001Good evening. Um, I've called to order the meeting of the Hamilton Regional School Committee on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 at 6:31 p.m. I'd like to remind everyone that this meeting is being recorded and livereamed. Um, so the first um order of business um just so everyone knows is we have two um public hearings. Um the first is on school choice and this is um for 2026 2027 and I think Eric is going to start us off with some information. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. As you know the school committees in Massachusetts are required to vote annually on whether to have or not have uh school choice. We do ours in January, which gives our schools the opportunities to put out um advertisements and gather people who might be interested in taking advantage of the
002school choice program and to run their lottery so that they can be included in realistic calculations of class sizes and things before the end of the school year. So, you have you have until June 15th to do it. Um but we we do it early for those reasons. So, school choice is is pretty straightforward in our district. This chart right here shows really the numbers to date um from high school and middle school. And the reason I include high school and middle school only is because we generally don't take school choice students at the elementary level. we're just we're stacked at at our elementary level and there's not a lot of um space that given there have been some scenarios where we have in the past taken uh school choice kids in elementary for uh
003various reasons but generally we do not and these are the current numbers based on the grades from 6 through 12. As you can see, uh, seventh grade has has none this year. 8th grade has one. 9th grade 11, 10th grade 14, 11th grade 7, 12th grade 18. 18 is a big number to move out. So, that's um that that's a I guess a a driver and impact of um enrollment overall. So, that'll be interesting to see how that plays out. We generally take most of our students in the ninth grade year. Um, and we've done that for the since I've been the principal of the high school many years ago. Um, and we continue to to do that because we have more open spots. We generally lose uh between 15 and 18 kids to private
004schools, the tech, um, Pingri, things like that. Just there's a lot of local options available. So, we we we do lose kids from that 8th to 9th grade transition. Uh so they end up back filling those seats with with kids who are from other communities. And I think we're service I think we're serving uh 11 communities now. Uh which is nice. We don't we're not responsible for anything in the realm of um costs for transportation or anything like that. They have to get themselves to our facility on their own. Uh we do get $5,000 per student from the state in uh general revenues based on the October one number. So whatever you have for kids on October one, that's how they calculate your uh the number of kids that are um the chargeback, if you
005will. They they they basically are moving money around through the state aid formula. And then the um any any other offsets that occur for say a student with an IEP who may have extreme services or be in need of services above the the thresholds and I think it's about 46,000. So anything ab,000 in cost for us on a choice kid who's has an an extensive IEP would would be covered by state monies as well through the circuit breaker. So the numbers we have are reasonable and tolerable. Um, I would recommend that the committee continue to do uh the school choice program to participate in the school choice program. Um, I think we'll I think we'll continue to see we've seen kind of a consistent drop over time and I think we'll probably see that more
006consistently. There are more options for kids. There are more online schools now available. There are private school options. There there's vogue school options. So, there are so many different places for for kids to kind of land now. Um and you've seen a number of um people leave the state. So the state of Massachusetts lost 15 over 15,000 kids from last year to this year. 15,000 kids. I don't know if you saw that recently in the newspaper. 15,000 kids are no longer in our school districts across the state of Massachusetts. That's a huge number. Huge number. And so smaller districts see smaller reductions. So we may see over the next few years some some reductions in some areas. and it gives opportunity for our school choices kids to come in um and experience what we have
007to offer in Hamilton. So I would recommend that the committee continue the school choice program for the next school year, the 20 uh 627 school year. >> Thank you. Um so this is a public hearing. So, this is an opportunity for members of the public to provide us with feedback, to ask questions around school choice, um to give us feedback ahead of later in the agenda, the school committee will vote on what's been presented here. Any member of the public want to comment, ask a question? All right. Um, okay. Seeing none, uh, seeing none, we will, uh, move on. Um, we have another public hearing. Um, unless anyone on the committee, we're all comfortable moving on. We're going to discuss this later on the agenda. >> We have to vote >> later on the agenda.
008>> Later in the agenda. >> Okay. Okay. Um, so the next uh public hearing is the first public hearing number one on the Hamilton Wenom uh regional school district uh FY27 budget. Um, and just like Eric just did, Vinnie's going to give an overall present overview presentation and then we'll hear from the public they choose to. Uh, thank you guys for joining. joining us tonight. We are here to open up our first public hearing on the superintendent's uh FY27 budget request. Uh I'm just going to do a brief uh presentation around the budget. Uh very high level, but just a brief introduction. Our public hearing uh really allows for public input. It allows our citizens to voice their support uh any opposition they might have or just to voice concerns directly to the school committee
009about our budget. It also gives the community a chance uh and some time to receive answers. Uh usually this isn't done at a regular school committee meeting. Our public comment uh doesn't allow that back and forth. This at least gives you the opportunity uh to receive a response. It's also good for the school committee uh because it gives them an information gathering opportunity to see uh to receive crucial data and perspectives from our communities uh to help impact their decision on the budget. uh and it becomes official record uh in terms of their decision. Now, where do we stand for our FY27 budget? In terms of our gross amount, uh we are coming in at 51.3 million uh which year-over-year is an increase of 2.7 million or roughly 5%. Uh when you factor in all
010of our offsets in revenues of of about 9.3 million, uh that is a reduction of 300,000 year-over-year. That's why you see here a positive revenue number. Uh we are going down roughly 3%. Uh when you take that off our gross amount, you're left with our net budget. Uh that is coming in at 42 million or roughly $3 million over the prior year. Uh which is a 7.8% increase. Uh right here I've presented a chart based on our major uh programs, major schools and departments. I've also included our debt service at the bottom uh for our total all total gross operating budget of $51 million. Just a few big factors that have come into play this year is obviously our contractual agreements with our unions and our overall salaries between our colas, our steps, our salary
011scale advancements and any changes to longevity. Uh this is costing us roughly $1.4 million year-over-year. This is before you would factor in uh any of reductions we have imposed um or any changes. Uh second biggest item is around health insurance costs. Just like much of the entire country is seeing our in our premium increases are rising dramatically and we're anticipating to spend roughly $600,000 more than the prior year. Uh this year we also are requesting uh new investments within our maintenance and facilities uh to enhance our buildings and keep them operational. Uh this does incorporate a $547,000 increase for FY27. A lot of these additions are being offset by a few major items. Uh one of them being the reduction of at this moment of seven staff members. uh those seven staff member reductions accumulate
012to 418,000. We also have substantial savings on salaries from FY26 uh turnover. These are people who were here in FY25 and did not return for FY26. Those salary savings carry forward into FY27 and we're realizing $212,000 savings. Uh last, we do have additional savings from uh retirements. uh coming in at about $186,000 reduction. Uh when you do roll all these items up, for the town of Hamilton, our change yearover-year is an increase of 1.8 million or roughly 7.2%. Uh for the town of Wenham, it is an increase of 1.2 million or roughly 9.18%. Um at this time, I'm opening up to public comment, so anyone can ask any questions at this time. Thank you. >> Um, >> I'll leave it now. Right. >> If there's any member of the public who would like to offer
013a comment or ask a question, um, please step up to the podium. Okay, I don't see anybody in Nope. Nobody wants to make a comment. Questions? >> We have anybody on Zoom? >> Nope. >> Okay. I want to give it a moment just to make sure >> um just to make sure that um All right. I was anticipating feedback. Okay. Um I guess at this point we will without objection we will close the public hearing. Okay. Um there is another opportunity for a public hearing. Our second public hearing is >> February 12th, right? That's correct. Thank you. Right. Um that is the uh anticipated date that the school committee will be voting on the budget. Um so that will be right immediately ahead of that. Um I'm going to look to the committee uh to
014so public hearing is closed. Um I'm going to look to the committee. Our meeting is generally begins at 7:00. It's 6:45 now. Um, I just want to be respectful of that. Our, you know, citizens comments typically occur at 7:00. I don't know what the committee wants. Do we want to take a brief recess until 7:00 to ensure that people can come at the regular time? Do we want to >> I mean, could we different than that? >> Could we start the meeting and come back to public comment at 7 o'clock or is that not allowed? >> We we we're in the meeting right now. It's already been called to order. So, we certainly could do that um if people are comfortable. >> Mhm. >> Um again, I do want to just to say it, I
015do want to say we always do say that the times are approximate. um the starting time is of course um we do start on time but we do say the starting times are approximate and that is always true and at the same time we're pretty consistent about starting right at 7 o'clock. So I I would understand if a citizen thought that 7 o'clock was the perfect time to come for citizen comment. So I do want to make that. >> Um all right. Are we without objection are we okay to move ahead but come back to citizen comments at 7? >> Yes. Yes, that makes sense. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Um, okay. Uh, next up is item number five, which is a review a portion of school committee protocols. I think Megan, is that you?
016>> Yeah. Thank you. >> As elected members of the Hamilton Winnham Regional School Committee, we, including the superintendent, accept the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business. All members will maintain the confidentiality of privileged information and will respect the open meeting law. >> Thank you. Um and next is a portion of our uh school committee mission statement. >> The Hamilton Winnham Regional School District School Committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Winnham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that inspires all students
017to realize their fullest potential and feel a powerful sense of individual and collective belonging. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, next up we have the superintendence report. >> Thank you. A couple of quick items on Tuesday. We've announced it a couple times. Tuesday morning, Jenny Hunt and I, the principal at the Cutler, um, cruised into the state house. Emma joined us. >> Thanks for coming in, Emma. Um, to accept the School of Distinction Award for the Cutler School for their improvement in MCCAST. Um, we were there with, I think, 55 other schools. Uh, awards were presented by the new commissioner, Pedro Martinez, and, um, Patrick Tutweiler, Secretary of Education. And so that was that was fun to kind of go in and get into the state house which is always a a nice opportunity. Beautiful place.
018Um but also to accept the award on behalf of uh the Cutler School and the work that the Cutler School staff and and administration did last year to bring those scores up in some cases over 100%. So congratulations again to the Cutler School. um February 5th at 6:00 p.m. I have been invited to be a part of a uh panel discussion in Beverly by Representative Bowen who will be hosting uh this panel discussion and the discussion is centered around school funding. So things like uh chapter 70 funding, fair share amendment impact for uh K to2 schools, uh special ed funding and other things related to funding within our K to2 school districts. It's an open conversation so people can come. Uh I will it starts at 6 p.m. and I forget the exact location but
019I can send it out to committee members. Um but they're working on nailing that down and getting speakers. I know there are a couple of speakers from the Beverly School District, myself, uh some people from state house will be there and then uh it will be a panel discussion and then there'll be breakouts for a smaller group. So about a 90 minute to 2hour event and again it'll start at 6 p.m. and it's in uh being it's being hosted in in Beverly. So that will be interesting and I think a good opportunity for us to um have those discussions across with other communities and hopefully people from surrounding communities will join us as well um because I think it's important for our state reps to hear the things that are happening. I mean we representative
020Bowen was with us last night so she has an ear to the ground here and I I know she's been making her round. So we appreciate the opportunity to go out and discuss it publicly and and have um be a part of the panel. I'm I'm excited and looking forward to it. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Great. Anyone have questions for Eric? >> No. >> Thank you very much. Um, next up is the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items from the consent agenda that they would like to hold? >> No. >> Uh, Julia, >> I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented. Second. >> Second by Jen Carr. All those in favor? That is five in favor. Uh those six in favor that is unanimous of the six members present and
021the motion passes. Okay. Um next up uh and I do always want to say uh thank you to FOD. Um, >> yes, >> a lovely donation on the Charlotte's Web >> show. >> Mhm. >> It's lovely. Um, to new business, uh, number one is water testing. Um, this is a followup, I believe, to some >> Yeah. Can can we defer A and B? Uh, Curtis Whiteitman's coming to present. >> Absolutely. Oh, yeah. See, we're ahead because we're ahead. That's right. Right. Exactly. We at some point we might need to take a break because we're so speedy. >> Um Okay. Um All right. So, >> uh >> we're deferring A and B. >> Um sure. I Yeah, I we want to defer A and B, but um yeah, maybe we skip all Do you want to
022skip all the way to committee reports? >> I know. I was just trying to be bold. Committee reports. Let's skip to it. >> All right, people. Without objection, we're moving right to committee reports. Okay. Um capital capital planning capital finance. >> Um we did meet um was it was last week, last Monday. Yep. And um budget, budget, budget. So >> I think we're going to see some of that results >> today >> in a minute when we get to that part of the agenda. Um we also talked about um preschool tuitions. Okay. >> And increasing those. >> Okay. Um thank you. Um which we're also going to talk about >> today. Uh policy. >> Uh policy. We are meeting no updates since last meeting. We're meeting on Monday the 26th. Um where we'll be approving
023minutes and reviewing policy JFAB. >> Okay. I don't know what that is, but that sounds great. >> That is regarding um unhoused students. >> Okay. Thank you. And that's part of just a regular review. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Um so negotiations um we just met moments ago. Um we met this afternoon. Um we are currently uh negotiation negotiating with the ESP uh union. We had this was our um we're still in the initial stages. We had a productive meeting today. Um and we are meeting again next week. Um and you'll see again going back we have um well we'll discuss a little bit more about our subcommittee when we get back to it because we're going out of order. Um do we have a secretary report? Nothing to report unless people have
024questions for me. >> All right. Um Amy, anything from in our inboxes? >> Had a few emails this week regarding the budget. Um >> yeah. >> Okay, great. And I would just I'm going to go out on a limb and say like we definitely want to hear from the public about any and everything and the budget is a really big topic and we really would like to hear from the public. >> Absolutely. Yes. >> Were those sent to everyone? I don't think I got any emails. >> Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I would have >> um h I will check >> if they were sent to everyone and Well, regardless, you should have gotten them even if they weren't. But >> I've had to continue to look in my junk email. >> Oh, I know.
025Me, too. >> Practice like a lot of emails from the public end. >> Interesting. I don't have that happen to me. >> Yeah. >> Um >> I don't know. >> Well, I'll make a note to look. >> I'll let you. >> Okay. Um yeah, let's make sure. Um it sounds like Amy, you're going to take care of making sure that everybody on the committee received all the emails. Um again, there weren't there were just a couple. There >> were just a few. Yeah, there weren't a lot. There were Yeah, like I think I got like two, so maybe I'm not missing any. >> Yeah, there were like two. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, excellent. Um, all right. On this point, uh, >> do you want to do F and G? >> Pick and choose.
026Um, sure. Um, all right. So, we're going way out of order. So um people feel comfortable we could start with uh item F under new business which is appointed negotiations subcommittee member. >> Mhm. >> Um people good with talking about that? >> Sure. Yep. >> Okay. Um so as you all know um David Franco uh was a member of the negotiations team and he has um had to leave the school committee and so we are down. Kristen and I are um on the negotiations subcommittee and we need a third member. >> Am I the only member that's not on two subcommittees? >> No, you're not the only No. Um so, but that's a great question. So, you're on one. >> I'm on capital Finance. >> Yeah. And and that's it. And you're >> I'm on
027one. >> And Jen, are you you're already on you are >> the chair? >> Yeah. Capital. >> Well, I know she's on capital Finance, but you're on policy. Policy. >> Yeah. Okay. So sometimes I have a trouble keeping it all in my head. Um and you're just on capital Finance. Okay. Um so yeah, we don't have any hard and fast rules about who can do what, but it is good to know who's on that. Um I am also only on one committee, but I'm already on this one. So >> I I could I can volunteer to be on negotiations if you if we need someone and then maybe we could revisit it after the election >> when we have new members. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean I so I'm glad you said that because um
028after the election regardless we revisit all the committees we would revisit all of it. Um so all of it. So, um, yeah, that's a good point that whoever decides or whoever we choose for this position, um, would only really be I mean all of us are only in these positions until >> until >> April >> until April and then we would rethink. Um, so I don't >> if anyone has any further thoughts that >> I nominate Julia Campbell >> for the negotiation subcommittee. >> Second. >> All right. Uh, so I heard a nomination and a second. And Julia, would you accept that nomination? >> Yes. >> Okay. Is there any discussion? >> Thank you. Yes. Um okay. Uh so we will need to uh we'll need a vote. Um all those in favor and that
029is unanimous of the six members present and uh the motion passes. Uh welcome to the committee. We'll um as I told you, we've got some things on the schedule, so we'll do the best we can to make sure those are things that we can work out. Um and we'll bring you up to date. Thanks for >> Thank you. Um Oh, >> it's like the one committee I've never been on, so I'm interested. >> Exciting. >> Okay. Um Okay. So, um, so just for just just for any member of the public that just may have been joining us, um, we had some very brief public hearings at the beginning. Um, so we're a little bit ahead of schedule. We are going to go backwards and accept public com citizens comment. So if anyone has a citizen
030comment, don't worry. You haven't missed your opportunity. Um, okay. So we have a couple more minutes. Um I'm going to if everyone's okay with it, I'm going to move on to letter G. Um which is vote school committee attorney. I want everyone to understand that this item was added after the 48 hour um after we had posted. The reason that I did that is um Eric and I discussed but the reason we did that is um as you all know that um you can't post anything that is um you know you have to be outside of 48 hours. have to post. Um, however, if something unanticipated occurs within less than 24, less than 48 hours and you need to bring it to the committee, you can. So, I got a phone call from our attorney
031on Tuesday evening um letting us know that um so our I should be specific and say our uh attorney Mark Terry who does um our work with um collective bargaining um he let me know that he is going to be switching firms. Um our contract our it's not a contract our engagement is actually with his firm. Um, so, um, the reason that I put it on now is because that's occurring on February 1st. We have him lined up for some negotiations. Um, so he would like to continue to do work for us at the new firm and emphasized to me that the new firm he feels is um, more school focused and that's part of the reason for the move. Um because of the short timeline here and again this occurred on Tuesday evening and
032I put this on um I brought it to the negotiations as we would just a couple of hours ago. Negotiations had a discussion um around what next steps what we should do um and we may have a recommendation and I might turn it over to Kristen to make a recommendation on how to proceed. >> Yes. Um the negotiation subcommittee recommends that um the school committee enters into a new engagement with our attorney's new law firm for the ESP contract negotiations. And when that matter concludes, we can keep our options open and decide to continue to work with this attorney or, you know, explore other services. But at least through this negotiation, um we think it's in the best interest of the district to stay with this attorney. And by and large, we've been happy with
033the advice that we have received from him. So want to continue um to keep him on board at least through this round. >> What would the motion be? >> Um well that >> I'm happy to make it as Yeah. So why don't you make a motion and then we can have any discussion that people need to have. So, um, I move that we designate Eric Tracy to engage Hang on, I had the law firm up and my screen went off. Um, the law firm of Stoneman, Chandler, and Miller LLP for representation regarding our collective bargaining with the ESPs. >> Second. >> Okay, I'm going with Julia. Maybe Julia Campbell, but I got the second there. Um is there any further discussion questions about what um so what I I just want to clarify what I
034heard in that is that this is maybe what from my point of view given that if this were to pass I would want to put a new item properly posted with more than 20 more than 48 hours to have a discussion about moving forward whether this is um >> right >> you know long-term Um, like last time we got a new attorney, when we hired this attorney, um, we designated a school committee member and Eric to do some research, ask some questions, and provide us with some information. Um, we might not do that again. We might just, but we might choose to. I just don't I just want to be clear that this was very last minute. People haven't had an opportunity. So, I would I would look to probably putting it on a future
035agenda for more detailed. Go ahead, just a detail. Just so people know, we have we work with several of the Mir Law >> um attorneys. So, we will still be engaged with them under our current agreement. And just want I just want people to understand that that we'll still kind of be in two different firms. We're actually in several different firms for various things like special ed services, things like that. So, it's not unusual. It's just we we just need to keep some of those other uh attorney attorneys engaged in the work that they're they're doing because some of it's longterm for us. >> Okay, everybody understands the motion that's on the table? Anybody have anything else before we vote? Okay. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present and the
036motion passes. Thank you all for that. Um okay. So now >> you now >> it's past 7:00. Um so I would like to go back up to the um to citizens comments um and sort of begin there and give an opportunity. So, um, we did go a little bit out of order, um, but, uh, wanted to make sure that citizens had an opportunity to speak at 7:00 when we typically do that. Um, so this is an opportunity, um, for citizens wishing wish wishing to share your views. Um, it's an opportunity for you to speak and for us to hear and listen to what you have to say. Um, if you choose to speak, I ask you to keep your comments to 3 minutes. Um, please state your name and spell your last name for us
037so that we get it correct for the minutes. Um, Amy will be our timer as she's excellent at it. Um, and she'll let you know when you have about 30 seconds left so that you can wrap up your um, comments. And we're ready. Welcome. >> Good evening. Uh, my name is Bridget O'Donnell. The last name is O D O N E L L. I live at 105 Main Street here in Wenham. Um, I'm also an employee of the district and have been since 2002. Um, so I want to thank the school committee for the time, care, and transparency you've brought to an incredibly challenging budget season. These are not easy decisions, and we appreciate your continued focus on what best supports students across our district. When staffing is stable, students benefit from smaller class sizes,
038consistent supports, and adults who truly know them. So, I want to thank you for recognizing how these relationships contribute to student learning and well-being. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, I'm a box shorter than Bridget is. I'm Katie O'Brien. O R I E N. I live at 114 Forest Street and I am also a teacher in the district since 2018. Um, so we appreciate the thoughtful consideration being given to the whole child academic growth, social development, and emotional health. These priorities help ensure our schools remain places where all students can thrive. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, Linda Mastriani. I am the union president as well as an elementary school teacher. Um but more importantly I come from a family of generational generals. Um and that history gives me both pride and perspective
039on this district. Um what has remained constant is the important of our the importance of our relationships. Educators who know their students, schools that feel stable and connected and communities that believe in their public schools. I want to thank the school committee and the administration for the care that you have shown during a very difficult budget situation. Our hope is that by continuing to work together, we can build and pass a budget that supports students, respects staff, and earns the confidence of our communities. We are truly stronger together. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Eric, do we have anyone on Zoom who wants to offer a public comment? >> Okay. >> All right. Uh, we can go ahead, I think, and close the Zoom link. Is there anyone Is there anyone else in the
040room who'd like to offer public comment? Okay, thank you all. Um, and we'll close the citizens comments period now. Now, I'll need to figure out where on this agenda we haven't gone. Um, >> water testing. >> Okay, >> water testing. We've skipped around a lot. Um, okay. Um, all right. So, we are at New Business. Uh item A, water testing results. Welcome. >> Hello, I'm Curtis Whiteitman, the facilities director. Uh members of the school committee, Mr. Tracy, Mr. Leone. So, um first here we're talking about the water testing results. So, I am pleased to announce after uh many uh trials and tribulations of getting the water fixture here at Buer correct, um we are within conformance to uh the um lead copper rule. So, um I to this memo I attached the test results and
041um yeah it it was uh like I said we we went through quite a few fixtures here. It was a myriad of issues between water flow and fit and construction. Um the copper fixtures which were uh that had exceeded levels at the middle school and high school was a much more simple fix. So um going forward we'll use inline filtering for those. Um, and we'll just be looking to continue to um update our fixtures as as we can. So, the one that we got here at Buer is a really good two-stage filter. Uh, it specifically targets lead, copper, sediments, and so I know my son was extremely excited to be the first drink of water out of it. But, um, so yeah, so I'm I'm happy to announce that we're we're u in in compliance
042again. So, we'll continue this program. This is not a one-stop shop. Uh we'll start testing again over the summer and uh be prepared for the new school year. So cool. >> There any questions on the lead copper testing? And >> I don't have questions, but I just appreciate the level of detail and kind of the way you took us through how you did everything. >> Yeah, it was it was really important when when we received the test results to just quickly contain the problem. Um, you know, I think a lot of what led to those elevated levels had to do with the fact that we tested so early. Um, and the fixtures hadn't been run over the summer. So, you know, um, there is pretty strict requirements if you read through the lead copper policy
043that we put together on testing and um, but we do want to make sure that we are running those frequently, which is hard over the summer when kids aren't here using them. So, um, but yeah, thank you. >> Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thanks, Curtis. >> All right. And I think we're going to go right back to you for Is that correct for the >> I'm not going anywhere. >> All right. Uh so, next up is the uh HVAC uh unit uh grant. >> Yeah. So, this was uh this is kind of exciting news to be able to share with the um school committee. Um this was something that I'd been working on with Vicky Mason, who's the energy manager for the town of Hamilton, town of Wenham, and the school
044district. And so back in August, we engaged um a company called Nexus to help us out with this. So they came out, they took a look at the uh rooftop unit. Uh we applied for the grant. Uh we were accepted into it. So um $300,000 project uh at the end of uh after it's installed and our rebates will be around $48,000 due to the district. So for equipment that's, you know, north of $150,000, I think that's a pretty good deal considering it doesn't work right now anyway. So this is the rooftop unit that services the library. Uh hasn't worked for a number of years. Unfortunately, retrofitting and fix repair was not an option. Uh the the gas that's used for the refrigerant is like three generations too old, so we can't even get it. And
045um so this was uh quite the project of just going through the grant application process and and working with vendors. So um the idea here is to do this along with the roof this summer. >> Great. >> Amazing. >> That was going to be my question is how is it? >> Yeah. >> Related. >> Yeah. We're going to feather it right in. It makes the most sense. When we take the old unit off, we can have the new curb set. They'll it's going to be different. It's a lot smaller. It's interesting how we see when we're replacing equipment how things are shrinking um with a boiler project we just did. Three boilers fit on the size of one footprint of our old boilers that were there just installed 20 years ago. So um but yeah,
046so this will certainly help out. This will allow us to do some uh have an area where we can do training in the summer uh for summer school, whatever. Um that'll be cooled and much more comfortable for staff and students. So >> yeah. Can you remind us where where if anywhere else has air conditioning and that in the middle high school? I mean >> the offices >> that's it. >> Yep. Off. So like uh most of the administration off offices have it. So um over the summer we did put AC in the food service director's office. >> Well, this was I just like that's a real it was a real loss not to have a space like that with air conditioning. >> Yeah, it was it was very difficult. So and it gets hot in
047there. So >> um will this unit be used for heating in the winter as well as cooling in the summer? >> So it's a good question. So part of the grant application um this unit has to be used for heating. Um so it is electrified. We are moving away from gas and it will be the primary source for heat with the secondary source being the current hot water loop that feeds the high school. So in terms of anybody in that space, they're not going to know the difference. Okay, great. Thank you. >> Thank you for that. Y >> the the reason we brought this forward was we we want to underscore this by asking the committee to accept the grant formally. It is it is a grant that Vicki worked on for a number of
048months with a number of people in including Curtis trying to just dig in and find ways to pay for these things um outside of our regular budget. So we just want we we brought this forward so we could get an acceptance by the school committee and we'll move forward as we move forward with the high school roof project. >> So it'll be really dependent on how that goes and how that vote goes. So how in terms of the in other words we accept the grant but it is contingent upon the roof is that like if >> so if the roof >> this would be >> knock on wood here somewhere but if the roof that exclusion doesn't pass we would still have the opportunity to take this unit move our other the current unit off
049the roof it's literally setting on top of the roof and put this one up there. >> Oh, okay. So, I was not understanding that. >> It's Yeah, it's it's a it's a much smaller footprint too as well, but it's it they sit on top of the roof on um 6x sixes. 6x6s. >> Okay. But let me ask you, I mean, I guess there's a lot of ifs there, but I guess my understanding was this was going to get in this the idea is to install this as a part of the you the roof project. >> That's right. And >> so, does that save us on installation costs? So yes, it does >> because it's part of the roof project. >> So and so what we're looking at here in the the number I gave the
050$48,000 number that would be what we would end up paying >> would be less. We just don't know what that is today and I can't present that to the committee. >> Um but yes, so for example, we're taking the old roof unit off. There's already a crane there. There's a crane lift. >> We would just be putting it back on as part of the project. Well, I was just going to say like in other words, yeah, >> I mean my understanding of the way the roof project would work is that if this if we had a functioning unit up there, part of the built-in cost would be removing that unit, putting the roof down, and putting that unit back on. >> Yep. >> So, it seems like that's already built into the cost of >>
051That's right. >> these were parallel efforts. They weren't as part of like the package. This has nothing to do with the actual roof project that we've got the AGMSBA ARP program through. This is a separate thing. um that would not pay for this. So, if we decided to go out and do this on our own, we'd be footing the entire bill. >> Got it. >> Okay. Um so, you're tonight you're looking for approval of this grant presented. >> Yes. >> Okay. Do we have a motion? Do we need a vote? I move that we accept the grant from the Department of Energy Resources Green Community Division as presented. >> Second by Megan Benson. Um, are there any other questions? Jen, >> do we know how much this heat pump will save us in the long
052term? Obviously, not a specific number, but guesstimate. >> Yeah, I could give the numbers. I have that in a separate spreadsheet that was part of the application process. I don't know them off the top of my head, but we we >> but it will save us money. Correct. >> Yep. Yep. So, the kind of squirrely thing here is we're moving from a gas fired unit to an electrified unit. >> So, there is some like calculations that have to be done, but yes. >> Okay. >> And it does considerably lower the greenhouse gas emission um that we previously would have had the unit been working. So, um, that was the other part of this grant was that we lowered greenhouse gas. So, >> and presumably if we move forward eventually, we get the right solar panels,
053this will be fully, I'm assuming, powered by solar panels, right? >> Yeah. The the you're talking about solar canopy. The solar canopy will power um I think it's targeted mostly for the middle school. >> Okay, got it. >> But they're actually a shared space, so it would probably be worked into that. And that project, if it it gets off the ground and and actually comes to fruition, gives us a re really substantial reduction in the rates we're paying for energy for 25 years, I think it is. So, it's it's a kind of a double win if we can pull off both of them. >> Yeah. We're just waiting on National Grid, right? It's in their queue. Is that what it is? >> Yeah. Okay, great. >> Yep. They they have recently done some ground penetrating
054radar work to try to figure out what's under the parking lot. So, that project is moving forward. It's actually in one of our other attorneys hands right now looking at the the contract and the specs for um lease which will come to this committee when they when they're ready to go. >> Great. >> All right. Anybody else have anything else? >> No. >> All right. Great. >> Um I think we had a motion, right? We had a motion to second. All right. Um all those in favor that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for that creative work on that. >> Thank you. No, it's it's my pleasure. You know, I live here, too, and pay taxes, so anything we can do to >> lower the bill.
055>> That's great. >> Appreciate it. >> Lower the bill and >> Thanks, Curtis. >> Provide a space that can be used in the summer without >> That's right. That's That is really I can't underscore that enough. It really is important to have that space. >> Yeah. >> Um >> Yeah. >> Did you want me to hang for this? >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> All right. Um, next up is um building and equipment use user use fees. >> I'm going to do that one. >> That's you, Eric. >> All right. Thank you again. The uh exhibit that you see before you is the work of a committee that uh came together over the last three and a half months, almost four months now, uh to try to figure out ways to help our develop
056some revenue sources within the district. If you look at our current budget and you look at um fees for rental fees, the number is $2,000. Uh in talking with many of our neighboring school community members, other schools around us, um they have been able to raise some funds. It's it's not a huge amount of money, but $40 or $50,000 versus $2,000 is a big amount of money given our situation. And uh so the committee was charged with coming together, investigating what other uh groups were charging for fees um and then coming up with a system that uh really puts everything out in front in the open. We have a software system that we believe can manage all of this online for us. We already own it. Uh Curtis has been looking into that as well.
057So the the there is an opportunity to be able to have a full signup system online linked to our payment system etc. So that that will be something we we'll look at down the road. But the idea here is to finally put together some opportunities for rental fees that will generate revenues uh for the district. We take um a lot of abuse and use and not in a bad way just you everybody right now we have a basketball game going on right next door and the gym next door. Our facilities are used quite often and um there are there are opportunities for people who are in town like groups that are in town and there are opportunities for uh groups that are out of town out of town to use the space as well. This
058has been constructed so that the we felt the fees were fair. they're in line with what other communities around us are charging for things like fields and equipment to rent. Um, we have to take into account our current agreements with our things like custodial unions who, you know, they will often come in as part of a rental to open the bathrooms, clean up the trash, do some, you know, any fix up or anything that might occur. So, um, these are the procedures we follow on page two. We we've generally followed these for our groups. And then you'll see on page three of the recommended rental fees. Um these are based on high school, middle school versus elementary. And we've taken into account as many spaces as we have had people inquire uh to use. Uh
059classrooms. We don't generally charge a fee for unless it's something unusual. Somebody needs 20 classrooms to run an all day seminar or something. We would work something out. But these are the fees that you see more often than not. It also takes advantage of all the new facilities that we have uh due to the uh improvement project behind the high school and middle school. Um and then the second part is looking at the staffing fees. We need you know some people will need to use the auditorium and they'll need someone like a tech director or a tech intern to help them run the lights or the sound. So they those are costs to us that in a lot of cases we end up paying for. So we're trying to flip that now and u pass
060those costs along to the users. And these are really in line with what our what our costs would be if we were looking at the um the different groups like custodian, nutrition staff, tech director, food service people. And then we came up with four categories. We feel like it's important to really service the the the community groups, nonprofit groups the same way they have. They use our facilities. They're there for their use. Uh we wave many of those uh fees. School and town sponsors events, we would wave fees. Short-term community use like local nonprofit groups, youth sports. Um something short-term, we we would wave the fees. Um, they do pay, however, for a custodian if they need it because it starts to get expensive if we're paying for all that. Um, adult groups and leagues,
061non-resident league, uh, long-term rentals, those those fees are will be a full rental cost. And then for-profit rentals will be full rental cost. And we feel like this is a fair way to include our groups that currently use our facilities at no cost to continue to do that. We want to grow our youth sports. We want to continue to support our recreation programs. um and work with people in the community to, you know, give them the opportunity to use these facilities without uh having to pay. So, we feel like this is kind of a fair breakdown of of of how to move forward. Uh and really that's it. I'll take any questions uh if you have any. >> Um I have a couple question. Does anybody else have a question? So, I have a question
062just about the categories on category because I am in I I I appreciate and agree that we want to make sure that our schools are supporting our community and our community is getting to use schools and I um but I just want to make sure I understand category 2 like why does it say less than five weeks what does that mean? They're they're really like um I use an example things like inter mural sports those are those are ours but they only run for a few weeks at a time they they're not tying up a facility for a long term because we have so many groups vying for different things like youth football youth lacrosse youth um field hockey all of these different groups if you tie up one facility for multiple nobody else gets
063to use it. So we want to give people opportunity to >> share in the in the wealth if you will and you know the opportunity to play and use the fields and equipment. We have equipment available. We we want to make make sure that's available to to the public in in these these groups like our youth sports teams. Um, and then I think this is that you were addressing this, but like so like let's just use that as an example. like a if a um town I mean I think like a town group or that what falls into either category 1 or category 2 um is using this and the fee is waved but they are going to need or rental or furniture setup or they would be paying the custodial fee or the because
064I just I I I feel really strongly that on those situations we shouldn't be making earning money but also that we shouldn't be losing money that it should be just a net zero. >> Yeah. The fee is the rental fee. So if you and it says just above that that chart >> the rental groups using athletic complex renting spaces. This fee will not be waved. >> Yep. No, I just wanted to make sure I like Yeah. >> Yep. And that's part of the issue as we go dig through the past, if you will. A lot of times we end up eating the cost and that digs into what we've already budgeted. So, you know, Curtis might have money set aside for overtime that we have to dig into to pay for cost or something. So,
065we're trying to to pass that along because it really is not our cost. Um, and also be mindful. I think it makes sense to put this money aside for repairs and updates and things that you need for all these facilities that are being used all the time. Um it'll be good to be able to put that money aside in a revolving fund so that's available um to to refinish the floor in the gym or to fix something that that may happen on a field or on the track. >> Yeah. And I I just want to make it clear like I absolutely want town sponsored and other schools but like to be using our these that's what these buildings are for is for everyone to be able to but I just think >> yeah we do
066want to make sure that we're not >> I feel good about that. Um anybody else? >> Um do you do we need to vote on this? >> Yes. >> Yeah. any any um fees that we charge, we generally vote on. What I would suggest is um just creating the motion so that it's to be reviewed annually. >> I think it's important for us to take a look at it, see how we did, make adjustments where we need to after a first full school year. >> Yep. I move that we accept the building and equipment use fees as presented with a review one year from now. >> Second >> maybe say at the end of each school year >> with a review at the end of each school year >> or annually. >> Yeah, >> I
067just say what what Eric wanted me to say. Um, >> all right. I heard a second >> with a friendly amendment to myself with a review annually. >> That gives us broader Yeah, >> you still second. >> I still second. >> I seconded by um No, I'm sorry. I was just not wanting to lock us into like we have to do this at the end of it could be >> we do it annually. Exactly. Um like well I'm just saying like as Eric just mentioned like on the school choice like we have actually until June to have that discussion but we have reasons for wanting to do it earlier like it just gives us false um all right people have any other discussion around >> yeah I just have a question would we roll this
068into policy and add it to that schedule of reviews or is that is this not >> it's not a policy >> but we we would manage it similarly >> okay >> cuz I think it's part of like the other fees that we have across the district. We're doing a full review now and saying, "Okay, we need to review several of these fees that haven't been talked about for years that probably should be reviewed annually." So, we're we're doing something similar right now with um fees across the district that that we did with the policy uh the stuff that had annual and and semiannual reviews be the same exact um process for just kind of keeping up with what needs to go next. I was just trying to roll it into an existing process. >> Thank
069you. >> Anybody else? Okay. Um All right. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. Thank you for that work. Uh school. >> Okay. Preschool tuition. Uh, good evening again. I here to present. Uh, wrong. >> I was going to say >> I don't think that's it, but we're we're looking forward to yell at Okay, I am here to uh request an increase to our preschool uh tuition for the 2026 2027 school year. Uh just to give a little background uh this was presented to capital. We presented a uh recommended increase rate uh and during capital that rate was increased to what you are seeing here now. Uh our current rates for our preschool tuition program for our 5-day is 6,750. Uh the 3-day is 4,50 and
070the 2-day is 2700. Uh at the time, again, vetted through capital, we are requesting an increase of 15% uh and this would be rounded to the nearest uh whole $10 amount. So, our proposed new rates would be 7,770 for our 5-day, 4,660 for the 3-day, uh, and 3,110 for the 2-day. Uh, for some background, we did not have an increase for the 2005 2006 school year. The last increase we had was for 2004 2005. Uh, that was an 8% increase. Uh, so this year would almost make up for last year. It's almost 2 years of an increase. Uh just to kind of benchmark across surrounding districts. This does kind of put us uh still in the pack probably in the lower end, but it is difficult to compare preschool programs. Uh there is a lot
071of questions. How many days do the other communities meet? Uh what time does their preschool program start and end? So you really have to dive deeper than just what the cost of the program is. However, it's at at least here a comparative to show you that we still are uh within the group and within the pack if we increase our rates by this 15%. Uh I did prepare a motion for you and can take any questions. >> Um all right, let's uh start with a motion and then we can ask. >> Okay. Can I read it? I move that the Hamilton Regional School Committee set the school year 2026 2027 preschool tuition rate to 7,770 for 5 days a week, $4,660 for 3 days a week and 3,10 for 2 days a week. >> Second
072by Amy Kunberger. All right, questions for Vinnie. My question is, are these rates comparable to other communities? >> Um, yes, we would be kind of on the >> Oh, good. >> lower >> I didn't see that period >> end of it, but it is uh again in there with some of them. >> Okay. >> Still, if you see Manchester Essics is still a little higher. >> Great. And presumably we are ours all three of the programs five day, three day and two days ours are all whole day not half day. >> Oh they all are different times. That's why I said you can't really compare >> I'm asking about Hamiltons ours what are what are they're each the five day and the 3-day and the two-day are all different times. >> No, they're all the
073same time. >> So and Right. But >> they are not full day >> slightly shorter than a full school day. >> Right. >> Yeah. And I know that you can't get but we don't know what whether Manchester Essics are all the same. >> We we do know some of them are shorter. We believe we have probably >> it says Triton has half day. >> Triton has half day three day program only. >> Right. And ours are our till 1:00 or something 1:15 or something. >> So ours is kind of like a >> 3/4 of a day. >> Three quarters of a day like more than half a day. Um. >> Yep. Other questions? >> No. >> Um, I have a question just about when do parents typically sign their children up? Like in other words,
074how much notice is this giving? Uh so en uh this will probably go out in about a month and enrollment uh sign up I think is the end of April and their down payment is shortly after that. >> Okay, that was kind of my question. They have to put money down in April or May. >> Yep. >> Um so I just want to make sure we're giving >> It's a little earlier than May. It's It's more likely to be April. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um because obviously people are going to need particularly >> this is why we wanted >> particularly people that are already enrolled need to know that >> this is going to go up. Um >> right >> if their children are coming back for >> they're coming for a second year you know
075>> and and just and I think you answered this in sub but I just want to make sure Vinnie understand. So um I know because I researched this for my own child um a little bit. So this is for the integrated prek. >> This is only for peers, right? For the peers. >> Correct. We do not charge. >> Okay. >> The others. Yep. >> Fair. Yep. Okay. Anybody have anything else? All right. And we had a motion and a second. All right. Um, all those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. So, just so you guys know the process, this is these numbers are not built into the budget update later, but they will be for the final next time. >> Okay. >> Not a substantial difference, but
076we'll still factor it in. >> Should we ask you how much it is now, or should we wait till you talk about the budget? >> Doesn't matter. I can tell you it would lower our overall budget by somewhere around $11,000. >> Yep. Okay. >> I love seeing revenue. >> Yeah. >> Two line items of revenue. three if you count you count the grant. >> Yeah. >> All good things. >> Um >> thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Am I staying here? >> Uh >> one more. >> No choice. >> No, we have school choice to talk about. So no. >> Yeah. Yeah. I will. >> So we'll make you get back down. Get back up. >> Um okay. So, uh, Eric presented earlier about school choice and made a recommendation. Do we want to
077Does anyone have any questions? We need to start with a motion. What do you guys >> I would the motion be I'll just try it. I vote that the school committee accept school choice for the next coming year. Like, do we have to say specific numbers? >> No. >> Approve. >> Okay. Just accept we want to go forward with school choice >> either in the program or not. >> In the program or not? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Do we have a second? >> Second by Jen Carr. Um, so people have questions. >> No. So >> my only question would be why wouldn't we do it? >> I guess >> I mean I know that I am very pro but I guess what would be the rationale? Do you do you have people saying that
078we shouldn't do it? >> No. I mean, I don't >> in the last two years the if you went back 12 years ago when I was originally the the principal of the high school, we had probably 160 170 kids >> that were in the school choice program. And back then it was the same amount that the law the law was written in 1993, $5,000 ahead. It hasn't changed since then. So, it's not a it's it's not this big revenue booster, but u back then there were I think between 150 and 175 kids across the district that were in school choice. Um when you do that, you're you're kind of artificially inflating where you should be in in your numbers and when you start to get into those numbers like a third of your high school
079kids are choice, that becomes problematic because then you're outspending your budget. um you're under spending your budget and you don't have enough revenue to keep up. So part of this is we're balancing it like seats on a plane. >> So we know we have x number of kids. We use English classes because everybody has to take English. And we look and say okay we know there's approximately 24 seats in say a middle school class or 22 or 23 seats in a high school class. If there's 18 in the class that gives us a few few seats. So that's how they determine it. as they build the schedule starting in March and April, they start to build the schedule. They'll they'll receive the the signups, they'll do the lottery to see what order people are, you
080know, asked to come um sent out to join and then they add them in based on those available seats. So, seats on a plane, seats on a bus, however you want to, right? >> You're paying for the plane already. It's going to go somewhere. So, you you can you have the opportunity to fill them and and gain some revenues. It's a it's not it's you know between three and $400,000. Uh some years it's gone down because the numbers have gone down over over the years, but I think we're balancing it well. And it's it's just a good it's another revenue source that at this point in time we we don't want to drop >> people >> is there an opportunity to not I know for not for us personally but why hasn't the amount increased
081since would you say 199 something? >> That's a good question. Yeah it it's like anything else. Why isn't chapter 7 being increased in the number of years? >> Question. >> Yeah, I think I think it just it's one of those things where >> um there's been so much conversation about, you know, vouchers and kids being able to and families being able to choose where to go to school. I think that's kind of tamped the push back down and said, "Okay, this is a reasonable thing that cities can choose to be in or not be in." A lot of communities around us are not involved in it. >> They aren't involved. So, it's I think because it's you you have the opportunity to select whether you want to be in it or not. I think they
082just kind of leave it alone. I have mentioned it several times to our legislators and you know it's it's like anything else what it the money actually comes from the other district. So, we have kids that go to other districts as well. We they take the 5,000 from our aid and send it to that other district. So, it's it's it's an interesting way to allow kids the opportunity to go somewhere else. Some kids need it. Some kids just want a different experience and it it's it's um a fairly reasonable trade-off between the communities that are that are doing it. I don't think it's something that's overwhelming. Again, unless you get up to an exorbitant amount of kids so that your funds are being outpaced. >> Okay. And and by I guess >> by being you're
083in or you're out, but there's no requirement. Like we could have a year where we take no students. Correct. >> Because we we've calculated like if we got to we calculated out and we were like we're really right sized. We don't have empty seats. >> We're not going to take anybody like you're saying basically about elementary school right now. We're really >> Yeah. There's seats available, >> right? So >> and the high school is a good example. You're looking at like say 460 kids. You have 54 I think in the high school that are that are high school age. If you said, "All right, we're going to let that group wash out and not do school choice anymore." Now your size, your school size drops fairly dramatically. It allows you some ability to adjust your
084budget, but then you're back to where you started a couple years later and you lost that revenue source at the same time. So, it's it's a it's a really delicate balance about h how to use it and when to when to kind of tune it down or turn it up a little bit. It's harder for the small districts to to take too many kids. It's I think you just have to do what we're doing and fill seats and keep an eye on it. >> Okay. Anybody have anything else? All right. Um All right. Uh we made All right. All those in favor is unanimous of the motion of the members present and the motion passes. Okay. And now we already did F and G. And now back to Vinnie, the budget update, >> the news
085report. And now back to Vinnie. >> And now Uh thank you guys for for letting me present again tonight. Uh this really is a brief uh presentation and really does revolve around the conversation for the most part. Uh from the last school committee meeting, as you remember, you did request that we present to you a potential of a third round um of reductions to our FY27 budget uh in an attempt to lower our town assessment. Uh so tonight we are here to present what that might look like and you guys can take it under consideration uh discuss it and decide what you want to move forward with. However, there was a minor tweak from our capital subcommittee uh from our meeting last week. Uh we brought this conversation to them and they asked that we
086kind of present two options. Uh one as we were discussing uh revolved a lot around reductions to staffing. They asked that we present to you another option and I'm warning you this the other option here uh most of it is a one-time solution for this year only. A lot of the things we have here if we remove them from our 27 budget request they are going to be back in FY28 for us to deal with. Uh yes, we are dealing with a large a larger than normal issue this year. So it might push that off to next year and be easier to deal with next year. Uh that is kind of for you guys to decide and figure out tonight. Uh so just to get into it, obviously that first option we talked about was
087around reductions to our staffing. Uh right now to get to that kind of another $500,000 mark, we would look at about another eight FTEES. Um right now we have it dispersed to be one at Cutler, one at Winthre, three at uh two at the middle school, three at the high school, and one at Central. Uh if you do remember the the first round of FTE reductions, uh it was dispersed a little different. Uh that would bring in total our potential reductions for our FY27 budget to a total of 15 FTEES. Uh, one thing I'd want to mention is around the elementary schools, this is a placeholder for the most part. Uh, we don't know if it's going to be exactly one Buer, two Cutler, one Winthrop. Uh, it could be dispersed a little bit differently
088depending how it all rolls out. Uh, at again at the moment at the elementary level. Uh, it is a placeholder up at the secondary and and at central. Uh, it probably will be close to something like that. So between all of these positions, uh, all 15, we are looking at a total potential reduction of $90,000. Again, this is using the base salary of 59,745. Uh, that includes full unemployment costs for all of the positions. Um, and does not include any health insurance. Uh, one thing I would like to mention is when you go to two uh, when you perform an FTE reduction, you try to get as accurate as you can with what the amount's going to be. One thing we don't include for the most part is their health insurance costs cuz we have
089not identified uh, specific positions. We've not identified specific people. So, we don't know if they carry health insurance. One thing you all know about Hamilton's health insurance, it costs us nearly $30,000 a year for one family plan. So, for me to incorporate another $30,000 reduction and then they do not have health insurance will leave us in a hole for FY2 uh7 when we actually go to implement those reductions. I also want to say that if the reverse happens, we would end up having uh a good amount of savings in our health insurance for FY27. Uh so if this comes to fruition, uh and a lot of these people might have health insurance. Again, we're going to see savings and leftover funds in 27. I at least wanted to mention that in case it happens. Uh
090if the decision is to move forward uh with this, I would probably recommend uh that we do add a little in for a reduction in health insurance. If we were going to be somewhere around the seven people, again, I would recommend that we don't, but 15 people, we have a much higher probability that someone's going to have health insurance in here. Uh so if the decision is to move forward this way, I would probably say we should add a little bit uh of a more of a decrease to come up with that health insurance amount. Uh but nonetheless, this is one potential option. This does make a permanent reduction in our budget. It does lower it now. It lowers it in FY28 and moving forward obviously if we don't add back in any staffing. However,
091to bring us to a different option, um it really revolves around non-personnel and trying to just lower our FY27 budget. But I want to remind you that a lot of these things I'm going to talk about will be back in FY28. I'll use one of them in as a an example and try to explain what I mean. Uh but before I get into that, one of the things we are recom uh we are not to say recommending that we are saying as an option is currently we included roughly the $550,000 for enhancements in our maintenance and facilities department. Out of that $550,000, roughly $300,000 could be considered capital items. Uh so one thing we could do is put this up for a separate vote. don't include it in our operating budget. Break it out and
092make it a capital exclusion, which is different from a debt exclusion. A debt exclusion, like it sounds, you're taking out debt for multiple years and paying a little off every year. A capital exclusion is one year only. So, for one year, your in your taxes uh would increase by the $300,000 and then it would go away. it would be excluded from Proposition 2 and a half and would go away when we go to do the FY28 budget and we would have to include any additional funds in the FY28 budget if we want to move forward. The idea that we didn't do this in the first place was because we did not want to do that. We wanted a permanent funding source for our maintenance department so we can start fixing our buildings uh and investing
093in our aging equipment. This does not do that. However, it does still give us money uh for FY27 uh to fix some security updates for our sprinkler system and obviously for the gym divider that you see there. The other one-time fixes uh as you can see here are all really going to come back. So, I'll just use the first one as an example. Right now, uh, we have a rotating schedule for equipment replacement for teacher laptops in our FY27 budget. The high school is up for their new replacement. So, every year we switch a school except when we get to Buer and Cutler. Those two are added together cuz there's less staffing there compared to the high school, middle school, uh, and Winthrup. So, it's a 4-year rotation. What we could do here is remove
094the funding for teacher laptops in 27 and no employee receives a new laptop. What it does is it pushes out the life cycle of everyone's one more year. So instead of getting a new device every four years, now they're going to get a new device every 5 years at least for the next 5 years because after the first 5 years you're back to your 4year cycle as long as you're leaving it in every budget cycle. So, this is one option we could do. Remove the teacher laptop funding, but just realize that our devices are going to be one year older. There might be more issues. Uh, it might impact learning because once um devices go down, it kind of delays your instruction. Uh, but nonetheless, it is savings that you could do. That is repeated
095everywhere in here. We could remove the life cycle elementary uh our life cycle replacement on our elementary iPads. It's the same situation. Those funds are going to come back for FY28 because we need to replace these devices. Yes, we could probably delay it a year. Uh but at some but after that, we're going to have to have a new batch in. Uh again, it's kind of the same situation with all of these. Uh we just went through and tried to add up um a few items that got us to that $500,000 mark. Uh so combined between what we would exclude for a capital exclusion and what we would reduce one time is a total of $482,000 and gets us roughly to that $500,000 mark. If you choose one of these options, uh this is kind
096of what our assessments would would look like. Uh it would drop Hamilton down to below 6% uh and Wenham to below uh 8%. As you saw last night, uh it was more of a just under 7% for Hamilton and just under uh just over 9% for Wedom. I think that concludes it. Uh and we can answer questions and open it up for you guys to discuss. Um obviously there could be more options where it's a little bit of both. Um but that's really up for you guys to decide. So can help guide you through the conversation if you'd like. I have a question >> of course. >> So that last chart that you showed that is with staff reduction one. >> Uh this is either or cuz both are about 482,000. There's a little bit
097of a difference but >> but I just want to make sure >> I should make the distinction. >> There's still that's still with either one of them are still with the the reduction that we already voted on the seven 7.0 you know FTE >> uh correct that this would be as if either of the two options >> but but it's like the seven FTE >> plus the new >> plus another 48 >> or the 7 FTE and >> correct yes >> thank you >> wait I think I'm confused so this is an addition to the million and a half that you already reduced >> we at this >> or the 950,000 you reduced >> yes uh At the moment, we've only reduced 1 million. >> This would be another 500 for a total of 1.5.
098>> Okay. >> This number here is the 1.5. >> So, both these two options get us to the same >> correct. There's a minor, you know, $1,000 difference that >> $23, I think. >> $23. Yes. So, >> pretty close. >> Neither of these will prevent an override from the towns. As we learned last night, >> from what we learned last night, neither of these would do that. You would still be in an override situation from what they told us last night. >> From what they told us last night. >> Okay. Does anyone have questions before we move on to discussion questions about >> My question is just to reiterate because people might not have been listening last night to the Quinta board meeting when you said something about class sizes being affected. Can you repeat
099just what you said last night? >> Yep. Uh I will go to one of the slides. Uh so with these round of FTE reductions, the first round for the most part you've implemented that's within our tenative budget. That's what we're dealing with right now. Uh we feel like we can handle the seven member FTE reduction without drastically impacting class size or how we provide instruction. If we go into this second round of reductions, if we add in uh another eight FTEES for a total of 15, we will see class size uh implications in how we provide instruction. >> Thank you. >> If we go through to this third round of reduction, second round of FTE reductions >> at all levels or just at the high school and middle school? >> Uh high school, middle school
100most likely. You see the biggest impacts as you can see on the six and the four 10 of those positions come from middle middle school high school. That's a pretty big impact for the they're both small programs. So >> Mhm. >> Um >> and so remind me I know we talked about it in sub just and I was going through my notes I can't find it. I know I wrote it down somewhere. Um, and I know Vinnie, you brought it up at the top of this discussion part and we talked about it a little bit last night. So, I'll just kind of reiterate a little bit for public awareness, I think. Um, so, uh, last night you went in great detail. Tonight, you're kind of hitting the highlights a little bit. So just so folks
101are aware, the biggest driver of kind of our budget this year are salaries. You know, the COLA adjustments, the step increases, health insurance, those are really the biggest drivers. >> That is driven a lot by the collective bargaining agreements that we entered into last year. And as Ben stated last night, right, that was, you know, his personal opinion, it sounded like was it was the right thing to do because we as a town negotiated right with the union, we didn't experience a strike like other towns did. Um, and so just remind So just stating that for everybody kind of stating the the the facts here remind me because I don't have the information in front of me in that collective bargaining agreement. And part of the reason this year in particular is so challenging is
102because the first year I think was was a higher increase, right? I think it was about 8 and a half%. >> The it varied but yes, that would be >> for this year it was in right or like for next year. What? Yeah, >> the first year of the contract was uh anywhere from 8 to a 30% increase. >> Okay. >> Depending where you fell on the salary schedule. >> And so then so then for the next for the following year, what does that look like? >> Which is the year we're currently in FY26, >> correct? >> That was I believe a 3% cola. And then FY27, the one we're >> talking about now, is 3.5. >> 3.5. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. >> I have a few questions of course. >> Um I'm looking
103at this slide number four that has the onetime reductions on it. Um a little concerned about that, but I understand it as a exercise that could be valuable to look at and to go through. I'm wondering if any of the technology expenses if we are eligible to request funding from the ed fund or from another funding source because correct me if I'm wrong but did the ed fund donate smartboards to the district some time ago? >> Yes, at some point they did. at some point they so I'm just wondering is there any wiggle room there to replace I mean I know you're not on the board of the ed fund and you don't know but I'm just trying to sort of brainstorm I delaying technology is a pro and a con in my mind because
104they start failing and then you're in a fire drill mode and have to buy what's available and you know so I don't know if there's any possibility arguably of asking them for support in this I know that Maybe I know they're not here to fund our operating budget, but I just I don't know if that's possible. >> We could surely ask them, but they have uh said multiple times they don't want to supplement the operating budget. >> Okay. >> Um >> Okay. >> I would consider that supplementing our >> I Yeah, I just Okay. And then regarding the capital exclusion, um I just wanted to clarify that is excluded from the levy limit. >> Correct. So in rolling that forward, we would still be potentially in future years looking at potentially an override if we're
105not able to come up with new revenue or other cuts that put those expenses in our operating budget. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> We would be um >> what >> requesting it or fighting for it again in FY28 and forward. >> Okay. Can you remind me what was in the in the tenative budget that we had voted on? What is the maintenance increase? The maintenance and operation increase. >> Uh so we asked for a new investment of roughly $547. >> So this cuts that more than in half. >> Yes. We've removed what could be considered capital items. >> Right. No, I and I I do understand what I I do. But but moving forward, in other words, moving forward, like one of the things that we heard from citizens is that they wanted to
106see capital I'm sorry, maintenance. >> This is us asking for it just to be different, >> right? And I Well, I mean, I I guess I don't know if we're still in questions. I guess move maybe I'm moving on to opinions, so let's just do questions first. >> No, I love questions. All right. Well, my opinion is that I'm very torn about this because I do think this is appealing. I shouldn't say it's appealing. Given the horrible situation that we're in and the choices before us, there's something that I'm this I find this is a creative and potential somewhat of a solution. on the capital part. I'm looking at that and I am thinking about the feedback that we got from the community around investing in maintenance and security. And this I see it both
107ways. In some ways, I think this is an opportunity to bring this to the public as an individual thing and say, "Okay, here it is. you can vote yes or no. Do you want to do these things and and I think there's value in that. I I do. I think there's value in in getting the citizens to actually say like is yes, we want to invest in this. At the same time, to Kristen's point, it it doesn't >> doesn't create what what we heard from the citizens when we presented a consolidated school and it was voted down. And we were lots of the feedback that we got was, "No, what we want is for you to create a robust maintenance budget year after year." And this eliminating this makes that less. So we're we are
108still increasing our maintenance budget but not in the robust kind of way that >> so I'm torn. I I there is something appealing about giving more the citizens kind of more choice to say okay do you want >> to do this? You know, these are safety. I mean, I'm a little bit like I like to me the security vestibles and the sprinklers are clearly like these are safety things >> that you the public told us that we should be addressing. >> Yeah. >> Um the gym divider obviously is I think really important to the public in general. Like it's public use like I see it. It's not quite the same, but I >> understand why it's >> only uh trying to do my job and tell you this would make six votes for the school.
109>> All six having to pass. >> Right. And Right. Right. And and Right. And that's >> Yeah. >> Just mentioning it a lot. >> I think where I also struggle though, like so Yes. And we heard that having a robust maintenance budget is important to the towns. We also heard that our town values the quality education and small class sizes. We heard that over and over and over again. And >> and we also heard support for teacher salaries. Correct. We really did. We heard a we got >> positive >> I guess maybe not 100% positive but we did get positive feedback about having ne successfully negotiated with the union to to pay our teachers right >> an appropriate >> retain talent avoid a avoid a strength so all of the things so we heard all
110of those messages this is yeah it's very very challenging >> for me my opinion I would not support another uh $500,000 reduction. I just for me I wouldn't. I think the million already cut us. Um this cuts us to the bone and it's just like both of you said what we've heard from the community and like what I value is the small class sizes, the personalization we heard from teachers and employers tonight. Um, I I really believe that this is going to dramatically affect services and the quality of education and we're going to see the ramifications of it. So, I am speaking for myself. I would not support this. Um, the other piece that I'm very concerned about is what I heard last night uh at the Quintel board meeting. I'm very concerned that this
111is going to turn into a town versus school issue where I already heard it last night from Hamilton. You know, basically you're forcing us to reduce our budget when we're not asking them to reduce their budget. But um I just don't want it to turn into like a school versus town issue. Um I don't necessarily have the solution for that, but I think the more we parse it out all a cart, the more it does turn into that. uh and the more it gets muddied and um sort of gets watered down. So for me, you know, I I always say that a budget reflects our values. Unfortunately, we can't pay for everything we want to pay for. That's everybody in the world. We can't pay for everything we want to pay for. But it really
112does come down to um as a school committee member, I am tasked with what is best for the children and I'm tasked with listening to the community on their priorities. And to me, if I'm doing both of those things, then I cannot support an extra $500,000 reduction. So, >> at the end of capital finance, when we talked about both of these, I was torn. I understand the benefits of both, but when I got home, and I've had now a little over a week to think about this. I feel like this is dis this option is disingenuous. We're not saving the town any money by doing this like we are if we cut the one-time things, but all we're doing is moving $300,000 into a different category. >> Unless they vote it down. >> What? >>
113Unless they vote it down, >> right? >> And those are projects that I don't think we can in good conscience allow like they can't be voted down. Those are safety issues. >> Well, >> I mean, if they get voted down, I'd rather they get voted down in the entire budget as a single unit. >> I certainly think it's it's either >> letting pick and choose. >> I wouldn't exclude them without having the citizens like I would want that either in the in the budget or as a separate like I don't I wouldn't want us to remove them. >> Oh, yeah. without like in other words this we heard loud and clear that the citizens said they need we need more safety and more maintenance. So I would want I wouldn't want us um I'm sorry
114I stepped on what you're saying. Go ahead. You have more to say. >> All I'm saying is right we tasked Vinnie and Eric with removing an additional half million from the budget. This option doesn't do that. it removes an additional 200,000 from the budget and then it just moves 300,000 underneath another category. And so then next year we're up in the same position that we are now being asked to cut, you know, $300,000 from the budget, which is going to be another seven or eight positions. >> On the other hand, you'd save those seven positions for one year. I'm just playing devil's advocate. >> Other options like >> what was the other ones? >> So, but just to be clear, I want to just jump in and say is we've got presented with options, but
115it's not that you have to pick one of these. Like Julia just Julia just said, >> and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think what you were saying is no, I want to go back to the >> tentative budget that we already voted on. I to be honest am wondering like is there I think this is too much what the two options that you've presented both are too much for me a and I do wonder whether there is something that is more of a reduction than we already had in the tenative budget but not as much as this and I and I know that that's I I'm just saying like I think this is too much. I neither one of I shared why there's some things that are appealing about
116that second option to me. Um fully understanding that Jen is 100% right that it it you know we're going to put ourselves in the same situation next year. I fully understand that. Um I I guess I and I and and maybe the answer already is true that like when you did this the um on the left the that's represents what we've the tenative budget that we already voted on that maybe that is the maximum that seven FTE reduction is the maximum that you all Eric shared with us like this is what we feel doesn't really we still provide the level of student learning that we want to provide and maybe that is the maximum like in other words if we had eight FTEEs is that total I'm talking about not eight more I'm one more
117than that like is that the line you know what I'm saying I know that that's a hard question I'm just trying to say like I I feel like I'm that's where I am is that like I kind of wish it was a little bit more reduced than that tenative budget, but this is too far for me. >> Again, just saying it, you could choose to not do the eight and do whatever you think would make the budget pass at town meeting. >> What if >> it's not eight, maybe it's three. Maybe it's a combination. Um, >> you don't have to go with what's presented. >> That's what I'm saying is we don't have, it's not like you have to pick this one or this one. We could say no, >> one of entire. >> We
118could say no, we go back right back to the ten of budget and we're not budging or >> or half of this one and none of the second option or >> right or we could say like, okay, we'll remove those capital items and put them up for a capital exclusion >> and leave everything else. >> Leave everything else. Like we could right which might be something that I could think about actually >> what we took the actual reductions so the one-time reductions that will return for fiscal year 2028 that 184,000 lose those because then we're actually saving the m town at least at the moment $184,000 and then reduce the number of FTEES so that the two values add up to our total half million. So we're still going to lose some. >> I don't
119know what you're saying. I'm sorry. >> She's saying part of option one, part of option two >> roughly. >> Oh yes. >> So take make those cuts the one time >> FY27 reductions. So round up to 200,000 to to make that clear. That means to get to our $ 1.5 million in cuts, we need to cut an additional 300,000. So if we go back to the ne previous slide in Keep going. >> Sorry, my computer's telling me to plug it in. >> Oh no. >> So instead of cutting eight FTEEs to get to 500,000 Yeah. >> we cut fewer FTEEs to get to 300,000. But aren't we still kicking the can for those other expenses? >> Yes. Yep. >> Yep. >> So, to me, it's like we're just having the same conversation next year. >>
120It may be even worse because maybe the technology is expired. >> I This is all good. I think it's just good to throw out ideas. Like I just think it's good to like think about. So, so that would still be kicking the can down the road >> with those the um and it would be uh tell me how many what are we using for the FTE? >> Roughly 60,000, >> right? So, >> so if you want 300 five >> instead of eight >> still a lot. >> Just round >> and it's not just five, it's really 12 because we're >> with a seven. I think that's too much. I think it might be important to think in the back of your mind what will make it pass that town meeting. >> I don't >> do
121you think that difference >> No. >> Because remember it's going to be split between Hamilton and Wenham. So if it's >> but I don't think that's the So let me ask you. >> No, I don't think that's the difference between it passing or not passing. And I and I think there's also I mean just that's a that's a political question not a but I I also think that there's a risk of if you of backlash in other words if your bud if we it's a as Julia likes to remind us it's a value statement. So if we're presenting a budget with too many staff cuts, there going to be people that are voting no because it's too much >> staff cuts. >> Like in other words, you know, people are people have to feel that
122this budget honors what they're >> looking for. I mean, in other words, we have to balance it between >> I I I don't know what to say. I for me the the the second round here is too much and maybe maybe it doesn't matter like we're I I don't mean that I don't >> Mhm. >> Please I didn't mean it didn't matter. What I mean is that it >> it won't move the needle as far as >> it won't move the needle like that it that I mean the the the reality is is that to actually move the meter would require reducing two more $2 million from this. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. I think if we go back >> and that's not I mean that would literally I don't that's just not something that we
123can >> even discuss like because it's just not even >> I mean I think if I'm thinking about if we go back to the beginning of the process I think the request from the towns was to cut about 3 1.5 million from our budget which was basically the functional closure of a building. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. But but yet we wouldn't actually >> and so we can't do that. >> But I think it just illustrates really starkly the structural problem >> Yeah. of the two towns and the district and that to continue the district the way it is and to make the improvements that people have said that they wanted that require it's going to I think we're looking at a period given the limitations of Proposition 2 and a half given inflation and given
124the need to adjust the wages that we pay the faculty with the collective bargaining agreement I don't I think we're looking at to me it seems like se sequential years of override you know to do this and so I don't know what's politically more palatable maybe in Winnham I might have a better guess but in in Hamilton I'm not really sure and it seems to me based upon last night's meeting that getting the override through Hamilton would be is going to be the bigger hurdle >> yeah but yes and I think it's a big hurdle and both everywhere, you know. I mean, I do think that there will be some people that will look at this and say, "Well, you've just shown us a way to cut a million dollars, go to 15 reductions in
125FTE and cut the other 489, and you should do that because the ultimate goal is to keep taxes as low as possible." And if we can't do all these things this year, then that's unfortunate and that's the way that it is. I think there are people that will say that. And so I think we have to reach those people somehow to really explain why this is necessary and why the overrides will be necessary. I mean I think this is a difficult message. I'm a little bit leerary of reducing what goes into the levy limit because we need that as recurring revenue. Plus, we haven't even addressed the um END in this year's budget where there's part of me that would love to see like 150ish thousand to that and have like a four-year plan for
126rectifying that or a 5year plan, any kind of a multi-year approach to paying that amount down. >> Yeah. I mean, at this point, if we're going for an override of this amount, I'd say throw 100 grand of B&D on there. Try to start whistling away on it because I don't know that that's going to be the thing, you know, that's going to make it or break it. Um, I don't know. I think if we give people too many choices at town, meeting, we're going I don't think we'll get everything. >> No, no, no. >> No. So, even though that even though I agree with you and you just I still want to kind of play out the opposite of what Jen proposed. Can we go to the other option >> because it's interesting cuz I
127want to play out there's a and I heard what you just said. I really did. I I think we all It's all true. all of this I but I kind of want to play out what if you say we're going to keep the tenative budget level at the seven reduction of seven FTEES and we take this out and we see the take the capital bring the capital exclusion I understand that it but the reason I am intrigued by doing that is to really see what the citizens really want. >> Mhm. >> I understand that that there's it's they might not want that >> or or people may say, "Yes, I want maintenance, so I'm going to vote in favor of the roof, but I'm not going to vote in favor of this." I I'm just
128putting it as like like I said earlier, I'm kind of of the mindset that I'm to me that the the tenative budget that we have with the seven FTE reduction is pretty close to what I think is but I'd like to see it be a little bit reduced and I'm trying to look at this and I'm looking like well maybe that's the way to do it. not with this other the one-time reduction because I think that those >> just put us in a perpetual >> I don't know >> although I have thoughts about the life cycle of elementary iPads cuz >> Dana can't see me >> I'm sorry >> that's okay I just person talking and you know thinking since last night I wonder if and like tonight isn't the night to decide this but
129talking about you know this is not a sustainable thing that's happening we need to improve our schools. The conversation last night about the school district asking for more every year. Well, of course we do because things cost more every year and we have aging infrastructure. I wonder if things like an override are more palatable if there's more discussion about the future. We talked at the beginning of budget season about the potential to someday restructure and save some um you know kind of unify grades and buildings so that we share resources. We talked about um you know maybe it's time to revisit combining the towns because there's definitely district expenses that would go away if we were one town. I know that's not a popular option. Um, but maybe these are the things that we need
130to start talking about with the towns over a longer period of time as we the feedback we've gotten is what's the plan? Like what are the long-term needs? What's the long-term plan? Um, and obvious I don't know that any of this could be done before this town meeting, but rather than have this issue every single year and go through this every single year, having some like creative different things in play to show that we know like we understand and something bigger, something different needs to happen and we should have someone sponsor the gym divider curtain, slap a logo on it, sell it. >> Yeah. No, >> I I agree with you. I think if we can put this in the context of a bigger narrative to say we hear that you don't want to have
131year-over-year overrides and neither do we. So I don't know if it's trying to balance the urgency and the importance like the urgency is this year's budget. >> We need to get something passed. The important thing is trying to fix the structural problem which we can't do alone without the partnership of the towns. I know people have said to me, "Well, maybe we can't have a regional district or maybe the regional district needs to be bigger." I mean, I think right now what the towns are telling us in terms of the reductions that they want to see is that we can't have a prek through 12 program. We can't afford it. And so, does that are they indirectly saying some of these grades need to be educated in a different way? Does expanding the size of
132the region save us money? I think some people think it does because I think you're approaching it from a like a for-profit mindset of consolidation saves money and there may be savings to be had, but because we would be required to transport people even farther, I would be curious to see what the transportation numbers would look like for a bigger district because it might wash some of that savings. So, I think there are things that could be studied here. So maybe we need to create some kind of working group or whatever we can do under our authority as a school district to say to try to run some of these scenarios. If we make the district bigger or smaller or include different towns or whatever it is, how do you get the school district budget
133to a place where it's more in line with what the towns think? And I also I I think that's a great suggestion, Kristen, but I think I I feel like after last night, these conversations need to happen with the with the towns because >> we need to understand what are the long range plans for Hamilton and Wenom as well in terms of their revenue and their um their spending and so their cost. So I think it it can't just be right. I think we talked about this a little bit last night or I mean I was thinking it last night. The school district is a service. >> Yeah. >> That is provided by the town. And so it feels very odd to me that we're very much separated and we only come together a few
134times a year to discuss it in this way when we I think there should be more integration between the towns and the district in terms of long-range planning. Um, so I love your suggestion about kind of thinking about this in a working group, but I think there needs to be collaboration with the towns on this. >> I mean, >> I agree, but we've got to pass a budget. >> I agree. But no, I think if we can say we're doing future things like Amy said, >> I think we're going forward. I think we're saying I like what you said that can be part of our future planning. You know, >> I think it feels better to say this year, >> oh, we want to solve these problems. And it feels better to say, "Yes, we
135need to pass a budget. This is our solution. It's not ideal, but we need an override and we have X, Y, and Z looking forward so that hopefully this will not happen again or >> well and and I guess I just want to say and the towns know this too that a lot of time I mean even things like which is not part of this budget but it is going to be at town meeting like when we're talking about the high school roof >> that is future planning. Yes. >> And >> it costs a lot of money. Yep. >> And so those things are really hard. Like that is future planning. Making sure that we have a proper high school roof. >> And it costs a lot of money. We all experience this in our
136own personal lives. like some like >> I want to add to what you said Dana though about cuz we're only talking about the people that are like like you were saying Kristen there are people out there that would say oh yeah just cut a million just cut 3 million but what about the people that will look at the budget if we pass it and class sizes are reduced and there's 12 FTEEs that will vote against it for that and I really do think people would >> um so I'm kind of concerned that that if we cut too much that there will be that backlash. >> Um, and I know the emails that I have received personally have been, >> what are you doing cutting the budget this much? So, it's sort of it's interesting. It's
137just there's all sorts of perspective. >> And I also want to understand like how else how else are we getting feedback? We had a public hearing tonight. There was zero feedback. We've received two emails in the last two weeks. How else are So I like that's a question I have. So I wrote I wrote a letter. It will be in the paper edition tomorrow just sharing facts about what's happening. I don't know if that will help drum up and and expand some of our outreach, but how are we communicating this? How are we actually getting feedback from the community about what they want if we're offering these public hearings? Yes, 6:30 p.m. is kind of an awful time for folks. It's the middle of the dinner. I understand. But like how else can we get
138real feedback from the citizens >> a town meeting >> and understanding that a lot of people don't pay attention to and that's because they're very you know they're super busy or something >> but town meeting is too late because it's already a I totally get what you're saying and I wish I could >> know what everybody's thinking. Yes. And we all agree and absolutely send us emails. It's like absolutely fine. You don't have to come to be here physically. Okay. But we do need to talk about to give some guidance to Eric and Vinnie. Um I mean if people are willing I mean I I don't I don't know if what I said is specific enough but I feel like I gave some guidance and I heard some other people giving some guidance. I'd like
139to kind of hear what consensus wise like are we looking at one of these are people looking at one of these options are people looking to say no I want to go back to that the tenative budget that we already vote does people have like what do people think >> yeah so I mean I'll just jump in I don't really have anything additional to say I echo I echo Julia's sentiment >> which is that you're wanting to stick with the tenative budget that we already What do we do if it doesn't passes? If it doesn't pass, >> do you really think cutting $500,000 is going to make it pass? It's still going to be an over. >> I think if we cover cut $500,000, every single one of us can argue that we did absolutely
140100% everything we could. >> We didn't do everything we can. We could close, >> but I don't think we should. >> We didn't do everything we can. We could we could literally fire 100 people, you know? Like that's the thing is like how much are people asking us to do? And when you say we did everything we can, >> well, I was reading the comments on Megan's letter and people are already talking. >> Yeah. >> About voting against this budget. >> But that's not everybody. >> Well, that's the No, but it's the only feedback we're getting. >> True. I just I think >> So, for the record, I ag I agree also. I >> Well, those are no matter what, they'll vote no matter what. >> Yeah. The tenative budget that we've been talking about,
141I'm comfortable with. I don't like the idea of pulling out the items on the left out of the budget to Kristen's point because then we kind of remove that from our recurring budget. Um I feel like if everybody feels like the items on the right adding that to the tenative budget is helpful. I think those are maybe a signal that yes, we are doing more to reduce. But I do agree too that it's sort of a kicking the can down the road which at the beginning we decided we didn't want to do. Um so I guess I'm kind of in the same camp. I just want a budget that I can 100% fight for. That's what I want and message and feel confident about and really support. Um and I will stop talking now. So,
142>> and that this this I cannot I me personally I can't >> I want to get I felt like I just want to get clarity on what it like I felt like I got clear I'm are is one of these options the one that you're advocating for or is there something else that you're >> I don't like cutting 15 positions but I think if we don't next year we're going to have to make those cuts. I'd rather do it once and argue it with the town once than have to do it two years in a row. >> So you're because So you're saying that you um are you saying that that's what you want to do? That those that op not this slide, the other slide. >> Yep. >> But I will support what the
143committee decides. >> Yeah. No, I I think this is I mean this is really hard. I think it's really important. we we're not, you know, and and I guess like I'm saying I I really like I'm sort of like picking and choosing, but like I I'd like I think I'd like to take out I don't I shouldn't say I'd like to cuz I don't want to. I don't want to, but I I would be okay with taking out the the capital and really sort of seeing what that giving the people the choice to say, yes, we really want to put this money in or not. and it's not staff, >> but we're gonna have to put it back next year. >> So again, it's do we cut eight jobs now where we're cutting first and
144second year faculty that can then move to another school for next year and the year after and get some more seniority or do we tell them, well, we can pay you for just one more year. >> No, I I hear you. These are not easy choices. I don't think any I don't think anyone thinks, oh, yeah, this is my dream. This is I'm just I'm just sharing. That's where I'm coming down is that >> Well, I I somewhat agree that putting, >> you know, capital expenses in front of the voters directly will deliver important feedback about where they really are at mentally regarding the investment that they want to make in the school facilities. And I I think we have that with the roof vote, which has been a very long range project. There's MSBA
145matching funding for repairs, which was a topic of conversation last year during the school consolidation vote that the MSBA can help us with repairs and so on and so forth. So, I think I'm more in favor of leaving the only and I understand it's a debt exclusion and not a capital exclusion, but the only thing that feels like buildings and facilities as the roof. And then um Vinnie, do you mind going to the next slide with the um one-time expenses? I read this slide of like the left column and the right column as like the things on the left are put there because they could qualify as a capital exclusion, but they don't need to be. So, we could look at this slide and say, "Okay, this is roughly half million. We're going to pick
146and choose I'm just like picking a random number. $250,000 from this slide." and also reduce four more staff. And so do like a little bit of both so that we're keeping some of these things that we need that could become potentially like a tragedy if it's a safety issue or a huge administrative or interruption to learning if we don't have teacher laptops, we don't these other things. So pick and choose a little bit here and then reduce four more staff and you get to a half million in cuts. To >> to be clear, that's not what I was saying though. I know that. I'm >> pick I'm I could go with you. >> Pick and choose $250,000 and that's where I'm ending. I'm saying >> yeah, >> I could get on board with that. Pick
147and choose $250,000 from this slide >> and put it in the budget, you know. >> Well, but not all of it. In other words, right, >> put >> I could get on board with that, but I'm not but not also reducing the four more staff. I'm That's not what I'm saying. I'm not trying to get to that. >> Yeah. No, I know that. I'm just I'm saying that was just a suggestion that I was making as as to maybe then it's two votes. It's the budget and it's the roof and it's not the roof, the capital exclusion and the budget cuz I'm afraid all three won't make it. and that the capital exclusion and the roof will be confusing and one is outside the lemmy limit because it's a debt really clearly and I think
148people are a little more acclimated to that maybe if you're a regular town meeting attendee and I think the capital exclusion um I don't know that all those will pass in both towns so I think the budget and the and the debt exclusion for the roof are better and that some of this on this slide should be in the operating budget because we need these things every year. >> I the only thing and I'm sorry if you're not >> Oh, no. That's okay. That's I think >> what I find what I like about what you just said, what appeals to me is that like I'm I that would be something that we could talk about is like picking which taking some of these things out and putting some of them back in. The one thing
149I will say is I do not feel comfortable not having some option for the citizens to choose to have the security vestibles and the sprinkler repairs. >> Mhm. >> Either we put those back in the budget or we offer it as a capital exclusion. I I am not going to be the one that says, "Yeah, let's take out the security vestibles and the sprinkler repairs." >> I don't think any of us are safe. No, I don't either. I I'm not either. >> I'm just saying >> what if it gets voted down, can we not do we just do it next year or can we not do it at all voted down? >> If it gets voted down, we don't do it. But at least we did the but at least we would have voted it.
150The people would have said we don't want this. Like that's very different to me than me saying I don't want this. Mhm. Like >> I'm not willing to not give the people the option to have. Do you see what I'm saying? >> But I think what Kristen is saying makes I mean I guess maybe that's >> I don't know. Well >> I mean in other words, if you put both those things back in, then that's the answer. Those are the things that you're putting back in. >> Yeah. Like for example, and I'm not saying these are the three things, but if we did the security vestibles, the sprinkler repairs, and the teacher laptops, and I'm picking that cuz it's the top and it's the most expensive. That's an even $450,000 are just those three items.
151So, we could pick and choose some of them. the gym divider curtain. I know um I think Curtis presented on that previously about that is creating issues with things like that, but we've had a history of there being some private philanthropy to promote athletics in the community. Maybe some people would underwrite that in another way and not through the budget. >> So, but I just want to make sure I understand. You're saying basically what you're saying is start with the tenative budget that's there and then you're saying the reductions you you would make in your hypothetical would be the reductions you would make would be the gym divider and everything on the list on the right except for the say for example the teacher laptops. >> Is that what you're saying? >> Maybe you know.
152Yeah. Yeah. hypothetically or or pick the thing on pick the things on the right that I think we would need to hear from like Eric and Vinnie as to >> I mean >> if they had a recommendation as to what is most important to retain on that >> on the right I mean those are not they're you're getting down to numbers that aren't >> aren't big I mean that's the problem is like we're getting down to >> I mean if I mean somebody help me with the math so 168 if you put the two just I mean if you put the 168 and the 80 I mean you're going to end up >> 252 >> like two thank you like you're going to end up I I mean I think we're doing the sec if
153you're if you want this this slide to be 250,000 a quarter of a million you're doing the security vestibles vestibules I'm sorry I can't say that word and either the sprinklers or you know some of the technology or the sick day or the sick day buyback if that's more important or whatever. You know, I I would be interested in more information from Eric and Vinnie about the things in that right hand side box. I do also just want to say just to be clear that I I do think we have to try to get to close to a half million dollars. So, I do think we need to look unfortunately at a few more staff reductions because of the payroll savings, but also to Vinnie's point earlier that we will likely also realize some health
154insurance cost savings. And I hate to say that because I know that will have real impact on the people that are, you know, that will be part of that reduction in force. Um, but I think some of those numbers >> might be a we bit higher. students. >> Yeah, it impacts students in both sizes. That's my my challenge, >> right? It has impacts on students is >> so but what I hear you saying is sort of a pick and choose from the menu but look but look to get to close to that 1.5. And so that might look at you that might look like you take 250 from the capital and the onetime expenses and then you're looking at four staff reductions or something like that. >> Or maybe it's three staff reductions plus health
155insurance, >> right? >> Because I think and Vinnie, correct me if I'm wrong, but the health insurance possibilities are not reflected in that slide because positions have not been identified. So, we can't state with accuracy if there's benefit savings. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> I guess moneywise, I'm hearing a couple of people that are saying that they're looking to get as our let's just assume our starting point is the tenative budget. I hear a couple of people saying that we think that we need $500,000 reduced from that budget. I am saying that I'm looking at to reduce to reduce a smaller amount like I'm thinking more in the 200 to 250. Um and then I heard three people say no they don't want any more reductions. Is that reflect what people heard in the room?
156>> Yep. Agreed. Um, I will say I on what I said I I Kristen sort of helped me to think about it like yeah that might look more like a combination. There might be a limited fewer staff but some reduction more additional reduction. That is true. So thank you for kind of walking me through that. Like it could look like that. >> Yeah. Um, but I I hope that I mean I I know that isn't any kind of a consensus, but you heard some ranges of dollars that people are looking at. >> So, I would say I like I would support looking at it, but that doesn't mean I'm I'm going to support it, but like if if it's something that the committee needs to make a decision, um, I mean, I would support looking
157at it, but that's >> Do you >> I don't support doing it, but I would support like looking at it. Do you okay >> if that's going to help if that's going to help the committee come to a consensus or if it's going to help you make a more ed more better decision that you feel better about? >> I mean, you know, that's this is a challenging thing. We're giving trying to give guidance to Eddie and Eric and we're not unified, which is that's what happens when you get six people. >> I am unclear on the direction. >> Right. But >> Understood. You're unclear on the direction. Um, but I mean I I guess the question goes to me and to Jen and to Kristen like we're taking this stand that it needs to be
158reduced even though we aren't in agreement about how much it needs to be reduced or how >> at the same time I do keep coming back to I do not feel that the reduction that I advocating for will actually move the needle on the override. >> So, I'd be interested to hear whether you guys feel like that you're really at a point that will move the needle. >> I don't know. I really don't. I wish I could say it would. It's still a large percentage and I I'm not comfortable cutting it any further than this one and a half million. That's for darn straight. I agree with that. Beyond that is not really tenable. >> Okay. So given that we have given Vinnie very unclear information and Eric unclear information um the next when we
159meet when we get to February 12th we'll need to have a vote on a budget a single budget and I guess what does this committee need to see and in order right I mean to make that decision. What does this committee need to see? Well, I think it would be helpful to visualize we're kind of talking about two options, although the ingredients of the Dana Kristen Jen option are not agreed upon, but I feel like we're kind of talking about two different options. So, I wonder if just having those side by side could help the discussion. >> I don't even know that we're I mean, what are the two options? Cuz I think we're looking at at least three. >> Okay. So what do you see as the two options? >> Well, I see you
160talking about keeping the tenative budget that we have now, >> which is quite clear, >> which is very clear versus some combination of these two columns and maybe a couple more reductions in staff. But again, like I can't speak for you all. >> Do you mean for the final budget? Cuz we're going to be presented one budget. >> I know. >> No, I but Okay, but what I one budget but >> on the 12th we're presented one budget on the >> we have to vote on a budget. Yes. But I but what I and I don't want to put words in your mouth but I sounded to me like Jen is looking at not this one but the other one and saying that's what I want to see the not this one >> the staff.
161>> He wanted a combination >> the staff one. I would be happier with a combination of cuts from this this slide and the other side, but I do think we've got to cut a half a million. I think that number has >> Okay. Well, I'm glad I asked cuz that wasn't so I wasn't reflecting exactly what you were saying. >> No, I I think I agree with >> But you're not comfortable or you are comfortable pulling some of that out as a capital exclusion. >> Um, I was actually thinking the column on the right. I wouldn't do the column on the left. I think that's just disingenuous. I think we're not saving the towns any money. We're just shifting it into another barrel. >> Again, unless the citizens say no, >> right, >> then we
162are cuz we don't do it. >> Yep. And I think I'm saying something a little different of do a mixture of all of those one-time expenses, but not through a capital exclusion like through the budget because we just need that re we need those expenses to become part of the levy limit because they're >> you're saying just select from that page select the things that you think are important and put them in the budget and cut the rest. Yeah. >> So, like if that means that the gym divider doesn't make the cut, we don't ask for it separately. We just cut it, >> right? Cuz I I get a little nervous, I think, about some of the elementary expenses because I think it will beg the question for some, well, what are we doing with
163the elementary schools? If we're going to be consolidating them, are we spending all this money in a building we're not going to use in five or 10 years? And I think because we don't have a credible answer for that question, it's a difficult cell. But I also do think that, you know, to Jen's point, security and sprinklers are sort of big like safety issues. And so I think, you know, and and from what I recall about the presentation and the security vest vestibules, these are I I don't want to say like temporary measures, but if we were building a new school building or doing a big renovation, we would make something a little bit more robust. This is sort of an interim solution to the security question. >> Yeah. But I think we're many many
164years away from having those. And so um right I just I remember at a meeting where we had town citizens comment and several people very clearly said install plexiglass security vestibules tomorrow. Right. And so um I don't think we can keep kicking that can down the road and the sprinklers is something that needs to be adjusted and I don't think like so I hear you but um I respectfully disagree. Well, then Dana, where do we go from here? If three members, >> it's three versus people. >> Not really three versus three. I don't want to say three versus three, but three members feel >> budget needs to pass by a super majority. >> Yeah. So, I just don't know what advice or direction we give Vinnie because I know what I would say, but I
165>> I think we've all said what we want to say, >> but I don't know what we end up with then on the 12th. >> And sorry, newbie question. Yeah, on the 12th. Sorry, I think you said it. We So, the next time we come together in 3 weeks, we're not presented options this time. It's just one budget that we have to vote on. Correct. Mhm. >> That's typically what we have done. >> Well, >> I don't think we've ever been in this. >> No. >> I mean, can we decide if we do or do not want a capital exclusion as a tactic, regardless of what is in that capital exclusion? Can we decide >> we do or we don't want that? >> We can decide anything right now. We can talk about anything. I
166mean, we're not going to we're not voting on a budget, but we're providing and so >> but you're just trying to put a stake in the ground, >> right? To say, does that help? At least that's I feel like that could be one question we could answer for. >> In general, there's general consensus that we don't really want to do that as a capital exclusion. Does that seem >> accurate? I Yes, >> I would prefer not to do that. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I'm a big girl. I appreciate >> No, >> I appreciate the creative thinking though. Like I think that really it's a unique solution. I just I I don't know. I >> I mean I think we need to remember this for future years, maybe for like bigger things or other things, but
167maybe this is not the tactic for this, >> right? I think that that that it sounded to me like in general that was not something that the group wanted to do, though. It sounded like the group was appreciative of the creative thinking. Um yes. Um, >> so is that >> I I don't know. I mean, we've got three people that are saying they don't want >> any cuts from the >> tenative budget. Um, >> because we already did cut >> a million dollars. That's important to remember, >> right? >> This is not the pie in the sky budget that was presented. We have cut $1 million. >> But even the I mean, I've said it a hundred times. Even the budget that we the tenative budget has seven >> Yeah. I just want the narrative
168to be like it's the first budget that we saw >> staff and more students. Like this is not >> Yep. >> This is not I'm not >> Mhm. I know because I feel like the conversation last night went way too far without even showing >> the reductions that have been done. So we did. Yes. I think it's really important to recognize >> Okay. That was done. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Kristen, ask another question because I think that was helpful. Um, >> can we compromise on cutting a quarter of a million dollars? If we have some people that are at a half million and if half of us are at a half a million and half of us are at zero, 250 is halfway. >> To be fair, that's what I said. So, it's not
169really >> Okay, I'm going to I'm going to say no, but I'm only speaking for me. Yeah, I kind of agree with that because I feel like we're getting into a territory of like is this really going to make a difference as far as passing the budget? I think it might make a difference with our peers on >> the select boards and the fincoms >> that they feel I heard from Winnham last night talking about the further reductions that they're going to be making in their town budget to get and They had I mean obviously I'm not privy to their all of their discussions. I haven't watched all of their meetings and but they sort of described what we're just doing here talking about that they were at a particular level to get to to
170get to a no override there. It's at this level. They've said this level is a nogo. It's too much. And yet they're working to come down to get closer. >> Yeah. And I guess that's I'm not I'm just >> fair, but I guess and and I don't mean to be I'm being a bit I don't know obtuse here, but I mean it does feel like we're further along than they are and we've already made we've already gone through that initial round of cuts that they are embarking on now. And so that's why I'm struggling so much with doing a second round when they're still at the first round. Yeah, I I just it was really more of a like talking about moving the needle and what people think. I do think I I don't know
171what the general public >> may or may not think or hear from this conversation, but I do think that our the people that were at the quintuple board who are struggling with very similar kinds of conversations. I think it could make a difference that they see >> that that these are not things that we want to do and we're maybe doing some of them anyway. >> That could be powerful >> because we do need to come to consensus. So I Yeah. Now I don't know. I mean, I'm also thinking, well, I think there were two things that were encouraging about last night because a lot of it was not very encouraging, but I think there were two things that were. One for me is that not one single person said that the school district was
172not like delivering on its mission. Nobody was like, "You're not doing a good job. The quality education is bad." I mean, to the contrary, right? Things enrollment's going up, test scores are going up. We have a a principal being recognized at the state house. I mean, nobody was saying that we were falling down on our mission to educate all children, which I think was a win. It was in a way I w it was very overly focused on numbers, I thought, which I understand that's primarily the driver of that of that gathering, but um but nobody said that. I also thought it was very encouraging that there was a lot of energy surrounding shared messaging to the community as to why the budgets are the way that they are this year and that they are
173going to trigger an override. And I think in terms of telling that story, I think there need to be a number of simple messages together of benefit CS have gone up. We do everything we can to negotiate them and keep them down, but they've gone up. Trash has gone up. State aid has been flat for years and years and years, which is shifting more burden onto the towns. We're in an inflationary period. Inflation is higher than Proposition 2 and a half. So, you're either looking at a drastic change in the landscape of your community or a drastic change in services like you're not going to have a prek through 12 program. you're not going to have trash pickup anymore. You're going to have to cut something that feels very essential or you're going to have
174an override. >> Mhm. >> And I feel like that was very encouraging to talk to hear that collaborative approach to wanting there to be one message coming from all five boards. >> I think the way to get in my opinion, I thought that was well said. In my opinion, the way to help us to come to that unified message is to show good faith. I'm not saying that people aren't working in good faith, but to show a cut, >> a reduction here. >> I agree. So that they that and I think it's I actually think it's good to have it be like this where we're fighting about it. Like I think that that I think that's what has to happen is that and I I I mean I'm not just saying it. I mean I
175guess I am because that's where I've kind of come down is that I think it's in the middle. I don't and I I think it's I I think it's in the middle of these two things. I I think it needs to and maybe it maybe maybe it needs to have a staff member or like maybe it needs to be a combination, but I think it this is this the $500,000 reduction to me is too much. It impacts too much about student learning and I think our towns, the whole community together is really struggling with all the budgets and I think we have to reduce ours by some. >> I mean, so in in the interest of coming to a consensus >> Yeah. And again, we we're not required to. It's just that it's going to
176put Vinnie and Eric in a very difficult state about >> I'm open-minded. >> Yeah. And I think it just it Right. So it just feels like it our next meeting and our final vote will be better served if we are if we can leave Yeah. >> and end this meeting tonight with some sort of consensus. So what if it is what if we agree to around 200 250,000 which is >> additional reductions. >> Correct. And so then what if I would be comfortable with the a blend? So the table on the bottom right which is delaying delaying these technology up updates which it's challenging. I know it happens in my corporate life all the time. I'm still on like a six-year-old laptop, right? But it happens when we have to do cost cutting measures. My
177iPhone for work is going to die anyway. And perhaps then it's one one additional like whatever else is going to get us there of roughly the 60k. You know, I leave it up to you Vinnie and Eric to get us there, but what if that's the direction we go as a consensus measure? you're saying um yeah I I mean I think in general I mean that's well basically you just outlined what I said so of course I agree but but I think the specifics are important about what where your red lines are which things you're not comfortable with what do other people think about that >> I think with a good con uh consensus really no side is going to be 100% happy. >> Shared dissatisfaction. >> Shared dissatisfa. >> Um, in Megan, in your
178what you just outlined sounded like you were saying that some of those some of those items are on your list of potential cuts and some of them are not. Is that accurate? >> I mean, like I could just to get to a number, right? the full and sorry I'm looking at it on my screen. I'm looking exactly what you're looking at. So the the table on the bottom right the one-time reductions that would return all of that that gets us to 184,000 >> then perhaps >> plus some potential stuff. >> One more person with that bottom right corner is 244,000 >> and and there might be permutations of that. It might be that you like for example I might say let's just let's cut the gym divider >> and put that to something that's over
179here on the right >> some technology or something like >> right there's there's like in other words I I'm I've said to me those two safety issues >> are are not they need I think they need to be presented in some ways to the voters. So, I'm if we're not doing the capital exclusion, they need to be in the budget for me. Um, but I'm just trying to encapsulate what you said like that there's there's a mixture in there that you might be open to which things and which staff I mean which how many? >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> To get to 200 or 250. >> And I mean, and I think that some of the things on the right are like operational in nature. Mhm. >> And so I am comfortable with getting a
180recommendation from Eric and Vinnie unless you really don't want to do that and you want us to do it. But I but I'd be interested to know I would if there's something there that because you're closer to the dayto-day that you believe is more important to keep than certain other things. >> The more important thing is that if somebody here has one of those items that is a deal breaker for them, >> they need to share that with Eric and Vinnie. >> Yep. because that's going to be important. Like, >> yeah, >> in other words, if if >> email migration is your red line and you're not, then you know, um, >> can we all agree that the vestibules and the sprinklers can't be cut? >> Agree. >> Yeah, definitely. >> Yeah. >> Again, I
181would have been willing to put it out to the people, but I've moved on because the rest of the committee was not in support of that. I just think having six. >> No, I I here none of these are good options. >> There's no good options here. >> Um, >> and we can't this I think this is not a smart question, but we can't roll the vestibules and the sprinkler repairs into the deck exclusion for the roof because it's separate. It's like a different thing, right? >> Yeah. The MSBA wouldn't allow it. >> Right. Right. Right. Okay. I knew there was some reason. I just couldn't think of it. Yeah. Um, so I'm hearing >> that sounds like agreement. >> Are we getting What are you >> I would call it consensus. Yeah. Not a
182You mean Yeah. >> I mean I I want to hear from both we kind of like I don't know what you're what are you thinking? >> I'm sort of still of the mind that I don't think >> it's making it's going to change minds and hearts. So, in the context of this conversation, I'm I mean, it sounds like that might bring us to consensus, so I'm willing to talk about it. I'm willing to support it. Um, it >> this is so hard. >> It's very hard. >> Um, I guess well this isn't helpful to mention but I know what you're saying about letting people decide about the security items. I feel like we shouldn't give the option for security items. Like those things feel really important. >> Um >> that wasn't helpful. Sorry. >> But
183I mean it's a valid comment. I mean, >> yeah, safety and security should be I feel like foundational baseline. >> I agree. I agree with Dana saying like >> put your money where your mouth is really basically like if you if you want to support this, >> then vote for it. I I don't agree putting it separately, but I I do think that it should be >> front and center when we're like presenting this budget. You know, like safety, security, maintenance updates, like all of this is really important. We're responding to community comments, what you told us. Um um yeah, I think it's a non-negotiable, but I I'm intrigued by what would happen if it was on the ballot. Who knows? >> I think if we didn't have the roof, I would be in favor
184of having I think it's because it brings it to six votes where I feel like it's too much jeopardy. >> I don't feel like we need to reitigate it. I'm just saying like um >> security implications aside, >> if we don't update sprinklers, do we have like insurance implications? Like what are the implications of not doing that project other than security >> safety? >> Uh we will probably fail our inspection. >> Yeah. So like you know Yeah. >> It's more than it's bad. >> Yeah. So, yeah. Right. I mean, I guess like I don't want to, but it I'm looking at Kristen and Jen because it like it feels like what the group is saying is that those two items are not something that the group is comfortable reducing. >> Yeah. >> No, that's go
185back in the budget. >> They should go back in the budget. So, and I'm hearing some consensus that what we want Huh. >> Check. Very nice. >> And what we want is or what I'm hearing is some I guess want is too strong a word. What we would like to entertain is some combination that I'm hearing that and everyone say this is not what you're saying that an additional eight FTE reduction is too much. People don't want that. And people are willing to take some of those items from the bottom and remove them from the budget and balance that with potentially a smaller amount of additional staff reduction to get to about a $200 or $250 $250,000 additional reduction from our tenative budget. Yeah, >> that one looks ill. >> I think you're I think
186you do. >> I feel ill. Yeah, it doesn't feel >> Vinnie. Does that feel like you have any more guidance than you did >> earlier? Uh, I'm going to say no. So, it's clear on what I'm supposed to do. >> So, you still don't feel clear? >> I do not feel clear. >> Okay. Can you ask a question? >> So, is it everything on the right bottom right? No, >> I think it has to be if you're >> leaving us to Could be everything. >> Well, can we get rid of the gym divider? >> I mean, that only saves a little bit on the bottom right, but I guess I'd rather >> I think that's the left. I'm saying everything here, >> right? No, no, no. I'm saying but if you if you >> we
187put the gym divider >> you put the gym if you got rid of the if you xed the gym divider out of the budget >> and you're saying well we're getting rid of everything on the right but we could add one of them back in because we xed out the gym divider right >> I think the the sprinklers >> you're going to go up and get staff I understand you still need more >> right then you're going to go up and get staff so if we get we're looking at whatever it is 184 >> well potentially not if it's 184 plus the 45 for the gym divider. That gets us >> to 229. >> 229. That's That's close, right? That's close. >> Yeah, that might be it. >> Who wants to sponsor Curtis here? Why
188don't we ask him what the implications are of >> putting off a gym divider? >> I've been biting my tongue over there. So, um No, >> you have. So the gym divider the problem what what what has occurred is we've had a safety failure of one of the two curtains that go up and down. So currently one is locked out. It is stuck in the or we manually kept it in the up position and it is safety strapped to the ceiling. So the implication of that is we're not allowed to divide the we cannot divide the gym into thirds right now. We can divide it you know we have a one small third and then two/3s. So um gym classes are impacted. We have been working around that. uh impact. So any youth leagues that
189are looking to use like a three court setup, you know, you have balls going in between games, but other than that, that that's the issue. The safety cables that were used to lift and raise and lower the curtain have actually started to cut into the actual frame of the curtain, which is why it was locked out. >> Thank you. Okay. And >> thank you. Yep. >> Thank you. Yeah, that's helpful. And every single item on here is awful. Like >> it's needed. >> Every one of these things is needed. >> So I really appreciate Curtis coming up because it does feel like oh we're just cutting that out and like but honestly we're also talking about oh we'll maybe we'll cut two more staff or two. These are all awful and >> well here's another
190question and I don't know the answer that I know we were given the presentation on the security vest bills. >> Mhm. >> Is there a way to bring that number down so we could have some security the sprinkler repairs and the gym curtain? >> What do you mean bring the number down? I don't know like take a second look at like the plan for one of the building. I don't know. I I don't have enough specifics and I don't mean to suggest that only two buildings should be made more secure and one should not. I'm just trying to understand is there any possibility? Are there any possibilities there for savings? I guess >> well and and also sorry and I don't mean to but but if I recall the security vestibial number does not even
191include >> the middle school. Correct. >> Does >> it does include $30,000 for a study >> just for a study but not actual not an actual correct. >> So if you were going to reduce something that's safety in that in that bucket that security vests bucket it it's the middle school study. Don't do the study. >> Okay. >> but then you're but we'll eventually have to do it at some point. >> You I would not >> Yeah, I get it. I think it was pretty clear during the process, the building process. Been clear since I've been here. We need to secure our buildings. >> There's no doubt about it. I would drop 10 other things before >> I would loosen up any security features. We don't have enough as it is and we need to
192continue to to try and build into that. >> So, thank you. >> So, if we are zeroing in on the bottom right there, which we all understand is like one time stuff that's costsaving measure that doesn't save us forever. It's that's 184,000 if we're trying to get I mean is then is it two additional staff members one additional trying to get to I guess. >> Yeah. If you're trying to get to 244 you take everything on the right plus one that would be that would be 244,146 I think just calculated. Yeah. >> Or do we just go with the 229? Yeah. Or just move the curtain over. >> Mhm. >> You're looking at >> upper 220s. >> I guess I sort of feel like I my understanding of the curtain before was not really that
193it was a I was not quite clear on why you had really put it in this group because I didn't see it as a safety issue and now I do. >> Uh and it was at the capital level. >> Right. If we do decide to remove the curtain, >> right, it's the right >> it would be something that we would probably bring to you later this year if there is residual funds left over in 26 to try to do it this year, but I just can't promise anything >> which would be yes, that would be >> or or what if >> the case for the technology too, but I >> we don't know that until later in the year. I I >> Go ahead. >> Well, what if we set aside 50% of the cost
194of the curtain in this budget because that brings us to about 250,000. So, if we put and I know this is like hair splitting and I hate doing this and I feel like when people used to do this to me when I was running a nonprofit, I would slowly go insane. So, I'm really sorry to suggest this, but like if we set aside half the cost of the curtain. >> Why though? >> Because then we're we're cuz we have the we are looking to cut a half a million quarter of a million dollars, right? So, another way of saying that is we want to spend a quarter of a million dollars on this slide. So, we can buy security vestibules, sprinkler repairs, and 50% of a gym divider. And then potentially if there's health insurance
195benefit savings from the staff projections, can we apply some of that to the balance of the gym curtain and then we get all the capital items that are on the wish list and maybe there's health insurance savings that could also be applied to a technology expense. >> Um, yes, but at this point you're only back to your seven. At that point I probably wouldn't have >> you don't have any savings. Okay. I >> I'm just hoping like I guess >> this is also up in the air. You heard Hamilton say yesterday they have they're quoted a 19% health insurance increase, >> right? >> We don't have 19 in our budget. If that happens to us, we're having a total different conversation 3 months from now. So, I just >> it's too much risk on the
196health insurance side. If we're only going with the seven, I'd just leave it where it is. >> Okay. >> Sense. >> All right. I so I feel like we're really close, but I can see that Vinnie doesn't feel like we're really close to giving. So >> I guess if I would summarize, it's the 184 and the curtain dividers. Is that >> that you're cutting that? We're cutting. >> Yes. We're at our tenative budget right now. >> And from there, we're taking 184 and the curtain dividers. >> And then I heard you say that like The curtain divider would be at the top of the list if there happens to be a >> Yeah. >> something left at the end of this year. Yep. >> Same with the technology. >> And the technology, >> but the
197curtain before the technology >> and to be clear, the curtain is a major inconvenience as far as class goes and games and things like that. >> Danger. >> But is it dangerous at right now? Like is it in danger of >> n >> knowing? >> No. So like >> strapped to the ceiling, >> right? Okay. >> So that's how I'm kind of measuring out the things on that side. >> The curtain axe basically has a classroom wall in the gym >> when they have three classes and the middle school group and two or three high school classes. That's how they're dividing them up. Right now it's just wide open spaces. >> It's fun. And I think you you can't you can't look at it from the perspective of what's what's available once we do our
198end of the year start to say okay will $45,000 be available >> probably probably yeah I I would say it's probably >> say that >> I'm just saying like we >> who knows what could happen you don't you don't know but it's it's a risk you take but I think you're probably better off going in that direction >> like a onetime cost thing. >> Yeah. And meanwhile, we we continue to look for ways to repair it or get it repaired or >> get it replaced. Actually, it has to be replaced. >> Yeah. Yeah. And Right. Okay. >> Okay. >> We've been here forever. Um >> Yeah. I I mean >> that's 229,000, >> right? So Vinnie is talk Vinnie is saying that he's hearing us say that we want to reduce this 229 >> 229
199401 >> 229,000 by taking the stuff on the right hand side the bottom right off and the gym is that and that's what we want to see. >> Mhm. >> Is there anything else people want to see? >> No. Okay. >> Thank you. Thanks, Vinnie. >> Thank you. This is not fun at all. >> No. No. >> Um, >> it's what Eric and I have been wrestling with for the past month. So, >> thank you for that. Thank you for that work. And I I think it was very thank you to Capital Finance for asking for something really creative and for you guys for doing the work. I find that. >> So can I just ask one question in terms of February? >> Oh my gosh. Sure. >> Do you want kind of a fullblown
200presentation or it's just, you know, I remove these numbers. This is a final number. Here's the vote. Or do you want me to go through? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean obviously we want the we're going to want as an exhibit the >> of course the all the exhibits. Yes. You make the best budgets with every detail in them. >> All the exhibits would be there but in terms of like the summary presentation it's really just going to be >> Mhm. >> kind of the motion. >> Yeah. And then I mean and then I mean I think that's probably fine. And this group I mean anyone can ask as many questions as they want. So if we want to go through the whole thing with somebody wants to see every line we can. >> Okay. Yep.
201>> Appreciate you guys walking through that. It >> was relaxing. >> You Vinnie, >> thank you. >> Um, okay. We already did committee reports. >> It's to you. No, >> we did. Uh, it's to me I have nothing to say. >> I'm sorry. >> I've been in meetings for 6 hours meeting since 3:30 this afternoon. I have I'm tired of listening to myself talk. Um, no. Does anyone have any questions for me? The the biggest thing on the chair report would have been to share with you the information about the lawyer and I did that. >> Yep. >> earlier. >> So, um, I have anything. >> Just a reminder, we've got the next community meeting next Thursday. >> Thursday night >> at the library. >> It's going to be at the high school library. >>
202High school library, >> which if it were summer, we would be able to air condition soon. It's winter, so >> Yep. We have more reminders going out tomorrow in the weekly. Hopefully, we'll get a crowd just as big, if not bigger, than the previous one. That'll be exciting. >> Mhm. >> Good stuff coming out of those meetings. Some really good information. Um Yeah. Um uh topics for future meetings. Uh, do we need to do a first pass of that policy we're reviewing >> on Monday? >> Yeah. Yeah, we'll just automatically add it once you Yeah. Once you vote it, >> that's the first. Okay. >> Yep. >> For sure. >> Uh, anything else? >> Budget. >> Let's talk about the budget. We haven't talked about that recently. Before we get too deep into the next
203set of negotiations, do we want to have an executive session as a group and like say this is >> Okay, >> this is our red line. >> Yep, that's a good idea. >> Okay. >> Um, thank you for that. So, we can do that. Give a negotiations update. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, that's helpful. Um, >> nothing else. >> Anything else? And actually, when when you see that on there, Julia, if you could maybe figure out so what because we want to bring all of our >> um >> Okay. >> So, yeah, and I'm happy to discuss with you if that if that's helpful. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um, yeah, that would be good. I think the the piece to remember as we're talking about topics for future meetings, there going to be a lot coming
204at you in the next couple of meetings over and above the budget because we have um we have to vote a number of motions. Um we have the warrant articles and those motions being approved right now by our attorneys. So, a lot of that stuff will come through here because we only have the the next meeting and maybe the last meeting in February because the the towns are closing out. Actually, when's closing out the last week in February from what I learned? >> So, we need to get that information to to the towns so that they have it available for the the warrant on time. And I think I think March 2nd was the deadline for Hamilton. So within that week window, we need to have a lot of things done and approved, votes and
205motions here to go forward. So there'll be a lot coming at you. >> Okay, great. >> Something to look forward to. >> Something look forward to. All right. No, that's good. All right. Anybody have anything else? >> I move to adjourn at 9:25 p.m. >> Second by Amy Goober. Um all those in favor and we are journed at 9:25.