Special School Committee Meeting - 3/31/2025

001Okay. Well, um I've reached out to Mrs. Hannah and uh she can let me know uh what her username is uh so that I can promote her to panelists if she's on there. In the meantime, we have a quorum. So, I want to be respectful of everyone's time and uh get going here as it's already 6:12 and there's a ton of people um attending the meeting virtually. So I call to order the uh March 31st, 2025 special meeting of the class school committee. Would all members who are in attendance please indicate so in roll call? Mr. Carr Ted Carr present. Mr. Dial Style present as I noted Mrs. Hannah. Uh I've not heard from her yet. Mrs. Leski Jen Leleski present and the chair is present Craig Mlen. That gives us a quorum of four

002committee members so we can formally call the meeting to order. Um the only uh agenda item is the discussion of fees. We have held numerous open discussion forums uh on this fee issue and um so what we're going to do is just dedicate this entire meeting to this to the fees. We're going to go through them one at a time. I'm going to turn the meeting in a moment to our superintendent to sort of introduce the um the concept or the uh the uh agenda item and um and then we'll address them one by one and we will invite community feedback first and then we will ask for any school committee thoughts or deliberation and then we will vote on uh or I will ask for a motion to vote one way or the other

003on each of the fees. We'll just handle handle them one by one. Okay. So, uh, Superintendent Shannon, are you there with us? I am. Okay. So, maybe you can introduce this issue and I will give you the permission to share there that you need to do that. Thanks. Thank you so much. Right. So, I'm going to just quickly share the presentation that's been shared at the last few meetings about user fees. Um, and just as a review, we are talking about fees because we are trying to create a balanced budget for FY26. um trying to make up for the um the gap in budget from FY25 um and also the increased needs that we have for FY26 to run the district. Um, and for anyone who's listening to understand more about what it is that

004makes up our budget or how we get funding from the town, I would refer people back to my original presentation that's both online and on Facebook. Um, it explains how we get funding from the town and that the funding from the town does not keep up with ongoing school needs that are at the you know sometime some of our fee some of our costs are at the mercy of inflation but also other um entities rising costs as well. So there's a a few things that come into play and we are no longer um able to meet the increased needs year after year based on the increases that we receive from the town. Not because the town isn't collaborating and giving us as much as they can, but because um the needs are outweighing what the

005town is able to bring in for revenue. So one of the ways that we are looking to close the gap that we're trying to close for FY26 is through reductions. The other way is through looking at increased fees and that there are six different fees that we are looking at having conversation about in a vote for this for this evening. Um the first is a kindergarten fee. Two years ago, the district moved away from full day fees um and the district took on that cost. The um the budget was not necessarily aligned to absorb that fee. Um and so we are looking to potentially have a have a vote to bring the kindergarten fee back. Um the rate in the past was about $3,500. we would be looking at bringing it back at 3,000 um

006which brings us a potential, you know, maximum potential of $300,000 into the budget. Um we did look at other fees for kindergarten in schools around the area. Many schools have gone to free kindergarten, free full day, but there are still some schools who haven't figured out how to do that with their current budgets. Um, and you can see that the duck spray one was to be determined. Um, their override did not pass. So, they will be charging kindergarten fee this coming school year. Um, we're also talking about the transportation fees. We are near the top. The only school district that will be higher than us for FY26 will be Hangingham. Their new fee is $360 per student. Um, we know we're high. We know we're near their top, which is why there's three different rates

007there for you to consider. Um, an increase from 350 to either 400, 425, or 450. Um, again, these are the area fees. We are close to the top. Um, we're at the top this year and we will be second next year if we keep the fee the same. Our ridership has gone up. We are also adding a bus and a bus route for next year hopefully to decrease the number of students on the bus because some of our buses are um full to capacity and some of our routes are longer than we would like. So adding that ninth route will help, but um the increased ridership is is bringing in more money, but we are still looking to um help close a deficit in our transportation budget. Um athletic fees, our athletic fees haven't changed

008since 2008 and our costs are rising. They've risen quite a bit since 2008. Um, so we did do along with other schools an analysis of what fees are around the area. Many of our surrounding towns offer a two-tier athletic fee system. Um, with our fees for tier 2 being for some of our more expensive sports, sports that have to rent facilities. um and the tier one fee being other sports that don't have to rent facilities that utilize our own high school facilities. So, we are recommending a two-tier system um continuing to keep a family cap as well. And then we are also looking at potentially adding a student activity fee. This would cover other costs that uh are occurred for student student activities that we are creating. Um some of our clubs and other non-sport

009activities. Um it would allow us to not charge students at athletic events because gate fees would be a part of that in a hopes that we would actually encourage more students to attend um and support one another. Um, and we do run a lot of clubs right now that have costs associated with them and we aren't at the secondary level charging for those clubs. So, this would cover those costs. We're also looking at adding a student parking fee. Um, many of our area schools are charging our students to park or their students to park. Um, the one you can see Milton is not, but are talking about it for this coming school year as well. And so our proposal is that students are paying $2 per day to park at the high school, which would

010be about $360 per year. Um that would obviously be prrated if they start parking in the lot after the first day of school. And then we're also looking at raising our building rental fees just a little bit. This is not a huge money maker for us, but we do feel strongly that the fees that we collect should cover the costs of um the custodians that we bring in, any other folks that we bring in and the utility fees charges for those days to to add to what you know where we might not be using utilities. So we are looking to at least cover the costs on our end for when we have building rentals. And so those are the fees we are looking at for this evening. Um I'm going to stop sharing and then

011we can talk about them one by one and I can bring up any slides as each one comes up as you need. I think you're on mute. Not a not a good night here. Um so uh thank you for that superintendent Shannon for that summary and that introduction. I will note that um Miss Hannah is here as well now. She came in while you were just going through that introduction and so has therefore not missed any public comment or anything of that nature. Uh we haven't even started uh looking at any of the individual fees. So here is how I'd like to do this. Um there are a lot of people in attendance. I'm not sure that everyone is looking to be heard. Uh the first fee that we're looking at is the kindergarten fee.

012Um so what I would ask is if and I see um Mr. Henry has already made a comment. Um so why don't we just get before anyone else makes any comments or questions, let's just get this one answered um and clear the slate. And then what I'll have folks do is if you have a comment you'd like to share relative to the kindergarten tuition fees, um, enter that into the, um, into the prompt using the Q&A feature. If there is not in a sort of insurmountable number of individuals that want to comment, I will promote you to panelist and we can try and do it that way. Um, but if it's if there's a lot of questions and and comments, it may just be more feasible to address it through the Q&A feature. Okay. So,

013first, Mr. Henry. Oh, also as I note all the time with this, make sure you are please stating your full name and your residential address. This is just to uh memorialize the input for the um for the meeting minutes. So, um I can answer that. Okay. So, did someone um answer Leslie just asked Leslie had just asked him to give his address, but I can answer the question. Okay. Um, so, uh, this is Oliver Henry's question. Yep. Um, is about why football is in tier 2. Yep. Let's just read it though. Let me just let me just read it. Why is there a recommended increase in football fees? We do not need to rent anything over and above the school facilities. Yep. So, um, that's a great question. I had the same question. Um, and

014what I learned is that each year we are required to reertify helmets and pads and that comes at a cost of 12 to $15,000 per season. And so this helps us cover those costs. Perfect. Um, and we'll wait on the address there. Uh, but we'll move on to, uh, Jennifer and Corey Evans of 313 North Main Street. They ask, "What services or staff would have to be cut if the kindergarten fee was not reinstated?" So, if the if the kindergarten fee isn't reinstated, we would be looking to reduce um some of our specialist positions. We have literacy and math specialist positions at Ozgood, Deer Hill, and the middle school. Um at Ozgood, and Deer Hill, we have 1.5 in each specialist um area. And so we'd be looking at cutting the 0.5 positions at both

015Osgood and Deer Hill. And at the middle school level, the um the we have a reading specialist and a math specialist and we would be looking at those positions as well. Okay. Thank you. Um and um Mr. or Mrs. Evans, whoever is asking the question there, um just let me know if you want to be promoted to panelist for any reason or if that um answered your question. Um and to clarify from the Oliver Henry football question we just answered, that was actually asked by Mary Henry at 34A Atlantic Avenue. Thank you for entering that information. Um, the next question is, well, um, Mr. Cameron, uh, you just typed in your name, so you may have a question. I'm not seeing it, though. So, um, maybe follow up and we'll get back to you on

016that one. Uh, Phil Blake, Philip Blake, excuse me, at 8 Brewster Road. He states or asks, "Hi, I am a father of an incoming kindergarten student. Instituting a fee would be economically challenging for our family. Has the committee considered going to town for an override? Last year, it was discussed a town meeting and there was an overwhelming amount of support to keep it free. So, one thing I would want to make clear is that with any of our fees, um, which is not new, which is something that is currently in practice, is that we do have a sliding scale for all fees. Um, and so there is a and again I'll I'll share that I don't like the name of this. I I talked about this at our last meeting. It's called the federal free

017and reduced lunch form. Um, and it really while it's labeled as a lunch form, it really is the form that families would need to fill out for any consideration for a sliding scale and fees. Um, and so depending on that form, we do give reductions in fee rates for all things. Um, and at times given, you know, you're filling out the form, we may be looking at free as well. And so we would encourage everybody to fill out that form um because it does help us also with funding um and so when families don't fill out the form, we actually get a reduction in funding. We actually because um there weren't enough families that qualified this year, we actually received no title one funding for the school. So for a variety of reasons, we encourage

018folks to fill out that form. But for anyone who it is challenging, we would recommend filling out that form and we would have a conversation about um what your fee structure could look like. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Next question is from Will Ashton of 125 Don Street. Uh he asks why increase kindergarten fees that were already voted for by the town and is required by every student instead of charging even more for a luxury like student parking spaces. So, I think um a couple things. One, we are looking at bringing it back because the first year that kindergarten was free um we were addressing that with a one-time funding from the town. Um and then it was not necessarily um factored in in a way that created a balanced budget for this current school

019year. And so because we are trying to create a balanced budget, that's why we're looking at bringing it back. Um, and I think as opposed to charging more for student parking, I think looking at a variety of ways to spread the fees out across the district, um, K through 12, um, so that it doesn't necessarily fall on one end of the education spectrum than another, um, is why we're looking at that. We also know that that is a big chunk of what is making us have an unbalanced budget at the moment. So my thought really is looking at reinstituting that fee and then coming up over time with a way to um get back to pre kindergarten. I think we're also looking at and having conversations with the town around an override. That's something that

020from the last question. Um, and if we were to do that, that would be something we could potentially roll into that conversation is going back to free kindergarten. But the override conversation needs to be something that we talk about as an entire school in town, um, not just the school district because it really is a a townwide concern. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Uh, next question is from Mark. Mr. Chair, can I just jump in real quick? I just need to clarify one point. Uh if that's right, so on the I just want to go back to the approval of the um the kindergarten fee. It the the challenge was not that it was approved and just the budget was unbalanced. We had considered that and approved it with the anticipation that we were going

021to receive some enhanced chapter 70 funding that would offset the expenses. the way the calculations worked out because of the one of the inputs into that was keyed to inflation that those contributions from the state under chapter 70 did not hit the expectations. So it wasn't that we were just oh let's have free kindergarten and you know oh the budget's imbalanced. There was a plan in place that the budget would maintain balance with the free kindergarten, but due to the way the chapter 7 funding calculations started to work, the chapter 70 funding did not contribute to the budget in the same way that we had anticipated. So, I just wanted to make sure that that was clear for the record. Thank you, Mr. Style. Uh, next question is from Mark Cameron of 18 Virginia Lane.

022Do we feel these fees have unintended consequences? Uh, for example, cars parked in surrounding roads or less participation in sports for an already small district. So, I would say it's hard to answer that with 100% certainty, but what I could say is that even with our current free parking, we have students who park at Milikin because we don't have enough spots. Um, I would I would like to think that with the increase in fees that we wouldn't have a drop in participation in any of those areas, especially because we have a way to address any financial concerns that people would have. People just need to reach out to us. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Okay, so just for anyone that's logging on right now, what we're trying to do here is take these uh one by

023one. Right now, we're uh targeting a conversation on the kindergarten tuition fees. So, I'd ask if you have any thoughts on that to uh make a comment relative to the kindergarten tuition fees um and and hold your comment on other types of fees until we get to that subject. It's otherwise the conversation is going to be too scattered and I I I need to provide some structure to this. So, um I know it's tough because people are going to be popping in and popping out of the meeting, but let's just do our best. And if you've asked a question that does not relate to the kindergarten tuition fees and I haven't I haven't raised it yet, it's because I'm just going to move on to the committee right now um and uh and ask them

024for their thoughts relative to the kind kindergarten fees. If you have any thoughts relative to kindergarten tuition, um I saw one just just roll in here, so I'll ask that. Ann Gallagher of 137 North Main Street, uh she states, "I like your point, Sarah." I think uh referring to Superman Shannon to spread the fees across all grade levels. Parents like myself with middle high schoolers paid for kindergarten when our kids were younger and now we're being asked to pay additional fees for sports, students activities, and bus and student parking fees doesn't seem equitable. Okay, so I think that was more of a comment in response to what Superintendent Shannon had said earlier. So, thank you for that. Um, so like I said, if you have a comment, if you're out there watching, you have a

025comment or question related to kindergarten fees, now is the time. Um, and I'm going to switch over to the I'm going to ask Mr. Carr if he has any thoughts relative to kindergarten tuition. And in the meantime, I'll monitor these Q&As's and and we can always go back to it if people enter uh kindergarten fee comments in while we're talking. So, Mr. car. Uh, so I feel strongly based on our town meeting vote, prior vote, that if we can do anything to not have to charge for kindergarten, I would prefer to do that. Um, we are, I think, also looking at a bunch of other ways to cut the budget. Um, in my mind it was clear at that meeting uh that um that was the charge of the people of the town that voted

026for it at that time. I know things change, but again, it would be my preference if we can figure this out another way to not raise the kindergarten or not charge for kindergarten. Um, that said, I'm curious what I know people have decisions to make. Um, and as we continue to look at ways to um to narrow the gap on what we're doing here, um, I wonder if we might consider um, approving um, you know, well, I guess I guess the question is could we approve this with the with the option that if we are able to um narrow the gap uh, in a different way that we potentially could take this off the table this one. But um I welcome anybody else's thoughts on that. But at this point, I think um I'd like

027to try to keep this um uh without a fee. Thank you, Mr. Carr. I think just in response to your one question relative to if we could take it off the table, I think right now we need to decide whether or not just for for planning purposes, we need to decide whether or not we're willing to do it for this year. We can always revisit it each and every year if we think we're in a better fiscal position. But I think for the purpose of tonight's discussion and vote, we need to just decide whether or not we want to uh reinstitute them at least for the upcoming fiscal year. Yeah. And and I would add I just think these are all every one of these are very tough decisions. We have a responsibility to um

028live under a balanced budget. So, we're at a point now where we have to make very very challenging decisions uh to make sure we meet that requirement for the for the city. So, I I understand. Thank you, Mr. Car. Mr. Jo, before we get to you, I'm just going to read a public comment related to the kindergarten that just came in uh while Mr. Car was speaking. Gene Hilly depolded 93 South Main Street. When the town voted for free kindergarten, we did so based on the chapter 70 projections. Since those projections are wrong, we should change it back and charge kindergarten fees. My guess is that town meeting uh open parenthesis most of whom paid for kindergarten fees closed parenthesis would want that and remember all of this. Likewise, town meeting will not want an

029override here. Thank you for that comment. Stippled skiy dippold, excuse me. Um there's another comment that's um partially related to kindergarten. So just read it now because it's easier for me to clean the slate as we're going along here. Uh Tim Morris of 25 Arrowwood. Uh, could you elaborate on how a parking fee spread over four grades is ensuring you aren't targeting a specific age group like a specific mandatory age group? Also, will there be a free half-day option per state law, I believe? So, the last sentence there, um, relates to kindergarten, Superintendent Shannon. Yep. Um, so there would be a free half day option as there has been in the past. Um, I'm not sure I understand the question about parking fees spread over four grades. The parking fee we're referring to is just

030the student parking at the high school. Um, and it really only applies to those students who have their license and who can drive and want to drive to school and park at the high school. Right. Thank you. So, Mr. Morsey, maybe you can clarify if you have any follow-up questions, you can uh you can type those. And again, if if someone is uh is adamant that they want to uh speak directly on the meeting, you can go ahead and let us know that and I can promote you to panelist. I just um want to make sure that that doesn't become uh completely unmanageable if there's you know 30 people that want to do that. Okay. In the meantime, this seems to be working. All right. Okay. Mr. Dial. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um

031I as I said in plenty of other meetings, I I hate this. Uh they are tough decisions. Uh and I don't I don't really like any of them. Uh on the kindergarten fees in particular, I have two points. Um one is that I do feel like we made a commitment to the town at town meeting about kindergarten fees. Uh Miss Dippled's point notwithstanding. Um and I am thinking about that that is that that as a persuasive point, we we did come to town with the understanding that chapter 70 funding would uh would be a condition on which we could finance this and it did not come through in the way that we thought. So that is a changed circumstance. But even so that said, there's another element that I worry about and that is that

032we are saddling a single class with the budget issues of the district as a whole. So I don't think it's fair for us to ask our kindergarten families to pay extra just because we're allowed to do so. Um I think kindergarten should be free. I think we should be opening our schools to people and I think we need to be figuring it out. Miss Shannon's points on the potential cuts are deep and is not something we we want to do. Um, and I am torn by that. So, I don't know that I have an answer on how I would vote just yet. I'm open to hearing other com commentary from the committee, but I feel very strongly that it's not a fair result or equitable result for our kindergarten families to have them shoulder so

033much of the burden on the increase in utilities cost, increase in transportation costs, increase in other district costs uh that are borne across the district as a whole and not just because we have kindergarten. So, uh I'll I'll leave that there and uh see where we go from here. Thank you, Mr. Dial. I'm just sorry. I'm reviewing a a comment that just came in to see if it relates to kindergarten. I don't know if it's in relation to something you just said, Mr. I'm just gonna read it. 125. It's uh Will Ashton uh at 125 Don Street. Uh if the budget shortfall was 1 million and there are approximately 3,300 households in capacity, each house would see a $300 tax increase. Why is that unrealistic? That would be the most equitable option. I'm I'm assuming

034that that's referring to the idea of a potential override on the town at whole. Um which not the subject of this particular point of debate, but something I would I I have been on record saying that I totally support and think we have to do that. are we have a structural shortfall in our budget that we're trying to bandaid with fees right now. Right. Okay. Um that is what I think it relates to. Um so I also want to note that we try to and we haven't had to discuss this in the uh in the recent past but uh we try to limit um comments to three per household uh on these things. So if you can um and sorry Mr. Ashton, it seems like I'm picking on you. I you just reminded me that

035sometimes uh folks um will sort of have a stream of consciousness and and and and type multiple com comments. It's just it becomes insurmountable. So if you can try and limit uh your comments to three per household, that would be helpful. You know, if it's something that you need to add absolutely share and you know, we're talking about four, it's it's fine. Um but uh just just you know, try and have that in the back of your mind. Thank you. But, you know, thank you everyone for participating here and and and coming together to talk about this and share your thoughts. Um, Mrs. Hannah, do you have any thoughts on the kindergarten tuition issue? Uh, I think Mr. Dial and Mr. Carr both said it best and said it well. Um, you know, I think

036if there's a way to figure out this shortfall without charging kindergarten fees, um, given the fact that, you know, we did make a commitment to the town and, um, you know, we want these kids in school as soon, you know, as early as possible and everything. And so, um, you know, I I am challenged as well on voting for that. Um, that's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Um, Mrs. Leki, sorry, I'll I'll keep it brief. I I mean, I I also struggle with a lot of this um because philosophically I believe in free kindergarten. Um, I think it's a really important tenant of the education system. Um, I do have concerns around the cuts and that that those cuts will will impact some of our more vulnerable students who um

037who need extra adults in classrooms. Um, so it it's a difficult choice, but I also think that um that the the town has asked for free kindergarten and has approved free kindergarten um and that free kindergarten ultimately is a good thing. And I agree with Mr. dial that there just some systematic issues that we need to really sort of buckle down and look at um as a as an entire town about how we fund um both pre kindergarten and and the schools. Thank you. Okay. Um thank you Mrs. Leki. Just give me a moment everyone to see. Okay. So there is another kindergarten comment from uh Chad Dammo at 67 Forest Avenue. He states if kindergarten were to continue to be free. Miss Shannon indicated we would need to remove specialists from the middle school,

038could she speak more to the impact uh that would have on the learning of our middle school students? Would that inhibit the services we are able to provide to students on educational plans? And is it correct to understand this is basically a choice between pre kindergarten versus middle school education in English and math? Superintendent Shannon, would you mind taking the first? Um yeah. Um so I would want to clarify a few of those points. First of all um none of the reductions would impact students who are on individual education plans through our special education department. Our specialists are general ed service. um they target the students who are on the cusp or need some additional support in order to keep their skills up or to close academic gaps, but gaps that do not meet the

039need to be on an individual education plan. So, I just want to be clear that this does not impact anyone who's on an IEP. Um so, that's the first thing. And really our our specialists at all levels have been the positions that came in through COVID. The additional which are the 2.5 positions at Ozgood, 2.5 positions at Deer Hill, and the 1.0 positions at the middle school. They came in since CO and they allowed us to close the gaps that we were seeing that were a result of the COVID experience that students were having. They have proved to be incredibly effective. I think our return on investment has been really high. We have seen through tra traditional academic achievement measures like the MCCAST that our students have regained their academic performance standards um since the

040COVID years. Um there are very few districts across the state who can say that their MCCAST achievement levels are as high as if not higher than precoid. we can do that and I think that's a direct result of the the services we've been able to provide through general education to meet the needs of our students. Um but we are not just targeting middle school with this. Um, we are looking at the 2.5 positions. And I want to clarify that because it's not 2.5. It's a 0.5 English specialist at Ozgood, a 0.5 math specialist at Ozgood, a 0.5 English specialists at Deer Hill, a 0.5 math specialist at Deer Hill, and then 1.0 English and math specialists at the at the middle school level. Um, and this I the comment about versus middle school education and

041English and math. These are the specialist positions. These are not the classroom teacher positions. Um, this maintains all of the ELA and math classroom positions at the middle school. These are just the the specialists. And I shouldn't say just because they're equally as important. And I just want to make that clear. Um I'm just trying to clarify between the two. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Um Corey Evans of 313 North Main Street states, "As a parent of a current kindergarten who was free and one earlier who was who was paid, I would be and was happy to pay the full day fee if it means we ensure having reading specialists available. Investing in our children's education is always worth a return. I also would prefer to pay for it once instead of a part of

042our taxes every year going forward. All right. Thank you for that comment, Mr. Evans. Um, okay. I don't see any more public comment related to kindergarten fees. My take on this is that we shouldn't put um principle ahead of practicality. We're in an extremely uh difficult financial position here and it was unanticipated. um we have the choice there's there only two ways to address the situation. We can cut costs or we can increase revenue somehow. Um most of these fees are uh you know while not completely insignificant they're they're they pale in comparison to the amount uh of relief that the kindergarten tuition would provide us. Sure, there may be the position that we uh that we discussed this at town meeting. Uh we did we did make it a reality, but that has proven

043in my opinion to be a failed experiment, especially under these difficult financial circumstances. I think it would be extremely unwise to not look to that additional revenue when the alternative is cutting staff. We've spent a long time getting this district to where it is. I'm extremely protective of that. Uh and and I I wish we were adding resources instead of talking about deleting them. But the fewer resources uh and and these are human resources. These are our this is our staff. The fewer uh members of our staff that or fewer staff reductions we can make, the better it helps keep the positive momentum of our school district. So, um, and you know, I had two kids that went through kindergarten when it was not free, and I paid for that. And I'll also note that,

044uh, that tuition, uh, was much cheaper than what I was paying in preschool or child care prior to that. Um and it's uh you know talking about something like $3,000 spread over you know um a period of time I I think is is not in uh unmanageable amount and had worked for years um sometimes at a higher rate. Uh so uh and and as Superintendent Shannon expressly stated earlier there are always scholarship options for those that are in need. I do not think it would detract from the amount of participation in the kindergarten program. I I I don't think that's realistic. I think everyone wants their kid to participate and their student to participate in in in kindergarten. Um so I don't see that unintended consequence as being realistic. Uh nor do I find that

045to be a compelling reason not to support this. So I I I urge the committee to consider uh reinstating that kindergarten tuition fee. Um and as Mr. car stated. I mean, we can continuously review that, but um this is a tough situation and and and folks are, you know, stating that, you know, if there's any other alternative, we we should do that, but there is no other alternative to come up with that amount of money. It's it's it's it's it's nearly $300,000, and we have a shortfall to make up for this year, and then we need another 1.2 $1.3 million just to ensure level services next year. So, um, that's all I'm going to say on that and, uh, I'm I'm happy to take further comment from this the committee. I see Mr. Dial has

046his hand up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I recall and I think last time we had this kind of attendance was we were talking about masks or something. Um, so this was this this is I don't know if it's an easier conversation, but a different one. Um, but I would like to see if I'm we're seeing a lot of comments and questions questioning um the, you know, getting rid of the kindergarten fee. Is there anybody who supports charging for kind or that supports keeping free kindergarten? I'm not seeing a lot in the comments uh from the from the attendees who say we should absolutely keep free kindergarten. Um it's certainly axiomatic to me, but uh it would be interesting to see if if you if I could ask if you do support um the the

047free kindergarten if you could just put a note in the comment field that'd be helpful for us, I think. All right. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Uh I have multiple windows open here as I'm trying to manage all these questions such so if you're a committee member, if you have something to say, just just unmute and say it. I I can't necessarily see you hand raising. Would you like to have a motion on this matter? Yes. There. I just would note that uh Philip Blake in response to Mr. Dial's petition said, "I support free kindergarten." And Tim Morrisy said support. So there are two additional ones. Uh Mr. dial. Uh I I would I would entertain a motion at this point. I'm I and the motion, Mr. Carr, can be either to accept or approve uh

048the um the recommendation or reject it. Okay. Um so I'd like to make a motion that we approve uh the recommendation to bring back a charge for kindergarten. Okay. There's been a motion to approve or accept the recommendation of uh reinstating the kindergarten tuition fee. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second that. The motion's been seconded by Mrs. Ley, made by Mr. Carr, and ask for a point of clarification. We need to um uh yet one moment, Mr. Dial, we need to take each vote in roll call. Uh because we are uh meeting virtually. Um Mr. Dial, what is your point of clarification? Is the just to confirm is the motion to bring back the kindergarten fee at the rates suggested in the recommendation? Correct. It is. It's an important clarification. Thank you

049for that, Mr. Dial. Everyone understand? All right. Uh in roll call, please. Your votes. Mr. Carr. Uh Carr, I am in favor. Thank you, Mr. Carr. Mr. Dial, can I hold? I'm I honestly I'm still struggling. Mr. Dial, you're only going to be afforded an additional like 10 seconds. So, by holding Oh, no. I meant I meant Can we go through the other committee members? Yes. I'm going to be back to you in about five. That's fine. Mr. Dial, Mrs. Hannah, fine. Uh, I vote no. Mrs. Leki. Uh, Leki. Hi, Mr. Dial. Are you prepared to vote now? Yes, I uh vote nay. Craig Mlen. I motion carries by a majority vote of three members. Superintendent Shannon, please uh reinstitute the kindergarten tuition fee as presented tonight. Next topic is um transportation fees. Superintendent Sham,

050would you mind just sharing that screen one more time where it outlines the transportation fees just to remind everyone? We've lost. Nope. Nope. I'm here. I'm just also managing my Yep. Um my screens. Can you see that? Yes. Okay. Hold on. Let me get to transportation. Of course. There you go. That's what we're looking for. All right, everyone. So, just like we did last time, I'm going to ask for comments related to the transportation fee only. Um, again, I see some other comments that are not related to um that weren't related to kindergarten tuition, that may not be related to uh transportation fee. I'm holding those um for now, but let me just um as we have that up there, everyone can look at it and see what the proposal proposals are. There's a few

051different proposals on this one. And um let me just survey the comments here and see um which ones related to transportation fees. All right. I don't see any, but I do have um a few additional comments that are, you know, at this point somewhat moved. But Mr. Dial, you'd ask people to chime in with their support. Free kindergarten. Sarah Reeves, 362 Beach Street, uh, supported free care kindergarten. Mark Hammer, 18 Virginia Lane, supported free kindergarten, uh, saying this is only a temporary plug for the solution. And then a Patrick Mueller of, excuse me, Nicole Vela Mueller of Wendy Hill um, indicated she was logging on as we were taking a vote. I just want to read her comments into the record. your child will be in kindergarten 2 years. Preschool fees are exorbitant, especially for

052multiple children. Would like to request no fee for kindergarten. She'd like to ask how many people on this call have children in preschool preschool to represent the vote. Um the answer to that is uh none of the committee members have children in preschool right now. Uh though I believe uh multiple committee members had children in school when the kindergarten was not free and paid for kindergarten. some at a higher rate than what was just approved. Um, additional comment, I was not on the list for this meeting as the child is not in coast of public schools yet. There's a group of parent large group of parents who should be represented on this call who are not. Um, we advertised the meeting as best we can and um, we've talked about these fee issues at multiple

053meetings and we've been talking about it for weeks. So, this is not the first time we've talked about this. This is why we're having a special meeting. This is just to really take the vote. Frankly, I'm I'm surprised by the number of attendees at this meeting because we have spoken about it so many times and there have been a grand total of approximately maybe six or eight people that have participated in the discussion to date. Um, so, uh, we're doing the best we can with that. This was a meeting to take the votes so that we could get it in time for the um to to stay stay in within the confines of our of our budget calendar. Um in time for uh recommendations and votes to be made for town meeting. Um all right.

054So here's a transportation fee question. Claire Martin of 158 Lambert's Lane. Are you considering reinstating transport fees for family outside the four mile radius? Should that be considered? Even though our family benefited, I never understood how we got free bus transportation. It should have been means tested, not mileage related. Superendent Shannon, do you want to take uh an attempt at answering that for us? That is Claire Martin's question at 158 lane. I I do. Sorry, I had to stop sharing in order to find my mute button. Um, I can go back to that in a few minutes if need be. Um, so the the distance in whether we share whether we charge a transportation fee or not is not actually our choice. It's state law. Um, and so given that we it and it's a

055two-mile radius and so given that we can't change that for us as a single district. Okay, thank you. Um, if you have any follow-up thoughts, Miss Martin, feel free to ask them. Um, Elizabeth Frasier at 27 Windy Hill Road regarding transportation states, I would go with proposal number three. Everyone pays for the bus already anyway. Thank you for the comment. Um I don't see any other comments related to transportation. So I'll move to the committee at this time. Uh starting with Mr. Carr. So look, we have to make some very tough decisions about everything about our budget. Um, it's unfortunate, but I think we have to be consistent with the the proposition of what we provide and the shared cost of doing so. So, these will be tough decisions, but I I think transportation is

056one that can help us solve um our our budget shortfall. Thank you, Mr. Carr. Uh, taking a moment to address uh a comment from Corey Evans of 313 North Main Street. My elementary school children sit on the bus for over 30 minutes. Some children need more than that, which is way too much. I will gladly pay more if we can add a route and my child can sit on the bus for less time. Thank you, Mr. Evans. And again, just a reminder for folks to try and limit the amount of comments per household if you can. We know that people feel strongly about these issues, but just be cognizant of that if you can. U Mr. Dial. So unlike kindergarten, this one's a this one's an easier one for me. Um our misser, Miss Shannon,

057I I know that the transportation def deficit is one of the drivers of our of our significant budget hole. Can you remind me of the the magnitude of that hole that we face with transportation or the increase year-over-year? Miss Shannon, I don't know if you want to share that slide that has the cost and you could it shows you um that we're in deficit in the school budget line item and in the revolving where we collect the fees. So it it we're obviously not um covering cost of our transportation. So this is the slide here um and you can see for last year the school budget is on the left um for FY24 and then on the right is FY23 and you can see the growing um deficit from year to year and the shortfall.

058So in 23 the shortfall was about 78,000 and then in 24 it was about 298,000. So I mean this is not one where this is this this this fee does not disproportionately fall on a single group. It falls on the people who you benefit from it which is the the people who drive the bus. The schools are operating this at a deficit. This all informs my decision that raising the the fees is is appropriate here especially in a year where we we need the additional revenue. Um I'm not sure where we land on on the proposals. Um, proposal 3 seems too far out of line from other ones, but when we're looking at a $200,000 gap and that only raises $45,000, that does seem that seems attractive, notwithstanding the the burdens that it faces on

059the family. Otherwise, it's burdens being placed on the school for people from people who aren't riding the bus. So, um, that seems sensible to me. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Um, Mrs. Hannah, do you have any thoughts on this one? Yeah, I, you know, I think it's interesting because I think that given the fact that it's such a small town. Um, I do believe there are a lot of people that sign up for the buses that don't actually use them. And so I think the interesting thing is going to be the the fact that the families where it is kind of more of a nice to have um where they're not using it on a regular basis or anything um will may not sign up for it. And so where I think it's interesting is I

060think our enrollment will come down for the bus for transportation which will help our bus situation with them being over capacity and um but I think that it's not going to save us as much money as what we're proposing that it would or projecting that it would. And so like you know I I just going to be an interesting thing to see how this plays out. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Mrs. Leki. Um, I'm also in favor for of increasing the transportation fees. I think that it it makes sense. Um, just it's logical. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sleski. Um, just going back to the community comments. Um, Miss Jennifer Madden, who had shared her address earlier, um, but now I've deleted the comment and I don't know where it is. Uh, I would gladly pay

061more for the bus. She states, "I would gladly pay more for the bus, proposal number three is fine." Thank you for that input, Miss Madden. Um, I I I guess where I stand is um we're already fairly high on this. Is that correct, Mrs. Owen? Yes. So I I I think um perhaps um an increase is warranted just given the circumstances I articulated earlier. But uh I I I think I could be uh persuaded to adopt either of the the the proposals. I I feel like, you know, minimal increase is probably the best where we're already on the high end of the spectrum, but we're also a fairly unique district and that we have uh very low commerce and uh and uh you know, for that reason, um we're a little cashstrapped generally anyway. Um

062even aside from these extraordinary circumstances we've been facing. Uh so I guess at this point, let me just make sure there's no other comments. Oh, hold on a second. One comment relates to the bus system. I'm going to read it now. Um it's from Mrs. Kate Renie at 9 Forest Notch. She states, "I appreciate the need to review increased revenue, but the spending and the revenue for all these fees should be discussed in the context of the current year budget uh in parenthesis FI25. I've read in some historical school committee documentation different amounts for the bus lease open parenthesis sometimes it was listed as 90,000 sometimes as 150,000 closed parenthesis and it was sometimes listed as a capital expense. Could you please clarify the bus costs and if it is in the capital budget Mrs.

063Owen or Superintendent Shannon would you mind taking this? Yep. Um no that's a good question. Um, so for this current school year, FY25, the total bus lease is $151,000. 90,000 of that is currently in the capital budget. It's paid for and supported by the capital planning committee. The other 60,000 of that is comes out of the operating budget. Um, we're really grateful the collaboration with the capital budget for this year going into FY26. They are approving not only to cover the whole cost of the bus lease, the $151,000, but they're also approve have approved an additional ninth bus so that we can add an extra route. Um that does free up $60,000 FY26 in the FY26 budget. Um however, it does not cover the costs that are still associated. You saw in the other slide

064that we are running at a a negative in our transportation that is far above $60,000. So even though that will help us for I26, the additional fee structure will also help us try to create a balanced transportation budget. Hopefully that helps. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Uh if there's any follow-up question, just go ahead and use the Q&A feature to ask that. Um, uh, Mary, uh, Brius, and I apologize if I mispronounce anyone's name. Doing the best I can with it. Uh, 200 North Main Street. My son has a 45minute bus ride in the morning. We end up walking to school because we can leave later than the bus and still arrive earlier at school. Like others have said, I'm all in favor of a bus fee increase, especially if it means we have a shorter

065ride with the additional bus route. Thank you for that comment. Okay. Um, I don't see any other comments. Is there a motion uh on the floor to approve any one of the three proposals or reject or reject this in its entirety? I'll make a motion to approve the proposal number three to increase the school bus uh fees to $450 uh per student to an $850 cap. Second motion made by Mr. Dial to approve proposal number three. Is there a second to that motion? Second from Carr. Seconded by Mr. Carr. All in favor and roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Mr. Dial. I. Uh, Mrs. Hannah. I. Mrs. Ley. I. Craig McClen. I. Motion unanimously carries. Uh, so, Superintendent Shannon, please institute proposal number three, which would charge uh $450 for a bus ridership. Thank you.

066Moving on to the next uh fee issue, which is athletic fees. Perhaps while we allow people to generate some comments if they feel strongly about this, Superintendent Shannon, you can just repopulate the uh relevant slide. apologize. Um I don't know if I was just muted muted when I asked everyone to make comments relative to athletic fees. Uh now if they want to I must have muted myself inadvertently. Um and while everyone's doing that, I'll just ask uh Miss Owen, when was the last time we increase the athletic fees in any way? I believe it was back in 2008. It's been quite some time. Super superintendent Shannon, are you aware offhand, and not to put you on the spot of when that was, is that accurate, 2008? Yes. Okay. Um, so we're going on the better

067part of 20 years here since we've done that. Um, that's I think a a pertinent point. Okay. So, I don't see any comments from the committee relative to this one. Uh, are there any uh discussion points from the committee, Mr. Carr? No, no discussion points for me. Excuse me, I misspoke. Uh, thank you, Mr. Carr. Um, there is a comment on this from uh Mrs. Lauren Wagner at 69 Elm Street. Says, "Based on the presentation, tiered sports fees seem driven more by what other districts are adopting than by the actual costs or changes within our own district. I previously inquired about a breakdown of cost by team and have only seen costs for swimming. It seemed like this information was not readily available. Given this and the potential for discouraging participation in certain sports, I

068request that we consider a uniform increase instead of a tiered model uh tiered model, excuse me. Notably, the pool rental fee of $4,000 is shared among two sports teams. Thank you for that comment and for your participation, Miss Wagner. And um just to sort of touch on one of the points that Mrs. Wagner raised because I think if I remember correctly um Mrs. Hannah had raised this as well getting sort of uh maybe others I I think we've talked about it at least getting um um sort of more item itemized breakdown in terms of what the allocations are for the fees for each sports. Um we don't have that information tonight. It's something that we are actively working on in part due to um Mrs. Wagner's recent request. So, um you know, it's something that

069we're going to try to get together and share with the community. Um but at this point, we are making a decision with uh on the information that we currently have in front of us. Oh, um there was a um comment from Claire Martin at 158 Lambert's Lane. Why are we looking at a tiered sports fee structure? I understand that costs are rising and we therefore may need to increase student athlete fees across the board. But per NAS standards, program resources are to be equitable and appropriate, excuse me, uh quote, equitable and appropriate resources, facilities, and opportunities are afforded to all student athletes and sports programs. End quote. What is equitable for a two-tier structure? So um in terms of equity um equity is not always mean the same. It um equal is not always equitable.

070And in this case the two-tiered structure really is about the costs of each sport and the cost to run each sport. And several of those sports that are in tier 2 do cost us more money to run each year. And so the additional fee for those tier 2 helps us really cover those costs because the sports program in an ideal world and it is not an ideal world um the user fees would cover the costs. That is not possible at this time. And so this helps us get a little bit closer to covering the costs for each individual sport. we have the costs that at those tier 2 fees where the rental of those facilities and some of the other sports um does end up being higher than what our local at the high school

071sports are costing. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. I mean, I I' I've stated before that it may even make sense to explore sort of individual individualized fees per sport depending on what it costs and you know how much is it? So, my kid plays, you know, soccer, basketball, and softball. Okay. Well, how much is each of the sports each year? And and that's how much you have to pay. Um, you know, and that includes new uniforms with their names on it, the the the facility fee, you know, whatever it might be. And then we're not getting into allocation issues as well, but you know, it's just I I don't know. I mean, that's not even halfbaked at this point. That that concept is just something that I've been thinking about as I've been having these

072conversations with the folks. Um Laura Soderberg of 16 Blackhorse Lane writes, "I appreciate the need to bifurcate the fee schedule for the higher expense sports. However, it has long been requested for additional transparency as to where these fees go each year. And Mr. Sordterberg, thank you for that comment. you just reminded me that you are one of the people that I had conversations with about the request for um more itemized breakdown there. So I thought Mrs. Hannah had as as well but uh in open meeting but if I uh if I incorrectly attributed that statement to you Mrs. Hannah I apologize. I thought you had mentioned it in the past but I could be wrong. Um, you I I did mention it in the past and I do think I I'm not opposed to raising

073fees, but I think that we owe full transparency to everybody to understand where these fees are going. Um, there's a lot of assumptions out there about where they're going and I think the transparency will allow us to mitigate that. And then I know there's questions about um one of the sports um that had come on and had raised its own money to um put on its its own season and uh they were charged participation fees. However, those fees went into the bigger pool and not back into the sport that was not being sponsored by the school. And so I think we owe it to the town to fully understand where these fees are going, how they're being spent, and allow people to see that it is equitable. Um, and maybe not the dollar amount, but

074it's equitable to what this work costs. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Um, Erin Dlo of 85 Ripley Road. She writes, "I am in agreement with both Claire and Lauren. Um, I think she's referring to prior commenters. Given that we do not have adequate information in the form of a breakdown from all sports and the breakdown for swim has some inaccurate information, voting on a tiered fee structure at this time does not feel right to do. I also have a question on the two different family cap amounts. If you have multiple kids and sports across tiers, how does that work? Could you explain that, Superintendent Shannon or Yeah, Mrs. Owen? Yep. So the part so I'm gonna speak to the second part of that question. Um because I just wanted to share that the question about

075the this the fees for swim have come up and we've been working to get those but it's hard for us to turn around our full um set of information for every sport as quickly as as as has been requested. Um, and so with regard to multiple kids on multiple sports and across tiers, really it's based on each individual family. So if you have a student who is in tier one for one or two sports and a student who's in tier two for one or two sports, it doesn't matter. It's when you reach those family caps. Um, and so, um, you know, if you're at tier one, but you have tier 2 sports as well, then when you hit that $2,000 cap, um, we would be looking at capping you. Um, but if you're only at

076tier one, it would be that 14 thou $1,400 cap. So, we would really need to look at I mean, we would really be looking at each individual family at that point. Um because you know it we it could fall somewhere in the middle as well. Um based on kids in sports and seasons, it's hard to create a model for every potential situation for each family. Some families have three students. You reach that cap really quickly no matter which tier you're in if they're playing multiple sports especially. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Shannon. Moving on. Um, another comment from uh, Claire who shared her uh, name and address previously. I don't have that in front of me at this moment. I think everyone would like to see a detailed cost breakdown for all sports. Only the swim

077budget was provided today and has raised further questions. Some of the allocated costs for swim appear very high and should be revisited. Okay, thank you. Um, Jennifer Madden, who again shared her address in a prior comment, states, "I think there is legitimate concern that we will lose swimmers due to the higher fee. I would support a unilateral increase. We don't want teams like the swim team to go away. Thank you, Mrs. Madden." Um, there's more. Sarah Mcweeny of 14 Summer Street. She states, "Thank you all. Thank you to all the hard work on the revenue work stream. I also echo the need for a more deep dive on the cost per sports. It feels a bit opaque and out of balance. Additionally, it would be helpful to have a view on expense management while raising

078fees is one way to fill the gap. But we are using rigor on costs. But are we using rigor on costs specifically procurement and sourcing for the district? That would be very helpful to see in detail. Thank you, Mrs. Mcweeny. So, can I just speak to procurement and sourcing? We are always reviewing that. Um, we depending on costs, and Miss Owen can jump in if she wants, but depending on costs, we are looking at state bid lists because that's where our lowest potential costs are. And even within those state bid lists, we are constantly reviewing those prices. For instance, um all of our facility supplies and materials, um everything from cleaning supplies to paper products like toilet paper. We are reviewing our our head custodian has been doing a great job talking with a bunch

079of vendors. We are looking to switch vendors this year because he thinks he can get some lower prices. So that is something we are doing on a regular basis. um because um there are times when you switch vendors and they can give you better pricing and so when that is available that is something that we do um okay thank you superintendent Shannon so I have a question myself well I'm sorry where were we uh Mr. Dial, I think we hadn't heard from you yet on this, right? Or had we? That is correct. Okay. I apologize. I just got a little bit fragmented there. Uh why don't you go ahead and share your thoughts? Um so questions on on costs notwithstanding. We we do have some uh things. I think slide 12 um is is costs

080here. And I think the issue is no matter how we I mean I I agree with the commenters that u more granular assessment could be helpful and more transparent, but it's not close. I we've got a looks like we have a g athletic gap of $231,000 if I'm reading this correct. Is that is that fair? Correct. Okay. So So that's that that's kind of what I feel like we're we're addressing here. Um, so the other thing I'd like to know, if you could go back to the fee, can you just um tell us the fee differential that we'd be approving? I there athletic fees now. Um, and that we'd be approving a 350 and $500 fee with the $1,400 20000 cap. What's the What's the current fee structure that so we can identify the delta?

081The current fee structure is $250 per sport per child. Just one fee at the moment. And I believe the family cap is 900. Okay, that's helpful. Um, so I again, similar to buses, this this this feels again some of the questions notwithstanding the delta in the fee doesn't feel too huge given that it hasn't moved in almost 20 years. Um, and given that we're running at a $200,000 deficit, this one seems like fairly straightforward to me that uh we should do it. And can I just say one thing? Like I don't disagree with what everybody's saying and looking at all the costs, but similar to what the two of you have just said, all of our sports are running in the red at the moment. And so it's not just one sport or another, our

082entire athletics program is running in the red. and we will continue to look at um what each sport costs um and gather all of that information, but because this is a fee that hasn't increased in since 2008, you know, referee fees for, you know, time at the pool, at the rink, um all of those costs have gone up since 2008. And so I think when we look at other districts and what their fees are, um really we need to have fees that are aligned more with current costs for running an athletics program. Superintendent Shannon, may I ask you a question? Um I'm just because it seems like a lot of the comments have to do with um concerns about the tiers. I mean, is there is there a way to just uh impo just increase

083a sort of across the board more general fee. So maybe I I don't know split the difference between the two tiers and and establish that as the fee increase. I mean people seem you know I I think they seem to want a little bit more information if we're tiering these things. And I mean I think people are looking for uh more as as Mr. Dial put it granular information. Um but I I agree with Mr. dial that that regardless of what that information might be, the circumstances are are are quite obvious in terms of like our need. Um, and we haven't increased the fees in a while. So, and I think most folks that are commenting really don't have too much of an issue with a fee increase. So, I'm just wondering, is there some

084way is there a proposal here that we could come up with and consider that's that's not tearing the fees that that might address a lot of people's concerns? And while we're thinking about that, I'm just going to read another two comments that came in. Kate Ren and Nine Forge not Forge Notch. These are more statements and questions. Uh again, appreciate the need for increased revenue, but it feels arbitrary without details. The expense details with line items for coaching, uniforms, buses, equipment, etc. must be provided with a budget deficit. There should be existing monthly reports with line items and therefore it should be readily available. It was a typo there, and I I think I read what was intended. Uh, next comment is from um Aaron Dlo who provided our address in a prior comment. I

085don't think anyone's opposed to a fee increase. That said, having tiers as opposed to a uniform increase while we do a deeper dive into each individual sport seems more appropriate. Okay, thank you for both those comments. So, Superintendent Shannon or Miss Owen. Oh, wait a minute. There's there's there's yet more. There's there's more. Um, hold on a second. There's there are multiple comments here. Um, Laura Soderberg of 16 Blackhorse Lane, does the $231,000 shortcoming recognize the fee for the spring sports yet to be collected? It's a good question. So, just to be clear, the So, the that $231,000, Miss Ow, and correct me if I'm wrong. That was from prior year. That was FY24. Our current deficit is not that deep. And our current deficit does um not include yet, unless it happened in the

086last two days and I'm unaware of it, um this the collected spring sports fees. Even when those come in, we will still be at a deficit. That's great. Um and to answer your question about can we do one fee, yes, I mean you can certainly as a committee decide to do one fee. Um, I mean, we could do a little quick math to see what the different options could potentially bring in. Um, I would definitely look at I would recommend splitting those two if that's what the will of the committee is. Um, it was just it was just a suggestion I had where I'm looking at a lot of issues with the tiering. So, where we're rolling out an an increase in fees, which I think is completely warranted. that hasn't been done in over

087a decade. Maybe we just figure out uh one fee. And the quickest way to do that is to me is just figure out what the delta is between the two uh proposals and then just split it. So what is it? It's it's a it's $150. So 350 plus 75 or 500 minus 75 is what I would It's just an idea. I'm not forcing that idea. I'm one of five members. So it's just and we haven't even heard from all the members yet. Mrs. Han, I know you're there. I'll get to you in just a second. I'm just trying to get through these comments. um that everyone is providing here. Um and just reminding everyone, you know, really try to limit your comments if you can. I know it's something that is impactful for folks. Um

088but, you know, we also had multiple meetings before this to discuss this. So, um just throwing that out there. We we I really don't want to disincentivize participation. We love that people are here and passionate, but it's um you know, this is this is like the I think the fourth time we've talked about this in a meeting. Um just splitting the difference between those would be a fee of $425, right? And then the family cap would be what the delta there is 600. So we're talking about 300,700. Regardless of what sport you play. Okay. Um, uh, Elizabeth Frasier, 27 Windy Hill Road, says, "I agree with Craig. Just do one fee." Thank you, Mrs. Frasier, for your comment. Uh, Lauren Wagner, 69 Elm Street, says, "As a parent of three kids who play multiple sports,

089I support increasing an across the board increase." Thank you, Mrs. Wagner. Uh, Claire Martin, 158 Lambridge Lane. Please consider increasing all sport fees equally. Please don't put a tiered structure in place. Okay, thank you very much. Um, Ann Gallagher, who may have stated an address in a prior comment. I don't know, Mrs. Gallagher, if you have not, can you please provide your address? Is there a way to just increase the athletic fee and raise the cap across all student athletes and avoid the tier system? Uh, I will have three high schoolers that play both tier one and tiers 2 sports, and it's confusing. I also echo the others who ask more transparency with how the fees are being spent across all sports. Um, thank you very much, Miss Gallagher. I think that we are um

090considering right now exactly what you're suggesting and which the last four or five commenters had suggested. Um Miss Jennifer Madden who did provide her address in prior comment. These fees are a big bargain compared to the fees of playing club sports. I hope that we can keep our high school teams robust and strong. Thank you Mrs. Madden. Um Ann Gallagher did provide her address earlier. I'm sorry there's just so many comments I could not remember if I had seen your name yet. 137 North Main Street. Appreciate your participation. Sorry to single you out. Okay. Uh, Mrs. Hannah, thoughts on athletic fees. Um, I said I had spoken earlier just around the need for transparency. So, Oh, right. Not opposed to the fee raise. I'm really would like to give the community full transparency into how

091the money is being spent. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Sorry for calling on you twice there. Um, Mrs. Ley, thoughts on athletic fee increase proposal. I support the proposal. I actually am very much in support of um doing a a one-tier system. I actually think it might be simpler to administer. Um it seems to feel right to the community. Um and it may work for us financially as as well. Like I think it's it's maybe a win-win all around. Thank you, Mr. Leleski. Mr. D Mr. dial. So the the um the single tier structure does seem to have and right down the middle seems a very quick way to do that. Um before we move down the road and kind of undo some work that the administration had done to come up with the two-tier

092structure. Uh Miss Shanner, Miss Owen, do you have any concerns with adopting a single tier? And can you remind us again why you did a a tier one and tier two? Because we're going to undo that. I want to make sure we we know what we're we're giving up. And then I'll I'll also note just for the record that given the number of students uh if we do just do a split down the record split down the middle, we are actually raising even more money. Uh so there the cost per family would would go up um because the 360 students would be paying 425. But um anyway, Miss Owen or Miss Shannon, please. Thank you. Yeah. So, um, I just did some quick math and I don't think the numbers are that different if we

093split down the middle and make it a one tier fee. So, I would be okay with that. Um, and but the reason we did look at two tier fees is because the cost of running those three sports is significantly higher than running the tier one sports. But that said, I think the increased fee over, you know, one fee um if that's what feels better to people, I think it still achieves our goal of closing that revenue gap for our athletics department. Thank you. We have one final comment I'll take on this that uh Gene Hilly Dippold to 93 South Main Street uh states a uniform increased sport fee makes makes sense right now. I think a sport by sport assessment makes sense and will be tricky. You need to account for big capital spend on

094things like our new track, football field, new tennis courts, field maintenance, etc. Once you add it all up, a flat fee may make sense. She said, "I didn't need to read that, but I wanted to enter into the record." Thank you, Mrs. Helold. Okay. Uh, so I think everyone has heard the community's sentiments. I think we've all spoken about this. Uh, is there a motion of any type on the floor to uh propose any increase to reject any increase? We have uh three other fees to consider. So, let's do it. I'd make a motion to approve a fee increase for sports, a single single tier at $425 with a family cap of $1,700. Motion's been made to uh accept and approve the singular fee that split the difference of the two um tiers that were

095proposed. Is there a second to Mr. Dial's motion? Second. Ted Carr. Seconded by Mr. Carr. All in favor and roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Mr. Dial. I. Mrs. Hannah. I Mrs. Ley I Craig Mlullen I I the motion unanimously carries. Superintendent Shannon if we could please uh implement that new fee structure for the athletics for the upcoming fiscal year. Yep. Next fee to discuss is the student activity fee. Share my Yeah, maybe we can share that just to remind everyone of the proposal that's watching. And uh I'll just state to everyone that if you have thoughts to share on the student activity fee, please use the Q&A feature to share that input now. Anyone will see that. All right. Um, and could you just reiterate uh, yep, this is a Well, I'll let you

096reiterate, Superintendent Shannon. Yep. So, we were looking to add a student activity fee. We have a lot of things that happen within the schools where our students don't necessarily pay a fee, but they have costs. Um, you know, we have clubs that run. We have for instance the middle school and high school plays that go on and a lot of the students are participating and there's no fee involved. A lot of our students um do go to sporting events and we want to increase their ability to attend sporting fence events. Um and so listening to our students actually who asked us to not have gate fees for them and thought maybe we could come up with another way to capture those fees. So this is one of the things that we thought of there as

097well. Um, and then we have other activities like field days and and other events that happen during the school day that come out of um student activity budget line items but don't always cover all of the costs. And so this was an idea that we proposed that many other schools do have um to help cover those types of costs. Great. Thank you, Miss Shannon. Um, Mr. Mlan had to um have a connection issue for a moment. So, I'm going to um step in being the vice chair. Um, I will solicit any comments uh on activity fees from the public at this point. Um, but seeing none in the question and answer, I will do the unfair privilege of sending over to Mr. Carr for any comments on on student activities being our first presenter. No,

098no comment for me. I do understand this issue. Okay. Uh so next uh then I will go to it would be me but Mr. Clown's here. So I'll go to Miss Hannah. Um I guess my concern is this is you know the athletic fees we're not making every student pay for. So why would we make every student pay for participating in the play and everything else? Like I think if the students are participating in clubs and plays and non-sport activities then they should pay for those and um and the athletes who might not be able to participate in a club or other you know non-sport activities because of their commitment to their teams and the times might conflict and everything shouldn't also have to pay for this. Um, and so I I'm a little confused

099on like why we're not just paying we're not just charging fees to those people that are doing clubs. Someone else brought up a comment in the last time we talked about this that a lot of the athletes don't even have an opportunity to go to each other's games because of their commitments in their own sport for away games or practices or anything else. So then they end up getting dinged twice basically. Um, and so if we're raising the athletic fee, my recommendation is that we raise the or start implementing fees on these um, you know, activities and clubs and and everything else that we're not currently doing. Yeah, I think um, when we had the conversation about this, it was also for events that happen throughout the day and covering some of those costs and

100those are events that they participate in. Um and on average like at the high school even the students who participate in sports are also participating in roughly two to three clubs um because those are happening during the day but even during the day those have associated costs um things like student council, national honors society, newspapers. So, um I think that's that's why we were looking at it being for all um because we have such high participation rates in our clubs at the secondary level. Um and they're happening throughout the day because we want students to be able to participate sorry participate in both athletics and regular clubs. Okay. I I mean I get I just think if a student is part it's the same thing as parking, right? If a student is parking there, they're

101going to get charged a parking fee potentially after tonight. Um so I don't understand like if they are participating in the club, then charge them for that. If they're not participating in a club, they shouldn't be charged for this. Um, and so yeah, I just I I am challenged by like continuing to add to the kind of like piling on to um the parents. So, thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Mr. Dial, Miss Shannon, a clarification point with this student there. I saw on the prior slide there was a 35% enrollment um thing. Is this fee charged to every student or is it just charged to a subset of students? How's it how's it how's it levied? So, we were talking about charging all students, but we could go a different route and we could just charge

102those who participate in clubs. I think the hard part is if we also include things like gate fees, that gets really hard to track. Um, and if we include things like field days and um, my goodness, I'm losing my words, pep ra, you know, all the things that end up costing the schools money, that gets really hard to track as well. So I think if we went a different route um we would have to redefine sort of what this is and then continue to like if we only charged for clubs then we would have to continue to charge students for gate fees. So we would have to redefine what this looks like um which would be possible but if we're putting it all under the umbrella then it would be charged to all students. And

103does this replace an existing fee? Our fees that students are paying now? We don't have a current fee right now for all of those things. We do charge students as they come to sporting events. That's the only one that currently exists. I I guess in my view, and this is one that um I've gotten a lot of comments on, it's not a huge dollar amount relative to some of the other fees that we've had. I don't want to discourage um participation in clubs. So, I'm not a huge fan of trying to do it individualized. Uh, and I understand the point that Miss Hannah has made and others have made in the community that it doesn't feel fair uh to charge call it an activity fee. This feels like one of those I don't want to

104call it a junk fee, but this feels like we're just going to charge you a different fee. It's and we're going to call it activity fee. It just feels like we're just charging you. Um, so this is one uh I don't see a right now unlike the bus fee and the other and the other fees I see a clear deficit. This one feels like just we're just creating a new fee and we're charging it. So I'm not a fan of this one uh in its current iteration. It doesn't mean that I don't think there are costs there that we could offset with fees. I just don't think I'm prepared to support that at this point without more information on how we could more surgically apply that. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Um, Mrs. Laskkey, do you

105have any comments on this issue? Point of clarification. Um, from previous meetings, my understanding was that this fee also wasn't just covering club participation, but things like all school field day when um, presenters come and there's an sort of a whole school event. Um, and I'm just thinking as a parent, I would much rather pay upfront for those extras that my children are benefiting from than to be um asked to pay for them all a cart. Um, because they are part of the regular school day. They are enhancements to the school programming. Um, and and all of our students take part whether they are um athletes or not. um that that they're not optional things, but they are extra things and that the school is currently absorbing those costs. Um and I also feel like

106in in other realms, activity fees, I'm thinking at universities are very common. Um in the private school world, activity fees are very common. It's it's a way for sort of saying we do lots of special things that we can't necessarily always enumerate um that all of the kids benefit from, all the students benefit from. Um, and um, so that's I'll I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leleski. Um, just going to read a couple comments that have come in here. Stephanie Saunders of 10 Stratford Terrace. Could we consider an overall fee cap for family? Maybe even an option for families to donate directly to the fees and support other families. Um, Superintendent Shannon, do you have any thoughts on that? the proposed fee cap per family. Um, I don't know that we've thought about

107that yet. And I think it Well, I think we I think that would take a lot more thought than what I could provide an answer for right now. Yes. I mean, it's not it's that's different from the proposal. It's not something that we would consider at this juncture. It may be something that we consider in the future, but um right now what we're looking at is the proposal and uh I think that we can always have this this discussion can go ongoing. It can be ongoing. you know, it's not just because what, like we said with kindergarten, what regardless of what we do tonight, I mean, if there's a fiscal circumstance that allows us to um um stop charging certain fees or reduce certain fees or reimagine certain fees, then um you know, we're we're

108always willing to do that. Elizabeth Frasier, 27 Windy Hill Road, states, "Students should not incur any cost to participate in clubs. You want to encourage participation. Students can fund raise for their club events as the sports teams do. Thank you, Mr. Frasier. Jennifer Madden asks, "Do these fees cover things like math team and debate team?" The answer is yes. Thank you, Mr. Mrs. Madden. PJ Monahan, 15 Clay Spring Road. Uh he states, "If every student gets dinged for an activity fee, regardless of participation, it's essentially just a fee for being a student." Thank you, M. Monahan. Laura Soderberg of 16 Blackhorse Lane states cost matching would indicate charging club members for club activities like you do for athletic fees and for athletes and continue to charge for gate fees. Fuel days and presenter costs are

109often paid by CF or PSO. Okay, thank you Mr. Soderberg. Sarah Mweeny of 14 14 Summer Street states, "Folks, this feels again this feels again a bit opaque. What exactly are we levying fees on? For example, field days are sometimes subsidized by PSO and events such as a play. Shall we charge tickets?" A blanket fee feels a bit unbalanced. Also, can we get some idea what the daytime club costs are? The more information people have, they will get more comfortable with incurring additional or new costs. And again, I go back to looking at costs for a more balanced approach. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Mcweeny. Finally, Mrs. Kate Renie of 94 Notch states, "If you give a pass for gate fees for students, you have to subtract it from that other gate fees revenue number." This

110seems too vague, particularly without any expense figures to base the fee on. Many clubs only require a teacher stipent and the students do the rest. Open parenthesis such as student council, semicolon, parents, paid full cost of MOL, etc. close parenthesis. It should not be an across the board fee for everyone, especially when other fees are increased so substantially. Okay, thank you very much for that comment, Renie. Um I it seems clear to me just based on the commentary that there's a majority view of the committee here. So um I don't think we need to entertain any more comments. I have no further comment and I would just ask for a motion to either approve or reject the proposal as presented by Superintendent Shannon and Miss 750. Guys, anyone can speak up? I'll make a reject

111for activity fee. Excuse me, Mr. D. I will make a motion to reject the proposal of imposing an activity fee. There's a motion on the floor to reject the proposal as presented tonight. Is there a second to that motion to reject? Second from Carr. Motion to reject has been seconded by Mr. Carr. All in favor? Roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Mr. Dial. Mr. Dial. I. Can you not hear me? I can now. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. I Mrs. Leki, I Craig Mlen, I motion carries by a vote of four members to um one member. So, Mrs. Shannon, uh the committee has rejected that proposal and we'd ask you not to impose that fee. Moving on to the penultimate fee we're discussing tonight, the student parking fee. There are some comments uh related to this

112that Mrs. Frasier has been patient enough to have me delay here until we got to this topic. So, I'm just going to read them here while Superintendent Shannon brings up that slide. So, first is a comment that Mrs. Frasier does not think it's right to charge high school students to park at their own school. She also states, "If you charge the high schoolers to park in the lot in terms of equity, are the teachers also being charged to park in the lot?" That said, wouldn't you also charge teachers and visitors a parking fee at Deer Hill, Ozgood, and the middle school? All right. Thank you for those comments, Mrs. Frasier. If any other members of our school community or community at large have any questions related to the student parking fee, go ahead and make

113them now. Uh in the meantime, uh what we're what the current proposal is to charge a $2 per day fee that would yield um of a total fee of $360 per student per year. And that would lead yield a total um revenue gain to the district of $41,400. Um obviously we can consider any amount. This is the proposal and they did the math on the $2, but we could consider $1, we could consider consider $3. We can consider whatever whatever we want. And uh there are no questions from the community, so we're just going to move right into the committee's comments. Mr. Card, do you have any thoughts on the student parking fee proposal? Uh no, I understand this issue and I I don't have any thoughts on it. Thank you, Mr. Carr. Mr. Dial,

114so I'll just some historical context. This came up four years ago. We proposed a student parking fee proposal. I opposed it at the time on the grounds that we didn't need the money and it felt like we were nickel and dimming our students. Uh we need the money now. Uh student parking is a privilege. It's a luxury. We have buses that we just approved to increase the fees for. So we're and I heard earlier that we're at capacity in our lots. So I think that charging a a $2 a day fee for parking for student parking is imminently reasonable. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Mr. Hannah, any thoughts on this student parking fee? No, I Well, I think we'll have to see the impact on the community around um you know, I think I forget who

115brought it up, but um you know, uh kids parking on the streets around the school and that sort of stuff. Yes. Um I uh I can tell you who raised that issue. Um, that was Mark Cameron that raised that issue. Um, Mrs. Leky, do you have any thoughts? I have no additional comments. Right. Mrs. Frasier added that we made up this money with the singular athletic fee and um, Mrs. Frasier has made it clear that she's opposed to this idea. Um, my my position is that um, you know, maybe we consider doing a $1 fee. I I I I think it is I think I disagree with the sent sentiment that it's it's generally wrong to charge students to park at their school. I think many many districts do it. I also think that there's

116a I don't know what you'd call it um just an inherent value to imposing this fee. I mean, this is this is life. I mean like you know if any adult goes into Boston you got to pay to park. I mean you get it's just that's the way life is and I think that our students should understand that this is not a cost that the parents should be taking on. If your students driving uh they are very likely in a position where they are able to you know have obtained some sort of part-time job that many of us you know have you know procured when we were in high school and you know I think it would be uh completely reasonable to ask them to come up with that money. I know that's exactly what

117I would be doing if this proposal carries. When my daughter and my son are driving their cars in the school, um I would certainly not pay it for them. If they wanted to drive to school, then they would come up with the money and pay for it themselves, or else they'd find a different way to do that to get there. Um but that's just my perspective. Um oh, we have another comment from our community members. Uh multiple comments coming in at the same time here. First was Will Ashton of 125 Don Street says, "How do we justify making a single grade pay tuition and we're even debating paying for parking? Kindergarten parents alone are bearing more than 60% of these budget items. Thank you for your comment, Mr. Ashton. I think it's more of a

118comment than a question." Um, and Gallagher um who has stated her address in prior prior statements and comments. Is the fee per car or per student? If three siblings carpool, do they pay $2 for the car or $2 per student in the car to park? Thanks for the clarification. I will probably also be paying for the bus for my younger two. Um, proposal is per car. Per car. And I can sort of answer and if you want to read Mr. Cameron's comment, I can sort of answer both of those at the same time. Sure. M Mr. Cameron of 18 Virginia Lane asks, "Who and how will the system be policed? Do we assume it's the same car every day?" Yep. So it is per car um and it would be sort of monitored the same

119way that we currently monitor. So um for those who don't have students at high school and drivers yet um currently the students have to submit to be able to park in this in the student lot um they have to submit their license number. They have to submit their makeyear model license plate number. And students who receive parking spots actually get a hang tag. they have to have the hang tag on their car um in order to park. The lot is monitored definitely monitored more at the beginning of the school year and then sporadically throughout. So that would be the same um in order to get the hang tag you would have to pay the fee. Um and just to be clear, we don't have enough spots for every child who wants to park um as

120the as they get their licenses throughout the school year. And so that's why we do have some students who um park over at Milikin because they don't have their license by the start of the school year. So therefore don't get a a spot. So we do monitor to make sure that only students who have been approved get to park in the lot and that would continue once the fee is incurred. Mr. Dial, you have a comment related to something that superintendent Shannon just said looks like yes a clarification. Uh, I think this is a is a good question. I hadn't I'm embarrassed that I hadn't thought of thought of the logistics here. Um, but I guess do will will students like come and pay $2 each day? Is it going to be leveled on a

121daily basis or will it be levied on a monthly basis semester? How will the fee be be levied? I would say that it would be leveled levied at the year because the majority of students submit for their parking actually a couple weeks or I don't know maybe almost a month. Um, I should know my kids have done this. Um, but before the school year starts, um, you have to submit for your parking pass. And so I would think that it would be levied at that time. You pay for the year and as students get their license, if there are spots available, then it would be prrated from that point forward. Um, if for some reason a student stopped parking and changed how they get to school, then we could talk to that student individually if

122they needed to no longer park there. um we could reimburse whatever part of the year that would be. So, and so the the the fee is not really it's not $2 a day, it's $360 for the year. Okay. Yes. Which which maths out to $2 a day. Um the experience is going to be a you couldn't just decide I'm going to park Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and only pay six bucks. You're you're either in or you're out. Correct. Correct. Yes. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Just going to some comments that are coming in. Uh Laura Soderberg's made her address known in previous comments. I can understand paying for this benefit. However, this is a significant jump from 0 to 360 as the comparable the comparable neighboring districts do not

123pay that much. I would support a $1 day more in line with other districts. Thank you, Mr. Soderberg. Uh Sarah Reeves, 362 Beachwood Street. This is a very reasonable fee. Support. Thank you, Mr. Reeves. Elizabeth Frasier, if you are going to charge the student teenagers, are you also going to charge the teachers? Do they pay the same fee per car? Employees who work in Boston have to pay for parking. Mrs. Frasier, we are not the proposal is not to charge the teachers, it is to charge the students. Um, while I understand your comment is uh aimed at showing that you believe there's some inequity. The only proposal is to uh charge students the for the parking, not not our our staff or teachers for the parking. Um, okay. Uh, Mrs. Leleski, have you spoken yet

124on this? I cannot remember. I don't believe so. Okay. Oh, no. I I have I I think Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait before you go. Has Mrs. Hannah spoken on this? I think I went out of order. Mrs. Hannah, have you have you I have no comments. Okay. All right, Mrs. Leky, back to you. Sorry. Um, I'm in favor of parking fees. I think that um perhaps doing a dollar a day that that especially if in spirit we're thinking about students covering this cost on their own. Um, which I also really love that responsibility um uh for students to take on that. That seems um you know it's it's letting go of one Starbucks. um for a week of parking. So, I mean that there's just some good sort of economic lessons I think embedded

125in this. Um and and there are costs to parking um whether or not we're talking about Boston parking or cohasset parking that there are costs to maintaining that lot um that that need to be covered. And so I I I think that that makes sense. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Leleski. We have a comment from one of our students, Fiona Renie lives at 9 Forest Notch. Will the price be less for seniors because they will not be there for the same amount of time as juniors? And at the end of the year, how will the lot be policed when there are open spots for other students who do not receive a spot to park? These fees will also really impact student athletes. Superintendent Shannon, do you want to answer that or do you want me to?

126Um, so I think that's a great question that Fiona just brought up. I think we can talk certainly about the the senior piece. Um, by the time they get to graduation with senior week and all of that, it's like this year their graduation is on the 7th and they are there even though they're done with classes, they're there for senior week, that whole week right up to graduation. So, it's about seven days less, maybe even fewer days less, but we can certainly talk about that. Um, and then when it's um, open, I think we'd have to have that conversation. That's actually not something we considered, but there is a week from when the seniors are done on in this year. It's like it's June 7th up until June 17th when the last day of school

127is. So, we can talk about what those last couple of days look like. Well, in terms of the sort of uh I don't know if you want to call it equity or fairness piece about seniors paying less because they're there less. I think that can be absolutely prrated. I mean, if especially if we're doing $1 a day, right, we're talking about 180 days of school. That was it. So I mean you can just deduct for seniors whatever amount of days they are not going to be there which again reflects that sort of um perspective that if you're going to work or somewhere like you know that in Boston or something like that you'd only be parking for the time that you're actually parking. So you know I think it's a good point that we wouldn't

128charge them for a time that they're not actually parking their car. As far as the open spaces I I think you just articulated that those open spaces would only be for a very short time. I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's some sort of like very brief windfall for for students, but I I don't know that that's uh a consideration that's overly compelling uh for me anyway in my calculus of whether or not to to impose this. But I think the senior um the senior uh discount or whatever you want to call it uh reduction is is a I think that's a that's a that's a pretty pretty good point. So, um on the senior deduction, I think I think we might be making it too complex for debating it at this time. I would

129just say we just do it for everyone and if we needed to, we could allow seniors to refund at the end of their term. But what I worry about is what if you have a brother who's a junior and then they use your pass and you're only paying the senior rate. There's just lots of things to think through about potentially gaming the system. I'd just say charge everyone the same. It's not that big of a big of a delta. Um and if we really wanted to, I don't think we'd need school committee approval for Superintendent Shannon to decide to refund allow people to refund their fees if they're going to turn in their parking pass at the end of their term. I think that's right. I think that if we uh vote to approve the

130fees, there's some discretion, operational discretion with the super the central office and how they're going to administer that. And I think that Mrs. Superintendent Shannon just heard uh that student input that may make sense. Um so, uh I I think that what we're considering now is whether we want to accept or reject or modify. So, is there a motion on the floor at this time relative to student parking fees? So, so I' I'd move to impose student parking fees at $1 a day uh for a total of $180 for the year. Been a motion to approve a $1 a day student parking fee for a total of $180 per car uh per year. Is there a second to that motion made by Mr. Dial? Second. Motion's been seconded by Mrs. Ley. All in favor and

131roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Mr. Dial I Mrs. Hannah I Mrs. Leki I Craig Mlen I that motion unanimously carries. So Superintendent Shannon we'd ask you to impose that student parking fee for the upcoming fiscal year. Uh lastly the building rental fees. So if anyone's watching you have comments relative to building rental fees go ahead and make them now. This is the last topic. So, um I would imagine if you have any comments, it would come now. Here's the proposal for the building re building rental fee. All right, we'll just get right into it. Um Mr. Carr, do you have any thoughts on this proposal? Uh no, no comments for me. Thank you, Mr. Carr. Mr. Dial, uh it's going to be the similar comment. Um, can Miss Owen and Miss Shannon, can you

132confirm that these um these fees are offsetting and no more than offsetting the costs of our rental programs? Yes, that is correct. Okay. If I can just if I can just add um some of the reason here like in the custodial in the cafeteria the the custodians um that work these or the cafeteria that work these work it's they're paid time and a half and these rates don't make up um some of our custodians time and a half. So we're we're actually paying for a portion of the custodial fees. I I'll just I'll just add that this is not something that I I take lightly. uh on even though it's late in the in the meeting here, uh I understand that many of our student our community programs are held in our in our student

133buildings and we've talked about this before and we don't want to discourage people doing that, but at the same time, we can't run at loss and and and not uh be able to fund our schools. So, uh I would support all of these. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Um Mrs. Hannah, would you like to comment on the building rental fee proposal? Yeah, I I think again it's like a transparency thing. I agree with Mr. Dial that we should absolutely not be losing any money, but I also am like curious at some of these, you know, if lacrosse uses alumni field during the day, there is no custodian, there's no staff running it or anything else. So again, I think it's more of understanding the transparency behind it. And I can understand on a you know Friday

134night we were we had a game or Saturday night and we used the lights like maybe that would incur a fee if it's after a certain hour or anything but um I'm I'm just not I'm kind of struggling with some of the field space especially given the fact that we're so short and there literally are two fields that are full fields in the in the entire town and one happens to be alumni field. Um, so I' I'd just like more, I guess, transparency in, you know, different facilities and what it actually costs when a town programs using them. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah. Mrs. Leki, any thoughts or comments? I'll ju just I echo what Mr. Dial says in terms of we we do need to cover our costs when we allow for other organizations to

135use the facilities which I I think is a wonderful thing and a wonderful use of municipal buildings. Um uh you know it I it's an additional stress I understand um on those organizations and on those families that help support those organizations. Um but again that it can't be a source of deficit. Thank you Mrs. Leki. I don't see any um more community comments in the Q&A uh dialogue box. So at this point I think anyone that on the excuse me Mrs. Soderberg who has made her address known in connection with prior comments asks are you changing from a per hour fee to a per student fee? Could you clarify? Yeah, for our seasonal rentals, they've been per student for a long time or for several before I arrived. Um, so that's not a shift. Um,

136and for non-seasonal rentals, then it becomes hourly. Well, that answered your question, Mr. Soderberg. Um, I I echo a lot of the sentiments the other committee members had made. So, um, at this point, we just can't be operating in the red. It doesn't make fiscal sense, especially in this climate. Um, is there a motion on the uh floor to either approve, reject, or modify the current building rental fee proposal? I move we approve the uh rental fee proposal. It's a motion to approve the rental fee proposal as presented. Is there a second to that motion? Can I ask one question? Superintendent Shannon, can you put that slide back up for one second, please? Sorry. I I think so. Yeah, I think we have to choose either increase to 25 per child or increase to 30

137per child before you make go ahead and make a vote. I see. Good point. Sorry. No, that's a great catch. Well, so let me clarify because Mr. Dial's question was, are we just covering the cost here? So, which one covers the cost? Can we cover the cost 25? It will cover some of the cost. I wouldn't say 100%. Okay. So, the answer is no. Um, but I know we've had no in-depth conversations over the last few years about the seasonal rate um and the impact on teams, which is why we were trying to keep it minimal um and go even if we have to increase again in another year an increment of $5. Um, I I would I would probably recommend going with 25 for this year and and see what it brings us to.

138Okay. Well, where we're not certain, I mean, it seems like there's uncertainty as to like how much that would cover. I would certainly be in favor of the lesser fee where we're increasing all these fees that we just voted on. So I I think that I mean problem here I would vote against this just on the basis that it doesn't seem to be fully baked, but the problem is is that I know that we're operating in the red and I don't want to operate in the red either. So you know as close as we can get back to the black. Um Mr. Chair, may I make a motion to amend the motion to include the reference to $25 for the seasonal rate? You may. I will. So do so. Okay. So, the motion has been

139amended to approve the building rental fee proposal as presented as to the $25 per child uh increased seasonal rate. Okay. I I think I think I'm I'm moving to amend Mr. Carr's motion. So, I think we have to vote on my motion, then Mr. Carr's motion as amended if if approved. I think that's correct. Okay. All right. Um, well, Mr. Carr's motion wasn't seconded, so we could have we could ask Mr. Car if he's willing to withdraw his motion. Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So, now why don't we and I'll withdraw my motion. Okay, great. Now, are there any new motions on the floor? I'd like to move that we approve the recommendation based on 25, the number 25 and all others. And all others. Okay. I'll second. There a second to that motion. Seconded.

140Sec. Made. The motion's been made by Mr. Carr, seconded by Mr. Dial. All in favor? And roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Uh, Mr. Dial. I. Mrs. Hannah. I. Mrs. Ley. I. Craig Mlen. I. That motion unanimously carries. And so, Superintendent Shannon, we would ask you to please uh adopt that proposal in so much as it increased the student fee to $25. Thank you. All right. There were some other comments. I'm just going to read into the com that they came in while we were voting. Um, but uh Joe Penoso uh who may have made his address known in prior comments, I can't remember. Uh if not, Mr. Mr. Pinoza, maybe you can type in your your address. A $5 he states a $5 increase is far more palatable than $10 per student. I think

141uh he was commenting on our discussion about 25 versus 30. Uh he indicates that his address is 61 Elm Street. Thank you very much for that, Mr. Ponzo. Um and uh uh I I think this is it's listed as Patrick uh Mueller, but I I think it's uh Mrs. Mueller cuz she is she was commenting earlier and made her address known uh in connection with prior comments. Was the school parking lot fee already addressed? I have seen this raised a few times in community chats. Can other options on cutting costs make up for these additional fees? Um um the other the school parking lot fee was addressed um but she is amending her comment. She said, "Apologize meant the school bus is being parked in a private parking lot, not the school parking lot fee

142as additional source to save money." Um, yes, that that is being addressed. We're trying to find that's that's not on the agenda tonight. Um, that is not anything we were voting on tonight and uh there'll be updates in future meetings about that. We are working on alternative solutions in that problem. Um, okay. Um, and Jennifer Madden stated that her address is 64th Avenue for the record. I think she made that clear in uh in prior comments. And Mrs. Miller, Mrs. uh Mueller stated, "Why not starting with cutting costs first before adding fees?" Um, we are absolutely cutting costs. And uh, as we stated beginning, the outset of the the meeting, you know, there's two ways to address this, reducing costs and adding fees. We're doing both, but we're trying to um mitigate the amount of

143reductions we're making because uh that can reduce the amount of human resources and then slow the momentum that we're getting in the district. So, these things have been taken in consideration, Mr. Mueller, and we appreciate your your input and uh but for for this for this meeting, this is just a special meeting on on additional fees only. They've all been voted on at this time. Um, but you know, we encourage you to reach out to any one of us if you want to share additional insight or perspective or the central office uh at the school district at any time. She states, "Thank you for consideration." Okay. So, at this time, I'm going to close uh public comment and uh ask for a motion to uh adjourn this much longer than anticipated meeting. Mr. Chairman, I'd

144be glad to make a motion, but first, I'd like to just thank everybody that participated today. It was wonderful to have so many families involved in this discussion. We we need your help and I encourage you to please stay involved. Uh and thank you always to the administration for your support as we work through these tough issues. And I move we adjourn. Thank you for those sentiments, Mr. Carr. Uh there's been a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Mrs. Leky. All in favor? Roll call. Mr. Carr. Carr. I. Mr. Dial. I. Mrs. Hannah. Hi, Mrs. Leleskkey. I Craig McCloen. I motion unanimously carries. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone for your time and participation. Have a good night. Thank you. Thank you.