001Um, we have all five school committee members present. We have our school administration present. Um, so I would like to call to order the special meeting of the coasset school committee. Today is Tuesday, March 31st. It is 2026. It is 6:00 p.m. Um, we are conducting this meeting um solely on Zoom. It is also streamed on Facebook Live and will be on 143 um TV. So, we'll um call to order with a roll call. Um, Mr. Evans, sorry. >> That's why present. >> Thank you, Mr. Dial. >> Okay, Mr. Dial, your um microphone isn't working again, I don't think. >> It was just Okay, here we are. >> Okay, you're present. Great. Thank you. Um, Mr. Squatrio, >> present. >> Mr. Mlen, >> present. >> Thank you. Okay, we will not do the pledge of
002allegiance because we do not have a flag to pledge to. Um, opening remarks are going to be um brief. Um, we are returning um today um just with a quick um presentation from Dr. Sarah Shannon to reorient us into the budget and then we will be um having any final comments from committee members and um we'll be seeking a motion to approve the budget as presented. Um I will give the opportunity for any public comment at this time if there is some. I will remind everyone that public comment is just that um it is a comment made to the committee for the committee's consideration. Um it is not the start of a new discussion. So if you would like to um make a comment, please raise your hand virtually. We'll give a minute for that.
003Madame chairperson, do do our participants have access to the Q&A feature on this version of Zoom? And if not, are they able to raise their hands if they are participants and or they're attendees and not panelists? >> That is a great question. What I'm seeing from my end is that I'm seeing lower all attendees hands which assume I'm assuming means that attendees could put their hands up and if anyone would like to correct that assumption please do so. >> We have Q&A too. >> Okay, perfect. Great. Just want to I wasn't seeing it that I'm used to. So that's that's why I just want to make sure that we weren't inviting something that was impossible to give. That's all. >> Yep. And there is a there is a um a participant in the Q&A. >>
004And if you click under more, I have it right now. >> Okay. Um Mr. Ashton had just asked about a public comment whether I was going to be reading that aloud or Miss Latanzi was going to be reading that aloud and so I'm waiting to hear back from him. I can certainly read that into the record. U Mr. Ashton if you would prefer that I do that Madam Chair, if I may, we can um this was a an email that was sent to the committee. It can be attached as part of the record. Um typically I I if you know if members of the of the of the public want to speak at a meeting, we invite them to speak. If they want to send us an email, that's okay. But we really um typically
005if an email is sent, you know, there's there's not an instruction for us to read that email. that that would be a little bit out of normal order. >> Yeah. And I and I did um I believe the email read that I would invite her to um read this at make that comment at the meeting. Um and that she was welcome to do so. >> What I mean I'm just seeing Mr. Ashton's followup. Why why don't we and I I agree with what Mr. Revan's saying uh in theory but I mean there's basically one statement that they are asking us to read. I don't know does it is it really make a big difference to anyone whether we read that for you know Miss Latanzi who sent that to the committee and her husband's here
006asking for it to be read. I don't know. I mean I it would to me it would be the same as him cutting and pave posting it right now in Q&A. So, uh, as long as we have their address, which I don't know off the top of my head, um, I mean, I am happy to read it myself, but it's really up to the chairperson. I just I I basically just I don't want, uh, form to trump substance here is was what I'm looking to avoid. >> We can invite Mr. Ashton to speak and say the comment. If the comment is good, then then obviously, you know, we'd invite anyone to speak. >> All right. I also, Mr. And if it helps you, I can cut and paste um the comment right into the comments
007so that you can read it from there. >> He may need to be >> right. He can't read it. >> Invited in as a Okay, >> analyst in order to read it out loud. >> All right, let me do that. Can you guys hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Uh, Victoria, yeah, she can announce herself. >> Yeah, sorry. I I just from your email, I thought you were doing it on my behalf. Um, >> Victoria Latanzi, 125 Don Street. So, here's what I sent to you guys. Um, I understand that the school committee had a public forum on March 19th, 2026. Um, however, the 20 the FY27 detailed town budget was only made available to the public after that date. For this reason, I feel that it is important that I highlight the following
008concerns found upon my review and digest its impact to our school district's budget. I hope I can share my concerns to the committee openly for the record. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to read this. Uh um while we are seeing significant cuts with this proposed fiscal year 27 school budget, the town budget as a whole is seeing significant pay increases and budget increases. For comparison, while we are cutting and reducing full-time teachers, removing department heads and student programming across the district, I want to underscore that the town budget is not taking equivalent cuts. Instead, to keep themselves whole, the town fiscical year 27 budget has moved line items from the town operating budget to the town shared budget, which adversely affects the school operating budget, all the while keeping the remainder of the town departments
009largely intact. Town department heads are receiving pay increases as high as 17% and departments are seeing increases in excess of 10% and up to four new hires. All while we lose beloved teachers, reduce their hours, cut school department heads who drive curriculum, and lose student programming for students from prek to high school. From 28 20 2018 to 2023, the school department averaged more than 42% of the town's budget. Over the last four years, that has dropped to 40%. Which amounts to a difference of 1.2 2 million which is just so happens to be the amount we need for school level service. As a community as community members and taxpayers of Cohasset, I would like to believe this school committee desires to advocate for equitable budget treatment across the town instead of allowing schools to be
010adversely affected by hidden budget categories. With that said, my question for each member is, have you been able to review the proposed fiscal year 27 town budget with careful consideration for how it impacts access to money for schools? And number two, visav review of the proposed town budget. If you have reviewed, do you feel that the school budget for fiscal year 27 is equitable use of tax dollars? If the answer to either question is no, I would kindly request you consider delaying today's vote and aligning with town administrators to address these budgetary inequities. Our community is depending on you to collaboratively engage on budget setting across both entities. If we allow these budgets to advance for endorsement by select and advisory, we set ourselves up for irre irrevocable precedent in level setting across town departments.
011In turn, this could seriously potentially impact the future success of any planned override attempts. Thank you for your time and dedication to our community. >> Thank you very much, Miss Latanzi. Um we appreciate your um perspective and the time that you took to gather those thoughts and share them uh with us. >> Thank you. Again, if there are any other public comments, now is the time. Seeing none, um we will um move um to a short presentation from Dr. Sarah Shannon showing the fiscal year 2027 budget discussion uh budget budget. >> Madam Chair, just point of order if Mr. Ashton, Miss Tany could mute their um microphone so while Dr. Shannon is presenting so there's no ambient All right, I've done that for them. Thank you. >> All right, thank you. Um, I'm going to
012share my screen. Can you see that? >> Looks good. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Um, so, similar to last week, I'm going to review what has been shared in the past. Um, there aren't any changes since the last time we presented. Um well that's not true. Last week I did share new information that we had um been allocated an additional $19,011. Um and so this budget presentation does reflect that. Um so tonight we are here to vote the FY27 budget. Um, in total, the Cohasset public schools will receive a 4.83% increase from the town, which equals an additional $1,200,416 over um our FY26 budgeted amount. Therefore, we are moving forward with an FY27 budget of 26,31,05. This 4.83 83 increase leaves us with a $990,94 deficit from level service funding which has been addressed
013through reductions in staff and resources as well as through staffer retirements. Um, this is the line item overview of what we were looking to receive in total to be a complete level service budget with the added increases to our line items that have traditionally been overspent, things like utilities, custodial supplies, athletics, transportation, and so on. Um, as shared in earlier presentations, we are offsetting some of our spending through our grants. We are not supplanting um we are supplementing. This is grant funding that we have used in the same way um for many years. um also some revolving account and in the past we have done that at the end of a budget year. We feel confident at this point given the fact that we have addressed many um budget concerns over the last two years
014that we can do some of that offset at the beginning of this budgeting process. And so this line item overview is another perspective that shares the same information that the first slide shared as well. This slide is an overview of how we are getting to the reduction that we need to get to. It incorporates many of the things that we are reducing including supplies, PD, curriculum, instruction, some technology. It also includes some staffing shifts that we're making. Um, we are continuing to reduce the central office position. We are continuing to reduce a school front office position specifically at the high school. Um, we are looking to reduce at this point some administrative stipens. We are looking to make some reductions in athletics. Um, as we looked at numbers for preK, we don't have the same
015number of students enrolled for FY27. So, we are able to reduce that by 0.5. Um, again, some of these positions don't result in the loss of staff because we have retirements. Um, those are not always planned, but they are sometimes coincidental. Um, we had a a prek staff member who did put in for retirement. That full position will not be a savings because that was also a 0.5 special ed position at Ozgood and that will be replaced. Um, we are still looking to reduce an ESP at preK. We are still looking at reducing some specialist positions, PE, art, music at the elementary level. Um, those staff, um, some of which may no longer be a 1.0, but maybe just under that at like a 0.93 or 87 and many of whom are still full-time but
016may need to share between two buildings. Um point4 music is still looking to be reduced at the elementary school. Again, this does not change the fact that all Deer Hill students will have access to general music, chorus, and band, but does shift the model a little bit. We will see some savings in retirements with a staff member at Ozgood, a staff member at the high school. Um, we are going to be reducing a technology position at the middle school. That will reduce some but a minimal amount of some programming for students and technology support for adults. um that was um a position that was more teacher facing than student facing. We are looking to reduce um techn a 1.0 technology and math position at the high school. We believe that much of that programming can
017be absorbed in other ways and that the math position the part of that that is math can also be absorbed in class size. Um, many of these high school positions, the art, the social studies, the science will result in some larger class sizes, but they are not overly large. They are actually what we would consider in many ways appropriate class sizes for the high school level. Um, we are still in the scheduling process. So, as we move through, we will know if we are going to have to lose any electives. When we looked at this and we looked at um preliminary numbers for um student registrations for courses for the high school, um it seemed as if we would probably be able to maintain most of the electives that have been offered. Um and if
018we have to reduce some electives, it would be based on enrollment um versus anything else. And again, there'll be another savings for retirement at the high school. um not as big because it will as some of the others because it will need to be replaced and we have talked a little bit about the electrical savings as well. So in all we are with all of these reductions looking at being able to save over a million dollars which is actually more than what we are look looking for. We were looking for $990,000. We are looking to use um those additional funds to bring back some of the positions on this list, but we can't quite identify exactly which positions those will be yet because there are things that we need to work through um on our
019end in order to prioritize and work with staff to figure out um best ways to bring some of them back. And so as we continue between now and the end of the year, which would be June 30th, we anticipate that some of that additional prioritization in bringing some of those positions back will continue to happen. Um, one of the things that we know happens every year in schools is that there may be some funding. We've done a very good job at budgeting for this year, but there may be a small amount of money left where we can pre- purchase some things that will allow us to open up space in the FY27 budget, which may allow us to bring something else back. Um, staffing always shifts. I've never in all of my 20 plus years,
02025 plus years of working in schools, had a year where there aren't um some surprise staffing shifts, which also result in some savings. And so as all of that plays out, we will continue to look at these positions and supplies, materials, professional development to potentially bring them back before the start of the year or as the school year begins as well. Um that can happen too. And so it is, you know, this is a static number as of tonight, but it is not a static number as we continue to move forward. But we do have to vote a budget number tonight so that the committee, the select board can do their work and that we can move a budget forward for FY27 as a town. Um, but we are still very much working on this.
021It's it's something where we will continue to bring back as much as possible as the funding sources become available. Um so again this evening I would ask that you consider voting the FY27 budget which is a total of 26 million 315. >> Thank you Dr. Shannon. Um we did receive several comments that um Miss Latanzy's um public comment included some questions in it. Um as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, public comment is just that and it is um not necessarily a discussion. I think if there are committee members that would like to address um Miss Latanzi's um comments, we certainly um have read those comments um because we were sent them previously um and are able to take those um that point of view under consideration as we um discussed tonight and
022um committee members may incorporate an answer as if that has changed their point of view. can um incorporate that perspective um as they see fit. >> So we will start with Mr. Dial. If you have any final comments and questions um before we seek a motion final about about the budget final just sounds so final. It's just these are your last >> and these are not your last comments. Hopefully we need you around. >> Um great. Well well well thank you thank you Tesky and thank you Dr. Shen for all of your work through this process. Um we are at the end of this process. Um we are presented with a budget for a vote. Uh it's been a long and winding road. Uh it's certainly been a lot of emotional ups and downs for
023me. Uh many many more downs than ups. Uh and I probably come to this final meeting uh with a little bit more down than I wanted to be, but a lot more up than where we were uh in the middle. Uh this budget represents a huge improvement from where we thought we were. Uh and I I I want to make sure we we dwell on that for a moment. Um we have through significant collaboration with the town, found funding, found levers to pull, found money that could be moved from account to account. We found ways to reccharacterize things. We found we've Dr. Shannon and the the the the our team at the at the Cohasset Pound have done a tremendous job supporting these schools. The issue is not a withholding of money or withholding of
024support. The pie is not big enough for the town. Now, as I sit here on the school committee, my concern myopically is the school budget. What do we have to fund the operations of our school? How do we ensure that we give our students the best education we can possibly give them? And when I look at the budget and as I've looked at the budget over the evolve over the past few months and I've talked to Dr. Shannon both individually as members as a member of the subcommittee on finance and operations and in this committee I've learned a lot about her priorities for the schools. I've learned about what our operations are, where we have some not, you know, willing slack, but where we are able to take some cuts, where we are able to
025tighten the belt. And I think what we've found is the all of the areas where we're able to tighten the belt. All of the areas where we can if make our operations more efficient and probably in many cases a little too efficient, maybe we want to do that. But we also have to remember as we're going through a budget that you know my ideal budget would have another zero at the end of it. You know it would be 10 times what this budget is. So there's no magic number as to what the budget is. And there certainly isn't a magic number visav what the town is. That's a job for a select board. The select board is what allocates the town's budget across the various operations. Not the school committee. School committee says what do
026we need? What can we have? and the town says, "Here's what we can afford." And we work with that. If there if there are allocations to the police and fire and water departments and sewer departments that go are greater than our allocations, less than our allocations, it really kind of doesn't matter to my view here as a school committee member. Uh my view here is are we being able to provide the best resources for our students and teachers that we can do? And I think we've done everything we can to do that. and uh therefore I'm going to certainly support this budget. It doesn't mean I like the budget. I would love, like I said, I'd love for a zero at the end of it. Um but I think it is the best that we
027can do given the cards we have to play. And I'll make two other caut one cautionary statement and then one one final one. Um the cautionary statement is this doesn't mean that we've fixed it. Uh I think we have pulled every budgetary trick, pushed every button, pulled every lever that we could possibly do to get us where we are now at a level service. But we are going to need the cooperation, the help, the support of everyone in the town to uh support a structural override uh so that we can get a stable and healthy amount of funding for our schools. It is it is without question to the point where we need that and uh that is that is an endeavor that we will be embarking on you know immediately to qu to responsibly
028figure out what those numbers are and to ask the town for the additional funding so that we can secure that and have a secure financial future for our town. Now it has been raised it was raised in Miss London's comments. It's been raised to me and other in other forums uh the idea of us not supporting the budget. Um, and I would just say that that I mean we have been working with the town. There's no there's no there's no more cooperation with the town. We we've had that this entire time. There's no more work to be done. There's no more dollars to be found. There's no rocks to be be pulled up. So, this isn't a question right now for this budget of of more time. Um, and if we were to fail to
029approve this budget, it would not be in the best interest of our schools or our town. uh where it would likely end up is us negotiating a town budget on the floor of town meeting which itself would be a massive mess. And if we get to a point where we don't have a budget, then we go to a town shutdown and nobody gets paid. Uh so I I I don't know that we're at a budget I mean if there were certainly a budget where we had to let go of all of our teachers, then maybe that would be one that we wouldn't approve and we could say fine that's a that's a consequence worth bearing. This is not that. It's not an ideal budget by by any stretch, but given the limitations that we have
030financially as a school and as a town, I think we've done a phenomenal job. Well, we I think the administration and the town have done a phenomenal job of putting this together. So, um I have my I'll offer my enthusiastic support and my thanks for everyone involved in this process and I will certainly support uh the budget. So, thank you and sorry for my the length of my comments. >> Thank you, Mr. Dial, Mr. Evans. Yeah, I want to um echo, you know, as much of what Mr. Dial just said on the on the and you know, I did I think I received uh three emails or four about um not voting the FY27 budget. And I I do I think that that really reflects a an important um I have to say it a
031misunderstanding of how the budget process works. Um this isn't you know it's not like a debt it's not like the the debt limit for for for the uh for the federal government we can toss around like a hot potato or if we don't vote it it's some sort of leverage for us. Uh if we don't vote a budget we don't get any money. It's that simple. Um, what we're voting on today is the 27 I'm sorry, I'm looking for the final number. The um I just had a different slide up. My apologies. Uh the 27 whatever it was million dollars is what we're getting with this budget. And that if we don't pass it, we don't get the money to pay teachers. Um, so it's not it doesn't quite logically make sense that we would
032hold teacher salaries hostage uh and stress out our the most important asset in our town um in order to for some sort of leverage play. I don't I don't really think that's a responsible um action for us this committee to take. It also would mean we'd be trading um you know the the the the $27 million we're getting uh and we'd say no we don't want that because we we didn't get you know 500,000. So uh and again we are bound by law uh to pass a budget. Uh so it also is legally questionable if we can even do that. Uh so I do want to make clear that m like Mr. Dow said it doesn't mean we're saying that this is everything. There are many places in the schools that I personally find insufficient.
033Uh and you know I'm not going to spend time today listing them but uh that's how budgets go. If you've worked in any institution anywhere or or you've run a company uh there's things you want and there's things you need and and you work together. And I do I don't want to minimize or miss the fact that the budget that's in front of us today reflect is reflects hundreds thousands of hours of behind the scenes work by Dr. Shannon and the whole administration here uh for a district that just got placed number four in the state. That's amazing. That's what this administration has built and is continuing to build. And it is our duty to follow their guidance. And what I heard tonight from Dr. Shannon is this is a budget that she can work
034with. This is a budget that she has gone through and made really creative solutions and she can move forward serving our children and I trust her on that. I trust our director of education on that. So I will follow their recommendations. And then secondly and and Dr. Shannon has said this and and we've said it, this is the last time we can do this. This is the last time that we can sit here and say we have figured this out. it's over. Uh so uh we are going to start and we've already started to have that longerterm discussion. We need to have a a long-term sustainable way to keep these schools. I noticed other towns, Marshfield cutting dozens and dozens of teachers. Lexington, I think the numbers up to 46 teachers, 156 staff. They're actually
035number three on that list. We were number four. But this what Dr. has done here has figured out a way to maintain the district even in a bad environment when surrounding districts Hingham are really having trouble. So I want to applaud the work that was done uh and the partnership we have with the town and the teachers. The teachers have just as big of a of a partnership role in us getting to continue to serve our town in FY27 as anybody else. So with that, uh I will I support this budget because uh a we need to legally uh b it's it's important that we do get the money for our teachers and I think it reflects a commendable effort uh by our administration and I look forward to turning the page and starting to
036discuss how we get the things we're missing uh because I think those are undeniable. So thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Evans, Mr. Squatrio. Thank you. And um once again, thank you to Dr. Shannon for everybody behind the scenes for everything relating to the budget. Um I think I will take a bit more of a negative tone as to where we are. Obviously, we're in a much better place than we were at the end of February, but this is through no faults of your own. So, I am noting you, Dr. Shannon, at all. Um, but you know, this this budget is still really not great. And we've gone even further than just pulling levers and doing one-time things. You know, this there's a big risk to what we're doing in a lot of ways. And
037it is something that I know I've said this hund times and used the word concerned many times, but it is something that we do need to be very concerned and very vigilant about. Um, and I think it's hard because we were in such a negative place at the end of February, but it feels like we've stepped off the ledge. But, you know, this is still a significant degradation to the district and it is disappointing. Um, but overall responding to some of the comments from Miss Latanzi and other community members I've, you know, been discussing this with over the past week, I will say that I do believe that there is a problem of underfunding in the schools. I absolutely do not believe it is something that is done out of malice or carelessness or something
038worse from other individuals and the town government. I think it's just simply from the fact that we are the the biggest line item on the budget and mathematically with Prop 2 and a half there's only so much you can increase the school budget with 2 and a.5% plus new growth. So, I understand this mentality of it's easier to, you know, look at other places in the town budget and obviously we certainly receive a lot of attention. We've received a lot of collaboration with the quote unquote town side of things throughout this cycle. But I will say that I do believe there are certain issues that certainly need to be looked at and certainly at town meeting should be scrutinized and that is a power that we have as citizens in the town. So I agree
039with those statements. But getting back to the vote that is in front of me and in front of the committee members tonight, I don't doubt for a second that the committee, Dr. Shannon, Mrs. Owen, and all the administration members behind the scenes have done the absolute best that they can with this amount we have been provided. And this is the best we can do going forward. I absolutely agree that we do not want to be in this situation. I absolutely agree in many ways that we shouldn't be in this situation. But specific to the vote that we have to take tonight, I believe that we have certainly done our best. And as disappointing of a moment it is, I believe it is appropriate at this time. And basically what I want to ask from the
040community as you know the newest member of this committee who is also very much on his way out at this point is to put myself out there and ask for you to trust the school committee, Dr. Shannon and the people working in this district that you are being heard, your concerns are being heard and are being considered and we are going to continue to work to improve this situation. We've seen this happen over the past month. We've seen how we've been cautious about bringing roles back because the last thing we want to do is constantly go in between reinstating a role, taking it out next week, right? We do have to be cautious in this approach. And I want you to be assured that that is absolutely still an ongoing process even though we are
041voting on the budget tonight and in 20 or you know 50 minutes we're passing it over to the select board and the advisory committee that this is still very much a live and ongoing process and we are still monitoring the situation. So, you know, I come into this with Russia mindset and, you know, I've tried to make inroads with all different community members and I understand that it is hard for them to trust us. I understand that these are challenging times and there are concerns out there. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's being said. I don't necessarily agree with all of the concerns, but I do want you to believe that the five of us on the school committee are community members just like you. We all absolutely care about this district and we
042are all absolutely looking to make this situation better and do what we can to bring us back to where we need to be. So, you as community members have every right to disagree with decisions we make. Watch the process. All out our mistakes. That is your right no matter what. But I do hope that I can humbly ask for the community to join us and not fight us, especially as we head into the next month and a half, which is sure to be very contentious and heated. And I understand that is a lot to ask. I'm putting myself out there and hopefully receive some sort of a response to that. Thank you, Mr. Squatrio. Um, there is a comment that came in um, specifically for you from um, Cassandra Dragon Archamo uh, 290 Beachwood Street
043um, who writes, "I'd like to hear Mr. Squatrio's perspective from that as a student, not a taxpayer, since that was the platform on which he ran for this one-year position." Um, and I don't know, Mr. Squadrio, if what you just said reflects your um if if that changes what you just so um beautifully um laid out for us. >> Yeah. I mean I don't it's just difficult because as I was going through the district which was from you know the end of 2012 to 2022 there was never a situation like this and I feel like that is breaking right I feel like all of a sudden students are aware of teacher cuts and what even the school committee is and all those sorts of things and that's certainly not a situation that we want to
044be in. And you know, I I I don't think that there's necessarily much more I can add to what I've previously said in previous meetings about the student impacts that these will have, especially some of the roles where we are saving money through a reduction but not necessarily losing a staff member via attrition. I think those have, you know, it's hard to communicate these things and I think those have been are going to have major impacts. Maybe we haven't telegraphed as much as we should, but besides that, I would mostly just refer to my previous comments and if there's anything else to discuss, you're welcome to reach out. >> Thank you, Mr. Squatrio. Mr. Mlullen. >> Thank you, Madam Chairperson. of utmost importance to me is that uh we are delivering the best possible education
045we can to all of our students as Mr. Dial had stated and that uh we are uh being as responsive as possible to the concerns of the community members that we serve and that we are encouraging uh participation. To that end, um a public comment was made uh expressing two specific questions which were also emailed to us in which I responded to an email form. But for the purpose of this meeting, I will provide my answers to Mr. Tanzy's questions which were one, have you been able to review the proposed FY27 town budget with careful consideration for how it impacts access to money for schools? My answer to that question is yes. The second question is if you have reviewed, do you feel that the school budget for FY27 is equitable use of tax dollars?
046My question to my answer to that question is yes. So I do not see any reason to delay. Um I've made many statements about the budget and my feelings on it in prior meetings. I will not repeat them just as superintendent Shannon does not repeat every detail of her budget presentation every meeting. I think Mr. Dial um very articulately um summed up a perspective that I completely agree with and uh certainly Mr. Squatrio's I think uh statements also contained uh many elements that I agree with. So uh beyond that I'm just going to state that I think that for the reasons Mr. Evans stated it is very appropriate to move forward uh and other members. It is very appropriate to move forward with the vote and um I will support that uh to that motion
047and I'm in support of um I'm in support of u approving the budget as presented tonight by the superintendent of schools. >> Thank you, Mr. McCullen. Uh I will also keep my comments brief. Um I am a school committee member because I believe in schools and I believe in public education. Um and as such I don't believe in taking risks and I think were we to delay a vote or not vote not to vote to approve um a budget we would be taking a massive risk um in that we could as Mr. Evans said forego our opportunity um for a budget for monies for our budget. um this is our opportunity to act. Um and we need to do so um in good faith knowing that our superintendent and her um fellow administrators have worked
048incredibly hard um to collaborate with the town on getting the schools what we need and have returned to the town several times throughout this process as those of you who have been following along know to see is there more. Um and I believe that this has been a very robust exercise. Um and we are at the point where I think it is appropriate to um take a vote on this budget and to move um the process along um because ultimately this is about our students and about our teachers and about public education um in Cohasset. So, um, at this point, um, if there are no further comments from the committee, um, I will seek a motion, um, to approve the overall budget of 26,31,5 for fiscal year 2027. >> So, >> thank you. So, that
049is a motion by Mr. Dial. Um, do we have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Mlen. We'll do a roll call vote. Mr. Dial. Mr. Evans. >> Hi, >> Mr. Squatrio. >> Hi, >> Mr. Mlen. >> Hi, >> Jen Leleski. I um Dr. Shannon, the buzz budget has um passed unanimously. Um please go move ahead with that. Um and I want to thank everyone. I do want to thank our public. I think discourse is what makes us great. Um it truly does whether we agree or don't agree. Um there is there is no one best way of doing things. Um but we only get better um when we engage in conversations like this even if they're hard. And I think we too as we close out tonight, we can hold two truths. I
050was having a nice conversation with Dr. Shannon um this afternoon that we can hold two truths. It is hard to know that we have made concessions um in terms of our faculty and staff um and our programming for next year and be incredibly proud of the work that the district has done um to get a budget that brings us close to level service. Um and so I think that those that's a sort of important way to to think about this process and that the the really the job going forward now is is working towards an override and um and engaging in that process. And I hope as Mr. Squatrio said that this is something that the community work together on um in favor of um and and with all ideas being brought forward as to
051how to to to do this and to do it well. Um so with that we need a motion to adjourn the meeting please. >> I move. >> Thank you. Um a second. >> Thank you. So that was a motion by Mr. Mlullen and a second by Mr. Dial. We'll go for a roll call vote. Mr. Dial, >> I >> Mr. Evans. >> Hi. >> Mr. Squatrio. >> Hi. >> Thank you. It was Thank you, Mr. Squadrio. Mr. Mlen. >> Oh, Mr. Mlen, we didn't get you. >> Hi. >> Thank you. And Jen Leftky. I This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for being here. >> Good night. >> Thank you.