2025-01-28 Board of Education Budget Workshop

001right call sorry sometimes it Tak longer than others that's okay and the mercy you too it's gone evening everybody I'd like to call the meeting order at looks like uh 5:34 me'll do roll call First here please Brandon Rose Steve Robert vad de proud brbes Nikki D Sue Arin Jack KY mck Catalano Paula Jon just a quick thank you for the board of Finance for attending we'll do the pledge allegiance now pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the republ stands Nation Dr M ready we'll turn it right good evening everybody and thank you for being I'd like to thank the bo CHS for joining us this board um but it works out this evening this is the I think the third or fourth year that we've invited you in

002um and have you as part of the initial presentation um I think is a good foundation um to begin your process of understanding what the education budget your board of education um thank you for having our administrative team with us this evening um I will go over the agenda um in a few moments um but the purpose of tonight's um tonight's presentation is to give you a quick overview of the budget and then really dive in in each call center to understand each school um Athletics um security facilities um districtwide we understand that there's a lot of data in front of you this evening we're not expecting um you to read the entire budget book um and it's enti tonight um the purpose tonight is to give an overview of the budget um each area

003there's there'll be a few minutes of presentation from each CL Center Director and principal give you an opportunity to ask a couple leading questions um we understand that not all questions are going to be answered tonight so if we're not able to get to every single question um we do ask you to get um those questions to Steve and I and through the finance committee and the full board will get the answerers back to you um and before I do begin to get into the presentation the Board of Education you'll notice that there's next year name plate is a mug this is national board Appreciation Week for Board of Education so we're thank you for your dedication to support our students and our staff so these are our way of saying thank you to interview

004thank you thanks a lot so as I said we have a a pretty um tight agenda this evening um what we're trying to do is to move through each call center our goal is to be done um around 15 um that includes each principal having an opportunity to um present and share the major highlights from their their budget we once again the budget book there's a lot of date in there and we're expecting to take it back this evening and review it and come back to us with any questions you might have um as we go through the process the finance committee will be meeting at least more than once and then um there'll be an opportunity for the full board to convenient answer questions and ask um detail um in our first meeting in

005February before we get into the actual what the numbers look like it's important to to hit the pause button and to recognize that as a district we've had a lot of successes and um first and foremost I want to thank this the staff of Quaker farms and go this is the third year in a row that um go was selected by the state of Conneticut as a school of Distinction that does not come by accident that comes by hard work by the teachers but also from a dedicated budget um that starts with the Board of Education and funded by the town by the board of Finance the overall town that those resources went towards a high quality education that was recognized by the state as a school of Distinction um and that said does not

006come by accident that's resource wise and worked by our staff and I want to thank everybody that is involved with that we also dedicated a lot of resources the last two years on science of reading we implemented a brand new reading program 5 last year we doubled out on that saying that in order for our teachers to have high quality job bettered professional learning to continue to grow in their application of how to teach um literacy in the 12 schools we hired a new K5 literacy coach that was a one of our major highlights in the budget this past um budget cycle that went into effect this spring or this um September we've had a lot of successes with that so far um and that came from the investment that we made last year for

007this here into reading we've also done significant work in special education we created specialized program that allow us to do cost um avoidance rather than having High um special expenses of setting students out of district for out of District placements we've invested in programs to keep the students in the district and that save the district money um in addition to those internal programs we recognize that needed to involve our 18 to 202 yearold program we partnered with Mell and we now have a collaborative approach with another school district to support those students are 18 to 22 year older and then finally uh we invested in athletics this past year we were able to evolve our Athletic program from a high school and a middle school two distinct programs into one unified 612 Athletic program and

008you'll hear from our athletic director of this even um that's pay dividends in creating a unified approach getting the two schools in the same page but also working with parks where I can use Sports here in town to create a a unified approach for students to be engaged Athletics each year the the budget is um built around a zero base budget philosophy where we build a ground up and we really stay with that philosophy and in that philosophy is a strategic look at how we continue to evolve and grow our district um and in this year's budget there's one primary ask there's one primary increase to the budget that we're looking to and that's addition of a new element School administrator and we're looking for two primary reasons one our special special education numbers have

009been increasing you have a higher number of students that are either qualifying for special education or in special education as a result that has had an increased um burden on the municipal principles to attend ppts to ensure the Integrity of the special education services to Monitor and to support difficult challenging behaviors related special education as well as being key instruct leaders in their school at the same time the state of Connecticut has passed um and is requiring that all district Implement a school climate policy that policy requires an extensive amount of work from a challenging Behavior perspective that's additional work that every time there is a allegation of a challenged behavior that that school administrator needs to double down and do an investigation like you do with bullying and racial discrimination that additional work is

010more time intensive than an administrator can handle by his him or herself at theal level so we're looking to add this new Elementary School administrator to alleviate that burden so that each principal can spend more time as the TRU that they need to be in their school while providing the additional support from a special education lens and a talented Behavior lens I think it's also important to note that a lot of the challeng of behaviors that we see in the school while they are increasing in threshold a lot of those are integrated with students with special needs so to have an administrator that has a special background to support the elementary school principal in that area and when that that's integrated with ch of behaviors all under one scope makes sense to us and you'll

011hear more for droski and the elemental principles and how that can roll them and support their needs at the same time we wouldn't want to be fiscally responsible we don't want to just keep adding to the budget we wanted to say how can we evolve our current structure without having a impact drastically on the budget we were able to add this administrator with just a net increase of $825 how did we do that we did that by taking the orist conduct restructuring that position restructuring the supervisor speci education creating the a more narrow scope for the K12 supervisor special education to a 612 focus and incorporating the coordinat stud conduct into that scope and then hiring the second administrator for the elementary school and having that person take over the special education functions that the

012supervisor had been during K12 you as I said if you have more questions on detailed how that could work out we can do so um this evening as well as to the finance committee for the next um meeting but essentially this major ask this major Initiative for the district is to support special education to support the challenging Behavior School climate law and we're doing so with justce net increase of $88,000 stent budage there might be questions in terms of what does it look like in terms of the capacity how much are we looking from an administrative perspective in the district we take a look in the budget book we've included a table in there that shows the comparison between our school district and comparable School District on the number of Administrators that we have and

013you will see that we have fewer administrators than other districts that are helpable to us in addition to the operating budget you also find that we are discussing the capital budget this evening the capital budget um is supposed to go to the town by February um typically in this U meeting in January we present the capital Improvement plan to the board and we ask the board to make a motion and to vote on the capital Improvement plan during our budget Workshop or the last meeting in January this happens to be a combination of both of those we recognize that there might be some feedback and and tweaks that you want to make to that Capital plan typically that that would be done at our board meeting and you would vote on the plan reflective of

014the changes that you make during the meeting we would then revise the document and send it onto the board of finance and to um the town there is a fiveyear look in the budget book a our Capital Improvement the four major asks that we're having for next year one actually is an addition you might not have seen before in that's technology some of you in the that have been in the board for an extensive amount of time might have seen technology in the past in the last few years we have only seen more facility stuff um the wireless access points the network infrastructure and our closets are um dated and reaching end of life so we're looking to do a major overhaul districtwide of all of our network resources um that would cost $540,000 we're

015looking to add a generator goes goes not only um if the G ERS to go out where there's no age fact there's no power in this building but it also serves as a communication H for the districts of this school coar it impacts the security um districtwide we're also asking for a first grade playground um that playground that currently is in place needs to be replaced from a perspective that it no longer um satisfies the safety needs um of the students in that school and we'd like to replace that playground next year here and finally the Middle School track is um an unusable um facility um it needs to be repaired we do not have our students use that track right now because there would be concerns of students um physically getting hurt there when

016students do need to use a track we take them off site to the highport for another facility and there's additional cost to that so our cap Improvement plan asked for the track to be upgraded um for next year there three major buckets um that have resulted in the increase that we're asking for next year the first is contractual salary increases um and that's appr to $1.2 million um from a salary perspective second is medical insurance while we have made smart business decisions the last three years one changing carrier and then this past year changing to high deductible fan we are still seeing increase of our health insurance right now we've budgeted an 8% increase so the hope is that as process that may come down as a matter of perspective I was meeting with superintendent

017of other region other districts on Friday um some other districts have a 18% one districts a 24% and other districts a 34% increase of their health insurance so the decisions that we've made the past few years to switch care and go high deduction plan have put us in a favorable position more favorable than a lot of other districts in the area based on the decisions that we've made while there's an increase we have minimized that increase drastically by those decisions that we've made and then fin electricity we are seeing that our rates have gone up our hope is that the additional um charges by eversource will go down and not be renewed from April but we've also seen increase in electrical rates because of the new hbac system in this building because now we're running

018where is not just heating just for the cold months of a year but air could stay is that on 12 months a year when the heat of that one that has an additional expense from electrical standpoint we're seeing a rise of $248,000 based on our calculations and anticipated of um quer B limit at some point next year so Alto together um that is equivalent to a $1.8 million increase in just those three areas so overall our budget ask for next year 36 m859 370 that's equivalent of 4.7 9% increase now that increase is a $1.6 million increase so we're actually those three things I just mentioned are more than the increase that we're asking for how did we get there we went through the budget and we found ctive avoidance we found ways to reduce

019the budget by taking cost reductions here and there and taking a look at how we can accomplish the business of the district in smart financial decisions in order to accommodate those increases that we have elsewhere with that that means is that we've taken risks in the budget and you will find in the budget book that we've isolated and identify what some those risks are there's opportunities there but there's also risks it's important to note that as we go through the budget process the more we cut from the budget the more risk the district will have to absorb into V our business practices for next year so at this point we are going to move on to the high school and then the middle school and then Athletics and then continue on as you Progressive so

020I'm going to invite this O'Brien who is our new principal at of the Board of Education no board everybody hea ran I have the distinct honor of serving as the high school principal at Oxford um so I'm five months five and a half months in and about two months in I think Howard called and saided season um if you're referring to your budget book I'm going to focus the majority of today's conversation around 27 it's tiny little number at the bottom um so just so you know this was very much a collaborative effort with the staff at OS um the administrative team sat down with our department chairs and really constructed what we believe to be the best budget that will ensure continued success for students um I think we stand at a crossroad Road

021where we are trying to blend both um consistency with Innovation uh that those things being considered overc coming it at about a 2.4% increase from last year's budget um we have some major initiatives and I do know at the point uh in a future board meeting we'll probably be back at the table to talk more about the first bullet uh but we are on deck for our neas collaborative conference the neas visiting team will be present with us uh next spring probably about this time next year and while this cost is not directly being pulled from the Oxford High School budget it's going to come from District Services what this speaks to is the need to kind of continue on the path that we're on um and build also from the path that we're on

022to ensure that we have what we need in place to meet the needs of all students um which ensures our programs as well as the supplies to run those programs um in total we're looking for an increase of some instructional equipment as well as supplies some of those are renewable for example with science classes the need to run Labs from year to year there's a need to replace chemicals and Equipment uh as well as the lab quests uh the programs that we use to receive those labs and see them through um we have some minor Furniture requests uh for example one of our Math teachers has requested table similar to these for fible seating as well as some problem solving to ensure more collaborative approach to mathematics in the classroom um and all of that

023work is really intended to Showcase what it is that's going on at the high school and receive feedback from the neasc team that'll help us move forward um so that in total um is between four and $5,000 for our collaborative conference visit which then two years out of that would be our 10year accreditation which is going to come in at a little bit higher price tag of 10 to 12,000 depending on how many team members they send to our evaluation um again my job Stephanie's job AJ's job really at the high school level uh we are helping to architect the greenhouse um and so we're we're looking to build and sustain the connections uh and we're trying to keep it as viable and sustainable as we can so all things considered I think given that

024the rising cost of anything in this day and age a 2.4% increase well is an increase um I still think kind of positions us pretty fairly for the requests that the teachers need to kind of support teachers uh students I should say um we're still working to build upon the second bullet point speaks to our library media center um we didn't have a full-time library media specialist uh in years previous so with our new library media specialist she's working to build modernize um as well as curate some necessary resources so she's put together a proposal for some new databases as well as hard copy textbooks um she's looking at creating a maker space in the library to also kind of peak the students interest on what it is that's possible outside of just reading although

025I I'll set up for just reading um uh so there's a slight cost associated with continuing to maintain as well as upgrade our library media center um and then one of the big line items that was new to the budget for the high school is really specific to our administrative events and awards um for anyone who sat in on my interview process over this summer I'm very much a culture oriented person um and it's kind of my job Stephanie's job building admin leadership J to to kind of create the vehicle that will help us sustain connections I think food is a great morale boost I think on the days when we have half day release for teachers or full day release for teachers um breakfast is certainly an incentive as is lunch um I would

026argue too that teacher appreciation week comes for once a year and I think we could do a lot to support the staff and their morale by continuing to bolster the support that we afford them on a daily basis um food is expensive uh so I think over the course if we're estimating I have the biggest staff um so I think we feed roughly about 80 to 85 people depending on uh who's with us on a daily basis so if you average about $10 a person you're looking at anywhere between 45 and $6,500 if we were to provide a meal each day um it seems like a large ask but I think in the grand scheme of things uh we take care of our teachers they subst take care of our students and there is a

027book I'm gonna go on the record it does say if you if you feed the teachers they won't Fe the students I mean it's kind of funny but also kind of true um but I am a big proponent of culture and I want to continue to build and sustain the culture that exists I have an incredible staff we have incredible students and the work that's currently underway is is really positioning us towards a place to continue to be really successful but also to build upon what's necessary to stay competitive and to give kids what they need regardless of where they're headed beyond our fourballs I'll take questions hi everyone I'm principal of Oxford Middle School um my presentation or my explanation to you is short dear Board of Ed dear Board of Finance I'm not

028asking for anything this year the end no but seriously I'm I'm really not because in recent years we've asked for new staff we've asked for new resources this year we are just really going to capitalize on the recent Year's budget Investments um in the next in the next year we aren't asking for anything new except for some heart rate monitors for PE classes for our PE Wellness classes but instead we are you know we're working with what we have and we're capitalizing on those Investments if you remember you helped us last year get a oh and I'm sorry papers 20 and 21 and 22 um last year you helped us with getting a um an additional PE teacher additional music additional um Library so we have the staff that we need now it's just we

029need to take that and we need to continue on our efforts to focus and refine and just keep getting better with what we currently have anyone has any question thank you thank you I'm sorry you're going to see me sneak out I have to pick my daughter up be stranded so and I'm who is our athletic director he joined us in beginning of August and and embra the concept of aligning our Middle High School athletic program together so welcome thank you 4041 and if you want to look at the actual numbers 92 there's a lot of that um thank you for pardon uh AJ Houston Andre Houston on the athletic director for High School andal scho uh you know so as Dr Miller um alluded to I was brought in uh as the first athletic

030director that is full-time covering both high school and middle school working to um form a a greater Community between 6 to 12 as well as involving um our local youth Athletics programs so what I want to focus on um there are SE our major initiatives are equipment and supplies um equipment and supplies to me ties in with health and safety a lot of what I'm asking for within my budget deals with the safety and the health of our student athletes all across the board um whether it's from concussion studies that have been done helmet protection um our cheer team needs new mats you know those so those are two of the larger pieces that I I did ask for in the budget so if you see the suppli is a little elevated it's it's about

031safety not about um it through a through a very detailed inventory of what we have I was able to cut back on spending on you know the hard items like baseballs basketballs some footballs uh in order to make sure that we're doing what we can as a district to make sure our student athletes are safe and protected from the possibility of injury um transportation was a major undertaking it was probably the number one thing that I was asked to focus on when I got in so we've been able to secure a phenomenal um family-owned transportation company for high school and middle school it is a little more expensive because they do charge over any trip over four hours is 75 additional dollars whereas Allstar Transportation with a flat 350 but Allstar couldn't guarantee us that

032they would be able to afford our student transportation to it from every meet so I feel that extra cost is vital and it's worth more than the inconvenience of having to notify parents that A Game's canceled last minute um Community engagement is a big thing for me so what I am going to try to implement next year this is another reason why transportation is is a little bit high is having high school or middle school um attend college athletic events together so boys and girl uh uh boys soccer Middle School and High School will'll attend a collegate soccer game uh same thing with girls soccer all sports all throughout working together um and sending coaches to professional development together um between the Middle School and the high school um training and development there's not much

033that we're asking for there um in terms of an increase uh the only uniforms we are asking for are for our Unified sports team um our Unified sports team is you know Statewide recognized they are absolutely phenomenal uh they had a game today it was it's it's great to watch them participate and you know I think that they need this type of uh this type of a the the new uniform the the financial piece from us as much as every single sport that we have going forward I don't know if that's been the case in the past so you know that's where I stand if you have any questions about um any of those numbers you look at on page 92 um you know there is an overall 7.3% increase um the majority of that

034is from the equipment that I asked for um from the busing because like I said the busing is is a little bit higher as well as the dues and fees for the middle school and I know you see that 685 increase um part of the reason for that is for some reason I've been working with Sylvia the dance competitions cheer competitions and event workers were not in last year's budget for some reason but they have been in years prior so I don't know where that snapu was but that's why that number looks so out radious just so you know I think the other number to f on here too is that the full ad salary was not in last year's budget so that's it's a large number it's addition $45,000 so that 7.3% is inflated

035by that number so just be aware of that when you're looking at the any questions I have a question yes uniforms are we on a schedule to replace um by team or how are we doing so the way the uniforms work is every every team has home and away uniforms um and there is a new new uniform that is purchased every four years and the reason that happens is so that every student athlete who participates in four years will get a chance to wear a new uniform um we are not due for any this upcoming year but next year we will be so I'm hoping that some of these the the main cost for supplies that I'm asking for for this year um will not need to be spent every year so we're going to

036be able to balance those out can you tell us a a little bit more about the mats for the gymnastics yeah so explain how how long it's been yeah so the um the cheer mats that our high school team uses are one and a half inch mats so that's relatively thin compared to what they use at competition and what higher level cheer teams use high level cheer teams use 2in Mas because it's more absorbent um are Matts from my understanding doing some research to athletic directors past have never been replaced so they were I want to say 2010 was the first year we actually had a chair team because you know the school opened and then it took them a couple years to establish um and they've never been replaced so we have the original

037chair mats that over years and years and years of stunting and cartwheels and tumbles and Spins you know naturally have wear and tear on them so we're asking for the 2in and it's it's been shown to be healthier on the knees the ankles the hips as well as the falls with concussions and you know head trauma and things of that nature and if we're going to replace uniforms you know for football teams and basketball teams and baseball teams and get new equipment when new technology becomes available I think it's only right that the Cher team is able to be afforded the save yes there was a mentioned in the capital plan to change or fix the um the uh goes track yes how would you fix it for just $220,000 oh that I'll be honest

038with you that's not a quote that I received I was surprised to see how little that was so that's something that I'll be working with facilities um in order to come up with quotes and see exactly what needs to be done um so I I can't answer that question for you I can do more research of my own Maybe I just have a concern because kids are still using that track even though they're not doing actual meets on it they still do practices for cross country and for the track team and when cross country does their meets they end up starting on that track and ending on that track so I think it needs to be a priority to make sure that's safe for the kids absolutely I haven't been here for a track season

039yet um and whenever I was down here for cross country they were on the baseball field starting over there and uh running through goes and then down the hill and around that way so but no I absolutely think that's a priority okay thank you I'm sorry that I just sked off we do have a home High School event tonight that I had to be at so thank you very much and now our dynamic are going to present together good evening lot of familiar faces but for anybody that doesn't know I'm Amy Miss principal at go good evening I'm Rachel Cas principal at Pier farms and we'll be referring to Pages 12 and 17 in yours we won't be quite as short as um Mr but we'll be relatively short uh we as well are not

040really asking for new things we have no new real initiative outside of the um the administrative position so we have a lot of initiatives that we are looking at refining and maximizing so our budget anything in terms of supplies equipment textbooks really is continuing to support ongoing initiatives and that has kept our um our numbers for those items in line or even less than last year the major drivers for our individual budgets as well are those large Staffing um and more District level initiatives um or District level drivers but we did want to share with you some of the things that our budget is supporting those ongoing initiatives so one of those as Dr Miller referred to is our new Ela program so um we're in our second year of hmh into reading and I

041know we talked about it last year but no one box program is going to meet the needs of all of our Learners uh so a lot of our work this year now that we're in year two and teachers understand what the program is is refining it and writing curriculum around it so we are supporting that work through some supplemental resources um ongoing professional learning and making sure that there's enough collaboration time for our new K5 literacy coach with our staff and through that collaboration time this year we're starting to see Ela and writing units come out of these new materials that the teachers are really really proud of and really happy to use so we want to make sure that we continue to support that work um our budgets also include ongoing building upgrades to

042both classrooms and hallways within both of our schools um some of these improvements including upgrading just simple classroom Furniture so um from desks to actual worktables so it's just a different dynamic in the classroom um Elementary signage over at go um purchasing hallway bulletin boards so in last year's budget if you recall um we did approve bulletin boards I know that might sound silly but bulletin boards in a hallway just made things look you know exciting kids loved to experience walk them through the hallway so we did um fund bulletin boards throughout the entire second grade hallway so of course once our first grade teachers saw these wonderful beautiful bulletin boards they also would like them in their hallways for next year so again a gradual release so we did second grade this year we

043do first grade this year um kindergarten had already had bulletin board so again that's just another upgrade to the building um again simple Furniture as you know replacing or adding additional bookcases filing cabinets teacher do me these things have been in scho the schools for quite some time so again it comes to a point where you have to replace them or again teachers are asking for you know certain things like different organizers we want to make sure that we're appropriately um helping the teachers get the materials that they want again with these simple improvements uh to the physical environment our goal is really to create that sense of community within our buildings and that supportive learning environment while also boosting staff morale so again simple buls it just makes teachers and students and families just

044happy um they want to be there um and it's to see so simple things like that we want to make sure that we are supporting them moving forward along with um support of the new Ela program and science of reading we also last year again this year and continuing into next year we have a strong focus on srbi or um RTI response to intervention um multi-tiered systems of support there's so many different acronyms and names for it but the bottom line is we know how important it is in the early years to make sure that we're not letting that Gap wide in and we're not letting kids fall behind um so that's something that our teams are working together to make sure we have a really strong system in place and part of having that

045system in place is making sure that we have the correct assessments so that we can really leverage that assessment data to pinpoint really exactly which students need what and then when we figure out who needs what we need to make sure that we have the resources to give them that and I wish I could say that it all came in a nice package like an hmh reading program but it doesn't um they're not huge cost but again if we are going to expect our teachers to really step up learn new things try new things take a risk and you know get our students where they need to be we have to make sure that they have the materials they need to do that they don't have time to be searching the internet for something to

046print out um so that is part of our ongoing budget um planning to make sure that we're supporting that system ideally we'll be sending kids to the middle school and beyond that don't have that Gap to close that's our our ultimate goal um in regards to Staffing we are looking to maintain the current certified and non non-certified staff that we could we have um a focus of the district for many many years has been always to keep class size low especially at the Early Elementary um for the past um several years we've been done a really great job at that so again this does not have an impact to budget but I do think it's worth meant worth mentioning that for next school year we want to shift a first grade teacher to second grade

047um just as last year we moved the kindergarten teacher over to first now we're going to be shifting that first grade teacher over to second grade we want to make sure that we're maintaining class size of about it's about 19 right now so that would be maintained for next year and then there would be a teacher shift from third grade to fourth grade and that would keep class size at approximately 20 to 21 students um so there is this big bubble so my first grade right now has 132 students that's a very large class compared to some of the other classes so we want to make sure that we're maintaining that low class size and again kudos to the board and the town for maintaining low cze across key um I think you heard the

048other administrators speak to this but really our budget in you know in addition to these few initiatives is really just built to make sure our teachers have day-to-day what they need to do their job they work very hard they're very dedicated they definitely put in more than their six and a half hours nine months a year um so you know one of the things we can do as administrators is make sure that they don't have to go searching for the tools or beg parents for those tools and supplies so our budget is built based on teacher requests and you know what we know is needed to kind of run the building day to day and then we just briefly wanted to speak to the the big budget um so as mentioned earlier um by Dr

049Miller we are in total support of the new Elementary administering position um we do feel that this will help significantly with our disciplinary issues that we do have um provide that social emotional support that Dr Miller had mentioned and to oversee the special education programs and services for students um both at Quaker farms and goes um as you all know we do wear many hats as Elementary principles um just as an upper grades we want to be instructional leaders again Dr M had mentioned that and to make sure that we are accelerating student growth in general um and to do that we need to be in the classrooms and with this position that would help us do that even more um we get in there as much as we can but we have one issue

050that can take several seever several hours if not days to investigate and it's only myself only Amy um so again we want to make sure that we're in those positions of instructional leers with the curriculum and the planning and the meeting with teachers and just getting into classrooms more and getting into the lunchroom and you know trying to be outside at recess it's really hard to do all of those tasks um while obviously doing one investigation that could take quite some time and those are really the things that drive our strategic planning and school Improvement for the future it's hard to plan a budget it's hard to build a schedule it's hard to really decide these these are the things that our building needs to grow and make these students succeed when it's hard to

051get out of your office some days so our goal is to have a shared position that can support us in some of those day-to-day um investigations or issues as well as support with the special education side of things there are some weeks where I may sit in six to seven ppts if you think an hour each across one week one person it's almost a full day eaten up sitting in meetings which are very important meetings but that's time that I can't get to anything else and the same is true for Rachel so we don't want to be hands off of anything we just want some support so that we can get to some of the real drivers for school Improvement and being instructional leaders to to move our schools forward any questions so uh I'm

052in favor of the new admin position um I'm curious how it's going to work so my wife doing teacher leader in Milford I know that the stress points in a building drop off pickup lunch and honestly anytime the kids are out of recess or transitions in general how would one person do that across two buildings that can only be in one spot at a time is it realistic to have one person split or is this a position that's better meant you know one per building or we if we invest in one neoti we building is are we setting ourselves up for success or failure by trying to split them I I would love to have one at each what I can say is speaking from experience when I was in Derby we shared a Dean

053across the two elementary schools um I have the larger school and typically the more active School shall we say based on some of the programs that were in my building so he typically was two days a week in my building two days a week in the other building the third day was supposed to be kind of a split or ref Flex day but it usually ended up in my building that's where the needs were um were there days that I wish that he was there absolutely but I do think you know we we can manage on our own we're not the buildings are not falling down it's not chaos it's more a matter of are we are we being able to do our jobs to the the fullest of their potential so even just getting

054one I think would be a huge lift and we can be strategic about these are the days that you're scheduling a bunch of meetings you know these are my meeting days um we won't always have somebody at lunch or recess but you know those are days that if I know I have um I don't have somebody else in the building that day I don't schedule meetings around that time like I I definitely think there are ways we can work around it so just thinking about PPT that point like we typically schedule our ppts at 8:30 and 3 and I have one every day this week 8:30 and every day at 3:00 so I think just that the scheduling piece and it's not to say that if this particular person is over at go I'm still

055going to obviously go the pp so it's not a hands-off so I think any additional help and Amy and I work so collaboratively together um that we can definitely make that work I don't I don't foresee that as being an issue we'll obviously pick up the pieces that you know that person's not here I'm going to attend the meetings I'm going to do what I need to do there's a behavioral issue and I've been doing it for quite some time um it will get done but just that extra help it's just you make sure that those particular times are definitely supportive we could always make a fast runner requirement description they can drive the gator back and forth so when I talked with you guys in the fall this this is was the basically what

056we talked about yeah um so we talked about the fact that your your schedules are consumed by disciplinary PPT that type of stuff um I'm I am also in favor of this position but I just want to point out and this is nothing against the uh the high school or the middle school but the high school and the middle school they have they have assistant principles that can do that can take on these roles to help out their principles our younger kids equ farms and here it goes they don't have AIC principls here so they're already at a trying to play catchup because you know they're not only are doing principal duties but they're also doing assistant principal duties as well anybody else yeah just to add so I mean I have a son that's

057been in special was three so we're going on 15 14 years kind of envirment not just school but before school and I see all the work in the data in the reports and the meeting all you guys attend right P it is taking you away from The Clash from and moving the dist forward so I guess the question is this person would be at ppts facilitate with the specialed case person making sure we're hitting the right marks we're compliance things like that and then um on the disciplinary side can you explain today maybe a day in a life of an example where what today is like I have to handle disciplinary action now with the state mandates we don't know exactly what does that look like like how does it change from I'm a principal

058and I handle disciplinary thing to now the state comes down of course we love the state of Connecticut right all their mandates you must file this that and the other follow up an investigate what does that really look like in real life so it it defitely changes dayto day um it could be anything from you know something happened at recess kids come into my office it's a quick conversation we move on those are the nice easy ones that you like right right but then there are times where um and this is I think what you're alluding to because it's going to get more and more not that we don't take safety seriously now but there are going to be guidelines where we have to respond in certain ways to things regardless of the age of

059the child so um even last week there was an instance where I had a report at the very end of the day they're walking out to the buses a student says another student told me he has a weapon in his room so now kids are leaving I have to make phone calls I have to make sure that everything's safe there's lots of nobody's out in the building it all turned out to be nothing it was a story from um a story that the kid made up and the student overheard it but that was two and a half hours of investigating to make sure that there was no risk right to anybody and the same type of thing happens if it's a potential bullying or harassment situation so that then add on to that now you

060have layers of paperwork that are required um parent notices um who's the primary investigator versus the secondary investigator and for us there is no secondary so we have to call Megan or Linda um those things don't happen every day but when they do like Rachel alluded to before your day that you had planned out now goes to the next four or five hours are all an investigation and I'm still doing followup work the next day right so now I mean the state the always first we do the right thing handle it reach out but now the state component is there's a lot more of additional follow through additional investigation formats and paperwork right there's a potential that we will have to investigate things that um are considered challenging Behavior so right now a parent can

061call and say you know what my kid's coming home saying that this kid's being really disruptive in class it's bothering him we take that ser seriously we investigate in the future that could be an official Complaint from a parent that needs to be investigated the same way a bullying investigation would so it's no longer me going and having a talk with that kid or talking with the teacher and putting a little plan in place now everything has to be documented with the state and submitted so there's a lot of formalities a lot a lot of extra admin work right still going to fall through and do the right get the right outcome there's a lot of overhead now right and right now we do that with bullying investigation this adds on the same type of

062layers that we have with bullying now challeng Pap so it's additional steps that need to be done across the board and that burden takes away from the dayto day that's currently taking place right so already there might have not been enough time to take advantage of the situation you can go teachers or ATT value to the programs now it's actually going to be a deficit going the other way further right without this and just to clarify to I we want somebody who has a special ed background but by no means want to step out of out of that realm um I think I speak for both of us I enjoy being a part of those meetings those are those are all of our kids but we want another person who we can trust to sit

063through those meetings and um know that the right kinds of decisions are being made and the processes are being followed so that would be an important piece of it but um makes sense we're not looking for somebody to kind of take over that you know right that part so engaged but need a little bit of I have a hard time letting go sometimes same way while we recognize that finances are tight in the district and in the town this year um I hope you can hear that this is a true need for us that we have carved out this as the single most important priority for this budget this is the only new thing that we're asking we found ways to do this with how out having adding that much to the budget and if

064there are cuts that need to made those cuts I hope will be around other areas and leave this new position intact because this need is so important for our students and staff are administrator next year and I think in the past we've proven through some of what you've said in Prior years of this year we get a return on those on those Investments right we monitor it closely we see the results and it pays back yes I actually have a question for Megan what would you say the impact for this role might free you up I mean I it sounds like you're the secondary for two buildings um but it more likely you know there if they need a secondary you're it like you're you're the default what would you say the impact currently is

065on your on your like week to week is it a 10% impact a 5% I like to Amy's point it is kind of honestly dayto day I there's always a phone call or even if I'm not doing the investigation I'm doing a followup or hey this happen you know I'm doing the like just letting me know what's going on and then triaging some things um so it would it would alleviate a lot of Investigation pieces um although it's going to with the challenging Behavior might increase a little bit but at least this additional person could you know do some of that work um and check in um so I would say 5 to 10% depending on you know some weeks are much busier with investiga than others um full moons and such holidays yeah so

066it would definitely help alleviate in that regard um quick question so between the high I don't know who this goes to between the high school and the middle school you have four administrators BP and the prim school and we also funded last year the uh additional role to do uh behaviors so that's five and between these two it's going to be total of three people so two schools three people two schools five people can someone explain the difference what the difference is I'm going to go to Dr like the student conduct has signed in January we refilled it for the rest of the school year but the the goal here is to take that coric and fold that into the current supervisor speci education role so we're not adding we're kind of absorbing that into

067it um you have to take a look at the additional complexities that you have at the middle school and the high school with more departments more oversight me the high school alone had you heard before the number of Staff members you have in that building far exceeds any other school so in terms of evaluations that administrators needs to do for teachers there's a need and there's a a rational why High School typically has more medors than you have another um schools in the district I'm so refuse the reorganized the coordinator of student conduct which was Mr Becca who reflect and now it's Mr Rich yes but now he's no longer been called the student conduct he'll be called the supervisor know that that position is going to phase out at the end of this year

068if this is approved for this and the supervisor special education Position will fold into it with a little bit of differences but that would support that piece of it so we're removing the coordinator of conduct division high school end up that neutral right that person going to yes so it's the same basically same position just moving from the high school and middle school to the lower grade well different because we're asking for an administrative position when that was a STP in teacher position so got to over for Mr Mr if he will go back to his original duties he's only taking over from now until the end that I did not realize and then that position is going to go away and then they'll we're going to add the the U Can't what called but

069we're going to have the position we're talking about is that correct yes and that'll be called supervisor special education and that's what you guys are we we haven't finalized the name of the AL School administrator we're calling an Al School administrator right now we'll have to to go through the process fin exactly what we're going to call it last year the name for ACC to student conduct evolved as we went through the process it didn't end up where we started and that Envision the same thing with this new administrator as well the supervisor of special education would remain as that position um would support mainly 6 through 12 but other initiatives can um our transition piece there's more State initiatives around transition and training um and then the pre would be supported through that supervisor

070role as well so that would be not necessarily something the elementary administrator would be doing in prek that would be the supervisor special education performance standpoint how did that position work out you I never heard anything so what we that's an excellent question VI but it's not really um toward the budget um if you have a quick answer what I can say is that we were seeing U an improvement in student behaviors and attendance um it's hard to evaluate a position mid year stud something just left and we're switching to somebody else taking the position now but for the initial um view that we had they were positive and we can continue to explore that with the um Personnel finance committee in terms of how that rolled out um but as Bobby said we let

071kind of focus and stay with the the numbers right now okay but from a budget standpoint is that we're gonna continue this position for the rest of the year we're going to pay the money we're going to rename it next year whatever you call it okay it's still an expense it's still a budgeted item and I think it's a fair thing does it work from what we've seen you put into another meeting I think the audience and the public wants to know do these functions work yes and how do we grade them from what we've seen so far that position has made a difference which is why we're not eliminating it why we're folding it into another position or we're creating another administrator at elementary school level to handle some of those same type responsibilities

072at elementary school level yes we've seen an impa on student Behavior we see an impact on student attendance um at the midyear reports I think you heard some information from Mr O'Brien you heard some information from Mrs zette on the impact that position has had on student discipline and student attendance so yes we have seen a positive use and then from a budgetary standpoint Mr Rich did take over that position from budgetary standpoint we're not backfilling his position so there's a salary that we're not paying for half a school year now that's going to be budget support to the overall budget for this year so we're actually helping this year's budget by what we did in terms of bath filling position and not refilling the position at theal level I think the part that's confusing

073is you have a position that seems to be working and you like and now you're basing it out and you're giving making you're giving it to a whole new group of kids you're you're dealing with the younger kids and you're not that person is not going to be working with the older kids anymore because we envision right now the supervisor special education is a K2 position and we're saying instead of you focusing on K12 now we're going to narrow that Focus to 612 but and while doing so we're going to add in the Corin student contact piece Into Your Role so we're not eliminating the the what we want to accomplish with that we're changing who's going to be doing the work but what it sounded like is this that person's only going to be

074working and goes and we're going to have an Al med school administrator that's going to be at El med school level and the current supervisor best education through dust cage B is going to narrow down to 612 duties two separate position it's not one position going and you know transitioning it's the position at the high school middle school is is reshaping so instead of it being just I I used to call it the DEA students it has so many names but that one stuck in my head um instead of it just being pure de of students they're blending in some special education responsibilities with that role they're going to rename it they're going to repackage it up it has a different person in that role for next year of this year Mr rich is is

075going to fill the role in what it's currently set at so that's high school middle school set to set that to the side this position is for the elementary schools and it's basically an assistant principle so they can breathe they're it's not like we took it from the high school middle school and dumped at the elementary they're two separ one was being wiped it's being morphed it's being kind of U adapt yeah over time it this year versus basically just trying to balance the budget yeah I think the super back not to reiterate this but the supervisor special ed was you know K through 12 right if you lose K through five there's a Time allocation there realign not time allocation to the duties of this student Behavior whatever it is and just focus on

0766 through 12 and then now we have a a face off a peer face off between that person and the two elementary schools doing similar work discipline special ed so now we've kind of got two dueling people to supports what the district to have with those duties the way I see it that's correct so you you'll find in the budget book there that kind of explains what we're trying to accomplish with this we can also in addition to that try and come up with some diagrams and and more to kind of map it out for you to provide to you further explanation um it's the beginning of the book just go I tell you I I am concerned if we're taking a position special education even 6 through 12 is a lot of work we

077had that person going between high school and middle school doing I'm just going to call it Dean of student work or whatever you want to call it I G to keep it simple in my head so we're gonna take this person who's doing hard work we're gonna give them two buildings to help with discipline I mean wow whoever I do we have a person in mind for for this is it Lind yes Linda superum um she has a superhuman she is we're very thankful this is this is something we're gonna have to be very careful with to not overload and not not underperform at any of the positions right that and the bottom line is in a in a perfect world we would have kept the coordin Easter in conduct as it was add in

078administrator and be done with it but we've recognized from a budgetary standpoint adding another administrator in a tight fiscal alinement is not fiscally responsible we didn't think that we'd be able to get too far with that and we without cutting staff else which we didn't want to do so we're trying to get this new administrator in place while without adding too much to the budget so this was our way of trying to figure out from an Innovative perspective how to get the jobs done with current staff while adding without adding too much more to the budget yeah just real quick we funded the student conduct position last year I'm sorry you guys have caught in crossfire through all this um that funding where is that going for next year's budget from the old position for

079the conduct that is going to support the newal administrator plus an additional $88,000 so that's getting split no that is that basically is shifting from for student contuct into finding the the new El schol administrator so the additional money that we're asking for for the administrator in the elementary schools is additional on top of that is $88,000 plus the original salary and C that you had salary the salary next year been for that position would been 104,000 that's the salary for the teacher a $10,000 sement that goes with it that's $114,000 the cost of the position of position that exists right now because the new position is 122,000 the 114 goes away the 122 comes in the difference is the $8,000 so with bringing in the support for the elementary schools we're only really costing

080the district an extra eight grand and what we would already have been costing already if we left that position in place you would have had $114,000 cost okay that that would have been put in the budet that was already in the budget that was approved last year we got that through so we're looking at an additional eight to make this all happen I think it would be helpful I'd like to move on um but I think it would be helpful if we could have maybe a step by step of how how this is working maybe we can email it to um Board of Education members and we can provide the board of Finance with a with a explanation we'll continue work that field thank thank you all for your time so for the special education

081budget um similar to um what syia had spoken about um is that we are actually asking for anything we're very gracious that last year you actually gave to us when we weren't asking for something um and again that's been really really helpful so what we've done with that position that um the extra bcda position um we actually split it to a part-time person so we fund it as a part-time bcba who's tier three days in the district and the other part of that salary we hired as a behavior technician who implements those plans with the bcba so they're in the classroom implementing the the plans showing the pair of professionals how to enter and do those plans with Fidelity they're going in doing Fidelity checks making sure that the plan is being completed as it's

082supposed to um and then you know providing additional support through the bcba so she kind of says you know I was in the classroom I noticed this and then the bcba is providing that direct supervision to the pair of professionals or BTS in the classroom so um we do appreciate you asking um or providing that additional support it's been really beneficial um the one thing obviously you know we always are funding our District transportation and tuition so that is just something that's kind of a fixed amount in our budget um and then you know supporting the specialized programs um so those actually before I started they were put into place we had very small classrooms with very small amount of students but planning that at that time was really beneficial because right now these classrooms

083are filling up so you'll see an increase in pair of professionals and that's really to support those specialized classrooms that have a good number of students in both of the classrooms at the elementary and the middle school and they service um right now it's Elementary to Middle School um I think in next year or maybe the year after considering um building onto the high school at that point but we're not there just yet um so those extra pair of professionals are supporting the specialized class rooms and again that's a cost savings because these are students that may be outplaced in other districts but we are able to support them through what we're doing here um we had Cooperative Educational Services CES come in with two of their trained um professionals they are the only ones

084in um the Northeast that are trained in developmental therapy and they've treat have trained both the teachers in those classrooms so they're utilizing pretty much what theyd be utilizing in and out placement within our um district schools and that's been really really beneficial um other than that I I won't we won't talk about any longer but I would be in support of that position to help with Amy and Rachel again we're looking at the best way to structure it um but I think providing them that additional support again I would be supporting that special ed piece of it um but giving them you know someone that can give them that time to do that really important instructional uh rounds with the classrooms versus just being tied up and as you can see we have an

085increase of students we're over 300 at this point um we do have a lot of students moving in that have IEPs um and we are ring District here so just something to keep in mind questions yes could you explain the uh increase in transportation out of District like 37% so 20 $7,000 increase so I think I mean Howard and I we contract those Services um allar doesn't have transportation to contract that um we do some of our internal runs with our new van that's been really really helpful that actually decreased it by quite a bit um we had one run um previous that was costing us $22,000 a month roughly um so we were able to get the van and kind of bring that cost down unfortunately it's contracted through um these different companies to

086make those runs so it dep depends on the distance of where they're coming from and how much they're charging for the daily rate um it's not necessarily anything we can regulate we do kind of go back and forth to kind of negotiate um but it's it's just based on where the students are going um the length of the day the time of the day and what each of the subcontracted companies are charging and then of course the increaseed fuel prises could you how could you say how many um special ed students are in 6 through 12 because there's 300 and2 District so how many would be in the six through 12 um about 120 roughly I'm just going by the numbers that are on my board currently in my office so there's roughly 59 students

087in middle school and 74 students currently in the high school that's just within our district um being served as daily we obviously there's students in out placements and things like that but in our building we have 59 middle school special education students in 74 at the high school I just think that's a lot of students for um the supervisor of special education um to take on all of those students as well as being the behavior person as well those are those seem to be two separate positions to make and and currently our supervisor of special education is overseeing the whole District so she's you know K12 or pre112 right now pre right but there are certainly a lot of Behavioral issues as well and you know I I just think that that's an awful lot

088for one person the supervisor special so are we hearing support for a second put we in place reinstate that position as it was no I'm just saying that that that is um I I don't know you know I I don't know how you know how else you can do it but we also have to remember too each of the buildings at the middle school and high school have an assistant principal too so there are people that are running PS not just the supervisor special education so there are four administrators between the Middle School school and the supervisor as of right now though that that supervisor is covering pre to 12 um so there are additional principles and I will say between the two elementary schools they have the same amount of students roughly in special

089education so we're sharing one person they're covering the same amount of students as well but wouldn't there be more behavioral issues in the sixth through 12th not necessarily I think behaviors look lot different at 6 to 12 so 6 to 12 I think we're dealing um you know there's many behaviors and what we're seeing at you know the reason we have an additional bcba is we're seeing a lot of physical behaviors from our younger students so we have that additional support and that actually also supports K the 12 too so I I think it looks different in terms of what those behaviors are um 612 sometimes it's more of the avoidance um there are some I would say we have less physical behaviors at that age um but it is definitely I wouldn't say there's

090more or less behaviors in the Middle School in the elementary school so currently 302 but so it increases every year so is this budget how many are you expecting for next year um so it increased about I it kind of fluctuates right students graduate and then students exit special education so we did hit over 300 at the end of last year I think we were at 310 and then we're now at 302 so I mean give or take I think think last year we increased by about 15 to 20 overall after all those fluctuations so I could see it probably being similar to 15 to 20 students just out of curiosity not that I think you'll have an answer for this today but I saw last night on the news that the state now has

091a select committee on spend costs and I know that this is a a Big Driver of the risks in our budget because we don't know what's going to happen we know the education cost share grants aren't being fully funded you have any faith that that's going to go anywhere and really this from the municipalities in any way or is it just something to make it look like they're going to help us and then might not I would like to think that they are it's spend something there was a task force um enacted I think it was two years ago and they finally just presented you know that was the major driver for that so there is a lot of people that are a part of this and taking a look at it so I am

092very hopeful that we can you know even if it's just increasing our cost share um as you know it's been cut the last couple of years so if we could even just increase back to where we were that would be very helpful they were talking about how they're going to be doing a listening tour and that these are going to be legislator leaving or legislators leaving the capital to go learn about this so hope we have an opportunity to engage with them and make them see how uh serious this is to us to cause they just fund at 70% which legislatively supposed to fund that oppos to this year where they fund that at 62% right I me yeah they mentioned how obious supposed to F the grants haven't even gone up to manage inflation

093let alone the fact that they're correct yeah now now they're going below the legally supposed I can definitely share out information if they're going to be in our area I will definitely advoc for that I was just curious if uh there was any more that you knew other than that but I hope that that turns into something to it's something definitely to watch I know it's going to be a bill so definitely following it and seeing where it's headed um but it is a big push there it's been a lot of talks for the last year and as Howard said if we could even just refund it at 70% that would help a lot just there's any questions regarding because there's you'll see numbers that increased I just want to talk about the pars going

094here right so what ended up happening this year is um so we had to bring back pairs from the grants but the grants again they're not funding them as anticipated so there's $216,000 that's coming back onto the operating budget that was being funded by grants because we the money just isn't there and we have to keep them because as Dr po El suggested the students need that pars so that's part of the large increase that you're seen in the pars and also as Dr B alluded to since this time last year we had 39 Paras now we have 44 Paras so when the budget was approved last year there was 39 that's what was in the budget but during the year you had to add more because of the need so those are that's another

095reason why the budget looks much larger because they're not in that budget from last year so you're seeing it's $143,000 those type of that time so combined it was like $350,000 with a pair of salary that has been added to this budget that didn't exist there last year so that's why you're seeing such a large increase in those lines specifically I just want to draw that to your attention state right correct right you have and that's the risk that we know when we build a budget that we're building based on the anticipated education that we have in front of us today but if students move in either with an I already that requires them that I'm professional or it's a brand new PP with a new IP it's possible that we didn't was even on

096Horizon because now that student all of a sudden needs that support they didn't need before and in those cases these needs were new that were not known when we built the budget that's the risk that and there so there there is zero contingency for that students like in the past has come into district with a full out placement that we have to abide by legally so in the past I think years ago sometimes we have contingency this year we have zero contingency so in the line you'll see it on page we get into the details page 84 um it's the tuition um district line I highlighted in red just because I I just thought it was important that to note that the in that tuition line that's for an out placement an out placement basically

097cost about $150,000 so we have no encies in there there literally none so if a student comes in and we have to out place them which again trying not to but if it has to happen that's $150,000 budget deficit that all of a sudden we unac account so I just want to make you all aware of that as well and same thing with Care Professionals they're I that come in that already have assigned people to them and do yeah there's no there's no buer par extra salaries it's just we have what we need that's what's budget for now if someone comes in that leads one the budget budget and justtin know I think in order for us to be idea compliant and continue to receive federal funds um we do have to spend more each

098year than the previous year so just you know make sure just so we can maintain the funding that we get the reduction in Grants uh for the Paris is that because the state is uh doing the removing the grants or is there a possibility grants could come back so the way the state my understand is the way the state calculates it right part of the issue part of the issue of why ours is being our oxfords is being reduced is because you're becoming a more affluent Community um as you move up you were 58th last year and you were 58th out of I don't know to number 50 something 150 something you're 58 this year you're 53rd okay you're mov you're becoming a more affluent community you become a more affluent Community you get less

099and less allocated to you because they more to the less communi so that's a big part of it also the funding for those grants is being reduced the Ida granted a Federal grant right so I don't know if Connecticut got less I know they Connecticut just didn't fund it funded wasn't funded as much so then again I don't know if they're cutting back or it's a Fed cutting back and so I just know a big part of it though is your affluence as you become more affluent the less you're going to get matter of fact if you just this year for the excess cost Grant you literally were the last one in the 62% if you had moved up one more you would have been at 60% getting excess C back was coming back and

100that's how close you are to being in the top tier of the States state considers top tier after communities we used to be 70 so you've been matter of fact if you I I did an analysis one I think it was last year where um was showing the comparison right now dur which is your dur C and that but that calculation we've done in 2006 and hasn't been updated since well there's a there's a group in the state of Connecticut um G I get financers group or something like that they actually redid the formula using the exact same formula from 2006 and they did it in 2023 you're now in dirt B and you're in with the new Canin you're in with the you're in with the much higher level schools that I I get

101it they have a lot more money down that state but that's the group you're being put into now and you're being considered part of so just be aware of that when it comes to funding when you're getting funding from the state how how it's going to impact your operating budget because now there's less rent money to be able to utilize okay instruction so Eric L director instruction and assessment uh so I have page 35 and I'm also going to refer to so page 89 is the kind of line item pce uh specifically the operations so similar to some other cost centers um no major increases actually the overall budget does go down um in my cost center um there's a couple three of those lines under operations are the major drivers of my budget number

102one being curriculum writing um last year we did about this time we did create a new districtwide curriculum template so for about a year now we're working on trying to get as much new curriculum written uh especially some of the new English programs we brought on K12 as well as Revis um curriculum that has not been written in a while so this is just a continuation um in this past year um we've done um seven major the content uh curriculum with uh high school English Middle School English high school or middle school math um this year we're working on world languages we've done High School um health class working on Middle School library middle school music as well as some new elective courses that just got approved by the board so this is going to

103be something we're doing every year until U we get to the point where where we have everything either written or revised um so that's the curriculum writing line item there uh the other major piece of my job is kind of overseeing the professional development that occurs in the district uh if remember last year um during the budget process we took all of the schools PD line items so the majority of them as well as special education and put him into mind um so there's a lot of those pieces in that line item for professional de uh development um and again that's going to be kind of a ongoing cost that you're going to see every year um this year I created a form so any teacher can reach out and request professional development um that

104should be somewhat aligned to obviously their contact area or to their particular teacher evaluation goals um so we've had some big ticket items we sent a lot of teachers to something called building thinking classroom which is um related to math and student engagement in math um we've sent uh people of play based learning which is a state mandate at the K3 level um we've had a lot of PD around that as well as AI um but again any teacher can request um and as of now I've been able to send probably about 95% of all requests um have been um approved for professional development this also includes being able to pay um outside vendors to come in provide professional development as well so we've had at the board meeting uh Matt muris who did the

105AI presentation um I have a meeting with him tomorrow he's probably going to be coming back during a full day PD this year um to work with 612 teachers on on AI and assignments um and making them durable so that's the type of work and what comes out of the professional development line um we were able to do a slight decrease this year and most of that is because of the investment we made in the K5 literacy coach so she is taking on a lot of professional development in those grade levels um and we did not have to use some outside fenders that we've used previously for those grade levels for that specific area um the other major budget driver is just supplies well each school has obviously their line item for supplies any new

106courses or revisions I do put money aside for um any materials that may need be needed for them so we do have a couple new elective courses um that got approved for next year's program of studies at the high school so there is some money set aside um for that piece um I do also purchase as we get data back throughout the year um whether it's math Ela really any assessment data as we're reviewing it there just comes meetings and times where it's like you know we really need like these manipulatives to help in math or you know based on this data we can really start to implement this um so there are there is part of that budget I put aside to be able to um get things immediately after we finish that data

107analysis piece from the assessments we do um and then you know I do set some aside to try to just bring in student engagement into the classroom so for example um the end of last year we did uh purchase a couple drones for a middle school class to see if interest with the students to see if it's something we can build on um later so that's really kind of what lives in the instructional Supply piece and that's about 95% of the budget and then the rest is the professional supplies um resources I purchase um or purchase others to help create PK so it's not only vendors who provide the professional development I provide some obviously the principales provide them um Megan provides them as well so it's resources for those people in the district who

108are providing for real development um to the staff so that is one of the big pieces of the corcal budget so Eric what do you think is the most impactful thing we could do to move the needle as far as achievement teaching and learning is there something in the budget that you didn't ask for but would really make a difference I I don't think there's one thing I think what we got to be you know careful of is the reason there's no big huge ask here is we've had a bunch over the past you know I've only been here a year and a half and then previous to me we've made huge purchases into hmh into reading um you know the purchase into the math programs we've got and you know when I work with

109the K5 literacy coach or anyone my personal philosophy and the way we do things here is I've never seen a program that you can take by and say hey this works great go use it you know day-to-day teachers just go to page one and use it turn to page two it takes a ton of work um you know time understanding by the teachers the meeting time that the principls were talking about to go ahead and make that into a program that's going to work for Oxford Public Schools so you know I once we get some of the stuff that we've brought on the past couple years in the right place like yes there may be some S as we move forward um things may change in the future I know you know we will have

110uh some subscriptions up some major budget item subscriptions like math in the next couple years two years down the road Road you know will be talking about end of the 5year cycle for hmh and and the kind of money it's going to talk to resubscribe for that so um you know in regards to I'd love to bring in a whole bunch of technology and and programs and such but it's also it's a small District every time you bring something in you got to say is something leading because of that do we have the staff to do this so we have a lot of irons in the fire right that's same we have a lot of irons in the fire right now and I think you know we have to perfect what we're doing now we

111have the people in place uh in order to do that and we are looking at more programming a lot of conversations happening like the high school and we're at kind of the beginning stages with that so yes things may come but um I'm comfortable with what we have this upcoming year um but you know we're always talking about how can we innovate and what can we add and bring and those conversations are happening now but we'll see what those bring thank you anybody well my name is Jim lock singer I'm the director of Technology coordinator of it um my budget major budget drivers is on page 37 uh mine really fall into two buckets software and hardware and as you heard Eric talk about um software I am the sorry um I am the keeper

112of all online software it just fault lives in my budget it's easiest for me to renew them all because I'm in charge of it um so most of them don't really pertain to actually it uh and if you look at at some of these like Amplified Dibbles ISL those are curriculum based not it based but they live online so it's just easiest for me to do them uh the reason that one went up as much as it did because those were being paid by a Federal grant called Esser Esser is no longer so now they're back into our budget so that's the majority of them you will see that there are two softwares in there that we are asking for new this year an EDR software for our desktops it's an advanced uh detection and

113response software which we currently don't have which actually might lower our insurance as well um we just have a a semi basic it's not a full EDR uh solution so there's only two of us in the IT department that manage every single device on the network and all the network devices as well this actually has um people monitoring our logs 247 and gives us responses to when they notice something on one of our devices so it's pretty valuable software we're we're trialing one right now uh that we like that actually has 247 uh notification so uh and then a School dismissal software which we plan to implement it goes in Quaker if you ever been down uh Great Oak Road at about 3:00 uh you know those lines and the weaving in and out of

114traffic uh we hope that this software actually alleviates some of that it's like a QR based code um where the parent drives up scans the QR code sends a signal inside says Johnny's ready to be picked up Johnny leaves and it alleviates them standing outside as well so hopefully that that will help as well and that's a very small ticket item the second uh Major Drive for us is Hardware um we started purchasing grades three and eight Chromebooks last year um and we would like to continue that going forward so in three and eight they got a brand new Chromebook they're going to move forward to four and n and three and eight we'll get brand new ones next year and hopefully continue that cycle and fiveyear cycle is a pretty good lifespan for a

115Chromebook to keep them the the life of it um we also purchase insurance for them as well which cost the district Pro o imately $30 a device um we do do typically more than are the devices that are one per one per student so that we have some extras that they can go on out so they don't end up broken um we repair most of those on site but we have the opportunity to also send them in to be repaired as well some of the ones uh that require a little more intricate cabling we just send out if it's a screen or keyboard we fix it in house we can also leverage which we haven't had time to do so students to fix the as well they they run a whole program this the insurance

116company runs a a program to actually run a class they they'll come in and teach the kids how to use how to change them out for us too um we just haven't had time to get around to that so um and then that would also include a desktop computers for Great Oak they're the last one on they're approximately 10 years old the computers here in this building um cannot run Windows 11 so Windows Windows 10 is dead in 27 2 26 I believe in in October so they won't send us security updates anymore so we that's so that's about it sure uh copy release 163,000 is that that's the actual cost to lease one copier uh 10 copers and prints as well so all our all our printers as well so that covers maintenance on

117all the printers as well as um a separate specific number of prints if you will out of those copies and that's more cost effective than purchasing new copers um it is because then we're not responsible for maintenance that includes maintenance of all those the machines if you've ever had a toner blow up on you you know kind mess that is and drums and all those things the rollers and those are you know we call Xerox they're here the next day um and that actually is up now and I think we actually got a small reduction on that too I think we're going to get a small we're negotiating right now got a call tomorrow Jim and I a call tomorrow morning negotia it's not a huge reduction but it's Nom it's it's 300 bucks it

118should be less than that yes should end up being and it will include Staples too ours did not prior the secretaries are very happy believe it or not that's like $2,000 yeah believe it or not so that's it's crazy true and most dists do le as capacity I was just curious like how many cop I think maintenance alone you'd be you know for only two of us to maintain the 10 copiers would be very difficult yeah yeah they're gonna come and take those pen out question on the capital Improv 500 change uh what are we looking at I mean it's access point the network that's a onetoone swap out with what we have currently so our firewalls are pretty much end of life at end of 2026 as well switch as soon as that stops

119we can't update any of the switches either for any of the security updates uh APS would gain us more uh visibility uh because the radios are better um the actual number is not what is in the budget because we will be applying for eate as well which is a federal funded grant program which but we only qualify for 40% so it's just under a m I think it was 9 95 900 9 somewhere right around there um but that would give us full transparent every single piece would be uh taken down and put right back up so we're going to stick with foret I think so yeah for the access points are they are we going to sevens or are we going with six off the top my head I believe they're sevens but I'm

120not positive it it doesn't do us it it's about the same price to go from six to seven but I I don't quote me on that because I I looked at it real fast um I think the price went up for foret for that but at a certain point it becomes negligible right because you get you know deeper range right um I don't know I'm just wait to the next trying to beite um now know that for some of the work we've done in security are there any concerns with our infrastructure in for example Quaker um do we do we need is it a onetoone swap or do we need further investment in Quaker for what we are looking to do slash I I don't think so no I mean we're pretty it's it's the

121same thing as here essentially I mean there's still foret switches for everything's almost exactly the same they don't they might not have a main switch there they just have regular switches um but it's pretty much the same so it it's a full lift and shift or is there something we need to look at engineering wise that's changed you know we should be thinking forward on well we we've been talking to foret in that capacity I'm not it guy yeah we've been talking to foret in in that capacity um not you know obviously they're trying to sell us their stuff but if you talk to anybody they're going to do the exact same thing so we have them in house now and we have contracts with them because we pay for that stuff and they're more

122than willing they're actually coming out on site uh Friday I believe to not maybe not do so so much of a heat map because you might be able to reduce the number but you know our coverage is real good right now it's only going to get better but we add more devices onto Network because you know it's inevitable but it would that that's a d if we don't do this in some manner the security is because without firmware updates without OS updates they just it's not a good scenario and all of our security goes to the technology right uh between badges you know uh all all the cameras are all out there um so and what what's up there now what standard is up there now I I I don't off the time ahead I

123don't know okay um but I believe it's 5 not maybe before though because these were purchased I think as part of the Middle School um yeah but the the thing is not a lot of our devices are going to be six or seven either you know educationally Wise It's not not real uh it's not it's not it's not cost effective right to put those those you know Wireless in future proof though yes correct going forward right right but as we know two years later down the road come they blast out nine and we're behind the eight ball anyways but that's irrelevant but yeah trying to get the the best we can most bank for our bar is what we're trying to do good fa I'm gon bring and I know you met on this past

124summer hello everybody Michael datino the keep Operating Officer facility Falls underneath my perview so first of all thank you very much for taking a time with us tonight um one of the things that I wanted to discuss about facilities that I'm very comfortable and confident in saying that facilities are in a better place than they were when we met last year at this time there's been an awful lot of work done and I believe that the learning environment is a Better Learning environment than it has been um our budget for facilities is I would classify it as an aggressive budget it's a reduction of 2.8% from last year um we're continuing with the remaining our current staff levels we're not looking for any change there very fortunate to have very competent and hardworking staff across

125the whole District um part of the reason I'm sorry uh page 38 and 39 in your book there uh part of the reason why uh I feel comfortable with the budget at the level that we're proposing is we have a new HVAC system in this building um it's working very well and I anticipate that we'll have lower costs in terms of any kind of repairs because everything will be covered under warranty um and we've also been doing a large number of repairs based on either deferred maintenance or preventative maintenance and I'm I'm leveraging or hoping that we'll have some future cost reduction due to that so that's sort of what I've my train of thought when I was building the budget which you'll find on page 90 if you'd like to take a look at

126the line items why 127,000 ground me like what's the reduction that you're saying only budgeting for snowfalling what else were you doing no go ahead so last year in the budget was a it say I I budgeted for ground maintenance not realizing that that's by and Recreation it's not charged backward I budgeted as if town was going to charge they don't that's that's the reduction them I think there was a concern that they would charge us there was that conversation over multiple years of who's picking up the tab on that so I don't think it was a mistake as much as it was not fully decided and we had been told that we were going to be putting budg it was communicated that we field maintenance that's correct so as graciously powered as being it

127wasn't a mistake by how we we thought we were going to be getting that that uh responsibility and we're not so we're assuming that it's not going to come this year either next year Parker get stuck with the maintenance they always want to push it back and you know as hope gets it now there's Stu with it you know we're very big very big a park and wreck I'm very happy with dealing with Kira and the sterak she's a great person and our buildings are utilized heavily uh by um Park and wreck so our buildings very rarely get a break there's not a lot of time that our buildings get their rest but I'm very happy to let her take care of the fields is the Middle School baseball field being utilized yes is it

128they did have some home games this year um there's still some concerns about the drainage we've taken some steps to repair it or to augment it actually and we're hopeful that it's going to work for us um do we want to talk about the Capital Improvements you want to do the capital Improvement come back after all the operating stuff is done you're here um and then speak clear security is that okay sounds good okay thank you um so if we go to page 94 and 95 for the five-year Capital plan so you'll notice there are four four items that we've put on this for this year um we discussed the network upgrade with the director of it Jim loinger um the other three are the first grade playground the track repair at middle school and

129a generator for this building uh this building requires two different generators because there's two different power sources coming in and two different levels so there's no way to have one generator for the two different types of two different levels of power they're very different I think it's or I'm sorry it might be 408 and 220 or 220 and 408 um so the bottom line is it requires two generators and they're both going to be very large so the two gener each generator is going to be about a quart of a million dollar and again the heating system now is all electric so we um we if we lost power here we wouldn't have any heating we wouldn't have any air conditioning we also would not have any internet for is it this whole street right

130and the phones all going through the internet right and the phones are over the internet as well so that's that's a a major concern the first PL uh first grade playground at Quaker Farms has been a concern for a long time uh Rachel and I have spoken about that we've uh done repairs and upgrades to the other two playgrounds and it's time for the first grade playground to get an overhaul the uh some of the apparatus that are there are not compliant right now so they really should be replaced there was a question earlier about the Middle School track repair uh and I walked the track with a with a uh contractor excuse me with a contractor looks like uh in the past there was an awful lot of repair work that was done and

131some drainage that was added and the drainage went from the inner field to outside of the track so the track got cut and it looked like there was drainage that was laid through there all of those repairs have receded or or uh separated from the original track so that $20,000 is to go back and repair them again correct so it's like filling pot holes it's it's more than that it's actually cutting out the areas of the track that have failed and replacing it with new with the new track and lining it so the track would then it's asked fall and so the track would then be the same level we wouldn't have as many uh concerns about a trip and fall or a twisted ankle or something along it's to take what's what's failed and

132repair it or replace it it's not meant as a number to rip up the whole thing and start all over again that would be hundreds of thousands of dollars are you comfortable with the $20,000 I am with that I am with that contractor another contractor might have a different idea I would have to take a look at it and are you comfortable that you're going to get a good result for that $20,000 again that contractor has done some work for us I'm very comfortable with his work and I think uh he has a lot of pride in the work that he does I also have a question about the track that how long would that extend the life before we would be looking at another repair I don't know um because I don't know the

133the I don't know what the future holds but if you take care of all of the repair all of the areas that need repair now it should last I would say at least another 5 to 10 years unless there's some other uh failure underneath the track and the sub substrate underneath the track do you know approximately when the last time was that there were significant repairs on it no I'm sorry I don't Mike you you facilties man for the all the schools yes sir you are yes sir Okay so we've done a lot of work in all that yes we have I appr tell you that I appreciate your support tomorrow night okay I think that the play Farm School HB will be going ahead oh that that's two schools with agback course we got

134the new school we did a lot of work on the uh high school we did the we did the pool we did the uh the what we call the the pool pack pool pack that's in there in Great Oak we just finished the roof and now we're putting in the eight pack for the uh gym and the lunch room that's correct so that's a lot of work and what we have on the line right now is we have about uh let's say $1 million and we are getting grants which I wish the state would hurry up and start releasing some checks that were down to cost the town about a net just on the school projects about $5 million that sounds about right this this wasn't a great time no believe me but it is

135what it is well I certainly appreciate all of the work that you've done conversations that we had and I appreciate the town support doing all this but you have four buildings and it's about half a million square feet um that take a lot of care well I think the important thing is you eventually after next year all the children will be not not freezing to death for school not hot right breing fresh air I agree with you and that's the reason a great goal I think that's a great goal and that's the reason for my opening statement that I feel confident from the time that we met last year at this meeting to this year that the children have a better learning environment than they did previously sure do so and that's my goal and

136I think that's everyone's goal here other questions for me one question for the network upgrade at 540 is that work into your operating budget or is that quite you're call up pure Capital pure Capital if there's no other questions I'd like to introduce let's stay withal so okay in order to comply with the town um statutes we're supposed to provide the town our cap Improvement plan by February 1st just understand that we've done in the past so we'd be asking the bo to vote on the capital impr plant tonight if there's any that you want to see me made we certainly can make those changes reflect in the doc and send that on to the board of bance as well the uh I'd like to make a motion to accept the capital approvement projects as

137presented any discussion all those in favor you were saying this is we put the movement forward for for this year I just had a question where we came up with the priority list and thec that was my evaluation of where we were and how long we could sort of go out with some things there are some things that I may or may not be able to move uh the one that jumps off the page for me is Quaker Farms Paving lot uh Rachel and I have had numerous conversations about that whether or not it can it can last to get to 2028 I'm not entirely sure I don't have a crystal ball but you know that might be that might be an issue um but in in terms of the high school roof repair uh

138that's that's just because by then the roof will be over 20 years old and so I'm assuming that we're going to need some repairs so I'm putting I'm putting a dollar there so I'm just noticing from the subcommittee meetings that this is this is there's less stuff here than there was before is that a lot of that in the budget in different cost centers I I believe for example like the athletic stuff I believe some of some thetic Stu would be Capital Improvement plans right good okay all right any more discussion all those in favor hi allos exensions motion passes thank you one of the major Investments that our board made and the board of Finance in fact the town made was to invest in a new position for the director of security for the

139district and in just a few months um Brian biger who is our director of security has significantly in enhanced what we do within the school in terms of the other operating procedures with audits of the schools changes in protocols so we are safer today than we were five months ago and the budget you see today reflects his vision of how we can continue to enhance that security you're right good evening everybody my name is Brian vam director of security uh first and foremost I want to thank the town of Oxford as well as the Oxford Public Schools for their commitment in school security I could say this wholeheartedly having been involved in school security since 2012 uh Oxford is arguably one of the best in the state when it comes to school security um and

140it's reflected in uh the current proposed budget for 2526 at $175,300 have unfortunately I'm not going to be able to answer due to the sensitivity of some of those answers um in terms of the finance committee you should know that I do work collaboratively with the board in terms of subcommittee with regards to security we go into an executive session and all of those facts are D it out to them um I'd also like to thank it uh Jim and his in his unit as well as Mike in the facilities I have the honor of working collaboratively with them it's my belief as a result of working collaborative with it and Facilities the budget remains what it is in in terms of being the lowest in the district uh I have the ability to to

141kind of pwn off some of the uh some of the security measures over to it as well as being absorb through the facilities uh I'm going to specifically stick to some of the ones that fall directly into security so there's a tactical phrase We like to use it's called emergency consistency and essentially that is standardizing and applying policies procedures and practices across the district in terms of emergency preparedness so that in the event of an emergency we're standardized across all four buildings as well as all the the structures that oversee the District so that we can have a routined consistent and effective response for staff as well as the students um so as the superintendent mentioned my position is brand new to the district uh I got boots on ground on August 5th a week

142into my my deployment I was hit with a storm we were hit with a storm as well as a flooding um after that I I spent a big bulk of my time auditing all of our security systems from badges to keys to protocols emergency notification systems and needless to say some of the deficiencies and discrepancies were noted and communicated both to the superintendent as well as the board of bed specifically under the security division uh I'd like to focus on a couple areas as you can see uh on page 88 line item number four there's a 600% increase in terms of miscellaneous expenses that is to cover uh what we call emergency curtains or classroom door and window uh pools in the event of a lockdown uh as you can see here they have paper

143over at ghost again standardizing it so that what we do over at Quaker is replicated over at the high school um that is one of the biggest increases right now it's proposed at 3 $3,000 um I am working with a local vendor that can only Supply to nonprofit agencies that is why that price is so low um the next largest item would be 125% uh increases the budget of $5,000 and that is so that we can Implement new radios fortunately that is one of our our large pitfalls the newest radios were delivered back in 2014 so if you go on that technology we're basically looking at 11 years um and as those are for our newest ones um I am working collaboratively with the fire department in terms of making sure what radios that we

144are proposing who work seamlessly with them in terms of Emergency Management um as well as the PD so those are the biggest increases in terms of that budget you will see in if you saw noticed in the capital budget probably was $100,000 for radios as well so just so you're aware of what's going on there Brian is also working with trying to get a grant that repl into all the radi that would be $100,000 in order for us to file for Grants we have to put it into the capital budget doesn't necessarily mean that it has to happen but it has to be in a capital budget somewhere so that the grant would be accepted so that's why that is in there this 5,000 is is replacement for to repl it's not all of them

145it's just some for the old so just want to make sure you're clear on that one also one of the larger increases is the it's by 54,000 in the salary line currently we we require that the Asos remain on site during our lunch hour but they're not paid for it all their surrounding towns and my understanding is all surrounding towns do actually pay them to remain on site so we are going to pay them a half hour every day for their lunch hour that would cost $5,400 for 2A or 2 Asos over the balance of the year that's why that's large increase in the salary um their salary increases are 2 and a half% like so there's no that that's what the big piece is that we have to pay the extra half out um

146if that wasn't in there the actual increase of security would only inre thank you out we get into the central officer District I I would like to public Howard for his um leadership in the budget process the budget b you see here tonight has been in evolution over the last five years and I've been here and I believe it's the most trans um and for budet book that we've done and each it's gotten better and I thank you for all the time put thank you um so we'll start with central office which is initially the page the slide page is on 42 the detail is on 87 um so what we're looking here is that the largest increases in this budget so the um the salary line you're seeing there for superintendent this Chief Operating

147Officer and myself um we have two and a half% increases again those are the two salary lines but you're seeing a large increase 75% in the stiping line what the $3,000 because in the teachers contract Any teacher who gets their doctorate gets paid $3,000 a year we just had one this year he just got his Doctorate as I think you Lo of papers in today to tell me you got his Doctorate so I had his with $3,000 into the budget so um that's the large increase there um also uh the other everything else pretty much really flat except for the 5,000 to the superintendent events line again we added that line last year I'm just adjusting it to what what's occurring as we get more historical data rejecting that to the actual that's why it's

148such a large increase I need questions on central office doctor [Music] just it's a great yes it is congratulations than so we'll move on to the district wide little bit larger increase here um primary again primary drivers here is again I've done an analysis it's further back in the book what page are you on I'm sorry page 83 is the line item page 44 is the slide with the page 45 is also the major budget so I'm just I'm going to be I'm going to start with page 45 just because it's a little reason other line I'm um so substitute pair of professionals um this is twice now last year I reduced it um because I'm what I'm looking at is I'm looking at the Historical usage um last year I believe it was up

149in the it was $882,000 um then we actually spent the prior year 26,000 so there's no need to have $882,000 now line so I'm bringing it down for historical usage um so that's why you're seeing such a large decrease in that line uh the next line degree changes on settled contracts just so you're aware the contract that each of the individual line items in here for par Professionals for custodians and for nurses does not have a salary increase for them for next year because their contracts we are currently going to go into negotiation this year and have not been settled so we don't know what the raises would be so there is a raise put into the budget but it's in this line item just because we don't want to give up negotiating by putting

150an x% raise in a line item so they'll know exactly what we budgeted for so we just we for all for all that for all the uh the um associations we put the all the raises in here that's why it's such a large increase um part-time bus drivers the $224,000 is a significant increase but again um Dr poogan Ali spoke before we were actually spending 20 something th $23,000 a month when we were using an outside service so so having two part-time drivers at um at this the $24,000 increase it's actually $34,000 overall for the cost is a significant actual savings compared to what it would be if we outsourced this a different like allloy medical they always the fun one um Brown and Brown we have a cap of 11% it can't go no

151higher than 11% this year um they told me a budget at that but um I'm hoping I'm hoping he's not a plan I understand that but at the end of the day um I'm I'm I'm confident that it's going to be less than 11% and that's why I put 8% in here I actually think it's actually going to be a little less than that and I'll have a final number probably in the next few weeks hopefully or a better number I should say that I can update cons what's the employee how much do the employee contribute on the medical it's AC it's different across but um 20% in the 20 to 22% range 20 to 22 yeah when does it finalize June July the medical the medical will probably be around yeah May time frame

152May June after the V yeah be it'll be I mean we'll get close in April May but again it's not it depends upon again our claims so let's go back so we started an hdhp which the high productable Health Plan last September so the takes time for the claims to what they call mature and for them to be able to use them in an Actuarial model that they can then process out as to what they're what the costs are going to be for premiums so um they're telling me right now that because we only have so many like six months months in or not even six months five months in that our claims are not mature so they really can't give us a good number so that's why they told me to use the 11%

153cap but I think as as our claims mature and part of the part of the issue thing is too we're going to bringing in two of the hopefully bring in the par professionals and the custodians who were in The Old plan not in the hdhp which is a much higher cost we're going to bring hopefully bring them in through negotiations which will then lower our cost and then we'll have a full 12 months for everyone else that went on in September next year so that'll because they have two months on the old plan and 10 months on the new plan for this budget year and then this bu this 2526 is going to have a lower cost there so that's why I'm confident that it's going to be less than 11% how much less I

154I put eight I'm hoping it's a little less than that so we'll see hopefully in the next few months I'll be able to give you a better but again medical cost will beine that you have metal medical expense that'll be the net the net of what the the employees pay correct so it's always net it's always the n and then the next big line electricity fun topic we've had in the finance Finance I've also done there's analysis in the back here I put an analysis in there how I came up with this number um through increased usage again for air conditioning the building which we never did before um I've increased the usage that I'm projecting out and so it's it's going to be up $250,000 just based on the rates um again this year

155it's up significantly this is not include I Know Jack we've talk I know you've been talking about the the on Bill no interest loan that ever Source gave for the project it's a million so just so everyone's aware there's a million dollar loan out there for the project that happened in this building and we supposed to pay on our bill $200,000 a year for the next five years um that's not so we've been talking with the town I talk with Jim Oliva we've been talking about how we handle that it's that $1 16,666 a month that we Haven budgeted for this year and talking with the finance committee from the board we were talking with the town as to who's going to pick that up so I know that's in negotiations right now but I

156just want to tell you that's not in this budget so that's that's a risk that's also there it was the boards Board of Education we're getting the reduced rate somehow that how that million dolls was figured in it's crazy but uh it was considered education pay that long I don't chck when was it considered because I don't remember that in the discussions when we were doing the HVAC I I mean maybe it was in behind closed doors but I I don't remember it was behind closed doors but there was always in The Proposal okay the million dollars for uh fiveyear interest free on Bill loan they called okay so it was always going to come out of the board of education's electric bills okay you what the gain you were going to get on this

157s electricity savings you're going to have okay if they're going to be such a thing that's where it would be would be you would pay so like less of an electric bill that it would be all set by you have to pick up the uh pay back that loan to million dollars that's the way it was initially put would I WR it that way I have no idea I was not here at that time I think when was that done when was that done well that that was when we started Great Oak to put the hbac in The Proposal going way back and uh that's where it was I I was not in the negotiation on this at all so I don't know but that was way back at let's see if I got the

158contract that would have been approved in the fall in the winter of 2024 23 so last year we started the project in January year ago but the assumption is and I've worked on energy projects before is that your Energy savings pays for the 5e cost that's supposed to happen but if it doesn't then now you're using it more and the calculation is thrown off so that additional cost but I've got ju Li on the contract here right that this was written 73124 the overall cost of their project we proposed the project with the town the we did not as a board of education and as SP District did not recommend taking out an eversource Loan in order to pay for that recommended by Herman the building of the time the how that Finance arrived at

159the assumption that the Board of Education would be the one that's paying for that loan that was never a formal discussion that took place either with our committee or the board at that time so I'm not too sure if that was ever fully assigned one to the other at least I was never part in any conversations around that right now who's going to who's going to calculate this out you know we have a hard enough time just following the appropriation itself did we get the monies in did we spend it you know do we Comm in under budget okay you got that we don't know with this electric rates and how this going to get back I noticed in in when we did the Quaker Farms that's left out okay it's pure it's pure is

160$5 million we get 2,593 in Grants and the rest of the Longs of the town 3,256 period there's no million dollars in there that was how this was arranged at that time I'll get I'll get back to you on that yeah maybe Howard and I can go down and and talk with people but it's probably isn't the the right venue for this conversation and he's if be continued yeah so yeah so um we'll get to the bottom of it and and if you want to help Jack be more than the million dollars I never I know nothing about getting the million dollars yeah so Howard and I may because I was I don't think I was on the board when was this before after you had just been um voted into the board when this

161was all been finalized so let's maybe you can I can have you come see what what's going on so because you were or at time so we'll um we'll get all four of us will get together and we'll get get with who we need to get but just so everyone's clear that 200,000 is not in this budget right so that just I understand that also arm is there's the fees that are created everyone's electric bills to go up are going to end in April so again it's a risk if they don't um but that's another 139 13 159,000 get the number the numbers 150,000 round number of risk that is not in this budget so that's how we get to because if this budget had those numbers in it would be $400,000 higher basically can

162we 150 again so there's two there's two things that are not in so right now in the budget we have we've budgeted for electricity $850,000 not in there as a $200,000 loan okay so that that that's not in there would be another I'm just going to say $200,000 that round numbers 200,000 that the fees that the Conn state of Connecticut added onto everyone's electricity bill Community fees and we work I think I worked out to be $189,000 that's why I'm getting there two numbers Community fees are because they're supposed to end in April of this year and so therefore they won't be in next year's budget so we didn't budget for them if they them that's a risk so that's another so this this budget would be $400,000 higher just on those two items so

163you got four months of community fees built into the budget with eight months of community fee risk if they reinstate no because April yeah so we are paying for those extra expenses out of dis budget right now that we're not accounting for okay okay the electricity um I'm just going to go down uh so one of the big items here the big reduction tuition so similar um in ESS since last year any of the tuition that was from n uh the students going to nanog we have 46 students that go to nanog um there was a threat out there from those districts to charge us 100% of the tuition um instead of the 58% that by law they're supposed to charers and so we had to last year we had to budget in addition for

164that so that's why you're seeing a large reduction because this year they've guaranteed it's going to be at the 50% 58% rate so it's a so we don't have to budget that extra as a risk so that's that that's why you see the large $130,000 reduction for that line reading oil we just had a $46,000 that's just usage 320 $320 a gallon um I think anything else anyone else questions when's our contract with allar we just signed it we're in year two the new contract right now a 5e contract so it's three more years after good yeah very good welcome thank you so that's all the call centers um the goal tonight was once again to do an overview of the budget give you some opportunities here directly from the princial directors coordinators um start

165thinking about what your questions are um between now and the next um board meeting there will probably be a finance committee for us to be able to dive into this further if you have questions please go through the book there's a lot of details in here um send those questions to Steve and I so that we can start putting together responses to you we'll figure out the best way to get those responses back out um and like we always do at the next board meeting in February we'll have opportunity to have this as an agenda item again um most years the vote for the budget takes place the second meeting in February um there have been some years it might have been last year that the board was ready to vote on the budget the

166first meeting in in February so it all depends on type of questions you have and the amount of work that we still need to do in order for reduction that you want before we set it on to the board of find and is there anything El you wanted to add no I think I think the process is going well um it's a great book and we're gonna continue to refine and get line it and take feedback question is it possible to get a budget that shows where we are to everything shows adaptive is proposed can we get a line that shows where we are to be on so where we are what's officially encumbered yeah just so we can kind of figure out it makes it just more understand where the numers are I think

167it just would be a little you want a total or you want the whatever's been paid whatever's encumbered in that line whatever I mean I just if let's say Transportation you know 75% number just so we can do the number okay just think it it's great the way it is but personally you just want another row the yeah 202 2024 25 however you want to word it so as we close out tonight um the budget once again is the compilation of hours and hours of work this is not just one individual we go back to our teachers we go back to our secretaries we go back to professional we ask what is it you need in the budget so this is built from the ground up from our stakeholders in the school district our principls

168our directors our coordinators take that they build their budgets and then it comes to the district we then hear from each call center and we put it together so what you see here tonight when you heard tonight is the synthesis of all that work districtwide this is not just one person putting a budget together this is an entire District's thought collaboratively put together that forms the hopes the Visions the desires the the dreams for the school district for next year so and to thank our administrators our coordinators director for being here today for the presentations thank the board of Finance for being here tonight to um be part of this um Journey with us as we start say this book is is great you guys do a great job on the book easy to read

169and it's a good starting point for our board and your board to know till we get together to the next meeting thank you so much and again thank you for the board of education for allowing this joint session to take place for the board of Finance I think that this was a um a very good evening to dive into de project thank you before we adjourn I'd also like to say thank you to everybody that showed up districtwide Dr Miller Howard and thanks thanks U Board of Finance for showing up thanks uh and if you have any questions um ask okay uh do I have to so so all right uh all C