001that might as I mentioned too professional learning support that's where There's no cost2 approximately. [Music] Does it look like it? Thank you, Rachel. Rachel, you had three more minutes, Rachel. [Laughter] Thank you. So, I'm going to be addressing [Music] maintain. So you can You'll see the door library books purchasing new [Music] material [Music] support years ago. [Music] 50%. Those are very costly access. Those are [Music] Any questions on specifics? I also just want to point out looking to English language arts programs. We know basically [Music] John specific skills class balance programs maintain power. Our We are special. [Music] Thank you. Everyone, I'm from the middle school. Um, I don't even know if I'm going to make 10 minutes because to be perfectly honest with you, my budget is, if you look on page 10, um,
002my budget is down 32.5% in operation. So, it's a very lean lean machine budget here and honestly I come to you really with uh three requests and it's in the area of a librarian. It's a stipen, two stipen requests. Um there are three line items on page 11 where there are decreases and it's the same thing that happened in all the other schools. PD moved to curriculum, textbooks moved to curriculum. We're actually in a good place with textbooks in our school. So, we're not asking for many. We have the textbooks that we need. And then in terms of instructional equipment, we got creative with what we had and the band instruments. We're looking to see if we can maybe work on something in a three-year plan um for our band instruments. When it comes to
003what the increases are, they coincide with our major initiatives. So, you'll see that there's a request to add a librarian. That's our first initiative. We're looking, we have a beautiful library. Um, you know, research shows that libraries should be the literary hub of your school. Reading achievement increases with a librarian. So, that's really where all of my effort is going is to um add that increase. The second is uh the second and third are stipen requests. We were able to get our new schedule approved at the last board meeting. Yay. And with that, we are looking to add team leaders to our school. So, there's that stipen request that's been added. It will add structure. It'll add accountability and it'll add a leadership team level to our school. And then the other stipen we're asking
004is to really add some structure to our drama department much like the high school did as well. Um the stipens would be put in the operational budget for the technical director, the choreographer, the producer. All of which has has not been as allocated um structurally like it could be in the budget. And then one added addition is our budget neutral schedule. Um, and that's where the PD would come in where we would do some work around implementing our new schedule. So, that's really what I have for you from the middle school. Does anybody have any questions? I have a quick question. Um, excuse me. Um, with the restructuring of the high school department chairs, was there a um I'm just trying to remember this. Is there department were the department chairs 612 or do you
005have department chairs? So, we were given uh content area leaders and I'd like to shift that to team leaders. So, that's what I'm saying. So, you have so you have some of those leaders. So you're not you're renaming them and kind of reassigning them, right? And you'll need you'll need um six team lead. Would you have a leader for each team? So we'd need six plus one for unified arts. Okay. And currently So you would absorb three. We have three content leaders. So we'd absorb that and then ask for the four other stipens. Okay. And then but we would also still because you know our our initiative in doing that is that we want to get the 612 continuum. So by taking that out we wouldn't be jeopardizing that. They would still have some kind
006of connection to the department chairs right so that we can get that 612 continuum and team leaders could facilitate that as well. Yep. So good. Thank you. [Music] Department ask you, was that supposed to work, speaker, because it's it's uh it's it's It's difficult. So I ask you if you talk speak up. Did you hear what he said? No. Oh, sorry. Got turned off there. So, we're working to um put the middle school and the high school in the same start and end time. And that'll allow us to have greater coordination of the leaders, the team leaders that Sylvia is talking about and the department chairs at the high school also provide some greater opportunity to have flexible staffing. So, we might have some teachers that teach at both schools. Um and right now, if
007there's two different start times and end times, it's difficult to have shared staff. So, getting this two schools on the same coordination creates more efficiencies for the district. Anyone else questions for Silia? Thank you. Thank you, Silia. [Music] Okay, the high school, [Music] Anthony, and Stephanie. Okay, I don't have a tremendous amount to tell you tonight, but I will be able to use the full 60 minutes I've been allotted. The uh the first You have two or three from each of the other schools. The the first thing I wanted to say is that I always bring Stephanie with me as the assistant principal because we're a team and it's a it's a not only symbolic but uh we work together. We work with the staff to put this stuff together. I think it's important to
008just to acknowledge that and they you know the poor elementary principles don't have somebody to rely on and I'm very lucky to have her. the um first page that uh that I have here with the budget overview. I just want to point out that we uh the operational budget is down uh uh substantially this year at about um 20%. And the way this works, people get worried when you see numbers like that is, you know, what are you getting rid of? Uh and and I think it's just that we are becoming more efficient in how we we put our budget together at the high school. Uh we've always you I've always used as an administrator 16 years a zerobased budgeting. I know the whole school has district has been uh working through that. So anything
009that the teachers asked for I put in the budget. So there's nothing in here that I said no that's not worth doing uh because I want to support the teachers of what they do with the kids. So, um please don't be uh worried when you see this like that that negative and we are talking about 2 1,000th of a percent of our overall operating budget that I have any control over. Uh but that's okay because what what I tell the staff and we joke around about the phrase I use is for your notebooks. uh and and what what I tell people is if we do the small things right uh in other we go through the process properly for these numbers uh people will trust us more when we ask for something or we have
010a big issue to deal with. So we we do the same process that we did the whole district last year uh at the high school same as the other schools and what the teachers asked for I thought was all reasonable and and we put it in. So, if we go to the next slide, please, what you'll see is some changes. Like the middle school, we are going to be funding our musical uh and our play uh through the operating budget like we hadn't done in the past. We were using the proceeds from the uh the sale of tickets to fund certain elements of that shows we're trying to be more supportive of all of our students and all of the activities that they participated. Um that's 4.9. the PD. We we've moved all over to
011the to the curriculum uh line items. Everything that the teachers asked for related to PD, I put in the budget. I thought everything was appropriate. There was no boondoggles to Las Vegas or anything like that. It was all, you know, related to what we're going to be doing moving forward next year with instruction, how we make use of the time in the school. Uh student activities down 66%. That's okay because again, this is everything the teachers asked for. I went and looked at this year's operating actuals and we've spent zero. Uh and and so I don't know if last year they overbudgeted or not, but I'm very comfortable with the numbers that we're putting in here. Uh repair of instructional equipment. This is mostly for the band. I don't know it when the last time
012the marching band uniforms have been dry cleananed, but I can tell just by walking down the hallway that they're due. So that's in there. We have also taken care of a lot of our instruments that we own. We tend to own some of the larger brass instruments like tubas, euphoniums, things like that. So, we're going to get all those things taken care of. Transportation is also down. Again, looking at this year, we're the kids are allowed to go places. I did just put a couple things through today, but they're not they're not don't seem to be using the money that was budgeted for this year. So, I'm not concerned about the reduction of 47%. And then finally, testing and scoring is up because our friends at the College Board have raised the cost of providing
013the SATs and the PSATs. But and that that's basically it. Um, and so if we go to the next slide, anything that we're doing next year, which I think is some majorly important work, is costing you guys nothing. All right, it's going to be You're welcome. But it's going to it's going to produce tremendous results for our kids. And so it's a win-win for everyone. We are moving to a block schedule that the the our own uh teachers formed a committee. We visited schools from across uh two schools. Uh we did a tremendous amount of research. We need to make you figure out how to use that time efficiently and effectively. We're starting with the PD this spring. We're going to be rolling that over into the fall. Um we're not hiring a consultant to
014come in and lecture people. We're going to use authentic professional development bringing teachers in from other schools that are teaching on the block. If you're a science teacher, you're going to meet with the science teacher that actually is teaching on the block and learn how to how the good things about it, the bad things that I don't want to tell anybody and they didn't tell us, but you need to know the reality of of of what you're getting into so you can perhaps move around some of the pitfalls that other people have already experienced. Uh that type of PD is incredibly useful because the teachers are going to find it to be, you know, real. It's not some uh you know brainiac uh coming in for $5,000 and telling them everything that uh they they
015think is is good about the block. So ed camp model putting things together where teachers can pick. I want I want to go and do some work on learning about how to use that time to build an assessment. Uh you don't always have to use a paper and pencil test to assess kids learning. we have this quality block of time and I and trust me parents and staff and some people in the community might be concerned about the block. Uh we're going to be teaching everybody about it, how we're going to use it. It's gonna I think it's going to be a great I told the staff it's a canvas upon which we're going to paint our masterpiece and I truly believe that that's it's going to be incredibly important for our development as a
016int as a institution of learning. Uh developing a career center an internship program community partnerships as part of our strategic operating plan. Um we currently have a teacher position open one FTE that we could not fill this year in the area of uh consumer technical education. and I used to call it industrial arts can't fill it. We would like to do is take that FTE position that's not an addition to the uh uh uh budget and turn that into some sort of coordinator position to run this these types of programs. Hire try to hire somebody if we can to teach the the accounting classes or business classes that might uh if we go internally. Um perhaps we end up hiring somebody from outside. I don't know yet. But uh to get this program actually running,
017we've had some meetings uh with Seymour and maybe uh what we can do with partnering with them. Uh and so there's some some good things, but we we need to to make use of we need somebody to run it. Uh she's busy, you know, running the school and I'm busy, you know, uh shaking hands, kissing babies, and things like that. So, uh we need we need the help. Uh finally, uh this will allow us to maybe change our our capstone program. So we could do in say say you're not interested in going to college and you know that uh and so the capstone project of research and presentation might be not be something that's going to be valuable to you but an internship or a way to to start developing a license for if you
018want to get into a trade that might be something that that kids will actually use and and be useful to them. So why put them through the process of a capstone if we can do something that's going to benefit their their you know real life as they move out of the high school. So it's all connected. Uh we talk about unifying everything we do as well. That's going to cost you nothing too but make huge dividends for how how we move forward and we've started these processes. Um so that's that's what I have and we're certainly open to any questions. I want to emphasize that the work that um Anony's referring to for the internship is a major component of the strategic job burning um plan. So I want to thank him and Stephanie for
019bringing that forward because there's a direct connection to the work that we um brought forward in the SOP. So thank you. I have a quick question. [Music] Um know if it's year one or year two. We went to um the capstone um where we have a a a company or software or something that is helping guide the kids through that. So that would be So now it sounds like they'll have more than one track. So if you want to do the internship or the you know community partnership you could do that but we're not getting rid of that. Do you like that that program? I really haven't heard that much about it or I think we're we're going to consider phasing that out over time. Okay. And I'd like to do take short steps rather
020than one giant leap. I've talked about the great leap forward for many people and the disaster that was in China but in the 19 58 to 62. But the the idea would be maybe we shift from um classes for capstone to what it used to be like and then we use these programs and maybe we have a class for the students who uh maybe they don't have the executive functioning skills or the um persistence that they'll need to get all the elements completed outside of uh you know on their own and we maybe we only one run one section of capstone as a class and then what that does is opens up for our seniors chance to take electives and the arts or in the sciences or whatever that they they currently can't do because
021they're taking a capstone class the first semester of their senior year. So, we're trying to make options available for the kids as much as we can. Now, capstone, what is the requirements? I mean, it's not a NEAS, is it? It's a statewide graduation requirement. There would be some form of a capstone or an internship that a student does. So we have to meet that standard. But you're it sounds like we're talking you're meeting more students needs in what they're interested in because correct. Right. And we we feel that providing students some great opportunity from an internship program could um motivate students to really invest in something that is is personally interested and give them some experiences that will help them college or or not if they're not going to college or trade school or directly
022to a profession right from high school. Um, as a reminder, this is something that was a huge part of the SOP. We are planning on bringing our recommendation to the curriculum committee in the spring of how we want to involve this. This is the second year of the capstone, the way that um, it evolved. So, last year we implemented it. Um, this is the first year that Stephanie and Anthony have seen it in full operation at the high school. Um, the leadership of it changed slightly. We had different um, teachers that um, ran it last year as opposed to this year. Um, we're still evaluating it. Um, I think that there are some really good capstone projects the students did. Um, but I want to give the administration a chance to kind of evaluate it.
023We just did the capstone presentations on Friday last week. So, they need to kind of debrief and figure out, okay, what worked and what what do I want to keep and what what elements of it should be phased out or transferred into an internship program for next year. So I have planned for them to come to curriculum committee sometime this spring to make a recommendations on how they would like to see this evolve. And I just appreciate that you are looking at your students and you know finding pathways for you know not just one pathway but pathways for kids uh you know according to their interests because that's the only way that they're going to invest in something and put the time and the energy in it because it means something to them. So thank
024you. Just just to clarify uh quickly, you asked about the program that we um capstone isn't a new concept, a new unfunded state mandate over the last few years and and it kept getting postponed. So that's why Oxford only had to develop it in the last couple years. So schools have the state tells us we have to do a capstone pro program, but we don't have to abide by any certain rules. The state developed this online platform to make it more accessible for schools who really couldn't pick up the steam to do it. So, our teachers have been through that online platform twice. We have initial information that we don't need that online platform anymore. I don't even know how much that costs, but it's not it's a savings, not huge. Um, so that part's
025good. Um, but also, you know, the whole point is for students to explore their own interest and maybe they find out they don't like it, which is such a better experience in high school than when we're all paying for them to go to college or whatever they pick next. So, um, yeah, we're really excited and and you've heard me talk about in the past about our capstone being uh, student centered and our career and internships. So, you will see we're we're almost done. Our students are making a video for you to so you can see a capstone presentation and their work on student le internship highlighting our school and the opportunities we have for our kids. So again and I'll tell you when to bring the popcorn for that one. I thank you on behalf
026of Vic who's not here tonight. You know how that is important to him that career and uh and internship program. So he'll be very happy with you. Tell him he can call me tomorrow to thank us. I will. Does anybody else have questions for high school? Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Now I'm gonna invite um Dorothia for the quicks that the pages are a little bit further ahead than the slideshow has but she's gonna be next. So now you have everybody's budget in your budget. I do. I do. I think um and it helps us bring us more as a community kind of see all the professional learning and things going through one area. What page are you? Page 25. Page 25. Thank you for coming. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Is that good?
027Okay. So, um as many of the principles have mentioned, the professional learning is being absorbed um into one kind of a bucket. Um uh so it's all there. Nobody's losing professional learning. It's just in coming out of one area. Now, um the other increase that you would see is for the professional supplies. I know it looks like a scary number, 361%, it's actually $5,000 um as we are bridging um K5 and 68 with math. We have a math task force and we're uh finding ways to um to merge the mathematical community within the district and that would cover some of the supplies and things that we would be would be be doing next year. And um for the new textbooks, the increase in the textbooks are the music textbooks that uh were approved for the
028new courses and the decodable texts. Um going back to the professional learning um as you heard from K5 the um it's go we're going to be spending a lot of time on literacy literacy literacy literacy and decodables and really streamlining and having a very solid comprehensive program at the start of the school year. So um so there will be a lot of work there. That's that's pretty much it. question. I do. Um on curric on the professional development, we've been hearing from the staff that this is something that um they always feel like it's not funded enough. Um and we've always said tell us what you want and we'll fund it. So I'm hoping that whatever they've asked for is included in this and that we're following through with some of the requests the staff
029has made. It is. We spent actually. So that's interesting. So we spent with PDK. We wrote a new mission and a vision. And um they were tasked the PDC members were tasked to go out and speak with um people from their school. So it's not an administrator talking to a teacher, it's a teacher talking to a teacher to get some information uh from them. And um we're going to outline all of next year uh before the end of this year. So and that'll be something that we share with everyone. Thank you. Anybody else? All set. Thank you so much for being here today. We're now going to go to special education, Megan. [Music] Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Megan Penowski. I'm the director of special education. Page 19. 19. Thank you. Oh yes. Sorry. Um, so
030looking at the budget, um, Mark, I'm actually gonna have you explain the the top one because there is it says an increase and a decrease. Yeah. [Music] So that's the Okay. Um, so we do have the school psychologist vacancy that has been open since the summer. We continue to post. We still have not had any applicants. So in the meantime to support the need of students. Um, we have hired a social worker to fill in the two spaces at the high school and Great Oak Elementary to to do the service needs of students. Um, so that is that uh variance there. Um in terms of the increase of the speech and behavioral assistance support um we did add a BCBA to the budget um to support increased student behavior across the building. So we are
031seeing a large increase of behavior in students. Um behavior in which we do have to restrain students um and that's becoming a problem across the board. Um it's not just unique here in Oxford. It's happening you know across the state. Um but if we could have the BCBA in district they would be able to um obviously have you know the more people and hands- on deck the better but they'll be able to build um plans train better for those plans. Um with one BCBA it's hard to train all the teachers and assistants on the plan of the student. Um and it also would provide us um a way for the BCBA to help in the classroom to help prevent some of these behaviors from happening and escalating um before they get to special education. So
032helping with the tiered one supports as well. Um we had a decrease in legal services. We do have a student that had a previous settlement agreement that is graduating this year. So that um supported um that decrease. Um we do have an increase in professional uh services. So again, one of the things that we are seeing is an increase in behavioral need for students and we have seen an increase of the need for psychiatric um and neurosychological exam um and evaluations outside of the district. So we've um put in the budget to make sure that we have enough um just in terms of some context, we've had four in the last two months that have had to happen. Um and this is really going to inform kind of the decision-m we make for the student
033and make sure you know everybody including staff are safe. um and students are getting the programming that they need. Um in terms of indistrict transportation, there was a decrease um because we do have the C van up and running. Um so we're able to do all the transportation to and from um home through the C van and then they do all of the job site transportation as well. So you'll see an increase in the transportation for fuel because obviously it's kind of shifted a little bit. We don't need the transportation but we need the fuel to have them. um they've also been um supporting us too with some of our other students that require either shortened days um or a different schedule. They're kind of doing the runs for that too. So, it's been really
034beneficial in terms of again the fuel is um an increase just due to increased fuel costs. Um and our out of district transportation um it's just the additional cost from outside providers. Um as you know, transportation costs some money and they have an increase as well. Um so we're seeing that. And then our out of district placement to our rests which are our regional educational service centers. Um they we have about five students outplaced currently and that's just um considering the increased tuition costs which are typically lower than private placements. Um and then our private placement there is a slight decrease. We did have a student graduating. we have only one student going into a program as well as um we did kind of you know of a student that may need to go into
035outplacement program but we also had a student move in midyear um that had to go to an outplacement as well in terms of initiatives um just making sure that we are supporting that increased behavior um we know that performance for students um doesn't increase if they're having behavioral issues um they're not ready to learn if they're um impacted by what's kind of going on. So, we want to really focus on supporting that um with the additional BCBA and working with the social worker. Um our next one is our specialized programs are up and running. So, we have um obviously C for our 18 to 22-year-old students which just got an approved curriculum. So, they'll be working on a specific curriculum which is great. Um but we want to start looking into curricular opportunities for our
036other specialized programs that align to their their types of needs. So it would be obviously common core aligned um but it would kind of modify assignments and work to support their level of need. Um so our students with autism um our students with developmental disabilities and again just the the increased need of um outside evaluators. Um unfortunately uh neurosykes and psychiatric evaluations are not something we can do in district. Um and then we have a really great structured literacy program. Um, but we want to just kind of continue to focus on that and maximize what we have with our district supports. So, we have a lot of teachers trained. We have some really highly um, qualified professionals, but making sure that we're utilizing them in the best way to support the most students. So, that's
037another initiative that we'll focus on. I know I have 20 minutes, so if there's any questions. Um, I have one question from Shellyley. Uh and she said, you know, if the social worker is replacing, well, maybe you can just further explain how um the social worker I I believe if I understand it, is helping with the um counseling part of the school psychologist, but so how are you doing as far as the educational testing that psychologists have to do? So currently we have a school psychologist that is split between two buildings and they're doing the management of the PPTs at those buildings as well as the testing. And you're right, the social worker is doing the counseling supports that are on IEPs. Right. Ultimately, you know, it would be best to have a school psychologist
038in every building. So we'll continue to look for one, but right now this is meeting the needs of all of the students and then we're also getting the testing. If it comes to a point where there's too much testing going on, we can utilize some of our other school sites if needed to do an evaluation at another school. As a reminder, we posted for a school psychologist in August when our school psychologist left the district. Um, we were unable to get any applicants over the course of four months. Um, for the greater part of the fall, we were one of 14 districts that had um, school psychologists posted. It's a shortage area. Um so some through some creative um thinking from special education, we decided that the best opportunity to support the student needs that
039we had right now would be to to split the school psychologist and hire a second social work to split between the two different schools. Best case scenario, a school psychologist school. Um but after going four months of having zero applicants for the position that included um posting in our um applic um the state um special education system and indeed um we were still not getting any applicants um for the position. So we had to look at another creative way to support student needs. [Music] How many? We have one currently for the whole district. [Music] We have RBTs that are assigned to us. So, we're actually kind of working um we're working on that too because that hasn't been the most consistent either. Um but we do work with a company to have the RBTs, which
040are registered behavior technicians that do the implementation of plans, but the BCBA has to do the evaluation and the formulation of the plans and should be do they're doing the staff training as well. through through June 2021, we had two BCBAs um full-time in the district. Yes, correct. We do still have an ind district um technician um both um right now and then we contract for one. Yeah. Currently, right? [Music] I don't I don't think so. Um it would depend on student need. that's really how we determine the RBTs. Um, and we're also kind of looking for ways to grow um our internal capacity to to do that. So, we're kind of looking and exploring different ways to do that with our pair of professionals as well. Um, but right now, I don't I think
041we would be okay. Um, but again, it's based on student need, but you know, sometimes we're looking at I would prefer maybe trying that before an out of district placement. So, we are looking for different creative ways to support students too. I'm speaking to teachers and I have conversations with the building um leadership um across the schools. The concern of student behavior comes up time and time again. It was a heavy conversation last year. It was a heavy conversation this fall. And by providing an additional BCBA to the district allows that us to get into the classrooms, look at proactive ways to address student behaviors before they become disruptive. and disruptive students in classrooms interrupt students ability to learn and teachers ability to teach the students in their room and having just one in the
042district is not sufficient for that. So really the concept of ha having another BCBA came through conversations that we had with teachers of requests and them seeing an increase in student behaviors across the board. So this really did stem from conversations of of requests that teachers are saying we need help in this area. Whatever. Do you think that there obviously want to promote country. So having more people is one thing to make clear sometimes. So, does that need to change or do you think that's I mean I I definitely think we could take a look at it. I I do think some of the kids that are experiencing these needs, it's more of an organic need and something that we could put rules in place, but it's more of the disability that's kind of impacting.
043So, aside from that, um I do know [Music] Yeah. And I do think, you know, looking again at the um social emotional curriculum um and making sure that we're implementing that. I know at Quaker Farms, we have one of our teachers in one of those grade levels that are seeing the impact and our social workers now going into those classrooms doing specific lessons that we have through everyday speech um with those groups of students. So, I think we're looking at alternative ways to start it and and build it from that tier one in that classroom um so that we can have the support. And that's the hope of the BCBA too is to not just be working with our special education students but helping teachers with inclass strategies um when these behaviors happen. School has
044missing the school site. So currently another [Music] Megan, I I think our numbers have significantly jumped in sped. Do you have them with you or I know in the beginning of the school year we had a bunch of kids that moved into town and we kind of got the middle school we had like 20s something kids that moved in the 30 right there some huge amount right before school. So out of those I mean sped k where are we with our numbers? tomorrow. We are seeing increase in numbers again. But I will get Okay, let's move to facilities now. Facilities. page 28. Let me introduce Mike um for the board of finance. Mike um joined us in November. Mike is our new chief operations officer. operation. I'd like to [Music] ask that story. I'm sorry.
045Okay, great. Sorry. Uh, so high school% increase right now. We only have 70% from the rest of the school year. So that we had a 15% increase in [Music] supply. So we crashed a little bit. For the variances we have a 30% reduction facility restructuring of the operational [Music] position and it was a reduction right now. We've been identif So supply chain placeurch in advance questions. So initiates [Music] obviously. The second thing is [Music] concern as they as they pop upact. I have a I have a question. Um it's basically uh for the 300,000 that we might be that we it basically look like we're going to be on the on the hook for that's going under groundskeeping. Correct. So that increase would potentially this is the budget line the cost center that would take
046the hit. Do you know I mean uh I don't think we've in the past because we've done the high school but I don't think we've done the other fields. Do we have I mean I mean I think we're guesstimating at 300,000 but do we know if that's the amount or is it going to be higher lower? [Music] And the contracts that were signed, we didn't sign them because they were not of our responsibility. So, do they go out to bid again? [Music] I think they go out yearly. The the parker wreck field maintenance budget for the current year is 300,000 for this current year in this. So I would say hold your fire on that. We got to settle up who pays for what in all these contracts. Who pays for this school? Who pays
047for the contracts? Who pays for a lot of the services? Okay. uh whether it goes into the school budget or it goes into the town budget. Either way, the town's paying for everything anyway. Okay. So, the town has to reimburse the board of education. Um I think uh George got a little bit uh over skis today. So, let's hold off on as far as the the maintenance and go what you have in the budget here. Okay. I do have a lot of I've been holding back because this is a presentation for the board. Just just there's a a ton of questions, but we'll go till we we find a our we get our budget committee going and order finance. Everybody comes up, but I want to get continue. But don't worry about that 300,000 for
048now. Well, we we kind of I mean, not that we're directing to you, but we have to factor if it's if it's on the table and it's being presented that we are absorbing it to not put it in our budget and potentially present a a suppressed budget that then has to absorb. It's I look I know we're the 300,000. I'm very well aware of it. So if your budget comes in it's what do you have 34 million and you did have to take the field then your budget will be 34 million 300 okay that that'll tell you that. So don't worry about it tonight as far as the facilities go. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Mike? Thank you Mike. is on page 31. Starts in 31 and Jim is our IT coordinator. I
049can do so for you if you want. That's right. So, uh overall our increase is a four. Um and when I go through you'll see some of the big areas where there is uh software contract licensing uh 8.4% 4% is about your average increase for [Music] software 29.5 training for staff needed by cyber cyber computer repairs and supplies 91%. So 91% counts for Chromebook repairs. Uh essentially what we figured we would do is this is for free and reduced students uh and then the cost passed out. We found a company that kind of goes and internship initiative as well. We're going to try to leverage some of the high school students that are good or interested in learning how to do that. found a company that will uh take the insurance money, supply us with
050uh screens and keyboards, which are the two easiest parts to change out, and the kids can do that to start, and then as we get harder or they feel more comfortable doing those repairs, they can trackpad supply us with those. Um if there's bigger repairs, well, we can actually send them out to so it's kind of a win. Um, and the average cost per touch screen is going to be a little bit more than a non touch screen has all touch screens. Um, and it's and it's but it's still pretty reasonable. It's like $28 touch that cost by the parents. the numbers would uh for free and reduce were based off of this year with a little uh copy lease. We uh took out a little bit of money in the copier free due to
051the fact we're going to try to uh pinpoint where our copies pay a lot more when they come out of the printer than they do with copers. Um, so we're going to try to leverage a little bit more of the copier side and maybe adjust the color numbers as opposed [Music] to education and software maintenance is a slight increase. And we're doing a better job of what software is being used by the students software kind of tracks for us on the back side what is actually being used by each of the schools. So we have a good idea of what there are at least they sign and that's just a general purpose. Communications a 316% increase. So what we did with that is we added uh the phones uh the SIP lines for the four
052buildings including apartments which is what we use to make our phone calls over or in the general we move those into mine. Uh I'm doing most of the leg work on those lines anyways so it's just the other part is Quaker Farms is still using Frontier copper lines um found to be extremely hot. Uh we are in the process of now of moving them over to zip lines which should reduce that 316 probably way more. I just didn't want to uh right now drop all the frontier lines because we have elevator lines. We have fire alarm lines. We have all those essentials in there until we start to move some farms numbers over. I think we were paying for over 100 phone lines that whole high school. We actually called the number and pick up
053and get Paul Mirabel in say who is that on call. So uh so we hope to see that communication line come down uh possibly even before we actually go. So that's good there. And uh assisted technology hardware, we don't really see a lot of uh need for that. We don't get a lot of requests for them. We have stock of iPads. So, we just we still have a good like, you know, 10 15 in our closet. So, that just some of the major initiatives that we're we're going to be working on is telephone. Um, we're going to renegotiate copy lease and uh we're going to move the computer repairs to the student base program for repairs. Uh we are also probably going to be looking at digitizing uh some of the records that we have
054here. Um because school's getting over storage and we found a solution that will work for us pretty well. [Music] I have a question. Um, I don't hear too much anymore about um, smartboards. You know, that was a huge initiative like, you know, the the bulbs are a ton of money. You know, they're breaking down. Are are the use of chrome that that all kids have Chromebooks now? Does does that kind of decrease the use of the smartboards or smartboards still being used? Um, we are looking at using some of the funds that we've had in our account for a while to replace this, right? So, those next style smart TVs last longer than glows, right? So these are not protective based TVs. Okay. So they're economic a little more. Okay. Thank you. I mean, you
055know, years ago it just was so much money on and now it's not even in your budget. Yeah. All right. Luckily for farms the infrastructure is there for the board. We just have to kind of replace the board and upgrade. So Okay. Thank you. Oh. Yeah. And we're gonna try to send this down to the middle school as well. [Music] Yeah, we have [Music] he though, so that's good. As far as like the computer repairs and supplies, do you have the ongoing replacement cycle? Uh, we don't have actual cycle yet because of the way we have devices everywhere. We have more devices. [Music] just because of the way they put out, you know, it was that kind of throw a device. So, we don't have a really good handle on the cycle. Next year, we're
056okay. Uh none of our devices will go out of updates. So, we're okay for across the board, but we're going to want to start. Yeah. We just don't want to come into the situation, you know, six. Correct. Yeah. So, the hardest thing is try to find a new cycle. I've talked to some other districts that they've done where they get a new Chromebook like in sixth grade and ninth grade and they kind of keep that Chromebook out which is about the life of it. Then they drop those out. So, then you're only really two. So, we might look something like that. And the only other question not setting up all the schools are communications being all possible ways. They are. No, they are all our communications one so big took it from so wasn't there
057and then [Music] Frontier I mean we conservatively took out 8,000 but I think especially they only hold a couple things one more thing before too is desktop [Music] probably all of them on Windows 11. That's another big is that is that we have to know we're trying to work on that. I have a question u for the let's say we're calling it internships for the students doing repairs. Are we imagining that this is going to be after school or is it going to be like an internship type class during school that they could go to, you know, it's period three. I'm going to repair Chromebooks. That's actually what we do currently with uh with the one student that we have. He kind of comes whenever when he has a study that doesn't have work to
058do for he and he just walks right in. But beyond a study period is are we looking if let's say someone is doing an internship versus you know the capstone project is is that are we you know is this on for discussion or is maybe it's to you know okay [Music] well I'm I'm just excited for for that. I'm just curious because it, you know, kids going after school versus during the school day, you know, there's there's advantages to to both. So, I'm I'm excited to hear where this evolves. Yeah. and see where it was. We had things coming, you know, hey, we're wiring rewiring my house for and he was asking us question, which was interesting to me because that's a pretty big project somewhat easy, but also pretty big. I think the great
059[Music] Thank you, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Okay, I'm going to turn it over to Mark now. He's going to take us through central office and athletics and security and districtwide. So, why don't we go back to the top and we'll work our way through the ones we haven't talked about. So, let's go to page 16. Let's talk about districtwide. So, this covers a lot of uh a lot of area here. Um not much in the way of salaries. Um but I do uh and then again it's all you know the the uh medical you can see everything that's listed on page 16. So why don't we just go through the variances. So go to page 17. Uh by the way nm is non meaningful if anybody wants non meaningful. So we use that because you know
060if you anyway it's 0 divided by 64,000 gives you some crazy number. Okay. I I will say that when and you'll see this in my budget presentation in the budget book on Tuesday. One of our major initiatives in the budget are interns and we're putting interns one requesting one intern per building. Um one of the the major challenges that we have right now is lack of substitute teachers and right now we we did get a building substitute teacher in um three of our four schools. We would like it in all four of our schools. Um, but this would kind of replace the need for a permanent building sub because you end up having an a a student that has gone that is in school for an education degree. So, they can have um they have
061the capacity in the background to go into classroom and provide um substitute coverage directly into class. Uh it gives the principles a permanent person in their school that's qualified. Right now the challenge is if we don't have a a sub we're pulling our math coaches we're pulling our interventionists we're pulling our tutors in some cases we're pulling parers and in each of those cases what's happening is we're we're pulling services denying services either SRBI special education from students that if you look at it need the most ser most support in the district in the first place. So we are shortch changing our students because we don't have the substitute coverage. Providing intern kind of stabilizes that. Often times we have um special education teachers, teachers that have to attend SRBI meetings or a 504 or
062a PBT and we just need coverage for an hour or an hour and a half for a meeting. So this gives some flexibility for the principal to say to an intern, okay, here are five classes you're going to go into today to provide coverage or in some cases, this is the one teacher going to provide coverage for the full day. Um, and it gives us a high quality person in the in the school that the principles can depend upon. It is a model that we used to have in this district. A lot of school districts do on the intern model. Um, so it is a major request that we did put into this budget for next year. The next line you'll see is significant of course in our budget is the medical and dental. So
063you'll see it's actually a decrease of 1.2. Now I just want to point out that the decrease is 160. If we had stayed with the HP plan um our cost would have increased by 630 this year. So that's a swing of $800,000 by going with uh the United Healthcare plan versus HP. So I know a lot of work went into that and it hustled through to get it to the end. So I think a credit especially coming in from the outside and seeing that there's a credit to the board and to Dr. Bill for the vision to get that done. That's a big swing. Um so that's that was good news offset by of course utilities. Uh you know the good news there is uh Jim was out in front uh the town was out
064in front and got you know a really favorable rate. I think about seven cents a kilowatt hour. Um, I did find going through things that however want the middle school was missed, which is the biggest one of all. Um, I worked with Jim Quickly. So, we'll get a contract for that for only about 10 cents versus the street rate at 24 cents with Eversource. So, that's a nice recovery that's going to save us about 70,000 this year. Um, but going back to utilities, everything's up. Electricity, heating, fuel, propane. Um, our electricity supply contract expires in uh next December or so. I've kind of projected where we think we'll be. I hope we'll be better, but I think I'm being, you know, a little pessimistic there. But I did talk to Jim on that. Also, I'd
065like to see us get our propane and oil instead of just paying market go to a consorcia. So, I have a consortia that I've worked with when I was in Derby, and it's with the other uh school districts in the state. So, I'm going to try to work that out to save some significant money there, too. But right now, I think I have everything fairly priced. Uh the phones again that shifted to the IT budget so it's a complete savings of 50,000 um you know where we had money in there for communication so that's going to save uh Allstar uh we have a five-year contract with them that's coming to an end uh we met with the board uh board of finance decisions to move forth with Allstar with a 6% increase although it's it's
066a large increase um it's a lot I've seen anywhere talk to you know my fellow business management folks folks anywhere from 8 to 25% increase uh with transportation costs because they just can't get the drivers. So, you know, we're very fortunate here. Even if we were to go out to bid, you'd be probably paying at least 10 12%. The beauty of this is that, you know, um you're not going to get a company to come here and bid because we're so small. They don't want an Oxford, they want a New Haven, they want a Hartford or they want a Bridgeport. It's not worth for a new company to come in here. So, uh, anyway, um, you know, I have a pretty relationship with John Duour from Allstar. So, I talked with John. So, I think
067we're going to come up, we'll come up to a solution on that. So, although you might say, "Wow, it's going to be 6% and then 4% year-over-year." And we'll see if we can better that. We'll also see if they can throw a few little tidbits in the sweeten the pot. So, uh, I think a good news story with with that property liability, I just went whatever our broker said. So, that's an increase of 10% for property liability. Hot lunch program, that's a savings about 10,000. the new contract with Witson's is they guarantee no deficit. Okay. So, and I will tell you that that's uh and I've shared this with the um with the finance committee. Uh we're in a really good position. They've done a really nice job here. We're in the black by a
068lot. You talk to some of these other districts, they're in the red. Go to talk to Haven. Go talk to Stratford. They're running the red. We're running the black here by a lot. Uh so, they've done a good job. So, we can reduce that. We won't have a deficit. They'll take care of that with the contract. Um, I will say that, you know, the district office and instructional supplies, you know, I did talk to Dr. Miller. We decided that with everything else going on, we knew we had some other things we wanted to add in here. So, we're going to keep the the that budget the same. If you remember, we started the initiative last year. We're going to control that in a district-wide that'll allow us to probably save some costs. Um, I will
069say that we went out and asked all the schools and the departments to come up with the requests. We ended up taking about uh you know 96,000 or 3 we cut that by 36%. So we're going to have to live with with the supply budget as as we lived with it this year. professional services uh again huge you know a big increase of 325% but that gets offset by that's really Twin Lakes the company that I work for um that gets offset by the uh the assistant superintendent position that used to do part of the responsibility was business management uh with Mike coming in and with uh the facilities manager now becoming part of Mike's responsibility so when that all gets added up it's it's neutral so there's no addition so although you see any
070big increase here that decreases come out of salaries. So anyway, that's districtwide budget. Any questions there? Very good. And our initiatives for the year are going to be um we want to I want to really get, you know, the schools right now, the school activity funds are all controlled by the schools. I want to get that all under IV and under the general ledger. just provides better control for me um to see what's going on and it'll also alleviate some of the reporting issues we have at the school. Uh so anyway, that's although they've done a good job, they manage it down to the penny. They're very proactive when I call them. Um I want to bring that over to uh we're going to bring that over to IV. We'll probably do that to start
071no later than the start of the next fiscal year. Um we're also looking at transportation changes. Dr. Miller talked about getting the uh the hours to coincide. Not so sure what that's going to do. I've had two conversations with general manager Allstar right now. He's thinking about a little more, but we gota we'll we'll get together with him to talk about that. But that's an initiative for next year. And there's really no specific place to talk about this because it kind of floats through the entire district and that's how we hired staff this year. So I'm going to talk about it in the district by piece here. Um, and what I mean by that is when a teacher retires or or a secretary leaves or administer leaves or paraprofessional leaves, um, and you hire somebody
072that's new, um, just by the nature of where they're coming into the salary scale, um, if you strategically hire qualified people at um, less at a lower step because they have less experience, then you end up with a delta and you end up with the savings of the budget. um this year we ended with a delta that exceeded $600,000. So we did very well and I want to thank the principles for their hard work in hiring this summer because because of that delta our salary lines across the board um going into next year is pushed down by $600,000 because of the hiring practices that we did this year. So our net next year would have been $600,000 and more um had this um people been hired at around the same steps. So the work that
073was done this year put us in a very good financial position going to next year. And again just to add, you know, if you add that piece of it, so she took that 600,000 figure, everybody got two or 3%. That would have been 630,000 more you would have added to this year's budget. On top of that, you would have added probably another $500,000 for the medical. So, by being good stewards of, you know, the town's money, the taxpayers's money, I think you can all say, "Hey, you know, right now the budget we're going in with is $1.1 million less." That would have been on top of what we already asked. We would have been at 8%, not at 5% or 3%. So, uh, you know, a good job. And those are just the two items
074we looked into, but they're major items. So, uh, so there was good work done there. If there's no further questions, why don't we jump to the next section we haven't covered yet, which will start on page 23. And that I just combined central office security because they're pretty small budgets. Um there's only really two things that kind of pop when you look at it. If you go to page 24 on non-certified wages, again, you know, a little more being proactive. We did um we did take out uh we moved the uh former uh uh special ed secretary and we moved her over to central office. Um Marilyn's doing a really good job with the uh the district control districtwide supplies and and and uh office supplies. Uh so she's over on our on the uh
075she's in the central office staff now versus FedE. And then we also replaced a um an admin in the central office with a newer person. So again, the salary came down. So good news there is that's down 4%. As far as a building upkeep, this goes back to when we were at Tommy K's, I guess. So there was a $45,000. There was a lease a lease amount we had to pay. And then I guess from what Rob, you can explain more, but when we came here, we kept this here because we didn't know what the cost would be for this building. We are paying for all the utilities in this building. uh regardless of you know who's in it. Um and any upkeep we have to do leak here this leaks we take care of
076most of that too but it's minor and Mike has that in his um right in his original conversation when we moved here was that the costs were going to be split with the town. So we we've looked at this building and the estimate was going to be around $80 to $100,000 for the utilities and upkeep of this building. So, at the time we budgeted around $4550,000 in what was the building lease line for the um old central office in central office um budget in this this account here that stayed in last year, but as we looked at it, we're maintaining the cost for this building and other line items. So, we don't need to maintain a line item of 40,000 because it's being covered in in other areas of utilities and elsewhere. So, if there's
077no questions there, we'll jump to the last piece we haven't talked about yet. So, why don't you flip to page 3435. Uh Joe puts in a lot of hours and so does Damon. So, um Dr. Mill and I will cover the athletics piece. Um so, if you do go to to page 35, um I will say they did a very detailed job here. So, you'll see an increase of 16.5% for professional services for the high school. That's only because we had the filming services of this. It was in the supplies budget where it should not have been. It's a professional service. So, it's just moving one from the other. The money was already there. So, it just increases the supplies by a little bit. Um, and what that system does, it allows coaches to film
078the practices and the games and actually use that as you would in a typical college or pro team. Actually look at the film, analyze it with the players and use it to in um improve um practice and and game practices. So, um it's used on an everyday basis um in in a number of athletics and it's tied to the video systems in the gym and in the um the field. Next one you'll notice is equipment pairs and and maintenance and again it's it's a significant increase from this year's budget of 16 thou. It's increase of 16,000. So, but you know Joe has some very specific things that issues that are chronic issues that he wants to repair. So, uh, chain link fence repairs on the west side, uh, on the baseball and softball fields, installation
079of gates in the west side field for soccer balls that get kicked over. So, the balls get kicked over the fence and the kids have to jump over the fence. Not a good idea, right? So, we'll put a we'll put a gate in there. Uh, replacement of the Wolverine field scoreballs console. Again, those years are those things get tired. So, it's 10 years old. There's some malfunction during the past season. Embarrassing when you have home games. So, we'll fix that. And then the, uh, headsets for athletic events. Um, some of those are getting a little tired, so those need to get fixed. So, it all adds up, but I think Joe put together a pretty thoughtful budget here. As far as transportation goes, again, a couple of things come into play here for the high
080school. Um, one of the issues is that with the lack of drivers, uh, Allstar used to always cover all of our afterchool transportation. They just can't do that. So, they'll do what they can. Um but then Joe will have to go out to B&B or you know some of these other companies to get them. So not they are a little bit higher because they specialize a little bit. Um but Joe just goes out and gets where you know we can at the lowest price. So there's some additional cost and even those companies the cost of course going up because they can't find drivers. Um we did put additional cost for freshman boys basketball trips that wasn't in last year's budget. So um it's not a huge amount of money but there is increase in transfer
081case for the high school. Uh as far as supplies go, again we already talked about the uh video service system going into professional service where belong. Um we do need to add this Rogers mobility shoot and I guess from what I understand from Joe. It's a training device that helps the kids out to stay low. So the shoot whatever we have now is not quite great. So uh Joe wants to put that uh shoot into play. As far as the uniforms go, it's uh you know Joe has we have the rotation every year. We buy so many uniforms. So, uh, it's going to go up a little bit because we had to buy new football jerseys. Those get a little more expensive than, uh, some other sports. So, he needs a little bit more money
082there. Uh, dues and fees. We went through this. These are the right numbers. So, you know, the budget was a little understated before, but he has to pay all the CIA dues. They pay by sport. Um, so that has to be about 5,000. And then, um, thankfully, uh, with we've partnered with Derby. So although we aren't enough enough students to support a our own wrestling team, we can get with Derby and be in a co-op. And and I will add with that that if the cost were not here, we'd see a higher cost elsewhere in the budget because you'd be paying our a coach here at a higher rate than we'd be paying to co-op or collaborate. And I will say the derby coach who I know is very good. So that's good that they're
083they're in derby. Um, and as far as middle school goes, they had a couple little things there that again increased transportation costs. We did an exact count. David did a good job figuring out working with Joe, the number of trips. So, we were maybe a little bit under plus extra costs and then the dues and fees were overstated for the middle school for some reason. So, um, that, uh, so that kind of covers everything that's going on with athletics. And we have now gone through the entire budget book or budget book light. Um and then if you go to page three or pa yeah page three it gives a summary of the uh the total budget. So again um total ask you seen here is 34427822 increase of $1.5 million or 4.65%. There's some opportunities
084we're taking a look at. Um, and you know, those are those could up to $175,000. Uh, one of those was taking out $50,000, which was a rough estimate to cover the football field. So, again, let's see how that all settles out, but right now, uh, we're somewhere between 4.12 and a 4.65% increase. We started out at around eight. Dr. Miller said we worked it down. And again, remember too, if we didn't um take care of the medical and the um the you know, if the S we replace salaries with the same people that left the same rate, that would have been another 1.1. So that's kind of where we are as of as of tonight. If you flip to page the last page of the presentation, which is page 37, I just put in there
085uh uh we put in there rough timeline of where we are. So tonight obviously we're doing the budget workshop. Right now we're scheduled to meet with the board on the 24th and we'll have the budget book or as much as we can get in. Right. So if you could go to slide 37. Um what will happen is over the weekend I will put together and translate the presentation you see tonight and the budget you see tonight. There might be a few tweaks that we make to the actual budget tomorrow and we'll make and produce a budget book that our cabinet will review on Monday. I will then um upload that to board docs um on Monday late afternoon so that you'll have a chance to see that um for the board meeting on Tuesday night.
086I'll have a a slate presentation that kind of resummarizes what you heard tonight. Um we'll have the presentation and we'll have the budget book um in a three-wing binder. Um so that as we go through the budget process which will include the um at least um one or two or more um board finance committee meetings. So, if we have any changes or we tell you, okay, page five needs to come out. Here's a new page five. You don't have to reprint the entire um booklet. Um and then through the two meetings in February, there'll be opportunities in the first meeting of the month um for the board to discuss the budget. If there's any full group conversation around a general direction you want us to go, that first meeting will be able to do so.
087And then February 28th is when the board would um entertain a vote to approve the overall operating budget um for the um for the school district at which point we'll then submit it to the um board of finance for them to begin um their conversations and they will let us know when um they are ready for us to come and present to them and answer their questions. So, at this point, I see if there's any questions that you might have or if there's any um quick questions that the board of finance members have for us this evening while we're here. What I what I'd like to see on your this is like the presentation at the town, you know, we're still with the feather pen at the green eye shades. Our our computer is so
088far back, but anyway, I'd like to see the actual I'd like to see the actual on there for last year. The year ended uh June 30, 2022 because you've got a budget, you got your revised budget. Okay. And I'm assuming your re revised budget is at your board meetings you change budget items and is that how your your procedure goes to get your revised budget? If we make transfers, it's voted on and it's very formalized process. So it's within the within the your framework of your total budget balance, right? Yes. Do you have any clue how this year 2022 turned out? The audit is still on call. Oh, I know that the audit's on call because for one reason they can't reconcile the board of education with the town's budget. Okay. I'm gonna try to
089straighten that out for everybody tomorrow because we're too far advanced now. We get into the budget season. We don't know our actual general fund balance. Okay. But do you have a clue for last year? How did last year turn out? Plus or minus? Was it a plus or minus? All right. It's in the budget's up four and a half four 4%. Okay. And the town itself, everybody, and you allowed for inflation and a lot of your utility numbers and your insurance and everything because that's going to go up. Okay? There's no doubt about it. That's an automatic increase whether you did nothing, whether you had the same sal, same staff, everything. Okay? But again, the town and the people in the town, they're going to have their their electricity bills are going up, their insurance
090is going up, their their interest rates are going up. Okay? And it's going to be kind of tough to throw another uh tax increase on them. Although Oxford tax is low, it's very low compared to a lot of towns. Um, even that's our assessments aren't skyhigh on anybody's house. So, we got a low tax in town, but it's tough to say, okay, here, if I took this 4 and a.5% and our whole budget went up four and a half%. That would be difficult. Okay, that would be real difficult. And u I like though what you say that uh when you did the budget we had a big savings in here and it's only in government budgets that you can have a an increase and have a big savings. Reminds me of my wife. She says
091she doesn't go shopping anymore. She's saving money. But every day I could see FedEx uh I can see FedEx Prime and uh uh U and uh UPS coming in the driveway. So you know it's uh things like that. So anyway, I like you had a good presentation. Really, I like it. We we learn a lot and uh now we'll get down to the numbers and we'll be meeting up at our place. Probably last year we did it three or four times to get the final budget. It was tough and we has we didn't you didn't have any capital that much capital in here. Okay. And uh you had 250,000. you had I think just 300,000 of capital last year. So that that factors into the budget too the capital. So we were supposed to get
092this finance board was supposed to receive a million dollars of the ARPA funds but um somehow it got taken away from us. So I didn't we didn't have that. I was going to put the um some of the uh cost that you had in your capital budget against ARPA but that's lost. So if the committee ARPA does a lot of that for you, that's fine. Otherwise, we've got to pick it up in your budget and it's going to get costly. You good? Motion to adjurnn at 8:12. All right. Meeting done. Thank you. California, New York. Um, that's