MRSD School Committee Meeting 03/15/23

001excellent thank you welcome everybody to the March 15th regular school committee meeting um starting right at seven so happy to see a full table around us tonight everybody is here happy about that um I just wanted to start off because your budget season is important for us to remember why we're here um and I wanted just to talk about our Masco vision 2025. Buzz um developed about 10 years ago when the I don't know if he was a chair a school Committee Member and the superintendent rather decided that we needed to have a vision to work towards and so it became a huge Community effort that involved the school some people from this school committee at that time Elementary School committees and just Community people in general that came up with the vision for Masco

002which is coming close to um actually satisfying and that is what we're working on our strategic plan as helping work our goals towards this but on the top of all the agendas is a of what mascovision 2025 and since we are talking about why we're here as we work on approving our budget I just gonna read this little snapshot out um just to remind us all learning is highly interdisciplinary next students to solving real world problems students feel safe happy emotionally secure and physically well for the Builders of a culture of respect and happiness curriculum and instruction is learner-centered all students are achieving the same standards in multiple ways and can demonstrate their learning through a variety of different assets instruction is personalized to the individual learning styles and unique needs and interests of all

003students our students are really sensitive globally aware through their study and experiential learning and they act confidently with an understanding of their impact Vision can be searched for on the Master website so those are my comments um because we do have a big goal tonight I'm just going to ask anyone has um I see raise of hands um and then I'm gonna determine from the hands how many like how long will so who who all in general wants to to speak so are people okay can you just tell me like one word about why you want to speak and so then I'm gonna just um about the budget budget budget everybody wants to speak about on the budget so we have about four people okay so if you can um I'll call one at a

004time and we'll um and have you speak for no longer than two minutes okay um so come on up and just tell us who you are and where you're from um hi everybody I'm Kendra petroni from Middleton um I'm just here tonight to share some of my views on the budget spending and and actually ask for some change made to the policies that are being forced on the school system since tonight's meeting is focusing on budgets I first want to address the disappointment that I feel like I I my family had and the other families had in the administration using Federal grant money three thousand dollars out of Esser funds and designed to be used for What's called the mental health spending to hire a speaker like Henry Turner to speak at our school on

005Monday he was here to talk about the messages in his book his book was titled changing the narrative how to Foster an anti-racist culture and I think that money could have been spent a lot more wisely especially if it's under the title of mental health instead of an assembly that took up vital learning time for both the middle and high school students we're also aware that Henry Turner met with administrators over this according to public records he was paid six thousand dollars for that meeting so in total Henry Turner was paid nine thousand dollars out of Esser funds to be used for quote mental health I'm just wondering how that could be defined as an item line under a mental health budget to me a better use of the nine thousand dollars could have gone

006towards the student support center Maybe Mental Health Training for teachers parents family members in the community many families didn't have up to speed computers and laptops for two years over covid kids lost two years of vital learning time maybe that money could have been spent to provide newer equipment for those kids to have a permanent take-home computer maybe those lesser funds and the ten thousand dollar mental health budget could have been used as part of a seven thousand dollar proposal for the infant simulators that you talked about during a prior meeting maybe a more in-depth CPR first aid training program another idea would be having mental health professionals trauma intervention Specialists and those who actually have an expertise in negotiating and de-escalating chaotic situations come in and maybe give demonstrations and offer training to the

007students and the staff these are examples that I think would all qualify under a more proper use of mental health spending but instead it was spent all on one person Henry Turner I think his bigger finished messages um it's almost done I'm sorry um his book and his message is you know kind of violate one of the sections in the school policy academic freedom like one of the quotes there is to ensure that opinions expressed don't promote hurtful actions against others or groups individuals in the community and I think that he did the message that he pushed was really not an inclusive or a positive one and it didn't really improve mental health um I think that instead of creating subdivisions of school policy to focus on Dei and SEI forced labeled groups maybe we

008should focus on educational groups that improve on skill sets academics okay I'm sorry I was okay I meant I want to just keep it to two minutes for each person yep nope this is it so just next time you know when you choose a speaker for ten thousand dollars maybe somebody that could motivate kids to be self-reliant not to feel sorry about themselves or to blame them based on the way they look and maybe we can start highlighting how much we have in common with each other and and providing a better solution and you know we need to choose better and do better when our speakers and especially with our money for for us um for the school system so yeah what policy was that um the academic feeding policy um we are the captains

009for next year's mascot volleyball team um we want to thank you for being here and considering the possibility of funding a jv2 volleyball team a jp2 team is something that would incredibly benefit and strengthen our entire volleyball program and would give future aspiring players the opportunity to learn and practice skills to prepare for JV and varsity levels rescue volleyball has been the highlight of our high school experience and has brought us really great friendships and experiences that we will always remember and the jv2 team would give even more players the opportunity to experience something like that in the past years due to only having a varsity and JV team many girls with potential had halves to be cut and also within Northeast conference League we are the only team without a jv2 team we hope

010that a jv2 team more players will be given a chance to learn and develop their skills once again thanks for listening and we hope you consider voting yes for the funding of a jbt volleyball team thank you thank you girls here oh um yeah can you just say your names for the record on the mic on them all right microphone you know umida oh Boxford Kira Gallagher Boxford Olivia Richards Topsfield thank you hi Kathleen escarpato from Topsfield um I want to address the budget I think I'll keep it under two minutes um I know that cuts are something that nobody ever wants to do but I think that uh this is what we elected you to do in this particular circumstance is in what sounds to me like proposition two and a half override and

011uh from what it sounds like listening to some of the past meetings um we're looking at cutting teachers in one of your proposals anyway um and I've asked the question as to oh I'd like to ask the question is to what administrative positions and costs can be reduced before we go looking at cutting teachers who are our front line with our students those are the people that have the most impact on our students they help with mental health as well it's not a burden we like to put on teachers but they're the ones that will see if a student is struggling administrators don't see that so I would ask that this board this committee take a harder and deeper look at where we can actually cut and administrative overhead versus first look at cutting teachers

012thank you thank you carrying no further comments are seeing no more further handsome okay we're good okay so um as promised last meeting we have um Representatives here to give us a um update do you do I need to bring up do I need to do something with that presentation or something I'm Sarah Guido Topsfield um so one second Sarah came in while I was traveling I just emailed it so we're waiting for it to come in do you want me to start about it I can do that because some of it is just kind of refreshing uh like my first slide is how did we get here um oh I want to start talking yeah I do I just wanna I wanna pay attention um doesn't being held anywhere so I just sent it

013again I attended to Jonathan so so let's see what we can do all right yeah okay get it going all right so how did we get here is where I was going to start generally why do we need artificial turf fields at Masco and we don't need to belabor this because I know it's been something we've been going over for over a decade but especially this past fall we had unsafe playing conditions game cancellations um postponements games being moved off-site to Oxford um you know poorly maintained grass disadvantages our athletes um especially our field hockey athletes um this kind of project would improve our ability to host uh tournament games here which is important for the school committee community um and you know one of the reasons why I'm passionate about it is that it

014helps solve a broader Community problem related to the need for playing fields in our recreational programs and um you know I feel passionately that masco's facilities should be at a comparable level to our peers in our surrounding communities and currently they're not um and like I just mentioned the need for having these fields has grown because I I think it's grown from just being having fields for our high school Community to now you know I I think there is I see a need as the president of Topsail Youth Soccer um for you know there we go for for playing fields for the whole Community to use um and you know I feel very strongly and I think everyone around this table feels strongly that Masco is the greatest asset of each one of our member

015communities so I feel like it's important to invest in that asset um so then I have a nice little picture of some of our fall field conditions I just had um I didn't have time to get a lot but you could see here what clock Park looked like that's what all cloth Park looked like at the end of October so that's after it had months to grow after the drought and we aerated and did all that and then the other two pictures are the varsity soccer fields at the beginning of September and that's all I could get my hands on um I I've heard at some of the fincom meetings because I listen into those questions about well you know what's changed like haven't we always been able to have grass fields and you know

016haven't they always been good enough um so my next slide kind of addresses that I think part of the problem might be drought conditions the higher frequency of drought um this is for for this database um from the one of the government sites drought.gov um as far back as it goes it's like the weekly drought conditions through last one um so obviously like the stronger the red the more severe the drought um and you know I'm also like very aware of the surrounding communities um the stress on our water supply you know so there's um societal costs to watering our Fields over the summer so even if we can do it you know I mean there's debate about is that the right thing to do I mean we need drinking water this past summer we

017were worried that our wells and Topsfield would run dry and there's still water required for turf fields but I feel like you have more control over when you can do that for their maintenance okay um all right so now just to refresh where I thought we all were where our committee thought we all were um I went back and I listened to your meetings from November and December when we were talking about doing some Vogue symbolic boat to move forward and that kind of thing and one of the um approaches that was discussed which everyone around the table seemed to agree was a good approach was going to um a model that we called stir the pot let's throw the pot model yeah and that was you know obviously like we intend privately fundraise for

018this but there's a timeline that we'd like to get moving so the stir the pot was you know pursuing taxpayer support you know getting taxpayers too great minus private fundraising um and uh you know there there's I don't need to I I don't need to give you guys all the discussion that you have I I just want to remind everyone that that's the approach that we are pursuing and it had real benefits because it would allow us to pursue it faster to get started it would allow us to move forward in the event that we can't raise it within the time frame we want to we would have a back a backstop for that um and honestly it's good timing right now with potentially going to bond for other projects um and and this is

019how most other communities do it um so you know I I think there's a lot of it seems like to me confusion about you know how this is going to be done and I think that it should go to taxpayers with the message that there's a group that is going to privately fundraise for this but no one has a crystal ball we can't guarantee the time frame that we'd be doing and taxpayers should know you know what they their potential risk could be and you know at the time of town meeting Turf up hopes to be able to say we've raised x amount that we can immediately put towards the engineering studies um but you know or and we've got commitments for another amount that are contingent upon permitting that kind of thing um but

020the time frame here is really unrealistically short in order to you know to hit the green light after 13 plus years I don't know how many years I haven't been involved that long of of changing plans changing cases people moving in and out um you know reconnecting with the people that had indicated interest in the past that takes time um and we're working on it so that aside so obviously here's our goal we're going to pursue private funding um and this is for phase one um and I just wanted to reiterate some of the costs and um obviously everything is an estimate here and you know while we're trying to work on the raising the money side of things we would ask you guys to work controlling the cost side of things um one of

021the questions that we have is with the design and permitting and Construction Services estimate um can we add other estimates for that it see I it seems like it's a straight you know when we have stantech's updated feasibility study from this fall um they had construction costs that I was here of just over seven million dollars and then they had 10 contingencies and then they hit eight percent in there for permitting design construction services and you know the number that they've given us is like eight percent of of the estimate and I just I just wonder if that could be fine-tuned or if they just said eight percent and split it up this way I don't know so that's what we'd ask for you guys to do um you know but in total those numbers

022add up to depending on where the contingencies fall now we're looking at probably seven and a half to eight point three million dollars um to date you have uncollected verbal indications of over a half a million most of which is per is contingent upon permits um and that's something that we're working on um next slide is some of the issues that we need to resolve in order for us to be able to you know pick up the speed a little bit um the first one is identifying entities that can accept the donations um so for large donations we feel like the best thing to do would be for those to go directly to the school um and the school needs to set up some kind of fun or revolving account that is dedicated solely to

023the artificial turf field project in order to collect those funds um and uh the other thing is small donations we would fundraise through 501c3s um right now we're operating as a community of masculine youth football um and that's how we've been able to collect donations in the past um another issue um when applying for Grants for example there's a local bank that has a grant process um should it be the school applying or should it be one of our 501c3s that's a question we need to resolve you know I started working on a grant proposal but um I kind of feel you know we I'd be happy to help write those up but I kind of feel like they should be submitted from the school I don't know what the process is with other schools

024that have done it um just because of the magnitude of the dollars that we're asking for um and then you know obviously the the policy subcommittee meeting was pushed off about a month was it a month yeah so there's things that we need to just confirm related to what we can and cannot do in terms of advertising and naming rights that kind of thing all right so here's our kind of broad strategy step one which we feel like we're 99 completed with is form and expand our committee so we have representatives from all three towns we have um representatives from all of the field related booster organizations and we have representatives from most Recreational Sports Town programs and we're that's something we're still working on so that's kind of step one form the committee step

025two we need to get commitments from our own committee members I feel really strongly that you can't go and ask people for money unless you've shown your commitment yourself and those commitments can range it could be small it could be large but that is kind of The Next Step so we're working on that and then from there we'll form three fundraising subcommittees the first one will be in charge of reaching out to corporate donors um these would be with local and National businesses we have really good um personal connections with a lot of the large local banks so we feel good about that um and also within our committee we you know who knows what's going to bear fruit but we have a lot of really good um contacts with really influential people and all

026of our professional sports teams locally in some of the professional sports leagues nationally um with some of the big Athletic Apparel companies so it's just a question of working those connections and we have those connections um so we're very lucky with that so that would be kind of one fundraising subcommittee another would be to pursue private donations from high net worth individuals um and that is I well that is what it is um we've got we've got a good number of leads in that direction and then the third subcommittee would be kind of the smaller private donors and events um and this these would be you know fundraising events participation campaigns things that get the community involved and excited about the project while also supporting it okay probably set everything here um yeah we'll skip

027that um just said oh the one thing here is we know it's important to develop a marketing plan and determine the benefits at different donor levels will receive we need to define the market segment that people will reach if they've got a named item we need to be able to estimate the size of the audience that people will see so you know how many people attend events how many people drive there's a sign on the road how many people drive by that kind of thing that's going to be really important to people that are doing it from an advertising perspective um that really really favorable demographics here with all three towns being in the top 30 wealthiest communities when defined by um medium median household income so the next slide is a short list of

028kind of the the main Marquee items that we would hope to find um corporate support for naming the first one is the athletic complex itself um which I think would be the top dollar uh naming right um and that would that could potentially there could be a sign on the road that indicates because people would want to know am I going to the you know the track or you know so they could have a name sign on the road um there's going to be the new concession in bathroom building new stadium can have a name the turf can have a logo on it we've got home bleachers away bleachers Press Box scoreboard we already have interest in scoreboard but we we're not talking values yet because we don't want to Peg um or anything yet

029um and then there's the multi-purpose Fields name you know a name for that field when you're entering the field also name on the turf and we recognize that you know we're probably not going to have two banks on the same field that kind of thing so it's going to be important to hit different segments um with the type of corporations that might and just just to um I think I've said this to the committee at another time but um we had talked about coming up with this and and giving um getting the committee you know the opportunity to these are the things that you're thinking about naming and then outside of if that all matches with the policies and all of that exactly so this is all done before you then go promise exactly right

030we can't go and say we just we had one company say well I want to do the scoreboard but you know we're just slow down um so generally we're aiming to raise four million dollars with the naming rights and you know this is just like I said I don't want to put numbers on things yet because we don't want to negotiate against ourselves um but we do know what for example a lot some of our neighboring communities we know what they've been able to achieve with just a single field with naming rights so which is like a single field they've done um like anywhere from 500 to 700 hundred thousand can I ask you just I just want to ask yes question part when you've looked into naming rights is there ever like a number

031of years involved Yes actually that's a good thing to bring up so um foreign I think that a lot of these things that we've listed here I think things that are more permanent you might give like a 30-year but if it's something like the turf itself which you're going to replace in 10 years the logo on the fields um that's something that you could you could maybe put a 10 right on or something or like an eight year and then that could potentially be a source of income when you're replacing fields um but I I thought a lot about that um about which items you could really do that with them if you're not going to really rename the athletic complex right that goes I think it's probably for the long term and um same

032problem with the scoreboard like some things are just not easy to change thank you but some I noticed that some schools that do it will actually offer like if they they have like two categories of naming rights and one is like shorter term and they have different prices like you can have it for three years and you pay X dollars per month or you if you commit to eight years it's different price um we haven't gotten into that kind of like a subscription model like yeah that would be great right um I think realistically with I don't think people around here this part of the country have done it that way so I mean I also am not sure anyone's done anything this big around here we have best practices yeah we I I work

033in this industry so I have a lot of clients I can rely on for their best practices and their sponsorship guides great so then um in addition to named items we envision having a donor wall like you'd see in a hospital or something um and so this is kind of our goal for the number of donors in each category um and then the minimum amount in our categories um so I actually feel pretty good about these numbers um it means accomplishing them what's that you feel good about accomplishing yeah like I I do I I sent an email especially like the top end I actually think were probably like closer to getting commitments on than you know because that's where the work's been in the past so um and so the total of those there

034um that's 3.9 million and then the um events committee we put some numbers behind um these are the types of things they do so small drives those you know um Car Wash student events those kind of things if if there was one per month um you know at 800 a month that kind of thing parent events that would be like your big party fundraiser that you do once a year that kind of thing and then um kind of bigger student Events maybe there could be like a fall in a spring bigger fundraising event and those would be the goals we'd be looking for per event and over a two-year period hoping to raise an additional 100 000 just through those kind of small then community events um so this is just kind of summarizes everything

035we don't need to go through all this um we have made initial contact with some of the local banks um and we've started reaching and reconnecting with uh people who have made indications of committing in the past um like I said it's been a long process so um you know I'm not sure everyone even feels like it's really it and so I think if we can get through town meeting and and it becomes real um I think that we'll have a lot more success yeah any questions Christina since you might know people like um have you guys looked at our naming a facility policy that's on the books ready yeah I looked at it a while ago I don't think it's I don't think it doesn't like summer hip can't do it doesn't look prohibitive

036to me yeah no I think one of the things we're just gonna have to be super careful of is we know we don't want fields that have like seven different zip tied plastic winners on them you know we want to make sure that we're across the board you know looking at types of people that you know would you mind coming up with them Sarah sorry Christina is part of the committee as well thanks Christina yeah I think we want to make sure that we're keeping in mind with um you know socially responsible people that don't have um interests that are against what would that our school mission is um I think there are a lot of athletic companies that are merging and conglomerating um I know in the space that are probably excited about having

037some kind of impact on Youth Sports one of the things we're going to have to look at that's that that's in here but not in here and it has to do with things like rental fees is if we find a an athletic donor that also has camps and summer usage are we able to barter out some of the field rental costs for a larger upfront donation um you know you can run your summer camps here but you're kind of paying in advance for them um and or of that allocation you know what percent are we then going to put into like a little bucket for future maintenance things like that but I think in terms of sponsorships um I think there are a lot of good best practices out there and I think as long

038as we're clear and we have really good guidelines on like what the signage is going to look like how big it's going to be what it can have what the taglines Associated are then I think it's um I think we want to make sure that they're very Equitable do good research on the companies that we would be accepting their donations from and make sure that when we don't have any liability on the school's part that we had a sponsor didn't agree with us so we didn't agree with yeah um I guess I'm still just a little confused and I'm not sure if this question is directed toward you or or us but given that we've we currently are planning to ask the towns and the the believe the stir the pot of approach um for

039the money to get to get started on this if you subsequently or maybe even buy town meeting if you have success successfully create those funds is do we have a sense of what we would do would we would on the floor reduce the amount that we're asking of the towns um or would we just ask the towns for what we originally planned to um and then put that money aside for future developments of this project last time or whenever we last talked about this idea if there was a beginning donation or donors checks that came to this specialized account revolving account before town meeting and we could change it okay so that's a possibility you can change it on the floor so I think the possibilities include hypothetically yep and 450 is approved tonight in

040the adopted budget so you could amend it on the floor you could amend it anytime thereafter as long as the total amount or any appropriation to any of our member times aren't increased the committee can change can amend the budget down six months from now if it chooses exactly but it takes eight members to do that right okay anything to do with the budget takes yes yes um the only thing I would kind of caution everybody is that the composition is the of the committee is going to change here in the next couple of months and it'll be up to the new committee this committee can't make a promise on behalf of the new committee so for example this committee can't promise to repay the towns through a donation that would be up to the

041new committee yes right but I just thank you I'm sure that's clear to everybody one of the reasons why I like the idea is if we could get something before and be deposited so it's an actual like hey the fundraising has begun we've gotten hypothetically a hundred thousand dollars it's in the account we're just asking for 350 an hour whatever do you Hamilton want him how to go to their respective Town meetings to create a revolving account for their turf field we don't need to do that we don't need to do that I don't know that's where I came from that yeah we can just with I can propose a special revenue account yeah that's dedicated to the turf up project and presented to the committee for approval and I just need um you know

042majority approval to set it up and then when gifts come in either through um you know your group directly from a donor every gift needs to be presented to the school committee and accepted by the school committee and then just deposit it into the account and then once it's in that account it can only be used for things related to it can only be used for things related to the project at the discretion of the committee not the donor so I think it would also make sense that when we come up with the guidelines of who and what we're willing to accept for a sponsor those are the same guidelines we use for accepting donations kind of have like a blanket review process and checklist that we're not taking donations for non-maming things so you

043said not obviously not once the money's been donated it's been donated but and it's in its property of this of this right for our use of in the turf project for the project yeah but you said like at the discretion but at the discretion only for the turf yes okay to find anything else okay Trevor I have a question but there's lots of specifics is it that relate to a project of this size so if yeah you know if the just a crazy example if if the group wanted a blue field and thank you guys the committee wanted a green field well it's up to the committee it's not up to the I say yep not red or red Joe just a couple of quick questions um you mentioned that you have representatives from each

044town on the project which is great yes do you have a plan or have you been going to any of the select board or finance committee meetings to give details about the project kind of what you're doing today yeah this was kind of the first step we recognized that there might be a need to be there to do that my husband's on finance committee for top Zone yeah and I've spoken with our time like for Topsfield I've spoken with our Town Administrator I've spoken to our chair of our select board and um and I and I've listened I've listened to your meetings multiple times and I listened in autopsy when I I know that there's confusion a lot of confusion about what's happening here there's there's confusion about the money for the grass fields which

045fields are those fields that are getting turfed or not you know there's a lot of confusion so I think there's a need to educate people on the facts and like I said like I we also need to educate taxpayers on the fact that yeah we're privately fundraising that for this but you know we at this point we can't guarantee that we're doing that so that you know when a taxpayer votes for it they go in need to make it I I only asked the question because I know that came up at one of the Boxford meetings that they really feel it's important that there's more of a dialogue um yeah given all the other Financial demands and needs that are competing that um that they are just kind of brought into that a little bit

046more yeah and then my second question and maybe you can't answer this but do you think there's a strong likelihood that that scenario could play out that you would have the private funds to cover or offset some of the costs that we're asking the towns for prior to voting on something like that well our goal has always been to privately raise it but if we could get the money more money up front and just get the plan process going you know so you know I don't know how you go back and pay back a town but it I cannot speak to any of that but I think the goal has always been we would just do this ourselves like just get ahead of it um one thing I did want to say on the note

047of people not being familiar is Thursdays are kind of update day for me so I should be having I should be tomorrow updating the list of people who've joined onto the website I've been trying to update the little news section I've been trying to fill in um with the I updated the plans I updated so every Thursday I kind of have a couple hours to to it's about doing my day job and and notes we'll add this presentation again we'll like give a more robot bus list of members that we've had to join so we're going to do the town and whether they have like a particular area of Interest the other thing we're going to do is we did have a student do some graphic design stuff for us so Jack Fiedler did some

048graphics for us on the committee and we're going to be using his and we're starting with a green means go um and we do in our last update we had a you know a thank you to the school committee and so it's a green means go meaning we're gonna we're rolling the ball in this then we're gonna have a we need you for a more call call to action for more volunteers because we're looking for some very specific skill sets grant writers pitch people um and and people with with good Partnerships and sponsorship experience and then um just weekly updates so we should be starting some more Communications call to action follow us things like that um I would like to generate a good mail list so that when we have an update every week

049or however often we do it just goes out like by a MailChimp to anyone who's subscribed it goes out to the boosters it goes out to the towns like I'm also kind of representing lacrosse boosters so um you know things like that and making sure that we're communicating out to the field boosters and the youth organizations on a regular basis about why it's important the other thing I think we really need to do is start working on like our community voices because one thing I feel super strongly about is um the number of people we have lost to private school and so this is a proactive step to those people in third fourth and fifth grades to keep their kids in this school and you guys have all heard my speech about promising to my

050son that if you could stay here and not go to the prep because we were going to be great and um so I think we want to start building Community Voices using our existing awesome students about why this is so important and so even if you've pulled your kids out to private school you still feel good about writing a check to us so those are some of the things we're going to work on from a social and more comp perspective um so what did you have this those were my two questions for almost exactly um but I do want to reiterate it's important that you do go talk to the uh selectman especially in Boxford uh and and the fin comms um my general impression of them is they see this as dropping out of

051under the blue almost um same you know as much as you guys been working on this forever that's just the impression that I get out of those guys and it's much better if the people that are really involved in doing this work go there and talk to them instead of getting secondhand stories from us I think it's the best way to do it so I saw it in the tuxil vincome yeah so thank you and part of the reason why we we had them there so it's here tonight so that you know we're continuing this partnership but you know we need you guys to be here rather than just Trevor I representing you yeah um so I was hoping we could talk a little bit about warrants in the town meeting uh just I know

052I believe from my town they plan to put Boxford um this piece of the budget on a separate warrant and you guys are probably familiar with Town meetings someone gets up and explains it um it's great marketing and exposure for the project um but I'm wondering if as part of your plan you intense do that at the town at least the Box Oxford residents to do that and do you have box for people yes but I would say we don't have the person to do that yet that town meeting can you look for one yes thanks good boxer to invite anybody though they can use the moderator invite they cannot I think they could but I I think it could be better if yes it's always better when a resident stands up and speaks passionately

053about of course because a box for just you know not just but they went through a huge project and built those Pride which yeah ultimately privately funded fields which are great that we use as a backup for Masco but like they're it would be great for them to get a better understanding of why we need more they built that field and and the demand there's way more demand than there is I mean I don't even think tonight we Sarah did a nice job of summarizing where we are and why we need this I mean we really because we didn't need to belabor the point to you guys because we've done that before but clearly like there are so many far-reaching reasons why we need these fields not just you know the the drought but really

054student retention putting a commitment behind our student athletes keeping kids in the community but developing winning teams like safety that like there's the list is endless and so um we we can really drill down on that I think that's kind of the cell Point like of because I mean let's be honest if we do this everything improves from a visual Persona when you're going to buy like I live right there and so when I eventually sell my house and you drive by this fantastic high school and fantastic Athletic Facility and you want to buy a house right there as a taxpayer like that's all that's going to be awesome for me so I you know again that's probably the whole promise um I think that's I think we need to get that point across like

055this is what this is gonna do for homeowners for the community for our students so and I think I think the Carolyn's Point like a a somewhat quick presentation with the reasons and the plan and also just talking points for when people have questions yeah because it might sometimes it might just be that we need talking points for it or whatever so I think having those Representatives ready to go and that can be determined possibly by visiting all the I think we should have a handout for Town meetings but generally I think only committees that are invited can give presentations um but anyone can speak for a minute or whatever the moderator allows but we can definitely have handouts and we'll try to get multiple people that can speak on behalf and cover you know

056every other points that you could be covered right as long right the idea being that the speaking points are the same no matter who's giving them yeah or different ones if you want multiple there might not be enough time for one speaker to do all the points correct like yeah yeah you want to spread the wealth a little bit right and just real quickly um it probably will be even more helpful if you were able to get information out to the public long before town meeting correct um I mean if you figure out how to do that let us know honestly oh wow and put it in their mailbox I mean done so you know if they've got the funds and the capability of doing that that's right um that would be helpful any other

057questions no but I see the green means go and I think you're on that track already with that kind of stuff so thanks um I wish we could put it up because Jack did a really nice job with it yeah on the website looks great yes and the website just to say it publicly is just the website oh Turf up mask oh dot org um actually I'll try and update our page the turf page yeah if you just provide like a link to it again I'll try to do see if it works remember it didn't work and it was going somewhere weekend once well that's considering we didn't pay attention to it this was like in malware but it's all cleaned up with my donations [Laughter] okay thank you all right hey thank you all

058for uh thank you thank you so much thank you thanks guys thank you so we want to talk further about this part of the budget I know um yeah so I don't know if this belongs here or elsewhere but um I wanted to talk about the treatment of this as a part of I don't know what the right term is but the operating budget assessment part of the entire budget not operating the capital operating in capital budget is a capital budget okay surprise your entire budget a budget all right so I wanted to talk about how this is part of the budget and how prior to like three or four weeks ago are understanding and when we talked about stirring the pot our understanding was um I think our Hope was by having this worn

059article we would be informing the towns of what was going on we would encourage like taxpayer support of the project even though we hope most of the initial costs would be privately funded um and which I I like that idea and my understanding and every most everyone else's I believe at the time was that this is a capital Orient Capital expense and therefore in the past anything Capital related required our understanding was it required three out of three towns in the past yeah three out of three towns right yeah um just unfortunately it was it was wrong information that's bad okay all right but it's been an understanding that the towns have had it's fine that it doesn't matter but to change the interpretation or the message like in the last minute to say we

060only need two out of three to do it I I get that that may be the minimum required but I I got feedback from my town and I personally think it's important that all three towns vote in favor of this because it does ultimately obligate them for a significant like replacement costs 10 years down the road and it's a huge change in our this asset that we share I think it's a great idea I don't have a problem with that but I I think it should be approved by all three towns rather than have one town feel like it's being dragged along I think it'll make it difficult for future Capital spending if the you know a town feels that it didn't have a say and where big spending is going so I what I

061was going to suggest or at least for discussion and I'd love to hear what other people think is that with the understanding that we only need two out of three towns to approve budget we as a school committee require that all three towns have to approve that piece of the budget which can be done we can ask for no you need to amend the regional agreement to that can't you do that as part of the motion to approve the budget I think you need to follow the regional agreement the regional agreement process for amending the regional agreement to be able to do those things so I don't think we can do it for this town meeting but you certainly could do it for next year's time meeting that would might reflect you know 90 greater

062than 95 of the cost of the project should it go that far so you can't just put on the Warren article that we commit to this going forward if three out of three towns has to be in the regional agreement and okay where is that Regional agreement in so that's so right your guiding principles are the statute the regs and the regional agreement yeah the regional agreement is silent on this right but it does Define budget and it defines budget to include operating expenditures and capital costs and it further defines Capital class to include these kinds of things that we're talking about right now right and then the statute and the regs talk about two-thirds approval so so where do you know agreement can be yes one second a regional agreement can be more restrictive

063than the statute but it has to specify that so it can it could potentially specify the requirement for three out of three for Capital and debt expense for example but it has to specify that and it doesn't specify that and I realized that that's the way it was before but I guess shame on your past administration that sense the school committee can always lower the budget correct right so if the motion to approve the budget as part of that motion you know that the 000 would only you know be suspended assessed collected if all three towns approve it it's part of your budget it follows the guidelines of the law the regional agreement but the school committee is saying we will you can't you can't find a future kind of it's not the same committee

064then making a decision so what would have to happen is in June whoever is on this committee if eight people just agree that they would lower the amount you can do that but you can't make that commitment now that that's going to happen because the vote could fail that's higher committed to a future part of the discussion at Town meetings will be how come this is different and and that uh uncertainty reduces the yes vote I don't I don't disagree with your customers I can't speak to who gave you this advice historically where you were going to ask was why this the confusion is around death so to borrow if the committee was going to say we are going to issue bonds and borrow money that has to be unanimous approval by by the towns

065the capital expense including Debt Service once the debt is already approved is not subject to the the unanimous but I I think even that's speculative Mike yeah I don't know I don't know we don't know I think we've done through all the documents dating back to 2007 we just don't know why they did it that way yeah the statute the regs and the regional agreement aren't Crystal Clear if we're just going to buy a vehicle the work truck that's a capital expense it only takes two out of three it's not that would not take three but if we needed to do Debt Service defy that vehicle if you needed to take out a loan that's the the authority to borrow has to be approved by all three towns and it has to be specifically authorized

066by this committee right and that's why we actually moved it this meeting to tonight because that was the original idea authorization of debt has a completely different path we're talking about operating budget okay so just the fact that inclusive of capital because that's the definition in the regional agreement right so if the towns weren't going to use their free cash to pay this it would have been debt and that would be the whole idea of the money to do it yes right and it would have been hard to which would have required three out of three the fact that the towns going to use their free cash has changed that taking away their ability to require like unanimous approval I'm not sure they knew that when they said that they would use the cash in

067fact I know they didn't know that I don't know what they well they thought what they always thought you know like they've been around for a while or at least the ones on the box they just thought it was a relatively small amount that borrowing it wouldn't make sense that they had it I know but uh but they were also under operating under the old understanding right they didn't know that there was another understanding right so just forgive me for being for asking this question because I should probably know the answer but if we if the tones decide like in the next week they were not going to use free cash it it they can't right they can they they can be too late for you to authorize it would be too late for this

068group to authorize debt so do we have to do both in that event do we have to authorize that's why I recommended authorizing debt to begin with right was to cover our tracks right so I guess if they see our budget and then tomorrow at Whoever has a fincom or a like board meeting they decide we can't really we don't really want to use free cash we're stuck without money for Turf no no and it's still it's still part of our budget and they have to vote to appropriate it's up to them how they pay for it okay yeah but you know so if in Boxford and Topsfield there's going to be three pieces to approve the budget you know the Omnibus the override and this warrant article that's the case in all three towns

069Middleton may not have an override so it may be only two pieces right so if Topsfield overrides fails Boxford doesn't support the warrant article since and then the budget failed budget correct because in those two towns Middleton aside those three articles make up the operating number so Two Towns would have to approve all three or two pieces or whatever that approves the entire budget program yeah and that's what we talked about at the last meeting and if Turf is what's being held up easy enough for us to change it when we come back again afterwards the committee could vote a new number that is 449 000 lower than the the submitted budget and then that's dot or not change or not changes at all right they didn't change it you resubmit if if they voted

070the appropriated number from town meeting they don't have to have another tell me no but the committee could keep pushing yeah you could keep pushing through several iterations until the summer time when the committee could hold its own quote-unquote town meeting agenda would be the school committee's budget I had a question to do with this and figure that we're looking out for free cash but not necessarily the turf are we addressing like our Fields because I know we were supposed to do that in the capital plan and so we're talking about reducing that number if we get x amount of dollars for fundraising would it make sense to keep that number the way it is and replace what we plan to reduce it by if we get that x amount for fundraising and use it

071for our current field situation I'm not sure I followed that but that's a capital conversation not the operating budget because none of that is is on the table for tonight so we have kind of Taken that off that was like the original way that at least I was seeing it I think Melissa was also we were like looking at it could be fill in extra dollars that the towns that kind of committed with free cash that if if we you know got fundraising to reduce them out right so but the problem is that um one of the problems is timing that waiting like you can't do anything with money coming into your town meetings really to get the fields taken care of for the summer anyway and the second part of timing was just us

072discussing capital and we really need to do that as a whole rather than just the fields um and the fact that the towns all asked to have it at least in Fall not in this this current spring I feel like we should be having those conversations going forward I I I thought that would have been an easier idea but I think it's also with all the confusion out there especially since the process has changed um I think we want to reduce any further confusion yeah so in the interest of reducing further confusion um what are we doing about the current Fields this summer so I think that's a conversation for the capital plan yeah until the fall and we have a season coming up in the fall last year we had an important question that

073we probably don't have time for tonight to get into just not on the agenda yeah because it's not an agenda any Capital stuff Beyond turf um and we got a budget to get to so we want to make sure that this part of the budget gets um clarified so is there nothing in this part of the budget then to address the current field situation correct there's maintenance right like regular maintenance correct but regular maintenance has left us with the situation it doesn't reflect what I proposed in the capital plan on February 1st or any other alternative that this tonight's agenda doesn't address that the resotting was part of the critical needs summary you guys resoding was part of my Capital plan proposal right now and then further reduced there's a critical need it's still part

074of the capital plan so best cases we get at least those critical needs if not more done for fall town meeting and get everything worked on you know ASAP as schools as soon as schools out next year next year I think is kind of the best case to share where we're at now but I can't fully talk about that now in Carolina then Zoe I wanted to go back to something that you said before we started talking about the fields I just want to make sure I understand it um it's the if there's a town that doesn't vote for any part of the budget um like you said that um the new school party and if they took out the her field piece provided that the rest was already approved for in the town meeting

075in the town meeting so as we talk about three questions so they'll be the the Omnibus an override and then the capital of the three parts if the first two parts passed in two of the three towns you could go back and revoke less 449 and then you have an approved budget because those two other parts passed two other parts passed and then you you say okay we'll accept that lower number okay if I could read part of the red addresses that so if a proposed amendment to a previously approved budget does not increase the amount of the budget and reduces or leaves unchanged the assessment for every member the amendment shall not require approval of the local appropriating authorities and shall be effective Upon A two-thirds vote of the regional school committee I need

076to look at it to understand it yeah um silly you had a sorry well I I try and decide if I want to spend her time even saying this but I'm going to just say um I liked the idea that Trevor brought up a lot and it's something I actually had even discussed with um our finance committee liaison and I'm disappointed that the process and the timing and the way this all went we didn't have that chance I did had had a question and I may have already asked this year and I'm kind of forgetting the answer but because in the critical needs list the original capital plan had the resetting of the fields coming out of our stabilization account and I had hoped that we might like that's something we could vote next meeting

077and just do we don't need the towns to approve that I had hope that we might still be able to do that no matter what else happens with the understanding that the next step is to ask for the fullest um sooner than later so that we don't um bring down our stabilization balance too much for too long so the original proposal I think reflected the three fields in that way yeah because it also assumed that would we would be moving forward with the capital plan in a really aggressive way right this year um I feel like that was never actually yeah we talked about that here and then then we talked about critical needs and then the question that this group needs to decide is if you have a million dollars or left in your

078stabilization account and you know that you have all these critical needs some of which any of which exceed the million dollar stabilizations you want to use 30 of that stabilization fund to sod fields or do you want to what do you want to leave it in there should in the event of a a failure to a middle school boiler happen where you would need all those funds available to make that repair are you willing to make that trade-off that's what you're asked about if we've been having funds if it was a million and a half because like you said a lot of these things are expensive and we couldn't cover them then when we could go to the town and ask for them so the first thing we we do in a regional is you

079go to E and D right and you've got you know a million and a half dollars in the end date so you have that as your next layer of protection so you have your stabilization account which is currently a million one will be reduced to somewhere around 900 after we repair the wastewater treatment facility I'll send you guys an update in the next week or so and then you've got the next layer of protection is to end it before before we move on can we just any information that's a capital discussion that would affect going one way or another if we could have that before our 29th meeting I think that would be helpful to us what do you mean if we have all the pieces that we need so the Wastewater stuff so that's

080a work in process all right there's a lot of things going on and so just to reiterate the question there is no way to add into our Warren article that we would just accept this only if three like it's part of the budget only of what oh only like there is no way just to say that that's what we as a committee wanted we can't be more we confirmed it with Council today yeah the the mechanism that would happen is what the way I described it that the committee would have to vote after to reduce the budget but this committee can't make the promise that the next Community is going to vote in any particular way well I don't think this committee can you can even promise that they have to vote make a change

081to the regional agreement without going through the process of changing the region which is it a unanimous requirement that doesn't exist so maybe the the confusion and the way to explain I mean understandably things were done differently but most of our Capital expenses I feel like are coming with some form of debt and maybe that's why it's been the way I don't know I don't remember oh in the past yeah I mean it's been a while since we've had Capital expenses on our budget as part of our budget they're they don't think they were ever in the there no they weren't in the operating budget they should have been there should have been there from the time the stabilization fund was agreed upon to be created there was that sort of arrangement where between Massacre

082and the towns that Masco would not ask for Capital money which is kind of ridiculously short-sighted on Millions on everybody's part but that so there was never things asked for until about five or six years ago when we did the the first sort of Warrant request and that was done as separate from you know the budget approval in that year just had The Debt Service you know in that line and then you asked you know the towns to put up or an article they did everybody voted for it and and uh moved you know forward but even the way that the committee funded like opeb for example completely wrong onwards and upwards that method of operation I would think you know if it was completely wrong Why didn't Auditors you know pointed out why didn't

083you know Desi look at it and say you're doing it wrong nobody said that you were doing it wrong I can't ask I thought I don't know I don't know to what extent either deci or Auditors look at the process the way we used to do it I mean no one's paying touch anyway let's can we delete them okay this is the way we're supposed to do it then let's go it was that way do it then let's just move on okay so any other questions on Turf before we do move on oh yeah this was about terp wasn't it I think I think we're good I think uh tours up guys back there for her coming and presenting to us and look forward to further updates and work together and if anybody's listening again

084go to turf.org um I know it can't be enough I think tomorrow it can't be enough volunteers working on this Thursday at noon tax budget let's get her going we are End of the Road um so I do want to start off with reiterating the The Experience recommendation is for the level service budget uh that would be a continuation of current Services programs and operations of the district uh so for fy24 the updated recommendation uh reflection increase of operating expenses of two million 450 229 or 6.4 percent uh and an increase of one million seven hundred and eighty three thousand two hundred and eighty operating assessment versus the FY 23 budget this was the original superintendent's revised on March 1st March administration's recommendation revised with Cherry Street again this schedule represents that March first recommendation

085[Music] is there a capital cost on the fourth line down in the expenditures section and so that total total expenditures budget is 40 million 661 dollars which is an increase of 5.4 to the FY 23 budget trying to see we've we've done this one to death yeah I think we're good um so this then would a portion uh that number that I just read out to the to the towns um so what's the total assessment number for fy24 of 32 million 600 190 and so that number it's the 40 million that I talked about less a couple of revenues that we that we include including chapter 78 uh Regional Transportation uh access and deficiency transfers and the like um and so that's an assessment increase of two million seven hundred and thirty one thousand eighty

086three dollars or nine point one percent uh relative to the FY 23 budget professional sure something um money that gem that we're receiving back is it at 75 or did I did am I hearing that they're now already committed I'm not sure if it's voted to 90 of is that 75. and the cherry sheet I understand is it's at 75. they're I thought I heard that it it made it sound like it was going to go forward at um of the costs I understand is 75 and whatever we have in the budget right now is what was reflected in the F14 preliminary church I know because everything is like on the floor right now being discussed they're talking about it in the legislature right now right okay but either way it's not going to be

087finalized till they finalize their budget which will be okay meeting anyway right yeah so what the last meeting uh the committee requested that we run three additional versions not proposals of the budget um and present them for your consideration tonight where each version would reflect the targeted level of reduction as compared to the final budget recommendation that Mike just referenced so in the pack I've included all three versions uh each version includes five items four of which are consistent in each of the version versions and there's one that varies from version to version and that's around Staffing so the four that are constant are a shift of operating costs to sr3 a little over 140 000. an increase in circuit breaker offset of a hundred and seven thousand five hundred so those two items decrease

088the budget that Mike just referenced and then uh adding a jv2 volleyball program at a little over eight thousand dollars and then adding a JV golf program at a little over seven thousand dollars so those things are constants through each of the three versions and version one this version reflects a reduction in head count of zero as compared to the recommended March first recommendation so the net impact to that recommendation is a reduction of two hundred and thirty one thousand nine hundred and twenty seven dollars and you can see on this slide how that is totaled and then apportioned to the member towns based on the methodology and the regional agreement so the next slide kind of presents kind of the assessment overview the pass-through of those three items so the assessment the operating assessment

089dips down to one 5.1 percent and then the next slide shows the new apportionment for each of Our member towns um and I'll note that the only numbers on the sheet that have changed are the operating assessment components as the capital assessment including Debt Service hasn't changed that's still the 449 and change it's a version two from going too fast let me know um version two sorry yeah I just I've been drafted motions for you guys for each version um so version two is exactly what I talked about but the only difference between version two and version one is reducing the head count by one FTE as compared to the March 1st recommendation and that um the number we're using there is seventy thousand dollars so the net impact of version two those five items

090is a reduction in operating costs and operating assessment of three hundred and one thousand nine hundred and twenty seven dollars and then you can see how that would impact each of the member towns using the methodology um prescribed in the regional agreement so Boxford would be reduced by a hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred and forty three dollars Middleton by 102 655 in Topsfield by 87 529 and then in assessment overview and the corresponding assessment by town um as you can see in the bottom right hand corner this were adopted the operating assessment for the district would dip them below five percent to four point nine percent final version um reduces the head count by two FTE to a hundred and forty thousand dollars so the net impact of all five items uh reflects a

091371 927 decrease as compared to the March 1st recommendation and then by town there would be a reduction in Boxford of 137 650 dollars in Middleton 126 455 dollars and then in Topsfield 107 822 and then the next two slides are the same they reflect the revised assessment overview based on those changes operating assessment dips further to 4.6 increase over current year budget and then the assessment by towns are reflected in the final schedules thank you for putting those all together so I think that reflects what we had discussed yeah so to some when we when we had our discussion at the last meeting we had kind of done um folks official votes couples of what we wanted to perform right and that is reflected in the um four out of five things um that

092are consistent in each of the three first first uh we had nine members here last time and the majority straw will vote at that point or zero cuts um in headcount so I guess I'd like to start because then we brought versions seven three as backup so I guess I'd like to start with where we um finished last time and and what we were discussing and get people's feelings on those now that you've had some time to think I just have a just a reminder that it takes eight members of the full committee eight out of 11 to pass you adopt a budget to adopt a budget right excellent clarification yeah clarifying question so what we're considering are four different options tonight no the level service recommendation and then version one two and three superintendent's

093recommendation and then version that's included in the consideration that's why we included a presentation I just want to make sure I'm understanding that still our recommendation yeah um right so and I I know that we have a couple guys that weren't here so if you have questions that will bring you up to speed or anything maybe we should be for those first before we go into further discussion and if you don't have an even you just touch your head shake your head at me we're good and we can continue with conversation okay so who did I say after um I assumed I don't remember um on March 6th we talked about you know looking at what an expense reduction of three quarters to one percent would look like March 8th we saw uh something that

094uh reduced the assessment by 371. it reduced the expenses by 264. because 107 of that is increasing the use from the circuit breaker so three quarters to one percent was three to four hundred thousand two sixty four is you know close enough as yeah in my mind that version you know had 4 FTE reduction you know even though on Monday we had talked about trying to do that you know without impact on minimal impact or no impact on teaching on the eighth a couple of mentions of Esser funds and all of a sudden two of those positions could you know stay because other things were shifted to Esser funds during the discussion a couple of times you know Mike was asked you know what with a two FTE reduction really due to mass sizes and

095Mike's response was well I don't really know because you know I have to wait and see what the signs ups are now my guess is that if we were talking about a 6fte reduction then Mike would have said oh yeah it's going to have an impact because there was a greater number so given that are in projected enrollment for next year is lower than this year we don't know if the uh impact that if we'll there'll be any impact on class sizes and you know with all the talk of advocacy that has been done by you know members of this body superintendents you know and throughout the Commonwealth something will be done on the state funding level don't know what don't know to you know to what extent but it once that is done and

096I'm presuming that of you know that where four retirements so if there's a two FTE reduction means only two of the four retirees would be replaced not necessarily okay not and and that's fine but you know if we have after we see the class signs up and see what impact that has on class sizes and when we know what the state is has done with respect to funding if there's additional funding the committee at that point can say okay well raise our uh expenses by a hundred and forty thousand because our Revenue now is a hundred and forty thousand and you know higher those two ftes you know doing it before we know that they will have any impact on class sizes you know and at the same time with two of the towns almost

097definitely having overrides and if you know no uh reductions are done the third you will also it it just it I think it heightens the probabilities of a budget being passed by two of the three towns if we show a some reductions that lead to assessment decreases so my support is for version three so started looking into some of the other numbers to just have a better understanding of the budget like questions from last week about can we really spare those you know four retirements does not necessarily mean in the reduction of class sizes those four retirements we don't know who they are they are they aren't necessarily Physicians that would be the first to go if there's a reduction now if we look at class sizes and Nasco our student teacher ratio is worse

098than the state average we have one of the worst student teacher ratios going especially for a school of this size and of the caliber we'd like to have in tri-town our expenditure per pupil is much higher than other towns our student teacher ratio the kinds of towns for a point of reference these people are unaware that have the same student teacher ratio of Masco or Beverly and Lowell other towns that you might think we'd have a better student teacher ratio than include Haverhill Salem we do I started digging into why is it that we have such a higher our total per pupil expenditures according to deci is about twenty two thousand dollars per student Beverly and Lowell spend about sixteen thousand dollars per student same student teacher ratio their average teacher salaries are eighty thousand

099dollars and seventy eight thousand dollars masco's average teacher salary is a hundred and one thousand dollars so therein is some of our challenge when you look at other districts with six figure average teacher salaries those just there's very few of them I think it's less than a dozen and those schools are you can probably all name them Concord Carlisle Weston Dover Sherburne Lexington right so we have a challenge here that's simply saying okay let's reduce ftes isn't the solution to how we solve our budget problem it's actually going to increase make our student teacher ratio worse which then impacts student engagement Mental Health teaching and learning that that has such a massive impact on the experience here for both the staff The Faculty but primarily the student so looking for that to be our savings

100doesn't feel like the right answer some of it goes back to something that we can't do anything about right now and that is how we negotiated the contract right like if if there's there's some elements of that in there we can't do anything about that today the only thing we can do anything about is digging into the expenses and where else are the savings and I I tried to look at it a hundred different ways in the last month and I do not think the answer lies in the ftes I think that is only going to have a ripple effect that's going to hurt the experience for staff and students here irreparably I think um adding on to that thanks for doing all that digging um to you know comments that we've heard about administrations

101I think that bill you had a really great um uh explanation of you know how you can't cut the people that are leading the people who are teaching our children but also last week when we talked about how hopefully the Strategic plan might look differently at how um our our leadership works like you know with maybe combined departments or having the director of curriculum that could take up some of the roles and all of that um you know scaffolding of our of our leadership sounds like really good ways to look into things in the future but that's not math because right now we have a very lean um I mean like so if we're looking at our our staff models and we're knowing that only bodies the ones that make a dent in the budget

102because that's where most of our budget lies and we're talking about teachers and administration and the administration just administrators being so small to begin with that we couldn't do what we're doing without them and to your point and to the points that I think many people made last time about the importance of having smaller class sizes um and relationships with their teachers so that they can learn what the teachers are saying so they can feel connected and safe with the teachers who are teaching them um I I think I find myself very clear that I support no um staff cuts and I I support version number one so so I haven't been here so I apologize this is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway we've got four retirees but we

103don't know who they are I thought that no we never we know that we know yeah we don't know whether they need to be replaced or not why why is that I don't quite understand that you know what I mean I mean shouldn't we know generally speaking the sign ups haven't happened yet right so the class size is class sign ups are taking place at the end of March so that's best way to build your schedule is to say all right how many kids have signed up for each course and then therefore how many teachers do we need to allocate okay to each to each course but okay that's fine um but the second part of my question is I assume they feel that retiring are your retirement age and probably well compensated and we

104replace them with people that are less compensated is that right yeah that's all built into the March 1st revision yeah yeah right thank you I think we had net Savings of a little less than 100 Grand and that was because we you know people retire at the high end of the scale we replace them like strategically at Masters step five right it's around 70 grand and then there's this end of Korea benefit provision in the CBA I don't know if you're familiar with or not but that runs us in the first year for those four teachers a hundred and thirty thousand dollars so it's it offsets significant part of the Savings in that first year and and that so the four times 70 was essentially not replacing those four in a lot of ways some

105of those positions are one-offs that we couldn't function without right so it was just pegging the value at you know a reasonable level of funds when we do have reductions in force you start with attrition and we see are there there are people there that we can you know not hire not refill positions that people have already either retired or we may have some resignations coming over the course of the next couple of months then we go have to go to non-professional staff teachers that's you know people in their first three years here who are generally on the lower end of the pay scale so that's where we that's where that seventy thousand dollar you know kind of estimate comes out and to remind ourselves so we've got a high school English teacher retiring we've

106got a middle school math teacher retiring a middle school Wellness teacher retiring and a reading teacher retire teacher um and and just another reminding that um Matt what's it called the um the money that the teachers who were hired before a certain amount get when they at the end of the career benefits we have about 50 more teachers that are entitled to receive that benefit which eats into savings when you take the teacher at the top of their scale and replace them with a more mid-range teacher we have grandfather herbs or Sunset everything yeah everyone hired after 2001 2006 there's 56 left and it'll be about 15 years before last teacher retires so this is going to be an on it's just something to continue to think that but it's a one-time expense and not

107an annual thirty thousand dollars more which is what you're paying the uh your retiree right exactly um I'll start off by saying I'm leaning toward version three I think we need to put things in perspective and where we're looking at and seeing ourselves for next year and we talk about not binding a committee um this next Committee of next year then we have to think about the six positions that we have being funded by F by S our funds we have to think about the art requirement and the budget implications that that might have within the next say two years and then just outside of this inflation that everyone's seeing I think you have to take a good look at our taxpayers and say can they afford what we're going to be proposing to them

108and is it fair for them to be able to pay their share of this and if we are directly willing to pay their share of this with all those outside factors [Applause] um have another angle to consider um you know I think we do need to look ahead of the future expenses I think agree with everything you said about the contract and other things that we don't have control over at this moment um but I think we also have to project the impact day-to-day on students and I know I sound like a broken record but I do think we need to think about the mental health and if we want to put a number on it um the more the more mental health issues that increase is in severity the more out of District places

109that will occur and the expenses will rise regardless so I just think we need to be thinking big picture about the ripple effect of kids feeling disconnected here I think they lost a tremendous amount um during the pandemic because of choices that were made by the adults um and I think it's going to have years of implications so if there is a way to save money I'm all for it but I I really am having a hard time wrapping my head around taking it away from the kids so I I have to say I don't support making staff cuts um I'd like to piggyback on what you said um in terms of the ripple effect um one thing that we haven't talked about is also the mental health of the teachers and the staff that

110are here as they've also gone through the same um burden of coven that we all have and that our students have and if we start copping the numbers that each of them are teaching then their mental health also um can suffer as as it already has throughout the requirements of having to change the whole way they've taught for a few years and um you know we want to have a healthy staff um and and have that trickle down to a healthy student body that's another way of looking the Ripple effects of cuts Chris sorry Melissa I you had it at first sight it's a really small picky question um I could just because I don't remember what we've talked about with the golf program I was so happy to see the volleyball captains here and

111uh here they're passionate about it and I went online looking up information about the golf team um I know it's a tiny little drop in the bucket compared to all the other numbers we're looking at but I I want to vote for everything knowingly and the last thing I can find out about the golf team on the website is from 2014 so could someone just remind me why there's a need for a jb2 golf team or JV golf program when we circled back with John delanis the athletic director we asked him specifically which programs [Music] I can read you it's um his comment um we asked him specifically which programs didn't have or to confirm which programs didn't have JV and jv2 programs and then we asked him specifically about some some of the follow-up

112questions he said um there are only two teams where the demand can consistently warrants the addition of an additional level those four teams in of JV and the Vault jv2 program and by that was that he had to they would have to make Cuts because there's only a varsity team right now and there was consistent demand year after year after year which supported the idea of a JV program does that answer your question it's vague you know another drop in the bucket seems vague to me and I couldn't I like asked people about it you know like I know so we've had let's see Carolyn had mentioned they had set minimums and ideal targets so the golf program which was just varsity and I'm a minimum number to play of eight had an ideal number

113of 12 and has had a a four-year average number of 12 which is a full Squad so what John is saying is that consistently year after year after year there have been a lot more than 12 kids turned kids away and they've had to cut them so he they've had enough demand to field a second level team what are you saying consistent competition in the league to compete them against other like rights yeah as I think there was there was yeah there was talk at some point about something and it's not level like that wouldn't make sense for us to do um so specifically about adding the jv2 and JV golf program uh I think we've got a a lot of discussion about um how important those opportunities are and that that you know particularly

114over the last several years kids you know really need to have um opportunities to you know be on teams and uh and to compete um and it's a shame if we can't provide that for them um so quite honestly given the the uh the the the dollars involved I'm completely in support of that um and I um consistently I think over the last month or so of this budget process I've been anxious to see various versions that had that included Staffing Cuts because I think we needed to see that um not that I was advocating for but I certainly wanted to see it and for each of us to consider the implications of of reducing uh Educators here and what that would mean not just to the budget to the towns but quite frankly more

115importantly to the to our students and as I've thought about this since you provided this uh Jeff um you know where I'm sitting today version one is the one is the one that makes the most sense to me um that it's certainly possible that we might need less Educators and I guess that's always a possibility given the uh um given what kids sign up for um but my guess is that that probably won't be the case next year and that given the as we're trying to still catch up from the uh or recover uh from the uh impact of the pandemic uh not reducing uh Educators and you know at our district makes the most sense and seems to be the the wisest uh and most caring thing we can do uh not just for

116our communities but specifically for our kids that's where I am as I continue to overlook you and ignore you it's okay impact on our communities and our impact on our students and I think that our students and our schools have suffered a lot over the last three years at you know no one's fault but it just resulted the pandemic fell on the shoulders of um costs to safely educate students to you know whatever it was at colonists the school so our duty as a community is to is to provide an adequate education and our Administration is telling us that they cannot we we have to provide at least level services um and I know it's a burden to our taxpayers being a taxpayer myself I know my taxes have gone up immensely over the past

11716 years that I've lived in my community but we I I feel strongly in the fact that this this committee has done what we said we would there are certain costs that were I would say political costs that were made at a level that um we had no input into that process um and there's certain things that we are required to do as Regional school systems such as provide transportation and largely those costs are out of our control and we have to pay them because we have to provide them and we have to go through the public procurement process so I'm satisfied that we've done what we could in our ability we've lobbied we've spoken with Governors and Lieutenant Governors and all of our legislators our Senators and we've really done our part to try

118to get the message out there so at this point because our students really need us to be there and to provide services and to just see our students and teachers as doing what they do best is educating our students I'm in favor of person one at this point Trevor um question so we have like 10 plus pair spots that are not filled currently correct do we do we budget for those as if they were full yes because we need them all right okay that was just we just can't find we can't find them gotcha I think I think um Melissa you you brought up a good point that I think we can't reiterate enough that this is a level service budget and it is largely out of control for the increase that we're seeing over

119last year because of mandates you know being to us you know having the increases in transportation costs we can't do anything about having the increase in out of District um tuition costs we can't do anything about so we aren't getting anything for this increase our educational experience did this increase which is terrible you would hope with a five percent increase we would be getting some new shiny program that would do wonderful things for all our student body but we're not we're getting what we have at least wait there's a lot that we would hope for but so knowing that this increase is getting us just what we had the idea of taking away from that and that's that's a hard one to sleep on um thank you thank you the meeting last week I'm sorry

120I missed it but I caught up on everything I think it's very difficult to be able to make this decision based on initially I look at version three I think there needs to be some fiscal responsibility but looking at that I find it very hard to be able to to fully accept that version without knowing exactly where these customers come from and I understand the process and you know I respect that so that's that's that's what what pulls me away from that and just keeps me on uh you know thinking that the level of service is where we need to be it's just it's very hard to really be able to make that decision without knowing truly what the impact can and will be good thing Chris yeah I I agree with Trevor on how

121hard this is to sell to the towns and to bring this forward but and it's hard too when there's only a couple of people who come to the meetings and we don't have a newspaper anymore and um you know you hope people can tune it but it's a lot to sit and then watch the recordings of this so uh I think we really need a thoughtful campaign and strategy and Communications approach to how we explain our friends and neighbors this financial burden that doesn't get us a shiny new anything it's just continuing to keep things moving in the direction we've been going yeah the I just want to reiterate that there will it's my belief that additional monies will be coming into the district by some method beyond what the governors has proposed it could

122be the legislature upping the minimum Aid like they did last year you know to sixty dollars you know yeah higher funding of regional transportation and and since we don't know at what a 2fte reduction might mean for class sizes why not deal with those after we know what the additional money is and can restore them if the sign ups indicate a need for it we're not we're never going to cut it afterwards but we can it's easier to restore without a net impact than it is to cut later um so question are you suggesting that we we ultimately inform someone that they're going to be cut and then when if by the summertime money more money comes from the state we then try to monetary rehire not necessarily rehire but then refill the position we

123just cut two months earlier it depends on you know how it shakes out you know from the retirees are you going to be replacing all four of the retirees therefore you have to cut to other people or do you not fill two of the four retirees or if you're restoring you're just filling a position of a a very complicated decision process during the summer when most people already are being hired like it sounds like just because it's difficult and complicated you shouldn't be avoided yeah no fair enough the benefit of this approach that it enhances the ability to get the budget passed and if the budget doesn't pass it creates its own complications and impacts on kids can I say something to classes I agree with you but okay there's a benefit but think about

124the risk once those people are gone they're gone now we have to now if we want to refill that position we you know we're starting that process with someone fresh We're not gonna we're not guaranteed to get that person back no but you may get make it a better person no true but again there's risk yes there is risk in every decision that we make and it's about assessing risks a person without professional status really difficult but which is a risk hey I'm gonna go to Carolyn and then go up again it did okay and then Patty so I just have a follow-on to and Joe after a little bit like obligating the future school committee to yeah like I won't be here so I'm not sure this whoever is here would be willing to

125undo the cuts right that's what would have to happen correct yeah so it's another one of those and I again I have to go through this process that would have to support putting the positions back in the budget and that's easier to do than to cut if if the revenue is there if the if the budget doesn't pass there yeah when would that because if you if you haven't if you've increased if you've done anything other than reduce that that was my entire assumption that more Revenue very risky better because there's you know I'm risk taking what can I tell you okay so um silly um I have a question for Jeff about the the Esser um money uh shifting I know that we talked about using that for things that aren't like uh yeah

126basically one time where things that you need to replace every six years or something um do you feel confident that that's real like did you find yourself needing to use us or money for anything that would otherwise have been yes okay 83 83 000 of either one time or kind of multi-year yeah I had to find 57 000 to shift yep in qualifying the expenditures that would be without a doubt reimbursable under the parameters of the se3 professor three Grant so I found three accounts that had new money in it so definitely an increase to the current budget and then I shifted that fifty seven thousand dollars to sr3 okay so the reason I'm asking and just to be Crystal Clear is like one of the things our finance committee liked is that we the

127kinds of things we use duster money for by and large were really targeted for those needs of those years versus things that had previously been part of our operating that we were just covering by us so yeah that's contained that practice is continued yes I know you're using money thank you Abby um just a just a comment um on Casas kind of benefit risk analysis I I think to add to the risk category of that I would I was going to say it's going to be some changes potentially in the committee so it's putting you know the onus on the next committee to make those decisions but also I do think it's important knowing how the flow of the school goes to think about staff morale and you know I think it could create some

128significant uncertainty for what it's worth if you know two positions are cut and then maybe they'll be added back in maybe they won't it just it feels unstable to me and it feels a little bit erratic even though I understand where you're coming from financially but morale wise I would worry and I would worry for the administration that will put you guys in a funny spot um so just for what it's worth that's another risk to consider so you know that and I I think it just Bears repeating that the thing we're looking to cut here is the thing that has pretty much increased by the least out of all of the categories in the budget and our our hands are just tied I mean I I went through and I did a quick 2.5

129percent increase across the board and all the categories and when you look at it if you look at what's above and beyond the 2.5 percent increase 80 to 85 percent of it are things we absolutely have no control over none and I think people need to understand that you know outside of this group the other thing is when we have to make Cuts where I work the last people you want to cut are the people that have been on the job one two three years they're the ones that you're training you're bringing up the speed to be your you know your key contributors moving forward now I don't know if it quite works that way in the teaching profession but I would imagine no it's a union we have we have a professional you're saying

130in terms of people coming up to speed and becoming good instructors I you know those might be the people you'd least like to be losing because they might be harder to replace or at least you're starting from scratch with someone else so based on all that I think cutting head count is is the wrong thing to do at this point um even though we've got a terrible budget situation um we've been just dealt a very bad hand but I would lean towards option one I believe got a question for Costa remember last meeting when we were talking about the 3.8 percent number and how Middleton thought that was like a little too oh got that again that you know ads on 3-1 the assessment increase two middle to almost 4.8 percent but the uh select

131board had told the elementary school committee that you know anything over a four percent increase on their budget would go on an override and so there was debate about you know treating you know Masco and the elementaries you know different and whether the point eight percent is you know enough of a difference uh that then would shift some of it of mass goes by you know to an override and if it came down closer to four or two you know or under four than that argument would go away and it would result in one of the three towns funding the operating you know the total budget or the operating budget within their Omnibus budget and then increase the chances of with you know getting the one other town to approve itself An approved operating budget

132perfect thanks I think that was good for everyone yeah and just to clarify so in version one the kitchen operating assessment went up four percent yes okay so so that would me what you would you believe or all three versions get on me okay yeah okay just want to clarify that that version would get get Middleton to that place yeah if that's all you wanted to achieve yes thank you for putting and here's zilly's comment and then I think that we might be working towards a vote on record emotions after my comments okay so good um so a couple of comments um one is just I want to reiterate a little bit of what people talked about with relationships last year one of our meetings I had said school is not a place school is

133people and when we talk about Administration administrative positions I I can't really think of any except for maybe the executive positions that don't have daily interactions with students and or with staff that make a huge difference to the experience of our of our kids so this idea that somehow administrators are like this other thing over here and teachers are the only ones that are interacting with kids like the unit B administrative professional administrators are with kids all the time and they have a huge impact in their experience at school um so that's one piece but then also the this idea that I appreciate trying to get creative but yeah like I think like this like back and forth when kids have developed relationships with some of the especially we have some newer staff that kids

134have I hear about that my kids don't even have um have really been like um hugely successful at elevating the experience for students at Nasco so I'm not a big fan of that kind of cut and then we hire so just want to mention that um I'm in support of the first version but I do think this was an important and good exercise and um I think that when we do if if that's the way we go like selling when we do go to the towns I think let's focus I appreciate how many of you talked about that huge part of this is outside of our control so the parts that we have control over um would be such a harmful it's the one thing that we have control over is the impact on all

135the in-district kids and that's the one thing that I feel like we're stewards for for their care they can't vote we can um so the good news is that it does get two out of the three tenths to a target of four percent or lower for operating Boxford hopefully can tell the story and that Topsfield went through this a couple years ago and hopefully that might help it to understand that again that was outside of our control so those are my comments getting me to the point where I would like to make a motion that the masconomic regional school committee approved an fy24 total general fund expenditures budget of 40 million 206 and 736 dollars this amount includes general fund operating expenses and the amount of thirty nine thousand seven hundred no 39 million 757

136000 forgive me hopefully um Lin can edit my previous number uh 757 600 six dollars and general fund Capital costs including Debt Service expense and the amount of 449 000 and fifty dollars so we give two motions for version one that is the first of the two motions for version one um do I have a second for that second Melissa is second name um I'm gonna just ask that you raise your hand and say aye so all in favor of so it's motion first motion for version one raise your hand and say aye please so we have one two three four five six seven eight nine correct okay um so that passed how opposed all opposed um and know our acceptance okay um how about emotion for the budget assessment vote somebody have a make

137a motion for that they do it again all right um I make a motion that the mosconomet regional school committee votes to assess the towns of Boxford Middleton and Topsfield a combined total of 32 million three hundred eighty six thousand two hundred sixty five dollars is the amount necessary to operate and maintain the district inclusive of capital costs and Debt Service expense for fy24 districts assistant superintendent has determined the amounts of portions to each town and presented them here in on a slide titled assessments by Town District's Treasurer shall certify and transmit the budget and assessments to each member within 30 days of school committee approval in a second what's the seconding again okay all in favor by a show of hands say aye with the show of hands all right hi hi um I'll

138opposed with a show of hands saying hey no I'm not an abstention so that was nine I think so our pleasure for version one be with you said that this was a worthy exercise of seeing what the costs of cutting into the budget further respectful comments personally and professionally whenever I find myself in this situation where it's like there's just the other thing just money on which we all I just constantly for other ways to make more money and Russ Fiore mentioned a few weeks ago before you leave Russ some questions around security and I was looking at things on that front there are and the turfs up team brought some issues around grant writing up tonight and I found grants for security for fields for other teaching and learning things and I know the

139team here has only so many hours in a day to write grants grants and there's a lot of money for Education out there both state and federally and private foundations I almost feel like we there I mean there's literally millions of dollars out there we missed the day he mentioned security the grant closed the day before for something like fifty thousand dollars that we could have easily gotten for like new doors and um and things like that for security I almost feel like could we activate the MEF or another parent group I know there are grant writers in the community like some other ways to find revenue and like we just couldn't squeeze enough we couldn't ring another dollar out of this budget um so I know it's conversation for another day but it's top

140of mind after this exercise felt so horrible to me it's a good good conversation to have look for help absolutely um okay so moving along we have subcommittees um thank you guys for thanks for writing the Motions up oh no problem numbers are long I'm like well when when your chair you get into the habit of learning how to say all the big numbers and then you you lose it once you go away so that's like the only benefit learning how to read numbers again um community relations don't have a lot of updates since we last met um since we weren't here too long ago but we did meet tonight I thought it was a good conversation um didn't have a huge turnout but it was still a very good conversation so we'll continue to

141have your meetings coming up um to be determined but and you've talked about a few ideas as to which um you could bring in like going forward yeah one thing on the horizon I mentioned to the group um that I'll get back in touch with Mr hanchett about the Small Town Hero Awards because I know we're kind of reaching that time of year again so I want to make sure we're supporting that thank you can I just ask a question yeah so we talked about getting the word out about why the budget increases significant um I I don't know as a committee like can we talk about if any subcommittee is going to help work on getting a word out about that that would be a great charge for and thank you I know Patty

142had worked up a thing for the Boxford newsletter um so maybe we can discuss like an agenda item if there's ever a subcommittee to it well I was going to say that or I mean if there was any topics that this committee would want the community to have some feedback on and to invite you know we could have like a guest here from whatever that topic was around um to join the community relations subcommittee though right like now has just begun we thought that we thought we got through something but we're actually just now pushing forward to getting this passed I would say that you know because of the way we sort of agreed the setup would be for like Patty and Tasha whenever there's we kind of have the routine of things that get

143posted but as long as it's approved by Tasha so like I think there's already written some plans of just like a blog like anything that we communicate to the towns oh a little snippet of this vote you know is probably just going to go out there with us all agree as long as Tasha approves the communication somebody else it's not just not the chair no meaning layer and like that's like what we've been doing this year I just want to say that piece we can keep doing but it doesn't just require a little I mean blowball the social media uh things but but doesn't this require a little sort of yeah in your face sort of interaction so is like in person you mean yeah okay I thought you meant more like a summary well

144I think it was both right I mean I think we have to come at it from every angle I think we have topics for the community relations to convey I would just encourage everyone to hooking that up to Tasha and I so it means I won't necessarily think of something on my own so right um if someone's like this is really important then we're happy to communicate anything or invite people to the Korean relations being but it's definitely not I don't think a community relations responsibility no no no no right it's one piece of a much larger communication blast that has to go out yeah I think that I mean I think that they can definitely help with putting that blast together but maybe I think that this would be a good agenda item for

145our next committee meeting to just chat and and figure out yeah you have to be careful about how you do it too there's there are some laws around what you can and can't do as far as I have received one we want to provide education about what our budget is really nonsensical things that you can you can can't use District resources to influence a ballot question for example so you have to you have to be very careful that you're only saying come to town meeting and support the budget you can't say and then come vote it for it the next week that's fine but I I think that we've done this in the past whereas what is in the budget like you've you've tonight you guys all gave great examples like Joe like did a

146quick run like what went up more than two and a half percent it's all the stuff we can't control it's like bullet points like that that are factual and then figuring out a way in the non-tridentown transcript world to get that word out I don't I don't want to be discouraged by I I understand we can't say vote Yes son question two well that's also on on District resources like us no I know but let's before we get before let's begin to sell the budget yeah yeah absolutely yeah that's what I'm talking about that's what we need to do so let's focus on a plan at our next meeting and maybe we can come with ideas at the next meeting about what the plan would be because we we do a lot of talking but

147we haven't really come up with any action and I think it's time I think a lot of people like to talk about yes but I hear a lot of people on this committee say we got to get the word out and then so I would like to it's uh every person needs to do that yeah okay um so that's community relations budget I think we know where that's at anti-racism unfortunately you haven't been able to meet um hopefully sometime next week we continue to work with the Triton Council Meredith Shaw and leaders of Faith communities across the Three Counties uh to to work together um on in this effort so hopefully putting together an event uh later in the spring but all TBD policy um we have a meeting set for a week a week

148from Friday the 24th at 2 30 I did send a draft agenda out today and hopefully we'll post it with the Links at the end of the week I forwarded that to Turf socks Frisco you know Liaisons really um Costa and I were both out of the CPAC meeting on inland on oh my gosh was that Monday was that two days ago um and uh Senator representative Ramos I think I'm pronouncing that correctly um Jones and um Fred Jones and Charlie Karens um all came at different times trickled in I thought it was just really how it works it's really great they have um Triton seat back has a picture posted and with a little summary of how it went and the bills that they talked about and one of the things they advocated for

149it was money for the um to offset that 12 14 increase and then they have an event coming up April 11th if you go on there their postings um that looks like something that would be really interesting for all of us and then just to I think we might think someone mentioned it was in the Boxford newsletter you mentioned at the tri-town council having that mental health um training April 4th and 5th again if someone has the free time during the day it's a really good training they're coming here March 29th invitation has been sent yes all right legislators legislators so I'll give you a preview of what I'm gonna tell them which is in part of what I told them on Monday I'm not exactly sure how long the minimum Aid has been 30

150dollars if eight does that yeah you guys know 20 years or more talking about moving it to 100. so that 30 dollar minimum aid over that time you know look low credits happen the state has raised you know the minimum wage Governors have gotten healthy raises uh the uh legislators have gotten healthy raises the taxpayers approved a uh new tax uh to be in part dedicated to education and by keeping the 30 dollar minimum our kids aren't getting a raise everybody else is and by not doing anything with the circuit breaker whereas the foundation budget increases every year they're actually getting a paid cut so you know think about that and you know reiterate that to them maybe you know that you know motivates them some to do something that will actually benefit us well

151it's on my mind the Middleton members is anyone able to go to that on Monday with the selectment I can okay what what is that uh we just got a Middleton Wisconsin application I feel like is that an extra one then uh it's experience there's discussion you know generated from uh Jackie our interim Town administrators you know report of you know their meeting the Town Administrator meeting with Jeff and and Mike and about you know you know discussion of you know when to ask for that six or so million dollar critical need you know less than I think you know at least one member of the select board really wants to tell the Reps himself instead of me carrying a message of what the board feels like as to when that timing is I can

152do that as well great I think what time is it Monday the meeting starts at six you know maybe about 6 45 by the time you get to that agenda Adam yeah so for um Boxford liaison update we had a select board meeting on Monday night um thank you Mike for and Lynn for covering the CPAC thing and that um I appreciate that Mike went through the budget with the select board members you had already done it with the finance committee and also at the meeting that we had for all three towns but I do appreciate that um and then some of the feedback they gave us Joe had already shared about how they would like to hear from Turf up directly about that project and and then on the um Capital plan which they

153understand is not a part of this year's [Music] town meeting they would definitely like to be engaged on that going forward um and there it sounds like they're ready to they would like some meetings and that's under our control like how we do that if we whether you pull together all three towns to start talking about the capital plan instead of using a lot of administrative time going out and around but um they're ready when we're ready to to learn more about that and start working on that I think Joe is there anything else I mean they weren't obviously they're not thrilled about no that's seven percent spending money in Greece um but we we told them about this meeting tonight never good about that Joe yeah they seem to understand I thought yeah they

154appreciated the level service is important right I think you did so it's it's interesting because you know we're trying to change another thing about how we've done business in the past and we're trying to have the towns come here so that there's fewer meetings but it seems like we have to have more of those because one isn't enough because it hap if it happens at the beginning of the budget process so it's almost like they need to be we just need to be inviting them to like all of these meetings I mean they're invited obviously that anybody can come but to make it so that Mike in particular isn't out at you know additional one two three meetings for one two three towns um and us like our resources have to we have to figure

155out a better plan to do it next year so everybody is in on it and we do it that way whatever that may be well the difficulty you know when there's five select board members of me that's 12 people with the same size on the other two that's 36 people whose schedule you know kind of has to get coordinated if you want you know enough of a mass to be here that's very difficult but it doesn't not impossible to expect that you would be so you would be successful you know and to even get half you know is we just need one for me I can't wait I was thinking like why like if we could hold them there was that where it's going that's where it's going make it a point to come well

156and we did have a district Capital task force I think that's what it was called there was an eye in there um DCI um where and it did have representation this is how we tackled the capital Plan before the ball was dropped it was a capital plan select a select board um that's what it was Capital plan that's what the task force was District capital investment Capital Improvement Capital Improvement select one select board member the ideal composition one select board member one fincom member then there was school committee members and then there was the um you know Finance person from Masco um and they did meet and not everybody could always make those meetings but they met like a subcommittee meets so they picked dates that they could all go um and it it worked

157pretty well so I I know you're talking about the budget but I we may want to look at a vehicle like that for the capital plan uh because we have that's a that's a huge step obviously talking about the obvious here but huge project that they really need to understand and they really need to be like engaged and I don't think it's going to happen with our current structure of the way we try to bring them in yeah the other thing I would add just from the meeting was they were very interested in the meetings with the legislators with the local reps um I guess our I think our elementary school committee is meeting with them two days before we are that's right and then the select board is meeting with them like a couple

158days after that so there's going to be a lot of uh repetitive uh discussions I think um but but um I think they have an appreciation for the fact that a lot of our hand you know a lot of what's in the budget here is really our hands are tied in terms of the increases and they think they realize that that the only real relief is is gonna have to come well not the only really really but a a probably the best source of relief is going to have to come from that path fingers crossed the state I think you know it needs to you know to re-look at you know how you know Aid is given up you know our former Town Administrator moved to Sudbury and Sudbury was facing uh major operating override

159and still the Cherry sheets came out and their problem went away yeah let me guess and Middleton's that cherished number went down this meeting on the 22nd oh we have a listening session Saturday oh but I think so we have a listening session Saturday at the library right at the library um Topsail reps have a community listening session at 10 o'clock on Saturday at our library their monthly okay so now um even that there are no more liaison it's um yeah do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes approval of March 5th or I don't know what I said first and six meeting minutes and to accept the mes can we remove the March 6th minutes please yes okay so what I would intended to approve the March 1st and the

160MEF grants I have a motion for that come out second second forever seconding all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed the needs extensions um unanimous and you have I'll just can I just circle it I just looked at it and found a couple things okay I'll give them to both of you guys to send it to um Inland Jackie Jackie oh yes um and a thank you to mes for Their donation they take to um for a Harvard field trip for the psych club and current um psychology students and then a thousand dollars for um the school store you get me up for their generous donations and on that I am a journey at 9 30. thank you all for the great conversation thank you