001okay uh thank you all for coming we are going to uh I will call the new Harford special new Harford public school special meeting at 5:00 P p.m. on Tuesday Mar 4th to order first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance please join me if you are able I pledge aliance 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 again thank you for coming um next item is order of business I have no changes to the order business for tonight um and next item is communication to the Board of Education in public comment um do we have any communication since last week no so we have no Communications to the board since last week
002uh public comment is open would anybody like to address the board all right seeing none we will move on to uh item D superintendent report thank you so much chairman KPS just want to start off with some quick updates uh districtwide March 7th we have Spirit day make sure you wear your red we have a follow-up uh budget Workshop coming up on March the 11th right here at anini at 6 PM for our budget Workshop series on March the 14th we have early dismissal for professional development and on March 18th we have a follow-up Board of Education Workshop meeting here at Antolini scheduled for 7 pm uh on March the 19th through the 20th we have 1M dismissal as we have our favorite parent teacher conferences so our parents and families will be in the
003buildings meeting with our teachers and on March 27th an exciting day that's our preschool playgroup so it's screening day for new preschool students more information including the screening form is located in our Friday folder and last but not least March 28th there is no school for students as we are engaged in professional development at the end of the month all right up next I want to Pivot to our current budget that we are in now which is the 2425 budget with some projections and I want I just pass this out for everyone to have a copy of please two three four and five if we just take one and pass those around as well all right up on the screen I have the same sheet that is in front of the Board of Education and
004want to give everyone an update of regarding the current budget that we are uh fiscally living in currently we have some unexpected or unanticipated or frankly unpredictable costs to our budget um if you asked me last year where we were if we could predict these costs accurately for the budget that we are in now it would be close impossible we have incurred um significant legal fees relative to number one prolonged negotiations over the course of the summer and Into The Fall season so that is one Element the second one is a confidential legal matter relative uh to a student and family so that is one Element now that piece we can cover with a lot of our overages and make doe with that component the other that was UN predictable is related to our outplacement
005costs again these are number one unpredictable students may come to us transiently from another District or within our own District that need additional support and services which are not offered here within our Public Schools uh for the nature of their outplacement it's very specific and specified through a PPT process and those students um once they are outplaced we constantly have meetings with the outplacement facilities and ensure that we are setting goals for students to return to us when they can and the second component of the special education uh deficit there is also because of our unfunded grants through the state of Connecticut most specifically the excess cost Grant of which I've written to our legislature and I will continue to do so do so to the Appropriations Committee um that was a grant that was
006unfunded by approximately $40,000 um so those are the elements that are leading to the following action across our district we are taking a budget freeze so that we have a deficit projection at the end of the year of approximately 50 to $60,000 and the plan there would be to meet weekly with our central Office Team and our leadership team as we do and then look again in April to see if we could ease the budget freeze but currently with the condition that we are in we need to Institute a budget freeze to ensure that we are being as fiscally minded as we can and to um offset as much as we can by the end of the year so we will we'll project right now to be um 56330 but that's an approximate number by
007the end of the school year that's why we are immediately engaged in a budget freeze so wanted to provide this now for the board to see also to State this publicly and um followed up with information to our administrative staff to communicate that that right now there are no purchases permitted unless they are for the health and safety of our students unless they're absolute needs so there'll be further scrutiny upon any purchases so that's we are where we are at right now in this current budget that we are living in any questions relative to the condition we're in or the actions or the proposed plan what makes up the 130,000 for board is that legal legal fees specifically yes ma'am okay could do you know about how much for legal fees that's the projection of
008where we'll be by the end 130,000 okay thank you of course and again these are best estimates based on new um bills that we receive um for varying conditions that are changing for our students that are outplaced and also uh for our legal fees Jeff can I ask you a question yes are we allowed to ask questions right now yeah of course so the 130 is the legal fees for example from like the negotiations um and what else is it the other is relative to a confidential student matter okay and how much is that like is is how much is legal fees from like the negotiations and I could break that down and give it to you further I was just providing a roll upus all I'm just curious you don't I don't have it
009off the top of my head that's but what the two buckets are that's correct okay thanks of course yes Tom can you can you get that for us for next week for that sure I could break it down further for you if you'd like yep yeah just a two buckets thank you of course all right seeing no other questions what is the next budget it or the uh nextend is the Board of Education chair report okay um and really I should turn this on under the Board of Education chairs report uh first again we're here in our second session looking at our our 25 26 proposed budget from our superintendent um I want to thank everybody on the board for the time you've put in between last meeting and this meeting again as we get
010into item g under new business which are which is our budget discussion for tonight I know that everybody put a lot of time in reviewing the budget asking questions um again some very good questions came in but I want to make sure that I thank everybody for their time doing that um and we'll talk more about that in just a moment the next item is routine business um for the expenditure report that was in the packet um can I get a motion to approve the expenditure report can I make can I make a suggestion that we table that until our next meeting so that we can just devote this meeting to our proposed budget for next year um we we could are there any comments or I guess if we can get a there any
011comments or questions any do you have comments and questions any report well I haven't gone through it entirely but I did have some questions okay and I was just hoping we could I'm okay table it have any reason not to does anybody have any reason not to table do you need a motion I need a motion to table please I'll make a motion that we table the expenditure report until our next regular meeting yes that would be on March 18th okay until March 18th all right any discussion okay all those in favor please signify by raising your hand that passes unanimously okay uh moving to uh really the meet of today's meeting which is um our 2526 budget discussion and action as I said under the uh the Board of Education chair's report again I
012thank you all for your time uh we had um a total of of uh questions that were submitted through me that I compiled and brought to Jeff of about 70 questions um just shy of 70 questions that came through I'm a little bit different than what we had last year last year we had around 140 questions that were asked but at that time again we did have four new board members so again we would expect that there would be a lot more questions last year now that we have a full I get a better understanding of the budget we expected um some less this year so having 70 questions is actually quite a few um we've compiled them into a uh spreadsheet with all the questions and comments and with the responses and answers that
013our superintendent has provided us uh these will become part of the meeting minutes um of today's meeting for um public viewing and with that again I think we want to go through a couple of the highlights of the questions and answers um just to again talk about the main drivers of the budget this year absolutely again thank you again chairman klips and everybody that provided questions in advance uh so we could get and seek fle seek further Clarity regarding our budgetary process and the challenges and the drivers that are set before us as a board of education here in New Hartford so a great thanks to um chairman KPS for developing this system this I think worked very very efficiently with every single line item and providing opportunity for every board member to participate in
014the process and to engage in our budgetary process like I said uh secondly I'd like to thank my central office team that assisted with any specifics detail details that were necessary throughout the entire document and also the leadership team that's sitting before us here as well so thank you to all of the team that made all of the responses happen and be as clear as possible all right so some of the themes that we found throughout the document are a couple number one is comparisons to other districts um in comparison to even Regional 7 so I provided further Clarity what that to what that looks like really comparing to Reg is very difficult that is four different feeders there's different assessment it's not really comparing Apples to Apples there but I did provide that information
015and a more relevant comparison is more of a Pew purple expense so you'll see there that new hartford's uh in 23 24 was 23,000 and Regional is $27,000 just demonstrating our efficiency with the monies that we have and what we offer our students um we also wanted to just make sure that we're reflective of cola being over a two-year because we're currently living living in one inflationary year and you know going into another so I provided that type of information uh and then there are other particulars you know question number 10 and 11 were you know has there been an examination or a an exploration of looking into um having significant cost savings by consolidating I've responded in both appropriately I believe that this would really take a year-long study as is State Statute when
016you're typically discussing or thinking about a regional ization that involves a process and that is typically a year-long exploratory process to attain a lot of information before making those types of moves um other drivers here and I'll be presenting them on the board uh just shortly are contractual obligations so through our bargaining units through our um good faith bargaining and our uh recent negotiations we have contractual obligations so I'll be demonstrating those for both certified and non-certified we also have health care costs that are again non-negotiable pieces those are our cost and what they are to provide medical insurance dental vision for all of our employees and their families uh should they choose to um engage in that or take advantage of that uh and also the larger driver is again our outplacement costs which
017are special education costs and I'll have those uh projected for you up on the the board in just a moment um outside of that those were the main pieces that came from this there were other simple questions regarding you know is this belong in the right line or hey this I've noticed this currently in this budget we haven't spent that money down it just means we haven't paid that bill for whatever that particular element is that's what that is so again great kudos to the board great Keen Keen Eye on every element of the board there are so many line items in our approximately $10 million budget to take a look at so again I appreciate all of the questions uh on the sheet of paper that I did hand out to the board on
018the back side you'll see the 2526 budget drivers and this is really where I want to focus the board's energies on because out of the $871,000 original request which reflected an 8.86 uh increase to the budget these pieces that I'll project on the board just shortly that you have on the back these pieces here that are projected and that the board has behind them really reflect the non-negotiable elements of what we are engaged in so even taking this into consideration you'll see employee salaries this is inclusive of every employee that we have whether you're a certified educator administrator director teacher and then the non-certified custodians lead secretary positions you know throughout our district um par Educators um and others that total combined number is $220,000 which right out the gate you could see we're at
0192.5% of an increase um next we have employee benefits which uh again are higher than um they've been in the past but they are approximately 11% this year which is reflective of approximately $153,000 again 1.5% of the budget and these are those elements that are out of our control I don't have you know the ability to say I'll save money by doing X Y or Z in these particular areas without again impacting the way that we deliver education to our children now these are our employed certified and non-certified these are the benefits that we provide them and then our most sensitive and neediest of students we have out placements are which are going to be increasing by $290,000 at a percentage rate of 3.3% if you just add these up we're at a 7.6 or
020$663,000 out of the original requested $871,000 the remainder obviously is transportation legal and other elements plant operations to our school district so that makes up that remainder about approximately 28,00 left over there but without focusing on these elements we're really not going to be able to cut anything or enough to get us down to something that's more appetizing to the board of education so I wanted to again summarize all of the questions that received um looked carefully at all of these elements provided those responses further things can be evaluated but if the board's intent is to cut then the only way that we're going to get there is to really take a focus on this which means that individuals will no longer be able to be employed by the new Harford Public Schools that's where
021we get down to it okay but depending on the remainder of the discussion if I could answer anything else again applaud the board for giving me um all of these questions and chairman kleps for providing such a great format to do so and to give us that information and put it before the board so that we could start having that dialogue and discussion um and then see what we could do for next week as well as we meet on Tuesday I have a question yes so the 7.60 the stuff that's up there that's already the increase that we already going to have and then you added on the extra stuff that gets us to the 8.86 correct so that stuff we that's we have to do this we're already at a 7.60 h yeah the
022only way that this changes is again with these individuals not being employed by new Harford public schools because then you drop the salary you drop the benefit per individual and we're going to try to do that with the least impact on students it's a very challenging position for the the board obviously to be in so what we'd like to do now is we'd like to open it up to the full board again with the questions and the responses we received from our superintendent first are there any follow-ups any of the questions that are on here does any everybody had the opportunity to review these see the answers um again I did review these with Jeff last night so you know we we went through some of these to make sure that we had the the
023appropriate answers in here that would inform the board right to be able to have a full understanding of what's encapsulated in this 2025 2026 superintendent proposed budget so we'll open it up for any questions please Jeff What's the total number again of the grants that we're not receiving this year that we're not receiving correct okay so the 2425 budget we are currently uh underfunded by $40,000 specifically to the excess cost Grant 2024 to 2025 we're we're not getting 40K correct and then that's it that's the only that's for this current fisal so what's for next year we're not getting next year I don't know yet but what are you anticipating we're anticipating receiving 430 approximately $434,000 in federal and Connecticut funding okay that's the reap Grant Title One title two title four all of them
024are listed on page number five of our budget book but you're not guaranteed that you're just no those are our Pro correct those are our projections based on what based on what the current figures have been uh looking historically at what we've received every single one of those grants has a different formula to them some are relative to Poverty others are relative to the fact that we have rural education uh opportunities here because we're in the northwest corner so all of them have different criteria and are uh formulated or funded differently so without knowing all of those elements if those are going to be cut within the federal government or cut within Connecticut state legislature these are the projections that we have currently to help offset all of our costs in the budget and when
025do you know when you'll get those um they vary so sometimes we get some in the summertime um other times we receive them right at the onset of the school year because we're already in past July one we're in that that next uh fisal school year for us that's when we get those answers typically more specifics if the wants to contribute any other Grant timelines if not that's typically when we get the answer oops specific answers for each Grant and one of those grants for next year that we are losing is the grant that we're using for um um cjr cjr that is correct yep that's not listed here any longer that's 35 right it was $35,000 or more right Michael yeah thank you so of the Delta that we have that's not shown on
026this piece of paper here or on the screen of that 207 is $35,000 just for CJ correct correct yep because that is not a contractual obligation that is an optional piece that the board can offer and we have offered for the past several years and then there's a Continuum of CGR also at Regional number seven for us and that's again available to all students um regardless of special ed or not and that's the cost that it would be for us to have the individual that's the portion of their salary that we would pay for them to be available to us to provide in school um counseling so again when there's challenges outside of the school day because parents are working or other things of that nature CGR is available in the school to provide that
027counseling and also that $35,000 allows us to have one or two days of mental health support in our schools one day thank you Michael one day yourself one day yeah so four days of cjr counseling in school one day of mental health support for our kiddos here in New Hartford and we're losing that for the 2025 2026 budget or we're losing to the 25 2425 2425 we have it 25 26 we no longer have it that's why it's a projected cost at $35,000 but that's not included in the 434 or no because that we don't have that Grant any longer for next year that's correct of that 434,000 that you're projecting for next year year does that also include the 40,000 we didn't get this year which which 40,000 what excess cost you said the
028excess cost we didn't get 40,000 this year oh you said of the grants that we didn't get for this year is 40,000 y so in the 434 is that 40,000 in there and we've what that's okay let me say let me put this one we hired we got the $440,000 for this year so we hired people for those grants no no we did not get $440,000 the excess cost Grant is relative to student outplacement and tuition and transportation so it's based on a very complex formula that we know how to calculate pretty well it's not that we don't know how to calculate it it's that the state doesn't fund it fully when they say they would this year they have underfunded us at approximately $40,000 next year we're again projecting this to be low but
029we can't predict with Precision how much they're going to underfund us or overfund that'll be a miracle uh for next year so just uh again to bring that home 2425 what percentage of the excess cost formula did we carry in our budget we carried approximately 40 to 50% of it and in our current 2526 proposed what is our percentage uh this one would be approximately well no so sorry for this current about 60% and then again for next year about 58 to 59% so we you dropped the expected recovery m to be more conservative than the formula would tell us correct y we've only received again we were supposed to receive uh 30,000 at their onset projections they've provided us with $887,000 or we will be receiving $887,000 so what that means our current budget
030is getting more conservative because of what we're learning year after year after year that's correct right I have one more question with the 43 million that's not getting that's getting vetoed for special education in the state of Connecticut what what do that impact on us 18,000 so we only get 18,000 that was originally so they've never fully funded the 130 they gave us 87 the $40 million that was just recently vetoed by line item by Governor Lamont meant that New Hartford Public Schools will not receive $188,000 of that originally promised 130,000 for ex so where is that in is that in reflected in the budget that's reflected in the the budget projections for this current fiscal year that 18,000 that's missing is reflected in here right okay got it yeah it's it's 40,000 I'm sorry
03140 was 40,000 and then the 40 million on the table we would have got 18 if that 40 million was passed the governor Vio the 40 million so we're not even to get 18 any other followup question questions on the uh on the questions asked in the responses or any new questions is there an um anticipated per pupil expenditure for next year what would the total be for that no those are typically generated um after we submit our October 1st so that we don't have that projection right now okay um unfortunately we have to submit that information to Connecticut state department ofed and then they produce that per pupil expense I see that were the the lowest in the in the yeah we are region yeah we're very efficient with that y you know in
032addition to that too is one of the questions that was asked right just to highlight is the uh staff to student ratio and when you compare us to the surrounding communities around us again we are in line with was it bark Hamstead yeah we are in line with bark camped at 9 to1 and then we were higher than coldbrook North and that again is based on 90 staff members so we're in line with with um surrounding areas as well with our staff to student ratio student to staff ratio I should say you know and again a couple other things to point out is you know we are we are um providing special education services to over a quarter of our student population um which is up from last year right that's also noted in these
033notes and then our outplacement again at an average cost of $180,000 for each student we out place so we all have our work cut out for us looking at these budget numbers looking at a you know a over 8% increase against 7.6 six contractual um we know that we with any cut that we make is going to be a change to the learning environment we produce today right or we provide today to our community um so again our goal tonight is to give our superintendent a direction in order in order for us to be able to make a decision by our next meeting on the 11th a week from today um so I don't know if anybody has any thoughts to start the discussion to so since I'm not an expert in education and I
034can only leave it up to Jeff and his staff I can't recommend making individual line item Cuts because I'm not sure how that would affect the staff or our students you you guys know that better than I do but in order for us to evaluate where we need to be I would like to see your recommendations to bring this bud down to three different levels that we can look at that at least have the conversation start from there so I'm thinking 5 and A2 five and four and a half% increases so we can look at what those cuts look like and how they affect and we can make a better decision rather than going through each until tell you to cut $100,000 here and $50,000 there that that's more your decision making than mine that's
035where that's where my thought lies right now it's open discussion anybody have any any thoughts on that I agree with Tom um but I would say instead of kind of wasting your time at with the five and a half just to do like a four and a five for us just because I don't think uh the five and a half is gonna gonna go if if we do that we're we're gonna have to cut teachers so my question is what's the maximum class size uh we have here in this District So currently it's would be 5 to1 we have uh set guidelines that the board of education has in place as one of our policies I could revisit that and take a look at that as well but contractually we're looking at 25 to1 would
036be the or 25 yeah would be our Max class size which as you know as an educator has significant ramifications in terms of the ability to meet the needs of all of the kiddos when we're used to class sizes of approximately what's our average here 16.8 yeah so about 17 per per class so that would we're looking at additional six to eight kids per class would have a significant impact on the way that we we are educating our kiddos if we do have to go to the employee salaries and look at staff Cuts have you guys ever this is for the whole board have you ever used any kind of retirement incentive or anything like that to because I I think attrition is a way better way to lose staff than to fire somebody if
037you guys ever looked at that kind of a thing do you know what I'm talking about I do I don't know historically so I would let others that have been on the board longer than I have I don't have any record I've been here we I'm not aware of of of incentivizing um retirement Aeros security is approximately the price of one teacher is that something we'd consider getting rid of for next [Music] year I think it has to be on the table in my opinion you asked about attrition in the this is my 12th year now being on this board I don't recall in those 12 years we ever using ever using attrition to get to bring it to bring down the I mean I'm just talking about if somebody leaves you don't rehire right
038you don't hire a replacement but I mean there's never been like the conversation of you know you're getting close to the end of I don't want to say your lifetime but you're getting close to the end of your school teaching life have you considered I don't ever recall that conversation coming up I've seen it happen at our school where they may offer something like a year of insurance or something like that to incentivize it retirement and it's appealing to some people who are getting close to the end of the but you have to realize in the 12 years I've been here in the beginning of the 12 years they didn't have this much discussion about the budget it's only in the past I'd say six years that the budget has really been discussed I'm gon
039I'm gonna throw my two sense and backing off what you said that also speaking of attrition I would rather just not hire someone that's not here already than to lose a teacher especially considering all of the Fantastic security um improvements we've made already whether it be the windows or the doors or security cameras yeah I think that was an item that came up in here and it's an item that the response was it can be evaluated right so it's on the it's on the list of uh question comments one other thing not that I want to take away any teachers and there's always a chance that somebody retires at the end of the year somebody leaves at the end of the year but I do notice that the next year's fourth grade has four sections
040yet they have the same number of students as the sixth grade is fourth grade all uh is that a grade that's um can be condensed to three sections rather than four not something I want absolutely not but if we're talking about would you mind repeating that which one projected um the projected class size for grade four is 16.3 65 students total grade six also has 65 students total and they have three sections as opposed to four so what that would do is if we eliminated a section in grade four that would bring their class size up to 21.7 just like sixth grade and of course as a te teacher I do not wish that to happen but if that's if something has to be cut that could be an option 21.7 22 students is manageable
041in a classroom especially an upper grade classroom four through six I understand you wouldn't want that many in a in a primary grade but a four through six might might be doable so that would be something that of course we can look at and evaluate um New Hartford has traditionally prided ourselves in obviously having classroom small classroom sizes but um it can be evaluated I know that specific cohorts have very increased needs um against other cohorts and we try to ensure that we could provide the best service for our students and those smaller class sizes obviously um are something that we continue to pride ourselves on and want to have so that students can continue their path for success as you know when you collapse um a group of of students and then you put
042them into only three classrooms you only have so many options for classroom placements and uh sometimes when we've been with the same friends for many many years in our career we need a little separation as well um so it certainly can be something that's looked at um I I'll be frank with you it's probably not the first thing that we're going to look at but it can be something that will be evaluated just as everything else is on the on the questions and responses and I would pervert it as a last resort as well but yeah just look at the numbers yeah thank you Frank y I mean thank you Eric not Frank so on the grants that we're not getting next year have you considered letting those people go that are employed by those
043grants did that come out right I don't know kind of so the grants that are currently scheduled for next year I'll give you one example uh there's one in there for a uh Behavioral Health te or I'll give you the specific name of it so a grant funded position that currently exists and that is in next year's budget because it is Grant funded is the arpa school mental health specialist at $52,000 that position when not funded would be something that we would consider not continuing because it's not Grant funded okay so based on today's discussion real lifetime March 4th that would be the recommendation for that particular thing we're not looking to continue to add positions that are not Grant funded if the Board of Ed does not support that obviously we would come up
044for discussion we would discussed what the purpose of the the position is before making that decision but I was looking just on page 11 under regular education the behavioral health Grant and the small town right to read Grant do we I assume we hire Paris or some type of teaching person no that's a great question Penny those were for material specifically only not for positions or Personnel whatsoever so that came with professional development but that's not a person that we're retaining on staff it was more focused on professional development and materials to get our classrooms up and running with all of the things that we needed to do to get a more impactful more engaging literacy component here which we've selected El education and our continue to have great feedback from and great results so
045then where does does that money then come from if we are not getting those grants y so after we're up and running um based on meeting with the team and talking it was looking like I want to say an average of 20 I'm giving the number in average $23,000 for continuous Improvement of instruction or it's under regular education so that would be23 $3,000 for specific item there versus the 40,000 plus that we had received prior to so now that we have materials up and running now these are the consumable costs year after year for students to have the materials in front of them that they can have so those are typically workbooks and things of that nature but they're no longer Grant funded that is correct so that has to come out of our regular
046budget money correct correct yes ma'am so is it possible for you to tell us on for next week on those grants that employ people if we aren't getting those grants and we didn't have those people how much there are there are none right now except for the one I just pointed out okay so I could answer that now we have one individual that is Grant funded at $52,000 okay the others are that Grant is still is that Grant planned for next year yep yep yes sir y on page five so that $52,000 that one individual's Grant funded but the grant is still in place that is correct 27 school year no 25 26 school year not 26 27 25 26 school year yep all the rest are not connected to an individual hired on a
047grant and they're currently employed under that same Grant correct yes yes sir 2425 yes same exact Grant Jeff when so I think that came up as well in other conversations so again right now I just to summarize what I just heard is we only have one individual who's employed and paid for by a grant currently correct and will be in the next year but it's also so the grant didn't go away we still have the grant correct and just with all these grants the conversations that Jeff and I have had we have obligations to prove out that we are using these grants for the intended purpose of the grant y right so in no way could we take that and use it to pay for other other reasons right that is correct Jeff sorry go
048when you when we get money for from a grant for a particular position do we have the conver obviously you have a conversation with them that this is a grant fun position it's not a guaranteed position forever right you have that conversation yep before we even apply for the grant we have a conversation yeah we're talking about it what is the impact is it worth pursuing this grant okay what is it going to do how long does it last how are we going to implement it if we receive it and then are we going to be able to support the need for it to continue or we really it's just a temporary stop Gap so they understand the L ifications of yeah our staff understands that wholeheartedly fully y yes there 10 if we do
049remove the security officer the money in the [Music] non-linguistic year this book these books wrap them up so if we're at 50 to $60,000 in deficit this year if we're over utilizing money from the non-aps account our auditor should be completed with their report very shortly so then we'll know what additional amounts can go in there and that would be Revisited after the fact otherwise we're starting to mix different Cycles together that'd be my recommendation to the board we typically again that's a conversation with the board of Finance as well when we do those types of things and typically you don't want to use those funds to offset the current year because you're almost you're you're offsetting the year but you're going to have the same problem the following year again knowing that other things
050may not you know again out plac since may come down or whatnot but you know that would be another conversation with the board of Finance before we could rely on that decision right how much money is in that nonlinguistic [Music] and have a final number that's what's in there currently right now 2425 I believe at your board of Finance meeting they're going to present the a yep right coming up we haven't seen so we haven't seen that um so the 70,000 that we set aside for this current year for that security guard is now sitting in our bank account it's not in the non-lps thing can it be used for that $50,000 that we're in the hole for not not not yet that money is not in the I mean if you ask permission can
051it be used no it's not permission it's not permission oriented that's Board of Education driven first of first and foremost those two amounts are not combined as of yet there is $115,000 sitting in a non-aps account that the board of education has the authority to utilize um so that would be in my mind the correct path to offset any costs that are over this year then after the audit is completed which should be within a couple of weeks we will know the additional amount of money that the board of education has that was not expended during the 2324 school year which would augment or add to that $115,000 okay any further questions or comments would anybody like to make a motion so just just so I understand this if we make a motion now then
052we're going to come back together next Tuesday and the idea would be and try and finalize this budget yeah the idea would be that if we give direction again Tom and Tim had made some recommendations here you or their thoughts if you we give a direction on a percentage to our superintendent or we give a dollar value to our superintendent um we had the conversation that he will review um the budget the cuts that are least impactful to our educational system um with the administration and he would Target having us that list by Friday this coming Friday this coming Friday is that correct yes it'll also afford me the opportunity to talk to individuals if we're talking about staff reduction which I would plead for the board to let me have that time because that's
053personto person heart tohe heart that's very critical for me to do that would then give us the weekend in Monday in Tuesday in preparation for our Tuesday meeting to gather our questions or our thoughts related to the cuts to get to again if we choose as a board to go with 5.55 and four and a half or we decide to go with a value it'll give us the opportunity to review what is being recommended by our superintendent prior to that meeting don't you have to present this budget to the board of Finance next Tuesday no that would be Saturday morning March 15th at 9 o'cl all right y I make I'll make a motion that we we direct superintendent Su to give us a proposed budget at three different intervals for consideration at five four
054and a half and 4% can you say those percentage against five four and a half and four I'll second that [Music] motion okay we have a motion by Tom we have a second by Tim is there any discussion on that just for what do you think about coming at back with three different numbers would it be easier just to go for one number or I know obviously it would be but yeah I mean my thoughts are irrelevant right um specifically to this because if I could present different scenarios that the board could have full understanding of the cuts and impacts it allows for better understanding of the delivery so I'm not opposed to two or three outside of that I think it would be a little bit much um but two or three different projections
055or goals that or targets that we should be looking at is is acceptable for the board to be able to consider in my opinion I could do that so I mean what you I mean again what you'll do Jeff is right you'll give us a list of recommendations to get us to in this scenario a 5% what additional would be needed to get us to the four and a half and again to the four corre um you know based on a 7.6 contractual um I would I'd like to start with the five and a half all right that's taken over 2% out of our educational system right off the top I I would agree and I would even go higher if if if I could because my question is what if he can't you know
056what if he's unable to get down to that [Music] 5% if you look back at the Historical budget data I mean there's very few times that we were in the 4% range we are once at 5.27 way back in 2006 I mean that's going back 20 years but most of them are 3% or under or 3.89 and under I don't think five and a half% is realistic I'd rather start at five and go down I think the challenge is that for the is this your first budget cycle yes and your first right second so I mean you guys remember what happened last year right Jeff came to us with an 8 point what was it 809 right so basically came to us almost this well no was less than what he came to us this
057year so we we had to keep we spent a lot of time going back and forth back and forth and you know I mean we had to take it to the board of finance and we right we you know they're doing their job right like we're not going to get it pasted nothing is going to get ped at 6 seven it's not going to get passed they're going to just send it back here which they should they should I mean you have people in New Harford that are struggling to pay their electric bills right now we're the second largest electric rate we literally are second in the country next to Hawaii I know neighbors that can't pay their electric bill right now you know and and and it's horrible the whole this whole situation is
058horrific this is my I've been sick all week looking at this budget because we don't want to cut people right we don't want to cut teachers we don't want to cut it but unfortunately the reality of our situ is we cannot go to the board of Finance with an eight seven right Penny Penny's been on here the longest time and Tom they're not going to they're not gonna it's they're gonna send it right back you're GNA be here at midnight working through the numbers and you're gonna have you have to cut you can't it's not going to work so we're saying we're we're we're we're saying start at 5 four four and a half because that's where you're GNA have to end up being that's the reality it's a really shitty situation but the board
059of Finance is doing their job and we're we have to do it's not a good situation for anybody so I don't I don't want to waste Jeff's time and say Jeff I was going to come and say show me what seven six five four and three look like well that's a waste of time that's a waste of time for him I think he's gonna get there again if you're saying that you got to get down to four right he's goingon to be going through this process go through I'm I'm saying that again with a 7.6% contractual if you start at five and a half I that's what I'd like to see start at the five and a half again getting down to four again this isn't this is a problem across the state right and
060again if you if you read across the state right now the average is 5% across the state being being adopted right there's there's school districts that are up at 12 right or higher so you know we have we have needs within our school that we have to provide services to right if we don't provide these Services we had the same conversation last year out placements far exceed the cost of keeping our staff so again I me we have a motion on the floor we can we can vote on that motion again Tom if you would be willing to amend the motion we can do that can I make one comment absolutely it's not only the board of finance that has to approve this it's the town's people that when they go to referendum they're going
061to vote on this if they vote it down that means having to go back and Jeff's going to have to redo this all over again and it's going to have to go back to referendum which is another cost that this town really can't afford because it costs a lot of money to have pole workers working for those few hours for the very few people that come out and vote on it and it's not only people that can't afford the food people can't afford the Heat or the electricity in this town they are struggling we have no businesses to help us no no commercial businesses we're mostly all Town's people and a lot of them are old I just I mean I made my I picked my numbers based on I originally was going to start
062at 5.5 but listen to Tim and I just don't think 5.5 is going to cut it so I just want to waste my time with it that's all that's why I started at five I think it's good precedent is 5.27 maybe 5.25 five and a quarter again we're not going to make the decision until next week just have to give Jeff direction of what we want him to do so we have to settle on a number stopping points we have to give him a stopping point so he knows what to do just know those of you that are new that we're literally gonna be back here and time and time again because it's not going to pass it's not GNA pass you it's a really horrible situation for everybody every everybody involved it's just it's
063not going to pass you're going to be back here and the board of Finance won't come back and say you have to be be you have to you they they will only tell us that we have to cut x amount of dollars right they won't say which line item or you know anything like that it's money when they vote on the budget are they voting on the entire town budget or can are they voting specifically on the uh education budget we're we're a line we're a line on the we're a line item so they vote them separately we get put with the town I'm sorry region s I'm sorry region s so if we ask for a higher percentage does that give the board of Finance or anybody any other section of the Town um
064a an idea to to to lower their percentages I mean can we cut elsewhere besides education I mean it's just going that's going to happen but no the only other place you can cut would be the town right well that's I think what we're only we're only a small portion of the budget we a big well okay fine we're we're a still portion of the budget most of the budget okay we're a portion of the budget so can we work with the town to get other things cut that it's up to Jeff to work with first elect jeral okay and I mean the chairperson of theard of Finance from her board if they say to her go to region 7 and tell region 7 that you're however much he's asking for is too much then
065she will write a letter to them saying you know we need you to cut your budget most of the time they do not do it they just read that letter and laugh at us what I keep coming back to is the per pupil expenditure and the fact that we are the lowest I mean the reality of the situation Eric is is that we can't so we can't really do anything about special education we can't do anything about transportation we can't do anything about teacher salaries and benefits those are that's 7.6% currently right so I mean so if you want 5% we've got to cut out of there I know and that's the unfortunate again I like I I just want to put it on record I don't want to cut anybody and this is you
066know again I'm not here to cut people and and Destroy lives that's not my my uh my my intent here I don't want I want us to have an excess of people that we need for our children that's really why we're all sitting here tonight but unfortunately we have to make hard decisions we're we're in so much debt from a as a nation we're in so much debt at this we're just we're debt everywhere right and it's it's all filtering down to the local level there's no money so either we have to come up which I've said every single year if we can't get funding from the taxpayers which we cannot go back to the taxpayers who are struggling to pay their electric bills who are struggling to buy food who are struggling to pay
067their rent and ask them do an 837 whatever it is increase in their taxes we just can't we're not it's not fiscally responsible so if we can't do that then what are our other options to fund raise like do things differently than than school districts have ever done before I keep saying this what are what can we do to fund raise what can we do to do annual give me I I don't even know but there's other options to bring funding into the school systems to fund some of this stuff I think we have to start getting creative I've said it for I don't even how many years I've been on the board now now keep saying the same thing right every single year where can we find other funding that is not tied to
068Grants at the federal and state level that is not tied to the taxpayers there there's got to be a way to do it what you're arguing for Eric right now is the same thing I went through last year like very hard on that not not wanting to get rid of anybody um and it's an impossibility when we're trying to get a budget under five and it's not going to be accepted otherwise [Music] and honestly the board of the board of Finance shouldn't I mean they wouldn't be doing their job if they said go ahead pass 8.34 8.86 they're not one thing this is long term we need to focus on this budget but at some point we're going to have to we have a high percentage of stud students that are uh in special ed
069compared to other towns and we have to systemically look at is there anything that we are doing that is driving that I see it at the high school too and it's something we that needs to be looked at because it's the Big Driver of cost obviously it's not going to happen in this budget year but it's going to keep happening it's it's going to keep growing if we don't address that yeah and I would say that our special ed percentage right now is probably lower than all of the other regions surrounding us might can give us more specific percentages based on what's again reported to the state 23 24 24 25 numbers are not out but um and in all of my years in education I have never seen it go the other way this
070is a trend across Connecticut the United States that continues to increase there's a lot of reasons why based you know identification an assessment of students providing services for children the law that protects students that need the services that they receive there are many reasons why I could not predict with any certainty that it would I would that dollars to Donuts because I love donuts that it's not going to ever Trend the other way it does not appear such when I started an education it was at 9% right approximately you know 18 19 20% depending where you want to look um in the state of Connecticut across the United States I know it's a systemic issue it forces districts to look to help one another I know there's incentives at the state level as well coming
071up this year it's in the proposed budget to help districts form programs together so that you don't have as many out placements or that you can better control the costs control put control into quotations it's worth something to explore for sure but that's what it's really looking like we're left with uh multiple towns and districts trying to figure this out and try to help one another utilizing some of the state aid hopefully that comes through we'll see when that gets there but again I've not seen it Trend the other way ever in my career ever that's this is the reality of what it is that's what I'm saying and and I don't and it's a big question but I do wonder if there aren't things we can do with interventions that prevent it you know
072every kid I think um that goes in that direction doesn't have to and um we definitely do that Frank I guarantee that we have an MTS mtss process that's very finite very focused very analytical and we also have celebration stories where we had you know five students exit special ed this year these are great things that we're going to continue to celebrate but we take a very careful look and then sometimes we bring students to evaluation and they don't qualify I would say there's probably a half dozen students already this year that have not so it's not just it's an easy process it's a flaw in our system it is certainly not we are very careful with that and we exit students as quickly as we can and we decrease service as quickly as we
073can based on our progress monitoring and based on our annual goals and our assessments we're getting kids in and out it is not meant to be a lifetime sentence we don't want that we want students to get the support that they need in real time and typically in elementary school they are higher because we're identifying them and noticing this is a learning disability we need to address it now and hopefully by the time they go to Regional they don't need that support anymore that's one of our biggest goals and points of Pride that we have in New Harford so we are looking at it Frank we always look at it very very carefully I'm going back to what Frank said about incentivizing retirement I I think that's a great idea um do you know how
074many teachers there are that are even in that age bracket to retire no no I don't have that number off the top of my head philosophically I have a challenge with it because if you offer it to one then how long are you offering it what type of agreement are we getting into and I want to keep the board out of any liability for discriminatory practices if we don't have an agreement that legally covering the Board of Education I would be leery of that I think it's a good idea but philosophically I have struggles getting through the point where it's we could do it and there won't be repercussions it has to have been done my right like not here obv not here yeah I'd have to do a lot of research to feel confident
075to propose something like that um and feel confident that it would work and that we would be protected Jeff do you have the numbers that I asked you last year um for the special ed for like the last 10 years in the budget how much it's gone up um um I yeah I had that chart I could update it and have us I could have it presented for next week just add it for next week yeah we have an up a rolling number I made you do it last year yeah y okay so we have a motion on the floor by Tom uh for Jeff to bring back to us um items that he would recommend with the least impact to our educational system to get to 5% 4 and a half percent 4% that
076was seconded by Tim there any further discussion on that I just wanted to say one more thing about that I I think four is is way deep I have a feeling it's going to be way deep but I wanted to be I wanted that out there so that people can actually see you know if what you know it's easy to say oh it do make it four well I want people to see what that means when they actually see what the four is rather than saying oh make it four if you can go to four and a half we can go to four no let's look at what four really means which is why I wanted to go down for that number and I don't think that's the real number but I think we should
077look at what that really means to this [Music] District if we when we take this vote are we can I vote Yes and still want to see a higher percentage like five and a half like you were saying or do I vote no for that put a motion on the floor a separate motion yep okay thanks can you repeat the M again there's a motion for superintendent sua to bring back um recommended cuts to the budget that have the least that will be the least impactful to our educational system to get to a 5% a 4 and a half% and a 4% budget all those in favor all those opposed extensions okay that's um 801 um do we have any further motions yeah no seven seven I'm sorry S01 there's only eight of us here
078yep Eric abstained one two three four five six seven um any further motions I'll make the motion um I'd like to see um where five and a half cats us again and that's you know I'll make that motion to see where five and a half cats us if I get a second we can discuss second so we got a five and a half motion by the chair second by Eric again to me right we are here we are on this board to serve the educational interest of this town um I understand that the budget is high again I think that there are going to be some very detrimental cuts to bring this down um even getting it down 2.1% is going to be a very large impactful change to the educational system in new Harford
079um so to me I'd like to see where we are again it doesn't mean we have to stay there um and we'll make the decision next Tuesday but I'd like to see see those incremental um changes to the budget any further discussion on that you okay with that Jee that's a fourth one irrelevant right I don't have voting power so it's it is I'm at I am at the service of the board so as the board directs me I shall go um that's difficult question I have one more thing that just came into my mind besides the incentivizing retirement as you get creative have you ever asked um like surveyed staff to see if anybody has an interest in maybe being part-time not just part-time but what your future plans are and how we can
080help you achieve those [Music] goals but not part-time okay any additional I'm not sure retirement would I'm not sure incentivizing retirement would necessarily affect the budget it would just more effect student teacher ratio am I correct with that depends on the position that we're incentivizing okay because if it's classroom teacher that impacts ratio specifically if not then we're looking at supported and related staff for students Well we'd have to be prepared to reduce a classroom size right that would in that scenario or we got to back fill the positions y any further discussion all those in favor was opposed all right so that's uh what we got 710 all right any further discussion on the uh 2526 budget uh proposed budget by the superintendent looks like you got your work good off for you all
081right uh we will move on to the next item um H public comment for agenda items only would anybody like to address the board L come on up please all right I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved at second 606 oh girls at Region Tim yes there's a game tonight we are adjourned at 606 thank you you can't upman watch I want to make sure that