001good evening Portland it's now 7 o'clock I'd like to call our public hearing to order before we start I'd like to read the notice of public hearing legal notice of public hearing Board of selectman town of Portland notice is hereby given that there will be a public hearing on the proposed budget for 2025 26 to be held by the board of selectman pursuant to section 1213 of the Town of Portland Charter at the following place and location here in the buck Forman 265 Main Street Portland Connecticut it is being streamed on Zoom we have some live folks here as well we have some folks here live as well excuse me slight slight difference both it was so close both the subject is General government uh board of education budget and all the other special Revenue
002funds at this hearing any Resident or taxpayer may be heard concerning the proposed budgets copies of the proposed budgets are available for inspection in the town clerk's office public library and online at www.portland c.org dated this 28th day of February 2025 by myself M Pelton for selectman thank you for attending tonight um this is an important thing that we do once a year the board of selectman is charged with as the board of education is to uh produce a budget each year we Pro we both produce it separately we come to this room and we discuss the numbers we look through every single item and we come up with a budget that we could present agree and present to the town of Portland then vote on it by referendum and if it gets voted in
003that's a budget we have but this will be my 11th budget process um on board selectman um every time we go through we spend an awful lot of time making sure every number is looked at every contingency is is reviewed I'm proud of the work that we've done in the past and I'm looking forward to the next couple weeks as we look at all the numbers as well this involvement by everyone here and those people watching is just as important to know what you're thinking what your concerns are Etc so as we start the process process tomorrow in Earnest I encourage those to watch online or come here and ask your questions um as needed so uh let me give you the outline of what uh how we got to hear um starting in January
004both the Board of Ed and the board of selectman were tasked with putting together um a budget that or I'm sorry the town employees were put put together a budget that they could present to the board of selectman um once we got all of the numbers from all the various departments we then looked at that my task was providing a Board of selectman budget and the town budget to um uh uh to uh the board of Select members here um they have that as of February 28th we are now starting the process with this kickoff and going through the presentation here starting tomorrow uh March 12 you'll we'll be starting Department workshops including the Board of Ed and then that'll continue on next Tuesday the 18th Wednesday the 19th and then at that point budget
005deliberations begin March 25th Tuesday and 26th on on Wednesday that uh we are hoping to at the end of this process be able to adopt the budget for Board of selectman that encompasses both budgets by April 2nd um at that point if that does happen uh this will go to referendum on May 5th in which case um the town will vote on it if it does not pass then and I hope that it does uh then the second referendum will be on May 12th oh excuse me I I apologize uh the first the first budget referendum will be on May on May 12 and if that does not pass on May 19th there'll be a second budget referendum my apologies all right before I start in Earnest with the presentation I want to thank Tom
006Robinson our Director of Finance who's here right now uh Tom has been invaluable in Walking uh this process through for myself this will be my first time on this side of the aisle uh working on the budget so understanding what Tom does over the last couple weeks has really made me appreciate his position in watching the town's money watching where every doll where every dollar goes um I appreciate the late nights that we've had going through the numbers here um and what we to show tonight will reflect uh the work that we've done um over the last couple weeks so thank you very much Tom for your help I'd also like to uh thank Ryan Curley many of the things we're going to talk about today in terms of accomplishments happened during the three years
007that he was for selectman as well as some that were started with Susan private uh previous to that so I was involved in many of them um but Ryan Andor Susan were able to move it forward and Ryan has been able to move a lot of these things and get them to the finish line so I want to thank him for his work here not only as as for selectman but also his town his work as town uh Clerk and other time that he's done here in town so I want to thank you very much for all his help and let's get on to the budget all right all right so this will be the general line there will be time at the end of the proposal for public comments um because this is an
008overview on all the numbers um I would ask those that have very specific questions to wait to the budget workshops and some of the deliberations that we have because that that can has very specific questions but tonight if you have broad questions or comments please let them uh please let them come in all right let's go next so before I started tonight I wanted to talk about what does the budget mean so we talk about budget and numbers and we see that happening out um in in you know nationally as well as at state level but budgets mean the people of the Town what budget means the people involved either citizens or those Town employees in Portland so I want to talk about that and right now this group of people that you see up
009on the chart represents a majority of those that are involved in town government or helping the town in one way or another we currently have nine active committees in town with 67 volunteers we have 13 boards and commissions as created by the charter 76 volunteers we have 24 volun we have uh 24 elected officials two full-time and then others Public Works has a number of people um that are working in that department as well buildings three grounds three um Highway Etc um the volunteer fire department 58 people all other Town staff 23 full-time 52 part-time and our police officers so that's what makes up our town I wanted to kind of preface this whole presentation with it's the people in town that are doing the good work for the town that make a difference they
010help make this a better town because of all their work let's go on next some of the achievements that we've had over the last year all right this one has a personal interest to me um having coach track here and been involved with the kids for a long time I was very happy to see the new track done one a year ago but since then it has been used by many many people I mean it's it is we're getting home track meets again up at uh up at the high school uh we are doing events there this was from an event uh a fundraiser I did last year uh that helped raise money for the track team um so there's a number of people doing that citizens um volunteers Etc so love having this has
011made a difference to the quality of life and next this I'm very excited about this is a project that started about two years ago uh and involves a 40 million doll Nordic Spa uh down down by the river um it is a beautiful design they are going to start building this as of next month uh and they expect to have this completed hopefully by next summer uh this is a huge benefit for the town it's a day spot I expected to bring in uh tens of thousands of people a year uh they've given me a number that seems very optimistic but they feel it's it's very conservative so you're looking at 100,000 people or more uh coming to this Spa uh or or or traffic to here so very excited about that um the spa
012itself has eateries Etc but it'll be it'll be a great destination for people not only in state but from around the country so next the senior center renovation this was on here last year but I thought it was important enough to bring it up and point out that it has gotten extremely um a lot of extreme use there's a number of groups and organizations that use this for their meetings um I know uh Teddy Pinto uh runs a transition program out of there we have a number of other groups and organizations that use this they are at record um number of people that use this uh that investment in that facility has made a big difference to the quality of life it also I have to point out is is where a lot of Social
013Services happens unofficially down there there's a number of people that need help they use the senior center as a place to go to um and either for a meal or for a place to meet other people but um I can't speak more highly enough for Sarah and the group down there that run this um and they've done a nice job but this continues to be used and it's a again a huge asset for the town next Riner place I know this has been somewhat controversial over the years it was a long time coming um but it is great to see it finally done and many of the ones many of the voices against it are now what's taking so long um so I it is moving along uh they are starting to fill the first
014Department building that they have that's exciting for those of you that love Starbucks you've got your place here in town um they're working on the second building right now as you go by so it is a project that is and works um the uh facilities are wonderful um it'll be um a good tax praise for us um when we get to the numbers I'll I'll go over some of the specifics but right now as a town we are within about 30 something million dollars of a billion dollars um for for total uh for total um assessment thank you great grand list or assessment I wasn't sure which one um so we're close to a billion dollar Mark so projects like the Nordic spa and this will get us over the hump so uh it's nice
015to see um if you haven't seen the apartments they're beautiful but it's it's it's a great addition to the town next water so we have we have had a 30-year contract with MDC uh that contract winds down early next year uh we've been looking for water for a while we found it a little more than a year and a half ago um and we have not with test well we now have found a place to drill we've made it down there and the will the well uh looks like it is going to be adequate to cover our needs uh we have a lot more uh a lot more work to do but over the next couple weeks or so we will do a test uh drilling or a test uh of the water and the
016quantity that we get and we are on our way to hopefully water uh uh Independence um a lot of work to go it may not happen until middle of next year uh at the rate we're going that's my best guess that may be a little cons it may be a little optimistic but either way we're on our way we're hoping this works and this is again a very important thing for the town um it's going to make a big difference with us and at a minimum it's going to stabilize our rates and maybe allow us to do some more infrastructure to to build up and make it even more more sturdy next um if you've been in town for a while you've seen a lot of sidewalk projects over the year um Ryan and and
017uh Ryo helin were uh were very instrumental in getting a number of projects extended because we used we used the money wisely we're able to go farther and longer with the sidewalks uh in many cases so um I want to thank the crew that did that and the folks that we hired to do that but it has made the town more walkable and connected more neighborhoods um and that'll continue uh this year and next as well next this one I'm very excited about I know there's a group of people in town that have been working on water access for many many years uh this is down behind Tilcon um it's still the design right now uh but we have gotten an approval lately uh very recently from that allows us to actually start the project
018in Earnest so we have to do some design work but this would be if if the if the if the uh progress goes as it should I should give uh uh uh people in town access to the uh to the river for the first time I think in a very long time 30 plus years I don't know if we ever had that access uh before 30 40 years ago so anyway so that's going on it'll be a boat and kayak launch um but we own a great deal of the property there and we've already got most of it laid out for how we're going to do it so that should be happening over the course of the next couple months uh we'll be working with uh with with the state on that but I'm excited
019about that that is coming in next another thing from a year and a half ago the 12 passenger bus again um you don't realize how much need there is until you have some capacity to uh to fill it so this bus um is being used to its Max right now it seems we could probably throw more money at drivers to even get more uh more rides of people in town so uh it is being used a great deal uh it is very healthy I've talked to some of the folks and residents that use this on a regular uh basis it gets them to doctors it gets them to events it keeps them connected with the people around them so for Citizens that are older maybe need more Transportation this has been a wonderful thing for
020them so something small like this makes a big difference in our town next all right so other things we have so we're working on a number of things we're trying to get uh going the town applied uh about a month or so ago for a million dooll steep Grant from the state to continue a project we're doing on High Street uh we voted here about a month ago to uh provide $200,000 the uh the match from the state is a million dollars that $1.2 million allows us to continue on from the high school down on the other end past the cemetery so we uh it gets us a chance to finish that project uh I shouldn't say finish finish the second phase of the project there was a third phase that gets us all the
021way to the end uh but right now we're waiting on that we we don't have it yet but we feel comfortable confident fingers crossed send out some good vibes out there but that is in place right now we're hoping for that we've obtained a lot of state and federal grant funding on a number of projects but the one that makes the biggest difference for the jobes pond folks especially was the mitigation we had to do with the flooding of Job's Pond I know it's a once every 30-year um event that's happened down there but Ryan pery was able to uh muster those Federal and State dollars to get that water remediated it took a while um sometimes things take longer than uh than you would expect but they're able to get that done and they're
022working active actively actively right now to try to solve that problem in the long term so looking at possible mitigation uh path to do that so that is next we know about the Nordic Spa um we also did a lot of remediation down on Brownstone Avenue 248 uh you'll notice the five and a half acres that we purchased about seven years ago uh they finally have gotten to the stage where it is uh just about completely remediated right now um that could be a perfect site for a hotel could be a perfect site for a restaurant there's other things that we're looking at but we will put that out for RFP to find some people interested in developing that front property so lots of opportunity there we're looking at that right now next airline Trail
023uh we're continuing to try to expand that as well um right now the state has a 111 mile Central Connecticut Loop that they're trying to complete uh right now it's in East Hampton uh there's a gap there we have a gap in Portland right now that gets us into Middletown but that is one one that we're working on right now uh we have some movement going forward there's some State money available um I'll keep everyone posted on that but that is now um moving moving forward um a couple more steps than it was uh it was before we recently received a $200,000 bar Grant uh Brown areawide revalation revitalization Grant that's going to help us uh do a downtown master plan so that's something that we are now I'm having a few folks looking at
024we'll pick we'll pick the vendor to do that but that should be in place and that will help us coordinate all the growth that we have and I'm saying this because it all affects the dollars in the town it all is going to affect uh uh not only potentially property taxes but also taxes that we get from these businesses so it'll have a longer term impact over the next year or two or three but it's important to know that upfront solar array uh we're looking at um early in 2026 to put that on the landfill that's approved but there were a couple delays with the state so we're looking to push that on and of course our um yeah no that's good that's good right next and next all right so let's get into the
025numbers so the the Topline numbers on this is the proposed budget right now is 41 million 853226 that is a 4.5% increase over last year um the general is 3.74 up and the Board of Ed is 4.97 up um before I get to the next one um one of the things that also is important here too is as we look at the numbers over the next 15 minutes or so for myself and for Dr Britain the numbers is based on the number of factors so one of those is the people involved as well um the projects that we do um so the people that we have in town make a difference the ones the employees and the others that do the projects are a big part of the budget they're a significant part of the
026budget and we we run pretty lean here in town there's really not much to cut but um it's the people costs that um are just as important as the things that we do out there you know the trucks that we have the equipment that we use next this is the budget expenditures uh the increases over the last five years so uh this year it's 4.5 is what I'm proposing last year was 4.6 two and then as you go back uh it drops down to 3.13 Etc so there's some reasons why it's uh it's slightly lower than last year but we have some headwinds that we're running into financially uh not only in state but nationally that have affected some of the numbers but we'll discuss that tonight next all right overall expenditures um in the
027general budget right now we're at 3.74 um on board of vet we're 4.97 this gives you the chart of what what it's been over the last couple years uh for both sides of this uh Dr Brittain will talk about his numbers in particular um you know with our numbers right here uh we've seen it crawl up and creep up over the years for various reasons um I was able to bring our number down Charles was able to bring uh the number down a bit as well but we'll discuss those in details as we get up here next next all right this is the breakdown of what percentage of the budget it is so uh you'll see General uh General men government uh Public Safety Public Works all these numbers represent the portion of the bill
028as a percentage um for our ours as well as uh Board of Ed so uh next page so our total government costs for the budget are 37.94 per. so we're about a third of the budget so these are all the various all the various numbers next Capital items so we are we have several places where we'll be uh spending some money uh General funded uh losp uh local capital increment program provides money every year to us we have 96,000 of that now Water and Sewer also uh generate some dollars next page all right so see these are some of the capitals that we're funding from the general fund um Board of Ed has two items in there uh a vehicle as well as uh HVAC uh for 105 157,000 total and then if you go
029down the list you can see these as well there's a number of other items that we're funding based on the needs of the department so uh a lot of thought was put into what what what's their absolute need what's going to make the biggest difference um and these were the ones that um are the most urgent needs so um fire department the hear tool replacement they need that um a AED Replacements required um Library the copy of there has been there for for many many years it's tired we need that so uh that's there as well so next Etc and then the other Capital items as well next all right right um total out of there we're spending 913 from the general fund and then there's the Board of Ed uh for the additional up
030to 970,000 next what's that oh 813 I'm sorry what I say 9:13 oh I paed 813 excuse me all right uh and again losp um you know every year uh that losp number changes slightly based on the state requirements and and state finances so those are the two ways we're breaking up that loet money next this is and next again this is review for every every $100 so these are percentages across the board so again General government and all the other ones that make up our side of the budget are 30 3.68% of General operating funds next sorry 37.94 per. that was the second page so that's our total operating expenses for the government side for the Board of Ed side at 62.0 6% next revenues um the 5, 2654 uh 451 most of that
031is educational cost sharing with some additional other state revenues in there but the uh the uh the educational cost Revenue sharing is a majority of that money um details we'll talk in the budget um in the budget hearings next same proposed fees these are miscellaneous fees permits and other fees in town again details to follow but this will be we go through this specific numbers but uh this number has been pretty constant there there's been slight increases and decreases over the years uh but that's a pretty stable number next given what's gone out out there over the last couple days um you can understand that investment income does vary depending on the economy and interest rates so uh this was our best estimate what next year would be uh based on the money that we
032have and the investment income that we get from that um so down 60,000 based on last year what we thought but this is this is what we think is a safe [Music] number next all right so this is this is the mill number I need I need to do a little bit of explaining about this one so right now with the with the budget that we have in place the one that I'm I'm suggesting or submitting um this 1.49 mill rate uh is the mill rate needed with the existing car tax that we have right now because it's it's it's it's uh capped at 3.46 um the state recently passed uh a week or so ago HB House Bill 7067 which changes the um the rate by which a depreciation happens on the cars um
033and should that be adopted by the board of Selectmen and I wanted to bring it up tonight so there's some discussion about that that could have a positive impact a positive meaning it could generate um more U more taxes um so that the mill rate may not have to go up as much as 1.49 um there'll be uh more information talked about that I have't not a great deal of uh information I'll provide to the town um but uh just just to say I wanted to put that up there that uh there is some way and when looking at all the numbers uh from our assessor the actual uh most people I want to say 80% of people in town with cars uh the actual tax from last year to potentially using uh this depreciation
034scale would actually be slightly less uh than it is this year um because of the way the numbers work as most cars are older cars so the depreciation um would not be down as much but it would still be lower than that would normally pay but that's for another day but that does that number 1.49 does not reflect um us adopting that because I think that needs to be a wider discussion publicly so we can discuss that and and folks in town can get their opinion on that so we could understand all the numbers next all right Grand list uh 963 so we have about 36 million dollar to go in order to get us to a billion dollars for the grand list um the brainer place and the spa should put us over plus
035other things that are going on in town um but that's a good number uh we're going to continue to do that the mill rate with that change I just put would be 35.74 that's a 4.35% increase increase in the mill rate next all right Water and Sewer budgets um I just want to put in in here how many people that we do have on that not everyone obviously is on the Water and Sewer um but we do have about 2100 combined customers right now some customers have multiple accounts uh but that makes up our water and sewer and because we're going to be hopefully water independent these numbers become these numbers can potentially increase which then generates more Revenue perhaps keeping the pricing uh stable so this is also an area that we may be
036able to expand what we do depending on how we work this project out next and again the water budget um we've increased it by 12% um we need we're we're looking to cover a full-time position here in water for the same reasons I just mentioned as as we bring on water internally if that if we can make that happen it requires some more people and right now our water staff is pretty tight right now between water and sewer I believe we have five people all together right now you know water is uh water is two so we need to add to that and make sure we can handle everything that we need to do so uh that's the reason for the 12% increase sewer next Su next is is as moderate as as moderate as
037we can make it just based on the hard cost that they have and some of the increases that we have there next all right lastly workshops so we will have uh workshops over the next uh week and a half uh tomorrow and next Tuesday and Wednesday a deliberations with the board will be the following week Tuesday and Wednesday and then um if we're successful and we can come together we will come together with the board of selectman budget on April 2nd we encourage as many people to come out and watch as possible um the town meeting uh may fit where there'll be further discussion and then if everything goes goes well um the people in town get to vote and decide whether that's a budget that they want and that makes the most sense on
038May 12th all right thank you very much and with that I'd like to present Dr Britain all right good evening everyone so let me start by just giving a quick overview of how this budget is developed um we start working on what's called superintendent budget as early as October so every teacher every built Department leader every department head every uh uh building principal starts working with their faculty and staff to identify supplies resources materials um and organizing all of our requests for the year those are brought to me and to Stephanie uh sometime in December and we start working towards the development of the superintendent budget which I then present to the board of education and Board of Education takes an awful lot of time you know several workshops and and um different meetings to
039you know go over all of the requests and make sure that everything is aligned with our strategic goals and initiatives for the year I'm very happy to tell you that the budget I'm going to present to you tonight was unanimously app approved by the the Board of Education um if anything I think the Board of Education would like to have included more but I think that there's a recognition that um we needed to stay as lean as we could to bring forward a budget that requests are uh reflects our absolute needs so let me start by extending my appreciation to everybody and it really is everybody in the entire school system who contributed their ideas to this budget not everybody got everything they wanted I'm sorry about that we had to make some very hard
040decisions and I also want to extend my appreciation to the board of education and to um board chair L steinhauser for her hard work um in crafting this budget and ultimately their unanimous support of the budget I'm going to present to you tonight so this is the Portland board of education budget again unanimously approved and uh this budget offers a comprehensive um array of extracurricular co-curricular athletic and academic programs that our students and families count on every day next slide I could be up here all night recognizing and celebrating the incredible things that are happening in the schools every day you know the only fear I have with presenting a few of them is that I might miss some so I really did um just try to call out a few um first in terms
041of academics The Faculty staff and students at Gilder sleeve have been absolutely knocking it out of the park um for the second year in a row now Gilder sleeve has been recognized by the state of Connecticut as a school of Distinction um that means it's scoring in the top 20% of schools in the state um this is a school that moved from Focus School status four years ago all the way to School of Distinction status for the past two years in a row and they're on track I think to receive some more significant Awards in the future I'm really proud of them and they I they they deserve all of the accolades and acknowledgements that they're getting um good work Guild or sleep across the district our prek through or really our K through3 teachers
042but pre2 have been working really hard implementing new curriculum aligned to something called the science of reading this has been a huge lift and required an awful lot of time and attention I need to make sure I recognize all of our K through three teachers for providing that level of support to our students um also I want to give a shout out to the high school they just finished their most recent accreditation visit with the New England Association of schools and colleges I've got a look at that report absolutely incredible feedback for that school couple really good areas for um suggestions for improvement they're going to be working on over the next couple of years and we'll finish that accreditation process um two years from now I have no doubt that we'll maintain our accreditation
043and continue to be um recognized as a school worthy of that distinction um otherwise I just want to you know call out a couple of other ones in the Arts you know a little free advertising here get your tickets they coming right up we have our um uh anything goes musical if you haven't been to a musical of high school please go all of these things are fabulous by the way for every everybody who's been to the the fall and winter concerts you know how how great they are also the the extravaganzas that are going to be here in the spring not to be missed you got to go go to them see our kids performing it's absolutely wonderful on every level in athletics you know look at this 531 students across the middle school
044and high school have participated in some level of Athletics um throughout the fall winter and spring that's incredible growth our kids are out there active our teams are doing great get out there and support them if you haven't been to a game please go especially now that baseball season is Year we're expecting a really good good year and I can't wait to see them um and then you know just in terms of extracurricular experiences our school days never really end you know kids are here all afternoon and evenings working with their teachers on all kinds of exciting and unique and interesting projects these are just a few of the ones I pulled out I could go on for hours celebrating the successes in across the board Athletics academics extracurriculars Portland your schools are doing wonderful
045we're so grateful that you send your kids to us every day um and your your teachers are are just terrific and in every level so I really wanted to start by just Rec iing some of the hard work that's happening out there and give a little free advertising get your tickets plays coming right up not to be missed okay so how are we going to continue to support all this we can fast forward please so I want to just kind of give a little breakdown on the budget and you know share a little bit of anxiety that I have because I I have no lack of it funny to share there are two separate budgets that the Board of Education really works with and they reflect the different revenue streams that come in into the
046school district first there's What's called the Lea budget or local educational agency budget this is made up of two things one the funds that we get from local property taxpayers thank you very much Portland and funds we get from the state of Connecticut in something called the uh ECS Grant or equalized cost sharing Grant this year we're expecting to receive about $5 million from the state of Connecticut in ECS grant funding we are seeing a little increase of about $221,000 from the state we appreciate that my feeling is that the burden for Education shed a little too far towards the local property tax base I think the state should be shouldering a larger share of that expense because a lot of the things that we have to do at the local level are a reflection
047of State mandates so you know that's just my little PR Spiel you know we have written letters and we have advocated both um the the the Board of Education and through my association with the superintendent groups we've asked the state to shift that burden back towards the state they did a little bit this year but still the Lions share of local education cost sharing funding comes from um local property taxpayers not just in Portland but this is uh School District across the state so in general we're expecting about $5 million from the Hartford and we uh 21 million from uh we're asking local property uh tax share in addition to to that 2,974 we get an additional $2 million from other sources primarily federal and state um resources now the first big share of that
048comes from idea which is the individuals with disabilities and Education Act this is what funds our students with support service needs and titles one through four Brands we get a significant share of funding out of the federal government through those two areas now I'm nervous we are all aware of what's happening in Washington with the cuts that are coming out of there it would be a big hit to us if that Revenue Source through idea or the title grants were reduced for Portland and every school district in the entire country that is obligated to provide re resources and support to students identified with special needs that could be potentially devastating for us I just want to put it out there it's something we're watching very carefully and certainly something I hope we would all advocate
049for our federal government to maintain funding for additionally we receive um funding through our participation with open Choice that's dependent on how many students uh join us from hardford we do get some Medicaid reimbursement for some of our support service needs and then the the big one here is the excess cost reimbursement this is sort of like an insurance policy that we receive from the state for students whose special needs exceed the threshold that the state establishes last year if you remember we ran a deficit the end of the year I had to ask for a supplemental the reason for that was because we had a pretty significant increase with individuals moving into town and some new students who came to us with Specialized Service needs and a decrease in that excess cost grant that
050we realized right in SE in uh December I see Tim nodding said he remembers that board meeting where we were all very disappointed to to realize we are in we're in a significant deficit position because of the increase needs for from some new students and a decrease in that excess cost this year I'm happy to report that recently the the governor and the uh State Legislature negotiated a $40 million supplemental to that excess cost we're going to realize about 84,000 from that supplemental and this year we are in a far better budget position were last year actually this year we're in a little bit of a surplus I'm happy to report now because of the funding that we received through that excess cost Grant so the reality here is this 2 million is subject to
051change you know all we can do is base our estimates based on what we've received in the past and hope that they continue if all or any part of that is reduced well we're going to be in a position where we're going to have to reduce Services which in the areas of special education unless laws were repealed we wouldn't be able to so likely we'd have to cut services in other places or potentially look to the to Hartford or the Town of Portland to make us whole entirely or meet us part way so I'm going to be watching this very carefully I will certainly keep you posted you will be reading about it in the news as we are all on eggshells in terms of what's going to happen with these funding streams in total
052the budget I'm going to share with you tonight is reflects $28 Million worth of spending which is the combination of local education agency town and local burden as well as Federal and other sources that we receive to provide support services for our students okay I figured what I would do tonight is I would take you through all five of our schools to give you a snapshot of what we need in order to run each of the schools our first school is Valley View they serve students in grades prek through one here is the Staffing profile this is what we're projecting this is what we have this year it's projecting what we'll need next year only only thing I can't say for sure here is at kindergarten we currently are budgeting for five sections of kindergarten
053the problem is we don't know how many kindergarteners we're going to get if we generally speaking I put the number at 90 90 or lower we would need five teachers 90 or more students we start to need a a sixth teacher and if we get up into the 100s then we might need a seventh kindergarten teacher I just checked today at Valley viiew currently we have 70 students who have have signed up which tracks with about average for this time of year um but we won't know that number literally until the end of August when we actually see the enrollment otherwise as beside that one whether we need that additional section of kindergarten that's pretty stable and I'm confident that that's what we're going to need to operate valy view next year next slide Gilder
054sleeve um here's your our staffing profile here these are all of the the wonderful Educators and certified staff faculty and staff that come and support our students in grades 2 through four at uh Gildersleeve one thing that did change here is that three of these positions um excuse me two of these positions this year were Grant funded so that Grant has expired we did move the two positions back into the Lea budget because they are essential and those are both special education teaching positions otherwise this is what we have this year and we're anticipating that this is what we're going to need in order to provide the same LEL of services to students at the old next slide please Brownstone Brownstone serves students in grades five and six this is what we have this year
055minus one so next year we are reducing one section of fifth grade that's because in fourth grade right now there are 76 students when those 76 students move to fifth grade we won't need five teachers in fifth grade we'll only need four so you do see one reduction of a grade five teacher for next year otherwise in order to provide the same level of services to students at Brownstone next year that we're providing this year this is the Staffing profile next second Portland Middle School um again students of Portland Middle School grades seven and eight um this is this the same Staffing profile that we have this year with two changes first we are increasing math intervention right now it's a 0.5 we're raising it to full-time we do need that level of support in
056mathematics for our middle school students and we have moved one position that is funded in a mental health Grant which is the last gasp of the covid relief funding out of the me uh that Grant because the grant expired into the laa and that's for a clinici at the middle school to provide mental health support for our middle school students otherwise this is pretty consistent tracks with what we have this year this is what we'll need next year to offer all the academic co-curricular extracurricular arts and Athletics to our Middle School students students and finally in terms of our schools this is our high school this is generally the current uh profile this year we did make two additions we did add a little bit like a point four two F four FTE back to
057health and we added a a point4 FTE um back to Art those were Cuts we made last year during an even more difficult budget process we were going through we'd like to restore those because we do have student interest in additional courses offered out of our physical education and health department and our owns otherwise this tracks pretty consistently with what we have this year this is what we'll need next year to offer the same level of academic athletic co-curricular EXT arts program ex student support services this is another area that that keep us awake at night we this is one that we can't control um these are mandated services that we provide students and they're subject to change depending on who moves into towns who is identified within Town who moves out or who ages
058out of our programs so this is something that is regularly changing it's something that we work very closely with our director of student services and Stephanie a lot of this is funded by grants and supports so aligned with the excess cost and um idea and title funding if any of that dried up this is an area that would be impacted greatly but again I'll remind everybody these are mandated support services that we provide to students even if the funding were to drive up dry up we would unless the law were repealed we would be unable to reduce the level of these services so we'd have to start taking from other places to fund these mandated services for some of our neediest students so again I would just say as I look on this one thing
059I want to point out all of these specialized program the ABA lab rise Harbor Bridge life skills transition these are all programs by the way that we've built over the last 5 to 10 years without them I'm anticipating that we would probably be adding close to another $2 million into the budget to support the students who might otherwise be outplaced but we're able to provide in-house Services because we have these programs that is a big tip of the hat to Don Davis our former um Support Services director and to um our current Sarah mclin director who's continued to do an amazing job supporting these programs so we're able to educate as many students as possible in housee next app um for our curriculum instruction and technology department uh our our former director of curriculum instruction
060and technology has left the district we haven't filled that position I'm kind of doing both doing both superintendent and the work of the director of curriculum instruction and Technology because I want to get us a little bit farther down the road I'm actually enjoying some of that placeholder savings from it um it's a little bit more work but I also enjoy it too I miss that position as I was in it for three years but this the Staffing for this uh department is is that one director position and these are three it Specialists these are the people that support all of the Chromebooks and hardware and software and infrastructure um that we use throughout the district we have awesome programs that are very highly dependent on technology um so this is what we're need going
061to need here one change you're going to see when I get to some of the budget line item objects an increase here because we have to get back to funding a replacement cycle for our ch book so our Chromebook Fleet is aging it's about to all come out of warranty we need to start replacing those Chromebooks in reasonable amounts so that we can make sure that we have devices in all of our kids hands that are under warranty and support all of our software and um uh related it infrastructure next slide please facilities oh my goodness we have a director of facilities who might be one of the most amazing people I've ever worked with he's working hard every day literally in some cases just barely keeping some of our very aging old tired infrastructure
062working I'm seeing his sh him shake his head over there he and his team are are tremendous there but I'm I'm just going to remind everybody we are on borrow time things are breaking all the time we just had a boiler go at Brownstone um our our our three elementary schools in particular are very tight um but you know Bob and his team are doing everything they can to keep the building safe and clean and working well for our students um but there's only so much that we can do without some levels of capital and infrastructure needs that we must address I don't want to say borrow time but well we're on B time um so in addition to the custodians that I included in the Staffing profiles of the building level we do have
063one Flo floater custodian that pays for itself because we don't need as much overtime and and then our one director um who is a hero in every respect and then we have a small But Mighty central office we have Stephanie our um director for uh stud um executive assistant we have Stephanie who is U my business manager that's what I'll call her she has a long name but I just call her my my business manager me and then we have a payroll clerk in addition out of central office this is where we budget for all of our benefits Food Services adult education boag services all um transportation all the things that um we use to support our kids every day okay so that's kind of the big picture look 50,000 foot Overview at a building
064and Department level let me get into some of the major budget categories and I'll point out some of the changes our first category reflects all of our salaries okay we have made some changes this year because we had to bring some positions that were Grant funded back into the Lea budget those positions are absolutely necessary so you do see some of that reflected here also this year we negotiated with all six of our bargaining units um we had to all of our contracts were up um we've negotiated um three three-year contracts we're in the process of hop negotiating one new four-year contract with our nurses and we did one-year extensions with two of our bargaining units so we are looking at a 5.92% increase in this area which reflects the newly contracted um uh newly
065negotiated contract contractual expectations as well as moving some of the positions out of grant funding back into the Lea budget and some increases for health and art support at the high school okay this one here is our benefits this is largely our our health insurance we are looking at another year of pretty significant increases to health insurance we're anticipating a 99.9% overall increase generally speaking this 1.7% increase is relatively modest that reflects the census which is how many people have chosen to take health insurance now this is something I also have a little bit of anxiety about because once the open enrollment period comes along people can either join our health insurance or change from say a oneperson plan to a two-person plan or a two-person plan to a family plan we're having a lot
066of children born to teachers which is wonderful um we did our best we we did survey all of our teachers and ask them if they're planning to maintain their current level of health insurance coverage we are confident right now that this is going to be the percent increase as small as it is but we don't know what new hires are going to take insurance and or we won't know for sure until the open enrollment period rolls on who joins the plans or changes plans within it purchase Services these are all of the things that we need um all waste uh Electric Services Environmental systems n MJ daily esss is our substitute Services these are all of the the contracted services and purchase services that we use to keep the district afloat and you do see
067there a 2.89% increase next slide repairs and maintenance this should be tripled that I want to remind everybody we made some pretty significant reductions to our repairs and maintenance budget and we did that last year and because a we were dealing with a very difficult budget year because we had such dramatic increases in student support service needs and the money had to come from somewhere while still bringing forward a reasonable budget but also we were working under the assumption that if we had been uh had a different outcome at November's uh referendum on the the the consolidation of the schools we wouldn't have needed to be repairing and maintaining as many schools in years to come so some of this 9.64% is trying to get Bob and our facilities Department back to where they were
068even three years ago when we made some reductions based on increased needs in other parts of the budget and an anticipation that we might be heading towards a school consolidation I can tell you and and I'm sure Bob will will shake his head that I say aging infrastructure needs a lot of work to be maintained and and safe this $315,000 is just barely going to keep us going um for another year and that's a big maybe you know we are looking at things like just this past week Boer went at Brownstone we got the quotes back today that's $142,000 expense we're looking at tennis courts that are are deteriorating every one of our buildings has major major Capital Investments that need to be made this is just to maintain what we have now and on
069a wing in a prayer hope things don't break but they will next okay um this is um primarily related to our support service areas um there we we've seen some pretty significant increase in student needs both new families and new new children moving into the district and also some children um who've been here for a while last year you'll remember this number was even more significant but we are still seeing um some escalations of costs in our support service needs um as well as insurance and some other areas that reflect General inflation inflationary profit again I could spend a whole night talking just about support services but I won't books and supplies again this is what we need to to run our curriculum these are all of the things um you know Associated uh not
070only with what we need um instructionally but also you you'll see in here this is where we we budget for electricity and gas and Diesel um again we've seen some stabiliz iing prices in some of these areas but there are some inflationary pressures in other others otherwise it's a 2.84% increase for gas and electricity and the the um supplies and and um instructional materials that we need in all of our classrooms um buildings and Equipment okay again here is you're seeing a big increase here right you're seeing 21% now this is because we need to upgrade our onetoone device Chromebook um Fleet for our students our plan is we'd like to get on a cycle where every student rising to fifth grade and every student rising to ninth grade gets a new Chromebook that is
071under warranty for four years that student would have that Chromebook for fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade year and then they'd get a new one for their n9th 10th 11th and 12th grade year our goal would be then to collect the Chromebooks that are out of warranty back from the eighth graders and the seniors and use those in grades three and four right so our students in grades three and four will be getting the older models that are under warranty but if we start this now three years from now all of our students from grades five through 12 will have a device that's under warranty for four years so the first year of this you're going to see this 21% increase but then every year you're going to see a number here that reflects how
072many Chromebooks we need to purchase to outfit every Fifth and nth nth grader with a device under warranty for four years some people might be wondering well what about prek K1 and two our goal ultimately is to begin limiting screen time for students in grades pre kindergarten kindergarten grade one and two so those students will not be getting a Chromebook as a matter of fact we're going towards a play based Direction with our youngest students so that we're really only going to start putting devices in the hands of kids starting in third grade um here okay inding fees modest decrease this these are all of the professional associations and organizations nesc C Cass all of our Sports Athletics academics and other professional agencies um K caps that were involved in they're Central they provide us
073all of the resources and keep us up toate with current research and provide our students access to tournaments and games and meets and and things associated with Athletics um and other other things for extracurricular and co-curricular activities modest decrease there um next slide then finally um I just want to mention I know that in the capital we have the 52,000 for a new van that's a very smart investment that's going to have a one-year payback so by purchasing the van we're GNA hopefully be able to find a van driver if anybody's looking for a side gig and must be a van driver please get in touch with me we'll be hiring um and and that will will be able to move move funding out of what we have for student transportation and we'll bring it
074back in house so that we're going to have three vans going which is going to pretty significantly reduce our overall Transportation costs over time so that 52,000 is going to pay for itself and then some over the coming years in addition I know we're getting 105,000 um for some HVAC upgrades at the secondary school thank you I will'll take anything we can get but it's nowhere near the $48 million that we actually need if we were going to do significant Capital Improvements at all five of our schools right the the clock is ticking we must do something uh with our facilities now Mr D knows thank you you you are are on our strategic Capital committee um we've been working hard we're meeting this Thursday taking a tour at Brownstone then we're getting back together
075taking having a conversation with the architect I promise you stay tuned very important conversations are forthcoming to the Board of Education and the board of Selectmen over the coming months because we cannot avoid this elephant in the room which is the fact that we must do work on our very old and tired schools otherwise um I'm not going to say they're not safe they are they're safe not going to say they're not healthy they are they're healthy but we're on borrowed time we we must do work on these schools in the very near future otherwise our ability to provide academic services in them will be comprom and I think that's all I have thank you there it goes Dr Britt thank you very much it was very detailed and much appreciated i' like to open
076up the hearing now for public comment is there any public comment from anyone here or on Zoom no one once twice all right so the next step after tonight is tomorrow night we'll be back here for a our department Workshop including tomorrow night Board of Ed uh public library and finance uh for General government so it'll start at 7 o'clock tomorrow night again I encourage anyone watching at home or those that hear about this please come in uh ask your questions get involved know what the numbers are and then it'll be time for the citizens to vote in about six weeks