School Committee 1 8 26

001try really hard. >> Oh, well, I'm starting to. Well, >> I do that. Well, I haven't done it lately, but Isabelle has those little like Okay. >> shaper things. >> Am I on? Good evening. Can you guys hear me? >> Test one, too. >> The speakers are not working. >> Uhoh. Hello. Hello. >> Bill is still here. >> Good evening. There goes. >> Can you hear me? >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, good evening. I call to order the meeting of the Hamilton Regional School Committee on Thursday, January 8th, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. Um, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is um being recorded and livereamed. Um, also just like to let everyone know we do have um one member currently participating remotely. Um that is Jen Carr. It'll mean that any votes

002that we take this evening will be roll call votes. Um and it is possible that um Megan Benson may also join us remotely. Um Jen, can you hear us? >> Oh, did you lose Jen? >> No, she was. >> Yes. >> Okay, good. Great. >> I can hear you guys. >> Excellent. Um before um we start the meeting, I do want to let the public know some information. Um so I just want to let everyone know that um David Franle um has submitted his resignation and stepped down from the school committee um due to some health reasons. Um he after um approximately four years of service on the committee um David did share that he wanted to share with the public that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve on the committee.

003Um I just want to let everyone know that excuse me and um I think I speak for the whole committee just to say that we will miss having David here and that we wish him all the best. Yes. Um, first up, um, we have citizens comments. Um, we will have an opportunity for citizens here in person to speak as well as people on Zoom to speak. Um, if you do choose to speak, I'll ask that you approach the podium um, and state your name and please spell your last name so that we get it correct for the minutes. Um, I'll ask Amy to be our timekeeper. Um, and we'll have um I'll ask you to keep your um comments to 3 minutes. Um, and please know that this is an opportunity for us, the school

004committee, to listen and for you to be heard. Um, and it's not a back and forth. Um, but it is an opportunity for you to speak and we value that. Um, Eric doesn't look like we have any community members on Zoom. Is that correct? Correct. >> Okay. Um, is there anyone in the room that would like to speak? >> Welcome. >> Hello, Jeff Austin. Uh, Hampton, Mass. Uh, I I attended both the superintendent's workshop early this week and then I just attended the school committee's workshop, uh, moments ago. I want to say I want to separate two different workshops. First, the public workshop, the session was built for data gathering. Many residents appreciated it including me. The format helped surface themes and priorities and it gave people a real chance to share what matters now.

005That workshop and the future ones will be useful. Secondly, the work the school committee workshop I just attended that felt a little different. It felt close to criticism and more focused on self-re. I heard a lot about what you think went well. I heard too much about consol how consolidation might have worked. I also heard frustration that you could not get consolidation across the finish line. But the majority did not want consolidation. That is the fact of the matter. The job now is to accept it, learn from it, and move forward. If the goal is to if the goal is to rebuild trust, focus less on defending the past and more on answering the hard questions. Many residents did not feel the process was fully honest or fully real. I heard that in the meeting.

006Communication was often buried across websites and scattered documentation. People should not have to hunt for basic information on a project of the size. That was also mentioned this past meeting moments ago. Community engage engagement is not the public sitting quietly while you listen and then move on. We are repeatedly told the public can attend but is not for us to participate. That is not dialogue. That is a controlled comment. And when the only back and forth happens in private conversation, it's not transparency. The public should be able to hear the questions and the answers in the open. Nobody should tolerate personal texts. I heard that was a concern as well. But public criticism criticism is not an attack. A governing body has to accept criticism and be willing to be challenged publicly. Here's the practical

007path forward. First, pause any major new building proposals until the current override decisions are finished. Let the comm community stabilize. Second, complete a full district-wide facilities assessment. Then, publish a prioritized renovation plan with clear cost timelines and trade-offs. Third, redo the educational plan with grounded scope and realism, realistic assumptions. Cut the aspirational items out that drive cost without clear value. The public workshop helped gathered honest input. Now the committee needs to act [clears throat] on what the majority said and build a plan people can support. >> 30 seconds. >> Thank you. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, 30 seconds. That was it. not three minutes. [cough and clears throat] >> Um, Bethur, 270 Asbury Street in Hamilton. Um, I was just actually thinking about this today. One thing I really want to encourage you all

008to do is I want everyone to go take a tour of the Welch School. I heard that the Welch school was not comparable and yet they tore it down to the cinder blocks and reconfigured. And I feel like if you were going to represent the school committee and the town, the the minimum you can do is go see the Welsh school. Number two, we just saw a huge success in Hamilton. the way the select board, the planning board, the abutters, and the seminary had basically a unanimous vote. That should be our goal here. We've already set the mark, and I'm going to encourage the school committee to come up with a new way to interact instead of waiting, having um interaction throughout your meeting where people can ask questions or make comments. So you don't

009get three meetings down before you hear a comment. And I think that is part of the success. It was a 3 and 1/2 year project with the seminary. And the fact that it was completely not contentious the day of the meeting was really the testimony of the work that was done. But that was because the planning board and the select board constantly interacted even in your meetings. I know that that's your policy now and I'm asking you to change it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um are there other members of the public who'd like to speak? >> Okay. It doesn't look like there's anybody else in the room. Is there anyone on Zoom? >> No more. Nope. >> Okay. Um, we're not going to close the Zoom link because we have um our

010school committee member is there, but at this point um public comment on Zoom will be closed. Um, and public comment in the room will be closed. Thank you for your input and comment. Um, so school committee um I was not able to get I had some technical difficulties and I didn't print out the protocols. Um, >> I have the mission statement. I'm hoping somebody will be willing to read protocol number eight. >> Okay. >> As elected members of the Hamilton Munham Regional School Committee, we including the superintendent accept the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following and the conduct of our business. Number eight, school committee members will vote according

011to their convictions, will avoid bias, and will uphold and support the decisions of the majority of the committee once a decision has been made. Positions will not be used for personal or partisan gain. >> Thank you. Um, >> I have the mission statement, too. >> Great. Would you be willing to read that top part plus the final bullet, please? >> The the first bullet. >> The final bullet. Um, the Hamilton W and Regional School District School Committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that is a source of civic pride and municipal engagement to serve the community for generations to come. >> Thank you. Um, next

012up, uh, we have the superintendent report. >> Shoot. >> Oh, would you I'm sorry. Um, >> first, >> yeah, if if the without objection, if the committee's comfortable, um, we might ask Evie Evie, right? Uh, to go out of order. Is that >> Yeah, that's fine. That's great. >> Okay. Welcome. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you for having me. Um, I'm Evie Bernard. the senior class president here at the high school. So, I wanted to just run through some um activities that all of the schools have been doing and give a quick update. So, starting with the high school, um a really big club at the high school is DECA. And recently on December 10th, um 275 students all attended the DECA districts. and we had a very successful outcome with 107 students

013qualifying for the state conference. So that was really exciting. Um we also had a great um winter art and art show. So our arts um performed and our um art classes got to present their art. Um the concert band, jazz band, concert choir and harmony all performed and it w sounded like it went great. Um the next thing is that on the last day before winter break, we had a really fun opportunity as a student government to kind of plan the day out. So we started off with an all school assembly and pep rally um where holidays activities took place and we kind of really bonded as um all student body and then also we had choice blocks which was a great chance for each student to go choose something that they're really interested in

014for the rest of the day. So, we going into winter sports, girls basketball has been very successful this year. They just won their Danverse Christmas tournament and um I heard great things about it. The ski team, the boys had a race today and the girls have their first race on Monday. And then also boys basketball, gymnastics, swimming, hockey, indoor track and cheer are all off to a great start. Moving on to middle school. The Miles River Middle School has started a student of the week and each um student from each grade gets to move to the front of the light front of the lunch line which is very important when you're in middle school. And they also had a winter spirit week which you can see the schedule off to the side and a successful

015winter concert. Also they participate in National Junior Honor Society and they worked on sending holiday cards to soldiers before winter break. On to Winthre school. Uh Winthre school hosted the elementary family literacy night on January or is hosting on January 13th at Winthre at their Winthre school and they had a very successful holiday boutique and book fair. Uh they have an upcoming assembly uh with Chris Powos and he is a world champion athlete, youth motivational speaker and aspiring author who shares powerful life lessons as he demonstrates amazing bicycle stunts. I actually remember um him coming in when I was in at Winthrop and it was a great assembly and a really like important learning experience. On to Cutler. They started a play club where kids could go in before school and just play in the

016front um of the school, which I think is a really important um thing for them to do cuz as such little kids have so much energy. It's great to get it out before school starts. And they also held a winter solstice craft and readaloud night where you can see the kind of crafts they made. and they're also going to the family literacy night. On to Ber Buer art students have been busy creating winter paper pop-up scenes and they also went to the family literacy night. Thank you. >> Thank you. Do people have questions for Abby? >> Um I had a quick question. would you be? Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you first of all for doing this work, but also I love that you added a little personal touch about

017something you remembered. >> Oh, yeah. >> It's so important for us to hear like that that stuck with you for so many years cuz that's good to know like those kids are getting that experience right now and that's really meaningful. So, thank you >> for that. Um, can you just give me I don't know tell me a little bit about the choice blocks at the high school. >> Yeah. So we had two blocks after the assembly and each teacher teacher could kind of host their own activity. So for example like my English teacher always host or my sophomore English teacher always hosted making fly fishing like little rod or something. So it's kind of like special to each teacher. One Miss Poston hosted like brought in her bunnies. So you guys kind of to choose.

018It's really fun. But yeah just about an hour of >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Okay. Anybody else have questions? Okay. Um, Evie, you are welcome, of course, to stay and also we know that you might have other things to do. Um, totally up to you, but if you're ready to depart, that's okay. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Um, always great to have the student rep here. Um, all right. Uh, next up is our consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like held from the consent agenda? >> Back up one. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped the Thank you. >> Superintendent report. >> Sorry. Thank you. See, that's what happens. I um Sorry, I skipped the superintendent report. Back to the superintendent report. Number five on the agenda, Eric. >> Not

019too bad. Thank you. Um couple of things on the agenda. Happy New Year to everybody. I know it's past the time when you can say happy new year, but it's our first meeting back. Um uh this past Wednesday we had community conversations. I want to thank everyone. There were more than 50 people out that that morning in the ice. It was a nasty weather and I really appreciate people kind of getting through the weather and getting there. Parking was tough and the weather was tough. So it was I thought it was a good turnout. I thought we got some great information. I'm looking forward to the next session which will be on the 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the high school. Um that'll be in the library at the high school. Um the school start

020time committee. Just want to give an update. We met again Monday night. Uh we had the community house one a representative from the community house come um to talk with the group to answer questions from the group. They were answering questions. We were answering questions for them as well to try and get an idea what the impacts might be if times changed, shifted, etc. Um the group is really making good progress. Uh we we're we're definitely on track to hit the deadline to bring a report to the school committee um in early March. Uh January 20th, principal of the Cutler School, Jenny Hunt, and I have been invited to go to the state house to receive an award uh for the Cutler School. The Cutler is one of 55 schools of recognition in the state

021for their MCCAST progress towards their targets. Uh that's a big deal. they had some really big jumps in their percentages uh from 24 to 25. So, we'll be heading to the state house on the 20th uh to be part of that ceremony. It's exciting. And congratulations to the Cutler School. And then uh just a reminder because someone asked me today uh January 19th there is no school Martin Luther King Day. So, just that's coming up really quickly oddly. Um it's coming right up. And then that week really marks the end of the first half of school. we started to see um the the second quarter close and kids shifting into third quarter and pick you know at the high school they're they're moving into new classes so it's an exciting time of the year for

022everybody as well. That is all. Thank you. >> Oh, do you want to mention the the public hearings on the budget >> coming up? >> We certainly can. Hold on. Um >> yeah, so we'll we'll do we have a couple of public hearings coming up. We have a public hearing coming up next meeting for school choice. Um and then the budget uh public hearing. There'll be one before the final vote on that night. Both of those start at 6:30. People should write that down. So the next couple of meetings will be public hearings for both school choice, which we do annually to determine whether or not we want to have school choice. And the following meeting will be for uh budget comments uh for in preparation for the final budget vote for the school committee.

023And then one thing I forgot to mention is um next week is family literacy night. Uh Tuesday at 6:00 and I went last year it was lots of fun actually. We had all kinds of different activities set up um throughout the building and um gave families an opportunity to see what kids are working on to learn about some things that they're working on gain some perspective on uh literacy and the kind the new science behind learning and literacy. And I think uh for us it's it's been a good way to bring parents in and families in and get them talking about what's going on in schools. So we look forward to that next week as well. >> Thank you. >> Um just on the Can we get the I want to make sure we have

024the dates right about the public hearings. So the um >> January 22nd >> 22nd is the school choice. >> School choice. That's the next meeting. >> The budget public hearing number one. >> Number one on the 22nd. And then >> February 12th >> is the final one. >> Yep. No, I just want to make sure we said I have it in my calendar. I just >> It's the next two meetings. You'll have the hearing for choice, which is fairly brief usually. >> And then the hearing for the budget, the first hearing. Yep. >> And then that f that meeting we vote the final night, February 12th, will be the hearing for the final. >> Those both start at 6:30. People should know that because sometimes people forget and come at 7:00 and it's the hearings

025are over. Okay. Um, anybody have anything else on that? Jen, you good? >> Excellent. >> That was good. >> Um, okay. Does anyone have any items that they would like to have held from the consent agenda? >> Julia, I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented in the exhibit. >> Second. Um, that was seconded by Amy Kimberger. Um, we will do a roll call vote. Um, Kristen, >> yes. >> Julia, >> yes. >> Amy, >> yes. >> Is a yes. Jen, >> yes. >> And that is unanimous of the five members present. And the motion passes. Okay. Next up um is uh launch of strategic planning. That is to you Eric. >> All right. Believe it or not, the first strategic plan that I created coming in is running out this year. Um

026thinking back to almost a little under 5 years ago, uh we did a year of kind of the superintendent's entry plan, developed the entry plan. Then we brought in an outside group, the teaching and learning associates to help us to develop our first uh strategic plan, which which was a three-year plan. We kept it three years purposefully so that we had um the opportunity to get some things into focus before we moved uh forward because there was so much instability at the time. So we we tried to just kind of limit it at at first. So uh this time Jen Clifford, the director of teaching and learning and I will run the process and we will run it based on using the department of education strategic planning frameworks that they have published on their site

027but also that several of us have already attended workshops over the years. Um so we're quite familiar with how that process works. And in the memo that I have here, it's really talking about the three phases of what we'll do. We'll look at our current context, what the data says now, which will be interesting to compare from the data at the beginning of the first uh strategic plan and then visioning for the future to do some analysis of what that looks like and then creating some of the direction for us and then implement draft and implement implement the plan moving forward. And that will give us a road map for the next 5 years uh for some of the big items that are will be on our plate like MTSS will continue. Um I'm sure

028something related to school facilities and building or renovation will probably be on that. Um so really just lays out the plan for us over the next 5 years and gives us some um guideposts if you will to help us to plan our budget. As well we have uh established the meeting dates. uh they're on this memo. February 4th, we'll do introductions and orientation. Uh February 25th, a little data investigation. We really dig into data with the whole committee. Uh March 11th, we'll look at the different pillars and strategic objectives that will form our planner under and then develop the strategic objectives that make sense for our district and then finalize the initiatives and outcomes that fit under each of those strategic objectives as we move forward. And then we'll do a final review and and

029should have it uh ready to be publicized in public by mid to late May. Um once we get it once we get it going and this will really serve as the district's northstar for the next 5 years. Um so we're hoping we're going to start putting our invitations out next week. So hoping that we can get just as much excitement as we did last time. I think we had between 40 and 60 people in the room almost each workshop that we ran. Um and we'll run them very similar. they'll be in a workshop style where people will be moving. You're you're not going to be sitting and listening to anybody. It's really you're digging in. You're thinking of ideas. You're contributing to the process. So, we'll start putting those out next week and getting some

030people involved. And once we figure out uh who's willing to be involved, we'll send out the invites and start this process on February 4th. >> Questions? I don't think so. >> No. anybody um uh thank you for doing this work. I >> Yeah, it should be fun. Interesting to be able to give us a baseline. >> Yeah, >> you can also look at where we kind of started. Go all the way back to >> when you know I initially presented this superintendent's entry plan. If you haven't seen it, it's on the website. Go back and look at it and you're like, "Wow, we did accomplish quite a And you take each of the annual reports that we did at the end of the year around our goals. There was a lot of work done. Our

031staff has done unbelievable work towards implementing new curriculum, getting things targeted for MTSS, putting together data structures that make sense for our kids and for our staff. Um, so there's there's we've made huge momentum and motion in those areas and I think it's important for us to continue to do that. So much so that the department of ed highlights us has highlighted us several times in not only a video that goes around statewide. People view around the MTSS process but also um our people are going to start pre presenting publicly and a number of schools have visit us and several more will be coming to visit our schools to see our programs in action like our math and our our literacy programs in action. So that's pretty pretty exciting and looking forward to growing some

032more. >> And this one of our identified district goals for the year to do the strategic plan. So that's great. >> I think I may have missed this, but who is on the committee, the strategic planning committee? I know you're chairing it or unless it hasn't been >> Yeah. So what what we we open it to anybody in the communities. >> Okay. So we try to get students, staff, administrators, parents, uh business people, uh senior citizens, anybody who wants to to come and be part of the process. We invited last time and and it shifted each meeting. We we had most of the people there. So there's average about 45 people there last time. So it runs we try to keep it in five sessions so that people can get to the sessions. Um, but

033we really want to open it up because we want ideas on what that strategic planning looks like because the opportunities you miss are the opportunities of, you know, are where you didn't invite the right people. So when you're looking at it from the community perspective, somebody might come out from the community and say, "Hey, what if we did this that somebody from the school side would have never thought of and vice versa." So it makes for a good dialogue and it makes for uh some good back and forth around where people see the direction of the schools. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Everybody good? Okay. All right. Um, next up is this is really justformational um but um Eric, can you pull the town um in election information up? >> This

034one? >> Yeah. So both um we have both exhibits um provide this similar information but for the for the two towns. So both town clerks compile and create um information regarding the town meeting town election calendar and um and we put post them here. The important thing for us to note um if you I don't know if you want to scroll down. Well, first of all, we want to just make this is just one more opportunity that this gets put out by the towns and it'll be but one more opportunity for the public to see. These are the election dates. Um these are the if you're interested in running for school committee, but also if you're interested in running for other elected office, this will tell you the nomination dates. Um, so nomination papers are

035available beginning on Monday, January 12th, and your last day to submit nomination papers are February 26th. Um, do know that if you um want to run for office, you do need to get your nomination papers from your town clerk and then you need to um collect signatures and your town clerk will give you the specifics of that. um school committee is um does require um more signatures and those signatures can be from either town. All school committee members are all school committee positions are open to uh they are all at large. They are voted they are open to everyone anyone from either town. So I do want to just address it is a little bit unusual this year. So, I do want to address the school committee specifically just so that people from the public

036and I want to say to the public like if anyone is listening if you're not clear, please contact your town clerk or contact us, contact me. I'll be happy to be clear because it is a little bit different than usual. So, um there are four positions open or to be run for on the school committee. two of them are for a three-year term. Two of them are for a two-year term. Um, that is not the normal way that this happens. This is due to resignations in people that were appointed. So, those two-year terms typically were run for three years, but those two-year terms are um because there were resignations during those two. just spoke about David Frankle who's just um stepped down and Kristen Nun has been appointed into a seat and Megan Benson has

037been appointed into a seat. If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer them about why it's structured this way. But I just want everyone to know everyone is open. If you are a citizen who's registered to vote in Hamilton or Winnham, you can run for any of those terms. questions about why it's structured that way or who to contact. >> Got it. Got it. Okay. [laughter] All right. Just wanted to make sure that people have that information. >> All right. And now to the budget. Um, I don't know because we don't have anybody over here. Would it help? I mean, can I don't know if there's any way to tip it so that they can see better, but I'm not sure. I don't I mean I can see it and that's good when I'm

038feeling like Eric's probably got got it and Jen can see it right or you've got it on >> until Vinnie starts talking. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I'm sorry if I didn't make you. >> It's okay. >> It's fine. Uh I got to do this though. Hold on. >> Yeah. >> [snorts] >> We'll see if Megan joins us right there. >> Mhm. >> It'll show if she jumps in and tell me. >> Okay. Thank you guys for joining us tonight. Uh we are obviously here to review the superintendent's 20 uh tentative FY27 budget request. So just to give a little brief overview and agenda, uh we have two minor updates tonight. The first one is around our operating revenue projections and another minor update to our operating expenditures. Uh once we update you on those two

039numbers, uh that brings us to what we're calling our tenative budget and we're going to go over kind of a highle view of their overall tenative bud budget and how we arrive at the town assessments. And then if it's okay, I'm going to kind of do the last two out of order. Uh we have to vote on the tenative budget and then review open items. Uh the reason I'm kind of flipping them is in case you guys want to review the open items and kind of make a decision on those before you vote on the tenative budget. Uh you obviously don't have to, but I at least wanted to give you the opportunity to either kind of end the discussion on the few open items uh or leave them open or finalize them and not

040include them. And then the last thing will be to vote on the official tenative budget. Um so at the original preliminary budget when we presented it uh to the boards we had an overall uh net assessment budget at about 10.3%. Uh from that meeting we received some direction from the school committee that they wanted us to reduce that overall number. Uh it wasn't a complete clear number, but we came to the conclusion it was about around a million dollars. Uh from there, we gave you guys an updated budget recommendation that dropped it about $680,000. Uh and what we received from there is we really you guys really wanted us to meet that kind of $1 million number. During that meeting, we kind of advised you that to meet that number, it's really going to be

041reductions in staffing. Uh tonight I'm kind of pleased to report that we were able to avoid uh more staff reductions with this update in revenue that we we received from the from the MARS. Uh so just to get into it, uh MARS stands for the Massachusetts Association of Regional School Districts. Uh Eric and I attend some of their meetings on a quarterly basis. uh the meeting before the last meeting, a lot of what they were stressing was the fact that the state was not meeting uh their benchmark in revenues and there was concerns about 9C cuts. Um I'm very open about how I budget. I am usually very conservative and when I heard things about 9C cuts, I was extra conservative on our revenue estimates. When we met with them in December, uh they notified

042us that the state kind of reversed what they were saying and they were meeting their benchmarks for the second half of the second quarter and there was no longer uh concerns about 9C cuts, at least not 9C cuts that would affect school districts. Uh as a result of that meeting uh we really felt more comfortable to increase a lot of our state funding numbers that uh that involve our circuit breaker and our chapter 71. Uh as a result we were able to increase our revenue projections by 256,000. And when we do this we did not offset this by any expenses kind of what we do with END. Uh so the result of this was a complete drop to the town assessments. So we increased our overall revenue which means ultimately uh the town ends up

043paying less less of an assessment that we have to raise. Um so happy to report we were able to come close to your uh requested number without going too much further into staffing. I don't know why it's not moving. Okay. And then in terms of our operating budget, we do have a minor update in terms of uh what we are requesting tonight. So what happened here after we met on the preliminary budget and then we gave you the updated budget, we incorporated a 7ft FTE reduction in order to meet that kind of $1 million uh reduction. Prior to presenting that to you, we met with the leadership team and kind of warned them that we were looking at a 7ft FTE reduction and spend the next couple weeks trying to figure out what that would

044look like within your building. After we met with you guys and presented the updated budget, we went back to the leadership team uh and pretty much warned them that this is probably what we're going to move forward with. Uh so we all met as a group and kind of walked through what these reductions meant. Uh we went through each building. One thing we were getting hiccups on was at the high school. So if you recall in our preliminary budget, we already incorporated a reduction of a half-time special ed teacher. And then when we uh did the updated budget, we incorporated a 3.0 additional FTE reduction. When you we combine those two items, we were facing a lot of difficulty up at the high school uh completing scheduling uh and meeting students needs through their IEP

045through the combination of both the 3.0 and the original.5. Uh so as a group we kind of all tried to uh figure out the solution and all we could revert back to is removing our request to reduce the 0.5 special ed teacher which we were using to purchase a 0.5 psychology at the districtwide level. Uh so our tentative budget tonight reverses that. So, we're adding back in the 0.5 special ed teacher at the high school and removing the 0.5 psychologist at the district-wide level. This ultimately means a reduction of about $8,000 cuz we were planning on our psych psychologists coming in at a much higher pay scale. They usually come in with doctorate degrees in our step 12s. So, we had them at the top of the salary scale where we have our um special

046ed teacher a little bit lower. Ultimately, uh again, savings of about $8,000. There is a minor update to our professional development um just because we we budget a certain amount per FTE. The additional uh halfime at the high school meant an additional $75. Uh just a minor update. So through the combination of our revenue increased revenue projections and this minor update in our operating expenditures, we were able to reduce our updated preliminary budget by about $265,000. Uh when you compare that to our preliminary budget, we are $950,000 lower than the preliminary. So just under that $1 million mark uh while still maintaining that same reduction in FTEES at about 7. That brings us to our tenative budget. But I just wanted to give you a time to ask a question about either of those two

047items before I dive into it. Yep. >> Yeah. Um so I had a question specifically about the um uh reduction of the or I guess not a it's a flip of the um psychologist >> going back to the psychologist. So, not getting the 0.5 psych districtwide psychologist. What do we anticipate or how can we judge what the cost because that's that's a psychologist is a potential outsource job that you might have to bring someone in and pay and that's more expensive. >> Yes. >> So, that seems like that's a risk. >> Am I correct? Uh it is a risk, but we currently have uh the special ed department currently has uh contracted services funds that we're paying for now for outsourced psychologist services. Our attempt was to bring somebody in, you get more services with

048the current with a staff member. Um not only might you save a little bit of funds, but you actually get more time for students. Uh so that was the idea. if we still have to outsource services in FY27. Uh if you go back to our original preliminary budget, there is additional funding for psychology services that were not there in 26. Uh so we believe we still have coverage if we need to outsource those services in 2017. >> Did I answer that question or not? >> Yeah, I mean yeah. No, I I mean I'm it's these are hard choices. I'm not I I guess I'm just it just feels it's it's a little bit of an unknown as opposed to like a special education teacher.5 we know how much that costs because that's how much it

049costs whereas not having a service that you might have to pay for on the from outsource it's just a just something I'm thinking about that it's a risk >> let me add to that to Vinnie's explanation the reality of this budget. We're reducing the budget. We went back and said what we said in the beginning to all of our budget holders, do not add any new positions. So, I went back through and said, "Okay, this is a new position. Technically, it was didn't exist in the budget." Yeah, we were going to try to kind of steal from Paul to pay Peter, but um it just didn't make sense when you're starting to reduce that number of positions across the district. I also look at all the other school districts in this area and I compare

050um positions across different sectors like special ed is one of them like okay how many how many school psychologists do we have? We currently have two full-time school psychologists. Most districts in this area have one. So, we're looking at it from okay, what's that need? What's the projected need? Is it a now thing or is it something that's just going to continue to rise in the future? You never know. It's up and down and up and down depending on the kids you get each year the number of kids you have to be tested. So I think it's something we can put on hold for now and and look at a in a >> at a different time when we're you know when we're cutting the budget. It doesn't make sense to bring in new positions.

051I'd rather try to work within what we already have. >> No, that was very helpful to me. I think that's helpful information to know how we compare to other districts. I think that's helpful. So thank you. >> Okay. So just to review our overall changes from the budget uh starting with our debt service year-over-year in terms of our expenditures, we are we are seeing an increase of roughly $13,000. The major two components here is the fact that we have three projects that ended in FY26. Our borrowing was finally paid down for the Winthrop sprinkler, uh the FY2021 capital projects, and the first authorization of the Cutler feasibility study. Uh all three of those ended this year in FY26. That's why they're all zero in FY27. And then the second thing is the second authorization for

052the Cutler feasibility study and the athletic complex upgrade project uh were both converted to long-term notes this year and will be the first payown in FY27. Uh so those numbers are updated here. Overall, those two moves again increased our debt service budget uh expenditures by roughly 13,000. However, when you look at the re revenue side, uh because of that conversion in the short-term to long-term note and because of the way uh we designed the new long-term borrowing to be premium neutral and ultimately lower the overall principle and the overall interest that we would have to pay. Uh we are seeing a reduction in the premiums as we will no longer be receiving them in FY27. Uh dropping our revenues by $18,000. So you wrap these two items together, you have our increase of $13,000 from

053the expenditures and a reduction of $107 in the revenue. Our overall net debt service assessment is increasing by 121,000. uh which means a 5.9 uh% for Hamilton and a 7.86% for Winnham. Uh moving on to our operating expenditures. Uh here in front of you is the summary by school or site location. Uh year-over-year from FY27 to FY26. uh our tenative budget, we are requesting an increase of 5.9% which ultimately means a 2,755,000 increase year-over-year. And again, this does incorporate the reduction overall of 6.11 FTEES. Uh so just briefly, we've discussed these in depth prior, but just to briefly go over them, our biggest year-over-year operating expenditures are obviously around our personnel. They're mostly our salaries and our benefits. So, our two biggest ones, our COLA and the FY27 step increment increase add up to about

054two uh $1.3 million just from those two um salary items alone. Uh in addition to that, our health insurance premiums are increasing at uh abnormal rates along with everyone uh probably across the country. Uh in addition to our premium rates increases, the district did dedicate an additional 2% uh to offset the employee cost of the premiums. Uh all these factors combined, we are estimating an increase to our health insurance of just under $600,000. Uh the next two major increases that we are seeing for FY27 is the new investment in our building maintenance and repairs and our capital stabilization fund transfer. the building and maintenance repairs for roughly $550,000. Uh covers anything from additional supplies and materials, uh additional contracted services, preventative maintenance, uh and funds to replace some of our aging equipment and enhance uh

055some of our security features across our five schools. Uh again, we are requesting a capital stabilization fund as well of roughly 316,000. Uh on the reverse to meet the need to meet the uh d the direction received from the school committee to lower our overall assessment uh we are anticipating a reduction at this time of 7 FTEES which I am estimating will save approximately 418,000. Uh just to be fully transparent this is an estimate. I'm using a baseline of roughly $60,000 per staff member. This does incorporate unemployment costs. Uh when this actually comes to fruition, it could be a much different number than you see here. The actual person uh that might be reduced could have a much larger salary than $60,000. Uh just as an example, I'm using $60,000, but if it happens to

056be someone who's a doctorate step 12, they make $115,000. there would be additional savings, but we won't know those numbers until this actually rolls out and we know what positions and what staff members are reduced. In addition to that, you could have staff members that find a job the next day, so they have no unemployment costs, or you could have a staff member who has full unemployment costs. I've incorporated full unemployment costs on every single one of those employees. If some of them go on unemployment and some don't, there would be additional savings, but at the least we have all of our liability covered. Um, just so you're aware, it could be additional savings next year if it's any different. Yes. >> Are we set up as reimburseable with a DUA? >> Meaning meaning like

057if someone files a claim, we pay the full claim amount. We don't Okay, >> that's correct. Yep. >> We don't pay a percentage of everyone. It's just when they apply. >> Okay. Um the next item is around our salary savings. This is our normal attrition rate. This is people that we budgeted for in FY26 that ended up leaving and not staying with us for FY26. We're seeing salary savings of roughly $212,000. Uh normally we also have savings from retirements. So this retirement number you see here is both retirements that happen midyear this year and retirements that are planned uh for June 30th of this coming year. So, it's the combination of both. We're saving roughly $185,000 year-over-year. Uh, next, we've removed our cyber security upgrade funding of approximately $55,000. Uh, and last, we have an

058athletic user fee uh reduction of $35,000 that I am going to briefly talk about a little bit more in a moment. Um, so that was our expenditure side. Moving on to the revenue side. uh year-over-year we do I am uh painting a bleak picture here for you. Our revenues are dropping year-over-year. We have talked about this before. Obviously, everyone knows the main reason for that is our excess and deficiency. And this is the prime example of why you do not use your excess and deficiency to supplement your operating budget in case the following year this happens. We are short $1 million in revenue uh because of the choice last year that we made to use excess and deficiency to supplement our operating budget. Uh one thing I want to show you though is what happens

059when you remove it. We have revenue increases of 11%. I have done 14 budgets for Hamilton and there has never been revenue this high. Uh this is extraordinary and it is a little bit uh sad in my mind because if we didn't do the excess and deficiency we would be talking about a much different budget right now. It looks like we would have additional funds to work with. It could potentially lead to uh more time for students uh more services. However, going back to it because of that END, it's the complete reverse. our revenue is dropping year-over-year which means direct increases to the assessment and direct increases uh to taxpayers. So uh again the major increases obviously outside of our uh reduction in END is circuit breaker which is coming in at 38%. Uh that

060might seem great to everyone but I just want to remind you you only get circuit breaker money cuz you spend money. Uh so we spent additional funds they reimburse us additionally. So yes, we are receiving more revenue, but it only means that we spent more money. Uh so although it's a good thing, it's not necessarily uh when you look at the numbers. So again, just wrapping all of these together, we have our increases in expenditures of 2.7 million. Our decrease in revenues, which goes in as an ad again because it's a decrease in revenue, means a net change to town assessments of 2.9 million, uh, which is just under 8% uh, for our net operating budget. This translates into a 7.28% increase for Hamilton and a 9.25% increase for Winnham. Um, when you roll our

061debt service and our operating budget together, ultimately we're requesting a $3,70,000 increase, which is a 7.21% to Hamilton and 9.18 to Wenom. Just to kind of paint the picture of where we came and where we are right now. When we originally presented our preliminary budget, uh we had Hamilton at just under 10% and Wenham just under 12%. Our updated budget dropped that number by roughly $680,000 or dropped all three entities roughly 7 uh 1.7%. Our tentative budget now uh reduces that by another 265,000. Uh ultimately bringing us down roughly 950,000 from when we originally presented the budget. Um that also translates into a drop of about 2 1/2%. And from my opinion, although 2 1/2% doesn't seem like a large drop, it does translate into a million dollars. It is seven people that will uh

062potentially not be here next year. Um it is reductions uh in bus services for late buses. It is increase to athletic user fees. Uh although it is a $35,000 savings for us, ath athletes will see an 11% increase in their user fees for FY27. Um so although again 2.5% may not sound like a lot, it was very difficult to get to that million-doll number. uh and there will be a drastic uh reduction in services for next year as it stands with our tenative budget. So this is the budget motion that I'm going to skip over for the moment. I can easily uh change out any of these numbers uh depending on if you want to make any decisions on my open items. Uh this is a technicality. I have a summary by desi category. uh

063that is what the motion uh drives upon is how the categories are broken out dusty wise. In terms of our open items, we really just have two. It's around our athletic user fees. So during our um updated preliminary budget, we incorporated a 5% user fee match redu reduction towards athletic user fees. I took away from that meeting that you guys weren't entirely um okay with that reduction or not. So, one question and one open item I have is what do you want to do with athletic user fees? The current budget uh that is on the exhibit, the motion that is written in the previous slide incorporates the reduction of 5%. If you do not want to reduce the user fees by 5%, the numbers I just presented to you will increase by 35,87. That is

064the kind of only open item at the moment. Uh other than that, it's do you want to do anything else with athletic user fees? And ultimately, do you want to do anything else to this budget before our public hearing? Uh so our next steps next week, Eric and I meet with the town administration uh to get their feeling on our tenative budget. The following Wednesday, we have the chairs only meeting and then the Wednesday after that we have the quintuple board meeting. The next day is the only meeting before the final meeting that we vote on the budget. I will obviously do whatever you want. I will change that number all the way up until the final vote. But if you ask me, it would be great if we could set that final number on

065January 22nd. And the only thing we really do on February 12th is vote on it. And we don't change anything. However, I'll repeat it. I'll change it all the way up until the day um we vote on it. So really, this is kind of your time to request any changes or any additional information so we can prepare it and present it to you at the next meeting because that is the only meeting before the meeting we vote on it. Uh this is the last meeting before the public hearing. So if there is anything you want changed before the public hearing, um now would be the time so we can develop it for that public hearing. I think that concludes everything. So, I will go back to the motion slide and you can ask me what

066you need. >> So, >> did I spell something wrong? >> No. >> Okay. Can you say that last part again? >> No, no, no. I just um I I'm just want to make sure I understand what just procedurally like do you want to us to make the tenative motion or do you want to hear feedback? >> Feedback would be great. Yes. Okay. >> In case we want to change. >> Right. So, does anyone have Let's just as usual, let's just start with anyone. Is there any just a question for Vinnie? >> Yep. Go ahead. >> I have I think I have two questions. Um on the slide of reductions to the expense budget, there's that $55,000ish cyber security upgrade. >> I am wondering if that is a situation where we're just basically delaying that expense

067to a future year. I would assume we have to do that upgrade at some point. So, I'm just wondering um basically I guess how long we can delay it. >> Yep. >> So, that funding was requested as part of the as part of the FY26 budget request and was one-time funding to beef up our security upgrades. So, we're doing that this year. Therefore, we don't need to >> we don't need to do it again for next year unless um society changes and we need to beef it up again. Okay. >> But we're conducting that right now. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. And then my second question, just to make sure I understand, and I'm sorry cuz I know we've talked about this bunches of times. >> Ask whatever you need, >> but I just

068want to make sure I've got it is to sort of, for lack of a better term, clear up the excess and deficiency issue, >> we would need effectively an override from the towns. Um, it seems as though that would be correct. >> Okay. >> We don't just I'm sorry to jump in. >> It's okay. We don't know that. It's up to the towns. It's up to the towns to determine that. >> Okay. >> But the feedback that we're getting from the towns is that it is likely given these numbers >> that and and we got more definitive feedback that is very likely from Winnham and less certainty that it might be likely from Hamilton. But it's up to the towns to decide and they're still working on their budgets and >> Okay, thank you. That

069is a more precise way of wording my question. I guess the question behind the question is, do we want to resolve that in any way, shape, or form at some time, I guess. >> And >> that's part of the feedback, I think. I mean that and I I mean if you have feedback then >> well it's compelling like the slide that shows like what the revenue picture would look like if we didn't have that. So, I just it's hard cuz if this were your own household and you felt as though you owed money for something, you could come up with a plan to say, "Well, we'll pay this much this year and this much last year." And it's so much harder in this environment because of the intersecting budgets and the approvals required that it's

070I think hard for the committee to be proactive in that way or I mean, we could set an intention I guess that we would try to do certain things. I'm just I'm just asking for the group like >> well and I and I if I if I may and I and Vinnie I'm looking to you to make sure because the END is so complicated and you know I guess I just wanted to this is not this is sort of my just making sure that we're all agreeing about what occurred. We did use END to fund the operating budget for the current year. Um and we but we and not but but and we did that in consultation with the towns. We did it publicly. It it wasn't like an error that we did accidentally. We

071did this. >> It was very intentional >> purposefully and just like >> just to sort of that that END. It's the equivalent of that money went into our budget and the taxpayers in this current year did not have their taxes raised that much. That money was not raised from the taxpayers in this year. >> Right? So, it's in the budget, but the taxpayers did not raise that, right? I'm And so, what happens is it looks like you're going from here to here, >> right? >> But the budget actually went to here. It just didn't get drawn in FY26. I just want to make sure people understand it's not that we lost the money or it's it's that we used it in an intentional way knowing that it would look and feel to taxpayers like this

072large increase. But in >> it, you know, if we if it we had gotten it from the taxpayers, it would have gone up some in 2026 and some in 2027. And in reality and so it's real and it and these numbers are real but I guess I just want to make sure people know this wasn't >> yes and I did not mean to imply that so I just [laughter] but I just wanted to >> I just make sure I understood >> and just to clarify this does not clear up our END issue. We are still supplementing three quarters of a million dollars with END >> which is left over from from co >> right and ultimately >> but this could hurt us next year >> if if all goes well you'd then make your plan

073in the FY28 budget to say okay how do we start to reduce that 773,000 >> um because it's like it's like using a credit card to buy groceries every month and not paying it off monthly. you just can never get out from underneath it if you don't start targeting it. Um, so I think that's that that would be an important conversation we'll have next year, the intentional conversation. Okay, how do we reduce the END down to zero, right? >> Which is really the place we want to be or you know 100 or 200,000 but >> just progress I think you know >> and it'll be a little out of time. It's hard to make a big jump like that because then you're cutting you're basically dumping your revenues. So, it looks like a giant percentage

074point loss, but it's it's really a one-time source. So, just just for planning for the future, it's just trying to figure out how to land that plane slowly. >> Um, do other people have question [snorts] just Yeah, just want to make sure other people have questions before we get to um sort of opinions and feedback on this budget. Does anyone have any questions? Jen, do you have a question? >> I do. I do. Go ahead. Can we go to slide 12, please? The year-over-year changes to operating revenues without END. >> Yep, that's this one, I think. >> Yep, he's on it. >> So, we have a significant decrease in [snorts] special education tuition in and school choice and preschool tuition. Can you comment on those? >> Yep. So, >> are those estimates or are those

075solid numbers? >> Uh, they're solid. We we do have three less school choice students this year. So, uh there's it's $5,000 per student. So, we are receiving uh at least $15,000 less. Now, there is a special ed increment that we will not know about until the end of the year, but we are definitely three school school choice students lower. Uh in terms of preschool tuition, that 99, uh971 is the exact amount of revenue we received in FY uh 25. And at this moment, we have not increased our tuition rates and we have not increased our enrollment. So, if everything stays the same, it would pretty much be exactly $99,000 that we receive uh in that year. I do have a request to review our preschool tuition rates. Uh but at the moment they are the

076same. So I carried forward uh the exact amount we received in the prior year. Uh in terms of our special education tuition in we currently have a uh fifth grader tuitioned in from another school district uh in FY27. They will be moving up to the middle school and we do not have the staffing or the capability to bring them in in sixth grade. So, we will not be taking that student in in FY27. Uh, so as it currently stands, those three are pretty uh actuals. >> Thank you. >> Of course. >> Um, other questions? All right, let's do it. Let's give our feedback to Vinnie. Um, I would just say thank you. You really took into account all of the conversations leading up to today, the weeks of conversation, >> [snorts] >> um, and our

077concerns. So I I don't have any questions but I just I really you know I think this is the budget that we had asked you to present and whether we you know whether it's ideal or not um I think you did a great job to you know to get us to where we had said that we wanted to get and you cut quite a lot out of the budget. So, thank you for that. >> Yeah. >> Other people, >> Jen. >> No, she's good. >> Okay. Um, I have some things to say. Um, I think I want to say to what Julie said, you definitely did what we asked and thank you. I think it was a complicated conversation that you had with all of us and I think it you guys definitely did what

078you asked. Um, I don't know exactly how to word this, but moving between this budget and the final budget, in my opinion, I think it needs to be lower than it is now. [snorts] Um, I don't know that we can get to Kristen's point. I'm not sure that we can get to a point where there is no override because I don't know that we know exactly what that number is. Um, but I'm looking at, you know, when I'm looking at a combined increase of 9.18. Again, I think it's really important that the real increase, you know, is that our actual is that 5.91 is the actual increase. I I understand that. But if you're a >> citizen, it's I think it's going to be difficult people to vote for that. I think it's going to

079be hard. Even though I really do understand that we're looking more that the that the 5.9 number is our actual increase and I so it needs I think it needs to be less. Um that's my feedback. I I will say at the same time the only open item that you put there on the end is that $35,000 in student athletic user fees. I spoke pretty That's really actually pretty important to me. And I I guess what I'm saying is that I think we all are going to have to make really hard choices here. I don't like we've I think that that's really wrong to ask our students, our families to pay that. I think there are students who will not be able to participate in athletics because their family will make a financial decision that

080they can't afford that. And I think that is not right. At the same time, I think I need to I need to look and see like we're making hard choices throughout this budget. And I'm saying that it needs to go down and so I I guess I need to entertain the idea that maybe those athletic fees have to be a part of that conversation. I something. So the last meeting you said that really the only way really to cut the budget is cutting positions. That's the only thing left to do. [snorts] >> You you can nickel and dime it. You can go through and take 2% of every single line item. It it would >> yeah here $100 here >> but your substantial reductions are are in positions. I mean, that's that's the highest percentage

081of our budget is positions. >> Yeah. I just I want the public to know that. >> Yeah. >> So, the two we had $256,000 at the very beginning. You highlighted the $256,000 um in increased um >> revenue from that just because we weren't sure what was going to be happening at the state level and that that is coming our way. Um, [snorts] I honestly just not sure, but I would like to know what the budget looks like, this budget, without that money. Like, if we hadn't gotten that money, what would need to be cut, which is $256,000 obviously. Um, I >> would that be similar to what we saw last time? It would pretty much be what we saw last time because if you were to remove that, we're only about 9,000 different than the

082last time. So, >> yep. >> So, we'd be kind of be back where we were for the updated preliminary, >> right? In terms of what it looks like, but in terms of the cost, it's would be >> it saves us three positions. >> Oh, yes. Yep. >> Saves us three position. three FTEES, >> right? when you roughly I mean you're looking at >> I guess that's I'm just looking at I mean when I sort of >> when I sort of did and this has not been an easy process when I sort of re you know I've reevaluated several times and I looked at that the very the initial budget the initial pass and then we had a we've had more than one conversation I kind of I you know I we initially talked about a

083million dollars and I the more I looked at it, the more I [snorts] was looking at maybe it needed to be reduced like a million two and you're looking. So I guess that's where I'm kind of looking at this 256 and saying like well >> even out >> if we leave if we that would get me got us close to where I I understand it means cuts like I I understand. I'm just putting that I don't know. I'll stop talking. That's my feedback. Are you saying like use that as a model for how we can reduce more? >> You you're you're better. It's the right move is to use the revenues because they're going to fall to ENDA. >> I wasn't saying don't use the revenues. I'm just not saying that. [laughter] >> If if

084you chose to go in a different direction, just make the straight cuts of >> No, no. I I I really was not trying to say that. What I was trying to say is I was like conceptually we have we have $256,000 that we didn't have in like so no I'm not saying >> in December we $256 >> right I'm not I'm in no way saying that I'm just saying like that was just helpful for me to sort of get my head around okay we didn't have this revenue before here it is what if we you know included that but didn't you used it to pay for what existing things rather than >> is one is 1.2 though going to bring these percentages down a significant amount like is 9.18 going to go to like 9.1

085or something >> pretty much uh you're only talking another 250 which is less than a percent. Yeah, >> but it >> but I mean >> anything helps these these numbers. >> I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really looking at that initial budget pass, the very first budget that we saw. >> Um, and thinking like where did we need to go from there and like >> that was basically the 4 million was the first pass. That was the >> 4 million incre 4 million increase. And I guess >> now we're at the 3.07, >> right? So you've taken a million and I guess I'm sort of saying when I did that looking at that budget I was looking to get down about 1.2. So [snorts] that would be point2 more. >> Y >> other

086people can say something different. I'm just that's me saying what I think. >> I mean that's what we want to hear. If you want it to be 1.2 that's what we need to know right now. >> Right. So, I guess what I'm really saying is I want the overall budget increase to be 2.8 instead of three. And and do I know that that's going to prevent an override? No. I I'm just, you know, it's hard to say. We had conversations with Jeff Sulard and Steve Pulos and Wenham and they were hoping that both the town and the the schools would be right around a 4% increase and then anything beyond that would be triggering that an override for both town and schools. So, we're much more confident that you could probably reduce this another million

087dollars and I think one of them would still need an override. >> Um, Hamilton I'm not so sure about that. We're still working with them um to try to figure out the numbers, but it's it's pretty inevitable on the Hamilton side given given the current numbers >> I mean the side, excuse me, given the current numbers, >> even with another >> 2% redu uh 2% reduction. >> We were saying, if you remember last meeting, Vinnie and I were both saying a million and a half is a good target. And that's a hard number. That's a hard number to swallow because that's eight more positions if you look at it from just FTEES. Are there other things that you can go after? Maybe. But what do you know like >> but then maybe you're still down

088to seven FTEEs. Like I I'm I guess I just think in the budget there's not a ton of other places to go other than the the staffing budget, >> right? And we may, you know, as Vinnie explained, when you're looking at FTEES, you're you're basically taking one standard number and applying it to people across a chart of, you know, 70 to 60 different numbers or something. 70 different numbers. So, you just never know if you reduce somebody who's making 90,000, then you get a little bit more in the on the plus side. If you get, you know, what happens in union situations is if you cut a position, then you start to look to see if that person's position can plug in somewhere else. Are they certified or licensed to work somewhere else or would

089they be able to bump somebody else, which is generally someone lower on the salary scale. So this that's why we use that 60,000 number because we we have to add in we have to add in you know the insurance piece and the the um you know there's a little bit of savings here and there. It's just hard to go in and start to we did it 2 years ago. I think we did we took 10% off of every single line item that didn't get completely spent and we started our budget process like that a few years back. just said, "Okay, let's look at everything that wasn't completely zero and take 10% off of that total if it was there to take." And that's how we started our budget process that particular year. And it worked

090out fine. Everything kind of fell into place. And some, you know, there are times along the year when you make some moves, some transfers. But, you know, don't forget, you also have a fairly substantial number in maintenance that we would not generally carry. There's almost $800,000. No, it's actually over a million dollars in maintenance total, but an $800,000 chunk of it is things like replacements for sprinklers and, you know, re school safety stuff and we want to make sure that stuff gets done. So, that's built into the budget. You could take some of those items and bring them out and make them capital items. It doesn't change these numbers because you're still you're still asking for those amounts of money just in a different in a different way. So, Is there a an ability to

091like offer like early retirement to teachers? I mean, I know the teachers eligible or also our more experienced teachers, you know, but I don't know if that's possible. So, >> we can't do it as a community because it's a Massachusetts state-run retirement system. >> Okay. >> Um, there is a a bill in the state house. it's making its way through right now that might offer people who don't have retirement plus um to go early. They'd have to buy back some time, but they could leave early. I don't know how that's been sitting now for 18 months in the in the in the the process, if you will. It's kind kind of back and forth. It does have some momentum, but I don't think it would hit in time for this budget. And part of part

092of that problem is when you're looking at it from the perspective of specialty positions, no matter what, like a school psychologist, if a school psychologist retired, you're not getting a school psychologist for 60 grand, >> right? >> They automatically come in with usually two master's degrees or masters and a doctorate or some level of credit way above everybody else. So those types of positions are dangerous. You know, positions like chemistry, physics, they're really hard to find. special education teacher is hard to find. So that's when you start to say, "Okay, what are we losing in turn for what we need?" >> Mhm. >> Um because there's an offset there. If you said, "Get me a first grade teacher," and put an ad out, I'm going to get 35 applicants. If you said, "Okay, I need

093a special ed moderate teacher for a program, I'm going to get maybe three." >> Yeah. >> So those are those are the differences and that's where the salary changes pretty dramatically in those types of hiring scenarios. >> Okay. So, I want to just be clear about what we need to do. Like, do people feel like they've given their thoughts on this? Like, do you feel like you've given >> comfortable with the 1.2? >> You're which they didn't say I did. So, like if you're comfortable with that, I think you need like >> Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't know where else we can really go. We want [snorts] to, you know, garner public support, but we of course want to do what's best for the students and the teachers, too. We're just It's like

094a rock in a hard place every year. [snorts] Um, is Jet have anything to say? >> I'm still concerned it won't pass. [snorts] >> Yeah. Well, so am I. So, I'm interested in like what are you I mean, do you have >> thoughts on that? like what you'd like to see or what you'd hope that I mean you don't have to you don't have to speak but if you do >> if we cut more positions which is really what we're going to have to do [snorts] when at what point in time do we start affecting class size and student learning >> the this round coming up >> going from here to the 1.2 two or 1.5 is that >> will start impacting some level of classrooms [snorts] at >> you can look at your FTEES

095differently you can I don't want people to think specifically teacher FTEES there are FTEES in administration there are FTEES in administrative assistance there are FTES in ESPs there those are all different kind of costs if you will so you can you can depends on how you look at your reduction in FTEES and where they come from. You know, if you say, "Okay, I'm going to um reduce somebody out of central office," that's not necessarily a direct impact to the classrooms, but it will be an impact. Um we're running on >> well, >> pretty limited groups there, but we would do that if if that's where the the committee wanted to go. >> Yeah, I agree with Dana. I think we have to cut more. >> But Jen, I don't think because we don't have the

096numbers from the towns, we don't know how much to cut >> to avoid an override cuz we do not have the final numbers from Wenham and Hamilton. >> But we won't have those prior to the final vote anyways. >> Correct. >> We have to think of our budget in terms of us being able to get our budget past both towns. And I don't think that a 9.2 is enough of a cut. >> Well, what percentage do you think? >> Yeah. So, what I mean, that's Yeah. What do you think needs to happen? >> I think it needs to be between 1.2 and 1.5. >> So, >> I think we should listen to Vinnie and Eric. >> So, >> but that's not going to get us much below the 9.18. >> Well, I mean, the thing

097is that So, like let's say >> not to say don't do it. I'm just saying >> I don't think it's extreme enough. >> Well, we don't know. Right. In other words, what is what if we get down to 1.5, which would be a budget increase of about which would be a budget increase of about >> 2.5 2.5, excuse me. >> 2.5. So, a budget increase of 2.5. What is that? Do you know, Vinnie? What is that in terms of Hamilton and Wenom? >> I'm just going to not get my number wrong. Give me one second. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. No, no, no. But and while Vinnie is looking up whatever that number is, like it is entirely possible that we would get down to that number and still need an override. That is absolutely possible.

098And I spoke to this last time like the major the biggest hurdle is the override itself, right? the like regardless of the amount like the concept of like being asked to vote for an override is a big deal and we don't know but I think like I I appreciate Jen saying she thinks it needs to be up to 1.5. I I don't know how able or how much work it is. Like in my mind, I'd sort of like to see what the difference is between the you know increase of you know in 2 to 1.5 >> you know 1.2 to 1.5 like I I mean I understand it's just its positions. I understand that, but it's I'd like to and in some ways I'd like to see that here what that means the 1.5 reduction

099like what it looks like or what it impacts like >> it's probably a percentage point more reduction overall cuz a million was two percentage points 2.1 I think >> and then the the the hard part is when you now distribute it across Ross the town reducing >> I'll just use 600,000 for a round number 600,000 >> we're going to reduce the budget by that well that saves Hamilton 400,000 that's pretty good but it only reduces when 200,000 so that's where it gets dicey where you're like oh okay we're not really making the impact we thought we would by cutting this larger number >> I'm trying to remember that slide that you had a several meetings back that had the boxes on it where it was like if we were going to cut It was like

100trying to tie together our budget with the towns and it was like, >> you know, if we cut the amounts that would make a meaningful impact on the municipal budgets, >> it was tantamount almost to an entire elementary school budget. >> That's what I was going to say >> and I can't remember what meeting that was, but I'm >> right because in order to get you know because of the way I mean just because of the way everything falls, right? the amount, the percentage of between the two towns, the current situation in each town in order to get Wenom to where you know they likely would be under that threshold. It's it would literally be the entire budget of one of the elementary schools. >> Right. Right. Um, so it it's a and again it's

101>> well and at that time that didn't feel realistic I think because there was that other slide with like the five bullet points of options which was like do nothing >> really. And the other thing the other big ticket items item is maintenance which we have heard loud and clear from all segments of our community that they do not want us >> to cheap out on maintenance. Like we've heard that from >> everybody on all sides of everything that like that they don't want that. And it makes sense. It's the same way that you care for you don't want you know that is a if you don't maintain things then down the road you pay unexpectedly more for things that and like that's just I mean that's that's my opinion other people might have different

102opinions. So to get to 1.5, we would need about another 550, which that's what it would end up being. >> I'm sorry, what? >> If you reduce by another 550,000, which gets you to that 1.5, it would make Wenham uh I'm sorry, Hamilton 5.8 and Wenham 7.74. >> So 7.7 is still going to feel high to Wenham. It's maybe still an override, but it does sound a lot different. And it is a lot different than the 9. Uh, >> you're at 11. >> Well, they were at 11. Yeah, they were. I mean, in other words, I >> And we can make the point to the towns that we went from we cut 4%. Almost five. >> Say that again. We can make the the point to both towns that from our initial we cut 4%.

103>> Yeah. >> From 11 to 7 >> for Yeah. Well, and it's I mean that's for Wenom, which is, >> you know, [snorts] >> but even Hamilton's three, isn't it? Wasn't our original number for Hamilton around eight? >> I don't know. I >> I believe [snorts] so. >> Yeah, I think so. It's >> on that chart. 9. >> But I just I really think it's important to remember the 550,000. Those are people, >> not numbers on a spreadsheet, those are teachers, and that will affect class sizes and services to pupils. I just think that's very important >> to consider. I'm not, you know, I mean, I'll take a look at the one.5 because what can we do? But it's really important to remember that. I know you know that Vinnie obviously. I just want to

104make sure that that you know that I don't know everyone understands that. I just want to put a pin on that. >> I think it's important to know and people made it clear the community I think understands and wants class sizes to remain where they're at. >> Yeah. >> Would probably be the last place we would look. Like the last place I'm looking is for a K to5 teacher even if we went 2 million down because our class sizes would go crazy. >> Yeah. >> At the at the elementary level because we're we're seeing that that's the place where things are rising. >> You know, we have some ability across other places that may not be classroom teachers, but they still impact how the system works. >> Um and that's sometimes just something we got

105to get used to. You know, it's not it happens in lean times. where we if you go back to 20 when was it 20 or 21 when we cut >> 21 >> 1.2 million um because of the state was going to reduce the budget NC cuts and um that never actually came to fruition but those cuts were made and it took us four full years to gain back what we had reduced >> in our curriculum. We cut our entire curriculum staff. Everybody who was working in, you know, any curriculum based position, it wasn't classroom facing was cut, including the director of curriculum at that time. So, there are places to go that are not going to directly impact classrooms, but there is a there's a point in this next group where you're probably going to

106be in classrooms at some place. There is more play at the secondary level. Look at those class size reports. I mean, that's why I put them out there so that we can look at, you know, where make those comparisons of class sizes across groups of kids or grade levels of kids. Remember, our grade levels are still average 130 kids across across grade grade levels. We're not we're not expanding dramatically. We we did go up in numbers this year, but not it was like 2%. It wasn't like we gained 150 kids. So >> although I will say I do think it is important I think it is important to say although it's not dramatic we have in FY27 we will have more students and less staff >> right >> like that's important for people to hear

107like in other words if if if even with this budget or whatever budget we're presenting we are having more students and less fewer staff >> there. There are ways to offset that and this is a delicate dance and it's this is just something that you think about when you look at it. When I first came here there was a lot of conversation about choice. There were over I think 160 choice kids or something in the secondary levels when I first got here. Now you're looking at 55 across the high school. If you were say in January I say, "Okay, we're not going to take choice kids anymore." And this I'm just putting a scenario. This is not real folks. Just if you said, "All right, we're not going to take choice kids anymore." You'd wind

108that down over a few years because anybody that's in stays in by law >> and any sibling that they have comes in by law. So you're still kind of trickling people through. It would take you four years to recover while you're losing those revenues every single year. So, it's one of the questions we we were playing with to say, "Okay, what if we stop taking kids from um from school choice and I just looked at 9th grade?" You say, "Oh, there's 130 nth graders, 12 go off to the tech, four or five go off to private schools. Now you're down to 113 kids." What does that look like when you're looking at class sizes? So, instead of having seven sections of English class, you're going to have six. So you it's a little bit easier

109to play with, but it takes four years to get to zero. And it it's >> and in the meantime, you're losing time. You're losing revenue. Each year, you're losing another chunk of revenue. So it's it's uh you know, it's a >> it's an interesting dynamic, but something to look at to write quote rightsize the district. And I think it was four three or four, it was before CO actually. I think um Manchester did that. They stopped taking choice kids and they kind of right size, but now they're back into taking choice kids for revenue purposes because of the reduction in students. So there there are things you can talk about like ways to make some savings. They wouldn't be immediate. They might and they may not be even substantial, but they they would be taking

110it down over time. Um, I just want to and this convers you guys you guys are in charge. However long you want to have a but I do want to make sure I understand this evening the tenative budget motion that we have before us. If we were to move and vote on that budget that is again just the tenative budget and that our I just want to make sure this is what you're looking for that if it let's just say hypothetically that were to pass this motion in front of us but you've gotten this feedback. I mean, in other words, is that how this would work, Vinnie? Is that you would pass this with the feedback that you've just received with the anticipation that you would come back with the final budget would incorporate the

111feedback that you'd gotten. So that when we presented this tenative budget to say other elected officials or the public, the answer would be here's the tenative budget that was approved and the feedback was X. >> Is that I'm just making sure I'm getting it straight. If you approve this, we would probably go into the uh quintuple board meeting. I would present the tenative tentative budget, but say to them, you know, tomorrow I am updating because it'll be the next day is the school committee meeting. We're updating them with a reduction to whatever >> that and again we haven't I know that we haven't but like the committee is looking for you know x amount further cuts or the committee is demanding you know $2 million more in the budget. I don't hear that here but

112>> um you know but >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Please don't do that. Well, I haven't heard that, but I'm not trying to I want to make sure everyone's willing to say whatever they want to say. That's important. >> Um, so I guess I'm just separating out that like the tenative budget >> is just tenative. just for now and that if we like we've accepted that this is you and I think Julius said it well that you did what we asked you to do and it's been presented to us like this was the initial thing that we were or the I guess it's not this initial it's the tenative thing that we were looking for >> um >> with some new info >> yes with some new information >> and the tenative is the one

113that triggers the communication to the towns vote the tenative budget We send it to the towns. Y >> that's where they start to say okay let's look at this >> which gives us two full more two more meetings to do anything we want to do. >> I think this is a good discussion like a good point to move to talk with [cough] >> for the quintupel board meeting. >> Excuse me. Not going to be able to speak for a second. Um, okay. Um, I'm sorry, Jen, are you Do you [snorts] have more to say? >> Oh, can't see her. >> I think she said no. I thought you said I was waiting. >> I did say no. >> Oh, I thought you were I was waiting. I thought you had I thought you were thinking.

114I'm sorry. I'm also choking. So, [laughter] >> are you okay? >> Thank you, Eric. >> Um um let's get um if you're willing, let's get a motion. We can we can still have discussion. >> Okay. I move that the Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee approve the tenative fiscal year 27 general fund expenditures budget of 47,653,295. This amount includes general fund operating expenses after offsets in the amount of $45,692,31 and general fund debt service expenses after offsets in the amount of $1,961,264. Furthermore, the gross operating expenses of the district before offsets have been allocated by the desi defined chart of accounts according to the summary by Desi category chart included in the budget presentation and as detailed in the exhibits. >> Do we have a second? >> Second by Christian Non. [clears throat] Um all right.

115So, any further discussion on this motion? [snorts] >> Okay, looks like we're ready to vote. >> Yes. >> It needs to be a roll call vote because we um have a remote member. Uh Jen, >> yes. >> Amy, >> yes. >> Julia, >> yes. >> Kristen, >> yes. >> Dana is a yes. And that is unanimous. and of the um five members p present and the motion passes. >> Um Vinnie, thank you Vinnie. >> Um do you have >> I'm going to repeat it to make sure >> I'm clear. We are leaving athletic user fees the way it is presented here >> and you are requesting an additional 500,000 reduced approximately. Does that sound accurate to people? >> I'm going to do what you wish. So, >> John, did that sound accurate to what you

116>> making sure? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. [clears throat] Okay. Um, committee reports, uh, capital Finance, Jen, >> due to the, uh, due to the plague going around my house, um, and around a couple other people's houses, we did not meet this week, but, we are scheduled to meet next Monday at 1. >> All right. Capital Finance not feeling well. Okay. Um, thank you. uh policy. >> Uh we're meeting on the 26th. Um we'll be approving minutes and reviewing policy JFABD which is about enrollment rights and services for unhoused students. >> Um okay, great. And then um we have not seen that as a first. You're you're looking at you'll bring it to us. >> It's just one of those >> great review. That's great. >> Thank you. Um, negotiations. I

117should know off the top of my head, but I don't. When is our next meeting? >> Anybody can help me out. No. >> Uh, [laughter] >> Kristen, >> I don't know. [snorts] >> We our next meeting. I'm looking in my calendar. >> I know. I'm I'm trying to like >> February 4th, right? >> It's I was going to say it was January. >> It's February. Why don't I see it? >> I'm looking at the wrong calendar. >> Hold on. We do have it. >> Not >> January 22nd. >> 22nd. >> We have a lot of meetings that day. I think >> January 22nd, which is a very packed day for some unknown reason with lots of um so yeah, that's our next meeting. >> Yep. Um, I will say um that we um I I'll

118bring it to the um committee. I guess next time we'll need to um given David's uh departure, we will need to look for someone who is interested in joining the negotiations subcommittee. >> Yes. from. So, think about that and we'll bring it. Um, do we have a secretary report? >> Um, no, I believe we're all up to date. Um, Janelle and I have been working on the spreadsheet, so I mean up to date like the 24th and >> Yeah. No, no, things things are I mean I think things are looking good. would be interested in >> or I guess hoping that the next time we have an executive session like we can all be on board with getting all the whatever we have together and approving. >> That's a good idea. >> Um so that

119they don't get too far behind. >> We'll just type them up like as we go. >> Yeah. Well, we can approve and hold them, right? So like that they're approved and they could be held if they still have outstanding executive session topics, but they can still be approved and so some future >> committee could release them if they need to. >> Okay. Um Amy, do you have anything for in our inboxes? >> Inboxes are quiet. >> Okay. Um, I don't think I um don't have much on the chair report other than I did want to um I know Eric mentioned it, but I did just want to say that the community conversation, I know we had three um school committee members there. Um but the community conversation yesterday was um I felt like really productive.

120It was I know Eric already said this, but given the weather, I was not expecting I mean it was horrible out there and it was really great that the room was packed. Um and I felt like just about every table had a um a divi diversity of viewpoints which was really good to see. Like I feel like people got to have um diverse conversations. I think that was the point and I felt good about it. So, I'm hoping that the 29th will be >> twice as many >> will be what? >> twice as many and just as good in terms of a [clears throat] wide um spectrum of thoughts and ideas and views from our community. >> Um >> can I just add um that session was recorded. So, if you didn't get a chance

121to go or you're interested in what the format is like, you can see it's on the HW Cam website. Um, and also the workshop that the school committee held today before this meeting is has also been recorded and is already up on the HWCM website. So, >> um, and that was more of a debrief postmortem of the project rather than looking forward. So, just >> right. They're different. They're different things, but >> people might be interested in either or both. >> Yes. >> Um All right. Um, anybody have any questions for me? >> Topics for future meetings? >> I don't see Jen. Oh, there she is. >> Um, okay. >> Can I make a plug before we do that? >> Yeah, sure. Next weekend is Annie Jr. from Miles River Middle School. >> Oh, Miles

122River Middle School. Annie Jr. Awesome. >> Friday, January 16th at 7. Saturday, Janu Saturday, January 17th at 2 and 7. >> Fantastic. >> That's great. >> Love Annie. >> Always good. Um, all right. Unless anyone has anything else, I would entertain a motion. I move that we adjourn the meeting at 8:49 p.m. >> Second. Second by Amy Kberger. Um, I can do that. >> Uh, Jen, >> yes. >> Dana, yes. Amy, >> yes. >> Julia, >> yes. >> Kristen, >> yes. >> And we are adjourned at 8:49. Thank you all. Good night.