001I'm not sure. I I think mostly say my internet connection's on stable too. So, apologies if I'm cutting out. Um I think my thought is we had some finance developments from our select board meeting, our joint meeting with select board finance uh last night uh late yesterday afternoon. We shared those a bit at school committee, but I can kind of cover them broadly here. I can continue to give you an update. >> I had to leave that meeting after like 45 minutes or something, so I couldn't see the end of it. >> Okay, great. Well, I can I I can cover just again broadly kind of where we think kind of I won't cover all the details of the two-hour meeting, but kind of where we stand uh in terms of the school committee and
002school department budget uh and then kind of what our next steps are here over the next couple weeks before this group's next meeting, which is February 23rd. And then I'd certainly love to open the floor up to y'all for any questions based upon what you've been talking about at warrant committee or what you've heard from your fellow members or just your own personal um do to answer questions. Does that sound like a good course? >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Yeah, sounds great. Thanks. >> Great. So, uh I I can't remember where we landed last time I met with y'all. I think the number we had just gotten from the town at that point was like had been reduced to 1.4. Um so yesterday the town at least had positive news that you know with further
003I think it was um local receipts really had gone up mostly um that they're able to reduce that further for both the town and the schools. The town at this point is kind of level service funded. The schools um we have the revenue gap is now reduced to a million dollars which is obviously way better than 2.1. Um and so that's kind of where things stand with the revenue gap. time administrator said he doesn't expect to hear those things that that to change much else. Um I'll say Megan from the psych board still left open to say you know if we come back if we have a need we can come back and have a conversation. Uh but at that point it seems like we need to get into the weeds of what are the
004things we will need to cut or do in order to make up that million dollar revenue gap which we have not gotten into the weeds on. um that is happening next week where the school department will present their first draft of the I guess it's second draft but their first draft was the level service budget which is kind of out the window. So their second draft with the level service budget minus the million dollar in reductions uh and so we'll start talking about those reductions next week. Um, another piece of the school of the town, um, or the meeting with the town was, uh, the like a $500 free cash allocation. Still not a 100% clear where that lands. We'll talk about that a bit at school committee in terms of what we, um, request
005the town to do or suggest that the town do with it. But essentially, the purpose of that is to support the school department's stated goal of, as we've shared with y'all, of uh supporting kind of the rebuilding of some reserves that were depleted uh after FY24 and certainly weren't build back last year given the financial situation last year. Um so they've kind of offered $500,000. There's still some ongoing conversations there. It's not, I think, a done deal that the $500,000 is is kind of in the bank. And as I said, it's not 100% clear where that funds would go there. The town administry laid out a couple options. And so still conversations, but um I think those are those are the developments. And so, as I said, we're meeting next Wednesday at 8 a.m. Uh
006if you want to log in and watch that meeting, and that's where John and Katie should kind of share. We'll have first conversation about cuts. We'll talk further about that on I believe it's the 22nd. Uh the when we get back from winter break. Um no the 25th. Uh when we get back from winter break. Um and then the full school committee will hear that for the first time kind of on the 25th. Any questions about that? >> Yes. So, does that mean that your timeline for your anticipated draft budget has changed? Uh, in our previous conversation, you'd said uh before winter break um you were hoping to have the sort of re revised draft. >> No, that's what I'm saying. The town administrator will present that revised draft next Wednesday, which is before winter
007break. So, that's still the same timeline we shared previously. That's that's the timeline we've essentially set since the the 14th um which is the week after we kind of heard about the original 2.1 million which again now is 1 million. Um, so that that is the timeline the town administrator, I'm sorry, the uh superintendent stated they need to have the internal conversations to start picking away at what it is, how they're going to make up that revenue gap. Uh, and also have the time to be able to talk to people because obviously if we're talking about positions, there are people behind that and they want to make sure they have conversations with people before it is a public conversation that that person's position uh may not be here next year. So that all has been
008happening over the last four weeks. Uh and the superintendent confirmed yesterday that he's we are on track for having that conversation as at the finance committee uh tomorrow. I'm sorry, not tomorrow, next Wednesday. So, um I guess and if this is getting um too in the weeds, say the word, but um so I guess my confusion is from if your if the financial situation is a bit different, you know, based on the conversation last night with the select board, I would assume that in could inform the conversations you need to or maybe no longer need to have with certain staff members. Um, so like what's kind of the order of operations here like with like the budget versus conversations being had, I guess. >> Yeah, the conversations are had before there's a public conversation about
009cutting that position. So, some of those conversations have already had. some of those conversations might no longer might have been pointless because some money is saved which is again unfortunate but it's just where we are within within the timeline. Um >> and again we think it's again that it is better to be respectful people and kind of give them that information up front and then be able to come back and pull it back. We'd obviously love to have had the firm number earlier on but it just you know it is a moving target. We understand that. So, >> so you're saying Wednesday of next week is when it will be publicly discussed what cuts you all are looking at. >> It will be the first time the school committee has heard any cuts since we
010had the level service discussion. Was that November? um where we talked about a few like cut broadly kind of you know some priorities we were looking to make uh within the budget and um but yeah really no specific positions were even discussed at that point. So it'll be the first time we'll hear about any position cuts as a school committee and therefore publicly. >> And then on the 25th what is happening on the 25th? >> That's just we're having another finance meeting. So we, you know, I think the assumption is we'll give the town uh or the superintendent, I keep saying town minister, give the superintendent and the assistant superintendent some feedback on Wednesday or ask some questions that they might need to work on. They will do that work uh over the next over
011the break and the following week. And then we will have further conversations on that Wednesday so that we feel at least like somewhat informed and aligned to bring that information back to the full school committee to get the full school committee's thoughts on the first draft. Make again additional whatever additional changes based upon that feedback. Share that information out with the community. try and get additional feedback and see if there are further refinements. So that you know there's there's a little bit of the iterative process that will need to happen here over the next um few weeks as this these conversations start hitting a broader audience than just kind of the internal department staff. Um in terms of the what I'd love to be able to tell you all is this is the date that
012we will have the final school committee budget school department budget I should say. I don't have that right now. I think we'll that's something we'll need to talk about as a school committee, but I certainly would want the input from the warrant committee about your timeline for hey like I guess you know I guess we could give it to you on April 1 and maybe that's before the warrant closes but that really isn't respectful and doesn't give you a whole lot of time and so like what is what is the timeline you want and hopefully we can have a 100% nailed down budget if not like a 98% nailed down budget with like a last second change. I I don't know. I'm certainly trying to get you as formal of and final a budget as
013we can so we can nail that move together kind of with a unified budget as a town and um close out the warrant and and give you all the time you need to do your work. >> You appreciate that. Um I feel like I'm been doing all of the talking because I have been. Elaine, Lorraine, do you have any >> Yeah, I this is probably a premature question, but I'm I'm just curious. I I looked through your original proposal today during lunch. Um, and I, you know, first of all, thanks for the detailed budget. It's the most detailed budget, you know, that the Warren Committee sees. It's uh exhaustive. Um, but I couldn't find the amounts that you all were going to put into reserves. You mentioned it just a minute ago, Mark. Um, that
014that you're dedicated to building up reserves, etc. And so, first of all, I don't know what that amount is. And secondly, um, do you know if that is being considered as a place to potentially reduce amounts um, in order to keep personnel? >> Yeah. I mean, again, I don't want to speak for the full school committee. I think what I can say broadly that we'd all agree with is like everything is being considered. We need to figure out, you know, what what are the positions at risk? What are the things we can cut within the operating budget? What are the the other ways we can you raise revenue internally? Whether that's changing, we've talked about like changing fees, increasing fees for bus service, after school programs, extracurricular club, sports, right? What how that can offset
015the budget. Um, and certainly the utilization of circuit breaker. Circuit breaker is a separate account from the town account. I can't remember if that's within the budget itself, but one of the things I shared with y'all in the leadup to this was the slides or I can't remember if I sent you the slides or just the link to the recording of the meeting where Katie used the slides. Um and so within that she had some circuit breaker balance information um that I can share but essentially it's it is a matter of how much are we drawing down on the circuit breaker versus putting funds into the circuit breaker. the state puts funds into it and so the question is just how much of those funds are we pulling down and I'll say for FY27 we
016are already increasing our utilization of the circuit breaker by additional 8% by another $200,000 so we that's within the base and obviously 8% is larger than our 5.2% level service ass so we're increasing our utilization at a higher rate than we are you know for anything else in the town. The question further is should we increase that utilization further? Um I'll be clear on the circuit breaker what I've shared with Jay and others like the the circuit breaker the what we are or aren't taking out of it is not it added zero dollars to our level service ask right because what we did is >> we altered our utilization of the circuit breaker for this year within the override. That's something we talked to the warrant committee about within the override process. And so we
017we changed how much of the circuit breaker we were utilizing. So part of like what the schools got within the override allowed us to reduce that. And so therefore, if for say we get again $3 million a year, if we only utilize $260,000, that allows 600,000 to roll over and slowly accumulate kind of year 6,000 1 year 6,000 600,000 1 year, 600,000 next slowly but surely to meet uh a a more reasonable threshold to provide some uh buffer for unexpected uh high cost special education expenses uh such as out of district place students. students that you move into the district mid year. Um, which is >> certainly has happened to Milton in the past and could happen in the future. >> Can I Are you done um Elaine? >> Um, for now? Yes. I just
018have a general question just because people have asked me but the overall level of students has it increased decreased or is that a level is is level from last year or the last couple of years and then the special education um percent in district and out of district has that gone up down level? Yeah, I can share. I don't have FY26 in this document, >> but I can share. I love my little chart here. Can y'all see my screen? >> There's just a lot of numbers here. So, this is like all of our enrollment going back as far as you can within Desi, which is SY07. Um so the last couple years also uh the last couple years you can see our overall enrollment sorry is this line went 8. So last year was a
019little bit higher 4381 then 4320 4321 4352 4355 um 4431 so SY20 was kind of the high point uh and then before that 4200 so over the last five years we're essentially flat um in the obviously long run before that which is more the the school building project piece were were way up but over the last like four or five years were mostly flat with, you know, a little bit of an uptick over the last couple years. >> And then for special education down here, you know, our our um total number of special education students has increased kind of significantly over time. As you can see again, SY24 is the last year I was able to pull for this when it happened. It was 18.6% of our our population, which is the highest Milton had
020ever seen. Um, and then ELELLL students similarly are, you know, going going up and up and up. So, >> Lorraine, did you also did you ask about out of district? >> Yes. So, I think last night, excuse me, um Danielle Wetmore presented and I think the number, give or take one or two, I think she said last year we were at 65 and this year we're at like 48 out of district. So, that's gone down. I think I don't know if you guys remember. So, it's in that ball there's the decrease number out of district. >> The number in my head was a decrease by 16. >> Yeah. But again, I might be >> but that wouldn't necessarily affect the cost depending upon what kind of out of district placement it was. Right. If those
02148 are more expensive placements than the 60 whatever it can go up and down. >> Yeah. And some of them it might have it doesn't necessarily mean they returned to district. It could mean they graduated. Could mean any number of things. So it's just it's just a number. But we don't it's there's not a we don't have the cost difference between the other placements from >> but if that's something you need maybe you can get >> I do just want to share just like this I'm just looking for this chart but like specialized special education as a percent of district enrollment and ELLL students as a percent of district enrollment again you can just see from since the pandemic that shooting up and again in SY24 is 18 point something and again ELLL students too
022we're just it's a long slow climb but uh all of those in the last five years especially have have increased as a percent of our student population that we're serving >> and I I pull up the current year stuff in desi but they're working they happen to be working tonight on their um >> okay >> profile their desi profile pages. So the website is down. >> So if more students are in district then the services needed to support all their needs that has gone up because you teachers or paraprofessionals or whatever whatever is needed. So Amanda, if you want to take that. >> Well, no, I was going to say I don't I don't know that it's an apples and apples. Like I'm I'm thinking through your question because to the question the number might
023have gone down. It doesn't mean they came back. It might mean they're out. Do you know what I mean? So I don't know that you could necessarily say because the number is lower out, the need is higher in. I think a better way maybe to look at it is the increase in students receiving services >> that they saw. So I think Nathan I mean um Mark just said I think it's roughly 18% right now and there has been an increase on that. And I think one of the things that we've noted um that was noted in the thing is in the budget that Danielle or that that's been presented for that that think that there's been an increase in contracted services. So everything from not only like the service providers but the the contracted the
024people that were contracting to do the testing. So I think what they've seen is an increase in referrals. So there are a lot of people I think it was a huge number of referrals in the middle school. So then that's you know so then you're having you know a psychologist or a speech therapist or an OT or somebody who has to do those evaluations to then determine if they're getting the services. So I think that's where we've seen a big spike as well. So it doesn't necessarily result in services, but that that's sort of the the first piece of it to determine. >> Great. Thank you. >> I think I can answer this question, but I want to make sure I'm correct. Uh so in the meeting um that the full warrant committee committee had
025with the full school committee in November um Katie had talked about how there were currently $8,000 in the circuit breaker revolving fund. But I also know that we get reimbursed quarterly. So that's I assume why those numbers are now higher. So, what Katie was saying was we started the year with 8,000 within the revolving fund. The number could be lower. It depends on just how it's utilized during the year because we are getting quarterly payments. We're obviously having ongoing expenses. So, it is possible. I I'm not sure how Katie is managing it. I think it gets in the way. She has projections for where it will end at the end of the year based upon how stuff's going. But it could be that she's fully drawing it down as she's going in the first couple
026quarters and then she to end the year, she won't need to draw down as much and we'll leave that final remaining amount that we kind of she shared within the presentation uh about the circuit breaker. It could be that she's not pulling down much right now and she's going to pull it down kind of all at the end of the year to balance the books. I'm actually not certain. That's a level like in the weeds on like how she's dealing with the day-to-day accounting and paying the the bills that I have not asked. Uh but I think the the broad strokes is that the year started with the 8,000 and then she currently has the projection uh that we will end the year with the million which is better than we anticipated. Right? We're expecting
027to be able to end the year with around 8 700 800,000. And so we are um it's because our our reimbursement is coming in higher than we originally anticipated last year which is good for a year and again allows us to build those funds within the current year and then potentially changes our math as relates to like how we need to build funds in the out years to kind of get there. Um but yeah there's a bit of projection with what the reimbursement is in in a given year. But is that projection not potentially changed by the discussion with the select board last night? >> So when I say projection, I was saying projection of what the state will reimburse and that is not changed at all by the the conversation last night. I think
028what the select board has asked us to consider and what your warrant committee chair has asked us to consider on a couple occasions is to increase our utilization of the special ed of the circuit breaker account beyond what our original estimates were draw down on it more in order to cover the revenue gap that exists within the town uh and in order to save you know positions and reduce impact on schools. Right? It's coming from a a a good place. People just want to solve the the problem. But uh obviously the thing we have to just think about and we have not had a decision on or anything is how to balance that and the needs within FY27 with also just the long-term budget sustainability and how do we you know again kind of marry
029those two things and not hinder the student experience FY27 but not create a situation where we're making FY27 really nice but we know FY28 is going to be a disaster. uh or we're putting the at least putting the department uh at serious risk because we don't have places that we could draw down from in the event of unanticipated high costs such as we experienced again just two years ago uh and last year FY24 and FY 25. Um so that's that that that is the balance but we don't we don't have not made a decision on that. Certainly getting having our circuit breaker be higher uh this year than we anticipated going into the year. Having information from the governor's budget on circuit breaker being funded at a higher rate next year is a factor in
030that. Having information about the town um administrator potentially providing $500,000 of free cash as a further uh allocation to that and building that up through that. Like those are all pieces of the equation that then we have to say, okay, like what so what does that mean to getting to this goal and certainly, you know, we're we're not trying to hoard money or anything. We want we want great services for our kids. Um, so it's just those are the two tensions that we're we're talking through and we don't have a decision on, but we appreciate the the partnership from the select board and the warrant committee in terms of how they are suggesting and uh offering ideas on what what we can do to solve the the problem within the budget gap. >> Thank you.
031>> I also feel like I'm talking a whole lot. So, Nathan and Amanda, please please just jump in and say I got Sorry. >> No, I was just gonna um ask about um I I just want to clarify on Wednesday morning when you have your finance meeting, you're going to be talking about all of these possibilities. >> Yeah. I mean, we're going to talk about more than that because we need to talk about the positions, too. And so there's a bit of like I can't guarantee exactly what we'll get into just because of the time and the conversation because we're going to be talking about again >> as I mentioned like fee increases. That's a part of the conversation. We're going to be talking about uh position cuts. We're going to be talking about non-position
032cuts like operating budget cuts. Um but yes, I I think our goal is to talk about the circuit breaker piece too as as we've talked about like a way of further um refining what is that exact number, that million-doll number uh and how we can address it in ways. >> Our goal is to minimize the impact on student services as much as possible. Like we want the best possible experience for kids. We want the best possible academic outcomes for for our students. And so it our job as elected school committee members and the job of the superintendent who we appointed is to figure out how to do that within the financial resources provided from the town. And so at this point the financial resource provided from the town have been uh narrowed or the gap
033has been narrowed and the resources have been kind of are now pretty clear on what they will be. And so we got to it's not on anybody else. It's on us to figure out those last few few puzzle pieces and then we will share it with you and uh try and again defend whatever decision we have. >> Right. >> I know this is a constant concern probably but um has any of our federal funding been affected so far? >> I see Amanda shaking her head now. So >> we had asked Katie about that. She said not yet. there hasn't been there hasn't been any change. I mean, I know that there's always that threat and you're keeping an eye on it. And I think that's another reason to make sure that we um have reserves
034so that we have protection should things change. But as of now, no. There was uh over the summer they withheld uh certain title funds and there was a lot of push back from states around you got to give us these funds because it it did impact some summer uh programming in certain places. I don't think it did in Milton but yeah they they held those much longer than they typically do but ultimately released them and so those funds came through but that that's been the only significant impact thus far. Those are all the questions I had. So, please >> I was just going to say to answer your question earlier, I think the warrant committee is still um just starting to think about timelines around um comments needing to be written and you know when
035the warrant's going to close and all that. So, um I think we are starting to zero in on those logistics. Um I would say, but please Lorraine and Elaine feel free to jump in and disagree. I would say at this point uh it's very loose but like last week of Marchish if we are anticipating that the warrant's going to close you know early Aprilish just to give us a little bit to write a comment and you know amongst the three of us. Um, >> so I don't know if you think that we'll give you um and maybe and you maybe can't answer this right now, but we'll give you, you know, sufficient time to have a as finalized as you can by then budget. >> Yeah. No, I think um that's helpful direction and yeah,
036I can't 100% say right now, but I the time is the time and we got to get it to you at some point. So I having that is is helpful. Um as we think about just community engagement when we finally have a a draft to share. Uh I do think meeting with y'all during the process will be helpful so that we don't get to the end point and here it all is and you're going to have a lot of questions at that point. And so rather bringing you along the way and having the conversation throughout so that it feels more like tweaks uh and we're able to answer some of these things like you know what we're thinking about with circuit breaker or you know risk to federal funds just like do those other questions
037we can have those conversations now and then refine the questions as we go. So if y'all are still up for kind of having maybe every other week check-ins um as we go through this process I think that would be great. I I would might suggest our next meeting is the 23rd and I think I would ask if we could push that after the Wednesday meeting just because I would like to be able to share the draft but have the conversation on the draft budget with the full school committee and get their opinion on it before we spend too much time. I again mostly like want to give be respectful of them and they are sometimes like left out of these smaller conversations but also I don't want to waste a whole lot of time talking
038about a cut that then we go to that and you know Lizzy and Amanda and B are like that's why that's so stupid. Why are you all thinking of that? Um so >> yeah I think that makes perfect sense. Happy to find another time. >> Yeah because I think our Warren committee meeting is on the 23rd from what he was saying the other night. So, I think that works out actually well for us. >> Great. We're helping you out on this. That's awesome. Um, yeah. I don't know if the 26th was if we talked about that as an option. I didn't pull up the email for that Thursday night. >> I don't even know if I'm free that night to be fair, but >> I don't know if that was suggested. >> I could make
039it work if I had to. >> Yep. I could too. Yeah. See, I'm sure I got something. Let me see. Let me >> You guys don't have enough meetings. >> No, we need more more meetings. >> Um, I could do that. Could y'all possibly do six o'clock? >> I can. >> That's the Sorry, was that >> Oh, I just said I can do six o'clock. Yes. >> Great. I'm sorry. >> I can do clicks. Okay, >> that's the high school program of studies window, the six to seven, but I don't know. None of us are going to that, right? >> None of us have kids that need to go to that. >> I don't even know what that is. >> We're graduating, I think, in June. So, I'd be going >> um congratulations. Uh yeah,
040so 6 to 7 on the 26th would work for most people. Great. Yep. >> Then I will make that change to the >> the meeting invite. Um, what other questions do you all have? >> I think I'm good for tonight. Um, >> thank you for uh I appreciate you sending along those particular, you know, meetings um that you the links to those and I did um, you know, review those and that was definitely helpful and I was on the meeting last night. So, um, I'm feeling relatively up to speed and, uh, wish you luck in these next few weeks. I know there's a lot going on, but thank you for your service and, uh, I'm looking forward to connecting again after the break and following the meetings in the meantime. Yeah, Mark, I was just
041going to ask um I'm going to attend the, you know, the meeting Wednesday morning and and throughout the process for the finance subcommittee meetings and I know I can't speak at those meetings, but is it okay if I follow up with you after those meetings if I do have questions about stuff that you guys cover? >> Of course. Yeah. >> Okay, great. >> Absolutely. Um, and again, if y'all are getting obviously your own questions, just to that point, Ela, if y'all have questions as you're going that you want to send to us, we can try and type back. We obviously like Nathan, Amanda, and I can't converse, but if you send us emails, then I can I don't know. I I'll double check, but I maybe I just take them off the reply and send
042it to send you the the answers. Um, and that's true if they're your questions or that you're getting them from like a group of other warrant committee members and it's just coming up within the conversation. We >> certainly at this point have some time and your time is going to get really crunched when you all dive into hopefully it's not too bad a warrant this year, but um so yeah, certain whatever we can do to help carry those conversations along and answer questions as we go, that would be fantastic. >> Great. Thanks. >> And thank you all for your time as well. >> Yeah. >> Great. Nathan, Amanda, anything else? >> Nope. >> No, thanks, Mark. >> Thanks. Yeah. All right. Well, good to see you all. Thanks again and uh we'll be in touch.
043>> Y thank you for keeping it short. I appreciate it. >> Very helpful. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks. Have a good one. Bye.