School Committee Quintuple Boards Meeting 1.21.26

001Um, welcome. Um, so I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee on Wednesday, January 21st at 6:35 p.m. >> This is a Quintuple board meeting. Um, and we'll go around so everyone can call their boards to order. Um, Wenom We'll call to order the Wenham Finance and Advisory Committee here at 6:30. Thank you. >> Uh, good evening. Calling to order the Wenham Select Board. Present this evening are Ben and Gary Cheeseman, Dear Parati, and Peter Clay. >> Right. Uh, Hamilton. >> Uh, we do not have a quorum tonight, but Tom and Bill Olsson are here to represent the select board. Okay. >> And does not >> Okay. Um Chris, do you want to grab one of those mics just so that >> we got plenty of mics on

002our >> We got a lot of mics. >> Great. Thank you. >> Um All right. And you guys are not expecting people this. >> That's correct. We are >> waiting. Correct. >> Okay. >> We're full house tonight. >> Yep. These things happen. Um okay. Um so our agenda is pretty straightforward. We're looking to have um some a presentation from all three um entities regarding budget highlights and then have a um discussion on those proposed budgets. Um we have on the agenda we have Wenham first. If everyone's good with that, we'll start with Wo. >> Yeah. Vinnie's presentation. >> Okay. >> Vinnie switching your slides. >> What's that? Vinnie's gonna be switching your slides. >> Okay. >> You want to start? You want jump right in? >> What's >> I think we're just going to do

003you want to do >> Yeah. >> No, it's fine. We'll do it from here. >> Okay. >> Uh you can >> I'll stay here because I can't switch from up to >> All right. You can just go to You can go to the next one. Thanks, Ben. And so that slide that nobody can read up there um is just the second page of your PDF in your hand. Um we didn't do anything too elaborate for this meeting. Uh in the prior quintuple we um went through some of our challenges and and things for FY27. Uh I think we're all kind of on the same page with those. Uh we have similar challenges this year in terms of healthcare uh employee benefits uh contractual obligations and things like that. Uh but what this what this um

004page lays out on the uh left hand side, we tried to give folks a picture of what what our additional revenue is uh for FY27. And so you can see we're picking up about 500,000 of of Proposition 2 and a half growth, another 150,000 of uh new property growth um for FY27 as an estimate. Uh and then our local receipts uh we're assuming are up about 234,000 235,000. So what you can see there is we have about $925,000 of additional revenue for FY27. Uh and on the second part of the the slide here on the right hand side is just a quick mockup of our tax rate recap which shows you uh you know the townside budget uh which is going up about 752,000 uh or 6.32% uh and then below there we're uh showing

005you the Hamilton Regional School District both operation in debt uh for FY27 uh which is up uh about 9.18% or uh just over 1.2 million for the year. Uh and Essex Tech, which is really more of just a guess. Uh assuming that we have the same number of students and looking at last year's uh sort of operating growth at about 4.32%, we think that's, you know, a nominal increase of about $15,000 there. Uh meaning that education is going up just over 1.2 million uh in total. Um then the town also has a couple of different charges. um you know the state uh assessments and offsets uh charges for the MBTA and things like that uh about 183,000 and then every year we set aside $200,000 uh for a uh assessor's overlay. Uh so all that

006being said, we're looking at needing to raise an extra 27.9 million uh in taxes this year, which is just under a $2 million increase or 7.67%. 67%. Uh then we start there looking at our our revenue streams, our state aid and our local receipts uh which are you know roughly about four 3.8 million 3.9 million and reduces the amount we need to re uh raise through taxation uh to just under 24 million uh 23,983. Uh as you can see uh down to the second to last line there, we can raise our levy limit including debt exclusions is just under 23.2 million. So we are about $825,000 over the levy limit right now uh for both town and and um school uh operations and debt for FY27. Uh and just as a way to back into

007that number, uh we've highlighted a couple of things. our net amount of taxation has gone up 1.75 million from FY26 to FY27. And so if we look on the left on the left side again, we reduce that increase by 925. And essentially that leaves us the number at the bottom there, $825,000 over the levy limit. Uh and so that's where we stand right now. Uh we have some plans to reduce things on the town side. Um, and this does include uh the the school budget for Hamilton Wenham uh up to date as we know it. So, the original $235,000 reduction uh and also the $91,000 reduction, the second uh reduction that was made. Uh Vinnie, if you want to flip to the next next slide. And this slide was just showing you sort of our

008approach to um how how we're allocating this this override amount of 820 24,000 825,000 and and our approach was just looking at uh and I should say first that when you when you talk about the levy limit there's two parts right so there's the operating levy limit each year uh that gets calculated and that's that Prop 2 and a half number the new growth number but then in in all towns in Winnham uh probably more so than Hamilton, you also have exempt debt. And so for Winnham, all of the school debt is exempt. And so for the calculations you see on this page, we've removed exempt debt from from the calculation because it's sort of irrelevant. The the the debt has been approved in the town. Uh and you know, if it goes up, it's

009a pre-approved uh levy limit exclusion. So really all we're focused on is the actual operating override. And so what we did here is really sort of a you know we we did sort of a goal seek and excel and we said you know how much could each of the budgets go up the town budget and then the Hamilton wenham non-debt budget how much could those go up uh from the prior fiscal year to get us to you know no override a zero over under the the levy limit and our calculations came up with each each of us could go up 4.56% for FY27 Um, now we are at 6.55. The school is at, you know, roughly at 9.25. So, we obviously both have some a ways to go. Um, on the right side, you'll see

010there that we, you know, the town needs to come up with about $232,000. Uh, and then the school would be about 592. Those add up to your $824,000 target. Um, you know, at this point, I don't know, even on the town side, uh, that we would get down to down to the 232 and cuts that we would need to to hit that target. Um, and I, you know, I I don't imagine, uh, that it would be easy for the school uh, to reduce the wenom assessment by $592,000 because I'm assuming that would be roughly a $1.5 million of extra cuts at the district level. Um, I will say that the town, you know, we've discussed some plans uh to reduce things on the town side that would probably reduce our $232,000 overage to about $112,000.

011Uh, so roughly $120,000 reduction. Um, but getting from that point, you know, down to zero on our side would would be challenging and that and that's a challenge for the the finance committee over the, you know, the ne next few weeks. Um, so that's a high level look at at Wenom. I mean, I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, but uh I I think you know most people kind of understand where we're at at this point and uh lots of work to do. >> Thank you. Um people have questions. >> Oh, Vinnie, >> if you guys were going to try to get rid of the 232, do you know about when you would have that? I mean, >> um, I mean, honestly, Finn, I I mean, probably not more than, you know, two or three

012weeks, I would think. I mean, we have to sort of, you know, get to the point where we're starting to put together a budget booklet and and writing up fing reports and things. So, I think it would be over the next two or three finance committee meetings that we would, you know, close that gap if we can. And I guess what I heard you say is that and I know this it's this is a very difficult conversation because I know you haven't made a lot of decisions yet and I I we're in the same situation and I want but what I heard you saying is that reducing that in total seems unlikely. >> Yeah. Um and so it seems likely given that that there would be some form of override required to get the services

013that the town's benum needs. >> Right. Yeah. I mean we were we're certainly we've targeted um some services have been discussed in public meetings. So, it's not a secret, but it would be public service uh excuse me, public safety related reductions. And um that gets us down to roughly the 122 plus a 1% townwide expense reduction. So, taking all departments expense lines and reducing them by 1%. And also, um the elimination of Pleasant Pond uh gatekeepers. It's a staffing that we staff two gatekeepers down there for 7 days a week over the summer to help with the parking and crowds. >> Uh so that's kind of earmarked as >> Pleasant Pond is out already. >> Yeah. So those that's out in the 272. >> Yeah. And it 250 232. So those that's the only real

014copy so far is >> All right. So that's okay. So that's out. So that's already out. So the the other things minus that that I said will get us down to the 120. The other things we've discussed are currently looking at are changing our funding methods from in a reoccurring operating budget to uh one-time expenditures which you know is not you know f maybe not a best financial practice but it is discussions we've had that would remove it from the operating budget but neither the fin or select board have weighed in one way or the other on that. So, can you tell me I know that you haven't decided, but that's like using free cash. Is that for a onetime expense? Is that what you're talking about? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. The biggest

015reduction that we have proposed uh in the in the $120,000 reduction I had mentioned was uh one was sort of a 1% across the board reduction to all town expenditures, not wages, just expenditures. and the other was using approximately $85,000 of stabilization money to offset the large increase in uh trash collection uh this year. Um the other thing I think Steve was talking about is, you know, we make an annual contribution to OPED uh which is going to be $120,000 uh this year. We could look at potentially using free cash uh to to make that uh contribution this year rather than raising it from taxation. that would put us right at the levy limit uh but sets the the bad precedent of using one-time money for recurring expenses as you know well from the END

016discussion. Um so you know we'll we'll have to evaluate that as as we go. >> So I just I want to point out that uh all the efforts that we've been talking about here are all going to be possibly addressing that $232,000. Right? So, it does not address that 592 number, right? And we have not come up with plans to somehow come up with another $600,000 of one-time funds out of stabilization or anything else to do that, right? So, um, what that suggests to me that, you know, uh, given as you said, it's unlikely that we're going to see a million half dollar reduction in the the school budget that, um, you know, one was I'm expecting that we're going to be going into, uh, an override situation at the at the school board. And

017the question is whether or not it, you know, we can pull levers to bring it down to the 592 as opposed to, um, you know, have some of the town uh, you know, add to it. Other people have questions. Thank you. These are I mean, thank you for that and thank you for your work. These are hard. It's all hard. Um, anybody else have questions for Wenom? Okay. Hamilton. >> Good evening. Thank you everybody. Vinnie, I have more slides, but I'm not going to go over all of them. We'll probably page through a couple of them. There's a couple that I want to hit as high points. Wait till Jimmy gets us up. >> Is he there? >> He's hiding. >> There he is. He's back there. I did not have line of sight there

018on that. All right. Thanks, Vinnie. Um, so this is a bit of a stripped down version of what I presented to the FINCOM and the select board last night um at our annual budget presentation meeting. Um, real quickly just to go over remind folks budget conditions. Um, Hamilton, we start with the budget with budget goals and objectives. Um, the intent is to absorb town anticipated budget drivers. This year, health insurance and trash, for instance, are large uh drivers of our budget. Uh, we do our best effort to avoid a proposition 2 and a half override. Um, select board did direct us to make some targeted operational changes to improve efficiency, stability, and as always, we follow our financial policies for free cash, general stabilization, capital stabilization, etc. Next uh slide. Um some of the things

019that we've done this year to try to help us um get back on track. We uh the select board voted to regionalize emergency operations and we're moving all of that to the regional 911. Uh we're recognizing or we're anticipating a potential savings of up to $350,000 in the town budget this year for that. Um there are some continuing expenses that will continue for a year or two um while we make that transition. So, we can't realize the entire savings from the loss of that department, but um we we're holding 350 in the budget. Uh we got some potential special revenue from Gordon Conwell. These would be onetime revenues uh of $400,000 once the sale of the apartments is completed, and that would go into our free cash or to a special revenue account to be

020determined later, but that would be for onetime expenses. But the sale of the apartments uh brings to light the possibility to raise $350,000 a year in new tax revenue. It actually could be more than that once we know what the sale of the prices uh sale uh closes at and um we we finish the assessment. Um but we're we're holding 350 in this first year budget. We also don't know exactly when the um the sale will finalize and close and so we can't start charging taxes until they own it. So um and then we uh made a a targeted uh reduction in the fireside. Uh many people know that our longtime fire chief Ray Brunette is retiring later this year. the deputy chief that we created a couple years ago will u step up into

021that role and we won't replace the deputy chief. So we're recognizing a $72,000 savings in that side. We're reducing essentially the uh fire side by one one body. Um our foreseeable increases that we're trying to account for within uh our budget here this year are some u employee increases and step adjustments mostly related to some of the targeted um improvements and efficiencies that the select board asked us to undertake. Uh bigger hit for us are the health insurance increase of $288,000 and increase in our collection hauling and disposal of trash at $259,000. um slightly smaller increases in the regional retirement and utilities. Some of the proposed uh improvements that we referenced earlier um because of the loss of our police reserves program, we have u we're in danger of having unfilled shifts. So, we're we're

022trying to hire a full-time police officer to cover the loss of three part-time um reserve officers. Um we're trying to increase some hours for our CO assistant COA director so we can have more resources for our seniors. It's a well-used center and uh >> I'm I'm I just Can you say that again? I just couldn't hear you. >> We're trying to increase hours for our assistant COA director right now. Um right now that's a part-time position. Uh it's only an increase of about >> council on aging. Council on um it's it's only five hours a week. Um but it's you know we think it'll bear a lot of fruit for providing services to the seniors. Um, we've been asked to look into the possibility of adding a a part-time communications and engagement services person. And

023um, and as part of the transition away from 911, we are looking at adding at least one and potentially one and a half um, people to man the desk in the old dispatch center because a lot of folks still during business hours kind of come to the public safety building looking for help. So um, those are those are increased costs in the budget this year. Um, real real quick highlight. Nope. back to revenue. Um, yeah, real quick, I'm just going to hit the highlights here. Um, we're anticipating projecting 43,943,131 in uh, revenue for the town of Hamilton in uh, FY27. That's only a total increase of 2.39%. Uh, over last year. Um, on the expenditure side, you can skip that, Vinnie. On the expenditure side, um, with all of the requests in, including what's currently

024been presented to us as the, uh, Hamilton Regional School District's assessment, uh, we're looking at 45,695,163 in, um, increases and, and, uh, that's total for operating and capital. So, let me go back. It's 44,829,000 for uh, just operating expenditures, which is an increase of $2.67 67 million um over the current year. Um this next uh skip the Yeah, there we go. Um so this year when we we sat down to try to figure out how to we knew this was going to be a difficult budget year and we know we have to have lots of difficult decisions. We needed to figure out what we thought was, you know, consistent with historical spend uh in the education side for the town of Hamilton and uh what would be, you know, legitimately, you know, a fair way

025to look at it. And what we decided to do was look at the the last several years. This only shows the last three years, but I I'm very confident that if we looked back over the entire seven years I've been here, this is fairly representative. You can see that um over the last several years roughly the average revenue spend for education equals about 60% just under uh 58 almost 59% for the Hamilton Regional School District and just under 1% for the uh Essex Northshore Agriculture and Technical School. So we didn't want to do anything that would get us to a point where we're under that goal. Um next slide, Vinnie. Oh, actually actually go back to that that slide real quick. The other thing I'd like to show is that, you know, uh even though

026the average has been to give the town of Hamilton around 40.25%. Um we did go under that last year. Um of the revenue that we took in last year, the town of Hamilton only spent 39%. That was because we did some things similar to what Wam discussed earlier. We used some onetime revenues to offset some uh recurring expenses. um not in actually deliver delivery of services but in the area of um our payment to the uh Essex Retirement Board and our unfunded liability to pensions. Um that is allowed under law but it's not good budgeting principles and we've never really done it before uh at least in my time here and um it's not sustainable. Uh it's not something that we would look to do. We've seen a decrease in our free cash this year

027because of that. Um and that just continues to have an a compounding impact going forward. Um sorry Vinnie, next slide now. So by trying to take the approach of trying to uh spend 60% on schools and 40% on town, um when you look at the budget outlook here, that gives us a a target for the Hamilton Regional School District of uh is this right? Am I reading this right? 27 thou 27 million 521,513. and uh $486,994 for um Essex Northshore. Um based on the budget uh in average revenue, we're showing like a a deficit on both of those budgets of $1.6 million for Hamilton and $61,000 for Essex Northshore. Um, you know, at this point, what we're trying to do is is justify how we spend our money and and explain to folks. We recognize

028uh we recognize the value the schools provide to the towns. We are not in any way suggesting that uh the the Hamilton Regional School District doesn't need more funds. Um what we're but what we are saying is that uh based on historical spend for the town we can live within the 40% that uh we've traditionally lived within to provide town services. We want to support the Hamilton Regional School District to get the funds you need. Um we'd like to see it more clearly defined what it actually the final request is. Um I think select board and fin have not taken a vote but they've indicated that they'd support an override for the schools. Um but we we need to get a better picture of what the actual full number is. Um but at this point

029the the boards want us to focus on protecting town services because we're we're doing everything we can to do that. Um I think we can skip capital improvement plan and the other other side. I think it's more important to talk about the operating budget. So I'm happy to take questions. Uh Wendy's here to help if I stumble. Great questions. I I have a couple, but I want other people to >> I think I just want to add to the conversation, Joe, was that I think we missed the slide because we sort of had an a bridged version, but our percentage increase from 20 FY26 FY27 was quite small, right? Because we were able to >> sort of have gives and takes, right? We gave up some things and we added some things. So, we sort

030of creative to have that percentage increase. been there's been some speculation about the town's budget jumped up 5.5%. It's not really it's not really that much. Um when you when you take out the $550,000 that we we put towards the unfunded pension li liability last year which we normally have never done. Um and and that money stays uh stays in the general operating fund budget. We would have had a higher number last year. We kind of did that to try to help everybody. I >> No, no, no. I just want to make sure like like what I'm hearing you say and and everybody make sure I'm saying something accurate, but that there was a lot of discussion at this this group last year about the school commit the school budget and us using we call

031it END you all call it free cash but it's essentially the same that we we and and this whole these whole groups knew what we were doing and we discussed it and it was supported that in order to prevent an override from on the school side. Last year, we used about $2 million of our END budget, which did exactly what Joe just described. >> Um, and it makes our increase look larger than it would have been had we not done that for one time. And it sounds to me, if I'm again, step in if I'm not saying this right, that Wenom is saying that they actually did something similar last year in order Um, is that correct? You used some some free Did I hear that? And and that Hamilton also used some free cash

032last year in an effort last year to not have overrides. Is that >> Well, if you if you look at the I know you don't have anymore, but um over the last couple of years, Wenom is has done its best to stay under that levy limit. If you look at at ours, we were actually $200,000 under the levy limit last year. So, we have >> And can you talk right into that? Sure. >> Thank I can hear you, but they probably can't. >> So, we uh Wenom in particular has been putting aside some money in anticipation of additional costs. So, last um the last town meeting, we put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the stabilization fund, right? and we talked about the trash contract and we talked about possibly releasing that um this year

033to pay uh to help offset some of the cost of the uh consolidated school in the first year when the when the debt service is usually the highest. Um so you know we have been putting money into our oped uh you know hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what we've we're required to do in order to um make sure that we you know uh we have uh we have a good financial position right so um no it's not the case >> but that's not the I mean doing that is not the same as what I think the school we talked about in terms of and it's not the same what Joe was just talking about is very different right that's not we all have free cash in our budgets at the end of every

034year, right? Um you guys are calling END and we're we're calling it free cash is kind of over. >> But you are saying you didn't you used it for things but not for anything that was an operating budget. Nothing that >> not to my recollection but it's been >> all right. So I'm glad I asked because like that's >> I think when it's been >> I heard the there was $85,000 that you were saying that you were using that was kind of like >> that's in this current >> in the current budget. Okay. >> Yeah. Right. But looking backwards, you don't have the same issue that I'm just talking about where you if you use money in FY26 from free cash, it then because that money wasn't raised from taxes in that current year. It

035was raised at some point, but it's not raised in that current year, then it looks to the taxpaying citizens as if you're >> right. Which is why we are hesitant to do it in F. >> Absolutely. And I think I think everyone here understands that. I'm just thinking of like it's really confusing and if any of members of the public are listening I just want to make sure. So it sounds like that that occurred it definitely occurred on in school budget and it sounds like occurred in the Hamilton budget and and it sounds like I'm wrong that it didn't happen last year in the Wim budget. >> The last time it happened in Winnham just declared as 20 excuse me 2020. >> Okay. So good. And the last time Hamilton did that before last year

036>> was way before I was hired. >> So I guess so I want to just and then I I will let other people talk but I just want to make sure like I I full disclosure he said some people are saying 5.5%. That was me. I'm the one that said that. Um, so I'm just looking at the Hamilton budget now and I'm looking at in FY26, your budget, the townside budget, 16,762. FY27 townside budget as its current current, you know, iteration of it. 17,687 and that's 5.2 to 5.5% increase. I I fully understand what you are saying is that that use of that free cash artificially makes that look higher than that increase. I fully understand it. It's true about our >> right. But the difference, let me just The difference is is that our

037budget last year went down by $500,000 and we took $500,000 of our budget to pay for the school. But so we went from 172 and 25, sorry, went from 72 and 25 to 167. So it's not like our budget went up by $500,000 and we used free cash to pay for it. We actually lowered our budget by using free cash. So it's a little different. >> So it is different. So thank you. That's helpful for me to understand, right? Because I'm looking at FY26 to FY2. >> So, our budget actually went down last year. So, we're just going back up to where it went down >> in this current your current year >> budget is lower. Yeah, Vinnie has the slide up right there. So, that that cannot see that, but I >> So, if

038FY24 it was $6.3 million for the town, in FY25, it was $7.2 million for the town. And in FY26, it was $6.7 million for the town. So in addition to using free cash to pay for the pension line and that's that's where that that's where that difference is right. So we were able to put more money to pay for the schools because we took the $500,000 from free cash instead of taking from the operating budget. >> That was that was what that's helpful clarification like I would that Thank you. That that makes sense. I mean it >> the in the 5.5 is still it's still a logical >> right. It's still 5.5 because it's really two and a half and two. He took the two and a half from last year the two and a

039half from this year. But I mean, in other words, it's still 5.5% higher than it was last year. But yeah, >> and that's helpful for us for me to understand, >> right? But the request, our request, our proposal this year isn't much over what we spent in FY25. >> I Yeah. No, I thank I'm understanding that now. Um, >> I'll stop. Other people have questions? >> Question. Um, I'm I'm looking at the excuse me the wenom budget the line item pension and benefits which I guess in in in wom we've included uh health insurance in that line is that correct >> I'm sorry I didn't completely hear it the pension and benefits line in wenham is went up projected 13.28% 28%. And the health insurance is in that line. Is that correct? >> Yes. So

040that's a mixture of health and pension. >> Okay. And then Hamilton, I guess, does it a little differently. They break out group health separately. Am I reading this correctly? And you guys went up 23%. >> Which page are you on? >> Health insurance only. Yes. >> Page page four under the presentation from Hamilton. >> No. Got it. and page two under the presentation of Wenham. I'm just trying to get an applesto apples comparison on health insurance. What was the in the delta for us on health insurance? >> We do break it break it out Jared. It's just in this, you know, sort of, you know, condensed version. >> Did we go up 23% too on health insurance? I'm just >> No, we're we're roughly about 16% is what we're estimating for an increase to our

041budget for health insurance. And then, you know, another um you know, I think it's about four something is our pension increase for this year. No, the pension I should be the same for both towns. >> No. No. >> Well, no. Within parameters, there is a um a census differential. Yeah. >> Okay. But my my point I'm trying to get at is who's who's paying more or less for health insurance? Hamilton or Wenom. And I and if if there's a big difference, I'm just curious as to why there would be. Our >> our recent usage of of health insurance, several employees went out. It puts us in a higher risk pool. So, our percentage went up higher. because of your risk pool. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I just um sort

042of a I don't know more of a 20,000 foot level question. Um so you guys have Hamilton you've Joe you've explained um your objective to stay within a formula uh that's you know call it the 60/40 formula and you sort of identified um the objectives of the town and identified the problem as Hamilton sees it and trying to uh maintain uh a higher level of town services But what's the what's this what's Hamilton's solution I guess is my my question because you've your conclusion is that what Hamilton presently seems willing to devote to the school budget would leave a $ 1.7 million or $ 1.69 $69 million gap. And I think that everyone understands that uh it's would really be untenable for the school budget to be cut to a level that would achieve that

043number would be something like $2.5 million. I think if you you know factoring in the the Wenom piece, um that's not a solution. Um I think I think everyone would agree that's not a solution. Um, so what is Hamilton's proposed solution? Is it to put the 1.69 million to its citizens as an override and try to, you know, explain why that amount of money >> from Hamilton's perspective is needed for the schools or just what is your proposal to deal with where you've left us today with this number? >> So, um, more or less, yes, the idea would be no. So, I don't know if it's 1.76, 1.69 69. The school committee hasn't adopted its final budget. But when they get we get a bottomline budget. The school department determines what they believe they need.

044They present it to us and we're supposed to try to pay it. So using the 60/40 formula, we're trying to carve out a way to identify what is reasonable for the town to pay. And if it's over that, I absolutely think the school committee and the and the towns, it shouldn't just be on the school committee. I think the select board and the fincom need to stand up and say they need the money, but it's not within our normal operating budget to provide that money. So, we need to ask you to reach in your pockets. There needs to be conversations about what that number is. Is it structured as a um as options? Is it all all or nothing? There's lots of time to have that conversation, but we need to map out how we're

045going to get there. And right now the only option is to say, well, you haven't done enough to cut on your side, too. Right now, we don't feel that way. We we eliminated an entire department and we added tax revenue by bringing the Gordon Conwell apartments into the mix. That's all helpful to the schools and to the town. If I cut any more, we're cutting real bodies. And when you look at the current proposed assessment for the town of Hamilton, if we were to look at that as a 60/40 split on the on the deficit, we'd be having to cut $650,000 out of our budget. That's untenable. So, we need a real conversation about what's the real number from the school committee. How do we propo present it to the voters? But being presented with

046that number just we have to look at it as what the town can afford. And if you want to provide town services, police, fire, DPW, trash pickup, snow removal, and have a good education, we have to draw a line somewhere. >> Historically, the town has spent 40%, >> right? Given >> on town services, >> right? Given that all five boards here, you know, the purpose of us being here is trying to reason together, work together to try to reach a solution that works best for for everybody. I'm just wondering whether um Hamilton is willing to be more flexible on this on this rigid formula because it seems like a lot of mo most of the numbers that you've set out here are um generated from a formula that you've decided is the appropriate >> No,

047no, the formula was used as an assessment, but we didn't derive our budget from the formula. We built our budget and then we went back and made sure it it right-sized it. So, let's not work it backwards, right? >> We just pro we just proved our >> slide that gives a three-year average, >> right? We were just proving that we just proved that what we did made sense. >> We didn't pluck the number out of out of thin air, >> right? >> Yeah. Like Yeah. Don't Don't let us think we we just came up with this magical 4060. We just went and said this is our average and we actually it actually once we built the budget, it fit the average. And so that's when we feel good. We tell our citizens 40 cents out

048of every dollar pays for town services. And it's been doing that way for the last how many I mean >> at least since I've been here >> at least. Yeah. At least eight years. So we it's it's cuz we have need to have data. Data points are important, right? And so if we're going to go back to our town and say we're going to spend 35 cents in every dollar you give to run the town services, we need a better story to understand from this committee how we convince our town that they think that's a good idea. So >> well, let's let's continue that story. the 6040 split really puts in into perspective of what's important. Um, when you look at it from the town's perspective, you're showing a 5.5% increase, 925, which basically leaves

049over out of revenue $100,490. So that's a 0.4 increase on the school department side when you look at it using this formula. Just go back to last year's FY26 final number. Add in the difference between the Hamilton increase with this new formula minus revenues leaves you 100,490 or 04% increase for the school department. If that continues forward next year, the same formula, just use a random an average number of a million dollar increase again, you're looking at another uh shift in about the same amount of money, $900,000. So, when you start to look at it from that perspective, the increases don't average out. you're looking at probably $500,000 an increase next year on the school department side which is probably going to put us in an override again. >> I I hear what you're saying,

050Eric. I do. But in each of the last three or four years, the town has consistently cut its share out of the 40% and got to the point where we were under that last year and other years we've been, you know, more than that. We've continued to go in one direction and we can't go that direction any longer. And if Last year's cut is hurting us now going forward. It hurts what we have in free cash, what we can afford to spend on capital improvements, what we can afford to do and other nonrecurring expenses. It hurts us. It will ultimately if we don't address it, it will ultimately hurt us in the way we qualify for our bond rating and that will hurt the schools too. We have both towns have AAA bond ratings. That's

051important to protect. If I keep cutting into those things, you won't have the benefit of AAA bond rating to help when you have projects to do. And that's something that we want to protect at all costs. >> So can I just ask a question because I I only speaking for myself >> as I look at this what I heard Ben saying is I think the question that I'm not 100% sure but I think this is what I am concerned about. And just to be clear my concern is not I'm not thinking to myself I think Hamilton needs to cut this budget in or like that's not what I'm saying or thinking. What I'm questioning I think is what Ben was trying to allude to is that Wenom sort of parsed it out a little bit

052differently in which and I guess what I'm asking is if this amount of money the budget that you've just presented and the budget that the school committee has just presented so the Hamilton on the Hamilton side if this amount of money is the money that is needed to provide the services that are needed for the citizens of Hamilton, the fire, the police, the roads, the trash, and the schools. If that's the money that's needed, I'm not meaning to exclude one of them, but I'm just I guess what I'm curious about is why wouldn't it be just presented in that way? like here's the town budget, here's the school budget, we're $1.7 million off, and we're going to need an override. I My question is why is that being presented as the schools need an override?

053Like what I'm think is just messaging. It's not I am in no way saying, oh, Hamilton needs to cut things out of their budget. I believe you that these are the like that like these are the things that are needed in order to provide what our citizens need. >> Yeah. I mean we provided lots of charts and graphs. You can choose to pick the ones that say that or choose to pick the ones that don't. I mean it's just we just laid it out different ways. It's not an argument. >> It's not an argument we're making. It's just we laid it out different ways to look at it from different angles to see how we could approach it. But don't think that we have an argument or presentation yet. We're just we have lots of

054charts and graphs that show it one way. We just had to look at it different ways to see if it made sense. Work with Fincom, work with T. So, yeah. So, don't I don't I don't think you we're there. Your conclusion I think you're too quick to the conclusion. I think we're just presenting facts and data points and trends and we'll figure out how we present to the town when it's the right time to do it, but we're not there yet. >> Okay. Does that make sense? >> That's fair. Yeah. I because I will just say to Eric's point like I did the similar kind of math and was like so it looks like we're the town is kind of saying to us you're allowed a point4% increase because otherwise you're going to be in

055and like that's again I'm not saying that this $1.7 million is not real. It is real. Like it's real. Like I'm not saying that at all. But I'm just And so again, I think this is more message and and than it is I don't think we have numbers issue. I think it's a messaging concern like that for from my point of view I only speak for myself but from my point of view looking at that number and sort of saying okay there's an you know that this is what the um you know added re new added revenues are this year and what's the difference available for the schools and the difference available for the schools is about $100,000. I mean, again, messaging matters. You're you're pointing that out. >> We didn't say what's available for

056the schools. We said 60% of our revenues will go to the schools. 60% of revenues is the number. It is that we're not. >> We have bent over backwards in past years to cut ourselves to give you more. We're saying that that kind of has to stop. >> That's all we're trying to say. >> Yeah, kind of. We have. I mean, >> ever you ask us to make We never ask any either of you to make We would never do that. >> So I mean it's semantics, right? If you ask us for more money and we don't want to have an override, then we have to make a cut to accommodate your request. >> Well, >> so that's kind of that's so that's that's why that's that's why we're having this conversation now because we've

057needed to have this conversation for seven years and we haven't had it. We've avoided it by making cuts and it's we've got to have this conversation. >> Yeah. >> Right. Because at the end of the day, the town's foundation budget starts with assessing revenues based on what our current revenue is and what we can legitimately project how it will increase next year. Right? We start our budget process there. Every year that we try to balance our side of the budget and your assessment comes in higher than we can afford in that number, we've made cuts to accommodate your assess assessment. We can't keep doing that. The school department doesn't build the budget the same way. You actually start out with this is what we need. You just extrapolate out all the multipliers based on the

058number of staff you have and the buildings and increases in utilities and you present us a final budget number and say this is this is your assessment. The towns can't do it that way. We have to start out guessing what our revenue is and setting the budget that we then have to prove to the state we can live within. So if you're not looking at the revenue picture when you set your budget, you're disadvantaging both of us. So I I I really do understand why what you're saying and I do want to say that when we work on the budget, >> we do talk about >> I mean just like you do we talk about what's you know what was last year's budget, what are the revenues, what are the anticipated revenues and we do

059work with that. I mean that's like I I I hope that I I mean I know cuz I see that you you do a combination of things as do we talking about what do our citizens need? What do we really need to provide for our citizens and what is the reality of what money is available and I would like to say I that you do that we do that. So does Wenham like so I and I as a citizen >> I don't want the towns to cut beyond providing the services I this is me speaking as a citizen but >> I'm also on the school committee and what I'm saying is that for my opinion I want both towns and the schools to have tight lean budgets But if it comes to a point where

060town, like Wenham just said to us, they're going to cut and be tight and lean and they're going to get down to it and there's going to come a point where they're going to say, "This is it. We're going to need an override because cutting beyond this is going to prevent needed services." And I guess like as a citizen, that's what I want to hear. If there if we're if you're getting to a point where the cutting is so dramatic that you feel like we're not serving our citizens, the citizens deserve to hear that, >> right? >> So, we're trying to figure out I mean, I guess in talking to the select board and the fin trying to figure out what is that point, right? And >> yeah, >> the way we came to the

061was looking at historic value. What does the town traditionally spend and within a half percent here or there up and down the line the last seven eight nine 10 years and it's right around 60% for education Hamilton Wenham and NSAP and 40% for the town and if we try to live in we're at the point where we could live at 40%. We don't need an override to be able to manage what we provide for town services beyond the 40% our 40%. You want us to message it differently? we can talk about with the select board and the fing but we're trying to show you know we're trying to explain what it takes and nothing's been voted it's not there's not a final budget yet it's not a it's not a final determination that we're going

062in this direction but you know and I and I' I've always said that we understand we got a bottom line budget from the school department and we do our best to manage that. It's not our job to tell you how to manage your budget. It's our job to figure out what we can afford and then if not it has to go to the v voters. >> Yep. >> No. And that's the reality of school district. >> That's kind that's kind of where we are. So, >> okay. Um >> people have questions. >> Yeah, I have a question actually. So, on page six, uh the capital improvement plan. >> Y >> I see 1.2 million there for a number of items. >> So, that's included and that's part of the >> So, it's included in the

063overall budget, but it's not included in the operating budget. the uh in the and the capital improvement this year too. The 1.25 is being paid for through a number of sources. Um you know again when we go back to talking about our financial policies, our financial policies suggest that we spend at least a million a year on capital improvements. We've t typically prior to last year spent a million or more out of free cash. Last year we only spent $767,000 and did not meet our financial policy on capital improvements. This year we're going to meet it, but as you'll see in that uh in that spreadsheet, we're still only spending 866,000 out of free cash. We're going to repurpose some uh previously appropriated funds. Uh that was money that was in past years, put aside

064for capital improvements. Those projects have completed and not all the monies were spent. So, we're going to recapture that and ask to spend that as part of our capital plan. And then there's $280,000 in our water department because those uh capital improvements are in the water department and they're rightfully uh spent there. >> Yeah. None of this affects a 27 tax rate, right? It's all paid for from monies that's already been collected. >> Yeah. And none right. And none of that money, none of that 1.25 comes from money that would be raised in taxation and >> it comes from free cash, retained earnings, other leftover. Um so it's not it wouldn't affect the tax rate >> or two and a half%. Okay. Do you have do you know how much I guess it doesn't how

065much do you have in free cash? Like what's in the free cash? >> So there is a slide. Uh Vinnie's got it up. He anticipates your every move. Dana Vinnie is worth his weight in gold. Um so as you can see in October 28th of this year, the town had certified in free cash $3.714 million. Uh at the special town meeting, we appropriated $26,000 for uh unpaid bills. Uh that left us a balance of 3.688. Our free cash reserve policies require us to set aside 5%. That's our floor. Our seal that's our floor. We can't spend that 5%. So that takes out $2.062 million of the 3.688. We have available to spend in FY25 1.626 million. We're proposing to spend 866 on capital, 125 in OPED. That is something we do every year. 250 to

066the capital stabilization is would be a transfer. That's not really a spend. It's just moving it from one savings account into the other. Our capital stabilization policy requires us to have a certain percentage of um what's the word I'm looking for? Capital. >> Capital finance. Um and we are under it because we a number of years ago the town meeting voted to buy a new firetruck with the capital stabilization money. So, we now have to refund. >> You're refunding it >> and it's a little bit over every year. So, $250,000 is what we're using this year. That'd still be another $300,000 for next for FY28 in order to get that fund fully funded again. And then there's $150,000 in here for u a file digitization project. It's a a one-time project. It's probably not a

067one-time expense. It probably take two or three years to fully digitize um all the records at town, >> but but it will eventually fall off. >> It would all eventually fall off. So, it wouldn't be a recurring expense annually going forward. It'd be one or two years, three years at the most, and we'd hopefully have everything that we needed digitized by then. So, that would leave us under the proposed budget at this point only $235,000 above our floor. Um which is, as I'm pointed out to SLboard last night, kind of a really tight spot to be in. That's, you know, as you guys know with boilers and stuff, that's, you know, >> one large building maintenance project and we're cleaned out. So, >> we know. Yeah. Um, Vinnie has a question. >> I had two

068questions. One is only about this, so I'll ask. >> Can you I don't know if everyone can hear you or not. Yeah. Go ahead. >> I don't claim to know how the town budget works. I think I know how the school works. But anyways, what do our limit on END is 5%. Is that the same as free cash for you guys? >> No. So this is more running towards maintaining our bond rating and things like that, right? So in order to show that we're a good credit risk, we have to have a certain amount of our annual operating budget set aside in stabilization and free cash accounts. uh the industry norm or the best financial practices that the state released back in 2014 or 15. Jeff helped me out was 20145 under uh the governor

069uh Baker was that it should be uh 5% of your operating budget should be held in free cash and 5% at minimum 5% should be held in stabilization. We have a general stabilization operating fund general stabilization fund and a capital stabilization fund. the general stabilization fund is at 5%. In other years when we're when we fall below that because the operating goes up, we make a similar free cash expenditure in or transfer into the general stabilization. We don't need to do that this year. Um, as I noted, the capital stabilization fund we have to make a transfer into this year. And the free cash is just we just once we get um once we get our free cash certification and we project our annual operating budget for the next year, we take that number right

070right out of the free cash number and say that's the number we can't touch. >> So it's not a 5% cap like our works. You can still save that 235 that's left over. >> Yeah. I mean I >> it's not exactly like ours >> cuz ours ours is a little bit it sounds like it's the opposite that ours it sounds like you are saying you are required to hold 5% but you can have more than that whereas ours we are only allowed to hold up to 5%. So it's a little bit >> it's a yeah but partly it's due to the fact that we tax and you don't >> the state and the bond rating agencies want us to do that to maintain our financial stability. No, it's just good for us to understand that

071because my understanding of free CAD and E and D was that they're fairly similar, but this is an area of difference that's just important for us to understand. >> So, so Joe, just in response to some of the comments, I think what we should do is we should because I think it'll show the similar argument we're making. I think we should take this sheet that went and mimic it with our numbers, right? And show that because they show reduction needed at the town side, 232 reduction needed school side, 592. I think if we if we did that formula with our numbers, I think it would show what we're trying to argue. So I think we could use that. I think it would be helpful if we did the same format because it's hard to look

072at budgets in two different formats. So I think we can within that next couple days we can we can maybe you can share that spreadsheet and we can fill it out >> Wendy. >> I don't think it'll be that difficult. >> So just based on just based on 26 just based on two years but just 26 and 27. So >> we can do that. >> I do you have another question? Oh more questions. Go ahead. >> If somebody's ahead in >> if someone's ahead of me go ahead. Was there anybody else? What was that? >> Was anybody ahead of me if >> No, I don't. I think only I think Vinnie has another question, but go ahead. >> So, I guess this is sort of a probably mostly a question directed to the school committee

073and it's about messaging because I think I mean I'm not sure if we if we have one more joint meeting with all of us, but even if we have more than that, um, we should start thinking about messaging, I think. And I understand that it may be that that there is another school budget that comes back or there might not be. That remains to be to be seen. And certainly Hamilton has, you know, made that made that request. But is is this sort of along the right track of how this should be explained? Um the budget increase. So I'm just running some quick numbers. And a 2 and a half% increase over the uh FY26 school budget is about $973,000 by my calculations. and the salary increases and from the new teachers contract which I

074think which should be defended. I think I'll get to that in a second but that plus the health insurance increases which I think everybody in the United States understands you know have shot up considerably as they always do but even more so this year. Those two things alone, according to um the superintendent's summary sheet here of the um summary of changes over $85,000 amounts to um to 1 million. See, my my math isn't so great, but 965 plus 599. So, let me just 965 plus 599. So, 1.564 million. In other words, well above the two and a half percent increase. So isn't like the right way to explain this to the voters that something like look, we everyone watched what happened in surrounding towns with teacher contract disputes that resulted in very costly and divisive

075strikes in a couple of towns near us. The Hamilton School District was able to avoid that. came up with a contract that everyone agreed was fair and was not exorbitant. Um, so we all understand that that is resulting in in contractual increases. It can't be avoided and health insurance is going up 600,000 which everybody understands. So already we're in a situation where just to meet those two large contractual obligations, the school budget needs to increase by something like 3 and a half% or whatever it is. So just to make everyone understand that the 2 and 12% levy limit is not practical for this year. And I don't say that in a cavalier sense. I understand that there's a lot of debate and persuasion that will have to occur with taxpayers and there are many taxpayers

076who will say, "I'm sorry, I can't support this. I can't afford any more of my property taxes." But isn't that sort of the place to start in terms of what we're dealing with for fixed contractual increases and then trying to work together to figure out, okay, how are we going to raise the money to meet those contractual increases and the other things that our school committee has decided are necessary to not result in a you know significant degradation of education in the district. To me, that's the way to to message it and to to have graphics that show those numbers so that, you know, it will be easy to understand why an override is needed. Um, but I'm interested in what the school committee members think in terms of message that because I think that's

077a slightly different message than what I've been hearing from Hamilton so far. And I recognize that you you've you know very fairly said that there's more discussion to occur, but um to me that's a better message than one that sort of talks about who's living within their means and who isn't and sort of putting a stake in the ground on a formula. >> I mean I think you're mixing up our presentation with our argument to the public. So once again, you're going two steps ahead of where we're at. So appreciate the comments, but I don't think you're interpreting our presentation correctly. But we need to look we need to look one, two, three, and four steps. >> I totally agree with you, but let's not put words in our mouth before we even got them

078out. Okay. >> No, but I'm but we're here. We're here in a public meeting. Maybe one of the last opportunities we have to be together to talk about this. So, it's not premature to try to at least have a discussion about what the >> I would love to have a discussion. Just don't put words in our mouth. That's all I'm asking to do. I let me let me try a little different. So, one of the things that I was I was thinking about was what Eric had said to about you know only you know point4 increase over last year. I think one of the problems that we get wrapped up in is looking at what's our increase over last year as opposed to looking at what's the percentage of the budget that we can afford

079to spend on these different things. Right? The reason we're putting it this way is because last year for instance, the school department didn't get the school district didn't get just 60% in education. We spent over over 61% on schools. Some of that was NSAP, but most of it was Hamilton. And so if we then just took them getting 61% last year and then we just gave them 60% of this year's revenue, they're going to you're adding 60% onto a higher number already. So we're we're continuing to have a diminishing diminishing portion of of the budget for the town just by doing that just by so the idea was to look at it more holistically. What is the right and maybe 60% is wrong. The select board and fin could push back and tell I have

080to look at it differently than you do Ben or Dana. I'm not an elected official. I'm I'm here appointed to look at the landscape we're operating in right now in the state of Massachusetts. We can raise our budget 2 and a half% plus new growth without an override vote. So this is the budget we can afford without an override vote. It is $1.7 million less than what's been requested so far. But if I look at the 60/40 split, the town isn't contributing to that $1.7 million. We can change that conversation. We can talk about the messaging. I'm not I have never said that the school department or the towns won't need an override to support the school department. The towns will need an override to support the school department. All right. and we and we

081all agree with that. >> But I don't think it's unfair to say, you know, budgets are a reflection of the community's values. What is the value that we place on the town services they get provided? We absolutely understand the value of the schools. Everybody that's here understands that. We're trying to be fair and say historically the towns have spent the town Hamilton at least has spent 60% of its budget within a percent here or there. We that number can move. We can talk about it, but we we need it as a starting place. That's a starting place. >> Can I say something? >> Sure. >> Um, we have not we haven't even voted on the budget yet. I think we need to hear from Vinnie. Um, but we >> Are you presenting? Um, but I

082agree with you about the messaging like overall like we do need to start thinking about it. But to me, I think we we still need to discuss it as as a committee, >> all three entities. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we I mean, we we still haven't voted on it. Like we we're all still it's still a lot of of things up in the air, but I agree that the messaging is going to be incredibly important. And what I don't want to happen is people to think it's like the school versus Hamilton or like the school versus Wenham. because that's kind of what I am if I was a member of the public listening to this and I'm not blaming anyone here and I'm blaming me just as much as this. That's what I would

083be thinking. Um, and we're very easy targets. All of you are very easy targets as well. So, we're very easy villains and the school district for some reason is very easy to villainize. So, the only thing I'm concerned about when we get to messaging is that we all can agree on some kind of message. Um, and that, you know, we're we're going to disagree on various points, but I hope that we can, like you just said, present it in some way to the public to help them understand why the increases might be what they are. Um, this is what's necessary to fund the town. Like, I would fight for the town budget if that's what's necessary to fund the town of Hamilton. Um I'm not an expert on what it what you know I'm not

084a town manager so I look to you um and I look to the select boards to tell me. So I think if we if we think of it that way, if we just sort of um if we if we have the messaging that this is what's best for the towns and the schools and the town services and it's all wrapped up together and you know this is what we need to be a community, a safe community, a healthy community, an educated community, this is what we need. Um, to me, I think there's no really other way forward. Um, and I know Megan wrote an amazing op-ed that did not get published, but she posted it on her Facebook page that I would encourage everyone to read that I thought was great around messaging those kinds

085of exact topics, explaining to the public very clearly like this is the reality of healthcare, this is the reality of salaries, this is the reality of of XYZ, right? and trash contracts which we've learned about like that. That was a really difficult >> really important really difficult >> and look at Beverly with their trash contract. They didn't have trash pickup for six months. >> Exactly. Really difficult. Um all right. I do know I want to ask have everybody and we do remember we are still going to have the school committee is going to still present the school committee. Yep. Go ahead. >> Yeah, definitely. please talk into the mic so we can >> I know we're going to be uh talking about messaging later, but when we get the presentation from uh the school board,

086I think it'd be helpful to address what the future looks like in terms of long-term planning. You know, and I'm biased. I've been in this long-term planning thing for many decades, and I think if you look back over the statistics for the change in the school budget, it's been quite variable. I mean it was very low uh 23 to 24 the average comes out to about 5%. Uh and inflation uh you know over that same period is uh come out something less a little bit less than three. So as Ben's pointed out you know you're set up for immediately by the way the state law applies if you've got 3% inflation and you got a 2% 2 and a half% cap uh you know you've got to either bring a lot of new business into

087town so you can tax them or you know you've got a problem. Uh so I think it'd be helpful if uh we had some input on what the future looks like. We know that you can't forecast perfectly, but are we talking about continuing what's currently being going on versus uh uh something coming down to a lower rate that we could t take a look at and look at in terms of uh whether we're going to need to have an override in the two towns? And I guess the other thing I would add is uh you know we've been looking at on the fincom at for two years now at how education costs are correlated with median household income and there's a high correlation. This is what's spent not the net after you get money back

088from the state and that uh reflects values in terms of what people are interested in. Do you want better teachers with higher salaries? Do you want lower classroom ratios? Do you want smaller schools? All of those things contribute to what it cost on a per uh student basis. So that I think you know in terms of our messaging I think that's also something that might be relevant. >> All right. Are we ready to hear Oh, Vinnie. And then Yes. And then after that is maybe we'll be ready to hear from you. Yes. >> Uh sadly one thing I always do when I'm done building the next budget is try to roll it forward and build the next one. So I'm just trying to my question really is around 28. So let's just say this all

089goes forward and the override passes for 1.7 million. That that makes your new number the 456. If you then apply a 6040, doesn't that mean you then get 40% of the override that was declared the schools issued? I think that one of the things that I want to stress is that the 6040 is an argument that we're making or not an argument we're making. It's a the trend that we're >> it's a trend it's a trend that we've identified and we're tracking and it's and it's a way to explain our point, right? I will say this. I think it definitely hasn't happened in the last seven years that the school department got less than one year than it got the year before. So, I don't think that's a concern. Um I if you're projecting out

090that we're going to take more money because you got an override passed in 28 and 29 I obviously I don't think that's how it would work. But again this whole conversation around 6040 is a starting point for conversation to talk about different ways to look at it because in our view the way we've been looking at it hasn't been working. So we need to look at it some way. We need to come up with some agreement on that. And it's again it's a number to start the conversation with. I'm eager to have more conversations, but where we were when we met at the first Quintuple boards meeting on our town side and where we are now are two different things. >> Yeah, >> we've come a long way from them to kind of reduce what

091we needed. >> I But I acknowledge what you're saying. A $1.7 million hit to this to your budget would be devastating. >> Well, it's not 1.7. In order to get Hamilton 1.7, we're well over 2 million. >> It would be devastating for you. And and in order for Hamilton to share in that, if we took 40% of that hit, that would be equally devastating to town services. >> Um so we got an existing set of operating uh conditions that we have to work within together. Um Ben brings up good points. You know, what about the two and a half? What at the state level? There's bills. I don't think they're going to get through this year in time to help us, but there's bills to repeal two and a half. I don't know that that's

092going anywhere this year. But this is all a result of the existing financial condition around us. Right. Uh um inflation's been on the rise for the last 3 years. It's affected everybody that lives in our towns. It's finally coming to roost in our budgets. Unfortunately, we have to have this conversation with the voters. At the same time, they're already feeling the pinch everywhere else. So that means whatever we ask for and in terms of an override has got a legitimate chance of being failed. So we have to figure out really what that real number is that we need and ask for it. And I I would also suggest that we need to look at we we need to look at at stratifying it or layering it so that we ask multiple questions not one. Don't

093ask for one lump sum money. Say this much to do this, this much to do that, this much to do the whole thing. And give voters a choice because if we give them just a yes or no choice, I think we're all going to be in trouble. >> What do you mean? >> How can we give them like a multiple budget? >> Yeah. So there there there are plenty of examples around. We can get one um for you, but there's plenty of examples of other towns that do menu overrides. So you have a menu. It can be as low as three things or as many as 12 things. Years ago, for instance, I know that Tana, >> we finish the presentations and then have discussions. >> What do people think? >> I will look that

094up. >> I didn't know you could do that before. >> All right. Um Okay, Hamilton, you good? If we do the school presentation. >> Yeah, >> we're good. >> Everybody good >> to you, Vinnie? >> Thirsty. It's dry out. >> I read the room or I will try to be quick for everyone. Sorry, my PowerPoint died. Uh thank you guys all for coming tonight. Uh obvious thanks to Eric Tracer, our superintendent. Uh my entire school committee for working through the budget process and obviously both uh select boards, fins, town managers, administrators, and their whole finance team for helping us through the 27 budget cycle. Obviously, we're here to review >> Vinnie. I'm just going to stop. Can everybody hear him? >> Like you all good? >> Yep. Uh obviously we're here to review uh where

095the school district stands for our FY27 budget request. Uh as you all uh recall when we back met back on November 19th, uh the original preliminary FY27 uh town assessment budget recommendation came in at 42.9 million. Uh this represented an increase of 4 million over the prior year or roughly 10.32%. When Eric and I presented that budget to the school committee, uh there really was a lot of conversation around the level of increase and how they did not feel comfortable with that level. Uh so they asked Eric and I to go back and uh introduce some reductions to them. Uh Eric and I went back and on December 8th presented an updated preliminary budget uh that incorporated reductions of around 682,000 uh that lowered that 10.3% year-over-year by uh reduction of about 1.7% after that.

096However, after presenting to that, they were still um had concerns about the overall level of increase. So, they asked us to go back a second time and implement a second round of reductions. On December 18th, uh we went ahead and did that second round and added up another $264,000 in reductions uh from the updated preliminary budget, which represented another 0.68 uh% decrease. Uh when you add both the first round of red reductions and our second round, uh overall the school district dropped just under $1 million uh in assessment reductions from our preliminary budget that we presented in November uh all the way up through um our tenative budget in January uh that was passed on January 2nd. This represented an overall drop of about two and a half% uh from that preliminary budget that we

097represented. Uh so what did we do with that $950,000? There was a lot of difficult conversations that we had with the school committee and even difficult conversations we had with the leader uh leadership team and a lot of hard decisions we had to make. Obviously some of the things were updates just to our regular projections on both sides of our ledger. uh we start building the budget uh in mid October to early November. Uh fast forward three months later, obviously we're going to have changes to some of our projections. We get updates from the state. Uh we get updates from the Essex Retirement Board. So we work in all of our projections and update both our revenues and expenditures. Uh but the most difficult decision was how to reduce that overall number. Uh we presented

098to the school committee a total reduction of 7.44 44 FTEES from that original preliminary budget that we presented in November. Uh overall, those 7.44 FTE reduction equated for a reduction of 476,000 to our FY27 budget. One thing I want to note is when you fast forward that to FY28, those savings will be even larger because for FY27, we incorporated full unemployment costs for all seven of those people. So that incorporates about another 122 120,000 that will roll forward into 28 but for 27 it's roughly 476. Uh another difficult conversation we had was around athletic user fees. Uh ultimately our preliminary budget and what we do uh for level service this year the school district contributes 55% of the total cost of athletic user fees. As part of our reduction process, this number got moved to

0995050. Although it sounds like a 5% might not be a lot. When you look at it from the student side, from the family side, that's a 12% increase in user fees before you even roll the budget forward. So that 12% only represents what the district is not contributing to the user fees next year and does not incorporate on normal year-over-year increases. Uh so even though it might be coming off our budget side, uh families will be still uh will still be making up that payment. Uh another difficult decision was on the elimination of one of our late buses. Uh we currently run two late buses that service uh many of our uh needier kids that um stay after school for extra services or stay for after school clubs. Uh we run two buses currently, one

100for all students in Hamilton, uh one for all students in Winnham. uh in in an attempt to meet our budget goals, we are uh eliminating one of those buses. Uh we don't know the exact consequences, but we can only imagine that there will be less children staying at the school and uh participating in these activities because they will not have transportation home or they will not want to stay on that long bus ride and now has to go through both communities instead of just one. Uh we also have implemented reductions in our professional development for all of our instructional staff. Although this won't be a direct impact on children, it does impact uh their learning environment because we are now putting forward uh instructional staff that might not have gone through a the uh most

101rigorous professional development that we would have liked to have put them through. Uh we are also eliminating um or removing our weight room supervision uh supervision. Uh currently we requested uh to have additional staff be in the weight room after hours for anyone to come in and uh train and lift weights and use our new weight room. Uh because currently the only people that can go use it is our athletes when there is adult supervision when there are coaches there. We do not have anyone outside of those hours in our wait room and we do not allow uh students to be in there without supervision. This will be removed and we will not have those services in 28. Uh lastly, we did reduce some of our additional afterschool t uh tutor hours to help meet

102uh that budget goal. uh even after presenting all of these reductions uh the roughly two and a half% or a million dollar reduction if you watch the school committee meeting from January 8th there was still a lot of hesitation on where this budget is falling uh so they had asked us at that meeting to present to them a third round of reductions they have not seen those uh it is a public document on the exhibit but we have not presented it to them uh they will see that tomorrow night uh and review it and kind of take that under consideration. One thing I would like to mention is we feel confident that we will be able to handle the current 7 and a half roughly FTE reduction without implementing class sizes. If we go deeper

103into this third round, there will be a lot more things that are affected by this. This will drastic uh this will affect class sizes uh especially at the secondary level uh and wi and will implement a more drastic round of reductions if we go into this third round. We are currently uh not there yet. We are at our tenative budget which just from a starting point if you look at our gross budget uh year-over-year it is a 5.7% increase and this does factor in the approximate $500,000 uh for the additional maintenance and the roughly $300,000 for capital stabilization. So if you back both of those out, we are now more near the 4.2% gross year-over-year. However, your assessments are a lot different and that's because our net budget is actually going up $3 million or

104roughly 7.8%. And as everyone knows, that's because of the END situation >> uh from FY26, >> which is where the shortfall in our revenue comes from, which is why our gross budget is uh lower than our net. It's usually the exact opposite. Uh usually our revenues uh lower our budget, but this year it's the reverse again because of that END. So what does that equate to for both communities? Uh for Hamilton, as we stand for our tenative budget, uh their their tenative budget is coming in at 27.5 million, which is an increase of 1,851,000 or 7.21%. Uh for Wenham, their year-over-year increase would be 1,218,000 or roughly uh 9.18. This is both um operating and debt included in that number. Uh we do have our final budget vote on February 12th. There is only one

105other meeting for the school committee prior to this meeting. That's tomorrow night where we're presenting uh the third round of reductions. Uh so really stay tuned for that February 12th vote uh to see where the budget goes from tonight. I tried to be very quick. Thank you. >> Thank you. Questions for Vinnie for the school committee? >> Yeah, I have a couple. Um on an approximate basis, what percentage of the total costs of the budget are governed by collective bargaining agreement? >> You mean how what percentage of our budget is covered by staff or >> Yeah. collective bargaining agreement. In other words, it's contractually already agreed to. >> Uh I would say about 55%, but that's before benefits. If you factor in benefits, you're up around 74, I believe. >> Okay. And then um again,

106speaking purely hypothetically in terms of me messaging, which I guess is a topic today, um if for some reason the two towns came back and said, "We're not supporting an override, you need to cut the budget." It's my understanding that the way the collective bargaining agreements work, you can't go back to the staff and say, "Everybody take a 10% cut. All you can do is cut FTE." Is that is am I looking at it correctly? >> Uh, you could cut more than just FTEEs. But yes, the bargaining unit does not have to agree to a reduction in >> you. I mean, you could ask them, but they could say no. at which point in time which they probably would at which point in time you your only option is is reduction of FTE to to

107make meaningful I'm just trying to understand how this process would work >> FTEES but not to paint a dire picture the amount that we would have to reduce to get Hamilton under that amount uh would almost close one of our buildings. So to say it would only be FTEES, that's not correct because we would be looking at a lot of other things other than just FTEEs, but the bulk of it would certainly be FTEES. Yes, >> it's not just FTEEs. That's all I'm trying to >> I just don't want people to have the impression that you can simply go back and say everybody take a 2% pay cut and get to the That's all I'm trying to pose is that there are restrictions visav collective bargaining agreements that make this an unwieldy process in the

108event that you had to implement it. >> Yep. You're you're almost talking about $2.8 million. Um >> Okay. >> I can't really even fathom what that would do to the district. >> Other questions? >> Well, I think I think it's important to note that to your question, it what the impact looks like is every half a million dollars is about eight positions. >> Thank you. That's helpful. >> Um and I'll just add to that we um so we have an not a huge increase but we have an increased enrollment and even the tenative budget that you have has decreased staff. So I just want like I think our increase is 39 students and we have 7.3 correct >> uh >> reduced year is 6.11 if we're going to get technical >> okay but reduced we

109have in this budget that we've presented there are fewer staff and more students >> can Um can you provide a little bit of information on the capital stabilization and also the security vestables where I guess like what is the policy around capital stabilization? What is that line item? Um and then maybe where we stand on the vestules. Uh >> we currently don't have a policy around capital stabilization. Uh we just fund it to whatever level we feel is appropriate within the budget. Uh the security vestibules are not within the capital stabilization fund. We're actually requesting at the moment within our tenative budget uh that that be funded through uh normal appropriations, not through a capital stabilization. >> Okay. >> Does that answer your question? >> Uh yes, but so the capital stabilization zone line item

110about $316,000. Um and essentially there's no money in that fund now and you'd be putting it there or >> we have been putting it there. I don't want to quote the exact number that's right there. The school committee did just vote to transfer 1.7 to pay for the athletic turf field uh to pay down that borrowing. If I had to give you a number off the top of my head, I think we're around 700,000 right now. I can certainly look it up after and get you the number, but I think that's what our balance is ballpark right now. >> Okay. So, I guess on the school fields, I guess I'm now a little bit confused. I thought that was paid for by a bond issuance. >> Uh only portion it was roughly round numbers. It

111roughly cost 13.5 million at the end. 1.7 was paid by the school. It's the towns as well. Everything comes to the towns, but through the schools um capital stabilization fund. Roughly another 1.6 million was from donations from the community. 1.2 2 million was from your CPC funds and the remaining roughly 7 million is through uh assessments through the next >> seven years I believe. >> So maybe coming back to capital stabilization. So we'd be left with you know you said there's about $700,000 left-ish. >> Yeah. >> And so you're trying to get back up to a million dollar with this $300,000 you're putting back into it. is that >> that would get us to about a million, but that there's no there's not like there's a goal there to get to a million. Okay. >>

112Uh that number you see for capital stabilization is equal to our END offset. So in your packet, if you look at the operating budget assessment, there's two lines for END. Uh there's one that's returned to the town for roughly 774,000 that has been with us uh since co the 21 budget and then the all remaining funds is that 316 that is completely offset by one-time expenses which is our capital stabilization transfer. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I can explain it different if you >> I think that makes sense. Thank you. >> Can I say something to that? Um, we heard as a committee loud and clear from the communities when the consolidated elementary school failed that they are very interested in us putting more expenses into capital and maintaining the three elementary schools, the middle

113school and the high school and putting more into renovations and upgrades and keeping um the schools. So, um I think you know we want to be responsive to that and just I just wanted to say that that was a big piece of our budget consideration was listening to what um what the voters have been telling us. >> Maybe a follow up on that. My understanding from the last meeting was there's also going to be an override related to the middle school roof. Is that still is that still planned? Where's that stand? >> High school roof. >> High Sorry, a roof. a roof. >> It's a debt exclusion. >> Dead excl. Okay. So, that is okay. >> But but yes, it like it's >> that's important. >> I just wanted to check you were saying that

114the number of students has gone up. are is there somewhere where you've estimated the uh cost per student and I'm wondering how that's changed across time and if you're comparing that with other schools in the area to kind of see where Hamilton went compare. So the comparisons are done on the Department of Education website, two years behind has been and I've been wrestling with uh several other people I'm sure just trying to nail down what the actuals are is is really difficult. Uh the state is always two years behind in their calculations. So we're only we're we're kind of relying on their data to be the calculation and that way you have the same calculation across school districts. So right now we're I think two years behind right Finn. >> Uh yeah so we in

115the fincom is definitely interested in in this particular metric right and as you heard from Bob a second ago right about trying to figure out where the correlation is right and is uh Hamilton school district you know reasonable u reasonably spending money and you know uh and reasonably uh expecting funds from the towns. Um and the the question as the fincom always is wrestling with is how do we how do we come to the decision to support the budget right and so benchmarking is is the best thing that we can think of right so when we're asking questions about all right um what is the gross cost to educate a student how is that different across towns which towns should we be comparing ourselves against right and then um you know as as you were

116talking about with the you know the the state funding you end up from the gross cost to educate a student to how much does it cost per capita in these towns to to for their portion of the funding. Right? So that benchmarking project is is really what I think where we're going to be uh relying on as a as a as a finance committee to come up with our recommendation to support the the the budget proposed by the select boards combining the the desk the the town and the the school district. Right. So um we've got we've done a whole bunch of work. We're not ready to present it publicly because we're we're still checking numbers. We're trying to make sure that it it it holds up to scrutiny. The problem, as Eric was saying,

117is, you know, the Desi website is two years behind, right? And there's been a lot of changes to districts in that two-year time period, and we're now trying to forecast the third year. Um, and so, uh, you know, Desi does the work to try to make things comparable. We're going to have to figure out a way to extend past that. And that's that's the challenge. and going into all these different towns and trying to find a number that is comparable is is pretty difficult. >> Yeah. And I think it's important to note the calculations have been done to date puts Hamilton right in the middle when you're looking at um cost per student based on the size of school comparison. So this the number of metrics that they're trying to pull into the calculation puts

118us dead center in schools that that we've selected mostly regional schools that are similar in in size. But even that's difficult to do. There are not a lot of similar size regional schools. So we we do look at all of the numbers and really try to lean into um some of the different metrics. The problem you run into is the variability between um a statistical analysis of teacher salaries across multiple school districts over charts that are very different. So you're looking at step and scale charting of teacher salaries across uh 12 steps and maybe eight or 10 columns, sometimes 12 columns depending on degrees. And that's different for every single community. So it makes the comparative harder uh in a statistical analysis. I'm sure you can correct for variability, but that's really difficult when you're

119looking across 12, 15, 18 schools to nail down a number and say, okay, every regional school district, it should be roughly your per uh pupil spending cost. So, I just think those those are intricate pieces of the puzzle. There's also things like uh transportation. Transportation Beverly is is not required in in Hamilton regional and all regional school district. It's required. So that that's a cost that now differentiates between those per pupil expenses. Um so there's a lot of variable in there. That's the only thing I want to caution people about. And Finn and I have talked a lot about this. I know the VINCOMs have spent hours trying to figure out how to look at these different variables and make sense of them so that you could come up with some reasonable formula, but it

120has been proven to be very difficult. Gary. >> Yes. I think the um for the public, what you've heard here tonight is that both towns have done their usual budget process very rigorous. And we're at a point now that any further cuts or not support will actually go into staff reductions or service to the public reductions. Likewise, the schools are in a position too that their costs have risen as much or more and that we really need to get on to the messaging now to say that yes, you know, we are expecting an override. You know, we can work the numbers to the last day or whatever, but it looks like an override. And I think given the tone out there that we need to come up with a consolidated message as to how we

121convince the public that this is the essential budget that we need and whether we do it by a stratified method where you say this is the absolute essential and oh by the way that's you know warrant one and warrant two if you want that fire truck or the police position or whatever, then you're going to go into the override. So, but I think our main task going forward here is we know the staffs will work the budget to get down to the best numbers possible, but I think the committees the big challenge going forward until town meeting is to get the word out there and explain just why this is going to be an override year. And I think part of that is this is really into a place where we're now into true budgets.

122you know, we've gone through COVID, we've gone through opera and all these strange things, but now we're back to really we're on our own and both towns, all the citizens need to decide just what level of services and quality of schools you want to afford in your tax base. But I think what the committees here need to get that message out earlier rather than, you know, just before town meeting. Yeah, I think a small group of people uh like one person from each town, one person from the uh from the school committee and somebody from the school should work define what that messaging is and we should define that, get everybody to agree to it and then start putting that story out there. >> I think that's a great idea. I'd also like to add

123um and I was talking about this with um Eric and Vinnie during our last capital planning and finance subcommittee meeting. Um last year for the annual town meeting, I was not on the school committee. Um I was part of the building bright futures group trying to get the word out there for folks to get out there and attend annual town meeting. I think as most folks in this room know, I have two very small children. My son is turning two in two weeks. My daughter is three. It is very hard to commit the time on a Saturday morning to come to an annual town meeting and to vote in person and we're going to need attendance from people like me and people with older children who have activities to attend this meeting in person. Um,

124so I'm just I want to put this out there. I hope I hope collectively as a group of the five boards we can come together to figure out how do we eliminate barriers to attendance, right? How do we make it easier for everyone in town, not just parents, that's also other folks with other commitments, but how do we make it easier for people to come and show up? >> So, we did that last year. >> Yeah. >> At Buer, we had a special room where you could you could come in with your kids. >> Oh, I did. I brought my kids. It was chaos. It was absolute chaos. It was chaos. Um, and I'll say in the babysitting that's provided, your child has to be three and they have to be potty trained. So that

125does leave out a huge population of parents with young children. So I'm just saying it's very difficult for parents of young children to attend. >> If I can just weigh in one last thing for the public, you know, everybody out there needs to realize that town meeting is the future of the both towns and the schools. And you know, there's a hundreds of excuses as to why I can't get there. But folks, this is the most important decisions and we're at a critical point here. You need to show up at town meeting. >> Can't you can you do mail in? >> No. No, >> it's against state law. >> No, it's a state law and it has nothing that it's not us deciding that. >> Town meeting is required required attendance in person. Yeah. >>

126um and I just wanted to I just want to re I mean these past town meetings I do want to agree with Megan that we want to eliminate all any possible barrier and we did have some record-breaking numbers at town meetings. this and both towns did make huge efforts to make accommodations for a wide variety. >> I mean, keep in mind that was on a week night, right? We did a week night meeting that was say again, >> but even the Saturday, >> our week I mean our weekn night meeting was also a very large meeting. >> I'll just say >> yeah, >> I'm not trying to be flip. We will Hamilton will make every effort we made last year and if folks have other ideas for things we can do, let me know. We

127will do our best to make additional efforts. I I agree with Dana. You know, we had record attendance at the um at the annual town meeting and then we had then we I think we broke that record at the first special town meeting and then we came real close to a record again at the second special town meeting. Surprisingly, not as many people showed up for the third special town meeting, but I mean that's fine. Um we'll we'll continue to make every effort we can to remove barriers. Um, but Gary's also right. It does require a commitment from the voters if you know, >> right? And I'll >> we it's a it's a two-way street. We we do and we will continue to do everything we can to make it easy, but it's >> and

128Ros's not here, so I'm going to say it for her that that it's it's everyone and she always mentions about the making sure that the seniors are able to get to town meeting and making sure accommodations. So, >> and and we've done we've made sure to do that as well. So, >> everyone needs to be able to all the barriers can be eliminated. Should be >> I uh I just wanted to ask a quick question. Um the the school committee votes tomorrow night or has has a meeting tomorrow night and then they vote on February 12th. You don't currently have any meetings scheduled between then uh between tomorrow night and February 12th. Select board is going to meet on February 2nd. Um I think we're talking about a small group getting together uh as had

129been proposed by um Peter and we're going to try and tie that up tomorrow morning to have a meeting next week. I will talk to the select board if there's a necessity for the select board in the fincom to have another have extra meeting. I think we'll do our best to get them to do that. I hope the school committee will also uh keep an open mind to having an extra meeting if you need to. Hopefully we'll have good news coming out of both tomorrow night and and the five chairs meeting that we're trying to schedule behind the scenes right now. >> Um we have a tenative meeting scheduled in case right February 8th or something >> after >> Oh, it's after and um >> in case we we do have >> Yes, we do.

130Well, and I will say ju just just on a an additional vein is that we do have tomorrow night's meeting has a public hearing ahead of the meeting on the budget. So, it's an opportunity for the public. They can come to the meeting, can write us an email, they can write all of us, everyone here emails. We want to hear what does the public have to say. That's an opportunity and it's important in terms of the discussion. and decisions being made. So, >> um I just wanted to um acknowledge uh Representative Bowen who's here, one of Wam State representatives, and thank her for attending. And Representative Bowen, I don't know if you wish to speak or not, but if you do, um it sounds like we'll be wrapping up, but thank you for coming. >>

131Welcome. Thank you for being here. Do you have something to say? Grab a mic. >> I'm mostly lurking in the corner. um just to to have a sense, you know, I I think it's clear to everyone that state funding is not going to change any of the numbers that you all are looking at. Um but we'll we'll certainly start getting those numbers out um with the governor's budget first. And so just wanted to sort of get the lay of the land and signal that I'm here both in person and by phone and by email um with questions as they come up about how all these different pieces are going to work together. So thanks. Thank you for being here. Other people have other questions. There's questions, but it goes back to Ben's comment about messaging,

132right? We've talked about all the numbers. Somebody suggested the messaging, but we haven't really got to it tonight. So, is it going to be just the five chairs? Is it I mean, how what's what's who's going to organize the committee for the messaging? I think that's I think we should walk away from your understanding because we're >> we obviously want to be we want to be work as a group right we don't tonight we presented our own budget right moving forward we got to present a comprehensive budget right so tonight was optim for us to sort of defend and represent our own budgets moving forward we got to work together and come up with messaging so who's going to take the lead on that and how are we going to set up that we should

133walk away with an understanding of what that process looks like >> I don't think anybody here wants me to be that >> um No, I think it's a good point and I know all of us that are on all these boards and committees know that one of the big challenges is that you can't speak for the whole committee unless you know what the whole committee or board wants to say. So it is um it it's not a perfect like having the five chairs is um is a good starting place but it isn't a perfect um because it often happens that you sort of say well okay and I yet I don't know what the entire committee wants and you know um so one of the things I'm thinking about in terms of like if that

134if the chairs are meeting on the 29th one of the things is that in terms of messaging we can talk about it here, but like at tomorrow night's meeting or in between before your meeting, you can get you the chairs can get feedback from your committee about like you know is there we can have a discussion here and then is there agreement with that vision you know on messaging and >> Dana if you have something to say like to start it off. Yeah, go ahead. >> You don't want this room to do your messaging. >> No, that's not what I'm saying. I think what I'll just say it again. >> Get somebody from Hamilton, somebody from Wenom, somebody from the school committee, somebody from the the schools >> and just have them write up messaging

135and then present it back to this group. >> Exactly. I I think we're on the same page. But I think we've heard some messaging here in this room that people have talked about and eventually the the committee and the boards have to be on board with the messaging. We can't >> and the only thing last thing I'm going to say is need to do it fast. >> We're coordinating a five meeting next week. Can we just start there >> so that we can start getting that message out um through multiple means? Yeah. >> Yeah. Y >> the five chairs are meeting on the 29th. So maybe that's so the homework is >> get some consensus from your board and come to that meeting prepared to talk about messaging is what I heard and I think

136that's a good idea. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And and I think I heard I say if you're not, but what I heard is a desire from for unified messaging >> that like the desire is I mean I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but that like if possible we'd like to create messaging that is one message that would be not not like a message that this group is saying one in this group is saying something else, but that like we're looking to create some sort of unified message. Does that seem accurate? Is that our goal? >> Yep. >> Yeah, I think that's a goal. That's the goal. >> That's the goal. >> Y and Dana, one last thing. As part of that uh messaging exercise, they should also figure out what the objections

137are going to be and how to answer them. >> Okay. So that so that that brings up a a highlights a good um a good discussion to have really quickly here. I think I'm I referenced it earlier. You know, Vinnie, Eric, Jeff, Steve, myself, and Wendy, you know, we're we're hired to do a job within an existing uh paradigm, and that's what we've tried to do. We've all made our cases for where we're at right now. Um that should force some decisions from the elected officials to what is it you want elected and appointed sorry finer or appointed um what is it you want to do to change that message change that environment and that gives us our marching orders as far as moving the question to the voters that is again where the electeds

138and the appointed the residents in the room it's your you have to make that message I can I can parrot what the select board and fin tell me to but I'm not a resident here. I'm not a voter. I'm supposed to be impartial. I've made the case in the existing environment. To the extent that the boards tell me to change the environment, we'll go forward with that new message. Happy to do it. I've already told you that my personal opinion, my professional opinion is we know the schools need an override. We know the town needs an override to support the schools and potentially some stuff on the on the town Hamilton side. We we we'll talk about that and figure out what that is. But the boards and committees that are here represented and even

139those who aren't here but we'll be will be at the next meeting. Um they need to you know be part of messaging this to the community because the town administrator superintendent can only say so much. >> It's it's an election question that's for you folks. Yep. >> Yes. >> Anybody else? You good? >> Yeah. >> Um I guess everybody if everybody nobody has anything else we can um >> adjourn. >> Ajourn one at a time. >> One more entertain a motion to >> uh so moved. >> So moved. >> All right. >> Second. I think I think we did the same thing. We break it into two buckets >> and they kind of show >> uh I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn the finance advisory committee for Winnham here at uh what is it?

1408:25. Like I hear a motion. We got a second. Any discussion? Get no discussion. Move to a vote. Vote I. I see five eyes and none against. So we're closed. Thank you. Right. >> School committee. I move to adjourn the meeting at 8:25 p.m. >> Second by Amy Kberger. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> That is unanimous of the five members present and motion passes. Recharger batteries