001Okay, good evening, everybody. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful, beautiful night. Thank you for being in here and not outside enjoying this lovely weather. I'm going to call our March 10th, 2026 Cromwell Board of Education meeting to order at 7.05. Sorry, we're a few minutes late. Lisa, may I please ask you to take roll call for us? I'm here. And, oh, and just a reminder, everybody, please use your microphones. I do think there are folks that are watching on our live stream YouTube, and I just want to make sure that everybody can be heard. Mrs. Cantwell? Here. Ms. Franklin? She's going to be late. Oh, she's not going to come at all? Okay. Mr. Heisman? Here. Ms. Maddy? Here. Mrs. Russ? Here. Mr. Schumann? Here. Mr. Zabrowski? Here. Dr. Macri? Here. Dr. McLean?
002Yes. Ms. Arnesta? Yes. Ms. Berry? Yes. Mr. Bozzano? Yes. Mrs. Binnington? Yes. Mr. Butwell? Yes. Ms. Cocciola? Yes. Mrs. DeMauro? Absent. Mrs. Dettuno? Yes. Mr. Kuckle? Yes. Mr. LeMay? Yes. Mrs. Prestash? Yes. Mrs. Middlebrooks? Yes. Ms. O'Leary? Yes. Ms. Shepard? Yes. Ms. Talmont? Yes. And Mrs. Weisgul? Yes. Marcel? Yes. Jacob, Jillian, and Summer. Here. All set. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate that. Okay. Approval of the agenda, additions and deletions, and chair's review of the agenda highlights. I have no additions to the agenda that anyone has raised, so I need approval. I'll make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Schuman. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Zabrowski. All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Are there any, is there any correspondence, Dr. Macri? No. Okay. We're open for public comment. And, oh, and just
003in terms of the agenda, just so folks know, we will be having a presentation from our insurance brokers as a follow-up to our last meeting. That should last about 45 minutes or so, we're expecting. We want to make sure folks really get a chance to hear, understand, and we get all our questions answered as we'll be making some important decisions about where we head with that as part of our budget conversation. So thank you for the indulgence. Are there any folks here for public comment? I got to read that whole long thing. Hold on a second. Before you and I will go fast. Okay. I am required to read this. Per our attorneys, for anybody providing public comment, I will read really, really fast. For our students, this is not how you should talk in
004public. Individuals are welcome to address the Board of Education for up to three minutes each during the public comment portions of the meeting, but board members will not generally engage in dialogue. The Board of Education chair may, at his or her discretion, extend the time for public comments. Speakers must come to the podium. and share the name and address to facilitate efficient sharing of your comments. We encourage you to share any comments you may have about instruction, discipline, or learning materials, first with your student's teacher, then principal, followed by the superintendent, before bringing comments to the Board of Ed. However, if you do not believe your comments have been addressed appropriately, or if you believe they should be shared with the Board of Ed for any other reason, please feel free to do so. Any
005complaints or concerns about individual Cromwell Board of Ed employees should be directed to the superintendent and the BOE in writing rather than in public comment at the Board of Ed meeting. I'm going as fast as I can. I know too fast last time I was too slow oh my gosh this is a hard crowd last time you guys told me I did this way too slow okay All comments must not include personal attacks and comments cannot be discourteous, threatening, vulgar, or otherwise inappropriate. The board chairperson may, at his or her discretion, curtail any public comments or terminate any such individual's privilege of address at any time if they violate any of these rules. Violation of reasonable standards of decorum are boisterous or repetitious. The Board of Ed reserves the right to limit public comments to
006particular topics. The Cromwell Board of Ed values the well-being of our students and families. Those electing to make public comments at Cromwell Board of Ed meetings are strongly discouraged from sharing identifiable information of their children in such comments, including but not limited to name, age, learning ability, and are reminded that any comments made during a Cromwell Board of Ed meeting become permanent matters of public record and may be accessible by individuals in the future. As such, any person making public comments during a Cromwell Board of Ed meeting is solely responsible for the information they choose to share. We kindly ask that you consider the privacy of your family and your children while making public comments. And the reason I did that very, very fast is because poor Ms. Dimitriotis came to provide a public comment,
007which was two sentences, and she had to listen to me read this entire thing at a past meeting. So I promised her I would never do that to her again. Now you're good. Thank you, Mrs. Demetrius. Welcome. Dear Board of Ed members, as a paraprofessional and union president who represents the paraprofessionals, I respectfully request the consideration for the hiring of two registered behavior technicians to better support the increasing behavioral needs of our students. On a daily basis, we are working with students who exhibit severe behavioral challenges, including physical aggression, elopement, property destruction, and significant emotional dysregulation. These behaviors not only disrupt the instruction but also present serious safety risk to students and staff. From our perspective, an RBT would provide consistent implementation of behavior intervention plans, support students who require intensive one-to-one behavioral assistance, assist
008with accurate data collection and progress monitoring of IEP goals, and help de-escalate situations safely and proactively, offer guidance and modeling for paraprofessionals implementing interventions, and most important, is to reduce burnout and turnover among our support staff. we are deeply committed to success and safety of our students hiring an rbt would be a proactive and necessary step toward providing appropriate specialized support for students with significant behavioral needs while supporting staff who work directly with them every day thank you for your time and consideration thank you mrs demitra appreciate that are there any other folks that would like to provide a public comment tonight okay thank you very much for your thoughtfulness. Okay, I'm gonna move on to celebrating our faculty and our staff and welcome Mrs. Kociola to talk about our CMS paraprofessionals. Welcome. Do you
009want folks to stand with you? Good evening. I would love them to, but they kind of shook their heads at me. Would you please stand with Ms. Coachella so that we can all recognize you? Stephanie Krause was here this evening, Sarah Evans, Stephanie Estella, and Sam Welch, who's coming in on two wheels. She's telling me, I'm going to be in four minutes away. tonight asked for the night off so that she could come here to be to be recognized and so i'm going to talk slowly i know that she can i know don't talk like me these fabulous people that you folks come here this is why you should be brought to the front So tonight, we at CMS would like to take a moment to recognize and thank our paraprofessionals for the incredible work
010they do each day in support of our students and staff. Our paras are often the quiet heroes of our classrooms. They provide patience, compassion, and encouragement while helping students navigate both academic challenges and everyday moments at school. Their work requires flexibility, right folks? Dedication and a deep commitment to student success, whether they're supporting learning in small groups, assisting individual students, helping maintain a positive classroom environment, or simply offering a reassuring presence, their contributions make an absolute meaningful difference in the lives of all. all of our students so on behalf of our entire cms community we are deeply grateful for the care professionalism in the heart our professionals bring to our schools every day or our school every day we can't thank them enough for the vital role they play in helping every student feel supported
011capable and valued and i'll tell you right now we could not do this job without you so i applaud them and i'm You have to see the absolute panic when when our teachers say what do you mean so-and-so's out today? What do you mean? She's not it's not gonna be any support in the classroom and they they do get panicky So this is how important our folks are to us and again I can't thank them enough for their work and with our kids Beautiful humans, so thank you Actually, yes. If you don't mind, just share your name. Samantha Welch, paraprofessional at CMS. I made it a huge point to be here because the last six years that I've worked here have been so special. The crowd we have at CMS, the administration we have behind
012us, it's amazing. And I'm out of breath. Literally ran here. Might have parked illegally. But on behalf of everybody. You know, we're all... That's our Santa. Yeah, literally. They all wanted to be here. There were a lot of different working parts that caused everyone to not be able to be here. So I said I would make a splash on behalf of all of us. I think I've done that. But we talk about the family that we feel we have with our working staff, and that doesn't stop at just our colleagues and our coworkers and you guys. It goes all the way down to the kids. And we come in every day for them. We're here for them. We enjoy spending the time with them, even on the hardest days. And we really appreciate the opportunity
013to help them develop and grow. And it means as much to us as it does to them and all of you. That's all. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Appreciate it. And we appreciate you running in to join us. Any comments from the board? Thank you. Mr. Zabrowski? Don't leave. We're not done with you. I know that a lot of people have a deep appreciation for the work that you do, especially the students who probably don't express it to you as often as they could. As a special education teacher, I will tell everyone in this room, there is not a chance I could get through my day without the paraprofessional support that I have. So I have a huge appreciation for what you do. You are extremely valued, especially by your coworkers and by your students.
014So thank you, really, for everything you do. You guys are awesome. thank you mrs cantwell yeah i just want to add to that you are extremely valued by the parents as a parent who has a a son who's always had a para i don't know what i would do without the paras and the paras are often the most important people all year long that we rely on to keep everything going and we really truly appreciate everything you do so thank you. Dr. Macri. Oh I'm sorry I didn't see Catherine. it's because i sit next to her but um a lot of times people think para and they think you work with specific students but i'm fully aware that you interact with every student that comes through that building and every parent is so appreciative of
015all the care and and support that you give to all students not just specific ones that you may be assigned to or working with we know that you work really with all of them and it's it's a huge asset to our community thank you dr mackrey I really don't know where to start the same as what Ann said when I was a teacher and I could tell you my the para in my room her name was Karen Packham and this was 33 years ago, you could tell me the principal was out, the superintendent was in another country. I don't care where anybody else was. But if Karen wasn't there, I'd be like, oh, my God, I'm never going to get through today. And honestly, it wasn't about me. It was about what the kids needed.
016We're never going to get our kids to be where they need to be. Now that I'm retiring, I could say nationally we have to have a movement because you guys. It's different. Your job is so different. And I do want you to know that we understand that and how valued you are. But I think we have to do a better job across the nation to show you how value and how important you are. So, yeah, maybe I'll do that as advocacy in my retirement. But thank you to all of you and for everything you do and to all of our paras. You are exceptional. And we really could not do it without you. That's not. something that we're really just saying we really can't do it without you so thank you so much i'll just
017add quickly in my professional life i run special education schools and have the honor of working with some incredibly talented amazing people and our paraprofessionals are the ones that are the closest to our students and know our students better than anybody probably spend more time during the day with these kids than their families do And I have seen folks put their heart, their soul, and everything they have into helping students achieve things that they never thought they could achieve. So thank you to you for choosing this incredible life-changing career. And many times you probably don't hear it from your students. So just our deep appreciation for all that you do for all of our kids. That was a good point Catherine made. hope you feel it i hope that the paraprofessionals in our other schools
018also hear it and understand how much they're appreciated and hopefully are told every single day how much they're appreciated so deep thank you to you and to your colleagues i think mrs middlebrooks are you doing the next one all right thank you welcome testing okay Good evening. I'm the proud assistant principal at Cromwell Middle School, and I have the honor of presenting our student, Ryan Johnson. Ryan, you want to come up here with me? So Ryan reached out to me on September 15th, and he sent an email. He goes, when's a good time I can come to the office? And I'm like, oh, Lord, what happened? You know, who wants to come see me? And, you know, lo and behold, he wanted to come talk about a community service project. I go, oh! goodness we
019should do this all the time so I was surprised but like you know so many of our students you know they are really awesome and Ryan is one of those students And so I said, absolutely, let's do it. He thought of a plan. He carried it out. He created announcements. He created signs for this project. So he thought we should collect the bottles that are being thrown in the trash. And that, you know, of course, I want to thank his family, too, because they were very much instrumental in getting this done. You know, they took him to the recycling center. They helped organize. Mom was carrying out the bags. But anyway, we got it done. And I'm so proud. of him you know for the work he put in for the thought and he thought
020okay we can collect these bottles we can recycle them and I can donate the money back to the school and I was like wow that's that's so awesome and so he even created charts like this one to keep me up to date on progress and he's sending in an email go this is great math and fuse this is awesome So I just want to say, you know, we're really proud of you and thank you for being so considerate. Thank you for reaching out and taking that chance. I think you're an amazing, amazing young man. You're growing up to care about the community and we, you know, you're exceptional and we thank you for putting so much heart and effort into this project. We really do appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Middlebrooks. You're welcome. You're welcome.
021I've enjoyed working with him. Do you want to say anything? Ryan, do you want to share anything about what made you want to go talk to Mrs. Middlebrooks about your ideas and what made you want to contribute? Yes. I would like to say that this all started in October when I wanted to recycle all of the plastic bottles and cans in the school, and then I turned them into money. And right now I have $209.20, and I'm donating it to the PTO. over to mrs coachella thank you so much thank you for your incredible generosity that's awesome that was awesome any comments okay go ahead mrs ross just a quick one um to your mom ryan i i think this is fantastic and you're probably addicted to collecting bottles and I hope your mom knows
022that you're never going to stop because I have a bottle collector too that fund raises with hers and she's been doing it and I'm ready to give it up and she is not. So we have so many bottles in our garage. They take up so much room until she can get to the recycling center. It is a project. It's a lot of work and I commend you on taking this on because it's a lot. And mom, he's never going to stop. I can tell right now. Congratulations. I also want to thank my dad for helping me with the recycling. Driver, he's the driver too, right? Yeah, and he's the driver. On behalf of all of us and the entire community, thank you, Ryan, and thank you, Ryan's mom and Ryan's dad, for inspiring community service
023in this incredible young man. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that with us, Mrs. Meadowbrooks. Okay. That was fun. Thank you. Appreciate that. Reports of the liaisons of the Town Council, Board of Finance, and CMS Building Committee. So Town Council, Mr. Zabrowski, do you have anything to share? Not too much since the last time we were here. The town has been working on its side of the town budget. Had a couple of meetings to go over some of that stuff. Excuse me. They recently appointed a new police chief. Chief Seifo retired and we have Police Chief Steven Penn who is a 20 plus year veteran of Cromwell PD. I had an opportunity to talk to him for a couple minutes. Seems like a really nice guy and I'm looking forward to the partnership. So other than
024that, nothing groundbreaking. Just kind of status quo. Thank you. Mrs. Russ, Board of Finance. Yep, I gave them an update on where we stand with our budget and the big ticket item of the insurance, and they're fully aware that it is across the country. It's not a Cromwell thing. It's not a Connecticut thing. It's kind of nationwide right now. They asked questions on follow-ups related to things like our high school track, but there was another one I'm trying to blank on, but we had some. Very interesting conversations about where we stand with the budget is their biggest concern. And they had a lot of, oh, the other piece was a lot of questions about Dr. Macri's retirement and how we plan on handling that and moving forward and what our next steps will be. They're
025definitely anxious to let you know, Claudio, to get that track going. And I told them they're going to have to wait. We do know they're going to have to wait until our amazing high school track team is done because I did share. Our nationally ranked track star is going to keep on running. So until he's done, we don't touch it. So at any rate, it was all good stuff. It was a very receptive meeting, and they are aware of where we stand right now in our difficult predicament. And I don't think we have a report from the building committee. Jessica's not with us tonight, and they didn't give us anything. So I will move on to our student representatives. Ladies first. Do you guys want to start? CMS has now passed the midway point for
026quarter three. Parent signups for parent-teacher conferences are now open. Conferences will be held the week of March 16th. As for the CMS Drama Club, despite snow-related cancellations during the week, during Crash Tech Week, the CMS student production of Alice in Wonderland held three successful performances on February 28th and 29th. As for CMS celebrating Black History Month during February, congratulations to the door decorating champions in Ms. Roccapieri's class. During the week of February 23rd, CMS students practiced for the ELA and math SBAC tests by completing an exam on the EdSight platform. CMS chorus does not start up again until quarter four, but preparations have already begun for their concert on May 20th. Slech Choir has been rehearsing for their spring concert also on May 20th. There are some fun selections picked that everyone is excited for.
027On March 6th and 7th, CMS students Andrew Matrulo, Andrew Hodge, Mackenzie Nazario, and Lillian Kovex participated in the Middle School Northern Region Music Festival with students from the northern part of Connecticut at CCSU. They had an amazing time and a great concert on Saturday afternoon. Jazz band. Oh, hold on. Jazz band, oh my god, hold on. Yeah, usually this works. Jazz band gave an outstanding performance this past February alongside select choir. They look forward to playing at the Cromwell Jazz Festival and the CMS Spring Concert in May. A big congratulations to Andrew Matrula on his performance in the Northern Region Music Festival's jazz band. He was one of two alto saxophones selected to perform in the Northern Region of the state. Lastly, congratulations to Brooklyn Pleasant on the bass guitar, Charlie Truce on alto saxophone,
028Aurora Ireland on the trumpet, Luna Ramirez on piano, and Allie Gosselin on the trombone. Their compositions have been selected to be featured at the Connecticut Music Educators Association's 78th Annual Conference. They will have the opportunity to meet other student composers in the state as well as attend a master class from a professional composer. Hats off to them for their hard work and creative intellect. Once again, congratulations to Aurora Ireland, whose latest piece has been featured in the newest installment from the CMS Writing Club. Art Club is experimenting with different acrylic mediums, specifically beginning to incorporate a high solid gloss medium into their acrylic paintings. I don't know what it is, but it sounds bougie. As for the PTO, students are excited for the upcoming Harlem Wizards game after a Wizards player visited for an exciting
029pep rally style assembly. The school will host a Harlem Wizard vs. Cromwell All-Stars basketball game on March 30th and tickets are on sale now. The spirit wear sale continues. Get your CMS Falcons clothing from our PTO store. And finally, for volleyball, the girls' and boys' teams finished another great season. In the short time they had, students showed growth both as players and as teammates. And sign up for spring sports begin on Monday, March 16th. Thank you, Jillian and Summer. Much appreciated. Lots of exciting things happening at CMS. Okay, Marcel and Jacob, you got to... Top that one, let's say. March is flying by with it already being halfway through the third quarter. Tomorrow, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have a half day. After school, seniors will begin sharing their vision of their graduate presentations. The presentations
030are expected to be roughly 10 minutes, focusing on how seniors used and grew their communication, collaboration, innovation, compassion, empathy, perseverance, and personal accomplishments throughout Cromwell High. Don't worry, I didn't forget you guys in my presentation. On March 17th and 19th, CHS will be hosting parent-teacher conferences. Don't forget to stop by Student Council's bake sale. Additionally, the Class of 2029 will be hosting a movie night on March 26th, premiering How to Train Your Dragon. Juniors take their SATs on March 18th, and freshmen and sophomores will be taking their PSATs. On March 31st, CHS will be hosting a career exposition in the gym, giving students a glimpse into their future careers. Clean out your closets. On Saturday, March 28th, Cromwell Grad is hosting a clothing drive from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Profits go to funding senior
031graduation and activities. Tuesday, March 24th, there will be an Eid al-Fitr celebration running from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the CHS cafeteria. Come enjoy food, music, storytelling, and learn more about this special Muslim holiday. The CHS dance team is hosting their annual egg-stravaganza, Saturday, 28th, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Pearson Park. Last but definitely not least, huge congratulations to Charlie Mandigo and Matthew Fisk, who earned all-state recognition at the All-State Musical Festival for Mixed Choir. Congratulations are in order for their performances in Greece. With everything being said, March is running smoothly, and I'm excited to see everyone in April's meeting. Alright, here is your monthly sports update, and there's a lot. The cheer team won the Shoreline cheerleading title for the second year in a row. They have qualified for states on
032Saturday. Samantha Wasik, Brooke Letera, and Nadia Vincent made first team Old Conference. Abigail Bouffard and Juliana Snyder made second team Old Conference. The track athletes also won plenty of awards. Jason Lin, Patrick Monahan, Colin Early, and Nasir Andrade won the first team for Old States for boys track. Nasir is now the school record holder for the 300 meter dash. For the Old States girls track, our winners are Jenny Vieira, Brianna Jones, Sophia Rodriguez, and Taylor Mooney. For boys basketball, Xavier Hodge was recognized for the first team all-conference, and Luke Haslam is his honorable mention. After a string of wins, the boys basketball team entered the CIAC state playoffs as the fifth seed out of almost 30 teams across Connecticut. With a bye in the first round, the Panthers play against Sheep Hog Valley on Monday.
033They won 56-52, and they'll play Granby Memorial Thursday night at 5 p.m. The girls basketball team are also in the tournament, beating Portland 58-45 on Friday. They played at Thomason on Monday and won 48-43. Peyton Kelleher was recognized as first-team Old State Conference player. They play at North Brantford on Thursday night as well. The warmer temperatures mean that spring sports are just around the corner. Boys Baseball has their first scrimmage on the 25th away at Rocky Hill. Girls Softball has their first scrimmage on the 31st away at Berlin. The Boys and Girls Lacrosse teams have their first scrimmages at the end of the month. Boys and Girls Tennis and the Golf teams start their seasons in April. And College Athletes Siding Day is on Wednesday, March 25th. I bet we're all excited to see where
034everyone decides to go. And you see the board in the back there. You can see the Class of 2026, their college applications filling up. So it's really exciting to see where everyone's going. And look forward to the rest of the Basketball State Championships and this whole spring sports season. Thank you. Well done, everybody. Lots of exciting things happening. Thank you for sharing. Okay, I'm going to move us on to, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, Donna, Mrs. Maddy, sorry. Since tonight alone, I have now seen a young entrepreneur. I've heard about athletes. I've heard about thespians. We have these incredible young people who not only can speak, but they can report. And I just want to remind the Cromwell teachers that the CABE Student Leadership Awards. the deadline for which is March 27th, so it's kind of
035soon, is something that honors your Connecticut high school and middle school students who exhibit exemplary leadership skills. And two students from each high school and middle school in a CABE member district, which we are, are eligible to receive this prestigious CABE Leadership Award. I read about it on CABE. I completely forgot. Sent it, I thought, to Alicia. I didn't know how to send it all that well to everyone. So I wanted to mention it. Makes you feel better. We participate. Yay! I showed one that was already there. Because look at all these adorables. And we have just wonderful, I mean, every meeting I'm impressed by the leadership here. So, good. Thank you. And here I thought I did something that was unique. Well, I'll keep trying. I'll keep trying. You're welcome. Always appreciate it. And
036thank you for pointing out our amazing students and for looking for opportunities to acknowledge them. And they're so adorable. Okay. Any other comments, Mrs. Russ? Yeah, just it's Board Appreciation Month, and I consider the four of you as part of our board. Thank you for all that you do. I absolutely love your updates. They're my favorite. And it seems like students at both schools are crushing it, and I'm so psyched. And thank you for the donuts and the muffins because it's a great dinner. But I appreciate everything. Yeah. I appreciate everything that you do and coming out here because it's a lot at the end of the day and coming here and reporting for us, but we love it. We love having you here. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you
037all. On to town collaboration updates. I will tell our students you do not have to stay for this because it's not going to be the most exciting rest of the meeting, but you are welcome, always. You did get a candy bar, too, for Board Appreciation Week, so take it with you. Thank you. The only thing I have for town collaboration is that the Public Assets and Facilities Committee, which was formed this year to collaborate any kind of public asset improvement, has been meeting pretty regularly. Mr. Heisman serves as our representative. I get to serve as an ex officio. And they are moving quickly with a lot of planning and work to, well, I'm going to let Steve do it. I'm going to pass to Mr. Heisman. So just overview of the committee is they're in
038charge of making recommendations for any replacement or rehabilitation projects and assets, vehicles, et cetera, over $50,000. So right now we're working on developing procedures for tracking all these assets and, you know, touring all the facilities, seeing the equipment that's out there and understanding what the town has. That will include the schools as well. And last week we met with the Board of Ed Facilities and Technology Committee, met with the Public Asset and Facilities Committee to discuss the current process, capital non-recurring expenses, and just the communication process between the Board of Ed and the other committee, and to set up a tour schedule moving forward so we can look at the schools. So that's it in a nutshell. Just a big thank you to Mr. Heisman for representing us on that committee because they meet frequently
039and sometimes multiple times in a week. So thank you. And we're really excited about having some consistent processes to be able to make decisions on our facilities. This is huge. Okay. Any other town collaboration updates? I don't think so. Okay. On to superintendent updates. Just very quickly. Huge thank you to the Board of Education. It is Board of Education Appreciation Month, and you see a little goody, a couple of little goodies in front of you that we picked out special for you. But most importantly are the notes and letters that the kids wrote to you. Lisa and I went through them and we're reading and we're cracking up and crying. They're so special, and we want you to know how special you are. We know how much time this takes out of your busy life
040and away from your families. So please enjoy all the little goodies from all of us and all of our students, and thank you for everything that you do. And I do believe that... I know, they're so cute. They're very sweet. Some of them are so sweet, you're going to crack up. They're very sweet. They are. I won't talk about the gifts because I think Matt, Alan, and Steve are already thinking about rewrapping them and giving them to their wives. So now I said it online, so make sure you guys ask about these gifts. I tried to pick something that everyone would like, and I said, they have wonderful wives. I'm sure they're going to enjoy this present too. But thank you for everything you do. To be fair, my 10-year-old daughter is more likely to
041steal that from me than I am. But thank you very much for everything. And then everything else has been budget and insurance. So we'll save that for that time. And snow. And we don't want to talk about that word. If our school administrators can just share with the students that contributed to writing these letters, they mean so much to us. We read them. We laugh. We save them. We go back to them, especially after we've been here until quite late at night. They are so appreciated and mean so much to us. So thank you. to the teachers who took the time to work with students on them and to the students who took the time to write them okay on to budget update minister botwell hi everyone am i left at your seat before the
042meeting the most recent budget summary report Basically during this month we've been able to start to refine some of our numbers specifically in the areas of salaries. We've refined our numbers for what we're anticipating for reimbursement amounts for our special ed services as well as our choice special ed services. and also included numbers which have to do with repairs across the district and snow removal. So the bottom line actually has crept up a little bit since last month because of those refinements. But as you can see... for the most part looking really good. Our reimbursement, sorry, our pupil services line 323 is running over for some, or projected to run over I should say for services that we provide to students. However, it's sort of partner in crime 560 tuition is looking very strong in
043anticipation of our reimbursement amounts. So overall we look to be in good shape. I also wanted to add at the bottom of the memo that I wrote to you regarding our surplus amount, Sharon DeVoe at the town let me know that the auditors actually adjusted our surplus from last year from the amount they increased it. They adjusted it from $577,518 to $596,780. And when combined with the previous $1,426, which was in there from... fiscal year 24 our new available surplus balance is 598 206 and the third page that's stapled there is just a copy of the page from the town audit report and i just made a little notation in the lower left you can see where that account sits and the total amount i just put a few notes there to show you how
044that number was derived thank you mr bradwell any comments questions from the board mr zabrowski Sorry, I told my wife I wasn't going to speak a lot tonight. Just that surplus amount, that's before. We're taking the $204,000 out of that, so it's actually not what's available, right? Is that correct? I just want to make sure. So really take that number, subtract. I think it's 204. It's 201,570. And so when you subtract that from the balance that's shown on the sheet, it's 396,636. So 396,636 is really what is available at this point. And you'll see that number pop up later in some of our other documents. So I just wanted to make sure that I highlighted this during this report so you'd know why that number was different. Thank you so much. Thanks, Mr. Botwell. My
045pleasure. We're not done with you, but come back up later. Am I on the agenda again? Yes, please. You might need some chocolate between now and then, but yes, I'll share. Ryan gave me some good pointers, though, while I was sitting next to him. So we're talking bottle collecting. Great. Okay, thank you. On to new business. We're going to welcome our insurance brokers from Alera to hopefully, I don't know, we challenged you to come back with better news, and you're smiling, but we looked at our presentations. No, in all seriousness, this is really, really important to us and is vital to our employees, so we appreciate you coming back multiple times to talk with us and continuing to negotiate on our behalf. I'll pass it over to you. I'm just going to take 30 seconds.
046I'm Dave Kaslan, Carolyn Navarro, another associate, Greg Fenn. We have been working with the board over the course of the last couple months, and based on our meeting with you all last time, you gave us some marching orders, some requests, and I think for the most part, the report that we've put together covers all of the bases. There are a couple minor exceptions, which are... simply because of the lack of availability of some nominal rates. But I'm going to turn this over to Carolyn, and she's going to run through this with you all, and then obviously any questions you have you can address us. Thanks. okay okay i i just before um carolyn gets started i really want a huge thank you to carolyn and greg and dave um because we've been driving them crazy
047um probably quite a few hours on the phone and zoom and everything else um and i also want to remind the board of education we this is a huge decision and it does ultimately sit in your hands as far as making that decision as to what plan um you know we're going to continue or move forward to or change so please ask away so you you know the best you have all the information that you need to make a decision okay thank you Carolyn great sorry we're just setting up hold on one second while you're setting up Mrs. Matti has a question quick question and I hope I'm not the only one Donna can you put your mic a little I can't hear you a little closer this way thanks quick question Connecticut partnership I
048have no idea what that is and I'm hoping somewhere out there. Carolyn's going to explain it. Oh, okay, because it's been mentioned before. Yep, Carolyn can answer that question. Okay, thank you so much. Sure. So do you want to just get started with the presentation? Because we will cover that during the course of this. Okay, so I believe he's tracking down a clicker. Yeah, that would be fine. Okay, great. I can see what's up there, yes. So just to get started, my name is Carolyn Navarro. I'm a senior consultant at Alera Group. So we just want to reiterate the three potential paths for our health insurance benefit program. So we can renew with Cigna, which means continue with the current carrier and evaluate the final renewal terms that they've offered to us. We can transition
049to Anthem directly. And by doing so, we'd want to evaluate the potential cost and also any network differences. And then we can move to the Connecticut Partnership Plan. So this is actually a state-sponsored health plan, and it's available to municipalities and boards of education. So it is a really specific health plan that's tailored to this type of organization. So some of the key factors that we need to consider when making a decision is the overall cost to the Board of Education and also the impact on employees. We want to look at network differences, so making sure that people have adequate access to their providers. We want to evaluate the plan benefits and structure. And we certainly do want to consider long-term sustainability as the cost of health care continues to rise. So just as a
050reminder, we did also look at Aetna and UnitedHealthcare. Aetna declined to quote due to uncompetitive rates, and United did provide a proposal, but it was above the Cigna renewal. So we did attend the meeting last month and we did have some action items following that meeting. So we did want to identify the best and final renewal terms from Cigna. We wanted to go back to Anthem and request their best and final proposal. We wanted to look at network disruptions so meaning we wanted to see the providers that are being used today and compare that to the providers under anthem to determine if These providers will continue to be in network if we were to make a carrier change There was a great question brought up at the last meeting about looking at an alternative funded
051platform Where the Board of Education could be in a plan that they could benefit from a surplus if they ran better than expected. So that's a level-funded plan option, and we explored that as well. And then the other item was to request a rate cap with the carriers, meaning go back to the carriers and see if they would offer us any type of rate guarantee for the 2027 renewal. And again, that's really just to limit some volatility that's in the market due to the healthcare cost increases. Just some additional steps that were taken between that last meeting and now. There was a meeting on March 2nd with the partnership, and they came out and they explained the plan directly to the meeting attendees. And then a follow-up meeting was held with our team members to
052walk through the plan that's in place today and make a comparison between that and the partnership. So here we'll get grounded on the results. So we will start with Cigna. So we look at the renewal from Cigna, and we ask Cigna to provide us with their best and final option. The update here is that Cigna did agree to reduce their renewal rates by an additional 0.5%, and they will be providing a $50,000 premium credit. a premium credit is going to be a credit to the first invoice so essentially the july invoice would be credited fifty thousand dollars it doesn't impact the rates but it does reduce the cost by that fifty thousand so when we look at the financials as you may remember the initial renewal increase from cigna was 52 percent and as we
053see these figures here we're looking at the the board of education expenses so these dollar figures and The amounts listed here are just board related. We have employee impact on a separate sheet, which we can provide you later in the presentation. The cost that we look at is the medical premium, the vision premium. We look at health savings account admin fees. And then there's also a health savings account contribution that is a benefit to employees that is paid by the Board of Education. So the Board of Education offers a high deductible health plan. It meets the IRS guidelines to open a health savings account. The board funds $1,250 for an individual, $2,500 for those covering dependents. So as part of this cost here, we project that that health savings account will represent $470,000 of these
054figures here today. So as we look at current expense is about $4.9 million. Projected expense is about $6.6 million, which represents an increase now of $3. 32.86%. That dollar amount is a little over 1.6 annually. But then we factor in that premium credit that I talked about in the amount of $50,000, and that will reduce the net increase to 1.58. As I mentioned, the employee cost is not included in these amounts here, but we do have a projected increase to employee contributions in the amount of 36%. So some other areas that we have been working with Cigna on would be the rate cap. So we did ask Cigna if they would provide a rate cap for the 2027 renewal. And unfortunately, they will not commit to a rate cap. And that was really due to
055the high claims activity that right now we're experiencing and just the risk associated with that. We did also ask for that level funded plan So if there was interest in moving to a level funded plan option and again This operates very similar to a fully insured plan where the board pays a premium each month But at the end of the year, there is a reconciliation that's conducted and if the plan performed better than what was projected in terms of claims experience Then the board could receive a return And if you were to move to this model under Cigna, they would charge 3% additional to the cost that we've already outlined, which, you know, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. So just some other factors to consider. Obviously, this is the minimal disruption for
056employees. They can maintain the same plan designs that they have in place today and continue to have that health savings account, meaning that... the board can continue to contribute to that health savings account on their behalf, and they can put in their contribution as well. They can maintain the same providers and also formularies, drug lists that's in place today. So administratively, this is the least disruptive. Some things to consider is obviously if the claims continue the way that they are today, we could have volatile renewal increases in the future. And then again, just defining here on this slide the premium credit and the health savings account, which is a great benefit to employees, the fact that the company is covering those expenses and they can contribute on a pre-tax basis to the account as well.
057so transitioning to Anthem directly so the second option is to move to Anthem directly the update here from our last meeting is that Anthem's best and final offer includes a premium credit of one percent which represents seventy seven thousand dollars annually So what that means is that Anthem has not changed the rates that they provided us from the last meeting, but they will credit the first invoice in the amount of $77,000. So that would be the reduction. The premium rates would remain as quoted. So this Anthem increase would represent 31.77%, which is $1,577,000 annually. When we factor in that premium credit, it's $1.5 million. And this is more competitive than Cigna. So when we look at Anthem compared to Cigna, there would be a savings of $81,000. The employee contribution increase would also be slightly
058lower under Anthem. It would be 35% as opposed to 36%. The Anthem medical rates assume that we would bundle the vision coverage, and they are offering vision coverage that is less expensive than the current Cigna plan. Anthem has matched the current benefits in place today, so there would be no plan design differences. Anthem will not offer the rate cap either. They, too, have concerns about the claim activity and just the risk associated with that. But they will offer the level-funded proposal at no increased cost. So this is an interesting opportunity because the plan... would be level funded at the cost provided here. And if the claim experience were to perform better than expected, then the board could obtain a surplus at the end of the year. And typically what you do in this type of
059plan is you monitor the claims experience as the year is going on. And that's something that our team does for you. A reconciliation is done three months after the plan year ends. And then if there is a surplus, they would share 50%. So Anthem would take half, you would receive half, and it is provided to you in the form of a premium credit. So you do have to renew with Anthem in order to obtain that surplus. So some potential advantages here is that the pricing is a little bit more competitive than the renewal. You can continue to have the same plan design in place and that health savings account benefit that's associated with it. There is an opportunity to reset some of these claims because, you know, Cigna knows all of your claims today. So
060when you go to the new carrier, you're not carrying that with you. So it could be somewhat of a fresh start. And we did some research on the provider disruption, which we'll share with you momentarily. And there is opportunity for network expansion, meaning more providers would become in network under Anthem than you have today with Cigna. Considerations always when you're transitioning to a new carrier. The implementation part is not difficult, but you just want to be mindful of employees who are taking certain medications, that they continue to work with their providers to put authorizations in place for medications they'll need in the new plan year. Services that require pre-authorization such as an MRI that might have been scheduled out in the summer They just need to make sure that they're reauthorizing services under anthem as
061opposed to Cigna So things like that you take into consideration as you're looking at the different options and Then again that premium credit in the health savings account benefit very similar to what we discussed with Cigna So the third plan option is the partnership. So the partnership rates actually were final yesterday for the medical the partnership rates are receiving an 11.5 percent increase from the july 2025 rates when we look at this uh the partnership rates were not finalized for vision so we do assume just the same vision rates that are in place currently and we can certainly update as soon as those vision rates are released so with the partnership there is a projected increase to the board of 23 percent This represents $1.17 million annually. The savings over Cigna is $404,000, and the
062net savings over Anthem is $323,000. The partnership is a little bit different because you don't have that high deductible health plan and the health savings account. So a lot of that savings is being generated from removing that $470,000 because employees are no longer receiving that benefit due to the plan design. This is why the effective increase to the employee contributions is a little bit higher. It's 32% to 43%, and that really varies based on the bargaining agreement. One of the features of the partnership plan is that they follow the health enhancement program, and there's a wellness component to the plan. And this wellness component does require preventative care screenings and also chronic condition management. And you are to participate with these requirements or there are penalties. So they can apply a surcharge of $100 per
063month for people that are not in good standing with those requirements. If you were to transition on July 1st, there is a grace period to become compliant. So they'll actually allow 18 months for you to start getting acclimated with the program before they apply any of those penalties. Because I'm sure people are listening. Sure. The 32% to 43%, my understanding is, of course, it depends on the bargaining unit that you're in, but it also depends on what plan you pick. For or am I wrong? I thought it there was a what to your level you're in which here you're in Yeah So whether you have employee only employee plus dependent or family coverage that does factor into that 32 to 43 percent And does it also factor in? This is not dental. This is just
064medical. This is just medical vision. Yep. Yeah, I Confused dental with vision all the time with those with those three different tiers though Which one would be, would the family one be closer to the 43% or would the individual? Employee independent. Okay, thank you. So some advantages to going to the partnership plan is that you do have a larger risk pool because it has a large participation through the state. Historically, they have had stable renewal increases. And again, this is the Anthem plan. So this plan uses the Anthem network. So when we look at the disruption results, they will be added to providers under Anthem than you have access to with Cigna today. Some things to think about, again, the same. The same things come to mind when you're changing carriers, whether you're going to
065Anthem directly or through the partnership. It is going to be a transition for employees in the sense that they'll have to ensure that they're working with their providers on any sort of authorizations that need to be put in place, whether it be for a procedure or whether it be for a medication that they're currently taking today. The biggest piece of this is that there is limited flexibility in plan design. So the partnership has one plan that's available, and it is not a high-deductible health plan. So what that means is that it's not a plan that the IRS... would allow you to have a health savings account benefit. So it's a co-pay structure. There is a deductible, but it's very low. It's waived if you are compliant with those plan requirements. So the plan is structured
066very differently to what you have today. And that health savings account You can continue to use your money from but you could not contribute to it anymore nor could the company provide a contribution Because it's not an IRS compatible plan with that health savings account Can I interrupt quickly too because I this is so important as questions come about I mean and you may have these questions too. So for example right now We're in the high deductible plan with Cigna. I'm just gonna use myself as an example. I Am single I have a husband, but he's not his own plan. Um, I put in 12 1 250 that's my deductible it costs 2 500 the district puts in 1 250 for me I put in 1 250 for myself that I have to reach that
067deductible before I could tap into my insurance for pretty much anything except for the regular preventative stuff um Some people believe This is a fringe benefit right has nothing to do with our salaries some people believe that this is part of our salary package It's not it's a fringe benefit. It goes what they just say Like Carolyn just explained we can't have an HSA and have a partnership plan It's illegal because of the IRS won't allow it But you could take your money and carry it over the most important thing to know is the the deductible for the partnership plan, and I'm not steering anybody in any direction, I just want really everyone to understand this part, is it's a $300 deductible. So for me alone, instead of $1,250 that I had to pay on
068my own, besides the $1,250 that the board's kicking in for me, which is $2,500, I now have a $300 deductible that I have to meet. And I may not even need it if I stick... Keep using the tier one providers which by the way are there there are way there are way more So I think some people get nervous about the each thing now There's wonderful things about the HSA when you retire there's so many things and you can max it out and you can have that you some people can bridge it to you know when they're transitioning from retirement to waiting for Medicare However, it's really important to know that when maxing that out is a huge amount of money for families with kids particularly. So, and I asked, Lori has been doing incredible
069work. How many of our people are actually maxing that money out? And we don't know if they're using it now or saving it for later. speculatory. It's no secret that I'm, you know, the highest paid employee in the district who maxes it out. And I'm not saving it for retirement. Because, well, I guess I am now. But I wasn't because I have to use it. it's just too expensive right now. Medical is just too expensive. And it's even more so if you're using an out-of-network provider. So I think this is where people are getting confused. And so did I miss anything, Carolyn, that you think I could have explained better, especially for my staff, that could maybe help everybody understand that the difference between the deductibles is massive because you're not going to have that
070huge deductible anymore. That's correct. Okay. Thank you for indulging me. One item I do want to point out about the partnership is there is a long-term commitment. So typically you would stay in the partnership plan for three years or there is a penalty associated with leaving early. And the penalty would depend on really how you were performing within the partnership plan and your loss ratio. They do let you leave if they're going to make a plan change. they are scheduled to make a plan change in 2027 we do not know what that plan change is going to be but that would be an opportunity if someone wanted to leave without any type of penalty they could certainly do so if you have a copy of the presentation there is more details on the the termination
071in the appendix I appreciate also that you gave us the history of the increases under the partnership plan just as comparison. Because it's scary to think you're locked in. But if you're locked in and the history is relatively favorable, it mitigates a little bit of that anxiety. Exactly. Is there a cap, Carolyn, on how much it could go up? They don't have a cap. So even though the history has shown about less than 10%, it could go up or 50% like we got from Cigna? Has it ever? I don't think that it has ever gone up 50%. So it's a self-insured medical plan. They're basically managing the claims with the state and the partnership. So it's primarily driven by claims. There wouldn't be a cap if they had a really bad year. This is going
072to be the highest increase that they've had, as you can see in the packet, over the last six years or so. Okay. Thank you. So as I mentioned before, we did conduct a disruption report between Cigna and Anthem, and the purpose is to look at the providers being used today and the way that claims are being paid under Cigna and compare to how they would be processed under Anthem. And the results came back very high. When we look at providers themselves, it's a 98.9% match. And then we look at claims paid. also a 99% match. A couple of things to point out here. There would be 12 providers who are currently in network with Cigna that will become out of network under Anthem. However, there are 119 providers who are out of network today with
073Cigna who would become in network with Anthem. So it really is a significant expansion of coverage. 19 providers who are out of network will remain out of network. And then one item to point out, just recently we were informed of a contract termination between Anthem and Mount Sinai. They terminated out of the network effective March 3rd. So right now they're in network with Cigna. There is some utilization at this particular provider. So just understand that they're not counted in these results here. And then negotiations continue. So it may be that a couple months down the road, they do come back within the network. So as part of our analysis, we also did look at the dental plan. So the dental plan, I would say, definitely allows more flexibility than the medical under the partnership. So
074when you're considering the partnership, you can actually maintain the same dental plan. You do not have to move your dental plan to the partnership. You can leave it outside of that. Or you can look at one of the partnership dental options. And they do have a variety of options that you can choose from. So for this exercise, just understand that the current plan today with the Board of Education is self-funded. So the board pays the administrative fees for the dental plan to Anthem, and then they pay the claims as the claims are incurred. Under the partnership, the plan would become fully insured. So fully insured would mean a fixed premium that you're paying every month rather than just paying admin fees and claims. So when we looked at the self-insured dental plan, we project out
075what the cost should be and how the rates should increase for your budget. And so if you were to continue with the self-insured dental plan just the way it is today, the increase would be 6.67%, which is $16,000 annually. The partnership, again, like I said, has different dental options. We looked at what is called option one and two. We assumed that you'd offer choice to employees because you can offer more than one plan at a group of this size. It is more expensive under the partnership to move to one of their dental options. It was about $18,000 versus that renewal of $16,000. So overall, a $34,000 increase. But again, there are different plans what we can model. This was just a baseline. So I think this is one of those areas that are still a
076bit illustrative until we decide what plan designs we actually want to pursue. And then here is really just a snapshot. As we look at the different options, what would it mean as an increase to the board? What does it look like from the employee perspective? So what type of impact would they see in their contributions? How is the plan structure? So with Anthem and Cigna, their plan design would remain the same, but the partnership plan would be different. And we kind of detail that out here as it relates to the deductible. And then just some key considerations that you would think about as you're making a decision. Just a huge thank you. This was so informative, so much detail, and the way you laid it out really helps us to understand some of the decision
077making. Thank you to you and the team for putting this together. Anybody have any questions for Carolyn or Dave or Greg? Mr. Schumann. Just one on the transition to the partnership that you said is an HSE compliant penalty. I assume the employee. Oh, the HAP plan. The HAP plan. The employee pays that? Yes. And how is that assessed? I'm on the plan. I can tell you. You have to go get your annual dental. All those things get. If you don't get it, they assess you an invoice. So you have to send evidence that you've had those things done. So you're going to send $100 a month. Okay. until you go to that appointment. Okay, so it's on the employee, not on the Board of Ed. But conceptually, you have a healthy, everybody's going for all
078these preventive. So I think that's the whole concept of why they do that. Did I answer that right? Yes. Okay. Just to clarify, they have 18 months from when we enter the plan? Yeah, so because you have the July. effective date you'll essentially have 18 months as a grace period to begin becoming compliant so no penalties would be assessed on members during that time frame and then after that it's an annual yes or if it's like preventative to to say physical exam once every two years so it has to follow the guidelines so if you're Someone who's getting a mammogram bi-annually, if that's defined in the HEP plan, that's what it's based off of. And the chronic, yes, that's the other piece of it too. People who have those chronic conditions, they have a little
079bit more compliance as it relates to certain diagnoses like diabetes or hypertension. Any other questions? Mrs. Cantwell. I'm just thinking, what if your doctor said you didn't need... What if your doctor, I'll just use the mammogram because you just used that. So what if your doctor said, oh, no, you don't need another one for three or four years. But the plan says you have to go every other year. you have to do what the plan says or could the doctor like submit a letter saying that the patient only needs? So I had researched this actually as one of the common concerns and it is that the plan sets the standard. So you're to follow that. So if your doctor didn't authorize it, they suggest perhaps you should go to another doctor to get it authorized.
080I think there is, is there some flexibility like to have your doctor submit something? Although I heard it's not generally approved. Yeah, I believe there's an exception process, but if you go out to the partnership website for both the preventive and the chronic piece, it gives you the outline based on age and gender for the preventative stuff as well as what chronic issues have follow-up where you need to follow through certain things. Yeah, so even if your provider doesn't suggest that, the plan has the standard guidelines that you follow. To avoid the penalty. Mr. Zabriskie, do you have a question? Yeah, I apologize. We were kind of playing with numbers. But that $100 that the employee is assessed, if they're noncompliant, so let's say I'm supposed to get a physical and I haven't for a
081month, or I'm a month out of compliance or whatever, we as the board would actually withhold that from their pay, correct? That's how that happens. So it's not like the employee can just be like, well, forget it. I'm not going to pay it. Like it's, it's going to happen. So that actually, my concern is that kind of puts us at odds with our employees. If something like that happens, whether we like it or not, that rate that's perception. And I guess the other question is that a hundred dollars, if, if the, if the employee is a month out of compliance, that a hundred dollars has to be withheld. Another month goes by, they haven't met the compliance. Is it another a hundred dollars? Like, is it, it's a monthly rolling. Right. So I understand why
082it's in place. Right. Because you're trying to encourage positive health so that you're lowering claims. But at the same time, for someone who maybe struggles with that or struggles with having time to take care of these things or doesn't want to take time off from work and call out sick to go to the doctor to have their, you know, to be compliant with us. It's kind of punitive in that in that aspect. The other thing I want to look at, and correct me if I'm wrong, Steve and I were kind of playing with numbers over here, so if I missed this, I apologize. But we were looking at it, and it seems like the employees that would take the biggest hit, the ones who would have to, who would cost the most to, would be
083employees who are a two-member, meaning a single mother with one child. They're gonna be paying a higher rate. Is that correct a higher percentage? Or it could be a husband and wife but I'm some but we're thinking You know two member families under this plan under under the Partnership they're the ones who are gonna take the biggest financial hit personally That's correct. That is correct. So single mother one child. They're the ones who are gonna get hit the most just as an example. That's the way that the rates are structured. I understand. I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying when we're looking at the numbers, that's a concern. That's how, yeah. Can we share? Thank you. So you guys also got two other people because we actually worked the numbers out together. And we added
084another column today. I think you spoke with Lori. I did, yeah. Lori, so that you can actually see, everyone can actually see. What this means in dollars and cents because that's really important so you have two in front of you you have The one that's up there. I believe is this one And so before you go on, I just want to address one thing. I don't know if you've already done it. Wait, can you, Dave, come a little closer? Sorry. I don't know if you've already involved the labor attorney representing the board. Yes. But the gentleman's question about the HEP penalty I think is really significant. Obviously, the heads of the various bargaining unions explaining that to their membership because you do have collective bargaining agreements, right? I'll explain the timeline. the whole entire timeline
085is set based i i have everything ready to explain to you after you have all these questions answered those i could fill you in on trust me you know me i'm always 10 steps ahead i'll tell you the timeline of everything else once they explain all this to you and then i can let you know how that's going to work if you decide to move forward and i will let you know what the unions Want to do but let's do this first so you guys know the money and everybody knows the money because you need this to make that decision So so are you gonna walk us through this? It's so Carolyn or Chris or Lori who would like to walk through? Everybody through this there's no way you're gonna see that care So Chris
086you have it. Do you want a copy of it? Okay, so essentially what we took So we're looking at each do you guys have? We have it in front of us, so it's probably easier to just tell us what you've got because there's no way we're going to be able to read it off of that. So we look at each carrier. Oh, that helps. Thank you, Steve. And we look at the premium, which includes, you know, I'm using Cigna as an example, the vision and the HSA admin fee. So we take the cost of the plan. We look at the BOE contribution. So this is what the BOE pays for each bargaining agreement. We look at that on a monthly basis. So here we have the BOE and then the employee split. So let's use
087the admin. So if the BOE contributes 77.5%, then the employees are paying 22.5%. So what does that look like on a monthly basis? $336.90, and by pay period, it's $183.76. We look at that compared to what they're paying currently. And this is actually just the premium. It's not the current contribution. But the increase is representative of what their increase is going to be out of their paycheck. And I think, I'm not sure. And if you look, there's three pages attached. So the first page is Cigna. and that would be the increase. The second page is Anthem, and that would be the increase, and the third page is Right. So this actually has a little bit more. Sorry, the sheet that I was looking at didn't have. So this actually shows the per pay period increase.
088If you look at 2627 versus 2526, you can see it in a dollar amount as well. We gave we've worked out the actual dollar amount. Sorry. I didn't see that on the sheet So I think to walk through an example if you're on the first page if you're an admin and you have single coverage The per pay period contribution would be 183 76 It is currently 134 83 so you would experience a per pay increase of 48 93 Does that make sense to you guys on how we did this? Okay. We worked really hard on trying to figure this out. Just remind us, employees are paid every other week. I think there's a bubble check, so it's not every other week. This comes out at 22 pays. We get paid every 20. There's 24 pays,
089right, Laura? But this is 26. Every other week. Thank you. So the clarification is our employees get paid every other week. There are 26 pay periods. But this only comes out. insurance only comes out 22 pair 22 of those pay periods for admin for teachers secretaries pair professionals custodial cat calf it's 21 pay periods okay so it's not quite every pay period that right okay not the summer no the summer because they get the bubble check okay thank you very helpful we're gonna send everything to you tomorrow miss Dimitri Addis It's part of my timeline speech. Oh, geez, she gets it ahead of time. No, I'm kidding. Okay. Any other questions for Carolyn? Mr. Zebrowski. So all the numbers that we've received tonight are just for the Board of Education, right? Not the town. Correct.
090Correct. Do we know where the town is sitting on this? Do we know if the town would go with whatever we're going to go? Like, do we have any inkling about that? And I'll add to that, does it even help us or does it hurt us if we go together or go separate? I believe that the town is seriously considering the partnership. So I think they're going to separate and go with that option. Okay. So follow-up if we also chose to go with the partnership is there any financial advantage to us work? No, you're not with the partnership No, because the partnership the rates are the rates so they're just published that way when we did this exercise You know, we kind of narrowed the focus in on with Cigna and Anthem just you Alone
091because it was more beneficial from a cost perspective than being in The plan with the town so there also wouldn't be a benefit if the town and us went stayed with Cigna there wouldn't necessarily be a benefit if the town and the board of Ed both went with okay, so staying together almost doesn't make a difference, okay I'm just making sure because it's all taxpayer money. It all comes from the same pockets. Trust me, we have every single one of these questions, but that's good that you're asking because we asked them all. And just to be clear, we don't have a firm direction on the town yet, so we do have to have the follow-up meeting. But since the rates were just out yesterday, that's on our list for this week. But that was just
092our indication that they would be interested in that. Carolyn, just a quick question. Do you have information on approximately how many school districts use the partnership plan and any feedback from other districts about their experiences? I don't have that offhand. Is it common for districts? My husband's a teacher. His district uses the partnership plan. I just didn't know if that was a common thing. So we can get back to you. They do list out all of the... non-state employees, municipalities, towns that do join. So we can give you a sense of who's in it and who's not in it. We don't have any other clients that are boards that are in the partnership per se today, but we can get back to you on the numbers. And all state employees are on the partnership plan.
093Correct. Yeah. All state employees. It's a big pool. It's a big pool. It's a self-insured. So they basically process claims. And the partnership municipalities boards, they kind of come into the state employees. So they're viewed as all one when they process future increases. OK. So do you all have any experience with feedback about the. Health what do you call it that HEP if people find that onerous if it's doable if there's a lot of people that get that fine I want to speak to Matt's concern about yeah, so I would say it's different because in your current world today There isn't there isn't a penalty per se whether it's the hundred dollar a month additional payroll deduction or the deductible the general approach to it is that it's people should be doing it because it's
094obviously helping them it's helping the pool but it's just different so um i would say i wouldn't say there's a lot of negative per se but there are people that they're going to do what they're going to do and when they get faced with a hundred dollar a month premium uh coming out of their payroll and they have a deductible there will be noise simply because it's different and i think the board of ed has always been in a traditional per se plan where people kind of do as they want and there's no repercussions so there will be noise just based on the fact that it's different So I'll just share my experiences. It really hasn't been bad to go to the dentist twice a year, and we get a lot of reminders if you
095haven't. So I have not had a negative experience. It actually helps me get the teenagers to the dentist. That's a plus. Otherwise, they have to pay for it. So that's the negotiation. But it's not an overwhelming. amount of additional most of the things I would say most people probably are doing on a regular basis it just is a little bit of an extra push to do it yeah and it helps keep the pool ideally in theory in theory healthier okay thank you for that feedback I would encourage you to check with you know other towns and cities because I know large places like the city of Bridgeport, you know, I've worked with quite a few places in Fairfield County in particular that have gone to the plan, and you should check with them and get
096that feedback. The only feedback I had, which you would probably know, is that the folks who probably get hurt from it are the people who are least... I'll say we at least educated about the process and the requirements and probably the people who should be going to, adhering to the HEP more than anybody else. So it's obviously, it's a big undertaking to educate your membership, have them understand, you know, what the parameters are, the reasons for it, and what they actually need to do. And you have, you know, 18 months to really reinforce that. And Mrs. DeMauro's not here, but I think you can use your paid sick leave days to do some of these. Yeah, and so myself, Dr. McLean, Ms. DeMauro, we all had this plan before we came. And I, oh, that's
097right. Carrie still has it, actually. She didn't switch. So let's, I'll tell you this much. People who have this from their spouse, they're not running to switch to our plan. And I will tell you that when I left my prior. place of employment I was like what in the world I have I don't think my insurance is that good right now it freaked me out a little bit I got used to the HSA and I like it for other reasons but the partnership plan is excellent I never heard five dollars for a co-pay so much in my entire life and for meds or nothing at all versus 16, 18, 45, $55 every time you go. It kind of is life-changing for people, which is why I am passionate about it, but it really doesn't make
098a difference to me, right? I'm passionate about it because I've had both. The HEP, I will tell you quickly, in a district of about, I don't know, 1,500 employees. Everybody got on board very quickly once they got hit with that $100 fine. It was, we're going and there's nothing you could do or you're going to get hit with that fine. There was a little complaining in the beginning. You can't make me do something if I don't want to do it. Okay, well then we're going to hit you with the fine. And, you know, people got through it and are very happy to not be in a high deductible plan. Those are my experience my personal experiences Carrie could speak to her personal experiences if you'd like her to and Michelle Ran the entire plan it
099was under her department. So it would be Lori and Michelle Doing all of this and just like and it was Michelle and in the prior district that we worked in so So I had the exact opposite experience as Dr. Macri. I started here with the high deductible plan and then went to a district that had the state plan, and it is night and day better. Like, it is, yeah, it is night and day better. There's less to manage. I remember that I had just had my first child, and I got hit with all of these bills. And I was like, what? you know because it just it comes fast and until that deductible is gone like you you are responsible for it um so that was my experience I you know I can't speak for
100everyone but I can say that the PPO is easier and it seems much cheaper if you ask me okay Mrs. Russ has some questions well for somebody who's on the federal employee benefit plan It's nowhere near as good as what I'm hearing from the state. But at any rate, I have two questions. One, the first one is the $100. I don't mean to harp on this. Is it per person or is it per plan? Like if you have a family plan, is it one person in that family doesn't meet it, you get hit? $100 a month. If two people don't hit it, you get hit with $200 a month. How does it work? So we will confirm this. My understanding, it is $100 per family. If it's a family of five and one of the
101five are not HEP compliant, it's a $100 charge for the family. We will confirm that. If two are compliant, is it still $100? It's still $100. If any member of the family is not compliant, there's a $100 surcharge for that month. Okay. any number of the family then? Correct. Okay and I also when you first started talking about this hundred dollar charge I didn't see it the way Matt did as the Board of Ed pulling, I saw it more as like a garnishment of wages type situation where it can happen for a variety of different reasons because the reality is we don't have control over it once we sign up for the plan. So same with certain other issues we don't have control over, but we're mandated to withhold wages. So that's kind of how
102I saw the $100. If it had to be withheld from somebody's paycheck, I didn't see it as us doing it, but as a... mandate along the same as other garnishment of wages so that's my opinion thank you so much to our friends from molare for this presentation and for all of your work on our behalf i'm going to ask dr mackray just talk through what our next oh i'm sorry mr heisman still has a question you're not done yet sorry guys sorry i don't know if this question's for you or um for the board of ed do we have a percentage of people that are in that employee plus one group For the board like um, yeah, we don't have it with us today, but we could get it right or you never know with
103Laura She might know it by heart She's so smart though, she'll be fine the biggest group is has family coverage across the district Probably the smallest group is employee plus one But there's still there's still still just trying to get people in there. Yes, but it probably is the smallest individual is Slightly more. Okay. Thank you. Yep any other questions? Okay Thank you all appreciate it I'm gonna I just asked dr. Macri to talk through what our next steps are so that we can make sure we're up on Process okay, so I will tell you what we did so far so far We had two meetings last week and we met with the Union presidents of each local There's seven unions in Cromwell public schools, and we had a Lara come out and speak to
104them and we also had Alex humbly who is humble who is from the Connecticut State Partnership plan come out and speak just to the union heads and the administration so that we can gather as much information as possible then I went back and I worked we worked with a layer to put this presentation together and Chris and Laurie have been looking at numbers with these people for four days so that we can get this information From that meeting, those two meetings, my question to the union presidents was, with what you know now, would you like to move forward in getting more information? We are on a time crunch. Would you like to move forward and get more information? I need a consensus from all seven of you. If I don't have the consensus from all
105seven of you, then we're not doing this. They all said, with some members being very concerned because they didn't hear this presentation and they haven't gotten their presentation yet, right? This is just the presidents. All seven of them raised their hand, yes, they would like for us to continue to talk to them about this. So my question to you is, would you like me to continue to have this conversation and make it a bigger? conversation and I could tell you what that timeline is and this is a tentative timeline I have not told my staff this yet because it's based on you telling me yes or no because at the end you get to decide on Monday if you decide yes I'm going to we have a meeting with Alex Humble who is from the
106Connecticut State Partnership plan she's genius she knows everything she can answer every single solitary question that anyone has and I'm going to invite the entire staff to attend at Cromwell middle school at four o'clock so that they can ask as many questions as they have regarding the partnership plan myself Michelle Chris and Lori will be there if they need a little bit of a crosswalk but Regarding Cigna or anthem, but we've had this age the high deductible plan forever. So everyone pretty much knows the difference So all those questions will be answered that net the next step after Monday is We have a tentative meeting and no one knows they're about to know right now. Linda doesn't even know she's gonna say what are you talking about? We have a tentative meeting scheduled with our
107union heads and their local reps Jessica Ritter is going to come and we're going to have a discussion of what this will look like if they want to move forward with this plan because we have to enter into an MOA, a memo of understanding or a memo of agreement, to switch. to a PPO plan. If we make the decision to stay with Cigna or go to Anthem, we don't need the board's approval because it's the same. You already made the decision. And we don't need anyone's approval because it's the same exact plan. We'll just switch over and those two plans are very similar, Anthem and Cigna. So right now what I need from all of you is to move forward with what I just told you and then... My understanding, some of the union presidents
108may, based on their contract, right, they have to look at their contract, may have to go back to their members and have a vote. Some may not. They may have the responsibility to make that decision for their members. It depends on what their contract says. I would then ask them to go back and do that Thursday and Friday. And it's either in, we're all in, or we're all out for the partnership plan. I have to have that answer by noon on Friday because we have to make the packets for the Board of Finance that are due to them on March 25th, and we have to redo our budget based on this decision. So we have a timeline. It's all tentative. That's what we need to do. you let me know if you want me to
109move forward, then unions would like to move forward. That doesn't mean that it's definite because once they either agree or if not everyone agrees, then it just dies and we just stay with Anthem or Cigna, right? Or you, I, then if they want the partnership plan, I have to come back to you, which will probably be next Tuesday. We could do it by Zoom so that you give us the approval. board members to change the plan to a PPO instead of a high deductible plan because the apples to oranges so that's the plan what would you like to do Oh, no, Alicia just left. I took over. Oh, okay. So basically you're asking us which road we want to take between the high deductible or, so we have to make that decision tonight. Yes, I
110need, you don't have to make a decision as to whether we're going to stick to it. You just have to give me permission to continue to give information to everyone so that the union, the reason being is. You have final say, but we, in all the contracts, it says that it has to be comparable, right? PPO is not comparable to a high deductible. So we do need all of them to say, hey, we want to change to this plan because we need a memo of understanding with them. We have to go back and ask them. So just to be clear, even if we want to go the PPO route and they don't. Then we can't. So they're really driving this decision and not us. Well, at the end of the day, because of every contract,
111it's got to be comparable, comparable, whatever I say comparable. So current contracts require really at this point either Anthem or Cigna. At this point, it's either Anthem or Cigna, and we can make the decision based on. If one bargaining unit says we don't want to go with the partnership, then it's off the table. Then it's off the table. Because the amount of, and it could just be a no because of a million reasons, but even if it's very difficult to get an MOA, it could possibly be a no on our end because I could say to you. We are negotiating. It's costing us $10,000 in legal fees, $20,000 in legal fees. It may not work out for us. We have to figure it out with them together. But, yes, it has to be all or
112none. We're all in this together or we're not. Would my I guess separate question and I did ask legal about that Separate question but kind of aligned when you do if we were to say yes move forward with talking to the unions about this When you present to them are you planning on providing them with a list of other? Boards of Ed's that currently participate in the partnership because teachers are connected to teachers across across districts, right? I think you can go actually right on. Can you go on the website? Dr. Macri I have the whole list right now. Oh, I was going to say. Yeah, I think you could go on. I can forward it to you. It's online. So tomorrow I'm going to give them a link. If you give me the go-ahead,
113tomorrow everyone will get an email that says Monday. If you can, please come. four o'clock i'm going to send them that link and they can learn all about the plan and everybody who is involved i'm just thinking because like you know i wouldn't want to make a decision like this for my own family's insurance unless i talk to someone else who is in it right and you know i know teachers all over the place so it would be someone i trust who hey what's your experience yeah and that might help drive my decision and i will send that link out and it's on there so you just checked for me so see you already i already know here did you have a question it's more of a comment right i mean We're talking about going
114from Cigna Anthem HRA plan at $5,000 for a family out-of-pocket max to a $1,400 out-of-pocket max with the partnership program. I mean, overall, it's a better plan. So how could it not be seen as comparable or better than that? That darn HSA design. I wish, and then we could just make the decision. And there are people out there who are very concerned, but Steve, I agree with you 100%. I tried so hard. But I do believe that it's important for the unions to understand the difference, and we would educate, educate, educate. But we still have some educating to do, which is why we have Alex coming on Monday. We want people to be able to answer all of these questions. But, yes, for some reason, Steve, it's not according to everybody. We didn't bring this
115last page up. I think that's very important to share with everybody. I would in a heartbeat take this plan over the one we currently have if I worked here. So I try very hard because you guys know when I'm passionate about something. And it's not because the board is going to be safe. Because honestly, we're not going to be saving a ton of money at all. When we did this in my last district, the district saved over like $2 million. We are nowhere near that. This truly, as much as I want to save money for the district, of course, because I don't want us to go through and have to. you know that people go and cut our budget but but the truth is this is this is a better plan for our employees and
116i don't know if we'll ever be in this situation again so but year over year it should if you look at The history and the longevity and the way the stats work, it should be a benefit to us compared to... It's going to be a huge benefit to us and the employees next year because we're taking this huge jump this year. And we already discussed, I just want to confirm that if we do go this route, the partnership route, and we open up, it's just for the medical piece that we're discussing this plan. It's not the whole contract. It's not the whole contract. It's just... So that is exactly the conversation that we are going to have with Jessica Ritter on Wednesday morning with the unions. Well, and you feel free to speak up. I
117don't know what the rest of the board thinks, but I am not willing to open up all of our contracts because we work so hard to get them where they are. I'm willing to discuss. this point but not anything else i don't know how other board members feel but we have a fantastic timeline in place for all of our contracts and we've all felt fair and where we've agreed out on them and i think it would be huge disservice to all the parties involved if we went beyond just looking at this piece and when i explained said to you earlier that's a huge consideration because if i We are we have to take into consideration how much money we would be spending on legal if we open if we had deeper discussions than just this
118switch right And we are not saving a ton of money as a district so at that point We really would we would have to make a decision. I would make that decision for you I'd bring it to you and say it would probably die on the table Yeah, exactly. I think if that was the, if it opened up every union contract and we had to renegotiate all of them, I think we would be forced to have to look at Anthem or Cigna instead of doing that. But I don't think, I think this has a lot of benefits for our employees. So I'm hoping that our employees are supportive and see that this is less out of, I mean, Steve's point in and of itself, less out of pocket for our employees in the long run
119and offers. very comparable coverage. So hopefully our employees will be on board because we want to do this to support them. Yes, Ms. Maddie. And then Mr. Zabrowski. I don't want to put Matt on the spot, but I was telling Matt that my financial advisor who is out of Glastonbury and lives in Glastonbury, I'm pretty sure he said the teachers were on the partnership. that it had been done a number of years ago and that they seem to be pretty happy with it he hadn't you know heard in the interim that that was not the case did was I write about that mr. Zabrowski and then you can ask your question uh no we're on we're on anthem HSI and actually we have it we have an option for the anthem PPO as well we
120just pay a higher rate you want to ask your question I forgot what it was but it's coming to me Put your pen back up. That was right. My pen was helping me. Oh, I know what it was. It wasn't even so much a question as a comment. The pen helped. Amazing. So having having served on my local union negotiations team, contract negotiations team, I feel like the question came up in the past several years of if we open the contract, can we open it for just one thing? And the answer was no. So that's my concern. Is it a separate agreement that we have to sign then? It's an MOU or an MOU. That says we're going to open it just to look at this. I think so, but that's why we have Jessica.
121Okay. So Jessica is going to advise us on that. All right. I feel like whoever advised us, that wasn't likely. This has happened in quite a few districts. The one that I have a lot of knowledge of is Watertown. The MOUs are drawn up. by the attorney in conjunction with the union reps and the union presidents. However, what I'm hearing you tell me at this moment. You're hearing us tell you to please proceed. I think. Everybody nod, please. I do have a comment, though, before we proceed. Okay. So I'll wait. I think that this should be an all or nothing deal for the employees. Like, there's no opening contracts. You're kicking a gift horse in the mouth if you. If you go against this, right, like this is an awesome plan, looking at this. Like
122I would kill to have this health care plan. So I think it's put it out there. If there's anyone that says no, then it's off the table when we switch back to the stable what we have. And, May, I want to ask you one question just to clarify. I think I get your point, but I want to make sure everyone understands what you're telling me because I believe this is what you're saying. Nothing else is changing except for we are moving to this plan. We're not changing the percentage points. We're not changing any of that. It's this the way it is, or we stay with Anthem or Cigna. Is that correct? Yes. I think you're hearing from all of us, we do not want to open the contract any more than to implement this plan
123if this is the way it is outlined. Right here. Yes. It is only to discuss the plan not the percentages. Got it. Thank you. Okay. I have my directive I think you're also hearing that a lot of us sat on negotiation Teams and worked really really hard in partnership with our employees to negotiate Reasonable contracts and to go back to the drawing board to do that again When this is really gonna help our employees and be a benefit not is something we're not willing to entertain Understood. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Do you want to vote on it? Do we have, do you want us to vote? I think you should. Okay. So can I please have a motion to move forward in conversation about the Connecticut partnership plan with our labor unions and to consider
124opening contracts only to address implementing this plan? And not any broader motion. Thank you. As it is. I'll second that. As presented. Thank you. So motion by Mrs. Russ, seconded by Mr. Druski. May I? All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Anybody abstaining? Okay. Lisa, do you need help with that or did you get it? Because I talked in a little bit of a circle there. Are you kidding me? Thank you. She's amazing. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. I'm very conscious of time. It's almost 9 o'clock. We have not gotten into our budget conversation, which we need to do. So I'm going to pass it to Mr. Potwell and Mrs. Cantwell. If you need to leave, we still have a quorum, so you're okay. Mr. Botwell, do you want to tell us where
125we are since the last we if I can recollect we gave you a lot of questions and asked you to come back to us with some additional data from our last meeting so we can make some budget decisions so I will pass to you to share with us where we are. Sure so we are Dr. Macri and I reviewed quite a list of things that made up the budget and some potential things that could be cut from the budget and put them together in a chart so that you can see what impact they have on the budget. So I believe at the last meeting you asked us to come up with budget numbers for a 28% insurance increase, a 30% insurance increase, and a 32% insurance increase, which is what we did. And so there
126is, I left a packet in front of you. It's got like a minty green box with the Board of Ed budget in it. And if you could just actually turn to the second page, I would like to start there because the first page is a bit of a different situation. So the second page is the 28% insurance increase in the green box up at the top. You see last year's budget, $40,600,000. You see the proposed $26,200,000 budget where we last left it, which is at a 6.61% increase. And then down below, you'll see things that could possibly impact this budget. We have three things at the top of the list, which are things that we would be adding into the budget. So the first one is if we went from 25% to 28%, how that
127impacts the budget. The second is based on all the information that we got from the... brokers, we felt it was necessary to adjust our dental costs. So we added 16,000 back in. And then per the town, we needed to make an adjustment to the amount budgeted for our pension in the amount of $40,900. And then everything below that are items in the budget which could potentially reduce the budget. And this list is sort of meant to help you. It's got sort of a menu feel to it. And so we did sort of start with the biggest items first and then worked our way down. However, it's intended to also show you as you move to the right, it's going to show you how much the budget changes with that item. It's going to show you
128what the revised percent is in that green column. And then the column to the right of that percent of budget. that shows you how much what part of the budget that item stands for so if you were you know looking to know just specifically what one object or one item uh what its relevance is to the budget that should help with that so um so that's the 28 the page behind that which is the the third page in the packet is the exact same thing it's just for 30 and then the page behind that is exact same thing just for 32 percent So far, so good? Okay. The first page I added on, this is just a reflection of what's happening with the partnership plan. So I knew somebody would probably want to know what's
129it going to look like at 23.71% increase, which is what the partnership is telling us. And so you can see that first line, we would actually see a decrease from our 25% proposed budget down to 23.7%. I did, this is just informational. If for some reason we wanted to know how much the partnership dental plan was going to impact our budget, I did add that in line two. Again, that's not a decision, just a FYI. The pension adjustment and then everything else is the same as the other pages. And just to let you know, when Chris and I worked on this, I gave you my priority list, right? of what I would suggest you do, but you don't have to. I'm not 100% married to anything except for the RBTs. I am married to the
130RBTs. We need them so badly, and I'm begging you to keep them in. I want to give our kids everything they need, and we need this, and our staff needs it. They're exhausted. That's all I have to say. The rest you can play with however you want. and dr mack if it's okay i just will add um down lower in the sheet so line 22 um we did a sort of what-if scenario with um our capital outlay items which total about 85 000 and we did a what if like what if we pulled from the surplus to pay off those items okay so there's a note all the way to the right that that's a surplus um possibility And then the very last line, line 25, I thought someone might ask what would happen if
131we were all in with our current surplus and how might that impact the budget line. thank you and i i did share some numbers with dr mackery from other districts for what they're coming in at with percentage increases um and dr mackery has more updated information so we're making copies of that just so that we can so we have to take a look derg d to share with you which we are but then we have surrounding towns so i'm going to i'll give you derg d um but then if you have a question about another surrounding town um superintendent's recommended budget a lot of districts have the boe voted as well so I can let you know if you're curious about like I said they may not be in our derg but it may be
132a surrounding town you can ask me I have it's a big huge it's the whole state And Dr. Macri, on the last page of that all-town packet, the average superintendent's budget was 5.18% increase. And so far, for what we have, the average Board of Ed budget was 4.92%. And we have about 5 or 6, 5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah, there wasn't a number for that. There's probably 25 districts. They're all right around 4 to 5, I'd say. All right, Mr. Brough, I'll do some quick math for me. If we went with the partnership plan at 23.71, I don't know if you can do this. He's ready for it. Are you kidding? I'll try. What would our percentage increase be if we took all your recommendations off the first page? Just so we
133can think about getting a little bit closer to that average. What would that look like at 23? I don't know how much it saves us from the 28%. Actually. you practice this already we practice this game today right mr butwell yes um i'm sorry were you just asking me what's the change if we went from down if we use the partnership plan yeah it's um it would be 6.5 okay oh so for the record mr heisman wants us to know that he gets 6.5 percent we legit talked about this today we were laughing in mr butwell's defense i don't think he knew what question i was asking him oh it was already on there if we were our brains are fried mrs cantwell has a question and she has to leave so i'm going to
134let her go first and then i'll get to you i'm sorry go ahead laurie so i fully support keeping the two rbt positions i just that number that you just gave does that include keeping the two rbt positions or is that without them that number was only for this change to the partnership plan it didn't include actually any other cuts if we just went to the partnership plan it would bring our increased um well actually we would have to add in a few items below that so so this includes rvt positions yes Okay includes everything else that okay. I should I should clarify although the first line Regarding the medical insurance change brings us to six point five the second and third line which add money back into the budget are sort of requirements because
135they're things that we have to address so It would be fair to say If we went to partnership, we would be at six point six eight Without any cuts to anything. Without any other cuts. Getting the four positions, the four new positions. Everything. Everything underneath the one. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. All right. That's what I, I just want to go on record before I have to go. I want, I really support the two RBT positions. I don't want us to cut those. Thank you, Lori. Before Lori goes, is there any, Lori, is there anything else that you feel strongly about? I just want to hear your opinion before you take off. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Zabrowski. Let's see how well you guys practice this. Okay. You need to give us a minute. I'm just going
136to. So I'm hearing from both you, Dr. Macri, and from you, Lori. I'm going to pull out the special ed wallet again and say as a special education educator, our BTs I think are higher on the list, and you two clearly feel that way. And when I looked at the positions, because I was the one, the first one who said last time, I'm not keen on adding positions in this current budget state. Sounds like the RBT's might be might be a place where I need to be a little more flexible on that. And certainly considering health and safety and also considering that they may actually be beneficial in helping us keep some students within our district as opposed to, you know, because we can truly help affect some behaviors that way. So with that in
137mind, Mr. Butwell. If we're looking at right now, if we did the partnership, there's a lot of ifs here, but if the unions go in favor of the partnership, we're looking at an increase of 6.68. And that's if we add nothing else, correct? If we add back in the two RBTs. their salaries and benefits. What does that do? No, see, you're reading it wrong. Oh, that's with them. That's with everything. So you want to take out everything but the RBTs. Yeah, so take out everything but the RBTs. Right. So if you went down to the line where it says CMS, sorry, CMS, CMS music instruments. Yes. At that point, it's 5.82 increase. Yep. If you stop there, everything below that line would remain. Okay. Everything above that line would be removed. And again, this can
138also have a menu feel. So, you know, if there's things that you wanted to keep. So if we kept the two RBTs with their salaries and benefits considered and we changed to the partnership, then we are actually looking at 5.82? Correct. Okay. I gave you some other options at the back so you understand. number 22 we separated it a little bit because we talked about okay we have the reserve funds right so I had spoken to you about well what if we use 85 000 for capital outlay right of that reserve fund the surplus is what we're calling it that could be another place I also did give you options if you which I highly suggest you don't even uh number 22 on the list that's um let's say you said to me okay out
139of that out of the reserve you ends a pay for everything to get done out of that reserve and then we could take $85,000 out of the budget which then would bring us to what Chris I know you have to calculate this so if we keep everything in We take everything out. Let's say we're at the 5.82, right, Chris? And then we use $85,000 of our reserve. What would that make us? Well, you would take the 5.82, and then if you look in the percent of budget for the capital outlay, that's 0.21% of the budget. So you just would do some subtraction, and that would be 5.61. 5.61. Okay. So let's say we take that. It's 5.61. Aren't you guys so proud of us? We're going to be a traveling team. No, this is helpful.
140I know. We knew he would be. We were like, we're going to get a gold star from Steve tonight. Tell us what you have on 23-24. I don't understand those two lines. Okay. So then if you said to me, Enzo, we need to go deeper, which I highly suggest you absolutely do not. But you're the board and you make this decision. I do have one certified position right now that we can lose through attrition. It will increase class sizes, but very minimally. Like I'm talking very, very minimally. Right now though, with what I'm seeing at the elementary level, as small as our classes are, we are still struggling because our students need so much support. However, we could, through attrition, cut and still have class size at ECS. between 16 and 19. Right now we're
141looking at more between 13 and 17. And then I could go deeper with one other, but it would have to be a real cut because right now I don't have another person for attrition. No one's resigned or left or anything yet, which we can then increase class sizes to be a little bit bigger. We've never had class sizes this small. If you ask me, in my opinion, besides the... the wonderfulness of the teacher the If you can have class sizes much smaller at the younger ages We are gonna be able to do so much more right now. We are really struggling So I highly encourage that we don't touch that and we be one of the districts that says we're okay with 12 13 and 14 kids in first and kindergarten in first grade That's
142my suggestion, but I wanted to show you where we would have to go if we were to get cut anymore this would be like the next place and then the other Line is I gave you the rest we gave you the rest of the money after we take out what we need for the track The field whatever the heck we're paying for I can't even remember now track right? The rest of that is three hundred and eleven thousand three hundred fifty three dollars which equates to point seven seven so if you said to me Take all this money and spend it all and decrease the budget then you would do what Chris just said take your five point six one minus point seven seven and That's what you get and that's what you guys would
143vote on Hold on one second. Mrs. Russ is my right. Chris, Mrs. Russ is first and then Miss Maddie. But just can you just say 23 would be attrition. 24 would not be as out as of today. And people, teachers who are out on leave do have until April 1st to make a decision. So there could possibly be more attrition or, you know, people. Or retirement. Retirement. No, no more retirements because, well, I don't, it could happen. But usually if you do it before January, you get. $2,000, a bonus. Or you go somewhere else, right? You get another job and we can move things around. And can you just remind me, what schools would these two be at and then what would the class size changes? I know you just said it, but I didn't
144write it down. It's okay. My suggestion would be, for one, would be at ECS. And it would be up to Mrs. Dettuno and Mrs. Weiskel. working with Mrs. O'Leary and with Ms. Talmott and looking at the needs of our students because the class sizes right now, moving from K to 1, we have 96 kids and we have 7 teachers. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, yes. So we could cut that to 6 teachers and then that would make your class size about 16 to 19. in grade one because they're moving to grade one. You see what I'm saying? And then grade one, our class sizes right now are between 16 and 17-ish, 15 and 17-ish. So then if we were to cut there, that's 112 students and divide that by six, right? What
145do you get? 112 divided by six is, that would be the highest that, sorry, 112 divided by six. I can't even do math right now in my head. I need calculating. So so we're talking about class size about between 18 and 19, which is not horrendous however With everything changing I'd want to try something different Because everything else that we're doing is not necessarily working with the behaviors in the earlier grades The Arbiteeth could help with that as well. Right. This is not anything that is off the plate. I think if we get cut more, we will have to go here. And I think it's up to you to make that decision. I'm just giving you my advice as far as what I've seen over the last 33 years. I had a class size of
14625, 26, 33. And if we ever had 33 kids in a classroom in elementary, it would be, you couldn't run the classroom. It would be, it would be. It's just there's so many needs, right? So times have changed. I'm not a genius, but rocket science, it doesn't take rocket science to know that if you have a classroom of 12 or 13 students who are struggling, I hate the word behaviorally. It's manifesting in behavior. It will be much easier if you have less students. It's just common sense. I am not saying by any means. That because there is still data out there and to support research to support that it doesn't matter of the size of the class depending on the demographics of the of the students however Remember we're talking about students with special needs.
147That's where I'm coming from The area of students with special needs and what we're going through our kids are going through our staff is going through Mrs. Russ and then mrs. Maddie okay um so the line 25 that surplus you remove the track the 311 is what you would put back into use as part of the budget is that correct the 311 353 hold on one sec so is that correct correct yep okay so that and the 85 283 you already have um that line 22 you already have where you could use that No, it's not. They removed it. Yeah, 25 was written as if you had already theoretically used line 22. Yep. But if you put those two together, that's the total amount available. Okay. So you could also combine their percentages to see
148that it would be 0.98% decrease. Okay. All right, I have some thoughts on the budget. I don't know if now is the time to share. I'm willing to add back the RBTs if we remove everything else, including making the adjustments for lines 22 through 25. So I am willing to, if we remove line items 4 through 17. from the budget which gets us down to the 5.82 percent correct keep in the two RBTs make the adjustment for the capital outlay on line 22 so that would be another 21 percent reduction which is 5.61 the adjustments for the certified positions one and two which is 0.18 and 0.15 reduced out and then the surplus of 0.77 so reduce that out to lower our percentage increase that would bring us to 4.51 okay miss manny please make
149sure your mic's on tell me what i'm missing here and i'm going to start with totally opposed to cutting teachers to cutting teachers attrition is one thing but to cutting teachers I am totally opposed to that but I do want to say I'm missing something here if last year the town of Cromwell accepted a budget increase of six point six one percent Is that true? Why are we trying to meet this at, what am I missing? 5.5 or even 4.2. Why are we trying to meet that when we know that we have... that you all have moved heaven and earth to get better insurance quotes so that we won't get destroyed by 52% which would certainly obligate us to probably eliminate teachers and why are we doing that when 6% 6.61% to me seems pretty
150decent and I have no kids in the system. I have no dogs in this fight. And I'd pay anything to see those little adorables that I see here every time I come have the best education and especially the kids with special needs. Now, having said that, was I awake when someone said at the last meeting or the meeting before how desperately you needed these math coaches? Have we forgotten what our scores were? Wasn't it math? Yeah, not great. Like, help. So why would we want to eliminate any of that? Now, I haven't looked specifically at, you know, career center furniture. Okay, that doesn't involve kids to me, but who knows. But why would we want to eliminate any of those? Specialists, math coach. You know, we've got a new building. We probably need the custodians
151and all the rest of it. I don't understand it. I mean, I thought we were going to have to come up with, I thought we were going to look good if we were saying that the increase with the increased insurance was going to get us to 25%. And then we were going to really have to, do you see what I'm saying? Am I out to lunch on this because I'm new or you all think I'm independently wealthy, which I am not? I have to remind you all I'm on a teacher's pension that is so tiny I don't get Social Security but finally did and all of a sudden I thought I was rich and my brother laughed hysterically but it was a comfort level for me because I was getting so little I you know
152I retired 10 years ago so all right someone speak to me Not you. I agree with you that you're out to lunch. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I love you, Donna. Standing ovation from the crowd. Just saying. Donna, my response is pretty simple. Donna, as an educator, I applaud you. I'm with you. As someone who has been elected by my peers to help monitor the impact on their personal taxes, that's where you have to be able to meld the two. And that's really our role, right? So everything that you said, I 100% agree with. But we also have to be mindful of what we're going to do to the taxpayer in this process as well. I have to say the first thing when I told one of my friends, a little older than I
153am, that I was running, who lives at Covenant, said, you know, Donna, you also have to be aware that now as a board member, you have to be aware of what it costs to live in this town. I said, you don't have to tell me. I've been here a long time. And I have to say that I have never complained about taxes because I thought that. We were doing well, especially in comparison to other towns. Now, as again, I'm going to say, I'm not independently wealthy. I have saved my money. I would have liked to have gone on one or two more vacations. But truth is, there's nothing more important to me than your kids who are in this system, your kids who are in this system, and who deserve the kind of education that
154I was so lucky to get in Orange, Connecticut. And my parents were almost at poverty level. So I just think that I thought if we could stay at 6% anywhere in there, I thought that was good. And now you guys want to go down farther than that when it's been such a tough, tough year. I just emailed to everybody what I got from CABE because I think it's helpful for us to see what our peer communities are doing. Dr. Macri gave us a handout. I got some numbers from... districts through CABE and they're hovering on average around 4-5%. I mean they're lower than what we passed last year and that's the political pressure I think that we are under. Also the 6% was not an easy sell at all. So I think we have to
155just put the political context in there and I'll let Catherine respond to that. Also I mean we have been a lot of people have been on this board for a while fully supportive. adding we adding in and supporting Dr. Macri and the plan to change the structure of the curriculum with a lot of coaches and we've been doing that through the years and we've been supportive and we had a lot of pushback from people in the community saying why are you doing this enough is enough and we said no we believe in in her and what and what the district has and store for us then we went back to the town and said okay well we know that we've been asking for these increases every year and you've begrudgingly given them to us but
156now we want you to build us a new school. And we want more money because we want a new school belt. Oh, by the way, we want to expand some of the things that aren't covered underneath. the reimbursement grant and everything. So we have asked for a lot from this town and so we are trying to be fiscally responsible this year because we also know that the town is going to get hit pretty hard with expenses. I sit in the board of finance meetings. I hear what they're going through. I hear what they're talking about and the also the other piece of it is that they have carved out and helped us with things like the track and the the group that Steve is a part of is super helpful for our district as a
157whole so we're just trying to be good thank you be good stewards of this but we have gone back we've asked a lot out of the town pretty much um since we started coming out of covid so we're trying to give a little bit back you don't want to leave this Half done the you've asked for coaches in the past There seems to be still a need for some of these things obviously for the RBTs I'm just saying it is not outrageous Look at Shelton. They're asking there's this 11.4% North Haven, a wonderful school system, is almost 10%. I mean, we're not even anywhere near East Lyme. I mean, we're not, like, out of sight. But I do understand what you're saying. And yet, I have to say, having had three kids in the system,
158that these schools, and I'll start with ECS. One of my friends from church, when he found out I was running, said, so maybe they'll talk about. Building a new ECS and I said I doubt it after CMS, but I mean there are people he has no children in the school system There are people who still feel I mean we needed that new school badly I applaud those people who went through that project, but I Just I don't know I guess I guess living the way I do where I live seeing my HOA is going up and seeing what the money is going to. And when we finally have a little bit of a surplus, no one gives it back to us. They simply put it into capital expenditures for what we're going to have to
159pay for in the future. And I know that's totally different than what's going on here. But I didn't think 6% was outrageous. And believe me, I wish I were paying far less in tax. But for schools, for my kids... I'm just going to... So that's all I have to say. I won't speak unless I really have to. And then I'd like to pull up. So Donna, I want to first say I'm the superintendent of schools. My job is really not to be concerned with taxes here, right? My job is to be concerned about that's your job and the Board of Finance and everybody else. My job is to tell you what I believe our students need in order to succeed. over the last seven years, I've said we need this, we need this, we need
160this. Everything that we got made us move the needle in so many different directions. I'm not taking full credit. It's a whole team of people. And so everything that you're saying in theory is 100% true, except for the fact that we have developed a relationship, a collaborative relationship with the Board of Finance and the Town Council and the mayor and the town manager. especially with CNR, Capital Non-Reoccurring Projects, where nothing was getting done. And they put their best foot forward and said, we are going to change the way we do things so that things can get done in this town because things are falling apart. And we're going to absorb. That into our budget instead of having you observe that into the the district's budget So as much as I agree with you, it's this
161of course I'm gonna say well, I want that I want everything I want everything on this list. It wouldn't be on this list if I didn't want everything on this list However, I also believe that our collaboration and the way we have been working together with the town to get everything that needs to get done is only getting done because we are we are working together now if you were saying if I was coming to and saying I have to cut 20 teachers I would not be saying this, but because I'm coming to you and saying, okay, can we wait a little longer? This may happen in the future. Do I feel like we need it right now? Of course I do. Do I feel like we need other things and this town needs other
162things and I feel like everyone has been really reasonable and cooperated with each other? I would say 100% that has happened. So you're not crazy and everything you're saying makes complete sense. I think the history of it is where... is very important to know and and and with telling you that we were moving in the right direction as a district so I'd like to just if board members wouldn't mind so Mrs. Russ gave her thoughts I'd like to just go around get people's temperature so that we can I don't know if we can vote today without the insurance but I think we need to get into a better direction so Mr. Heisman would you mind sharing your thoughts So I tend to agree with Catherine. The only thing I would say is I don't support
163cutting 23 and 24. I'd like to see those two positions remain, and that would put us at 4.84%. Mr. Zabrowski? I'm on board with both RBTs, and I would be on board with 23 and 24. Keeping or cutting. Keeping or cutting. keeping on the condition that the surplus is put back into the budget is applied to the budget mrs. Cantwell just like I already said the two RBTs I mean I am in favor I mean I hear what Donna's saying I feel like the math coach we need the math coach I'm torn on it if I had to pick I would The two RBT's are the most I would say the need for them is it's greatest for what we're experiencing So but if possible, I would like to see us be able to keep
164the math coach in there, too Are you in favor of taking our entire surplus and putting it back into the budget? That scares the heck out of me personally because I'm afraid if we have some unintended expenses We don't have that to lean back on so that's scary to me. I agree. I think I could get on board with the proposal To put $85,000 into it, I think that shows good faith, but I'm afraid to put it all in. Mr. Schuman? I would use all the surplus. I would put all the surplus in. I think we, you know, we owe it to the town. I'd keep some of the RVTs. I think we could do that in some of the positions. And I'd let that, the certified position, the one that's retiring or attrition, I'd
165let that go. And I'd keep the other one. But, so, I think we've got to get it done under five. you want your so your goal is under five under five i don't know that that gets us under five but maybe close it's pretty close yeah okay mrs uh catherine uh russ it's hard to remember people's last name with looking at the certified positions and the math coaches um which is more higher priority which one the math coaches or the two certified positions That's a loaded question. I get it. I know that the teachers... Well, that's what I'm saying. That's why I made that comment to Don. I hope you all know I'm doing it respectfully. This is my job, right? I'm always going to be true to who I am. So we are seeing
166such... We're making such movement in English language arts. with the model that we're using. We have a new math program that's coming into effect. We need that support. I also feel strongly about not cutting people. Can we cut a position through attrition and have a reasonable number of a class size? Yes, we can. however I am conflicted with some of the behavioral situations that we are dealing with so I am conflicted if you ask me to keep to decide between the two of them I'm going to tell you to keep both why wouldn't I um but that's because because they are equally as important my concern is that I need we need to move we have a math program that's coming in our teachers need that support But they also are struggling with some of
167the behaviors at that level too. So it is very, it's a very close tie. If I had to make a decision right now, I would say cut the position through attrition and put in a math coach so that we could make, continue to make the movement with the people that know how to do it because we've shown you that we know how to do it and we can and we have. This did not come lightly. I want you to know that. As I was making these cuts, it's like torture. But you asked my opinion, and that's what I feel right now at this moment because it's so neck and neck. But because we have someone, it's through attrition. We're not losing any positions. I don't want anybody to lose a job. And I think we
168have reasonable numbers. That we should be okay with the one cup and having more support for math because we absolutely that's you need it we need it our kids need it just for clarification so you know we don't have teachers knocking down our doors attrition doesn't mean where anyone's losing a job it just means that someone's retiring and we're not and we're not going to sell that i'm just making sure i'm stating that for the record it's no one would be that to be clear okay so catherine just wants to restate because i think there was some confusion about those two numbers and then i'll go to mrs camo yeah i don't want any any teachers laid up um the this teacher positions 23 and 24. it was one is one is yeah and one
169is a true we is a cut would be a cut would be a cut as of today that could change oh yeah no not as of today it's like i don't want a cut i would like an attrition yes you would get one attrition we have never recommended a never no and i would never do so thank you for the clarification what al said basically keep Keep one. Cut 23, keep 24. Cut 23, keep 24. Mrs. Cantwell. OK, I'm sorry. I have to go. But yeah, I would say use the surplus. Well, if we could get the math coach and the two RVTs, I don't know. I'm not hearing much support for the math coach from. I heard four people speak against the coaches, so I don't know that that would be on the table
170if we kept the whole surplus, if we took the whole surplus out. I'm still not sure we could get that to go. Oh, I didn't know that people were against the depth. Okay. One, two. Against the math coach? I didn't hear support from, just not, nobody's against any of it, unfortunately. Yeah, but I didn't hear anybody arguing. strongly to keep that. I just, you know, the scores, I'm thinking about the scores. And then a year from now, if we're looking at the scores and they're not what we want them to be, are we going to be saying, you know, maybe. Don't blame Carrie. Truly. You know, so, I don't know. That's it. Mrs. Maddy, are you good? I think we heard your perspective. Donna, you've got to put your mic on or no one can
171hear you. I am. I'm just wondering, and I was here for the discussion about windscreens, but I'm sure that went out with the wind, and I realized they're just not big items money-wise. So why would you go after those? However, the math specialist, wait a minute, the K2 math specialist salary is a big one. Now that one is one we would hire for. Is that true? We'd hire for that. But we don't really know what those benefits are until we find out. Yeah, okay. So, I mean, you could save some money there. I don't want to see all of the surplus money gone as well, but I thought Chris said that at the end of the day, it was going to be $336,000. Isn't that what we were talking about, that that was the surplus
172number? It looked like it was $500,000, but you said, no, we already spent $200,000, correct? Right. There was an amount for the track. Okay. So in essence, it would be all gone if we used $85,000 and obviously $311,000, correct? Correct, yep. Okay. You know, as much as I'm a person who saves for a rainy day. I'm still more concerned about these kids who need, and especially at the elementary school level. Anyone have grandchildren like me? Three of them in a room. Three of them in a room. If you tried to instruct them, they're all boys. I mean, it would be impossible. You need to have all those incredible schools, Scandinavian schools. They have one-on-one instruction. Am I not right about this? This is what I've been reading. When they have people with behavioral problems, they
173have one-on-one instruction. You've got to save those kids early. Okay. So I'm going to weigh in with where I think we should go. Okay. I would agree, considering all that we've heard, that the RBT positions are vital, and I appreciate that that's the perspective of the paraprofessional union that spoke tonight. I'm okay with losing a position to attrition given the low class size that we currently have. I think it's pretty reasonable. We still maintain reasonable class sizes. I do not want to cut an existing position. However, if we had two people leaving for attrition, I might think differently. And I am not in favor of using 100% of our surplus. It scares me to have no rainy day fund at all given... We don't know what's going to come our way, and I don't want
174us to have to go back to the town and be in a position where we're making requests that may or may not get granted. So I would be okay with a portion of the surplus, but not all of the surplus. So I was okay with the $85,000. I'd maybe even be okay with going a little bit higher, but it scares me to see it all go. I still think we'd come in with a pretty reasonable increase if we... landed there and maybe Mr. Bowell can tell me what that would look like but I still think it'd be pretty good if we if we kept half of the surplus and gave half of the surplus back and I actually think that would show incredible goodwill to the board of finance into the town if we gave
175them half of the savings it's actually common practice in the state when you retain when you have a surplus that you retain half and you give half back actually it was interesting that was one of the strategies that anthem was suggesting to us is you make you keep half and give back half So that would be where I would like to land. I think some of these other things are so small. I'm hoping we can do them this year. I think it's crazy that we're cutting $2,000. We would cut $2,000 in art supplies if we can find that money potentially this year. I'd like to see us be able to spend some money this year. I know the golf cart has been a topic of great discussion. These aren't huge expenses, so if we can
176figure out how to pay for them now, if we are doing well, continue to do well this year, I would like us to consider doing that. But otherwise, I'd be okay with taking them out this year. I don't disagree that our math scores need some support. I just, if you have to prioritize that or the RBTs, I would pick the RBTs. Matt wants to say something. Why are you smirking? I don't like that. Because I just keep thinking that this is all dependent on us winding up going with the partnership. Can I ask you guys to at least give, so that we can come back prepared on Tuesday night, because we're probably going to need another board meeting on the 24th, just to give you an idea. Can you decide together of the absolutes so
177that we can put together two more scenarios, right? Tell us the absolutes that you feel like, okay, we are not, we want these gone. and the ones, the absolutes that you absolutely want us to keep, and then the ones you're not sure. We'll keep them in, and we'll do the same thing. I think you're hearing from the majority of us as I took this quick poll. I think the majority would be okay with removing lines 4 through 17. So remove 4 through 17. You guys are – I'm doing this. Okay, right? Okay. I have a revision. What? Come on, I'm trying really hard to take notes and see where everyone stands. No, I appreciate it, but I've been playing with the numbers over here, and I want to see if I can ask Chris to
178help me out with the numbers to make sure that my math came out right. You already checked it? Am I right? Okay. Ask Mr. Butwell. He's the paid mathematician here. I'm going to throw this out. I'm just going to throw this out and see if I did the correct math, okay? If I didn't do it correctly, you can't tell my son because I'm harping on about his math work right now. All right, let's go with this. If we, this is just an if, if we go down to line 17, right, and we start there, we keep both RBTs and their salaries. And then we add in the math coach, both math coaches. That's 0.24% each, correct? Correct, yes. That's salaries and benefits totaling 0.24 each. Correct. Okay. Get rid of line 22. We give up
179line 23 to attrition. We keep line 24. And then it would mean putting the whole surplus in on line 25. I came up with an overall increase of 5.29. Which I, considering the value that we're getting from all those positions, I could live with that. But that does go against. That does go against Alicia's wanting to keep the whole part of the surplus. And Alicia, I apologize for that. But we could play with that number still. I'm so sorry, Matt. Do a quick. Here's the summary. Ready? Yes, please. Both math coaches, both RBTs. Okay. Keep them. Give up the one position to attrition. Keep the other one. Put the whole surplus that we're sitting on. I know you don't like that. That's why I said it. Put the whole surplus back in. And we're at
1805.29. Which I don't think is unreasonable and I think we're getting value for those positions No, no, I'm including them and don't don't forget our paid mathematician has a 396 thousand dollar surplus projected for the end of the year. Oh shush. Oh, but I don't know that's I Would I be willing I would be willing to hear what that how that number would change if assuming I'm right Tell me I'm right. Please tell me. I need a win today. That's a good point, though. That might change my perspective on the use of the surplus for this year. That might help me there. Out of curiosity, even if we only put half the surplus in, how would that – I have it right now at 5.29, given all the factors I just described. If instead of
181taking the whole surplus, we only put half back in, I'd be curious to know what that number is, and that's not math that I can do in my head. I know you can. I know you can. But also, can we remember, both the math positions were not the same. One was a coach for teachers. One was a person to work with students. So let's be clear on which. You want both? No, that's not how Carrie described it though. There's one position that works with students more than others right? Yes, but they both are Support capacity. I don't want I just don't want anybody to walk away thinking that but one is primarily to support one is primarily instruction or instruction at the secondary level, which is where our scores are struggling the most and the
182other is at the elementary level to oversee intervention which we don't have which we and also to help support the implementation of the math program that's going in K through 2 next year okay we're all gonna be quiet and let Chris finish his math Can you just ask a question well, I'll Chris is finishing his math. Mr. Schuman. Repeat it one more time. What you just wait. Matt, can you go? So can we both go over? Yeah, I don't need to be on. No, because Mr. Schuman has a question. Yeah, it's for Dr. Mack. Yeah. Just on the end of teachers, you talk about you do the math. You have X number of students divided by a number of teachers. Do you always do it that way or can you make classes of different sizes?
183You know, the kids that might need more assistance is a class of 10 and a class of, do you do, then a class of 20. I mean, something of that nature. At the elementary level, it's best practice at every level. But some will disagree with me strongly on this one, so I'll keep it at the elementary level. It's best practice to have maybe three or four students who have very. They need they have a lot more help right and then so that you're not overwhelming that teacher with all of them if There's been times in history where you said you can never have more than 50% of your classroom Be students with special needs so there's laws around that So we would never do that. We would keep it as equal as we possibly could
184in every classroom with students who need to have special needs. Now, do we look at their needs and how we could group students so that teachers can, yes, we do that all the time. But that's a great question. That would be called not having least restrictive environment, which is against the law, if we put too many students with special needs in one room without regular ed peers. to keep everything pretty and we do that through tiered intervention and coaching okay i'm afraid we're going to spend the entire time redoing numbers That was really nice. Just one comment. Oh, good. The sheet that Chris passed out. You emailed and then Chris passed it out. I put it into Excel. This averages out to 5.25%. Okay. Just so everyone knows. Okay. And that was just so everybody
185knows that in the email it describes where that came from. So that was numbers from CABE. And if I was to give you everything I had, we're in good shape. I have 10.9 I know you guys don't want to but I do have to share it with you Cheshire 8.83 Derg B Colchester 10.47 cutting 20 teachers Columbia 7.35 East Granby 6.40 I'm giving you the high ones now we have some low ones too right we have East Hartford 1.9 they get a ton of grant money franklin 5.84 uh greenwich 4.43 groton 7.70 633 board voted on so i have this huge i'm not allowed to share i could share this spreadsheet with you chris chris and i have to figure out how to just share this spreadsheet with you without sharing it's in a google
186doc that we all have access to um so if if you're looking at if you're looking across the state we're in great shape putnam superintendent 6.93 but the board went up to 7.23 um you know we have 11.44 at Shelton and then we have you know we have a 3.92 in Weston and we have 3.20 in District 11, and we have some people who can't even make a decision because they're going to have to cut so much staff that they can't even have that discussion yet. So we are definitely in a good place. Mr. Butler, I just have one more question for you. Sure. As we look at your budget projections for this year, help me feel better about this surplus issue. So Steve's pointing out that in the report you gave us tonight, it
187looks like... We're at 396,000. How comfortable are you that that number will sustain? I know it's early, and I know I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball. It's too early. With Special Ed especially, we're too early. Yeah, I wouldn't count on more than half of it. I wouldn't, yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't count on more than half. Yeah. It's not 7,000 like it was two years ago. Right. I haven't. That's that's really important for us to talk about. We have not frozen this year's budget or last year's budget. That's huge. All the other budgets have been frozen by like October, November. To be fair, Chris, I'm trying. Why don't let hold on. Well, I was supposed to answer my question, but everybody else answered it. He should he should answer your question and then
188he should tell you what we talked about over there and what the number is. That's fine. But can you answer my question first, please? Sure. I would say I feel. Fairly confident about that number because of the following reasons which are the areas which there is money sitting in one area is the certified salary line and the reason there's money sitting in there is because there is a Usually a large pretty large amount of money budgeted for things like long-term subs and people who are on maternity leave now this year hasn't been There have we haven't utilized that a lot this year so that money for long-term subs is still there. I've already spoken to Lori and we kind of know from here till June what people going on to leave looks like. There may
189be still a few surprises, but we're getting close. So I feel confident that a lot of that money is still going to be there come the end of the year. That's one thing. The other thing is our reimbursement for excess costs and also that we get a reimbursement from Harford for choice students who receive special ed services here in Cromwell. We get reimbursed by Harford for those costs. It looks like the amount that we submitted for, particularly for the Harford reimbursement, is a good amount higher than how we budgeted. for this current budget. So it's more than we were anticipating. So that could bring us additional money that we weren't anticipating. And that's sort of the... the catch-22 with the budget situation is the reimbursements you just don't really know what's going to happen the
190state regarding the excess cost is also projecting that we're going to be reimbursed at about a 70 percent rate and we we budgeted lower than that for this year what we thought our reimbursement was going to be so those numbers like our tuition line if you notice it's pretty healthy and that's because we're we're projecting what our reimbursements will be so is that a hundred percent no but we're going to be close like It could be lower, but it's going to be close. Okay. That's very helpful and makes me feel better. So I will revise my perspective. I'm sorry. You want me to spend it all? I don't, you know, I'm, I'm very conservative. I'm very conservative, but I will revise my position, which is then I still think we remove the four through 17.
191Keep the. Teacher that is not retiring that is not through attrition I'd just like to keep you guys let me keep $50,000 in this account There's a wild card in all of this Seeing our requests for the year. So where do we stand? Do we have any idea where we stand with this right now? Sorry. Oh, Claudio's here. As far as the meeting that Claudio went to on March. He was like, I don't even want. He can't sit still for five seconds or we're killing this guy. What happened? Can you explain what happened at the March 5th meeting regarding, you know, the CNR? Yeah, town council, that meeting. Town council, that was that meeting on March. Sorry, I remember the date. At the town council meeting, the town council discussed moving forward with all the
192ones except the dust collection system here at the high school and to reduce the phone to 50,000 rather than 180,000 and none of the priority twos. And totaled came out I think around 466,000. Do you need that dust collection system? And do we need to figure out how to pay for that? Well, it works. It just doesn't work very well. So... I'm going to look at it a different way to address it since we don't have the funding. I had asked for $26,000 to really go through the system, clean all the ductwork, and see what we can do about the actual filters without replacing the filters. I reached out to a company to see what it would cost to replace the entire dust collection system, and it was $248,000. I'm trying to figure out a
193way where I can improve the system without replacing it. Excuse me? How confident are you with the ability to do that? Fair enough. It's a toss-up. The one known. It's a special system. It's not something that you see every day, you work with every day. And it's from 1979. So it's the actual original system that was there. So we're going to do the best we can to at least improve the drawing to see if the ductwork is packed, and then we'll take it from there. Let's go outside for a jog. The dust will come off you. I did. I didn't mean to. Okay. Mr. Heisman, does that answer your question on CNR? Are you good with CNR now? Are we good? Do we need to budget anything in here? That's helpful, Steve. I mean, we're
194talking $22,000. So I think Chris is gonna buy a new dust collector this year and a golf cart Yeah, you drive on the golf cart the dust will come off. Can I can I please go back and reiterate? I think we have two two options then that we are oh you want Yes, we have a number from what we talked about before so Chris can do the run okay, so I just wanted to make a note before I do the rundown that One thing to consider which is a which is a good thing is line two here on this sheet I did put in the amount remember this was sort of like an FYI. I put in the amount for the Connecticut partnership dental plan Just so you could see what that cost would be
195But if you refer to like page two on the 28% if we stayed with our self-insured dental costs There's a lesser increase About half as much so that would actually reduce that line by 0.04 if we were to stay self-insured rather than go to the partnership dental plan so i just wanted to put that in there um so matt and i spoke about um keeping in the math specialist and math coach um removing everything between sorry lines uh line removing line 8 through 17 keeping in the two rbd rbt positions removing the removing line 22 removing line 23 keeping line 24 and then removing the rest of the surplus and that came out to 5.1 and then if we put half the surplus in that would bring us up to 5.48 Okay, so for our
196next meeting, this is what I'm going to ask you to do because it's almost 10 o'clock, guys, and we're just going in circles. I'm hearing, see, Alan's alarm's going off too. He's ready. It's time for bed. I would ask you, I am pretty confident that we will get some good feedback from this presentation from our employees about the partnership plan, so I think you can stick with the first page. I'd be surprised if they completely rejected that option. Can you do Can you draw this up one is Matt's version and one is Matt's version without the two the two math positions and it for me just because it will make me happy could you do one that shows a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the surplus staying in just that rainy day fund I
197worry about a couple more kids that need extensive special ed services and we can't fund them and one with us giving it Putting it all back into the budget. Okay, so just just to clarify Matt's Matt's version with and without the math positions. Yes, please and then and both of those with one of them with keeping the 150,000 in the surplus keep 150 in and take whatever else. Oh, yeah Yep, and one would take in it all out So there's four there's four versions that we would that I think we would like to see because that's what I heard mostly from folks Yes, Alan's nodding. So I think we're in a good place. I got it. Thank you. Yes All right, thank you. Mr. Boutwell my pleasure. Okay. We still have rest of a meeting
198to go through We're not done. We have one scheduled for the 24th. Okay, we will schedule one. Okay, let's try to get this done as fast as possible. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm tired. I hope you guys are tired too. Okay. No one can leave either because we have no quorum if you all leave so you're all stuck here. Okay. Discussion and possible action. Establishing a personnel search committee for the superintendent search process. I would like to get a motion. I will just give you quick background. Spoke with Jessica Ritter. In order to move forward with our superintendent search process, we need to appoint or form a personnel search committee. Our recommendation is that the Board of Education members serve as a personnel search committee. that will allow us to have personnel conversations without entering
199into a formal publicly noticed meeting and it will allow us to have confidential conversations as well michelle demauro has already reached out and we have i think five proposals from com from um companies that manage help me what is it called uh searches searches but with the executive Okay, but I think there's a name for them but whatever Yes caves one of the five So I would like to be able to share all of those with all of you and start moving along on that process But we need to first form a personnel search committee So could somebody please make a motion that we form a personnel search committee that is made up of the members of the current board director of Board of Education Thank you Thank you all in favor. Aye Thank you.
200Opposed? Abstentions? Phew. Okay. I'm trying. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Auditor's feedback. So I just want to quickly tell you about this. The Board of Finance asked Sharon DeVoe to send us an email because they want an explanation about the auditor's feedback. I don't feel comfortable giving the Board of Finance an explanation until I give an explanation of what we've been doing to you. So Mr. Bowell and I talked, and you have an explanation that we're going to give to the Board of Finance, but I wanted you to see it first. Are you okay with it? Dr. Macri, I think it's more of a response than an explanation. Yeah, I'm sorry, response, yes. So let's say yes, we are okay with it. And can we reserve the right after we've read it and reviewed the recommendations
201to ask any other follow-up questions? And also let the Board of Finance know, who are wonderful. I'm sure they just sat. But if they want something, it needs to come through you to us. It should go through Catherine as the liaison to the Board of Finance. So that we could then. I don't want to ever. We don't want to do anything without you knowing. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. So everybody's good with that. We're going to move on. Approval of BOE minutes and motions as part of the CMS building committee that is in your packet reference A. May I please have a motion by Mrs. Russ, seconded by Mr. Zabrowski. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Excellent. Approval in minutes, motions February 24th. Thank you, Mrs. Russ. Is there a second? Second, Ms.
202Maddy. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Approval of out-of-state senior trip to Washington, D.C. How cool that they are going. Motion by Mrs. Russ. Second by Mrs. Maddy. All in favor? Okay. Stipend approval. Reference D. Is there a motion? Thank you, Mrs. Russ. Is there a second? Somebody second. Mr. Schumann. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Yep. Steve's reading something. Steve's moved on. He's watching TV. He's watching Saturday Night Live. Okay. There is a human resource personnel activity report, which is reference E in your packet. The principal's reports are in your packets. Reference F, G, H, and I. Policy committee report we met tonight. We did a whole ton of policies. It was fantastic. It was a riveting meeting, and we had great discussion. And we moved a bunch of policies forward. So thank you,
203Dr. McLean, for your hard work. And Lori Cantwell for chairing that committee. Facilities and Technology Committee. Reference J in your packet. And I think most of what we talked about, Mr. Heisman already briefed us. Undertown collaborations. Topics for future agenda is listed here. Unless anyone has any additions. Comments, updates, announcements from board members and administrators. Mr. Heisman, now you have to talk. Report of liaisons from Town Council Board of Finance and Town Collaboration. Updates should Facilities Committee be up there? I think that's under Town Collaboration. Yeah, I don't care either way. Let's put it under Town Collaboration. All right. But that's why you did it tonight. Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to move it forward. Yep. That's where it will be. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Zabrowski? No, I'm on Board Comments, Updates, and Announcements
204from Board Members. Do you have any? Oh God. All good. Thank you. Thank you for everyone's work tonight. All right. I don't have any. Mr. Schumann. I went to the ECS WIS science fair. I love that. It was a great, that was a lot of fun. A lot less sugar this year than previous ones, but good event. Great event. Miss Maddie. Okay. Oh, I have one. Portrait of a graduate is tomorrow. Mr. Kuckel said we can come if we would like to come. 12 o'clock. Come to the main office. They'll direct us to classrooms. So it's a really really cool thing that they do on its seniors that talk about their Senior projects. Nope seniors high school seniors presenting projects 12 noon go to the main office Very it's really cool. Thank you for letting
205us come Okay, I would ask for a motion to adjourn and a huge. Thank you motion. Mr. Mrs. Ross. Mr