanks Brian uh no no questions thank you for doing that thanks for saving us money do it on to the next please so this is a volatile series it is um our services series it's about 16% of our total budget with a 10.39% increase and the and 60% of this increase is associated uh with special services uh when it comes to uh
065Consultation Services and tuition cost for out placements it also includes our major facility projects our K8 summer school and any technology- based operational systems um we also see increase and I think you'll see this in the town too in electricity um in the transportation services that's also in this uh Series so uh we are seeing a higher well an increase more so in the specialized transportation and again and that's associated with special education um and we're restoring you know doing some restoration of funding and we also see the inflation especially with out placements the tuition rates are going up by significant levels and that is always again an unknown at this time I wish we could get the tuition cost for next year for out placements often that comes very very late after we've set
066the budget um but you inflation is really hitting all areas of our budget um but those are some of the areas that are covered in this uh Services series and some of the reasons why but about 60% is associated with special services increases all right start with you Brian anything um the first question I had was um excuse me just perusing Mees on the student services for orientation programs transition support % is there what is driving that at all that's not special services right sorry can you just repeat the question I was trying now um the uh uh student services uh page 27 that's not special services correct no yeah um yeah that's know the um you know transitions you know from from the various kind of schools commencement um those types of those types
067of activities right so as you transition you know eighth grade to ninth grade transition and no um up you know Upper Elementary you know Westwoods to ir and and and so on like orientation programs yes gocha sorry thank no it's okay Pat you have anything uh uh the curriculum updates earn Services right I'm not miss seeing that I know that we had to do that there was a reading thing a couple of years ago with curriculum are there any other legislative mandates coming down that were aware of that will impact curriculum moving like not necessarily this comp but in you know do you foresee anything that could impact the budget I mean that one's still impacting the budget we have some work to do on aligning to the expectations of the right to read legislation
068um and there are some um you know specific courses that would need Curriculum maps and things like that um but nothing out of the ordinary so those are actually not uh counts that are increasing by very much we're operating basically on what we were able to operate on this year okay thank you and one other question just looking at the um repairs and noticing that I'm assuming the high school budget's going up because now it's a year through and it's now on us as opposed to the contractor or is that yeah so we'll transition uh you know from you know warranties that now expire and then and we take ownership um you know you try to hope that there's a balance you know with a new building you're hopefully expecting that you know they're going
069to be good for a few years before you need to start really putting in a cycle of you know continued maintenance but you know obviously you know it's it's a beautiful building with a lot of amenities and so you know some of those those pieces um you know are going to we're going to start having to kind of budget uh you know appropriately for that so we got like a little bit of reprieve I think you know this year and hopefully there but yeah over time uh you know that will probably be built back into uh the the regular cycle we haven't brought it back while sa okay so things that we have inspections by lot you know those things we put back when we were going to have a brand new building we really
070didn't need that this year but um as we go in next year we will so we're we're phasing it um there will be more um funding for a maintenance of that high school put in 26 27 and then 27 28 as it starts to age and need uh more but at this point we haven't brought it back fully right so within the ifications for the constru of the project each contractor has certain responsibil even Beyond warrant so for inst sprinkler contractor an elevator contractor is obligated for a certain period of time to expect and maintain sometimes that goes beyond the one year that we were anticipating with this so um but as those things out to those back if you remember we reduced significantly last year anticipating that we I I've just never seen a
071budget for a brand new building because all the buildings are 20 plus years old so I figured I'd ask because you had that on the top I'm skipping ahead slightly you you will see that like in dues and fees the insurance for the building has gone up substantially um you know by about you know4 $45,000 because the valuation of the building you know they had the building the old building was valued at you know $50 million and now it's valued at $118 million so uh and then the the value the contents value uh went from just under $5 million to now $8 million so you know cost more to ensure that so that's that is an example like I said I'm skipping ahead a little bit of where you'll see that new building um has
072that that uh added expense okay one last on electricity and utilities town and the board works together and like negotiating rates am I remember I'm trying to remember how this is set up yeah we work through I think uh water and Sam you can correct me if I'm wrong I sewage um we we have some things uh I think just because of scheduling we were slightly off on electricity and and kind of there we were able to to lock in at a a pretty good rate I think it's like a little over 11 cents through 2027 which is a little better than current rate so we got good in there uh you know and I think the town's slightly you know comparable in there but you know I think we're just a little off on
073that timing to yeah so essentially unlike all of us who have are subject to the whims of eversource every six months that we know it's locked for a year yeah well actually locked for until I think 2027 is there on the supply side that is correct yes right um but on on the other side where you see all those other miscellaneous charges that come in on the transmission side we're subject as much more as the homeowner on because we have demand charges based on how much our building uses and obviously we're large users of electricity so when those rates increase it is it is a rather large increase Elric thank you Brian you said you had a question just yeah follow question earlier I was wondering we had been talking about how some of the
074things we wanted to do last year we put them back into this budget does that include any of the projects that we're talking about here yes so you'll see an increase in major facility projects um so we definitely are trying to get back on track uh when we did our K8 uh facility reviews we always tried to keep at the 300,000 level for major uh projects in our operating budget and last year we went down quite a bit because we had a difficult budget Year we're trying to get back there because we know that as we keep chipping away at the projects within uh those reports we're being really proactive in maintenance and in those facility projects so we you know we don't want to fall behind on that and then have a a significant
075expense somewhere because we hadn't been keeping up with it so you'll see a bit of an increase uh there for the major facility projects but they like last night was talking about some of the alignment but definitely the K8 uh facility reports uh help us to uh decide on which projects belong in capital and which belong in our operating budget thanks it's not getting any cheaper I imagine down the road yeah Sarah so you answered a lot of my questions I think Patty asked them but just in terms of just following up on the um if you look at Pages um 40 and 41 that kind of go over um some of the building repairs um inhouse and contracts are those increases solely due to the maintenance of of of um phasing back to from
076the warranty period on the the FHS building the dollar change is there is that 100% due to that on those two pages you know page 42 is a good example of what I just talked about those are the major fa projects so you see that there's a you know a larger increase there but just trying to get back to a place that we're maintaining that 300 I mean it's it's a little less than 300,000 but we're trying to get back to that level because that is how we kind of projected out getting to those you know uh completing those recommendations which within each of the K8 facility okay yeah and then I was looking at page like 40 and 41 too though because they say in each one of those the the bottom line says
077increases due to FHS maintenance phasing back to the budget after bending warranty period And so my question was just are those increases yeah 100% due to those that or yeah gotcha okay if you look at uh Pages like 43 to 50 those are those are really kind of detailed sure to kind of look so you can see for example at the high school um you know for the you know a 15,000 repairs to building kind of phas back in that was taken out from the 24 25 budget um you know so kind of building those kind of back in those are broken down obviously by the annual repairs the service contracts major repair requests and things so that could give you a really um kind of detailed view uh of the changes thank you Keith
078um I may just be reading it wrong so I see the transportation services had a big jump um but that was mostly due because we switched bus companies right went especially had a higher contract is that that correct so the changes are really yet too there was the the new contract uh to the new bus company uh but a lot of that uh you'll see is also just the increase in the specialized transportation services yeah yeah Kathy say CU it's that a big chunk was a special services part of the transportation okay and then probably not important but the the last line of that uh under transportation services where it says part of it was a shift driver positions that were budgeted for transportation previously we're now budgeted in under custodians what's can you explain
079that to me is it just I don't know so with uh and I'll I'll ask my my my his historian people to help me out on it previously M&J there'd be times where they just didn't have the the drivers of capabilities and so the Farmington public schools had two drivers kind of on standby to be able to do emergency runs for for when they needed it and apparently at least as history was told to me they were needed a lot um and so now with the new contract they were you know we were you know a part of the contract was you know we were going to have enough drivers and be able to run all the routs and even for those you know and have spare drivers and all those pieces so now we
080were able to you know you really not have a need for those two so kind of phase those in um you know into some custodial positions that that that were needed okay they were performing other tests such as Courier Services for us as well which also shifted to the focused audience yeah okay so doing some of the same functions so it's a it's one of those examples of like off taking from one part of the budget putting it in another and hopefully creating even you know uh like a better outcome by uh placing into two custodians it's also going to help us with the new central office uh maintenance there and having a custodian that's available in the new central office there's things that uh you know we have here all day that we um
081are not it wouldn't be in our budget and now we have to make sure that we have adequate coverage up at at our new central office and Fieldhouse so this also addresses you know that as well so we and we have that need for the Emergency driver or we are not allowed to is that you said that contractually we're not allowed to have I don't about not all I just I think they've been able to they had kind of cover I don't know if I have my class A license the the drivers typically did prek runs um uh and a couple of other specialized runs and some of the middays as well okay which are now covered by special gotcha they weren't taking bus loads of kids no Goa that's good to know and Theo
082cians also help out with the overtime cost some out of the building we can assign flow custodian to kind of cover there and so we not having overtime thank you Amy now I think we've covered almostly everything um I have no questions Dave so first item uh professional Education Services has gone down you know from from what was ended and now what's expended now so there's a a dollar change uh percent change and I was just curious you know I the the last language uh this is Page 29 so you were able to I guess the explanation on the bottom I'm just trying to get say so this is uh that example that's 320 right so this is the example of we took money out of this line to then put in the salary line
083for uh the position that we had showed you I think it's occupational yeah therap so it's just a movement to again we're always trying to find like the most efficient best quality you know it's always both and so we're at a point where instead of paying like consultant Services a we are now moving to hiring someone but that reduction just moved to salaries got it yeah okay that's what I that's I figure but and to kind of add on that a little bit and you know keep you mention about quality of services you know for us being able to hire now an OT really at the same expense we believe is going to provide a higher quality right because having own you know having your own person they'll be able to work with students and
084kind of build that relationship build that consistency and thing as opposed to when we do the outside right you know they provide services but it might be person a one time person B and and you know so you don't have that consistency right um and so once again hopefully the quality of services actually inre no change right and that's what I that's what I gathered here which is which is a big positiv absolutely big positive um 34 other Professional Services and I was just curious is is this is this bump driven by like a like a oneoff thing that we have to do this year an audit or some other some other uh negotiation or uh we did this is for the teacher negotiations I think we put in there we have you know our
085um FAA negotiations coming up and and so that's usually you know obviously a large driver of it and so that's a usually a larger negotiation so uh putting that's going to increase you know legal fees and and and that time period there got it okay and then and then number 60 goes back to idea but I think this is what you explained where you have four times four and a half times and then basically now they've means tested it to the you know your District your grand list and you're at you're at a reimbursement of 59% correct correct got it okay and I would say the last thing is on the repairs wouldn't I would think that once we get some of those capital projects done some of these repair costs will will be come
086down right like the air the different Air Handlers the roofs things like that they usually two separate two separate priorities that that we we're kind of we're taking information from the schools from the from from the reports that we have also from conditions as they change remember trying to determine what you know what's the most efficient way to address this so usually those major projects that we put forward are a little smaller that we that we've address in a capital project right um so so unless you're talking about like a larger renovated new project or something like that which we don't okay I think we Contin those okay and then you always have you know the surprise I think the elevator at East Farms I think you know just stopped and so that's going to
087be a significant repair that you know as much as you you know you want to try to account for you can never budget and correct so that kind of you know we have to figure out where where we're shifting money from there and then so maybe postpone something else so you know that that that uh to-do list always keeps yeah it never gets knocked down got it yeah okay thanks last call for the series all right 400 so this is our supply the uh it's about 3% of our budget and it's a slight increase of 1.23% around 2,622 um there's some things that we had reduced we trying to get you know in the last year's budget and we're just trying to move that slowly up but we're also just dealing with the economy just
088like all of us are dealing with in our homes you know supplies are just more expensive I think we probably would have even put more in here but we're also acknowledging you know that we have a higher budget so we've you know made some reductions here and try to be as efficient as possible when it comes to supplies and equipment um both of those are you know lower uh increases maybe than what we've seen in the past Keith you have anything no sir Amy no Dave um maybe just explain 73 a little bit which is audiovisual Compu comp supplies so even though this is a supply line it does include some contractual pieces in there as well the the label is an older label of audiovisual computer supplies um and the majority of this there
089were cuts that were made last year and so there are there is restoration of funding uh to continue we were able to offset those a little bit last year with some remaining Sr funding but it's gone so we're bringing that back for tools that are needed for supporting our students Sarah you have anything yeah I was just curious um on 75 it's a decrease but I was just wondering what's the driver of the um decrease in gasoline for transportation so that's actually uh you know one of the benefits of working with you know new Transportation Company specialty has uh really worked hard on efficiency of roots and looking at that and so needing actually less um you know uh bus run for you know regular Ed transportation and so you know with less bus runs
090less gasoline and so we've been seeing uh a really nice savings uh you know in that area that's a big that's a good incre increase yeah Patty Sarah and Dave took my questions Brian covered all right thank you guys last call onward and [Applause] upward 1% of our budget inc9 and this due to some is a need for equipment some is restoration of equipment $26,000 in restoration of funding for Crow bucks yes from last year MH which is almost right right account for that sure Dave you have anything no Amy what's a trapezoid map you stumped them yeah no I'm just I want to the shape it's for PE it's it's just the shape of the map yeah it's expensive yes sides you know should stick with squares I don't know it just jumped out
091at me I I apologize but it was kind of like whoa I was trying to remember exactly which activity they were using it for but it's uh is it Excel ball maybe or something like that yeah I yeah it's not coming to me right now but I can I can do some research for you it's quite all right it just like I said it just jumped out it's multifaceted yeah talk to Mr D tomorrow drop off yeah while everybody's looking for the Chromebooks are kids becoming more responsible I know probably went through a transition period or getting beat up a lot or we still we're still dealing with a lot of cracks and braks and repairs at our Middle School level yeah Middle School is definitely still a problem um at the high school level
092it somewhat has leveled out um we're actually working right now on on a few things related to high schoolers bringing personal devices there's there's more demand for uh for use of their school issued devices um but they tend to take better care of them Middle School tends to still be our problem I wouldn't say overall I wouldn't say we're seeing an increase year after year it's just more of a concentrated location of where we're seeing the the repairs and damage is there an insurance program for parents for obviously habitual offenders it's self so it's it's self insurance through us as well um we you know it is a uh curriculum support tool so it is an opt-in program for parents and it's to cover incidental damage it does not cover lost or stolen devices it
093does not cover intentional damage um and we do have repeat offenders that uh and you know I do have conversations with parents about their students taking care of their Chromebooks and we do have a replacement fee that we try to assess um but again given the fact that it is a tool utilized in the curriculum it is still working with families to ensure that students are taking responsibility all right any questions for the group Brian one question oh you want to go Keith sorry yeah go ahead already did me she have a trapid so uh on I just have a question about the use of um on so under the Chromebooks where it talks about restoration of funding from uh 2425 so that's is that basically when you major budget last year you had an
094idea of what you wanted for Chromebooks to be budgeted to make it work in accordance with your budget and our budget as as a whole you pulled out some of what you felt you needed and this year you're saying it must be there so that's why it's there that's yeah like nobody came from on high and said take this out of the budget no we we [Music]