New Hartford Public Schools - Board Meeting - 02/03/2026

001All right, we're all going to get going, please. >> Thank you all for coming. I um we I am going to call the New Harvard Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting uh dated February 3rd, 2026 at 7 p.m. to order at exactly 700 p.m. If you are able, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Okay. Uh, next item on our agenda is B, order of business. I don't have any changes to the order of business, but at this time, would anybody on the board like to um add anything to tonight's agenda that would have to be done by twothirds vote? All right,

002seeing none, order business will stay as posted. Um, next item on the agenda is communication to the board of education. I do not have any any communication that's come across since our last meeting. And the next item is public comment. Would anybody like to address the board? >> All right, seeing none, we will move on to uh item D, superintendent report, and I'll turn it over to Jeff. >> Thank you so much. Very excited for this evening's presentation of our current and our future leaders, both in Daisy and Vivian. So, I'll turn it over to Vivian if you want to grab the mic or you want to use the um the mic there. Either one would be perfectly fine. I could scroll through the slides for you. How about that? Right. >> Okay. >> Yeah,

003>> you can do it. What our new Hartford school community is doing now by Daisy Jones and Vivian Sai. At Antelini, we give out stars of honor, which is an award that we give to students if their behavior is outstanding. We have an entire schoolwide assembly to celebrate our wonderful students that go above and beyond. Fresh vegetables have been served at all three schools. These the vegetables from Vibrant Farms in Bantm and Food for Thought in Torington include vegetables such as watermelon radishes and dicon radishes. These pictures are actually from our school cafeteria. Mr. Susa is visiting our preschool classes to read them fun stories. They're having the best time ever. The kindergarteners are are having the best time ever. Using their hands and nifty craft skills, they combine art and science all together to

004make beautiful drawings of people along with finding out which activities are best for the weather. The first graders have been welcoming and making new friends. They also took a trip to the orchard where they even got to take home some apples. Second grade is visiting the one and only Peabody Museum at Yale University, which is a museum that features all kinds of natural history collections, including dinosaur skeletons, marine life, biology, and North American mammals. Learning with style is always fun in second grade. Measuring, imagining, imagining, and improving all the things you need to be an engineer. They're having so much fun that I wish I could join them, too. In all block in Miss Simpson's room, the third graders have been working on independent reading, phonics, and vocabulary. The students also went on a field

005trip to the Institute of Native American Studies. Fourth graders are having so much fun learning with each other while making friends. They have learned lots of math and reading skills and are ready to face the challenges ahead of them. Math centers with Miss Dutinger is so much fun. They love learning math skills, working together with peers, and using tools such as building blocks to help them visualize math problems. Go mathematicians. The fifth graders have been digging deep into creativity and testing on new in science experiments. The sixth graders have have worked really hard in band and played an amazing concert. Also, region 7 middle school band and chorus visited us to talk to the sixth graders music opportunities. Sixth grade is also working on creating a drone container designed to help remote villages get medicine

006faster and more efficiently. Working together in a group of four, students will be designing drone containers to keep an ice cube frozen. Our schools have been learning together and sharing the love of education. Outstanding. Thank you so much, Vivian and Daisy, for your hard work and efforts. Do you guys put this all together? Incredible. I am very, very impressed. And I hope that everyone got to see just a quick snapshot of all of the amazing work and wonderful hard work that our students are engaging in in learning opportunities that make me so proud and all of our board of education members so proud as well. So, thank you again. Wonderful presentation. All right. So, under superintendence report after our student presentation, um we have a couple agenda items to look over. Our first order of

007business is to approve the 2627 school calendar. Just to refresh everyone's mind, during our last session, we had discussed a potential change and had I had done some research that I want to share with everybody publicly. Uh the proposed change would be to align with region 7 professional development day on November the 3rd. So ours is currently proposed on November the 2nd. Here are the reasons why. Uh this works for New Hartford. The most critical reason is that our young students are adjusting to daylight saving time. I've been saying that wrong for a long time. By the way, the fun fact, it's the correct terminology is daylight saving time. Um some people say it with an S. commonly used and understood, but it's technically incorrect because saving acts as an adjective describing the practice of

008of saving daylight, not a noun. So, just a quick grammar lesson for everybody at home. Uh, there is less disruption to our young learners from the three-day weekend versus coming in on Monday, then off on Tuesday, and then back to school on Wednesday. So, it's just a lot of different routine changes and transitions. Bedtime and wake up time adjustments and routines are not easy for us as adults, and the same applies for our kiddos. Um, additionally, our current our calendar is currently not in alignment with uh PD for region 7. Contractually, they're very different. So, we region 7 has four professional development days. We have six, we have seven of them. So, they're not in alignment. Anyway, our staff contracts are not the same. And our days are scheduled around parent teacher conferences, screenings. We

009are very intentional on selecting the days uh for professional development. So they are scheduled around parent teacher conferences, screenings, student age considerations and not just because of tradition. That's typically when everyone does it. And we use November 2nd to help us secure presenters that are already booked solid on November the 3rd. So we can't get those folks and we're in competition with other districts. So that's why we very carefully selected uh November the 2nd. There were additional requests for the 2627 school year calendar. Um, some quick other updates on the back. Uh, board members had requested just to list the 26 versus the 27 for clarity purposes. That has been done. Additional updates again by Sarah, my amazing executive assistant, had updated all of these to be in alignment. And one other just um one

010other improvement, if you look to see um on our calendar, all of our board meetings, they used to be a full green and that might have led to some confusion for folks to say, "Oh, maybe there's no school on those days." Well, that's not accurate. So, we've changed it to a green border with the brown still in the interior to demonstrate that we still do have school. School is in session on those days, but later that evening, there is a board of education meeting that is scheduled. So, those are the updates for our New Harford Public Schools 2627 calendar. Um, I would request a motion to approve, discuss, and then vote on um getting this approved so that we can um post it officially. So, I'll pause there. Motion to approve. >> I'll make a

011motion to approve so we can discuss. >> Motion by second. >> If we did change that day in November, how much would we have saved on busing? >> None. There was no savings. And I think that's where our conversation went astray a little bit last time because we still pay for the contractual amount of bus days that we need no matter if we have that day or not. So, >> of course, again, because we have other professional development days, too. It's just they're not in alignment. If they were, it would be a perhaps a better idea. But again, we're really thinking about the age of our kiddos. Daylight saving time. It's very difficult for them to transition, especially at this age, never mind any age. All of us struggle with that. Um, especially when we

012fall back. So, Yeah, thank you board. I appreciate that very much. Um, up next, I just want to give everyone an update. So, our colleagues at Region 7 have recently experienced the wonderful uh visitation of OSHA. OSHA has a new uh strategic plan where they visit two school districts. Surprise. Um looking for compliance and safety. So uh region 7 and us were in uh consultation and conversations all of the time. We're great collaborators and um they had shared that information. So immediately I started to think of some proactive measures. I discovered that there is a KN OSHA program that is for free obviously taxpayer funded but it's for free for districts that want to be proactive in their approaches. So in so far we've had one visit with the Khan OSHA experts. I call them

013they call themselves the good guys because they're not issuing violations. They're helping everybody get into compliance and provide safe working environments for employer and employees. So we've had a great visit. We've uh started at um Bakerville and just some high overarching um things to think about for our district is to improve our recordkeeping for all safety trainings. We do the trainings but we have to have a nice record of them. So what if and when OSHA decides to come and audit, we have those records available. So we're going to improve upon that. Also onboarding new staff training improvements. So if a staff member is hired midway through the year versus at the beginning of the year, just making sure that again everyone is captured. Um another additional piece that we should be considering is providing

014more protective um equipment for our custodians in all of their locations. So sometimes they're at a sink in this location of the building versus in their uh janitor's closets down the hall. And they should have PPE at every single location again to protect them from spillage, chemical mixtures, or anything of that nature. And speaking of chemicals, we have to update all of our safety data sheets. So in 2012, we had MS SDS sheets. They've changed since then. Ours, some of them are outdated. So, we are working currently with our vendors and websites and connecting um with our custodians and them to retain all of the new safety data sheets to put them in a policy manual that will exist at every building. So, these are just some high overarching thank goodness no violations because again

015we're being proactive in our measures to make sure that we're in compliance and I could not be more thankful um to region 7 for sounding the alarm if you will and also to Konosha for helping us as we start we started at Bakerville. We're not going to do all three schools immediately because then we're going to have a laundry list and some of these are probably going to be duplicative in our other schools. So then we'll visit the next school and then the next school over the next couple of months just again so it's not overwhelming. We don't have a facilities director. It is it is myself. So, and I have other tasks that I have to obviously attend to all of the time, but I'm very excited about the work. Um, we are doing

016a lot of great things as well. Um, so they were uh super complimentary of that such as our evacuation plans for fire drills and things of that nature, rally points, um, our recordeping and mapping of our buildings for safety and a lot of the trainings that we do already regarding bloodborne pathogens and things of that nature. So, again, very excited about that work um, with Konosha. All right, I want to give everyone a quick update regarding the 2425 budget, not the one that we're living in now because we're still wrapping up the audit process with King and King. I remember someone asking me when is that going to be done? Well, here's my update on that. The audit is still pending. The auditor submitted a qualified report to the state for our educational finance system,

017our EFS, and it was accepted. The report keeps us in compliance with the state while the audit is being finalized. Look forward to hearing from King and King at our board of finance meeting when they report out officially uh as they complete that. So that's just a quick update regarding the 2425 budget books closed audit to be completed. All right. We are projected to have a approximate, I think I've mentioned this before, approximately $2,000 surplus from that year from the 2425 that then we will have to motion to move into a non-lapsing account. All right, let's kick off with the um one of the most exciting things on the docket for tonight. That is the superintendent's budget proposal. Got to give a great amount of thanks to my central office team. Um Sarah Vogle, Amy

018Norton, Gail Debella, Kelly and Kelly Lynn Snowden, as well as my administrative team sitting here in the um audience as well, our director of student services, Mike Lynch, curriculum coach, Heather Matthysse, and our two building principles, Dr. Carol and Mrs. Kennedy. We have worked from last time when we were here at the board meeting, uh we were about a five and a quarter%. We've worked very hard to get it down to a 478. Point of note to your uh packets, there is a draft um mistype or a typo in your table. Um the 478 should read a 396. And uh that's just a quick update as to where we are. So I'm extremely proud to present a 396. years past, if you remember, 809 8886 extremely high numbers to try to keep up with contractual

019obligations, employee benefits, transportation costs, and health care. Um, as we all know, throughout the nation, healthcare continues to be a significant increase. I'm very concerned that eventually healthcare will supersede our salary increases, which will be a major problem. So, I've continued to advocate and work with our legislators, both Paul Honeig and Mark Anderson, to advocate for help and support, especially for the school systems in addition to all of my partners and colleagues around the state that are superintendent because we see this as a major looming issue within a 7 to 10 year window of bursting and it just will not be sustainable for anybody. Um, and that's just an education. It's throughout. So, just want to make mention of that. Additionally, uh before I begin the budget presentation this evening, um of the 119 lines

020that we have, uh 50% of the budget lines stayed the same or decreased, 27 decreased, it's about 22% and 33 stayed the same at 28%. And 59 increased at 50%. So, let's kick off our budget presentation. I apologize in advance. I'm gonna have my back towards the audience. It's not intentional, but I do want to present on the screen behind me. Yes, Frank. >> Uh, are we going to do the same as last year? Jeff's going for us. >> Yes, thank you for asking, Frank. I was going to kick off that just to go through the process, especially for our new board members. Um, today is the kickoff of our budget season. Um, it's the first time we have seen the budget. It came out in our packet. Today, our superintendent will run us through

021each of those line items. Um, today isn't a day, this is under a report. It's not for action. Um, so we will won't be taking any actions tonight against the budget. Um, we'll get a report out. So, our process similar to what we did last year and the year prior to that. Uh, we will have a uh I think we're going to upgrade it um to a uh to a virtual teams not a virtual but a uh a link collaborative link where we can all go in and put our comments against the budget line items. So, as this budget is set up, you have a, you know, a a a code and then underneath their subset codes, the budget spreadsheet will be set up like that. So, we can add our comments in there between

022now and our next meeting. Um, and I'll give a cut off probably about a week prior to that next meeting to give um our superintendent and the administrative team the opportunity to be able to provide uh answers to those questions or comments we might have. All right. But I think today, you know, as Jeff goes through it, I'm gonna say we'd be open if anybody has any like more general questions for clarifications right today if someone doesn't know what they are. But our our budgets are set up with each page has the code, explains exactly what that code is for. Um, and you can align that way. And again, then then that budget also aligns with the expenditure report that's also in our package that comes every month to us. >> Capture everything. >> Any

023other questions on the process for tonight? All right, with that I am going to relocate. All right. My apologies. Back head. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. >> You should get a mask. >> Put on the back of my head. All right. Thank you so much for the opportunity to present to everyone this evening. For those of you that are at home online, good evening. All of the materials can be found on our website. So if you're looking for this presentation specifically, you could access it online. If you are also looking to access the actual budget book, that is also available online. So just click on board of education, go under budgets, it is all listed there. Thank you so much, Sarah Vogel. All right, let's kick off. Just some beautiful pictures of our kiddos, why we do

024the work. This is what it's all about. This is the heartbeat of what we do. This is our mission is to provide the best education for our students all of the time. So, I'm very grateful to the board members, to our community members, to our central office team like I mentioned, and my administrative team for helping to develop such a responsible budget to go forth um to referendum at the end of our process. So, um I often say that a community's values can be seen um and that's where their heart is. Well, that's certainly the case here in New Hartford. Um, as our students are always at the center of everything that we do, from the basics to creating with imagination to play, health, and exercise to friendships to laughs, collaboration, exploration, and even problem

025solving. Our mission statement we are very proud of and we completely embrace that. Our mission statement is indeed something that we live and breathe by. But it's also challenging because we have to provide the needs of all students and to date it's 446 students that are currently enrolled. We do our best every year to project what we can and in your budget books you'll see on the class size table that sheet you'll see 421 is what we projected. It's an impossible science, but it's also because we're a destination school district, we provide an amazing educational experience. People come to New Hartford for education, for the quaintness of the town, and 21 new students is a lot, but it's something that's almost impossible again to project. We use birth rates. We connect with the town hall

026with our town clerk and uh Farmington family uh fa valley health. But again to be able to forecast what the real estate market does every single year is an impossible science. I watch it very carefully. Houses are on the market and off they go and next thing you know it two new students and they're in multiple grade levels. Um again a major kudos to the board of education for supporting the additional prek section because that is at capacity and overflowing and even that's with three sections. So we continue to provide an amazing experience in prek for three-year-olds and four-year-olds uh housed at New Hartford Elementary School. We are extremely proud of the program. We have amazing educators and support staff to uh transition our students into the school environment at a very young age. And

027I'm very excited about that. So even out even outside the classroom, we're exploring in our also exploring our rich state history which you saw as well from Vivian and from Daisy. And just to remind everybody at home again and here at the board what our goals are. We are to provide an exemplary curriculum that holds the highest expectations for student achievement. We're to create and sustain educational community responsive to the intellectual, social, and emotional needs of children. We know that each learner is unique and it is our heartfelt passion to make sure that all of their needs are met. And number three, to encourage and assist all students to develop to their fullest potential and to be initiators of their own learning. So our students are encouraged to take risks, to explore their interests, and

028apply their learning both inside and out of the school. All right, let's talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of the process. So again, all of this information can be found in your budget booklet as well as in the presentation. Here is a timeline so everyone is informed of when we are gathering to talk about the budget, what the process is, not just for the board of education, but in alignment with the board of finance and for our town meetings. very important that every note everyone notes this information because we encourage the public to come and speak about the budget to share your thoughts, your concerns, whatever it may be, but also to write to the board of education as well. We're open to receiving that feedback. But you could see here tonight

029we have we had our budget overview back in January 15th. Our superintendent's proposal, my proposal tonight is on February the 3rd. Our next meeting is our budget workshop uh taking place on February the 24th right here at Antelini at 7 p.m. That is when as um our chairman Kleps had mentioned that all of the solicited um questions or concerns that board members may have are going to be collected over time to give me an opportunity to uh provide rationale or purpose or support for the requests within the budget. So we'll do that um at our next meeting. Some other very important dates as you could see we're looking to finalize. There's some TBDs because we have some back and forth sometimes about things that um take place throughout our workshops um and also throughout our

030um before our finalization and also before the public hearing. That date has been recently set. So mark your calendars for that as April 7th. That takes place at the town hall at the senior center. It's an important meeting where um again the entire town is welcome to come out and speak and to uh provide feedback. Uh budget workshop number four is only if necessary. So that meeting will be determined if there needs to be additional adjustments after that public hearing. That's why it's left as P uh TBD. Uh budget adjustments by the board of finance will be finalized by April 14th uh 7 o'clock at town hall at that meeting. And then our annual budget meeting will reconvene again a week later on the 21st of April at 7 o'clock at the town hall to

031discuss. And our town referendum is currently set for May 5th, 2026. Again, great thanks to Christine Hayward of the board of selectman's office and also to Carrie Gilfoil, the chairwoman of the board of finance for helping us and making sure that we're in alignment. Um, you'll notice that our calendar of board of education meetings, right, no longer conflicts with this. So, this is excellent. This is how it should be run. So, we're not, hey, I want to be at the board of finance meeting, but there's a board of ed meeting, too. So, that no longer exists. All right. Last time I discussed some of the budget assumptions as we jump in. So, we know that cost of living and inflation certainly um have impact on our budget. the increase uh cost for employee health care,

032uh transportation costs, decrease in excess cost grant, um which we reviewed over at our workshop last time, and then there's always u the assumptions of contingencies for emergency unforeseen costs such as repairs or students that come to our district with um significant needs. So, here's a quick breakdown. Um this is directly tied to student need the assumptions on the pages the previous pages and the work of our staff to be efficient and to provide an exemplary education. So the current uh budget request is an increase of 48,851 or a 3.96% increase to a total of 10.733527 million. So all of the uh differences from the 2526 budget, which is where we're currently living, to the requested 2627 with the variances are all listed here. And throughout the budget book, there's obviously a lot more detail

033to this process. So the primary budget drivers this year that you'll see here are employee salaries for certified and non-certified staff. That's always one of the major drivers. Employee benefits, again, $97,000. that's at that uh with the insurance. We've had significant information that I'll share in a minute. Um that 11% we received a recent email that it's jumped up to 15%. And I've talked to a lot of my colleagues around the state and they're in the 20s, some even the 30s and 45% increase. Again, unsustainable. Um we are in a very fortunate position with our employee benefits as I'll share a little bit later on in the presentation. um with some magnificent breaks in our favor and I'll describe a little bit more of that um accounting for that 97 225,000 pupil transportation you remember

034that we renegotiated our bus contract with region 7 to have more leverage and collaboration uh relative to our bus contracts so that increase is at 22,145 so a grand total of 390,000 in the major budget drivers It's very important to note that with the request, this is with a $423,000 offset by grants. So, our offices pursue these very very strongly and we are constantly looking for opportunities to have less of an impact on the municipal taxpayer. And you can see that some of our grants are listed here, not some, all of our grants are listed here at a sum total of 423604. That is a projection. Every grant is um and some grants have longevity over one or two years. Other grants have to be expended within that year. Just to go over a couple

035of these really quickly for everyone at home. Excess cost grant is a grant that has never been 100% fully funded by the state of Connecticut. Um despite legislative um arguments to do so, this grant provides special education support to our neediest of students that are outplaced. and this formulaic cost of 4 a.5% times the per pupil expense of the difference of how much it costs to uh have a student outplaced and then they break that down and they're supposed to give us 88% of that cost. That hasn't happened in our tenure here yet. So at a 60% rate and this is from the year before we are projecting $70,000 of a grant offset. IDA 611 and 619 again two special education grants to help us to support our students are projected there. The REAP grant

036is for rural education. We're projecting 33,000. Title one, title two, title three, title four are all federal grants as well that um we have continue to push back on the federal government to make sure that we are providing for all of our students whether they are bilingual, whether they um are in the poverty category, wherever they are, these monies are utilized to help equalize the playing field for all of our students. The DRIP fund, I am very happy about the drip fund. DRIP is for district repair and improvement on certain projects. It is not a large construction grant. So, for example, a roof or a renovation. Um, this money is allocated through the bond commission and legislatively to help districts offset the cost of small projects that they could not foresee. So, one quick example,

037the um rooftop units at Bakerville Elementary School, came to school this year, fall time, working fine. In the winter, they all failed. Three out of the four and even the fourth one just recently. They needed new burner tubes, new motors. That money was utilized to help that. We are installing a chlorination system to help destroy the microorganisms and bacteria in some of our wellwater at Bakerville. That money is used to offset those costs. So I am very grateful for that and that was passed legislatively last year and we continue to receive that and project that for next year as well. So thank you to our representatives, our legislature for helping municipalities with costs that are unforeseen. So we're very thankful. Additionally, seed grant as I mentioned last time is for special education and this is

038to expand special education every year. We don't know the student that we're going to receive or students. And this grant has helped us provide one-on-one special services for a student that we currently have, but it's utilized and it'll be again for next year. We're projecting that at $50,000. State adult education. We provide state we provide adult education through Ed Advance. We post that information all the time on social media. adults in town can take coursework and our contra uh the grant that is uh offsetting the amount that is requested from advance is the 1609. So again, special note the the request for the budget would be $423,000 more without all of these grants that come to New Hartford Public Schools. Other decreases that we're factoring in is our prek tuition. So those are the monies

039that we collect for families that send their students to our prek program. So $70,000 of that is used to offset the cost of the teachers and paras and things of that nature. Um -ate is a grant that is uh a reimbursement grant at 16,500 for any major Wi-Fi district-wide improvements. We are outdated in our Wi-Fi. Major kudos to Paul, our IT director, who will be working this summer very tediously to replace a lot of our Wi-Fi points. um he'll configure them and implement them, but we have to go out to bid and purchase them. So $6,000 of that is a reimbursement for those costs. And $10,000 of that rate comes back to us as well for internet. So we have a reimbursement for internet costs. So those are all of the offsets, but I broke

040them down by grants and then other offsets as revenue streams or reimbursements that come to us. This slide I have um I have introduced just so the board and the public can see the negotiations that took place between Dco and New Hartford Public Schools. I'm typically a very humble person, but I think this is very important for the board to see this. It was a significant savings without a new contract with DATCO. What they were project what they initially started with was a 6.6 increase 6.6% increase what it would have been versus where we started. We started with a new baseline at the negative 1%. Again, that was negotiated region 7 ourselves in Datco. They were taking us through a 5% 5% four and a four. We negotiated at this point at a negative 1,

041a 4, four, three and a half, and a three. If you take these these contractual amounts right now, a fiveyear, and you compare them against any district in the state of Connecticut, we are 3/4 to a half less than everybody else. Transportation costs are insane. Okay? And there's pressure to go to electronic or electric buses. I honestly hope that does not come to fruition because infrastructure doesn't even exist for that. Never mind the cost of a bus. that's electric um and in cold climates and is it going to make the run? We have so many different questions. Um but I wanted to share this with you because over a fiveyear total savings because of the renegotiated contract, we're going to be saving $513,000. That's not chump change over five years. That's a lot of money

042to save based on our rigorous negotiations with DACO going out to bid showing them we're serious about finding someone else to give transportation to our kids. So, we continue to be happy with their service. We're very happy with the contract that we've negotiated and settled with them as well as region 7. Again, I don't like to pat myself on the back, but I had to show this so that board and the public understands this is a significant savings and it reset our baseline of our costs. In this as well, here's a bonus. We don't pay fuel costs separately like we used to for the bus. So, they used to go to the busy yard, fill it up, they would send us the bill. That cost is already embedded in the contract, too. An additional savings

043of about $55,000 or so per year on fuel costs for our buses. Nine buses here, not 10 as well. Quick breakdown for visual purposes, just so everyone could see. This is not a surprise slide. This is very typical. Every single year, our costs are about 25% across the board for our employees, regular ed, special education, and also to our um employee benefits. That's pretty standard for all three areas. Oops. Did I skip over? No. Huh. Okay. All right. Educational cost share is a very important piece for the board of education and everyone in the public to understand. The educational cost share is a grant program that funds for New Hartford approximately 30% of the cost of education. So if it's a $10 million request, the town is receiving $3 million as support to educate the

044students here in New Hartford public schools. That is determined obviously through their educational funding formula with wealth index and a bunch of other standards. But I wanted to show historically we were held harmless in 21-22. What does that mean? That means we did not lose funding because of any of our formulaic components. We fought hard 22 23 23 24 we didn't lose money. We got a small increase in 2425. the bianium the bianium budget from the um the governor's budget increased us by $94,000. So that was last year which came to fruition and also projected for the 26 27th which is nice um because we're finally seeing an increase in that. We continue to advocate again to our legislature. This funding formula has not changed since 2013. So the cost that they the the amount

045that they give per student hasn't changed in over a decade. That means it hasn't kept up with the cost of cola nor inflation. So we're working with our legislature to see if we could come up with a different formula to help support or at least increase tied to cola which is set by the social security office obviously. Um so we're looking for better days ahead. But I wanted to make sure that the public and everyone here understood that that the town does receive support from the state. All of our towns do. $3 million comes back to the town to help offset the cost of education in our town in addition to all of the grants that I just shared with you. >> Everybody, this is in our budget presentation. >> It's not money reflected in

046>> No, because that money goes directly to the town. It's not a board of education grant. Very important point. Yep. Right to the town. So if you take a look at this, this is just a quick mathematical where we currently are the budget request with the educational cost share as an offset. The net to the town cost would be 7 million $7.7 million. Just for complete clarity and understanding of what ECS is, how it helps support education in our town. All right. I am again so grateful for the town of New Hartford put for putting children first, putting smiles on their faces, keeping them safe, providing anything they need to lead to successful futures and to be proud of growing up here in New Hartford, Connecticut. We've heard even at um commencement or at our

047convocation student testimonials that have graduated and continue successful careers owning businesses. And a great thanks again to Dr. Carol for reaching out to those folks that have graduated here and sharing the wonderful lives that they're leading with the credit given to the foundation that's established here in New Hartford Public Schools. And yes, I love Smokey the Bear. Very safe. Very safe. All right. Now, outside of our operating budget for our capital requests in the 2627 uh fiscal year, we'll be requesting a grand total of 166,275. And I want to break that down for everybody. Um, currently we have a request of $15,000 for indoor air quality. That's our yearly requirement under the public act that's listed there, 23-167 and public act 22118, to provide and make sure that our indoor air quality is of excellent

048standard for our students and for our staff. HVAC inspections every five years. We've already completed that as I've shared. Great news. hygienists across the state. There's only a few other districts are still struggling to find somebody to do that work. We're completed. We're all set. In the next fiveyear cycle, we'll go out to bid again. Uh we had used Envirmed. We were very happy with the service that they've provided. So that is on our capital. Our refresh program again as students come to us and we are issuing new Chromebooks. They end with a life expectancy six, seven years. If we could reuse them, Paul is incredible about reusing components of it. We don't we're not frivolously asking for money, but this is part of our refresh program for our students that come in as kindergarters,

049ensuring that they have a device uh to be utilized throughout their career. Here we have our district Wi-Fi replacement, which I just spoke about a couple moments ago. That rate offset, so the total there request is 299. Um oil tank replacement is something that we have to sincerely consider, and I'll show that in our five-year slide coming up next. I began this discussion over a year or two ago here at the board of ed also at our board of finance because the oil tanks all four we have four oil tanks one at each of the uh Bakerville and New Hartford two here at Antalini and each one of them is 10,000 gallons um they are steel wall tanks which means that they need to come out of the ground uh their life expectancy ends in

0502031 so there's also lead time There's planning, there's soil, there's a lot of environmental concerns when taking an oil tank out and installing a new one. So, what I'm proposing here is to start generating or earmarking funds for that project. When I went out to explore and ask companies about what the cost would be to rep remove and replace a 10,000galon uh oil tank for heating purposes, they came to uh back at about $250,000. Um, and that was research that I had about two years ago. They are not per tank. Yeah. Per tank. One tank. Take it out, replace 250,000, multiply by four, $1 million right off the bat. Um, and that was an estimate that I'm providing now. So, you'll see in the five-year plan, we want to start to put monies aside so

051that we can do this in a manner which is responsible and timely because if we are held to, well, let's just wait till 2031, there is no way possible that I will be able to manage four tanks coming out of the ground and four tanks being installed as your superintendent. It cannot be done at the last moment. It's got to be done in a timely, thoughtful manner. So, I ask for the obviously the support of the board of ed on this and the board of finance. um in the town as well because they do need to come out otherwise they'll be tagged out of service. We won't have heating oil in our buildings. That's not okay. All right. Additionally, the last request here is here at Antalini School a classroom refresh. So classrooms 25, 27,

052and 29 need new flooring, painting, windows, and blinds at a cost of approximately $20,000. So that lines up all of our capital requests for the 26 27th school year. Those classrooms were uh recently vacated by Oakhill at the end of the summer and now we're planning on revamping them for usage in our future. Here's the 5-year capital plan that I just described. So, you'll see that we're going to go out to bid again um in our fiscal year 28. So, we're all set with again maintaining compliance with our indoor air quality and HVAC. Our technology refresh program is pretty stable throughout. Again, that's for student Chromebooks, Prometheian boards as they um they end they near or expire with their end of life. And then here's the underground storage tank remove and replacement. So if you

053look at this carefully, $100,000 is being requested for the fiscal year 27. If uh we add the $150,000 in fiscal 28, we could have one removed and replaced. and 29 we have 225,000 with another one in 2030 to replace approximately two of them or so and then finally the last one in fiscal year 2031. So we need to begin to encumber funds to ensure that all four oil tanks can be removed. Um that's part of our five-year capital plan and our classroom refresh is listed there from this particular um year. Every year, just for the viewers at home, we present our CAPX expenditures to the board of finance and have discussions about this all of the time and how the board of finance supports the maintenance of our schools. I don't know how this picture

054made it in there. I'm going to move along. We have a one I'll just give a shout out to preschool. They invited um both myself and our intern uh Mr. Carol from regional 7 to come in and witness book buddies. absolutely amazing, very magical. The second graders uh read to our prek students. It is a moment of complete joy, uh smiles, happiness. And when I was in there, they were reading a book on snow day. I was wondering if they were predicting any snow to come last weekend, which obviously came to fruition. All right, here is some of our district here are some of our district highlights that again we are very proud of. Our ELA, our math, and our NGSS, which is our science. again in comparison to our uh the school of antelini

055to our district very similar and then in comparison to the state. So again just as a quick summary snapshot we continue to perform higher than the state average comparators around us are very difficult because again of suppressed data because of very small populations around us that fit within our durk. Again, more district highlights. These are moments of extreme pride for our administration. And I want to remind everyone again, this is not created overnight. School culture takes time to develop. Honesty, trust, transparency, support, and help. Um, being available. There is so much that goes into this. And a major kudos to the administrative team and to all of our teachers and our staff, our pareducators. I I'm just extremely extremely proud because everyone has a hand in this. Everyone has a heart in this because they're

056here for kids. So, take a look at some of our results which we shared earlier in the year. Again, they continue to be points of pride. 98% of parents feel comfortable talking about their child's needs with teachers. I open anybody to compare this to any district in comparison. 98% of our parents feel that school is a safe place for their child. 97% of parents feel schools are caring and supportive. Outstanding. absolutely outstanding survey results from our parents who are one of our direct um stakeholders, if you will. More highlights. Mental health supports has been continued in uh with collaboration from um can Connecticut Junior Republic and our uh Winchester Youth Service Bureau. They continue to work with our students in our schools. Um our mental health support in every building, every school day. We hope

057to have the grant funding that was removed by the federal government reinstated by our local state government. More to be told on that because we had mental health support in every building every school day, but we've lost an individual because of the grant funding that was awarded to ED advance, which I've discussed at length before. Professional development. All of our uh special education teachers are certified or or becoming certified in Orton Gillingham. Um we have professional development that continues to support the neediest of our students in terms of their literacy. And we have uh BCBA that comes in for our professional development constantly get positive feedback regarding that because they are very helpful. She one in particular individual is extremely helpful with us analyzing student behavior. So, our BCBA professional development series is amazing as

058well. As well as restorative practices and helping students take responsibility for actions and how to problem solve together and how to make things better in real life, not just ignore the problem. Let's work together to make something right. I did this. I'm taking ownership for it. Here's how I plan to fix it or I promise it's not going to happen again. So, just some examples of that. Um, some more district highlights. We are in year three of our new ELA program in grades K through six. Uh staff um feedback has been great. Um student feedback has been great and parent feedback again great because their students are so engaged in the learning that they're doing with the social studies and science-based uh ELA program in all of our grades. We're in year three of math

059grades uh one through six and reading screener in grades three through six. That also helps us to know have various checkpoints throughout the year to measure up how are our kids doing? What do we need to change our instructional practices? Do we need to have more small group? All of those things. And it's one data point. And obviously the daily performance of students in our classroom is a more viable data point, but these are some of the screeners that we use to help us make decisions on how to best help our kids. Um, we've had a reinstatement of the unified education consortium curriculum. Um, so goals around mathematics and curriculum instruction. Uh, major kudos to our curriculum coach, Heather Matthysse, and all the curriculum coaches from Bark Campstead, Colbrook, everybody. We're all working together to

060revisit all of our mathematical practices. So, we're having uh walkthroughs, but we're also discussing assessments, how we assess our students, is it the best practice? What are you doing next door in the town, you know, across the way? So, it's really good to have everyone collaborating together. So, we're very proud of that. And then of course our intentional use of technology to continue to enhance our kids' experiences being responsible citizens online but also being um thoughtful researchers and knowing when information is accurate or when it doesn't look right. Continued uh district highlights are invested security upgrades for our district. We continue to finalize those from our Department of Justice um grant that we were awarded and our student representatives on the board of education which you saw today live and in person uh they could

061not make us more proud. Uh they took the project and just absolutely ran with it. Um I think those are the words by Dr. Carol. Uh they're very impressive. The two of them will probably lead our nation one day. And then constant collaboration with parks and wreck to provide enrichment opportunities for students um especially during our summer camps. So, thank you so much for your kind attention. Leave you with some beautiful smiles from our wonderful kids. And just as a reminder of why we do the work we do, it's because of all of them. All right, questions. We went through a lot questions or comments. I don't want to just questions, right? Comments of whatever regard. I'm not going to go through all of my questions, but one thing I was thinking would be helpful

062as I'm looking at the grants, if you could clearly label on the grants thing, where the grant source is coming from so we have a better understanding of what's at the state level versus the federal level just to for clarity. I think that would be helpful. >> Sure. >> Can do. Thank you. >> You're welcome. So, federal versus state funding source. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Yes. Yeah. Every single year we contract with Hughes Mechanical, which comes in, they do the pressure testing. They look for um any of these sensors that are not working correctly, any water that's gotten into the tank via condensation or other things. Um and they make recommendations. Um one, for example, this year at Bakerville, the manhole cover um is falling in a little bit, so we need to build

063up the concrete to replace the manhole cover with a fiberglass one. Um so things of that nature, but they are on it all the time. We have an annual inspection. 31 or >> they're not permitted to under federal DEP. They're not allowed to. They must be removed and they are registered with DEP. Uh and the US website. So, they have to come out by 2031. No extension because they're made of steel. If they were dual wall fiberglass, you could ask for extensions. Some of them 5 10 years, but ours do not qualify because of the material that they were made of. I know once before we had asked you or we had talked about changing from oil to gas. >> Yes. >> Is that a dead subject or are we still exploring it in hopes

064of saving money down the line? I know it cost us money to convert everything and buy new furnaces, but >> yeah, those expenses over time would take a years to rec recoup the cost of converting our burners because they're not dual fuel or trifuel. They're oil based. So to convert them and to reprogram them, but also again these tanks still need to come out of the ground. We don't have to replace them with oil tanks, but if we're going to replace them with propane tanks, then there's also regulations regarding that. We need concrete pads um above ground, fence them in for safety purposes, things of that nature. So the cost still um it would take time to recoup all of those costs. We had worked with Hokan and at the time when they came to

065inspect our burners, they were not able to be converted. So we would have to buy new ones. So it'd be expensive, another capital expense for our town. Yeah. Yeah. I had explored that. But we never, unless I'm forgetting, you never did tell us how much it would cost. I realize it's it's a million dollars to replace all four tanks. But how about if we did convert? I mean, gas is supposed to be cleaner than oil. We wouldn't have this problem of the tanks in the ground and possibly leaking and water getting into them and all that other problems that we have with oil. Yeah, >> I could certainly bring that information to the board. Um, when I had worked with Hokan, the cost benefit was not there for us to drive that project forward. >>

066So, I had stopped, but I could certainly bring that information. I would have to bring updated information because it was about two years ago that I explored all of that. So, I'll make a note to make sure that I bring that. >> Yeah. >> I know you said there's going to be a new format if we wanted to ask questions regarding the budget. So then the questions that I sent to you today, should I resubmit in a new format along with a couple others that I had? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> I think I can ask this one now. Is the staffing the same >> from last year >> from this year to the next? >> It it is the same from this year to next year. Absolutely. Yeah.

067Any other questions for Jeff at this time? >> You mentioned there's 445 students. I think you said >> 446. Okay. Do you have a breakdown of what's because apparently it's not what's in this packet that you gave us because that's only shows 421. >> Do you have a list someplace in your office that shows in preK there's this many all the way through sixth grade? Yeah, absolutely. U those numbers fluctuate based on residency. So if someone comes in a district or out of district, um yeah, I could share I'll have Sarah just make a quick note for me. That will share the uh current enrollment summary by grade level to the board of education members and we could also post that on the website. >> Okay, thank you. >> Yeah, of course. >> So just

068on a follow on with that, Jeff. >> Yeah, please do. next year's or this particular proposed budget is based on you didn't have a slide for it is based on 441 students enrolled next year. >> Yes, that's correct. So on page seven for those of you that are following along at home on our budget workshop uh budget worksheets or budget booklet on page seven it shows that we're projecting 441 students total prek to sixth grade for next year. Again, that's um taking into consideration the bubble of 66 students coming to us um into kindergarten for next year based on birth rates again from the town hall. >> On that same page, most most of these when they transition or go up one or two, but you see kindergarten this year 45, but next year's first

069grade is down to 40. you're anticipating losing five kindergarten uh students over to summer before transitioning to first grade. Am I reading that wrong? I don't think I am. >> No, you're reading it correctly. And that is probably based on current enrollment and students that have either dropped um or left the district outside of it being a clerical. That's what I would think it would be from 40 to 45. >> I said >> 45 to 40 >> or 45 to 40. Sorry, I said it the wrong way. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> 25 and 26. What's on the sheet, Jeeoff, unless I'm mistaken. This was the projections from last year. >> That was correct. And what >> So our actual enrollment right now may not be the 45. >> Correct. Correct. I'd have to compare

070that against >> what I'm saying. These aren't the actual Tom. >> Yeah. This was projected what we thought would be the case. Yeah. They're not the October one official stamped. This is how many students we have in each grade level. >> Yeah. >> Again, projections. >> Yeah. >> You know, as well, just so everybody again looks at these sheets closely, again, the enrollment down the bottom, average class sizes is is here as well. um you know at 441 it brings us to one of the highest enrollment years in the last six >> right outside of 2324 we're at 455. Any additional questions at this point? have a comment, not a question. Yeah. Would it be possible to modify this historic budget data just to include the actual dollar increase between the two columns rather than

071just page? What page? >> Page three. >> We see a percentage, but it's a percentage of some number every year. Like, you know, this is a 3.96, which is relatively low over the last 10 years. But it's a it's a it's a three a low percentage of a higher number. So would it be possible just to show the actual dollar increase just for quick reference like a 3.96 represents X dollar right just for clarity >> dollar increase or just the budget amount? >> No, I was just like the that's the increase. >> I think that makes sense, right? I know what you're saying. >> Just the increase so we can see. Yeah, I we'll go back as far as we can with that >> just to fill in this. >> Yeah, I got you. I

072understand. So the 3.9% requested increase represents this year for example >> 400 and some >> exactly. So then the year before the 498 what did that represent in dollars? >> Yes. >> Got it. >> Thank you. >> Done. >> And one of the other things Jeff you and I spoke spoke about was for the board's benefit was to have a sheet that gave us contractual >> I got you. items we can't change because we're under contract versus items that are in here that can fluctuate based on discussion, comments, and thoughts from this board. >> So, I have that piece of information here to share with the board. Um because every year the questions are always, well, where can we what can we consider in terms of um cuts or not cuts? So, I have that

073information here. I'm going to hand this out to the board and then also make sure that this is available online. But you know contractual legal obligations they're all listed here on the lefth hand side. There are contingencies in the budget and they are very important contingencies but they are contingencies. One, two, three, four, Elizabeth five. Let me see if I have one for you. Everyone have one there. Yes. Oh yeah. So if you take a look at your lefthand side, those are contractual or legal obligations that we have. So for our employees or they're they're they're a contract that's in place already. So those are not areas that we could say, hey, have you considered reductions in that area. That's just not possible. On the right hand side, there are contingencies and I've list them

074in priority order and I want to explain that for the board and again explain that for the public. Within our 3.9% uh requested increase, there are the following contingencies which is where I want to guide the board for consideration of any potential adjustments to the 396. in our special education tuition line. That's for students that need out placement. And that means that they've um arrived here in public schools or we received them from another district and we've determined with a very long lengthy um procedure with our special education team that education here in New Hartford public schools is not the best suited area for them for whatever learning disability that they may have. And there is a contingency there because as students come to us over the summer, we can never predict who's coming. So

075there's $100,000 in this budget as a contingency in that line. Okay. The second is our special education transportation. So again, one of those unpredictable amounts, but a contingency of $45,000 is in our transportation line for special education. again because of students that would come to us over the summer that we cannot um predict. So currently as it stands that would be another area to consider as a contingency for this board. legal fees. Uh we don't have many or any thank goodness I'm looking at Penny negotiations and Frank and Eric, right? The many hours that we spend together with our attorney, we don't have um any negotiations, but there are always things that may come up in terms of uh litigation, liability claim, things of that nature. So, that's another area for the board to consider

076a $20,000 reduction. And lastly, emergency repairs to consider a $32,000 um reduction. Again, these are areas that I can't predict what's going to happen. Um rooftop units as I've described, dishwasher in the kitchen, new freezer, something blew, something stopped working, a a heat pump stopped, you know, in the and now there's no heat in that particular area of the school. um or we need new burners for example um or control boards or alarm system emergency repairs. That's what that line exists for for those things that cannot be foreseen. Um I would have the board to consider if they would like to $32,000 in emergency repairs and I feel comfortable with that because of the drip funding from the state of Connecticut that helped to make that decision. In years past, I couldn't recommend that because

077it's so tightly strapped. So, I would guide the board or recommend to the board if you're looking for areas that you want to consider um in our next budget workshop. These would be some of the areas that we could talk about um any other implications or thoughts outside of what I've already shared tonight to consider to adjust the budget as it goes on in the process um before it goes to referendum and all the steps that take place before that. Jeff, I have a question regarding that, which is that there seems to be a variance between the contingency amounts listed here and the line items for those numbers within the budget. For example, I'm looking at emergency repairs. The line item that we're asking for is 48,000 for the year. And then this says it's

07832,000. So, how am I to understand the difference in those numbers where they exist between the contingency sheet and the budget sheet? Like my assumption would be that 16ish thousand of the emergency repairs budget is like again not an emergency repair something we know we have to spend but correct to understand. Okay. >> Correct. Yeah. So the original request would have been 85,000 but I'm anticipating again using those drip funds of 37,000. Y >> so the total ask would be 48 but if not again I'm banking on that drip fund to help. Y >> so if that comes through it's a projected piece of um of support and help that's coming from the state. I would feel comfortable to say to the board, if you're thinking about a reduction, I want to guide you to

079this area. Okay? Because this is an area I feel like, you know what, we could probably get by on that based on what I know that's coming from the legislature. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Of course. >> But for special education, you >> I mean, if you could reduce it by a 100,000, I mean, what happens if there's a influx of special needs children? We are obligated by law to pay for their education. No matter who comes to us, if you live in New Hartford, >> we're paying for your education. >> How could you cut it by a hundred? >> Because this is a contingency that right now the amount that's requested has a $100,000 contingency in that line. So if a student comes to us from this day forward in next year's budget from

080July one on, >> that we can co cover the cost of that outplacement. But what if they come in at more than 100? >> This is a contingency because I don't know the exact amount, right? Everything in budget is forecasting, predicting with uh a mysteriously smoky crystal ball based on what we know today for the year ahead. >> Okay? >> But these are contingencies placed in there to say, you know, we would be prepared for such with these amounts in there. But if the board feels like there's adjustments that need to be made, this is where I would guide the board to make those decisions because these areas can be adjusted in my recommendation. The other column on the left hand side, summer school, annuities, social security payments, those can't be adjusted. Those are calculated

081like everything else is to the very fine point dollar. Um or their contractual obligations which we have to pay. Employee benefits for example. Um or heating oil or electricity. We're contracted to purchase that. We have to purchase it. >> Who is summer school for? >> Our special education students that qualify. >> Okay. >> Yep. Here in New Hartford, >> have you >> So, just if I could, Penny, before we get off again, like you asked about special education, >> right? >> We as a board have to be responsible as well, right? Looking at historical information, right? We know that, you know, this year we could ask Jeff and Jeff could provide the information. How many have come into the district that we didn't know, but we historically know that we get somebody. So we have

082to be responsible enough to have something available, right? >> Or we're irresponsibly saying here's the budget for the year and then we're going back to the board of finance and we need more and more money, >> right? >> But to be again transparent with what's in here is really what I had asked Jeff. We talked about transparently what's in here, right? So everybody's aware. >> But all right, so let me ask one other question. These special education children, how can I word this? They're not like It's not Are they just children that I can't think of a play way to say are they a child that we don't have a teacher to teach? Like if a child comes in, >> we have exceptional staff. So the child would have such um significant needs or specialized

083needs that a public school would not be able to provide a free and appropriate education for them specifically. >> More more not a special ed student but a specialized need. >> It could be >> for a child. >> It could be and again if the public school doesn't have I'll give a a brief example a hearing impaired teacher and the child is of hearing impairment we have to consider a different placement. >> Okay. Okay. Does that answer it? >> It does because Yeah. Okay. I'll tell you afterwards. >> Okay. >> It's It's not for public. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I believe you Sorry. >> Yes, sir. >> I believe you might have told us uh a couple meetings ago, but how much does it cost per student to be outplaced or is it not the

084same for each student? >> It's not the same. It's going to vary. So, average 150,000, 160,000, some 100,000, some 120. It depends. It's a wide range and the legislative body is, you know, put in some very specific orders for the state department of education to work to get all of the amounts from every outplacement facility and to look at capping that. I think more work needs to be done as well to support student need in the state. We are far behind even our neighbors in Massachusetts and how we support education in the state of Connecticut. It's abysmal. If you look at the gap of how they provide special ed services or per pupil expense in Massachusetts, right next door, you could tell I'm a little bit Yeah, a little irked by that. Um, here in

085Connecticut, where we t our educational system, we should be doing more from the state to each municipality. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, I want to turn everyone's attention as well. I didn't >> Oh, Mr. Puzz, sorry. >> Thank you. Uh so realizing the the notion that we may have relatively flat enrollment if we zoom out but there the enrollment numbers being flat may obscure the costs needed to support the educational needs of the rapidly increasing percentage of students that have statemandated special needs. Is there a way through the materials here that we could respecting student privacy show some of the increases in the special eds enrollment and special education student enrollments and then for example with the series budget it shows a 4.4% increase that's net of approximately $275,000 in grants that we able to

086obtain. So if that weren't there it'd be another >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. I mean dramatic >> dramatic increase. >> Yeah. So I think one of the the for us speaking of the budget but also for the broader community um you know there's not really a clear way to understand that increasing number of special education students the requirements are there and that being a significant percentage of the increase that we're seeing you're talking about dollar increase like precision increase there like it's heavily driven by our required state programming how can we show that to help >> so I think we've in the past have shown um year-to-year uh increases if I'm not mistaken, Mike. Right. So, we could present that at the next budget workshop. I'll just make a note real quick to make sure

087that we do that as part of our presentation. >> Yeah. >> But we could show that for again more clarity. Yeah. >> On the on the drivers of the cost. Yep. >> All right. I promised I'd come back to employee benefits. So, if you please turn your pages to 46 under employee benefits. So again, we belong to a consortium uh for insurance. Our broker is Brown and Brown for the town and the board of education and other towns such as region 7. Um we're all together. So again, for buying power and you heard me say that it went from 11% to 14.96 or 15% increase recently. And if you go to 46, you're going to say, "Jeff, that's not what you're presenting here. You only have a 6% increase." That is because of the uh

088negotiations that we've had with our staff in terms of increasing a percentage point or half percentage point over the uh the duration of their contracts. It's also from the pharmaceutical or essential formulary that were adopted by different bargaining units. So that helped us drive the cost down. This is a huge break for us to not be paying 15% here. Um it's also because some staff members have changed their insurance. So they've gone over to their spouse's insurance just happened to be the breaks that we attained this year. So when you hear other districts or you hear the town um state that they had a 15% increase and if they stayed status quo that would be reflective there. Those are the reasons why ours are not. And that's a significant change here for us because this

089is usually one of the major drivers of well over $150,000. Um, but because of all of those changes either through negotiations or people changing, we were able to realize a significant amount of savings and not have that great of an increase in this particular line. But I wanted to point that out to everybody um that it just happened to fall that way for us. So that's my budget presentation. Uh, any other questions? Jeff. >> Yes, sir. >> Do we provide any uh through the contracts any monetary kickback for not taking the uh >> We've thought about that and we've actually discussed that in our um office and uh if we ran the calculation of paying everybody for not taking the insurance and making sure everyone receives a voucher, we would not benefit from that because

090of the current number of folks that are currently on our insurance. Now, we've we visited that. Um I used to be part of a previous district that did that. If you don't take our insurance, we'll give you a $5,000 credit. You know, check. We'll um In larger districts, that seemed to work out, but in our district, it would not. >> Thank you. >> You got it. >> I just have one other question. Yes, P. >> Are you considered using any of that non-lapsing money that we have? And how much do we have left? >> I I can't consider any of that. That is a board vote. I have no authority to access. That's a That's a >> I mean, would it be something you would ask us to consider maybe to keep our budget down?

091>> I'm not asking that at a 3.96. I'm not asking that. I'm not saying, "Oh my goodness, the earth is falling apart. We need to access this money that we may need for oil tanks or something." I I'm not doing that. That's not my recommendation at this point in time. If we had an 8% like we did in the years past, I'd be saying, "Oh my goodness, we need to really consider doing something with that money." >> How much do we have left? about >> um if you go to your expenditure report as a point of note the $28,500 is encumbered or earmarked for silver Petraelli. So I believe we have a um total of $188,000. I'm doing that off of memory so hold on. Don't quote me yet. $18,9528,000 approximately will be left >>

092that is left after we've uh paid Silver Petraelling Associates. Yes. >> Thanks. >> You're welcome. >> I'm going to make a comment just to remind people we just negotiated every contract across the board, I believe. >> And I took a sigh of relief when I saw your budget because I I had no idea what the impact of that would be. So, going to make that comment and just remind people we just negotiated all of all the contracts >> painstakingly. >> Yes. >> Um with some not not our membership. Our membership is wonderful with the representatives on the other side of the table. That made life very challenging. As I've said publicly, not our teachers, not our paras, not our custodians, not of my wonderful admin. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking the representatives

093or attorneys for those groups were sometimes difficult to deal with. But in every negotiation, everyone wins, everyone right, it's a compromise. It shouldn't be one-sided. Everyone has to come away with wins for their team >> and we're not going down that road again. >> All right, if everybody's if everybody's good, we can move on to the next >> Sorry. I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry. Um I believe in the slideshow you showed that there was a $70,000 revenue amount across the preschool program. That's with the third section. >> Yes. >> And so there's an estimate of nine students per section. >> Uh that's not accurate. No. No. Oh, I don't know the number. I couldn't >> Yeah, total. >> Yeah, >> not per section. >> No, no, total. >> Oh, okay. All right. So, >> 15

094per section for folks at home. >> So, that 70,000 is across those three sections. Yes. Okay. So, the adding a fourth section wouldn't be an opportunity for >> um it could be for additional revenue, but comes with an additional cost of hiring staff for that section, too. >> Yeah. because I think you had mentioned or maybe in an email you had said that there were 25 students that just applied. >> Yeah. >> So, are you able to like splice out how many of those are three-year-olds versus >> Yeah, we we would have that. Um, currently it's 15 three-year-olds, 28 four year olds, right? Pretty close to that. Um, and now with those new enrollments, I don't have the breakdown of those 25 of the three or four year olds. We could certainly provide that. >>

095Okay. >> So, but we always find that there's a a weight list and it's an incredible program as people know um in our in our town. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, you're welcome. >> Good to uh wrap wrap up the budget presentation. All right. So, um, as I said when we started, we will follow the same process as we did this year with a little twist of doing it with a live document to be able to put our comments in there. Um, Sarah doesn't know it yet, but she's going to have to help me meet tomorrow because I don't know how to do it. Um, but, uh, we will get I'll get the spreadsheet over to her. So, I'd like to get that up tomorrow if possible, if not, you know, at least by the

096end of the week. And then I'm going to ask that the board members have their comments in there by end of day on February 17th. >> All right. That'll give uh our superintendent and the administrative team u just about a week, just short of a week to be able to give us uh work on responses and have them prepared for the next budget workshop which is the 24th. >> That work for everybody? >> All right. Very good. Thank you. Can I just close with some additional components that I think are really important for the public? Two um additional meetings have been added to the SPA Silver Petraelli timeline. So, please mark your calendars for April 22nd. That's an additional meeting and May 27th as an additional meeting. Um Michelle Miller, our principal and consultant for

097Silver Petra Selling Associates, had recommended that we add some additional days. So Sarah had worked with her to add those dates to our calendar. So 4:22 and 5:27 that will be posted social media and more so that folks know when the additional dates are for our silver petrai timeline up next. >> Will those be here at the school or someplace else? >> I believe they're at Antalini but every right I think. Yes. Right here. >> Seven o'clock. Yes. Yeah. And again they'll be posted for everybody. Okay. Um just some quick building updates again with Silver Petraelli. Um today we had visited all three schools to determine programmatic implications uh with our space utilization study. What's working and what's not is a quick summation of what we took took a look at the uh water uh

098project with the over at Bakerville for chlorination. Uh we finally received approval from the state. that anticipated work uh will begin with hopefully within the next 45 to 60 days. A little weather dependent obviously with a lot of snow on the ground. Um and then another really important thing in our last last month's board of education um letters and public comments. We had received a letter from the state department of education noting the extremely high levels of teaching and learning that are taking place right here in New Hartford public schools. Um again putting New Hartford on the map. The state department of education is even noticing our work which is impressive and we've even been asked to join their blog and podcast to share our work. So again we are extremely proud of the work

099that we are doing um here in New Hartford public schools most specifically in the areas of literacy. Some quick staff updates. Um we have a resignation to announce of Jen Sinovich. She is one of our beloved par educators. She was hired u in July of 21. So after 5 years of service here, she's moving on to another wonderful opportunity. We're very happy for her, but we will miss her dearly. Christine Kurt, our data system specialist, has just completed her degree uh associate of science, data, and analytics. Congratulations. Ariel Schroeder and Michael are have just welcome baby boy Oakley. Everyone is happy and very healthy. And um on our board of education right here to my right hand side to your left uh we are congratulating our Lieutenant Kirby Moranti. Congratulations. When I talk to people

100in the department, they say she is extremely sharp, organized, and always ready and able putting on the gear running into whatever danger. So very impressive. Um, and congrats again. You're welcome. Last but not least, happy Valentine's to everybody day in February. And also wish you all a wonderful President's Day holiday. The end. All right. Thank you, Jeff, for that. Uh, moving on to the next item on the agenda is, uh, routine business. Uh, can I get a motion to approve the minutes of our January 15, 2026 meeting? I'll make the motion. >> Motion by Tom, second by Penny. Any discussion on those minutes? >> Um, I wanted to adjust the minutes to reflect that I was there on the virtual option. I just didn't know that there, you know, being a new board member, I

101didn't know that there was a formal request required. Um, so I had just gotten off uh an airplane, so didn't work out, but I was there and I listened to, you know, 90% of it. I just didn't know the process. So, >> yeah. And you and I spoke right after that meeting. Paul did confirm she was on the meeting for the the duration. So, I'm fine if everybody else is fine with amending the meeting. >> Yes. >> To include that. >> Yep. >> Tom, you okay? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for being on after getting off a plane. >> That's fine. >> Yes. >> Yep. Any other comments? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. >> Unanimous. That is unanimous. Thank you. Uh, can I get a

102motion to approve the expenditure report that's in our packet? >> I'll make a motion to approve the expenditure report. >> A motion by Penny. Can I get a second, please? Second by John. Thank you, John. Any discussion on the expenditure report? The only thing that I would add to the expenditure report is as you're reviewing the budget over the next week or so, again, that expenditure report is provides some information to guide in and in informed decisions as well. So, they're all tied together by the codes. Um, it's pretty self-explanatory. Uh, but again, I'd say you can use that as well to help as you look through that. All right, seeing no additional comments or questions, uh, all those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. Okay, moving on to item

103F on our agenda, new business. We have uh the first item here is K board representatives. So on your desk in front of you, we have two ballots that were created for the next two items on our agenda. First one is K board representative in a liaison. Um so I have received um two individuals have voiced their interest in participating for the board of education of New Harford. The first is Kirby Moranti and the second is Kristen Young. Um we have a write in if anyone else has not voiced their interest in participating who might want to put their name in. >> And how long is this for? >> Two years. Um, it's for their duration unless they resign and change their mind and then we'd have to find someone else to be the delegate.

104>> All right. >> Would anybody else like to throw the name in the hat? >> Would either of you like to pull your name from the hat? >> Uh, I'm actually happy to pull my name from the hat tonight if we are feeling good that we've got good representation. I believe Kirby is ready to jump in on something and I would love to give her the opportunity to do so. >> That's up to you. >> I do. So, >> would you like would you like to appoint Kirby Moranti as our >> I would love to motion to appoint Kirby Moranti to our CPA board representative representative >> and I'll second that motion. >> All right. And so we have a motion by Kristen and a second by Penny to appoint Kirby Moranti as our board

105representative and in liaison uh for Cab. >> Congratulations. >> Well, she hasn't we haven't voted yet. Uh is there any questions, comments, or discussion required? Right. All those in favor, please signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. Thank you, Kirby. >> Now, congratulations. >> All right. All right. The second ballot that's in front of you is the next item on our agenda, which is the school facility utilization task force chair and BOE liaison member um who will be the intermediary between us, the task force as well as between the task force and um our hired professional SPNA. Um so with that, I have a ballot in front of you. We have not requested um from anybody uh their interest in being a board member. I'm sorry, being the chair of the task force. Um

106we've just listed all three. So we have John Puzz who is on the task force, Kristen Young who's on the task force, and Penny Miller who's on the task force. So would anybody like to throw their name in the hat to be our chair out of the three of you? >> I'm pulling my name. >> So Penny is pulling her name. So, between the two of you >> and I'm nominating Kristen. So, >> okay. So, this is easy. So, >> and I'm seconding Kristen. >> There we go. >> All right. We have a motion by John, a second by Penny. >> There we go. >> Use them for scraps. >> Um, is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor of appointing Kristen to be our chair of the school facility utilization task force

107and BA BOE liaison, signify by raising your hand. That is unanimous. Thank you, Kristen. >> Got it. >> Good luck. >> Thank my husband if you see him. >> Okay, that brings us to the next one, two, three, four, five items on the agenda and these are first reads of new policies and I will turn it over to you, Penny. >> Sarah, thank you very much for the notes. I really appreciate it. I hope you all read them. They're in your packet. The first one is a revision to policy 3320, business/nonstructional operations purchasing procedures. This policy is linked to policy 3323. Our current policy is outdated. The re this revision establishes uniform procedures for the new Hartford Board of Education's procurement of goods, general services, and special or professional services to ensure transparency, fiscal responsibility,

108legal compliance, and best value. >> And this comes from our attorneys. >> Yes, this came from our attorneys. We got definitions from our attorneys on purchasing. It's several pages long. 20 something pages. >> I've read through it and have no comments. Does anybody have any comments or any questions on the policy? >> Okay, that's our first read. We take no action on this. We'll come bring that back for a second read next meeting. >> Thank you. >> Okay, the next one is policy 4152.6 and 4252.6 Personnel Family and Medical Leave Act. Among other changes effective October 1st, 2025, employees working for boards of education in positions that do not require professional certification under chapter 166 of the Connecticut General Statutes will be eligible for leave in accordance with the Connecticut Family and Medical Leave Act.

109I lost my place. Significant updates to both the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act Act, FMLA, and the Connecticut Family and Medical Leave Act, CTF FMLA, require boards of education to update their policies and administrative regulations, particularly as they relate to non-certified school employees. Under the new Connecticut law, non-certified public school sta staff such as pariff professionals, custodians, and administrative support personnel become eligible for job protected leave after just three months of employment. Districts must also begin withholding the state mandated 5% payroll contribution to refund paid leave benefits through the Connecticut paid leave authority. Any questions? >> Also, a uh a policy that came through shipment, our attorneys, right? >> Yes. >> Any questions? A lot of legal stuff in there. >> Yeah. And too many words to say >> or similar. Okay. Policy 6171

110instruction special education. The current policy is outdated. This revision brings policy to match what is done in practice. The New Hartford Board of Education is committed to providing a free appropriate public education FAP to all eligible students with disabilities in accordance with IDA section 504, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Connecticut Law. The district ensures timely identification, evaluation, and delivery of appropriate services beginning at age three, including procedural safeguards for students eligible under section 504. And I have asked Mr. >> Lynch, thank you, if he had any information for this or further information. previous policy references out of >> Okay. Does anybody have any questions? >> I'm assuming all this is this is all tied to grant reimbursement, too. >> Oh, absolutely. So, just for the viewing public that couldn't hear Mike, he's um in

111the audience. Just uh regarding outdated legislative changes that are now reflective in our current practice. Moving right along. The next one is policy 9132 bylaws of the board standing committees. Standing committees. So there's a list of all our committees here. Where did I lose list? I did have it. Oh, thank you. There is a list of all the standing committees. Um, and the ones in red are the ones they're not >> they weren't listed. >> They weren't they weren't listed? >> Okay. >> Y >> does anybody have any questions about them or the membership standing committee membership? >> No. Okay. We when we review this we make motions to when we review we make motions to remove the committee since we made motions to add a committee. >> It's up to the board to decide

112that. Yes. And second read. Yeah. Or now for discussion purposes. So >> could you do it now? That would help. >> I would make a motion that we remove community outreach >> committee subcommittee. >> I'll second it for discussion. Why? Well, I'll get into why. Thank you. The last time we met, which I'll go over on this next agenda meeting. We we basically do the most we can do with what we have available to us with our social media, our ability to post on the uh downtown uh the the emails that you get for the from the town when it notifies you of the meetings. Um, I'm not sure that the the last meeting we had was productive in moving the needle on filling the room with people, which is what the when I first

113proposed this subcommittee meeting two or three years ago, it was during one of our uh self-evaluations and we did it in front of an empty audience. I was like, well, this is kind of odd to pat ourselves in the back or not with no one in the room. That hasn't changed. I don't feel that the committee is uh useful you use useful to the um first thought of forming it in the first place. That's my opinion as the chair. I've been the chair since it started and I don't think it's an effective meeting. Whether that's whether it reflects on me, I don't I don't know. But it's just community engagement does not seem to be unless I think we're going to see more community engagement coming up given the task force. But that doesn't change

114the fact that people don't come to our meetings. That's my opinion. So that's there's my position. >> All right. So, at the last or at the first task force meeting when we were talking about letting the public know what we were going to be doing or what was going to be happening, that's why I said something about that we have an existing committee and I was thinking of your committee of spreading the word of meetings are being held. This is where they're being held. this is the time so that you as a group, you and your group could get more out there in the public because as a board member, we're sort of restricted as to what we can say. But you could maybe, I don't know, expand on it a little bit more through

115social media somehow so we get more people engaged to come to our meetings, whether they be just the task force or our regular board of ed meetings. Well, I hear what you're saying and that's why we put some new members on the board on that subcommittee board recently, >> right? >> But there's only so many access points available to anyone, right? There's the board, there's our web, there's our um page that comes through the town hall which is run by central office. Well, the whoever the whoever runs well was not if it's not central office who posts the meetings who posts the agendas on that on that web page on you click under government New Harford government >> town town clerk. So we submit our agenda to the town clerk and the same with the

116minutes. >> What about the actual board of educ? What about the actual New Harper public schools? >> That we have our own website. >> Yes. >> That is our team that does that. >> That's your team. But that's not my subcommittee at all. We have no access to that. We have no input to that. It's not our perview to do anything with that. >> And whether the other new members want to start pushing a new Facebook page, I don't I'm not a Facebook. I have no desire to be on Facebook. So, I'm not that's why I say I don't believe the committee is as is effective and and we already utilize pretty much all the outlets that we have which I'll go over in our next meeting in our next uh agenda item. But I

117that's why I bring up disbanding that. If it doesn't happen, it's fine. I'm just my I just put it forward. >> Is somebody that doesn't have social media who's who are the new people on it? >> John I I suspect as someone that really knows nothing about that the new members might bring some new energy and vitality to it and because they're young younger be able be a little more plugged in uh than I am be you know to the how to reach out to the community although I will I think it be would be important to review some of the laws because there was a Supreme Court decision about when you're on a board and you communicate using something like Facebook that that I'll talk about that more later, you know, with them, but

118I think they may bring some vitality to it. I would give them a chance to see where it goes. >> I think we should probably talk to Jeff. I mean, perhaps it's not needed. he's done a great job uh communicating to the community um with his with what he does and what his office does. So maybe maybe it isn't quite needed. Something we could ask Jeff about. >> I was going to Oh, sorry. >> I was going to say that when we had met, I did find that from that day forward, there were a lot more text messages, emails, communication about the task force. And I just from my conversations in the public, I feel like it was very well communicated. I do feel like some of that did stem from that meeting, but I

119do agree. I don't know how much more could come out of that. I think that, you know, maybe it be just a less frequent conversation. >> The only thing I was thinking is that I mean I have my group of friends that's on Facebook, you have your group, John does, and all the rest of us except for Tom that's on Facebook. We all have different groups and and yes, some of them we might have the same people that we're friends with, but we have other people that you're not friends with all of my friends. So, I mean, if I put out on Facebook that the task force is having a meeting whenever the next meeting is at 7 p.m. It's going to be at New Hartford Elementary School. Please come and attend and listen to

120what's happening and turn off the comments. Then it's getting out to my group of friends is just trying to spread the word more. That's why I think the committee is good. If you want to disband it after this task force is over, which is should be over closer toward the end of this year, then fine, you know, dispand. I just think I think we need to have it now and get more interest going because when we had this whole Bakerville thing, there was a lot more people in our audience and we used to meet in the multi-purpose room. >> Yeah. My feeling is that the the I don't re I'm concerned about setting a precedent where individual board members are put on task for going out and pushing information to the public on their own.

121Um and like holding people accountable to that particularly as part of the committee. Um I think that we do a real one of the things that I really enjoy about being on this board is like everybody is really good about trying to like speak with one voice and like operate as a unit there. And so my expectation was that the outreach committee to the point of what on the most recent meeting is sort of making sure that we're holding ourselves accountable. We're holding we're holding the district accountable to exploring all avenues of communication cons consistently doing that. What part of what the work we did at the last meeting was sort of setting up more structure around here are different levels of communication that we could or should be utilizing which again I agree I

122thought you've been doing a great job of that. So I I agree that we don't it doesn't need to be a frequent committee, but I would hate to have it go away alto together and not continually hold ourselves accountable to like are we doing the right thing? Is this working? Is this not working? Um because I think we all have a vested interest in making sure that we are doing the work we can to get the community involved. Um so that's kind of where I would split the line there. Um, like we met once I think we've I've been on this committee now for two or three years. Like we met roughly once a year. That seems about reasonable what we need to for what we need to do. The first meeting we had, we

123talked about the communication. We asked for some statistics regarding like the YouTube videos and sort of what was going on there. So, um, I don't think it needs to be a negotiations level committee, thank goodness, because no one needs that amount of time. But, um, I I do like the accountability there. um from a board perspective because there's so little opportunity for tapping into mass media to help get us out. There's no news here. Um so if we're not staying on top of what needs to be done, then um we could lose the signal really quickly. >> So let me let me just add a little bit to that. Just I understand exactly what you're saying, but I think what I just heard you say would be something that would have to happen at a

124board level anyhow. Um right, as a committee, the committee is a working group, right, to bring something back to the board. So, I think what I don't want to put words in your mouth either. What I'm hearing from Tom, which I I'm agreeing with is I don't recall the last time we had a recommendation from this committee, right? Because they're discussed here at a board level. So if we're not if if we're at a committee level just having a conversation amongst four people and that isn't producing any new novel ideas, new other avenues or or vehicles to share information that we're coming back to the full committee to make that decision. Do we really need to do that? We could always put an agenda item on by by request once a once a year, twice

125a year or more where we discuss as a nine person board >> how Jeff the administrative team and the board of vet are doing communicating. >> That makes sense, >> right? >> Yeah. What I think I'm hearing last hour decision down there at that level more people more ideas once a year agenda it >> yeah the committee should be a working right that's a working group of people right those are the committees and those committees are a working group of people similar to the task force is a working group of individuals who bring things to the full Right. So to me, I think having an agenda item makes makes sense unless things are going a different way or there's new vehicles or avenues that that come up that we need to explore. >> I think

126as the utilization conversation keeps going as well, I think that there might be some feedback from the public that might make us want to reopen that conversation too. So, I think keeping it as an agenda item is a good idea. >> Sorry, I said that I think that as the utilization conversation continues to come up, I think that the public might give us feedback, you know, for different avenues of communication or different ways to share information. So, I think that having it as an agenda item, I think, would be important. And I just wouldn't want to if we don't have the committee, I still think that we might get some feedback of we don't want less communication, you know, >> and again, I mean, when there's there's when we set the the agenda, Jeff and

127I set the agenda at any time before the agenda gets set, if somebody wants to add that as an agenda item, we certainly will put it on here. I also open it up at the beginning of each meeting during the order of of of business. If there's a reason we need to add it to the agenda for that particular meeting, we can do so with two-thirds vote as long as it's not a special meeting. >> Everybody good with that topic? >> So, thank you. Um, new I'm not going to say no to the committee. Just um the topics that first for last year, two points or three points. One um according to our website, the last meeting was in 2019. So maybe there were previous meetings once a year that happened and there's no minutes

128from but I don't think the committee has has done much and so not not having done much leads to frankly no results which is what we have seen although um there was a task force which is you know the broad communications uh Jeff and I had spoken about the grant finance or kind of the the kind of grants drip you know kind of advocacy around getting state funds here as a topic for the uh outreach committee and then also um as as Sam and I know a big part of what we did last year as community members was filling the void and the communication that was not coming from the board of ed to help the community understand the budget and share unbiased just subjective information and so it's fine to have this committee but

129it can't be on me here nor Sam there to do this so I think it's a ask to the board for our next meeting of how can we make sure that we are providing information to the community in an effective way and if it's board time great I mean I would be happy I want to be on this committee to help you know find ways to better uh educate the community, reach out to the community, engage the community, and so if it's not through this committee, then hopefully we can spend the time on doing that here at the board level. >> I think it makes sense to do it at the board level so we speak with one voice. >> That's great. Just make sure it happens one way or another. Just not we don't

130miss >> I don't I mean again, Jeeoff, I don't know if you have anything that is >> one less meeting for me. God bless America. >> Great. Um, >> but I mean to me what I was going to say is I mean I'll we could put a standing agenda item on here and if we don't need to talk about something we just move past it. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> I'm okay with that. >> That way again if something comes up if you're hearing something we need to put out a a mailer or something through social media through our our our avenues then we can talk about doing that and how we're going to do it at a board level. >> Fantastic. I mean, I'm fine with if you want to take it off this

131list. It's I'm fine with it. >> I again am not married to either leaving it or not. I'll leave it as a standing comm. >> I think like Tim said, I mean, >> if there's something you want to discuss and we can add it to the agenda, then let's do that. One last motion by Tom, second by Penny to remove this as a as a standing committee of the board of Ed. Any additional discussion and all those in favor be signified by raising your hand. Thank you. So we'll make that amendment for the second read, please. >> One last meeting for Jeff to go to. I think we should acknowledge the fact that the the communication has improved greatly since the last budget season. So, and that's a testament to Jeff and his central office.

132>> Yeah, huge credit to the team um Christine Kurt and Sarah Vogle for organizing. We meet, we talk about our campaign, social media, how we're going to uh share information. We're always thinking of new ways. We're thinking of again after tonight's presentation, an executive summary that's going to again be pumped out and also in our Bright Futures quarterly newsletter. Boom. pump that out as well to our parents. The difficulty is I don't have the broad reach of the entire community um because of distribution lists, you know, um from the town, but we control what we can from our parent community and our school community perspective. >> But when you send out something from the New Hartford public schools, I mean, if you want us to share it with other people that we're friends with, could

133you just make it sharable? >> It's always >> okay. >> Always sharable. Always public information. We don't do anything in secrecy. Not allowed. >> Okay. I just I've never really looked. So, >> yeah, you could always grab it and share. >> No problem. >> All right. >> Can I ask one question about that? >> So, like when there's a school closure, I know you there's the phone rings, but there's also a text that comes across. Correct. Now, is that text available to alert the town about a meeting or is that going to be >> Nope. I can't call residents that don't have children in the schools. If you're registered, then I have your contact information. If you don't, I can't contact you. But >> you get it as a board member, >> right? >> But

134anybody else, you know, children in town, I can't communicate with you. >> No, but but then everyone with a school child will get to know that there's >> they do. Oh, yeah. Every child, every school child knows and their family >> they listen, I've got to tell them no school, you know, it's not safe to drive, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. The last one for the final read is policy 9230, bylaws of the board, orientation of board members. In response to public act 23-167 sections 2 and three, this bylaw has been updated to require firsttime board members to complete a prescribed training program at a time determined by the Connecticut State Department of Education, but no later than one year after assuming office. The training period minimally includes learning about the

135role and responsibilities of a board member, the duties and obligations of a board of education and school district budgeting and educational education finance. >> I'm just laughing, Penny. I like number six where I can request a veteran board member to mentor new board members. You're going to have a lot of work to do. >> I don't think so. I can pretend I haven't been here for 12 years. >> Is there any uh questions on this first read this policy? >> One quick addition. The state of Connecticut has contracted with CABE to provide this training. >> Question on that training. Is that is that a bianual training? >> They have it quite often. Yeah. Um you could communicate or have the request go to Sarah and then she'll connect you with those trainings. Sometimes they offer

136virtual sessions, sometimes they're online recordings, uh sometimes they're in person as well. Yeah, you have some leniency joining obviously at this point in in the school year. So, >> yes. Yeah, of course. Of course. >> All right. Very good. We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda, which is G. Public comment for agenda items only. Would anybody like to address the board? name and address. >> Good evening. Um Jay Bailey from 575 Main Street. Um, on one particular item I'd like to focus on that's not been mentioned much about what you're spending money on is um, for people at home that may not know, um, Oak Hill left uh, three classrooms here at Antalini empty and you're not using them for classes. I don't know, you might be using them for

137some obscure purposes, but last I knew you weren't using them for classes. And I also am aware that they may need some maintenance, flooring, little sprucing up, some paint. So my question is, is the board moving forward to at least cleaning classrooms up so that they're ready for next year? Um, I think if I'm not mistaken, they could accommodate the second grade. So, you know, taking the opportunity to maybe use the funds that you have available in the in your um the extra money that may be sitting around. I don't think it's a big expense to take care of it. I don't know if it's a good idea just to let them sit there in disrepair. I think it be should be ready to take on kids or and then if another classroom even needs

138work, you'd have classrooms available. I mean, there's a number of reasons I think they should be worked on. There seems to be no conversation about those three vacant classrooms. So, is there going to be or Uh what we could do, Mr. Bailey, is we can add it to the to the list of questions and I'll take that lead to add it to the question list of questions for Mr. Sus. >> Yeah, that would be great. And if you want on social media, if you want a little help if you post on New Hartford, Connecticut um and you know, leave less speculation for people, the better. the more we hear from you and you tell us what you're doing, then the less people can speculate and say things that maybe are, you know, incorrect, which is

139which which we don't want is incorrect information floating around, right? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Sam Wald, 45 Robbins Road. Um, I just want to to your question, Penny, about being able to share posts from the New Hartford Public Schools one. Um, I just want to make it clear that if you see the post that the school has shared to like the New Hartford chatter page or I'm not sure of the settings entirely for the New Hartford one. Um, but sometimes there are group settings where you can't share from the group. So, you would have to share from the school. Um, I do want to just touch on that if you don't have the standing subcommittee for communication. I think that's valid to have at the board level because I do agree that

140obviously you can't make any decisions on a subcommittee level. You have to do it here. Um I think that standing agenda item would be beneficial and if you don't have anything to say then obviously you can just skip right over it. I think with the task force currently there's obviously going to be a lot of conversation throughout the town is there already is um I would love to see more people coming to not just task force meetings but obviously the board of ed meetings too. So I think you guys have been doing a fantastic job and central office team and social getting that word out. So, I just want to say thank you for that increase. That's all. >> Thank you. >> Any additional public comment for agenda items tonight? Okay, seeing none, we will

141close public comment and move on to the next item on our agenda, which is H reports. Um, do we have an advanced report tonight? >> Anything to report? >> They were going to They had cancelled Oh, sorry. They had cancelled the February meeting. Now they're having one this week. There is property I think I gave you the piece of paper that has the listing. There is a piece of property that Ed Advance owns with CES and they want to sell it. Now there's some man that would they had a deal going and the deal fell through. Now they have another deal going but the man wants to make a contribution to both Ed Advance and CES. The brief note that I got was that CES did not want to accept the their half of this

142donation that this man is making directly from this man. They wanted to come through at advance. That's basically all I know at this point. And we're having a meeting in a couple of days, a Zoom meeting to discuss it. >> Okay. >> Other than that, nothing else. They only meet once a month if they have something to talk about and it's all virtual. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any questions for Penny on the Ed Advance report. >> All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to the uh great topic outreach outreach subcommittee. >> Subcommittee of outreach. Uh we met on January 7th. Uh the committee the subcommittee members along with first lect Jerham and uh what did we discussed what the uh priorities of the committee were at the time and what some of the

143modes of communication that we currently use Facebook, Instagram, Friday folder, the website, the power school messenger. Um and then one of the good things that did come out of the meeting that day actually was um we discussed the setup of the board of ed agendas to try to make a little get a little more clarity about rather than saying uh discussion and possible action on X right we're going to say we are going to discuss X and with these you know objectives A and B >> A and B. Uh >> business >> I'm sorry I don't see A. I'm sorry. So new businesses. So this this tonight's agenda for instance K board representative new Harper board of education member nomination and appointment. Normally it would just say K board representation representative, right? And no one

144would know what's going on. So, you know, Jeff and the chair are going to work on making the agendas a little more explicit to the general public uh about what we're actually going to talk about so that, you know, there's no, you know, misinterpretations. I remember way back when before I was a a board member and there was a lot of uh Robert Rules uh agenda items that you kind of had to if you didn't know what you were talking about, they were like, I don't know what they're gonna do tonight. Now, you know, we're going to try to make this a little more clear for everyone when they uh when the public gets the agenda, they'll be able to, you know, know what they're if they want to come or not come. So, that

145came out of that meeting, which was a which was a good thing. Um, also, uh, since, uh, first selecting Jer was there, we talked about the board that's down down downtown, the, uh, sandwich board that's in the front of the building, uh, posting our meetings there, specifically the task force meetings that are coming up to make sure we get as much public engagement as possible along with also this Antilini board here at on the corner of um, uh, at the bottom of this hill here. Um, and then Jeffy's going to Jeff's going to continue with uh, you know, keeping what he can has available to him on the pages uh, about the agendas being posted and the, you know, the meetings get posted, the agendas, the uh, and the minutes. And to your point, you

146know, it seems like the information is out there. Our calendar's been updated more now with include the meetings, more clarity. Uh, and so those are all positive things as far as keeping the general public uh, aware of what we're trying to do and when it's trying to get done. That was basically the gist of the meeting and that's it. Okay. Any questions for Tom or anybody else that's on that committee? >> All right. Uh seeing none, the next item on our agenda under reports is school facility utilization task force update. So um Kristen will be the lead and report out for our meetings to come as the new chair, but for today it's open to Kristen, John, and Penny to uh provide anything. So I don't know who would like to start. >> Happy to

147um start for those of you. Thank you. I know many of you who are here were also at that meeting. So, I'm not going to go into great detail about it, but we had the first meeting on January 22nd. There were the full task force was there as well as some members of the community. Um, I think we were all expecting a few more members of the community, but I also from my personal opinion think it was probably good because as the first meeting of the task force, we really needed to work through some work through some things to figure out how to like formalize and figure out the process that we were going to use um to move forward with the meeting. So I would say there were a couple of outcomes from the

148meeting which one we really talked with um Michelle is that's her name right Michelle from silver silverware purchelli she walked through the timeline for everybody so that there's visibility on that as well as the meeting schedule um and then we talked internally about how to better communicate the meetings how to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for success by uh making the meeting available um online live or recordings afterwards um as well as you know we realized that there was no formal organization So, we decided to that we should nominate a chair and Michelle from Silver Precious LA recommended that someone from the board of ed do it. So, that's how we wound up where we are today. Um I I think that there's a little bit more formalization work to do um

149regarding the way that we're going to run the process. Um one major change I think that we should make is that we remove Jeff from like even the visibility of being on the task force. the task force should really be just the nine members of the task force um and that were elected and then Michelle from civil princ will be presenting most recommended but Jeff will be moved to the audience um it's not really your decision um we can be there as a resource for us to kind of tap into as we move forward um from there I'm trying to think what else I need to talk about >> uh working on the documents and the timeline >> yeah so I have right now I've kind of been um working through some just documentation regarding

150what we what the purpose of the task force is, what the process should be, how we're going to operate um you know, adopting Robert's rules for the agendas, publicizing the agendas in advance, pushing them out the same way we're going to leverage the board of ed um the board of ed team to kind of help us get the communication out the same way we are doing through everything else. So again, I would encourage anybody here or anybody who's listening online, there is an email address for you to sign up for alerts if you care about the task force. There is a website on there is a web page on the new Harper public schools website that has all of this organizing information. Um I really encourage I appreciate the work everybody here is doing to

151get the message out but I would really encourage you to tell people that if they have questions to come to the task force directly instead of asking people who are not officially involved. Um it will help us streamline the communication. it will help us understand what questions people are asking and the information that they want to get from the task force so that we can address that um and make sure that whatever those questions are are being answered consistently for everybody else. And as much as we can update the website with additional information or sort of like resolutions to those questions, I think that we should be doing that as we go through. I expect this to be a long process. Um, but I think that we all kind of share the goal of running

152a clean and transparent process. And so I want to be very my we're not going to come to a resolution that is going to make 100% of people in the town happy. That is impossible in any circumstance. But what I do care about is that since I've been sitting on this board and whenever this the previous issue has come up, there seems to be so much distrust over what happened 10 years ago that it's really hard to say what the right decision should have been at that point in time because of the issues with the process and the way that it was ran and the way the decisions were being made. So my main goal in doing this right now is to make sure that we are getting the community input. We are taking the

153stakeholders. We are at least trying to address everyone's questions. Again, maybe not to everybody's satisfaction, but people have a way to get involved if they want to get involved. We cannot force people to get involved, but these are the avenues for us to be doing that. Um, I'd really like to get to a good place where everybody feels comfortable so that we do not have these conversations over and over and over and over and over and over again. Um, so that's kind of my goal. Um, thanks. Um, for the board of ed members here, I do have some documents that I would love your eyes and input on. Um, just for the organizing purposes because what I want to make sure that this is reflective of the goals of the board of education um, and

154then my purpose for that is to kind of get this here, bring it to the task force members so that they have some input regarding the way that we're organized and then we'll publicize that and move from there. So, we'll pass out some dittos and some homework for you guys. >> That was good. John? >> Yeah. Do you have anything else to do? >> Just to to I mean some people might think oh it feels a lot of administration and burden trying to set up a lot of administration and burden trying to set up a a strong process going forward so that we can run this efficiently and effectively. Um obviously there's desire for everything to be done transparently and in public. So there weren't any organizing meetings or processes before the first meeting. And

155so this is where with that first meeting trying to really jump start this process and make sure we run efficiently. And also with the the documents that are being drafted here, as Kristen said, be shared here. They aren't to cater to the board of ed. Really thinking about this as being neutral and trying to help the members of the task force run a clean and transparent process and and you know there's a bias toward action of course in terms of moving along um but also trying to be thorough about the process that we're run and getting that transparency and and engagement. So, um, yeah, looking forward to the the first meeting and as as was shown in the process document, a lot more details there. A lot of action coming up here ahead and so

156I think we'll start getting into some real data and and be able to have some discussions. >> Anything, Penny? >> No. >> So, you know, just if I could ask a couple questions that the process document you have. >> Yes, sir. >> We hired a paid professional, right? We're going to send that through to pay professional to make sure this is something that aligns with what they've done in other districts. >> Uh I would love to um pass this through Michelle at I'm never going to say that. Right. >> Silver Peterson Associates SPNA. >> It sounds great. Um I'm going to ask her to take a look at this if we if we do feel that we need to like run this by another resource. I'm happy to take recommendation on that. Um >> SPNA

157again we we we interviewed them. The three board chairs had interviewed them. they're more than capable and experienced in this process. >> And then if she has any uh meaningful feedback that I feel like is important for everybody to share that would substantially change this um I'll let everybody know and we'll kind of go from there. Um I do want to call out I think publicly that one of the things that when I was listening at the meeting last week, no it wasn't even last week. Um, when I was listening at the meeting, you know, there were a lot of questions over like if if we did wind up closing a facility, like what would happen to the building? I think there's been a lot of speculation about that entitlement. And I want to be

158very clear that from the purpose of the task force and what the board of IP recommends, like we cannot make that recommendation. I do think that those questions are going to come up. Um, I think that people will want to understand the tradeoffs. um they expect that there would be some kind of trade-off. And so it is my intention to kind of talk to other boards, the board of um selectment and the board of finance and say I'm anticipating this and just letting you know that like that's not what this process is for. I'm going to say here's the best use of the educational resources from the town. Here's what we think we should do. Here's what we should do moving forward. But in terms of the trade-offs amongst the town, that has to come

159from the other boards. Um and so we'll not engage in a ton of speculation on that. Not my intention to engage on a ton of speculation on that. So just wanted to get that out there. >> It's information needed to inform the appropriate decision >> by all stakeholders in the committ. up and down again. We can find a way to fast track at least some of that. Okay. And um you know at that meeting we did talk about you know Michelle had said you know there's typically a board of ed chair right which is why we appointed a chair today. Um in addition she was saying that our superintendent typically is not on that committee. He's there as a resource. You brought that up. Um so that's something we need to make sure we change.

160you know, Jeff will be at all the meetings, will be there for a resource to answer questions, but he doesn't have any voting rights or is not the chair of that committee. Um, one important thing that you said because I've heard a lot of concerns about um the accuracy of information that's out there is that we do need the community to go to our website and go if you have questions, if there's information out there that they want clarity on to send an email to the to the task force, >> right? My contact information is publicly available. >> I'm sorry that wasn't loud enough. My contact information is publicly available. I think you should email the entire task force, but anybody who wants to have a discussion, I'm happy to do it and make sure

161that um we're taking into account what your concerns are. This is really important to me that we give people who care enough to voice their opinion, a venue to hear it um and get a leg as good an answer as we can back to them about their concerns. >> And then just the other thing that I had written down just to be clear, right, there's a nine-person task force. That nineperson task force also can be supplemented by um first like Jarm or myself as exacio members of that task force. Right. So again, I don't want people to be surprised if Dan is there upfront >> collaborating on >> Are you asking Dan? Are you asking Tim? >> No. >> All right. So I have a question. Are we making provisions for whether the cost be

162shared across the three boards who are involved to have these televised onto the same system we use now? >> Is that something we're doing? Our friend John has an owl broadcasting system that he has volunteered to donate for the meetings that we will bring and set up so that we do not have to use Paul's services. We want to try to get that out the door. And if we hear complaints rolling in from people who are trying to watch virtually that they cannot understand what's going on with that, then we will reevaluate. But right now, that's the that is the free option for moving forward. They also said at the meeting, first selectman Jarm said at the meeting, he also he uses an owl when they do the board of finance meetings and I believe

163the board of selectman meetings so that you can tune in from your home to watch those meetings. If when there is public comment, he also invites the public to speak. So you can speak if at these meetings they have public comment and you're at home and you have a question. So, I mean, at at the last meeting, both he said and John said that they would bring their owls. One of them will bring it one of their owls and set it up so we can do it. There was also a young lady in the audience. She didn't give her name or address that says the said the PTO uses something on face. They use Facebook Live. That's I I would recommend against you, okay? Because it's just legit >> complicated. you like literally someone sitting

164here with a phone doing this. Um >> I do but I do want to uh comment on something that you just said regarding >> um I am going to ask that people who want to talk at the meeting try to come to the meeting or send a communication to um the email the task force with like their comment. Again, everything will be read into the public record. My goal is to kind of follow the board of ed policies to make sure that any information that we share gets communicated out. just again to simplify the logistics um trying to field commentary from a virtual meeting um could get really unwieldy. So I do want to kind of set that standard that again we're going to try to start there and if we need to figure out

165again if that becomes problematic then we'll take that into consideration as we go. So I had I was at the meeting and having sat through very very contentious meetings 10 years ago. Last week's meeting was people shouting, not shouting, people were speaking from the audience just at random. >> So I I'm asking or suggesting that we have if you're going to have public comment, it's going to have to be through a standup mic. you state your name where you live and it gets organized or else it's going to be complete chaos and it's very unaffected. I'm not saying you haven't thought about that but I'm not sure the owl is the answer to that and maybe it is. is not familiar with the system per se, but that's something we really that task force should

166consider >> when they >> it will not be a the intention is to again have a structured agenda where there's going to be public >> way. We spent 40 we spent $50,000 to form this task force when we can't come up with a couple thousand dollars to make sure the public can speak and be recorded properly. It just to me we just we're cutting corners. We're borrowing an owl from a community member. It just seems a little >> I not I'm very much thank you for your efforts, but I think >> I share your concerns as somebody with a hearing problem who cannot I have tried to tune in to some of the other town meetings um and it's basically a pointless exercise for me because of the quality of the audio and video. So

167I am very highly sensitive to that. Um, but in the spirit of trying to move forward with the resources that we have, um, I'm not going to worry about a problem until we come across a problem and then I will take the heat for it. >> I will I will say this with the owls that they use for the board of finance. I mean, I'm am the recording secretary. I and I've done the their minutes from home. I've had no problems listening to their meetings when Dan uses the owl and he records the meeting so that I can watch it at home and I know people we do have there is one member on the board of finance who currently is away on business but he attends all the board of finance meetings. We hear

168him fine when he's talking from wherever he happens to be. And every time they ask for public comment, there are people in the public that sometimes do ask questions and the board of finance members are able to hear them and I can hear them. Just saying it does work, but I understand your concern. As far as the people you wanting to have everybody there, sometimes it's hard for people to come out in at night, especially in the dark, older people. There might be young moms with young children at home that can't get out of the house that want to attend the meeting and want to say something. So, I wouldn't really restrict it that too severely that you just want to have them there to to speak in public. I leave that option open that

169they can Yeah. >> tune in and talk that way. I think that needs to be discussed at the task force level, >> right? >> But I would caution you based on what Tom was saying, I experienced it as well. If there's any thought to have virtual public comment, it needs to be strict time periods and cut off because it could take I mean if you think you're going to get an hour meeting done and have virtual public comment, you could be there for hours just listen to public comment, right? So, we just need to pay caution to that, right? >> I'm going to send this around to everybody. If you want it digitally, I'm happy to do it. thoughts like this that will help us kind of formalize the process. Make sure that you're getting

170that feedback back to me so I can either figure it out or take it to the task force and figure it out from there. So appreciate >> So you're only sharing it with this board and not with the task force. >> I'm just going to start with this because right now a lot of this is wanting I want to I want it to represent what we as the initiating board want to accomplish from this. Um and then I will share it out to the task force. But there's only three of us on that board. There's six other people that are not on the board of ed. I really think it should be shared with the whole task force. >> I that is my intention to do that. I'm just trying to do this in a

171little bit of stages so that I'm not getting 30 different like 30 different versions of the same feedback. >> Okay. Are we good with the report? Everybody good? >> Motion to adjurnn. I don't know whatever it is. 920 something. >> I got a motion to journ at 9:20. >> Motion by Penny, second by Kirby. All those in favor?