001make you don't know yeah that's awesome awesome set okay okay guys I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6:31 p.m. uh let's do the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of allegiance to the flag the United States of America to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty Justice all right roll call we'll start with Joe Jo Tomi [Music] AKA Robert car mike Vella Steve K all right um do we have any amendments to the agenda okay heing none we'll move on to approval of minutes uh do we have a Mike do we have a motion for approval of the 2125 minutes so move all right discussion I just have one um change on audience citizens B has no person's name there so it was Jess forna on the second audience
002of citizens and that the first one yeah all right I think I can still edit all right um anything else all those in favor of approval I opposed abstain motion carries like to make a motion to approve the 2 1725 Board of Ed special meeting minutes uh discussion I'm sorry second sorry second any discussion on this one okay um all those in favor I I was opposed abstain and the motion carries any we have any board correspondence I did not receive anything now want C oh I'm sorry I skipped audience citizens I apologize uh do we have anybody for audience of citizens anyone for audience of citizens anyone for audience of citizens all right and we did board correspondence my apologies uh information items we do not have our student representatives does anybody have an
003update that's from them I do not I was thought they were not going to be here tonight I know I'm sorry to speak out I was just withy Rose and she said Justin was on his way okay well maybe we can come back sorry interrup Brandon okay sorry do anybody oppos to coming back to it when they get here you no um information items B fiscal year 23 24 annual Finance report sign sorry turn over and Howard in a moment I've always viewed the budget as a Visionary document a document that presents how we intend to spend the money the next fiscal year it's a set of goals set of Visions it's a road map um unfortunately the minute you start the fiscal year day one there always changes to that road map so how
004you end up spending the money is different than the actual budget process lays out the um months beforehand so what we envision creating this year was an annual financial report for the financial year the year before and having that come out around budget time which is now which can showcase to the board board of Finance the general Community how we actually spent the money from last year because it tells the story of what the finances look like so this is our first annual annual Finance report that we're presenting to the board and sharing with the community want to thank Howard for putting it together and I'm going let him walk you through um the document and then him answer any questions we have okay um just so we level set this is the UN audited
005the audit has not been finalized yet so I don't think there'll be changes but um so just start the exe I'll start the executive summary um the town allocated the Board of Education 33 million 9726262843 $288 when we get down to the expenses and the actual expenditures for the general fund we had $ 33,98927 637 back to the town and um in that number is the 499 that we put into the non-aps fund um that was a total expenditure represent represents about 99.9% of the taxpayer allocated funds were utilized last year there any questions on the breakout that I have there okay to page two this is just a visual representation as you can see the largest expenditures here are salaries employee benefits um being the two two biggest pieces making up about 60 70%
006of 73% of the uh the total um the next is the way I labeled was directed um direct educational expenditures which we go down further in when we get detail in further in the report and then professional Technical Services Public Utilities facilities and maintenance although we spent a lot of money last time on facilities and maintenance uh last year um it still only Rises to about 3% of the budget and then Athletics follows after that um salaries and detail administrators make up 99.8% of them at 1.8 1.9 million almost the largest is obviously teachers we have 167 of them and they make up 68.7% of the salaries budget 13.28% 2 28 million and then non-certified at 4.15 million at 21.5% for total salaries of 19 m265 th000 questions how many noncertified pair of professionals right
007now we have 40 um in the current year thank if we want we' have to go do you want custodians too and all that because I don't have them but I knew the you don't have that's I think it's on the next page at the top not certified staff 104 total yeah it's just not breaking it out if you want U with the special ed can we get a breakdown like we did last year of the number of students in each category okay and so all of these so if you make a sug what I would like is because this is our first time through this right so if you do have suggestions like other items that you would want on here for the next next time we do this um just please let me
008know because I'd like to add that and make the the report as robust as we can for for everything that you want to see and whatever the public wants to see as well yeah because I think in the past you had appendix of different things different towns and stuff like that I think since special ed is obviously a big Topic at the state in big level that uh a breakdown showing how many students are in what categories and how Pairs and stuff are assigned to different areas because uh that's a big part of the budget okay do you actually correct it was 44 so I apologize okay all right um so total 298 when we say 298 positions some of those are part-time so it's not full-time employees so I just want to make sure
009that clar clarification on that um there's if I do if we take it if we make cut put full-time employees I believe the number is in the 27374 um employee benefits obviously the largest there is medical dental vision 4.3 million pensions make up 74,000 interesting enough um we are still part of the Connecticut U Municipal Employees pension Union which charged right now this year is going to be 17% in the budget um and doing another analysis for one of the negotiations that we're in I noticed that there's a lot of towns have moved to a again this is more town but I just want to make you aware of it two move to a defined contribution plan away from a defined benefit plan and they're anywhere between 5 and 10% is what they're contributing so
010literally it would cut your budget by about seven 7 to 12% if you were able to get the town and to be able to move to a defined contribution plan versus being in the defined benefit plan that we are in so it's just a food for thought so that if you go back to the town you start talk to the town and town um the first selectman or the town of Finance Council it's something that you might want to think about except for all employees or only non uned it's only the no it's for all noncertified employees because certified employees are part of trb that's separate as are the advents because they were teachers at one time right so that typ but that's for custodians secretaries myself I'm in it so it's it's for everyone
011else gets it anyone any that anyone that works over 20 hours gets it so it's just something to think about because it would would reduce your costs again what would end up probably happening and have to happen with that and again but it's you got to draw the line on the sand at sometime is that you have to grandfather the people that are in it in it and then all new employees would go into the Define contribution plan that's where you get your 7% so over time you would save it but again it's something to think about do you have a rough number of the savings if we were to make the switch not but know I can get you that though that'd be interesting lot yeah imag thir of our groups AR non-certified of
012our employees are non-certified about well so we have 167 of teachers and another 13 so you're up to 180 so it's about 100 employees get take um and that would have to be negotiated with the barain UN or no because you still have people in unions that are not certified so is that part of the negotiation we can just like health insurance kind of but but you have to you have to at least create the plan right the town has to it's it's a step process that you have to get to the town has to create the plan you have to then you have to negotiate it in with the Bing units um and generally it's pretty easy because you're saying everyone that's already in it stays in the old one any new employee and
013when you're it's definitely something maybe for the finance committee to yeah we should put on the agenda and um I don't does our state like database tell us who's got which type or is that a different research project that's a different research project I'm only I have access to a protocol that bought it in analytics and I have all the access to all the 401ks in the country and all who the audit people are and who the managers are so maybe we can access that you need 403 BS say make sure it's yeah I'm just using foral p it's all kind of it's all the defined contribution so let's put it on agenda for a future meeting um Social Security Medicare 500 it's a large one again uh just so you're aware teachers and admins
014don't pay to that because they're paying into trb so they only pay the Medicare portion of it at 1.45 everyone else pays at 7.45 um 7.65 sorry um the retirement incentive that was last year obviously we had the 196,000 with 3.2% of the benefits workers comp $154,000 that's Insurance um to cover any workers comp claims and then we had travel reimbursements for a total of $6 million any question regarding just this not this6 million is in the in the salaries number over the graph that's above that's the employee benefit through the try to fit on the page I'm trying to go back and forth there yeah I see it now direct educational expenses are the um those are that impact on the students in Oxford Public Schools that represent the third largest expenditure they are
015Transportation they are tuition they are instructional supplies and equipment educ software and then there's miscellaneous other the largest being Transportation um $2 million little over $2 million tuition which is for our out all the out of District tuitions both spe special education and the uh um the schools yeah schools of choice 1.5 million there instructional supplies we spent $583,000 educational software is $396,000 so again you can see there's a lot of money being spent on direct impact to the students and it makes up $4.6 million bu facilities maintenance as uh it was it was much higher last year at 1.2 two4 five million um basically a lot of that had to do with the Deferred maintenance that occurred prior to last year there's a lot of Def maintenance that was put off and so Mike
016and his team had to make up the difference and they did and I think they did an excellent job and efficient job getting that caught up Public Utilities electricity our favorite topic um $657,000 and then propane water and make up the balance but again still it's $1.1 million in the budget how much of the last year had some of that Community fee in it wasn't there when it started it started July this year it started July this year yeah last year last yeah July all right technically fiscal [Music] year Professional Services $45,000 Legal Services 223,000 property liability 200,000 so those are the three pigs of the professional DET technical expenditures a lot of the Professional Services are in I out of spend um so that's a lot of services we provide there across the board
017but again SP a lot of that and then the last category I put in there was Athletics um stiens making up the largest part of that they're 41% and 23 9,000 and Professional Services is the services there is the referees the the game the scorekeepers and all that that we paid for transportation to get this the athletes to and from uh 71,000 and then the balance is made up of the rest so but total Athletics is $572,000 any questions good SU when is the audit it's happening now they supposed to fend end around March April March okay anybody else okay thank you um number six action items uh authorization for purchasing card program yeah I'd like to make a motion for authorizing the Board of Education of Oxford Public Schools to enter into an agreement
018with the Bank of Montreal for purchasing card program explain purpose of why we're making this so as you recall we did have this once before and we did it for JP Morgan Chase and it was through the state of Connecticut um as we were and I think I talked to I if it was just the finance or the entire board but when we were ENT entering into that and working our way through that setup of that program the state decided they didn't want to work with JP Morgan Chase anymore and backed out of that um and went with and went with Bank of Montreal which you're still actually trying to work through because you still actually can't sign up with the Bank of Montreal then the Bank of Montreal we talking same bank but it's
019through casbo um which is the Connecticut Association of business um business officers um and so basically what end up happening you did approve a program but it was through JP Morgan Chase um we stay with JP Morgan Chase because they had said that they intended to offer the um incentive percentage based on your spend to come back to you however when they finally figure out what they were going to do the lowest tier was $500,000 of spend which we cannot achieve on our own so we are closing down that program and that card that card program and we're going to move to this new program with Bank of Montreal um so that we can because what that does is that we get included into the casbo program um which is thousands of school districts around
020the country and all that spend gets put together and it's based on that that our get the percentage back it's our percentage of their percentage so but we still get a larger percentage back and we will get something back so I think it's a it's a good it's a good idea to have the card program because there a lot of things that that we're paying for with check right now that we can use a card on um the process Still Remains the Same through the system all the approvals all of that happens exactly the same nothing changes the only thing we have to approve is just to be to be able to sign sign the agreement with the bank of monra anybody got anything I have a couple questions on the the casbo um card
021proposal has different numbers than what you have on the resolution are we going with the numbers that are on the resolution because it has the chief operating officer on the proposal twice for 7500 and then on the resolution is 5,000 so I'm not sure yeah so there's two lines in what page on so it has a superintendent at 7500 assistant superintendent at 7500 Chief Operating Officer 7500 Chief Operating Officer 5,000 on the proposal proposal and the resolution has them at shared one has different numbers okay so you can go with whatever numbers you want at the end of I don't know why that I don't know when I change that or how it changed was wasn't sure we needed I um so there's two different documents this is this one one that shared with the
022board Chief I think one wasn't meant to be shared with the board yes one was the initial proposal okay so I'm I'm going to ask that you go with the 7500 the higher levels for the so the resolution would want us to change the resolution would need to change I apologize for that no I just wanted so the superintend superintendent and assistant superintendent would be 7500 along with the chief operating off no do not do the cas one I'm sorry you have to do the one that the resolution authorizing that is the official one but they can amend it to 75 but they can amend those three top ones to if want I mean you can leave them at 5,000 that's it's up to you it's you you you can set the limits as to
023what they can have that's to I would keep it at Co has a lot of components the facility and purchasing yeah more active other we need to amend the resolution yeah so we'll need to make a I'll make a motion to amend the resolution authorizing the Board of Education of Oxford Public Schools to enter into an agreement with the Bank of Montreal for a purchasing card program whereas the superintendent assistant superintendent and chief operating officer will increase from 5,000 credit credit limit to 7500 credit credit limit do I have a second second discussion all those in favor I opposed extensions motion passes when we do Finance you you're finally Clos out of JP if you can just get a confirmation that that whole account everything is shut down minut whatever okay okay uh report of
024superintendent okay I rather um brief um last year U Dr and I started a program called value pins we created um four pins that represented the um values that we were looking for um most in our employees and then we created a fifth one that represented role model on the role model um represented um an employee that demonstrated all of our values and stood out and above um the rest of everybody um this evening I'm going to be in the role model thank you um a superintendent needs a partner needs a partner that he or she can trust with their eyes closed and I do that with you you represent the highest quality of an educator a person and I could think of no better person to have run the school district with than you
025thank you [Applause] all right second AUD of citizens anybody anybody anybody okay uh report the chair or designate excuse me or designate uh I'm also going to keep this pretty short um budget stuff is ongoing we're uh waiting to uh send the or at least send the budget to the board of Finance for their for them to look at and to uh see what comes out of that um and then the really the only other thing that I can report on is Nurses negotiations is ongoing um it's going fairly well and um hopefully in the next month or so will be wrapped up wrapped up with that um and that's really all I have um except for once again um Dr Miller's taken some vacation starting on Friday and once again thank you for everything
026you've done for the district okay with that public you might have have me to say one final thing absolutely um so yes I am taking Friday um off after this week I want to thank the board for the opportunity to leave the school district kind to thank our parents for allowing me to be their superintendent for three and a half years and thank just the wonderful staff that we have here um this is not a job that one does alone this is a job that one does in collaboration and our teachers our par professionals or secretaries administrators monitors everybody Poss the board with their heart and soul into this district and we're better off because of that and I want to thank everybody for allowing me to be their leader during this period of time
027it's been an honor it's been a privilege and I wish all for the best for the children and the community of Oxford and the staff that work here thank you I thought we had a long discussion last week are we going to be able to make all the the Comm there should be we we've worked things out so that Dr Miller can help when he's needed what he can help out when he's needed during his vacation but we have staff and teachers evaluations that I think as I wrote any left you didn't have any evaluations or anything and it it's took the clock back three years you know are we going to have that kind of data and stuff we will be taking care of everything yes everything will be because if we go back
028and we can't evaluate staff and teachers like we did with Annie and have to go to another six years of just along I I think that I'm going to be upset yeah it's kind of answer that question principles and assistant principles evaluate their teachers on a regular basis as per the teacher evaluation plan that's ongoing that's something that is consistently done every single year you have a an evaluation system that those observations go into um our administrators know what cycle is they keep up to um when we meet with them monthly basis we're discussing with them to make sure that those are continuously being met in terms of the pace that be done um in terms of the feedback that admins get on the observations themselves that's something that Eric as the Director instruction does
029with them reviewing the quality of evaluations and observations um my presence or a lack of presence of superintendent in their office or not in their office does not stop or does not prevent the principles in schools from evaluating their teachers and we have a form evaluation plan that has been approved by the state of can on what the evaluation cycle is for teachers and for administrators yeah I know we had SE we had seed back then and he changed it and we have changed different aspects of the new evaluation because of eror and I'm just saying that uh at the last time we had nothing in the record everybody was perfect you know and uh with no correspondence or no information as to how be it private or whatever in the records so I'm just
030saying I'm concerned that whoever gets to see that Bob that is that you dig into that to make sure that as things come up that we don't have a an episode The Record is perfect and she you know she or he is a star thing and it's not true so U it's one of my concerns there is that we do that because I've been burned twice so what I can say to that is you except yeah so Dr go ahead and finish and then this is actually my report so that's finish and then we'll move on we have an exceptional system in place administrators know what they need to do on an annual basis the data gets report to the state it's personal record so it's confidential to that employee and there's a process and
031a system in place to handle evaluations okay I think that we're just taken by surprise because the end date was supposed to be the 14th and now it's not so can you address that think we need to address that right now this was something that Dr Miller decided but I think leg nothing to do with me or anyone from the board well somebody must have okay it so I to do with you's taking address it after the meeting when we have the the interim yeah yeah meeting so I have a question sub committee guys I me this is my report discussion over we can talk about it at at our search committee meeting subcommittee reports uh facilities uh we're going to have a meeting tomorrow morning 9:00 a.m. central office um be going over bathroom
032project coming up uh we're also going to have some policies probably going to be shooting your way in the next month or so after we review them kind of on the sub uh the facility level first just going into security and buildings and stuff like that um other things going on the pool pump right now needs to be fixed there place we're not sure exactly what that's going to cost yet everything else are minor upgrades and just system requirements but meeting tomorrow okay curriculum um we need to schedule a meeting and that's one of my questions as to who to schedule that meeting with as our policies as we set schedule with the superintendent so um we can talk about that and figure out y but we need to schedule policy and quality Nicole we
033have a meeting scheduled for next Thursday uh Steve Finance uh we're working towards a February Financial month end coming up in March we'll review where we stand now that we're in a holding pattern with the board of Finance in the budget process okay um so M would you like to give a PTO update sure so um I've been working with the PTO to beas on between tu so I can attend meetings and give you guys kind of a report back um highlights The Glow Run was super super successful this year um the kids the staff and the principles did Amazing Amy was the only one who chose to be a human Sunday without the shower cap without anything she went all in so I have to give props to her for choosing to do that
034human Sunday um you know the PTO put a lot of work into it and these ladies really deserve a round of applause because they did amazing I know they raised into six figures this year so that's really exciting they were really proud and it'll all work out um they have lots of field trips in the works um Mar time aquarium right now they're getting ready for one for henel and rle in ridgeport and it actually follows the curriculum here at um go so it'll be a combination of the English curriculum and what they're doing all at the same time so it's a really cool thing um Autobon lots of lots of great things for the kids um they're working on a family skate night as a thank you like ice skating night say skate ice
035skating night so as to say thank you to the community for the Glow Run so it thank you can I yeah I attended that meeting yeah you know fun and interesting all the different PR programs that do and how well they manage their money and gather their money and u i I think I guess cther from that meeting you're going to be our representative okay I didn't know you know if you knew that you yeah so uh I did that okay so congratulations and so I'd like to 10 on and off just to see if I'll text you me don't worry get some other suggestions in booster club hi um our next meeting is March 5th next Wednesday at 7 o'clock following that we're going to have jump right into our senior planning we're starting
036a little bit earlier than normal which will we'll talk about um well we have scholarships we'll have our senior lock in and getting parents involved to help out with that we will also we're trying to figure out I talked to Debbie and I think Sue brought it up last um meeting is take a stand we're looking at instead of doing a mock crash is bringing in speakers only because it seems that um crash happens year after year so the kids it's not really making an impact is what we would like it to make an impact um so looking into bringing in speakers looking into finding money to bring in speakers so I've been um actively applying and um trying to find that uh we have our spring Bingo on Thursday April 24th this is this
037is an this is supposed to be our St Patrick's Day Bingo but another organization in town is doing a um bingo at the same time so we didn't want a conflict so we pushed it out to Spring and uh let's see that's it anybody has any questions if anybody wants to come to our meeting you're more than welcome it's Wednesday at the high school in the cath at 7 thank you thank you um somebody want to make a motion to adjourn so move second all discussion those in favor I oppos abstain motion carries we Jed at 703 [Music]