001I call to order the budget hearing on the FY 26 proposed minut man budget I'd like a motion to adopt remote participation as written in the agenda please so move second very good roll call vote Pam pamur acting yes Linda Herson Bolt yes Steve Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon do yes Lancaster yes Sharon MTO Lexington yes Jeff stulin need him yes Al Lucas sto yes very good without further Ado let's go straight to the reason we're here Heidi Driscoll and Nikki Andre I believe we're going to present our budget formally so thank you Nikki is going to share our slide me make sure she can okay great um so I I'd like to welcome everybody here um thank you for joining us for our Public Presentation um of the 2026 um budget recommendation I want
002to make sure um that I think everyone who's been a part of this process so far um our teachers our staff our leads our administrators our Capital subcommittee um with work from Michelle rendes our finance committee um with of course Nikki andreid and the entire committee um for supporting us through this whole process okay next slide so we do have some updates uh since our last budget presentation on January 14th the governor's budget was released so overall we have an increase of a little o over $47,000 in Chapter 70 state aid in chapter 71 regional transportation we have an overall increase of $3,485 um we the revised numbers will impact um the town Assessments in a way that I think people will be very pleased from they decreased over overall member Town assessment went from
0033.34% to 2.79% and next slide please yep I also just wanted to jump in and mention that we had updated um based on the Chapter 70 spread sheet the minimum required contribution for each town thank you Nikki absolutely so this is something else we've been um waiting on our transportation bid um we actually did receive two bids on January 17th a recommendation will be brought to the finance committee on February 3rd and we will have uh discussion and vote from the school committee on February 11th uh we would we are asking for a five-year contract that's the RP put out um and um the budget impact based on the bids is that we'll be able to reallocate $100,000 from the Transportation budget to the capital stabilization and um those revised numbers will be reflected of
004course so these are just a couple couple pictures of um what makes Minute Man Minuteman um you'll see over the next few slides I know many of you have seen this over and over again so thank you for indulging us um our budget priorities reflect our values our passionate teachers our excited students um no matter if they're in the classroom or on the field or in their trades and um everything that we do is to move student growth and success forward um and you'll see that in everything in our budget now I'm going to hand it over to Nikki andreid who is going to give us um lots of details that I know you're looking forward to thank you superintendent Drisco uh moving forward with the overall budget it has remained consistent since the last
005school committee meeting at 32,4 161,50 which is 2.99% uh increase above the fy2 budget bringing it down a little bit further we have our operating budget um which is now 5.56% above the fy2 budget um just about 25 milon 54,000 $611 um that percent has decreased because we moved and reallocated from the Transportation bid to the capital stabilization our FY 26 operating capital budget is approximately 1.3 million in that decrease is a negative 21% that's due primarily to our Esco lease um being fully paid in fy2 that was an old energy saving lease on the old school building um we'll talk about that further in detail as we continue and our building project debt um is 5.6 million which is pretty level just under 1% from fy2 um we break this out as it's an
006important breakout for the seven of our nine member towns that have the debt exclusion uh we finally closed our msba project in August of 2024 so our debt service payments um should remain consistent going forward no more temporary debt overall our budget summary our FY 26 assessment to Our member towns 26 m467 36 and as superintendent Driscoll mentioned the decrease from our last presentation um of 3.34% is now 2.79% above FY 25's budget and this is the um the most important slide our budget priorities or our budget drivers what you know really impacting the budget um compared to fy2 of course our staffing are 3% as required for our CBA plus the steps and levels for all of our teachers um we took a look at supplies and materials in particular in the CTE programs
007to ensure that um they have the IND industry um standards and all of the um supplies that they need to run their programs um in the best way for the students to really be learning handson and as we've seen there has been inflation um and concern about tariffs so we really wanted to make sure that this wouldn't affect our vocational programs our insurances is another um Big Driver in this budget um our health insurance we were able to level fund but our our building insurance and our general liability insurance did increase um due to Prior year claims our transportation as we noted went out to bid in FY 26 but that um budget um those bids did come in in January and that is about a a 5% increase from the prior year um our
008opab which is other post employment benefits um is essentially if if everyone that was working at minute man retired how we'd have to help pay for their health insurance and their benefits um we will go into more detail in a further slides but there is a $300 increase to this line in particular because our Esco lease um was fully paid in fy2 we had a Minuteman um subcommittee that really looked at when the best time to increase um the funding for this would be and um not financially impact Our member towns too hard and was the year that really seemed to make the most sense we'll talk further about Capital stabilization and other needs and just a reminder that our debt service um for the athletic fields will continue to be funded with our facilities
009revolving rental account and um moving forward our Capital stabilization account we were able to reallocate some of the transportation funding to this account um our FY 25 contribution was 850,000 and our FY 26 is 950,000 so that would be $100,000 increase some Capital needs total just around 150,000 include um work to 20 M Street which is where our animal science program is housed including uh the bulkhead and roof work we also have some sewer pump Wood Bridge repair hbac repair and Gates um that are needs of the building as well and building this Capital stabilization fund will position the district to maintain the potential use of the campus and really have the funding prepared to mitigate against future assessment increases talking a little bit further about opep um you can see here are unfunded liability
010as I mentioned before if everyone were to retire um the benefits and the cost that it would cost the district around 22 million and our trust fund balance just shy of uh 1.5 million so when the OPB study committee uh got together I believe it was uh the winter of 2021 they really looked and assessed when would be the best time to have this increase and it really made sense in FY 26 as um the Esco lease came off the book so this will be our new um kind of level or contribution and we will increase by 5% each year to really try to help um close the gap of that unfunded liability overall our um enrollment for October 1 um is 669 students you can see uh the trend is consistent with prior years
011Our member towns in red um are the major is the majority of our school whereas our non-member towns in green continues to decrease um you will see consistency between our October 1 numbers the last two years our incoming um Freshman Class ended up being the exact number of our outcoming senior class and you'll see the breakout further in the enrollment by town so you'll see um in this slide all of the different towns and the classes so you'll see here our incoming class had 19 freshman students whereas our outgoing senior class had the same our class of 26 and 27 did not have any member toown um students accepted our class of 2026 did have two transfers come in um you'll see here they were excuse me they were all member town we had no
012one from out of District y it's okay it's okay yep um but you'll see as the enrollment um shifts the decrease in the um out of District students is also a decrease in our our tuition or our Revenue that we receive and our Capital um fees so that does impact what we're able to offset Our member town uh assessments with and our FY 26 preliminary assessments are broken out here these did change slightly as we mentioned due to the minimum required contribution and the amount we were able to um offset the member Town assessments with so these numbers have changed slightly as our total um assessments to Our member Towns now is 2.79% increase um from year to year these um numbers correlate um to our four-year rolling average um strongly for our operating budget
013um so you will see that there is um a correlation between the four-year rolling average of the number of students that are um enrolled in that town and the preliminary assessments and just to wrap up our budget again we have the operating increase of 5.56% um really driven by the um you know the primary budget drivers in that increase in our OPB our Capital uh line again decreased strongly um due to the Esco lease and our building project debt remaining consistent giving our overall total operating and capital budget of 2.99% this is our breakout of non-assessment Revenue uh and this helps offset what is required from our member towns so we had an increase um as superintendent Driscoll mentioned to our Chapter 70 and chapter 71 a based on the governor's budget that came out
014on January 22nd our prior year tuition and capital fee um has remained consistent due to the fact that um the number of out of District students year-to year this year had remained the same at 37 in our facilities uh rental Revenue will offset that Debt Service payment we will continue to fund out of our excess and deficiency fund the 650,000 which totals to just about $6 million were able to offset the member Town assessments with which again um is a 2.79% increase from prior year and the assessment components um broken out this is how we break them out in the budget book by member town uh minimum required contribution which is straight from um des's Chapter 70 formula spreadsheet our transportation budget has increased um not only due to the um bid that came out
015but also true truly funding uh homeless foster care and special education Transportation as it's required um as we've had an increased need in our in our district you'll see the Esco lease has fallen off and our Capital Equipment lease has increased um due to the capital stabilization and some of the other needs that we've discussed and our building project debt has remained uh consistent so that again wraps up our total assessments at 2.79% over the prior year and we are happy to answer any questions okay very good we'll accept uh questions from the public I'll at Heidi uh since is kind of in charge just remember that if you are called on please uh before you start your comment mention your name community and your relationship to the m man school so if any questions
016hi to your um thank you um would ask if anyone has a question if you can go to react and raise your hand so you'll pop up to the top of the zoom um Nikki would you mind um closing down the screen share so we can see if anyone is waving or um if you're not sure how to raise your hand you could also um let us know that you'd like to speak by sending a chat or turn your camera on and wave all the options hey at this time it looks like we don't have any questions Jeff okay very good in that case uh I would like a motion to adjourn and remind the members that you have a second link it's a different link for our meeting which uh school committee meeting which
017begins at 7 o'clock so could I have a motion to adjourn the public budget hearing please so moved second very good any discussion ra call vote pam pam Nur Acton yes Linda herbison Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Maggie Sharon Dober yes Charlie cabal Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff stolen needen yes Alca St yes okay thank you everybody for attending and commit members uh of course it's a open public meeting so anybody is welcome to attend I'll see you in about 10 minutes thank you all very much