001to call the regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education of January 14th, 2026 to order at 6 p.m. Please join me in the pledge of the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Item two, adoption of the agenda. I'd like to entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. >> So moved. >> Mr. Showers. Second. Mr. Foot. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I >> opposed, abstensions. >> Motion carries. And then we have several uh minutes to approve. I would like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education workshop from December 8th, 2025. >> So
002moved. >> Mr. Showers, Mr. Foot. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Abstensions? >> Motion carries. Entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the Plymouth Board of Education Ad Hoc Policy Committee meeting from December 10th, 2025. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Miss Tilton and Ms. Palmer. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Okay. Entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education from December 10th, 2025. >> So move. >> Second. Okay. >> Mr. Showers, Mr. Perigino, any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? Abstension. Motion carries. Next page. Entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education's Finance and Operations Committee from January 7th, 2026. >>
003So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Bourbonire and Mr. Peragino. Any discussion? >> Can we just put in there that we decided to have the meetings the second Monday of every month at 6 PM? >> Okay. >> Um they they want to have it in the have the meetings the minute the minutes reflect that they have chosen the second Monday >> second Monday of each month >> at 6 p.m. >> Um it also says Mrs. spooner in the >> That's all right. >> She was there, too. >> All right, we finished that one, right? Oh, all in favor? >> I >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. And entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education retreat from January 7th, 2026. Mr. Bernire, Mr. Showers, any discussion?
004All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? And any abstensions? >> Motion carries. All right. Last one. Motion to enter uh motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education's Curriculum and Instruction Committee from January 8th, 2026. >> Second, >> Miss Tilton, Mr. Foot. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries. All right, that was a lot. We are up to the best part now. Student representatives, Tiana and Fallon. The winter concert on December 16th was an entertaining and well-received performance. The course performed popular pieces such as How Far I'll Go and Carol of the Bells, while the band impressed the audience with a mashup of songs from Mulan. Later in the month, the school came together again for a schoolwide concert held on December 22nd,
005featuring performance by the Tarville band and chorus. A special highlight of the event was the participation of the staff band, which added to the excitement and sense of community. Both concerts were enjoyed by students and staff alike and served as a meaningful way for the school community to come together and celebrate before winter break. Midterms start tomorrow and will run for four school days. Each day, students will take two midterms. Students voiced that they were feeling a little unprepared this year and some members of student council wanted an opportunity to start preparing for exams earlier. Tiana and I proposed a solution to Mrs. Herd on what to change for next year. We suggested that students receive a packet of optional practice problems or a list of topics that will be covered throughout the semester for
006each class to allow any of those who want to put in the extra work to have the opportunity to do so. January has been an exciting month for winter athletics. The boys basketball team earned a major rivalry rivalry win against Thomas on January 9th, defeating them 68 to 54. The girls basketball program celebrated an important milestone with their first varsity win of the season, securing a 34 to 24 victory under the guidance of varsity coach Mrs. Wexler. The team is also adjusting well to the new leadership at a JV level under Mrs. Hamilton. Indoor track kicked off its season today with their first meet under new head coach Mrs. Gastone, marking an exciting new chapter for the program. Wrestling continues to perform strongly this season and competes today against Derby in St. Paul as they
007look to build on their success. First first semester, each junior takes a course called Career Exploration Capstone or CEC. Throughout the semester, students have the opportunity to explore careers they might be interested in as well as meet professionals that are already established in those fields. Students also learn vital skills like how to create a resume and write a cover letter as well as participate in mock interviews. As a as a culmination of their learning, students create a trifold presentation that they present at their symposium. Symposia symposiums took place yesterday and today where students got to show friends and teachers everything they learned. The seventh chili cookoff is happening on February 5th and it's heating up. It started in 2018. This fan favorite raises funds for students heading up on the Europe trip. Think your chili
008has what it takes? Entry to compete is $25. And if you'd rather just enjoy the food, you can sample all the delicious chili for just $5. Come for the competition, stay for the great food, and support a great cause. Last meeting, we voiced our desire for the return of the school deli. The students are incredibly happy to see it offered again here at ths. Our weight room is used and loved by many, but unfortunately with years of use, it's fallen into disrepair. Students from every friend group and grade utilize the weight room for gym classes. And we even have a specialized gym class called training and fitness that exclusively uses the space. Outside of the school day, sports teams use the weight rooms when it's raining, and indoor track relies on it almost entirely for
009their training. Students aren't the only ones who appreciate the equipment. Many staff members use the weight room after school. Most of the weightlifting machines are in still good shape, but the electronically run machines are where we are seeing the most issues. >> And that's all. Oh, thank you very much. Is there anything we can help? >> Just just >> Treadmills, ellipticals, stair masters, all the cardio ones heard, but all the weight ones work just fine. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Anybody else have questions for our student reps? Thank you very much, ladies. You know the drill. If you have >> other things to do that are more pressing, you may be >> everybody have a great night. >> Take it easy. See you next month. >> You too. >> All right, that brings us to
010item number five, public comment. As always, if you have public comment that you would like to share with us at the podium, please sign in. um we will um respectfully limit you to two minutes and um we will not answer any questions at the time but someone from our administrative team will get back to you to clarify anything or to answer any questions if you have them. So that being said, please join us for public comment. Seeing no in-person public comment at this time. Do we have any online public comment? >> We do not. >> Okay. All right. Maybe later. Maybe later. You know that I love that part. All right. Item number six, superintendent recommended 2026 27 budget presentation. Not my favorite part. All right. >> Good evening everyone. Um, so this evening I'm
011presenting the 26 27 calendar year recommended budget. It's not so much my recommended budget. It is the recommended budget of our administrative team. And I'll be doing the presentation this evening in its entirety, but I have Matt Beth who will be um helping me out as if I forget things throughout the presentation. So, as we do every year, oh, and you'll all be receiving um a budget binder after my presentation. Like the kids, if I give it to you now, you'll be looking for a so that after presation so kind of go through it. Um, in addition, and I'll talk to you about what's in that binder. And additionally for the public, this presentation and everything um will be posted online on our website tomorrow. So everything will be there for everyone to see after
012the presentation. So as we do every year, we start with our de our budget development schedule. As you see through the schedule, we start fairly early. We start in October. We're planning for the following school year starting in October. So, we give the administrative team everything they need. Uh, Matt does a ton of work with regard to contractual obligations, looking at teacher increases, looking at par increases, and all of the contractual agreements that we have across the board. We have four union contracts, but we have a ton of other agreements that need to be incorporated into this budget. He looks at utilities, so on and so forth. And then right before um I would say the winter break, Matt and I sit, we come together on all the different pieces we both have and we
013make sure that that budget is tight and ready to go. So when we come back after the holidays, we meet with our administrative team and this is our recommended budget. So as we go through the budget, you'll see I kind of go section by section with these gray kind of slides. Um, there's color in the presentation, but being colorblind, this helps me out a little bit. So, the first thing we have are our board budget goal alignments. These are our four goals. These four goals ground our work. These four goals are what our strategic plan was built off of. These four goals are what our budget is built off of. And remember, as a board of ed, we are working to try to adopt and create a five-year strategic plan for our district. Right now,
014it's in draft form. Tonight, you'll be getting a copy of the adjustments that we've made to that strategic plan in draft form, but it's still draft form until the board adopts it. But what I did is I pulled pieces out of that strategic plan from the draft that we worked on and I put the pieces under student achievement, engagement, and well-being that aligned to the budget. And then you'll see under fiscal oversight and budget, all those pieces are there. So according to the board of education with regard to the goals and direction we're going in as a district, these are the pieces that according to our plan should be incorporated into our budget. So we're going to start with enrollment and who works here. So here's our fall data enrollment and it's wrong. I sent
015this out to the company, filled everything out. Something's not right somewhere because this doesn't align to what we've gotten in previous years and the previous years and the previous years. Usually, it aligns pretty nicely. But if you look at the yellow arrow on the top right and then you look at our current enrollment, our current enrollment is about 50 students higher than what they're saying it is in this year. And that number should be almost identical um in in both of those reports and they're not. And then our end after 10 years it says we have like 13 1314 students um for our project enrollment. And years past at the spring of last year actually it was much higher. So something's not right. But why I kept this in here is even if our projected
016enrollment is incorrect, we still don't have a declining enrollment. So that narrative that might be out there from years past is no longer accurate and true. Our enrollment is not going down. It is going up. >> It it doesn't include the housing projects. >> Oh yes. I'm sorry. this because of when I had to fill this information out. Um, I did not put all of the new subdivisions and housing projects going in because they weren't technically approved by the town at that point. The only ones that went in here were Prospect Street School because that was already approved and being worked on. And there was another small subdivision I believe that was being worked on. I don't know >> high street >> that I I believe that was it but the the larger subdivisions were
017not incorporated into this because they were not approved at that time and and I'll probably do another enrollment projection in the spring. I actually might reach out to them again because >> and that's definitely going to affect our enrollment. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> So it does not include the one on Scott road. >> It was not approved at the time when I filled out this information. So it's not in there. >> And you just got approved for Townill for nine nine lots up there. So, >> don't think >> we we called Clarence, pardon me, we called Clarence in the at the town offices, and he's the one that gave us which ones were approved and weren't at the time we did this. So, uh it's it was pretty thorough, but the numbers are are a
018little off. >> Well, I know in my neighborhood, and you should know this too, Pat, they're putting in seven houses in that neighborhood, too, which is off of Laurel and Michael. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's seven new houses going up there >> and they're not they're big and they're not inexpensive. >> 500 to 600,000. >> Dump my house. You get out of there. >> So, the next thing I'm going to show you were the schools and it's broken up by schools and it's staffing students projected in each grade level. How we project them is we looked at the number of first graders we currently have and we pushed those over to second grade. We have 82 as of as of January 5th. We had 82 first graders. So we put those and moved them up to
019second grade. And with that we we determined how many teachers are in each grade. So the top level is teachers. Then you go to number of students average class size. I also incorporated our certified support staff to show you their case loads. So you can see the number of um students our staff is working with. You'll see our school psychologist at Plymouth Center School has 24 students on her case load. So, you know, when we're looking at this, what I want you to do and why this is here is I want you to look and say, "Okay, can we go without any of these positions that are on these charts based on the numbers we have? So you have certified sports staff, you have the unified arts that we offer in the school, the non-certified
020staff, and then the building and administrative offices. We have the same thing for Fiser Elementary School. You have the number of teachers, projected number of students again being pushed up from the from the previous year. And then the average class sizes. You also have certified staff case loads and the number of people we have there. Unified Arts, non-certified staff, and the main office. And he like, Terry, it starts to change a little bit because it's not as easy to predict how many kids are going to be in a class based on scheduling and scheduling conflicts and who wants chorus and who wants band and and some of the choices that kids get. As you see, the elective teachers have grown at that school compared to what we have in the elementary schools. But you see
021the average class sizes are around 21 to 24 in a class. You see the number of kids in each grade and grade level. And then you also see our case loads across our our different departments for certified staff. High school is very similar where you can't really have an approximate class size because of the way you schedule. Uh there is more of a range even at the high school based on caps on classes for safety reasons such as culinary has a cap on the class, teched has a cap on a class, so on and so forth. Uh but you see the approximate class sizes, you see the case loads, you see the elective teachers. Again, that number grows as you go into high school. Then you have the non-certified and the the main office staff.
022And it says, uh this is a little tricky. you see um we have uh two and a half secretaries. So we have two in the main office, we have one in guidance and when you look at school counselors, you'll see three. You have two in the guidance office and you have our career counselor at our career center. Technically, she's a school counselor. When you look at district-wide staffing, this is everyone else. This is uh these are basically the the 12-month employees for the most part on there with the exception of the district certified support staff. Uh those are our 12-month employees that are working all year around to keep the district up and running um at central office and across the district. Uh so you see our numbers there as well. Some things I want
023to point out is the human resource 0.5 position and the administrative assistant under curriculum instruction at 0.5. That's the same person, but we kind of have split responsibilities there. Um, I am in charge of HR for the district. So, uh, that person supports me in a part-time capacity. Uh Pat is obviously uh my full-time support uh with regard to administrative assistant, but I'm also technically the curriculum director. So under that, she supports me with the curriculum work and orders that need to be done as well. But that's kind of where we are right now. So that's our staffing. And so again, I wanted you when you get your binder, I want you to really look and see is there any staffing that you feel might not be necessary uh in working with our kids. And
024I I find it hardressed to find anyone within that. I mean, we are using every resource and everyone is basically maxed out in what they're doing for our kids. But now I want to show you how our budget is spent. So, we broke this up into required costs and remaining funds. So, you have Plymouth Center School, and I want you to see that their budget is $1.8 million and change. And then we have required cost to run the school based on the staffing we showed you and everything that's within the contracts, copier contract, utilities, OSHA, pest control. We have money set aside for emergency repairs, which isn't even close to enough for usually the emergency repairs uh that we would have in a school. We have some money set aside postage. That's what we need
025to run the school and it's really not an option. Then you have the remaining funds. So when Mrs. Kao does her budget, she's budgeting $20,822. That's all that when Matt gives her her budget to to do, that's really all Matt's giving her to work with. Now, some of that money, if we decided to to cut that discretionary money, uh or those remaining funds, you still need supplies to run a school. So, we can't cut all those supplies. And that's preK through two supplies plus office supplies at $20,822. And when you go through, you'll see Fiser is even less because their budget is less because they don't have preK. You see the required cost to actually run and operate that building. And then you look at the remaining funds. So, we're going to go through this
026for all of our schools. I'm just going to leave it up there for you to see. You see like Terry, the numbers grow a little bit at the high school and middle school level. Um, and you see the remaining funds. I mean, I I put graduation expenses as remaining funds because if the board decided to cut the outdoor graduation and do an indoor graduation instead, it saves some money on rentals. Is it significant money? $50,000 in a 27 million or 29 million budget or whatever this might be is not significant overall money when we're talking. That's very little money Mike Holtz has to budget for his science, math, social studies, uh, world language, English, all unified arts departments, curriculum and instruction, special education, library services, and again, library services is a good example. I mean,
027they don't have a tremendous budget. And when I put in remaining funds, one of those remaining funds that we have, you know, some some flexibility on is library books, but we still need to order library books, technology services, health services, facilities, and maintenance. The departments on the left side are the categories within the budget. When you add those numbers together, you'll get these numbers that are right here. I just pulled out the the the differences with the rem with the remaining and the required funds districtwide services and district management. So that's every single department and every single um budgetary category that you're going to see in your budget book. But here's the bottom line. Required cost to run our district is 99.14% of our budget. The remaining funds that we budget is86. So when you
028look at this budget, 90% of this or 99.14% of this budget is Matt Tenza going into his office, looking at the contractual obligations, looking at how much we spent on electricity last year, how much is going up this year, what we could do for diesel, what our bus contract goes up. He's looking at all those pieces. We really don't control the money. And it's a misperception if people think we do because those are our required cost. Again, I showed you and started off intentionally with our staffing and case loads to show you our class sizes and how our staff is being utilized. The only way to cut the required costs or really to cut staffing. That's the only way to cut the required cost that we have here. So, budgetform information items that you need
029to know. Did I miss anything, Matt? >> Not so far. All right. Um, here are contractual increases. You have certified staff, non-certified staff, administration, benefits, transportation, outplacement, and and tuitions and utilities. And you see how much everything went up and down. We have a 5.18% increase that we cannot control in this budget. I don't know if this light works or not. It does, but it doesn't work on the screen. I want you to look at the grand total difference. Rebecca, do you have a pen or that fancy thing? Could you just write that number down? >> It's 1,194,684. Those are contractual increases that we can't control. And we had this conversation um we had this conversation actually with the mayor and we talked about you know the different increases that are out there. And if
030you've ever negotiated a contract we've negotiated very thoroughly with our different contractual a and and unions. People could say well you can't you can't we can't they can't expect that much. Well an arbitrator might tell you differently. And if you look around at neighboring districts, they've tried to push that and they've lost. So these these increases that we have contractually, especially with our union people, are very reasonable. They're working with us the best they can uh to come up with something that's fair. Here are some adjustments that myself and Matt made to the budget. Um the top one is probably the biggest risk and I'm going to have Matt just discuss that top one real quick. So, in this year's budget conversations that we had, if you think of the board remembers, we've been talking
031about our health benefits for quite a while and there's a significant jump this year. We've been quoted 22% on the bottom side. With our current plan, there's no way for us to sustain that. Like, we we can't keep going. So, I've had multiple conversations um with our our um consultant and what our our ultimate option is is to move from the our current plan to an HSA, a high deductible health plan. Um that has to be negotiated with the bargaining units that we, you know, that we work with and that's underway right now. But for the sake of this budget, we budgeted the anticipated savings because we really see no other way around it is is one way or the other. The the bottom line is is if we don't make the change, the staffing
032that Brian's talking about has to change significantly because the only way to get to those numbers is with with folks. And we're trying to avoid that at all costs. So, keep in mind as you go as we go through the budget, you see we have an asterisk next to that health savings. That's because it's still at risk. It has to be negotiated. I I'm I'm confident we'll come to some kind of an agreement. Um but the risk still is there and we want to make sure we point that out to you. Um the excess cost number that is there so that you understand where that comes from is that is a educated forecast based on this year's expenses. Beth and I are working together who may or may not still be in that with a
033an expense growth factor if you will. And I'll tell you is I use 6% and I'm I've been pretty close to being on target here. And then using the state's formula for how they pay excess cost to come up with what I believe we can lower our um special education outplacements and tuition costs are because that's that's where that money comes from. Now, each year it's been a battle depending on where the state stands financially. One year we get 70% of the money. Some years we get 72% of the money. Two years ago we got 63% of the money. Right? It's I don't know what the number is. I find out what the number is usually somewhere around April. Well, we're all done by April. So, but fortunately through the the the work the the
034worksheet model that I've been able to develop, we're close. So, when you look at the number, it's like, wow, that's a lot of money. And it is. And it's worked out in our budgets for the last 5 years. So, um you know, you you do these when you try to do do it this way that it's going to keep falling moving forward. There have been improvements with the way the state has been spent, you know, has been paying off for the excess cost. But with that said, there's always a risk. It depends on where the state falls, right? And if you listen to the the uh when the state does their budget reports this month have a they have got a huge surplus and the next month, it disappeared somehow. I don't know what happened,
035but it's it's not as big as they thought it was. So, it's a guess that and that's what that number is. Otherwise, there'd be another 734,000 in this budget. I mean, you add the two together, right? It's a million2. It's a million three that we >> Yeah. And and the next line is a guess, too. With an anticipated certified faculty retirement savings, we don't know right now. We have no word on anyone retiring. So, we kept it at at a $20,000 savings with the possibility of one maybe one person retiring at this point. We've had some word and some rumors are out there about certain people, but there's nothing definite that's been brought to my attention um or or our administration our administration's attention. But that's that's an estimate and depending on the position depends
036on the savings. If we lose a physics teacher, um, you're not going to have much, if any, cost savings on on filling that position. If you lose an elementary education teacher, you might have a little more cost savings than and it probably isn't going to be significant because that gap has really, really closed. There's just not enough people in the field of education. hand when we're not going to settle on the employees we hire. We're going to hire the right people. So $20,000 is one person uh retiring and that savings built into the budget. Uh some additions to the budget. So we are having some concerns dealing with the unions uh or with the teachers union at the primary elementary school and at Fiser. So at Plymouth Center in Fiser, unfortunately we don't have enough
037building subs in those buildings to cover us and we're pulling teachers way too much. We're actually pulling our interventionists way too much. And so it's really hurting us. But now that the unions come to me, we have to address that concern. And so how we could address the concern in talking with both administrators in both schools is Plymouth Center because of the preK and the needs there really needs two additional building subs so their interventionists aren't told and they can cover their building 99.9% of the time and Fiser felt one building sub was sufficient. Matt and I also spoke about the lunch program and supporting that just in case we go into a deficit. Uh with all the changing uh costs and Kelly and I talked about the cost of food and and and the
038sale and trying to keep the the price down for kids, we put in $10,000 to try to help support the launch program if at all necessary. And then we have a chemical hygiene specialist which is a stipen position. we have to going to we're going to have to provide some training for that position as well. Um, but that's more of an OSHA requirement that we we need to put in place in our district and have someone trained. And what that really is is it's usually someone from our science department that is trained on how to go through and look at chemicals throughout our district. And a lot of people think science chemicals. Well, I'm thinking more in my head um the art rooms in in the elementary, middle, and high school and some of the
039paints that might be expired and so on. That's really their job is to go through and train the people on how to discard that those chemicals, but that's an OSHA requirement. So, those are the pieces that I added uh to the budget and they're kind of requirements. There's nothing there that we couldn't add at this point. In addition, we have 12.6 positions and people in grantf funded uh under grants. And that's risky because we don't know sometimes what's going on with these grants. And these grants technically are not supposed to be used for for really entire staffing, but we are doing what we can with the grants to make sure that we're maximizing the amount we can put towards staffing because again, our best and most important asset is our our teachers and and the
040people working with our kids. So overall, here's the budget. We have a current budget of 27,955,540 and now we're looking at a recommended budget of 29 million16,658 which is a 3.72% increase. Now Rebecca, I asked for you to nicely write down a number for me. the contractual obligation increase that we have. This is just a contractual obligation is higher than what you see here. >> So when you talk about the work of our administrative team understanding how to really pair down a budget the best they can, I want you to read that number just because that's the number we're going up. What's that number, Rebecca? >> Uh 1,194,684. So we are under that number for now. Let's talk about what's not in the budget. So this budget does not touch our staffing. It does not
041eliminate one staff member we have. It adds the three building substitute teachers per the union concern. It adds the chemical hygiene specialist which is a stipen. It also adds the $10,000 that we have to support the lunch program. I didn't I didn't put in the additions. Um but what it doesn't include is one item from the five-year strategic plan. So we are at 3.72 or a $1 million increase in our budget and we have not added one of our board objectives and goals from our strategic plan at this point. And these are what they are. We talked about an alternative education tutor here at the high school. We talked about a reading interventionist here at the high school to start to build our MTSS process all the way through. We talked about a certified library
042media specialist at Fiser. We talked about a cultural learning club stipened at Fiser in Plymouth Center and then an American Sign Language Club stipened at the high school and the middle school. None of those pieces are built into this budget. Couple more things I want you to see. If we did build them in, those are the estimated costs. So Matt and I look at the budget right now and we look at what a tutor cost and that's where that 27670 comes from. When you have the certified reading specialist, we took a master's plus five salary plus 5 years in and we did employee plus one benefits. That's the estimated cost of an employee that we would hire. We did the same thing with the library media specialists, but what we were able to do is
043we were able to subtract the tutor recurrent the tutor salary we current have in place. So that brings that down a little bit. And then we talk uh looked at the the club stipens. A club that meets a certain number of days per year in the contract would pay $1,200 per stipen in each school. So that's where you get the $2400 in each of those areas. So, if we added everything from the strategic strategic plan, we're adding an estimated total of $29,000. And I have to be honest with you, that's not a lot of money for us to move forward as a district. $29,000 is not a lot of money, but it does bring our estimated budget increase to 4.47 47 if we added all of those pieces. Double checking the math map. >> I
044was going to give you a percentage, but >> um so that's that's kind of where we are. All right. Now, I want to show you one more thing. This is another one of those things in this public in the community that's misunderstood. Everyone talks about how the board of education has 62% of the budget or 57% of the town's budget. That's not accurate and not true at all. And it came up at last year's tri board meeting and Matt and I were well Matt was on his on his phone trying to figure out the number. This is the facts. This is the truth. If we come in with a $20 mill million budget, the state ex uh the cost sharing grant, educational cost sharing grant will reimburse 9 million almost $10 million. So what the
045Plymouth taxpayer is really funding for education is $19 million. Still a large number, but it's really not. It's really not. When we're valuing education, that number should probably be $23 million because of the number of things that we've spoken about as a board that we don't have that we probably should have and basic things that we talked about. And they're all in that five-year strategic plan that we spoke about from school counselors to social workers to library media specialists. These are basic things that our district does not have that we should have. So that's the facts. Am I right on my numbers? >> Here's the last big slide I have with the 3.72 increase. And it's important for you to see this. If we get 3.72 from the town, obviously we're not eliminating a dime
046from our budget. We are good. That's what we are looking for to maintain. That's what we would get. And again, this is off of the recommendation budget of of the administration. If we get 3.5, we got to cut $25,000. 3.25 and so on going down. You see, if we get 2.5%, we are cutting $342,000 in our budget. That's probably five positions full-time certified teachers. Also, keep in mind, we have that risk that Matt talked about. There's a $500,000 risk in this budget that we've put in here. So, if we didn't have a year where we could shift health insurance and possibly have that savings, if we got 2.5% from the town, you're talking about an $800,000 almost $900,000 cut that we have to make. And that would be devastating. That would be devastating. But again,
047we went through staffing, what's actually needed and what's not. So you see the numbers and it's transparent for the public to see too. Those are our numbers. Then you see the budget and what's required to run our schools and what's remaining. And we're talking about $250,000. And then you see the other pieces that impact the budget and the work that the administration did to bring that number down underneath the contractual obligation amount caps. The Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendent the majority of superintendents right now the average is coming in at 5.12% increase in their budgets because that's what it takes right now to maintain and keep moving forward. If we added 1.4% to our budget and we were at that number, we would add $370,000 to our budget, which would cover everything in our
048strategic plan and more. But that's right now as of the 12th of January, where other towns are coming in, and this compounds, keep this in mind, we're always lower than that. And so every year other districts are getting 200 $300,000 more. We're not. And then we're asking for it, but we're just trying to catch up. So that's an important slide, too. And that slide will adjust as time goes on because more and more districts will report and then we'll adjust that and the as of date will shift on that. So next steps is budget workshops. from January to February, we need to have uh whatever number of budget workshops the board feels is appropriate because right now this is our administration's recommended budget to you. But you really need to adopt this budget by the
049end of February. I have February 11th on there. That's just our next board meeting, but technically we have to the end of the month to make sure that the board of finance has the board adopted budget in hand. And that is all I have for you uh this evening. I wasn't really expecting many questions. Um what I will say is that the next step really is to create those budget workshops to ask the questions to make the adjustments after you look through the binder. In these binders, you'll see a letter from me at first that goes it's a community letter that I I write with regard to the budget. You'll see the presentation in there. You'll see the actual budget breakdown that Matt has put together with uh each of the administrators and myself. Um
050so it's all broken down there for you and for the public. Again, this will be put all online tomorrow uh for you. The thing I want to recommend before we choose um uh budget workshop dates um is that before the budget workshop if the board has questions that they want answered about the budget that they email myself and Matt prior so we can do that work and make sure we're coming to that meeting with answers for you. We might have to call a vendor. We might have to call our insurance person. We might have to book in the contract like we might have to do some homework before we walk in that meeting. So the more questions we have ahead of time the better prepared we could be to answer the questions for you. And
051the best example I can give you is Robin Palmer came to me and asked me for two things. She asked me for um the the University of Bridgeport interns, bringing them in to substitute teach in our district uh instead of possibly hiring um building subs and whatnot because it is less money and cost effective. And so I had Pat reach out to her contact uh at UB um and she I have the emailed responses here from that person at the University of Bridgeport about why we don't have as many interns as we had in the past. Right now we have one working in our district at Fiser Elementary School. The other thing that Robin asked me for was summer school numbers. She asked for summer school attendance and expenses and I have summer school numbers
052here. This is not Beth's summer school. It's not for students um that have uh specific needs for summer school and that's required. This is optional summer school for regular ed students in our school district. That is not required. And I have the breakdown of that. I have the breakdown of uh how it worked, the number of days it met, the perdm rate people were paid, the number of hours they were paid for, the overall expenses, the number of students that attended, and the cost per student. So, I have both of those, and I'm going to hand it out to the whole board, Robin, because I figured >> if it's your question, it's everyone else's question. So, but those are the kind of things that could help us out. So, uh, >> thank you for those.
053>> Yeah. >> So, really, it's up to you guys on picking dates. >> Yeah. >> All right. Everybody want to open their Do you want to do it now or do you want to do this through email? >> Is everybody able to talk about dates right now? >> Yeah. >> Open your calendars, everybody. >> Dr. Sure. >> Go ahead. Hand out your info. >> All right. and then we'd have a discussion. >> Do you need me up here for to go back to any slides? I mean, they're on they're in your book, but I can go back to slides. >> Thank you. Well, we're going to need you to know need you to look at your calendar as well so that we know if you're available as well and everybody else. So, thank you. >>
054See if I professionally typed here. >> Excuse me. >> Professionally typed. >> Yes, it was. >> So, let's look at the next two weeks. So, the week of the 19th and the week of the 26th. What is limitations that anybody has for those? >> I'd prefer not a Monday. >> The 19th the district's closed. The building would be open. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Not the 19th. >> Thank you. >> About 21st >> and then the 26th. >> I cannot do the 20th. We have a PTA meeting. >> I don't mean just that specific date. I'm just talking like in general the whole those two weeks. >> So the 20th is not good for you. Is that what you're saying? >> Yeah. >> Let me just write this down. 20th. How is the 21st looking
055for people? >> Okay. 21st is good. So, not good. Good. All right. How about the 22nd? >> I'm good. >> Okay. All right. And we're not going to be looking at Fridays. if you can help it. >> Do you want to just schedule the first one and see because last year I just just to refresh the board's memory? Last year we >> that's true >> we scheduled one we sp scheduled a number of them >> and we went to one and the board sent their questions and we answered questions and made some adjustments to the the overall budget. Um but it ca we came to the realization that um ultimately we can do all the work we want but in the end and we could move that number to 4.2 or or 3.2. At the
056end it's really the board of finance and town council that are setting it. And so a lot of the real budget workshops start after we know our number and we pick up the pieces. So, I don't know if you want to schedule one, see where we get and then schedule the next and the next before we actually go to adoption when everyone's comfortable, but it's really up to you. >> Maybe two to begin with just because we do have a lot of new people who may have >> a lot questions and I I still have a lot of questions. So, >> yeah, but those are going to be emailed ahead of time. So, that's the that's the good thing is that they'll already be answered. >> But it's up to you. If you want to
057do two or three, that's fine, too. I don't >> Well, let's start with one and we can >> Yeah, I'm good as >> do another one after that, >> you know, while we're there. >> You could schedule it while we're there. Yeah. >> How is the 22nd for everybody? Does that look good for you? >> Per 22nd. >> January 22nd. >> What time? >> Uh, I can make it anytime from 5:00 on. >> Can we do a 5:30 just so people have time after work? >> How is that for everybody? 5:30. >> 6 o'clock. >> Six o'clock. if you want. All right. 22nd at 6:00. All right. So, that will be our first budget meeting and then if we feel we need another one, we can do another one. But like Brian said, the the
058the thing to remember too is that, you know, we don't want to put too many hours of work into this when we could just be given a number that's completely off from this as well. And we'll have to meet after that as well too to once we have our number from the town. We're going to have to then meet again to see how we can adjust our budget to fit with what the town has. Unless they just give us what we want and then we'll be all set. >> We're good. >> Did you say 5:30 or 6:00? >> 6:00 on >> in the library. So it's a working session. >> Library. >> Yep. >> And and then um >> Okay. And then again questions you might have it again you'll have questions at the meeting
059and hopefully Matt myself and Beth could answer those questions for you like right there. Um if you want the ad the building administration there that is also something if the board requests we can I don't know their availability but we can see if I can get them there if you'd like them there as well. That's really up to the board. >> Yeah. maybe give us um at least a couple days to digest the whole budget and try to see where our questions lie because it you know it might be a waste of not a waste of their time. That's a bad thing to say, but like we don't want to take them out of their personal time if they don't need to. >> And maybe it's the second meeting they come to or whatever. >>
060Okay. >> All right. >> Can I uh >> All right. Um I just handed out a piece of paper. I worked with Matt yesterday. Okay. To give everybody an idea. Um I went back checked I asked Matt to go back 10 year uh six years to see what our budget increases were each year. So as you see in 2020 2021 to 2022 2023 our budget increases were minimal. They come out to approximately a 1.23% increase. The one that concerns me the most is the 2022 2023 with a 081% increase. I have no idea how we met the MBR. >> I I have no idea. So I think I can answer a little bit of that is in that particular year that is the year that they shifted special education excess cost from the town's budget
061because they kept all of the money to our budget. Okay. >> And that's ultimately what lowered this because they said, "Oh no, that that now is moving from here to here." and it gave us a much lower percentage increase because they said that the money that we were supposed to get anyway is now part of our budget. So, uh, Brian, if you remember, we had a a meeting in the old conference room, which is now Pat's office, but, uh, with with a pretty significant disagreement because I kept arguing, wait, you're funding our budget with our own money, like and but obviously I lost. So, >> yeah. So then if you look at the three years after that. So the first three years that are there that's under Mayor Merchant. >> First three years were >>
062first three year are under Mayor Mer. >> The first mayor's >> okay. The next three years are under Mayor Kildoff and one of them was the referendum. >> Correct. >> I believe that was 23 24 where it went to referendum and we that was our first. >> All right. So just keep in mind that the 6-year average was 2% increase. So in all honesty in the 2026 2027 we are paying catchup from the minuscule amount of money that we got in the 3 years date merchant. Okay. >> Well the amount that we've got in the last three years isn't much better. >> Yes. I thank God. >> So it's not exactly like it's you know >> it's like thank God. But I will I will say historically though the the the the work that Mayor
063Kildoff did in in in the work he he helped us move forward with why by giving us higher numbers than historically were given over the past 10 years prior to to him. I mean he he really worked well with with our administration. So, I I I you know, I I know the numbers aren't, you know, 4.5% or whatnot, but he did everything he could to really support the schools, >> right? But we're playing catch-up for all of these >> for this. Yeah. >> Right. And then the biggest thing is is where the six-year average is, which is a 2% increase. >> Are you going to get that little slide over there? 2% increase. If we get that on an average because it's over six years, if we get 2%. I mean, it's going to be
064bad. It just is, you know, and there are other things that you need to understand too how the town budget goes because there's parts of the budget that we're dealing with right now with the board of ed, but we have nothing to know what's going on with the town. Okay? Because it's two entities. Okay? And the biggest thing that I wouldn't say hurts the town, but there's a charter uh in the chart it states that the b the town budget can go up no more than 3%. The town budget, the whole budget itself, let's say $50 million can't go up any more than 1.5 million. If it goes up more than that, then it goes to referendum and then it depends on the electoral of the electors in town. They want that to go up.
065The issue is if it fails, then it goes back down to 3%. So it doesn't matter. All right? So everybody needs to understand that in looking at what's happening now, this is all things that happened previously that some of us don't even have any control of, especially the new members. All right? Because of the fact that we we're continually in this in this town trying to catch up from things that weren't put into budgets years and years ago. So take that in consideration too when you're going through this budget and looking through and thinking where you you know maybe we should add some money too but historically doesn't usually show up when we go to board of finance. >> Thank you Jerry. >> All right let's move on to item number seven unfinished business. So,
066we all have a copy of the five-year strategic plan that we um have had the opportunity to review. >> Well, I I apologize because it was it was supposed to be placed into your board packet. Um but without my right hand, man, uh I might have forgotten to copy it and put it into your uh board packet for you to review. Basically, what I did is I I after our working meeting on on December 8th, I made the changes in the five-year strategic plan, I adjusted the prek timeline. I moved the interventionist for reading and math up the years that were requested. I removed the health teacher at and the added mid office support in the in the two elementary schools. Um, we changed the library media specialist to only Fiser and not Eli Terry.
067we added and adjusted in instead of the world language which we put in the American Sign Lang language club and the and the cultural club and the school security is still kind of out there and it's in a different color. Um I did not make additional copies but it is in your budget book. The five-year strategic plan draft is in here. So my recommendation at this point is so everyone could look at the changes and I did cross outs and then new language and I highlighted it so you can see the old language and the new and where we moved but I don't know if we should go to approval. I think it should be tabled so people have time to look because I didn't put it in the pack. All right. I'd like to
068um >> I'll make a motion to table the discussion uh concerning the adoption of the Plymouth Board of Education 5-year strategic plan to the next board. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. Yeah, >> Mr. Showers. Okay. Any discussion on tableabling it? >> I think it would be advisable to kind of see how the budget goes. So we may need to make some tweaks after we see what our options are. So it can be pretty >> good solid. >> Any other discussion? >> Well, it's a it's a living document, right? >> So even if we approve it, we can continue to >> we almost certainly will have to. >> Yeah. All right. Any uh all in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> Mr. Showers showers >> Jerry and then right Jerry >> and
069thank you. >> Uh any abstensions? I'm sorry. Did I do opposed? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. All right. And then we have a second read of the board of education policies and possible approval. So I'm going to go ahead and do these motions. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the modified policies in series 1000 as listed in your packet. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Bourbaner, Miss Palmer. Any discussion? >> Okay. And if none all in favor I >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, that one motion carries. Next one. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the modified policies in series as listed in your packet. >> So move second. Mr. Showers, Miss Tilton, any discussion on that one? >> I do have one question. Um, and I wrote a
070note to myself now. guys remember what this note meant, but if the funds need to be used outside of what is budgeted, do we also have to notify the union? >> Matt, it's for the non-lapsing account uh for the policy. So, we do we are required to notify uh the bargaining units anytime that we use the money from the 2% non-lapsing account. That's a new requirement from the state in the last 12 months. Um, but it's only a notification. >> Okay. >> They don't they don't get to vote on it. >> My understanding the reason that my understanding for the reason that's in there is because there are districts that have a significant amount of money in there and it's not being uh the bargaining units feel that that's opportunity for them to have to
071have increases to their contract. >> Right. Okay. >> And the districts are hoarding it. That's not the case here. We don't have that much money. That's not our vote. >> It's not It's not our problem. >> I wish. >> All right. Um, all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. >> Like to entertain a motion to approve the modified policies in series 4,000 as listed. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Palmer first and Miss Tilton second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. >> All right. Like to entertain a motion to approve the modified policies in series 5,000 as listed. >> So moved. >> Mr. Showers. >> Second. >> Mr. Berner. Any discussion on these? >> I actually have a question on that one.
072Mhm. On the 5,025. So it says that as long as they're claimed by their parents, the parents don't need permission to get their information. What if their parents are divorced? >> Only one claims them >> and only one claims them. What if they don't want the other one to have? >> So we we go by court records then. So we would have something from the court that says that, you know, you have custody of your child. You have the right to the records. The other parent might not. Unless we have something from the court, we're those both parents have that right to that >> Even if they're 18. So it's I I as a high school principal, I dealt with this where we were going on a field trip and the kids signs their own
073permission slip because they're 18. Not so much. You live with your parents, they still declare like you're you're still theirs. And so in schools, it's a little different with the 18. So they're just clar clarifying that with fura. >> Any other questions or discussion? Okay. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. Motion carries. >> I would like to entertain a motion to approve the modified policies in series 6,000 as listed. >> So move back in. >> Mrs. Palmer and Miss Tilton. Just write that down. Okay. Any discussion on these? Okay. Seeing none. All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. Motion carries. And then for finally for this one, I entertain a motion to approve the new policy in series 6000 as listed. >> So move. >> Mr. Showers. >> Second. >> Miss Tilton. Any
074discussion? >> Okay, seeing none. All in favor. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Motion carries. Thank you very much. All right. Item eight, business manager report and personnel report. Mr. Penza, >> thank you. Um, so this year's budget, we're cruising right along. I repeat myself kind of month after month after month, which is should be good news to everybody. Um, so budget remains open as we have discussed. As we get farther into the year, then we'll have that point where I just kind of I kind of close it down except for absolutely necessary purchases just to so we finish out the year strong. But right now everything's going on really as as expected. Um, food services. Last time um I spoke to you about the audit coming up. I have to tell you that the
075food services group did an amazing job in preparation for that. Um, and we did really well. Um, not perfect, but I didn't expect to be. The state's coming in, so but we don't have any significant findings that they talked to us about at the end. We do have a um a meeting scheduled for the 22nd with our the with the audit team and they will give us a preliminary report of everything that we need to do corrective action on. There are a few things like I can tell you right out of the gate uh for the ad hoc policy committee. We're going to have to meet because we have to amend our current policy to add some new federal language. It wasn't in the current policy. now that it's required um we have to put
076put our wellness committee back together and um and take care of those things. But as far as how we how we feed our children, how we charge our children and all of that, it came out really well. So, um I'm proud of the the staff and their preparation for that. They did a really great job. Um, as far as financial performance, as you saw in my report, is nominal um, money we made for the month of December, not necessarily unexpected with the holidays, but as we continue to go out with the increased costs that just keep coming in, uh, it it makes me nervous. I don't have a reason to be nervous other than that's who I am, right? So, is I keep working with with Jess and her staff to talk about how can
077we make sure that we stay above the line. Um, and there's really only two ways. We in we we we we control the food cost, what you know, what we're using to make the food, or we figure out ways to increase our participation. Those are the only really two ways that we we So, that's what we're working on. Um, trying to avoid coming back to the board to say we're going to have to increase our prices. I I don't want to have to do that. And we've we've avoided that. We've done we did a significant one last year or the year before. I think it was the year before and we're trying to avoid having to do it. But your own shopping bags, right? I came home the other day with one bag. It was
078like $72. I got one back. Nothing. >> So >> cost are increasing. >> Uh I mentioned that we have gone and we're using Arbiter to pay our athletic officials. Um it is a very common uh software and company that we're using to that that statewide are using it. Um there's a lot of advantages to it. Number one, the officials get paid much quicker, right? There's no paperwork. There's it is they're assigned and the athletic directors at the end of a week go in and say, "Yes, this game was held. These are the officials that were here." They go click click click click click. they're paid. We no longer have to do all of the 1099 work, collecting social security numbers. We don't have to do any of that anymore. >> So, uh, a big advantage
079to that. >> Um, >> the officials like it, the AD likes it because they're not tracking down, oh, I didn't sign off on this piece of paperwork and then it has to go to the principal, then it has to come to the business office, and then finally we cut a check. It's it's all very instantaneous. what we do here is we fund for athletic officials out of our budget and then it's it just works. So, I just want to make you aware of that. Um, and so far we started it January 1st and it's been really nice and clean. Um, and then the last thing is there is a shift from the town to us for some financial um responsibilities. Um, I had agreed to this with the previous mayor's administration. Um, and it revolves
080around educational educational grants, the educational grant fund and the food service fund, both of which are housed here. We do all of the work like we record all of the expenses. We we take care of all of the requests. We do all the grant writing. It all resides here. Same thing with food service. And then at the end of the year, I take all that information, I pile it up into spreadsheets and so forth. I send it down to the town and then they have to do journal entries to do reporting for the audit. And some things have gotten lost in translation. And uh as you know from the audit reports, there's some some uh communications that didn't happen back and forth. So the town felt it was best if you just if you're doing
081all the work and the source is all here, why not just do the entrance? It's really no additional work for me. So I just agreed. It's like yeah, that's not a problem. Um the town the agreement was the town would pay up to $10,000 for their for the Clifton Larson Allen to come in as our consultant to make sure our balance sheets and our accounting was set up a 100% proper properly for the audit reports and that work will start at the end of this month or the early next month so that I will be redoing the reporting at the end of the year. But I want you to make you aware of it. Uh I again I don't anticipate it to be any additional work than what I'm already doing other than now we'll
082do the journal entries here instead of sending the information to the town and them doing them. >> So other than that I'm all yours for questions. >> Are we going to get a sorry gohead >> are we going to get a full report on the food service audit when it's after you have that meeting? >> I'll share I will share the audit with you. Yes. How often do we get that audit? >> It's now every five years. >> The last audit we've had that was done here was 2017 though. CO pushed everything back >> and then they extended out to every 5 years. >> Capital approvers. Have we heard anything from them yet? Uh is going back. Uh I know they've added some people to the committee. I think they may have a full committee
083now. I'm not sure. >> I haven't heard from them. Um, and to be fair is I also haven't reached out to them. >> No, I know we've been busy because I sort of anticipated that they would post like normally you would post the meeting and say here's where the meeting we want you to come in. >> They they have been meeting. >> So we do have to get back in front of them. >> Not with us though. Okay. >> All right. >> Sorry, Matt. On that policy you said that need to be adjusted. Is this like an ASAP? We should schedule that as soon as possible. Like when do we need to take >> They're going to give us 90 days for corrective action. So, as I explained to um the woman who was here,
084her name is Fenula. I said, "Listen, you understand that a change to policy is there's a first reading, there's a second reading, and there's adopt like and there's adoption. So, you need to let me know what we need to do so that we can get the policy, we can get it into fir" and she said, "No, I understand that. As long as I know you're in process, you'll be okay." So, I'd like to have it in place before the start of the next school year because we're already working under and I don't think it impacts what we're doing. It's just language. >> Okay. >> So, >> my question to you, Matt, is with food service, do we do anything with the local farms around here? >> We do. Um, we are part of um local
085sourcing. Um, in fact, in the fall, we've had a couple of farms come in and do presentations both here at Eli and here at the high school, just Eli, um, where we had the local farmers come in with their what they were growing on their farms and then we used that product in the recipes for that particular day. Kids got to vote on it. They did stickers. Um, it it went it was very well uh, received. And we also have received some state money to offset some of the cost to buy locally because typically it's more than if you're just buying through a distributor. So >> okay, >> we do. >> All right. So I just was just wondering if we're at least working with some local farms at least give them even some of
086the farms that might not be in town but they're locally at least we're shopping locally. >> Food cost is big. We're always shopping. Well, >> I get it. Yeah, >> I have a few questions now. >> Um for the >> um on your negative balance explanations, the $5,000 that um involves a grant. When is that grant up and when will we have to absorb that into the budget? >> So that is a title two grant which is ongoing as long as the federal government keeps the title two monies coming in. Um, but we actually work best, myself and Brian work on whether we need to do that on a year-by-year basis based on what the budget is, right? That was actually a reduction in this year's budget from the previous year is how do we
087get to a number? >> Um, so and the whole reason it's not hasn't been cleared yet is we just got approval for title two. >> Okay. >> Just recently. So, >> would you be able to provide us with a list of like the grants when they're up, what they're covering? Is it a recurring grant? Is it something that we're going to have to look in the future to absorb into the budget? Um, like summer school, we lost summer school because it was a grant that we received. >> That was that was CO funds. >> Well, yeah, CO funds. Is there a way that we would be able to get a report so we could see that going forward for budget purposes for future years? >> Sure. >> And again, the HCS the balance is about
088$6,000 that they owe us. >> When will I know that you cleaned it up last time I asked Yep. which thank you for. Um is this like an every couple of months? >> Yeah, it's going to be it will be every couple of months. Uh I met with HS Wednesday to this morning um and we discussed um we discussed those numbers and what I just have to provide to them >> is a list of what the who these vendors are as we continue to try to transition them over. And what these things are, Robin, are um they're kind of one they come they're once a year events where somebody comes in and does an inspection, right? And >> they're not part of the AS vendor list yet. So we pay them because we don't want
089them to wait and then they'll give us a credit on the invoice side. >> Yeah, I understand. >> So it'll be a couple. You'll see this >> sporadically through >> as we go through. You should see the amounts shrink though as we continue to move things over. Um on the first page of the school budget report, um third line up from the bottom, it's maintenance supplies. >> $3927 was moved in to maintenance supplies, but that isn't covered through HCF. Are we now purchasing maintenance supplies that were not getting reimbursed by them? >> So whether or not First page, >> third one up. Maintenance supplies. >> Maintenance supplies. I moved 309 in and now it's now that's been zeroed out. So the maintenance supplies that means that HS reimbured us for the supplies we did. >>
090Okay. So Okay. >> And now that that budget line is zero. >> Okay. Um and then about halfway down the page, um elementary extracurricular, there's $4,000 in and there's still $4,000 there. >> Is that the clubs? >> $4,000 extracurricular. Um that is for the clubs and so forth. Uh with and I don't know the answer to this because I at the building level I don't know what clubs are running and which ones aren't. Okay. So I know that when Mrs. Lovelin left. I don't know which clubs were still running or if they even got off the ground, >> but I know that as we head into the spring, there will be clubs running. Um, and that's the amount that by contract is is allocated to each school. If at the end of the year there's
091still a balance in there that will be used to offset deficits in some other other area. Um but we do encourage the principles to run as many clubs as they can as extras for the kids. >> Um Brian, question for you. Do the clubs do they get paid as the club do the um teachers who run the clubs or whoever runs the clubs, do they get paid as they go or is that in the contract where they get paid at the end of the school year? >> They get paid two times a year depending on the club. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So if if it's one of the longer ones that meets more often, they'll get paid mid year and then end of the year. If it's and the administrators in the buildings kind of
092tell us this is the first half of the year club, it's meeting four times and then in the contract that's all broken out how they get paid and they would get paid once because it's the first half of the year. >> And we we just paid the first stipens uh either they either got it in the December 24th payment or just now January. According to this, I believe it's the January because nothing has been come out of them and that was one of my questions. >> Um, there are emergency repairs. What school is this for? Fisher for 4,000. What were the 4,000 emergency repairs for Fiser? I don't remember hearing about >> bathrooms. >> Stairs maybe. >> Uh, it may be the stairs that we that we repaired outside where we did the concrete. >>
093Was that Fisher? Was that one? at it's both finished stairs at Fiser and then we also replaced things >> um at Plymouth Center. >> We'll have to get back to you on that one, >> but I'll have to get back to you on the detail of it. >> Um I do have a question if we could possibly um I see that there's adjustments being made. Um I tried I sat down on Sunday and went through this for about 3 hours. Um it's hard to see where the adjustments are taken from to cover because you might take a lot of money out of one account and split it up into others. Can we get a breakdown of where you're taking money from to cover what accounts? >> Sure. Um and then um could I could I
094ask why though? >> I'm I'm just >> I'm just I'm curious because you have to understand Matt will say yes. The time that takes it it's a lot. There's three of us in central office covering. I mean, I'm the director of curriculum, HR. Matt helps out with HR. He's the business manager. He's taking on something from the town, the special ed director, assistant superintendent, doing teacher evaluations. This stuff, if it's necessary, 100%. You wanted to break down a summer school, 100%. But if it's if it's work and there's a purpose to it, fine. And I just I need to know the purpose. I think before we direct Matt to do that type of work. >> My idea behind it is for budget reasons. Like when I'm going to look at the budget, I want to
095if we're overall allotting a certain amount for one account, maybe that's something that we can pull money from to cover one of the things that we're not covering. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. Um, on page five there's alter alternative discipline program mentor. Is that ISS? >> No, that's detention after >> detention. Okay. Um, and then OSHA compliance. There's $1,000 pretty much at every school. Is that to what is that? Is that when we're out of compliance with OSHA? Is that to >> No. But at the end of typically at the end of each year we have to provide a a a report or something to OSHA and that's basically the cost to have somebody come in check things for us and then okay >> we can do that just to make sure that we're compliant.
096>> Um and on any given time we don't know who they're going to ask for so we build it into each budget. >> I I just wasn't sure if that was to like bring stuff up to compliance or >> hopefully I never have to do that. Um, and I think that's all of my questions for right now. >> I have a a just a quick question on what um Robin was asking for with taking money out of one account into the next to pay for something. I mean, you guys probably shipped money around quite often. Instead of doing that on a monthly basis and letting us know where you're moving money, especially if we're talking about just for oh well this we have this account budgeted, this account has this much money in it and
097they don't need that much. Wouldn't that be an end of the year type evaluation? Because if you're shifting money from one account to the next, constantly moving things around to pay the bills. >> It's like keeping track of that. It's kind of like play watching a card game play out. Well, and the hard part is when we're again you we're creating a budget now for next year. And so Matt when he sits down and he looks at the electricity bill for the month of November or the oil bill or whatever it might be, temperatures change, could be totally different. We might not spend as much one year as the next. Um but I mean these are these are Matt trying to go okay let's look at the historical increases that we've had what we actually
098spend and the one thing that you know when we talk about budget when we both started working together um we broke down the budget in a way that it's probably never been broken down before with regard to every employee what their insurance is to exactly what their insurance is. Every bill what the historical payment is and that is how um we have Kyle who's sitting here who does technology in the middle school. That's how Kyle's here. We got his salary by really streamlining this budget and and going through everything. And the concern I'm the concern I hear or think I hear and I could be wrong is that you know we're working through this the best we can. There's a lot of questions that I I respect the questions of any individual on the board.
099I just want to make sure that they're coming across as you know like I just feel like is there is there better things we can do with the money? And I'm assuring you that Matt is the business manager and myself as the superintendent and Beth is the assistant superintendent. We comb through this two or three times a week to look at where we could save, where we could adjust. So I just don't want to waste Matt's time or my time or Beth's time because we do not have the time. We do not have the time and Matt doesn't have an assistant. We we have someone in charge of food service, someone in charge of transportation. She's sitting right there. We have someone in charge of payroll. We have someone in charge of accounts payable. Matt
100does this work himself. So there's other things such as the grants or whatnot. We talked about a grant today that gets pushed aside. I just want to make sure what we're asking for from myself, Matt, or Beth are necessary things moving forward because I do not we don't have the time. We just don't have the time. We don't have the staffing. We've been stripped down. There's no one in charge of HR except for me. There's no one in charge of curriculum. Beth and I do the curriculum work uh with our principles. The number of staff evaluations that we all have is outrageous. We cannot cut another administrator. Uh because we are at absolute there's nothing else. And so I just want to make sure whatever we're asking Matt, myself, or Beth for or whatever questions
101are coming up are are questions that are necessary to be asked in a public forum in this setting that we could really actually answer at that time. and provide and to provide reports or documents that are unnecessary. We just don't have the time for it. We're trying to run a district. So, um, and Brian, I I I I agree with what you're saying, but to answer your question is when I came here originally 5 years ago is I didn't do the transfers until the very end of the year, but we would spend almost an hour going through every line that was negative in that budget report, which goes which comes through and comes through and comes through and comes through. So my solution to that was with you know working with the board was I
102am going to make the transfers that I know are okay to make and and and even things off based on a change. For example, someone leaves the district at X number of dollars and the new person comes in at X plus because that's who we hired. Well, I have where do I have funding that I can offset that that increase? Well, we special education, we hired somebody at a lower rate, so I'm moving I move salary from here to here. So, we're offsetting it. >> If you don't want me to do the transfers, that's fine. Understand that at the end of the year, I will spend easily a week. >> Oh, no. >> That's the only thing that I'll do. I think she's saying that at the end like just do what you got to
103do and then at the end of the year it be like end of the year you would see if there was an account that didn't need as much funding. >> So those when we do the budget >> you've already taken that into consideration. >> I use the actual expenditures not not the previous year's budget. I use the actuals. I look at the actual expenditures from the previous year. Where did we budget it this year? How am I trending? And then that creates this next thing. >> It's a zero. It's a zero based. >> Yeah. We zero out from the beginning and then I go back and look. Okay, so what did it grow this year over this year, you know, two years ago to this year? Okay, it grew at 8%. Where am I trending?
104>> Yeah, >> I'm trending lower. Okay, so maybe we can shave a little bit here. So I I misunderstood what you were asking me. I I apologize. >> So I think the superintendent makes a good point. Um, I don't think that we need to put any extra work on our administrators for something that we can see at the end of the year or they can, you know, be trusted to handle within their report. Does anybody else have any other questions? >> You're off the hook for me. I got to see Brian this week, so I asked all my questions already. I was like, let me try to save uh save Matt some questions. So actually I was pleased to see the one with the food cuz that was a concern for me with the new
105nutrition guidelines and the cost of you know like proteins and vegetables is like so >> yeah I mean good and healthy for our children but not so good and healthy for our budget. So that was a huge thing but Brian already like oh I already put it in. So thank you. All right. So, our accounts by facility report will be forwarded to the town of Town of Plymouth Board of Finance. And Mr. Falcone, do you have anything to add about our personnel report? It's pretty straightforward. >> No, it's >> Yeah, it's pretty simple. >> Okay. Next up is num item number nine, public comment. So, I will invite our public to come up again. Melanie Church, 328 Main Street. Number one, it's just a very simple thing that now the town is doing and it
106might be something good for the board of ed to do. Every line item that you have, they have every line item they have and where the money is at that point. if they spend it in one month, it's right there. So, you can see >> where it was taken from. And it was it it's being it's they're in the middle of bringing it out permanently every month. And that might be the simplest way where it shows there's nothing being hidden, no secret. It's been taken out of this account for this. It It's all right there. and it at the end you know what your balance is. So if an account has to be frozen, you're able to freeze that account because you're spending too much. Um and that might be the best thing to be
107done here. I think it's going to be very successful. Plus it shows you that you don't have to ask because it'll say it was for this or that. And that way there he doesn't have to go back through and figure out what it is exactly you want and it's all done right in in a thing and it's passed out every month. Um >> 30 seconds. >> Okay. And uh one other thing is uh I suggest um that you also look at every expenditure and I suggest also that each of you's go to that uh they're meeting Thursday night at 5:30. Um, >> oh, the Capitals ask ask what they're doing for you. All right, thank you. >> Any other public comment? Anything online? >> Nothing. Okay. All right. We are up to committee reports, finance
108and operations. Mr. Mr. Bourboner. >> Okay. We met last Wednesday, which was January 7th. Uh went through a number of things. Uh one of the things that we went through was the uh playground at Plymouth Center, which is still in the uh early stages of what we're going to do to change that um playscape at the center to be age appropriate and ADA accessible. uh Matt to get a quote uh $97,000 uh which in all honesties from my own uh personal point of view being on uh Plymouth Park and Wreck for many many years that's probably a ballpark uh with any uh any type of playground facility going anywhere whether it's park and wreck or whether it's a school. Um the issue is is that um it might be the Cadillac type of uh playground
109that was offered. Uh if you go a little bit less, well, you get less equipment. That's usually what ends up happening. Um one of the other things that we uh discussed was ECS grant money. Um and a um a print out was handed to each member to understand how ECS grant money is actually allocated. Um if you read through the whole exact thing at the bottom it doesn't say anything about a cola raise because uh uh inflation is up at 2.5% or inflation up is up at 5%. So there's nothing in there that shows anybody who in any town who gets ECS grant money that uh the reason why you're flatfunded is because that's the way the uh uh it's uh allocated through their system of uh percentages of money allocated because of students and
110other things and this is what you get. So it doesn't necessarily matter. And one of the things that we uh talked about too was that um our meetings will be on the second Monday prior to the board of ed meeting at 6:00 p.m. in the library. >> Prior to the board of ed meeting >> on Monday. >> Oh, the Monday meeting. I got you. Sorry, I wasn't following. >> I am comma. >> I'm on board. I'm on board. Okay. >> All right. Next up, we have curriculum and instruction committee, Miss Tilton. >> Um, I just want to start off by absolutely commending um the instructional coaches who came in. Um, we asked for a lot or I asked for a lot of um, data and information. Um, I think for me it was very informative
111and um, it was great to see some really perfect alignment with what they're doing to our strategic standing and how we can partner with them and as we have budget discussions. There are certainly some things that I think we should highlight that they share that they're doing that we we need to make sure we don't touch those things to have a negative impact on our students. But um just very impressed with the the knowledge that they have and with everything they're doing to really view um you know some gaps in learning that have come about as a result of COVID and they are just going above and beyond to try to address all of these concerns. Um of course they could always use some help from us. I you know the interventionist was at different
112levels was on our you know strategic plan and you know I I know budget season is hard for me as an educator knowing how valuable some of these things are and having to pick and choose the priorities. So I'm hoping just to bring some of that information when we meet so we can share from the people who are boots on the ground what's really important and effective for them so we don't touch any essential things that will have a really negative impact but just amazing work and cannot say enough about how committed and dedicated our staff are to student outcomes and learning. So >> we're lucky to have them. >> Oh so lucky. Yeah it was it was really great and they did it with very little notice. So, thank you again for those who
113did that. >> Thanks. >> All right, our communications committee. So, we are looking to bring in the Boys and Girls Club as a possibility for a before and after school program. Um, this would be for elementary age students as well as potentially um middle school and even into high school offering club options for them. So, what we would like to do and the recommendation based off of all of the great things that the Boys and Girls Club can bring to our community and to our children, um we would like to have them come in um at next u month's meeting in February and do a presentation to the full board um as well as to the public. And then once that presentation is done, we would also like to hold an open forum meeting with
114the public and the Boys and Girls Club. >> Different night though. >> On a different night. Yes, this would be on a different night. And uh they can go through their presentation again for anybody who's not able to make the normal board of ed meeting and be able to ask questions and give some of their opinions and insights into what their thoughts are. This >> excellent. Thank you. All right, we are on to item 11, board liaison reports. Plymouth Center School, Miss Connor. >> Yes, I attended my first PTA meeting last night. Um, they ended their snowflake fundraiser that happened in December and had an amazing turnout. They're about ready to kick off their spiritware fundra fundraiser. They're going to be sending home order forms and there's going to be online ordering as well. and
115they're changing up some of the logos and options they have this year. Um they uh for box tops for fundraiser they've um are on track to surpass their goal which is great. Um and there was a lot of talk of upcoming um plans that they have for some um cross district events and some other things that are going to be um quite exciting. >> Great. Glad to hear it. um Harry S. Fisher School, Miss Allen. >> So, we held our um holiday shop, which went great. The kids absolutely love shopping for family and friends, so that was a big hit. Um we also held a bingo night. Santa made an appearance. Um that was not a fundraiser, but it was just a nice night out for the family. Um we are getting ready to kick
116off our spiritware as well. Um so, that will be going out shortly. Uh let's see. We have assemblies coming up and we are looking again at some cross district um fundraisers and family nights. So um stay tuned. >> Excellent. Very good. Eli, Terry, Kelly, and Nicole. >> Nicole's going to take it over tonight. >> Beautiful. >> Um we had the holiday shop as well. That was good. Um, we have school store on the 28th, which is really always fun because it's a bunch of useless stuff that the kids >> rise the school day with. Um, our next PTA meeting is on the 29th. We are doing a trivia night and we're also doing the same night a babysitting at Eli Terry. Um, so the eighth graders to support their eighth grade dance will be providing
117the babysitting under the supervision of our lovely Miss Alicia from the learning center and she will be running that while trivia night is going on at the American Legion. >> Um, and then in March we are hoping to do a wrestling fundraiser >> and Brian is very excited about that with Becca and we're going to hope to have some not wrestling. >> No. I'm really hoping weird all of our administrators are. >> I'm hoping for that. >> So, that's about it. >> Thank you very much. Um, Terryville High School, Mr. Foot, >> no meeting. >> Oh, okay. Well, continue to support Terryville High School's aftergrad party fundraisers. It's very very important that they are able to provide a safe place for our graduates to go to have a good time after the graduation. Sorry, I
118always get that little >> dig in. Yeah. Okay, great. We'll hear from you then. Um, at Advance is currently vacant. Um, if anybody would like to take it on, you may certainly do so. Um, we will all just consider to keep considering that item number 12, board comments. Let's go ahead and start with Mr. Showers. >> Here we are. Another tough budget season. >> Yeah. >> Hopefully we can get a little more from the town than what we're requesting. That would be nice for a change because um well, I'll talk to you later about um security. It wasn't in there. >> It's in the uh You're right. It's in the strategic plan and it's highlighted in blue because we never decided what to do with that. So, I didn't know to put it in or
119not. But that's a whole another approximately $100,000. >> Yeah. >> And I have a plan for that, but >> Okay. Well, we talk >> M. You got the floor. >> Oh, okay. Um, I just want to thank I got to um walk through the schools yesterday and it was really um it was really amazing to see everything come full circle. Um when they were mentioning the career capstone, I got to see that and one of the best things I think for me was the variety of careers that they chose. It wasn't everybody goes to career colleges. There were trades, medical, a whole range. and the students really emphasized the importance of getting out to those job sites, of having those people in different professions come in and how that changed their perspectives and opened up
120their minds. Um, I want to thank everybody who let me interrupt their planning time and lunchtime and pop into their classroom and Brian for walking me through. Um, again, I cannot say enough about how fortunate we are to have the people that we have here working with our students. They put their all in every day to make sure that our kids start and and leave ready to enter the world as grown adults hopefully. Um so I just want to thank everybody for that um that super hard work. So um yeah, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Foot. >> I agree with Kelly. The last last week's meetings, the two special meetings we had were very informative. Thank you. Um, Mrs. Allen, um, I would like to thank Matt for taking time to go through all
121of his monthly documents that he sends us in excruciating detail with me and answer all of my questions. Uh, so that way I can go into budget season uh, having a little bit more knowledge than I did before. So, thank you for your time. >> You're very welcome. Anytime. >> Thank you, Nicole. >> Yes, Matt. Thank you for tolerating the both of us for a solid two hours on your middle of your day. >> Um yeah, that's really it. >> Okay, great. Miss Palmer, >> um I do want to thank the um staff that did come in for the um curriculum meeting. I sat in on that and was very impressed with what they had to say. Um they did an excellent job and um I do want to thank Matt, Brian, and Beth for
122everything that they do do. Um, I know some of the questions I ask are tedious, but I'm trying to do the best that I can going into budget se knowing as much as I possibly can so I feel comfortable making the decisions for the people of the town that elected us in these positions. So, but thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Perino, >> can't wait till the 22nd to dig into the budget. >> Oh, sounds fun. >> That's it. >> Okay, Mr. Bourbon. All right. Just everybody has to remember that 99% of that budget we have no control over. >> That's right. >> 99% of that budget we have no control over. It's either contractual or it's uh things that uh unless we're the CEO of uh Eversource or we're the CEO of Exxon Mobile and
123we can get beautiful diesel prices. Um evidently uh none of us are. So, we have to understand that 1% of that budget is what we control. All right? The individuals here that have kids in the school system, especially if you're in PTA, you need to start talking to people. Seriously, you need to start talking to people. Okay? Uh if you look at the handout that I gave you, okay, those numbers are pretty bad. All right? uh when you're getting less than 3% every year and you see other school districts around us that are getting four 5% and they're just barely hanging on at four or 5%. Okay, just imagine what's going to happen. All right. Um we have no more fat to cut in this budget. None whatsoever. We cut a lot of the fat
124last year and obligations. If somebody tells you, well, you should get rid of another another administrator. Unfortunately, the state won't allow it. I mean, we could. You'd have to go up against the state. So, understand those parameters of what we may have to cut, what we may not have to cut. So, I would implore everybody who's on this board, whether you have kids in the school system or not. Some of us have grandkids that live in this town, all right? To start talking to people. And oh, by the way, make sure they come to the budget presentation when the board of ed presents that budget to the board of finance. And once they do that, make sure they come to the tri board to let the the elected officials know, the mayor, the town council,
125how they feel about whether we get more money or if we get less money and how they feel about it. That's where you really need to do it because I can tell you in all the years that I've been there, you can probably count people in that in those meetings on one hand. >> That's right. >> On one hand. >> All right. So, and I don't want to hear, "Well, our taxes are going up." Every year, our taxes go up. No matter where you live in the United States, your taxes are going up. All right? It's just a matter of how much money you want. I call it an investment in your community. If you want to put money into your community, you want to invest it. That's the reason why your tax will go
126up. If you don't want to put money into your community, your taxes are still going to all go up and you have no complaints because you don't want to invest your community. That's it. I'm getting off my soap box. Thank you. >> Okay. Need some help down. >> All right. Um, so at this time, all of the subcommittees have met and I really want to thank everybody for the very hard work that you're putting in. I know it's a lot and I know, you know, there's a lot of questions and I know that there's a lot of, you know, information that we're getting. So, I do appreciate the work that the subcommittees are doing. Um, I would also like to thank the student reps and public comment even though there was only one instance of
127public comment today. But I do really appreciate anything that anybody has to bring to us so that we can um be aware from different aspects like we don't in different perspectives. We don't really have any way of knowing how the students are feeling if the student rep student reps don't come and tell us. we don't really have any way of knowing how the public is feeling unless the public comes to us and gives us ideas or suggestions or even complaints, any of those things. So, I do appreciate all of the input that we get. Um, and then I would just like to implore you, please take a look at this budget very closely. Um, we have just over a week until our budget workshop. If you have questions, please do not save them for that
128night. Please send an email to um Beth, Matt, Brian, ask them the questions that you can ask them. Of course, if questions come up that night because, you know, there's been something talked about, that is of course fine. But we shouldn't have, you know, 15 questions from every board member that that night because that's just going to make our meeting less productive. So questions you have, frontload them, put them up there. So, it gives them it gives them a chance to um research. It gives them a chance to get those answers to us. Um and if you guys don't have time to finish all of them, you can answer them at that night, too. So, I don't want to put more work on you guys either, but you know, anything that we can get to
129them and when they have time to answer it, it will be helpful. That being said, our next board meeting, uh, regular meeting of the Plymouth Board of Education will be on February 11th, 2026 at 6 P 6 p.m. here in the cafeteria at Terryville High School. And I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn at 7:52 p.m. >> Mr. Showers, Mr. Bourbaneer. All in favor? Motion carries. Thank you very much, everyone.