001which I get all right I am going to bring this special budget meeting to order at 6:31 I'm going to uh Pledge of Allegiance sure while I pledge allegiance to the the United States of America to the republ stands one nation indivisible Li and Justice let open it up to Citizen citizen comment any citizen any herberts comment um I I actually have a citizen's comment for Jess um she wanted me to plug her fundraiser that she's doing she's like could you please plug my fundraiser um the eighth grade moving up is uh doing a spaghetti dinner at the Valley Spring Sportsman Club on March 8th from 5: to 7: um so if you would like to support the eighth grade moving up you can get tickets I guess um at the door okay thank you
002all right uh we have an educational update well um we have had a busy time um in um in my office anyway uh getting ready for um uh you know the the upcoming play which is a month away so there's been a lot of activity around that um just to update the board um the I have not seen them finished but the draperies and the stage curtains have been installed over the weekend um in Ras scavage um Amy and the school department and actually the Historic Society together the three of us are planning an open house on April 22nd for the community followed by uh Joe I Martino doing a presentation a little bit about the turtle LS a little bit about the American Revolution and Thompson's role in that which will segue into the
003250th uh celebration that Amy will wrap up the presentation about but we're going to um promote it District uh townwide and do a little reception and um you know make a big deal out of the the beautiful new space and then Dave Labs has offered and he's going to petition the trust um one of Joe linley's Visions for uh the windows that are you know there is no window it's wall uh to um they always had a vision or at least Joe did that you could look out the window and see the 1800s and so Dave Labs has gotten some um authentic U maps from the town and he's going to recreate that scene um out the window so he's just going to need to get the uh trust to approve him painting on the
004wall but it's going to look really nice so I haven't did you go up there today I I did no I didn't either um but Danielle mustard is it nice it's magnificent oh that's good to hear Kathleen picked out by the L the the drapery so that will be a good celebration and right before um you know the the town vote to get people in to appreciate um the beautiful space that we have all right moving on we'll go to the budget presentation and discussion I have a question in your in either one of our discussions Andor your updates we discussed that we have gotten four or five new special education students right that is not allowed for in this budget it's still tentative what's happening with those students and um with Chris being in
005Portugal um I don't um know where they stand I don't know whether those meetings there was a uh some credentials that the family hadn't provided to us so um the students haven't started yet um so I don't know where that stands as of today um but I'll know probably on Monday um so you would like that to reflect in here if it's going to be an impact and we have not uh accounted for it and it needs to be so may I say something yes so last year we were we came out ahead on special education because of ins and outs I think it was last year and then so when we made this budget it's like oh well it's $600,000 less than we should cut that 600 thou and here and here we are
006so let's be proactive and you know yeah it's going to make the budget less palatable but it's either that or we're a million dollars short again next year because of it just takes one or two kids to really it it should be based on reality you know what I mean and if that's the reality that we have four to five kids coming in that we know about heavy needs kids correct yes intens yeah it's we got a at least three of them at least three of them I know it's going to change the numbers yeah and today we're and we're and we're just would change but we're today we're focusing on the format of the presentation correct um the number we will vote on uh at our meeting or another meeting but we cannot go
007in with a number that isn't going to meet our needs great so we'll find out from Chris and then make that adjustment and then you'll have to have do we have another meeting scheduled we do yes oh good that was an if but we may we'll have to need it if um or four kids makes a huge difference could make a huge difference to our number I just don't want to be accused of ping a budget well we're not it's not based on real if it's based on reality then that's fine they're actually enrolled in the school and and we have time to get that in the budget that's fine but I don't the last the last we need especially with the the microscop microscopic entities that are going to be on this is agree
008with you Justus but we are not going to P it if those kids are enrolled and if they need to increase the budget due to their needs we did have would like move out yes so some somewhat of an offset there yeah yeah and we could have four more move in over the summer next year right do at least for what we know I agree I agree that's what we've done historically right at a minimum so we need to be realistic is what I'm saying when is Chris back going on Monday these numbers were based on January's number January's enrollment and now that we have what we have based on Monday's enrollment yeah we need to update and on the flip side if if our health insurance gets better we'll adjust for that too yeah
009I think one of the things that we don't need to put in text in the presentation but it should be a note for whoever is presenting and that's just to say on average a student costs x a p a student that falls under the need for additional Services average is X this is the difference with enrollment that can happen to us and presenting the board of Finance I know understands but I think the town's people are somewhat blind to the fact that there are students that cost us $100,000 a year and we don't that's not when when somebody sits down and looks at our budget and says 22,300 th000 blah blah blah divides that by whatever and I know I know it's done all the time but I think that when we when we talk
010about if we were to just and I I don't want to do it but for the sake of discussion I'm gonna say it if we were to extract the general education from that the take take pupil Services out of that right just take our number divide it by the population so every student in our in our district was general education it would cost X it would be the X dollars per student it wouldn't be 23,000 it works out to be like it did it was like 18,000 it's just that much lower it's not a again I don't want to demonize the pupil Services aspect of it but we need to get people to understand that there is just that much of a variable that takes away from the the general education side of things takes
011away from the sports takes away from all of that that's a good idea yeah remember that all students get general education services the specialized programming is on right that's right I so I took the let that justifies what Jus is saying even more so you know that everybody gets the general so if you extract what you said people services and divide what's left by a number of students that makes that makes sense to me and I think there's some things in people services that are general education pieces of the puzzle but by and large by and large exactly the number when you and when you extract it it's like 18,000 versus 24,000 per student it's it's a big difference right which is because people do exactly what you're saying though they do they take the
012big number they divide it by the Le population that we have and then they say wow you know it costs that much money we could send them all to marianapolis you know they always love to like you know do one of those kind of things um which doesn't add up you know and it's going to be worse this year with all of the federal focus on the monies with all the federal focus on the monies and the Department of Education and the fact that you know the current by line is that we're that the United States is the highest cost per student we're going to get every one of those same people who's going to do the quick math and we need to be ready in our presentation to short it's are that in my
013opinion bless you well we will make sure that we do that because I think that's a very valid point people focused on the actual cost of a general education versus I think the way we should term it is the general education cost per people is X that way it doesn't necessarily because like Melinda said every student is a general education student the other services are on to and that's where we need to you know obviously it's not going to happen but you need to just reinforce it town like you know we need to get the state to pay for their share of what they promised and what they're supposed to cover and then then it would then our town burden would go down by a lot or fully fund the unfunded mandates yeah if you're
014going to mandate that I have XYZ service and I have a student that has XYZ Services well hey py up if you went back seven years and did the value of the dollar for our ECS in today's dollars you would see that we have the state has actually given us a lot less money well and again that goes to we've beened but again also goes to our cost per pup right if our if our enrollment went up by 200 students our cost per student the way that's calculated would go down which would mean our excess cost Grant threshold would come down which would mean we' get the money at an earlier threshold it's it's almost it's a it's a formula that's bound and destined to just screw small districts like us pardon my language well
015that's fine just to let the board know Louise Morrison did attend one of the listening tours for special education that M lexer had mentioned um she did actually speak gave them an overview of our situation in Thompson they were they were looking for Solutions rather than complaints um and so she did say that but she wanted the board to know that she definitely uh let them know about our PL here so and I think we're one of many that have the white um and it's only G to get worse are we missing headers yeah Linda had mentioned that it's on it's on the screen every time I print it it it omits it's okay F back you think that's it front back red light no front front I think what's happening is yeah forward oh
016pull it all the way forward text is is behind the box I I'll check but it's it's all the same you to hold up thank you sorry I was quickly pusing it I was like no yeah we've been having problems but it's there oh Microsoft yeah Micosoft I just paid them again today can't print it out right all over the page off the page reset my okay here Danielle used the different program page one page one I have page one I think this is oh yes I do it's right here okay so the under budget history the proposed line Bill we'll have to get those numbers from PR and then adjust that I'm sorry where are we on page four the history slide right page four slide seven oh yeah what is that you need
017this bottom line number will change to reflect the special end yes for increase yeah I don't want to go in already in the that's kind of like happened with the healthcare that one year when we went in you know and then it changed and yeah we were in the hole Yeah like FY 24 they took a million out of our and then we got hit with the healthare too right if I might I think we could make an argument for putting a $48,000 cut on fy2 that was actually a reduction due to the due to the the lowering of the health care as the budget process continued put we could have kept it in there but they did take it so I think we could put the 48 there okay no need to antagonize the
018board of Finance well I I would almost asri fy4 and say that on top of the reduction we also then gave back 250 Grand 25 sorry 25 wait 24 24 24 yeah 24 right I mean if we're gonna highlight no that was 25 right was FY 24's money but we gave it back to them in 25 is that what right it was FY 24's budget that's right delivered to them that was delivered back right in 25 in that's only going to start the conversation when you really didn't need it but it's good it was special it was a special ed though it was a flux of special ed that we can't predict yeah sometimes it's winning sometimes it's looks if we able to sa some sort of highlight there and just put the figure that
019we transferred backwards okay yeah I mean I I would just put an asri there to 250 Grand is not a small number to say yeah no you know we didn't in full transparency we gave back to the town and I don't know if it was I don't know the exact dollar amount but it was two something 260s Yes sounds familiar okay so on top of them cutting us a million all due to the fact that we had special eduation which and this year we're not going to give anything back we may go in the red because a special ed right so if we were able to hold on to things like that or the board of Ed's rainy day fund for when this happens because it's a quite the roller coaster it doesn't happen often
020and it happened to happen and Grant I know the town needs the money too but it it just happened that we finally got caught a break and we could have used that to roll into this year's we could have failed on to we could have we could have we could have but we used we kept what we needed for long yeah overdue capital investment and then we spent we and then we gave the rest back yeah yeah yeah no I understand right because the town needed the town needed it abely and we will continue to do that if we can afford to do that because of the situation that the right and again I think the justification behind us not adding you know if they saywell why why aren't you adding a million dollars in
021case you get the same thing happens next year Well the reason we're not adding a million dollars is because it's not right for us to add a million dollars without justification as to why we're adding the million dollars and we have the justification it maybe it may end up being more than a million I don't know if these kids can go to The Bradley program and then that wouldn't be as bad who knows we have to find out I don't think so yeah great I've seen a little bit of the okay well oh we're doing the best we can with what we're given so some of the things that we put in here uh the changes was the slide that what does pupil service actually encompass um and um we have a list here and
022then some of the other changes we looked at um looking at a state aid from 201617 the year before I came till now actually we got a little bit more money not by much it wasn't significant enough to show two different pie shots they almost looked alike um so I I made a decision not to put that in um then we started to look at um I know everyone was interested in um the Boe capital projects requiring contingency funds um and so we talked a little bit about that um and then um the fiveyear capital plan in priority order and then we looked at the equipment and the vehicle replacement cycle and uh you know when when when those things do to um roll over so Bill gave us a good idea of when we
023should be replacing those and then um you know just our look at the federal grants and the competitive grants and then that last Slide the outliers that could impact the budget um obviously additional students requiring special ed out to District placements and then um we don't know about K enrollment until probably sometime in the sum summer uh we're hoping that the three classrooms will do it um and um I just don't know I I I just don't know how many students we kept out who didn't register last year because of the um age change so we're just keeping an eye on that should we under the competitive grants remove the 2000 since we know we're not getting it or yeah we should probably take that out um I would strike it through yeah strike it
024through keep it there we were told we were G to get but now this was this was a grant that was going to be provided by the federal government that due to the current going on in the federal government this was eliminated maybe to say that there is potential that some of these other ones on the list may also not ring true you know as they have in the past they're not guaranteed and we're looking at our creu state senators and congressmen to make sure that that they do as much they can or not let that happen which of these competitive grants are federal all the ones that are listed here so not all of them are federal on the competitive grants um so some of them are privately funded however Alliance of a state
025Grant um the mental health that is a federal granted EXC me School Readiness I believe is federal serak that um PH2 multi-year Suicide Prevention comes through the Department of Health but I don't know what's going to happen there but that is a three-year grant that we were given um and then um the financial scholar is actually a privately business funded program um that we just received that Grant but all of the ones on page nine slide 18 aree yes and that's almost $600,000 none of those have gone away that but that's almost 600,000 that's and we have to go on the Boe budget because all all of our grants the salaries Point that's all in Peril um not positions we could ever eliminate slide 10 page five slide 10 red assessments fall under people Services
026right right yeah and I just forgot that one and there's also Legal Services there's some of the legal services fall into Services correct yes okay risk assessments yeah sorry terminology it's the same miss too thank you Kathleen have you decided um who is going to do the presentation typically it's you and I yeah it'll be you and myself again um I me on this portra of a grad and stuff like that we're just going to flash those on screen right we're not going to go all um I don't know let's look at this and discuss who's going to do what yeah I know that I'm going to let you do the grants and things because I'm going to get to oil steam dump emotional about it I don't know maybe at this because it's such
027down and deep into the weeds when we really cut it back um maybe I'll just do the the budget history and the budget drivers and possibly the people's services and then you can get the D and if anybody has any pointers they want me to express um shoot them to me and I will make sure that I touch upon those points bill just one suggestion on slide nine the budget driver slide could we combine the the salary and benefits portion be eliminated teaching positions and then move that up to the second item down in the chart M I think that would be visually impactful that the second largest driver yes is a reduction yes I mean the only other thing to do with that bill and I I like your I like the way you're
028thinking is it would be the second item anyways if the eliminated and then we'd also have another one halfway down to break it apart again saying look we reduced it twice so there's more reductions than additions I just like having that don't like the fact that we have it but given the given what we're trying to say in the presentation I think it would be better to move that up you can move benefits up too um I think you could I like I like them in I guess absolute value order so so the 6392 would go right under other salary increases then and the aster next just so I'm clear on it Bill the aster next to benefits would be that's based on the current yeah Assumption of where we're at right right go um
02921 was a REV you're right 19 I don't was the ramp yeah every six years I think 19 but I'm looking like budget history something's not did we really have a three and a half mil increase that just climbed back up again or did the reval show up in 21 I don't think so it would have been one two three four five years ago would have been 20 it was 2019 was the reation 2019 wasn't it oh no I thought it was three no every five no yeah it's I'm pretty sure 2019 from the Assessor's video this presentation I just don't know if the reevaluation happened that year or if that's when it got enacted into the mill rate because it's not the same year usually the reevaluations happen the year before and then it
030gets yeah what would it would Le me believe it was from 20 into 21 because it's the threeyear the three mil drop you see what I'm saying that makes sense SL though but I don't know we don't randomly drop by because we're in another reval year and I just want to make sure that we ASR some things in so from 20 to 21 the grand list went up from 610 million to 708 so that's that's got to be a revalue here because other other increases are yep okay 2021 ask and then it's going to be an asri on this year which is going to be another Ral year or this is the rebound year right yeah okay Bill under the number of referendums 2020 was the year we had five that was Co year was
031it that year no that was the year before Co that's what I thought no I don't have Co happened 20120 in in March the budget would go right after right but this is FY 2020 so this would have been the for the 2020 budget got it thank you yeah it's in the right place it's because it's fiscal year right if it said right calendar because we you know I get I know yeah we all Milestone and Mark Co right was it pre-co or post I know we make um the historic review of reductions match the budget history and stop at 20 start at 2019 I mean we don't have to go back to okay we have that history it's quite that dramatic dramatic number though 800,000 it it kind of shows the precursors to yeah
032but we don't have that history for the budget history I mean well yes we do on the slide too just happen to be we have 18 and 17 what was the school bus year the school bus year was 2007 so it was uh S I came 2017 18 years so it was 1819 when we had to do the buses okay so that's that's kind of important because that's the year we took on the 1.7 million burden y of busing I know and we didn't change our budget didn't change $1.7 Million worth that year did it I don't think it did I don't know I budet SP that far 2017 I haven't been on the board that long so I can't the budget was 18, 766 yeah what was the increase uh I don't have 16
033to do the increase in 1 but I do have 18 which was 18 we can add 18 to the budget history 18 and 17 you can add both and they'll fit in that we on I I can see if I can find it this was a this was an analysis I actually pulled together for Dave johon last year if we can we can work on this chart and add 17 and 18 in so 18's number was 18 million 251 766 and that's a 0.4% increase over 17 and then asri the year we took on the one point whatever it was for transportation yep because I think that can tell a picture right there well we actually didn't take that whole thing on because we already had responsibility for the bus drivers and everything what we
034took on was the capital portion of the the buses we didn't because we're already paying bus drivers yeah and we already had their insurance okay but it wasn't $1.2 Million worth no probably not I'm going into a different profession if it was $1.2 Million worth well it wasn't it was a chunk of change but what we took on was um the responsibility for buying buses through the contract because they promised us new buses right which the town would never paying for because they were responsibility new buses for us in the capital budget and those were the first things they cut out of the plan of the budget right but I guess we I'm trying to get our budget our dollars did not shift enough to offset the fact that we took on the full burden
035of Transportation I I clearly Plus Fuel because we we pay that it's the dco contract plus we paid for fuel right and the town got $24,000 in rent that didn't get to offset right plus they also got the money for the sale of the buses yeah well that's still sitting in a special account isn't it or have they used it what about that that was before my time but but regardless right I think it's if we're gonna go if we're gonna go back that far and we're gonna start talking about the fact that yeah this year's a revalue year yeah it's a 4.5% increase oh by the way eight years ago we never got you know we didn't get any concessions we ended up having to take on more burden and that's what the Board
036of Ed continues to seem to do take on more burden more burden more burden Less on the town more on the school and we're yes we're doing some shared services but and we did this for the safety of our children y because the town didn't buy new buses they were being busted in 19yearold buses and and so that first year that I was superintendent we had five buses that were down that weren't running and we had to contract with five different companies to rent their buses uh put our drivers on rent their buses um we had all sorts of trouble in the winter um it was it was a nightmare right and I don't I'm not retiga Contracting out the buses I just want to called out right I wanted as a it's a highlight
037that we never got we've never truly been compensated for no we could we would complain year after year to the town and you know they'd buy us a bus every three years well there that wasn't going to keep our Fleet safe enough to get us I mean the same argument can be said right now for the facility so you know we're trying to get capital projects done every year and every year we have to cut those capital projects because we got a million dollar shortfall in special ed like I I know nobody likes to pay taxes but you know that's the story of Life what we have my opinion the first justification here is going to be justifying to the board of Finance where we're at then we just that at the same time we're
038justifying it into the town but we've got to get the board of Finance to say okay bed's number we're gonna move forward with that as is we're not going to tell them to cut anything and we'll put it forward to a referendum that's goal a goal B is then to convince the the town 51% of the town of of the people that come out to vote so 51% of 1500 yeah that you know this is the direction we need to know to and and I kudos to the the subcommittee the communications subcommittee for the great job they did last year and do it again this year well it's also getting out getting out the vote and well understanding that the UN have to make sure the voters understand that we're doing the best we can
039know I know and this year is going to be even harder because it's a scary thing with these grants I mean these grants don't come through de trouble um towns like grenwich and Fairfield in those towns possibly don't get a lot of those grants and they can survive but poor little towns like Thompson and puam and colland and all these little all of them all of them are going to be in serious trouble so I think it's important also to knowe whoever's presenting any that we started uh so let's so I guess the only thing we really have to look at and we talked to Dr Jones about um his feelings Services the the I was just saying Melinda I think whoever presents needs to note the fact that our our budget number where it
040is was I think when we started it was $2 million higher when you got like the raw the unedited unplayed with number was $2 million higher than this so it was well over 2 million in total right and it was cut down to under a million right yeah right um that's a that would be Melinda who needs to Str that um anything else we need to cover um we do have a meeting set for oh good um February oh it's 24th yes we have the 24th Monday is our regular meeting so we'll update this and send it out to you as soon as we update it so we probably update this tomorrow um and get it back out we will meet on the 24th to finalize and do you need a um you have to
041go out and open a regular meeting right to accept the budget no we can do that a special meeting cany yes but will we do it on the 24th so that we can send it to the tunnel yes so we would have to do a special meeting that night yes okay well we have it we can do it as part of the budget Workshop can on that night it would just have to be added to the agenda okay yeah we have it we have ited we have it yeah we can do that we can do that next Monday night because I think we're all we're all in agreement as long as as Dr Jones comes back with a yes he needs to put some more money in special ed and uh because I want to
042go out with a realistic number I don't want to be behind the eight ball to start off the new year no I agree when does the board of Finance discuss our budget yeah uh typically I would expect well if we track consistently with last year it was the it was the last meeting in March which was actually the last budget meeting it was March 28th last year so I would expect that it would matter of fact I I can't speak for the members of the board of Finance I think they probably could have gotten gotten done a meeting early however I think they they felt it was important enough to have Boe have their own meeting and discussion so they had that meeting on the 28th okay thank you all right then further discussion citizens
043comments citizens comments any comments from any citizens citizens I'm good I agree with the with the comments that have been made uh talking about the history that'll be helpful just want to make sure and I don't know the answer to this we don't want the members of the the viewers of the president presentation to get bored um we want them to you you want to focus on the things that are really important to you um Justin I think you hit several good points about you know what you want to emphasize uh yeah again no no real comment I think I think it's I think you've had a productive meeting tonight thank you MRT motion that we adjourned we don't take it by go