001All right, I will call the meeting to order of the Milton School Committee Finance Subcommittee at 8:02 him. Um, jump in the assistant superintendent report which I think is also linked to the old business discussion of July 27 budgets. Um, kind of I might before we jump into that, I know we've gotten a couple of emails from families. Obviously, there's a lot of concern over the information that I again appreciate John sharing proactively after we met u with the town administrator and got clarity last Wednesday. From this time we kind of got the information that our budget increases 2.38% I believe. Um and that is a significant reduction from our level service budget would result in action is up to kind of 26 positions. um shared that out with community as soon as we could
002as soon as we knew it was that information was available to make sure it's on people's radar. Um obviously we have not had opportunity yet as a committee to work through that information figure out how we will approach uh process. Some folks count as that kind of is the end statement. I just want to be clear like that's the starting statements um trying to keep a breast along the way. Uh, I'll say another thing I've seen in a few communications is some narrative around John Failen as being somebody who's kind of coming in and trying to cut the budget. Um, just as a school committee member and obviously been in all the finance meetings with John like no point I don't think John has been coming in trying to reduce the resources available to the
003schools uh and students. And what we have talked about is how we stabilize our budget coming out of two years of really poor fiscal like significant fiscal issues I'll say. Um and I think you know Katie's been a huge part of that. Um last year even I think this year is going much better and we expect a positive quarter two report um here next week. Um but the circumstance always been how are we stabilizing this budget figuring this out in this current year and then the initial budget presentation that John and Dave brought to us was obviously a level service budget to how we continue programming. How do we readjust some things to address community needs and the school committee's priorities but not to just blanket like cut the service. It wasn't until the town
004administrator told us this is what you're getting as it relates to revenue that we are now trying to figure out and have this discussion of determining what it is we need to how we need to meet that demand that request uh from the the select board uh and the town administrator. We do not control revenue on school committee side. We only control school department expenditures and budget requests. And so that is the piece I was saying there's something I've seen in a few communications from folks around that we need to bring an outside person John should not be involved in the budget process. I just want to say individually I'm strongly against that idea. I don't know who you bring in that has more budgetary school budgetary experience than John within the Milton school system
005as again superintendent operations and finance principal uh and superintendent for many years in Belmont there's whatever expert you're bringing in that level of experience there it's going to be hard to do and I don't know why we would pay a we have John who we think very highly of and has done for a long time and obviously it's well stated and the great expertise she brings in add I will what you said um you know individually and I know talking to a couple other school committee members fully has our support and um I think the other piece is having somebody who is um can't remember the word but it's used a neutral party I I think that that negates the need to understand the role the the roles the responsibilities that we're talking about. So,
006it's not just the title, it's what the people do and how they support the students and the staff. So, I I fully think that I think that John is the best person, you know, Katie and his team um to do this and not having an intro party or a second party. So I'm in a great month. >> So I just expect that we'll have kind of more eyes on this meeting as opposed to other meetings as this information is now public and um the the level of interest and concern, rightful concern from many family members on what the impacts mean to to students. We have similar concerns from the school committee uh side. And obviously I think we expressed some of those last week with the town administrator um and the um continue to kind
007of work need to work through this stuff. So that's start of this kind of meeting that kind of general framing first you can do that also next meeting in a couple weeks. Um we have a couple of non participants of chi one left but if you have documents that we want view is there going to be titles of those have copies? Yeah, they'll all be uh posted materials. We are going to project whatever documents we have on on share screen. So up here see whatever and is there some access? >> Uh that I'm not sure. I don't know if we post them. Uh >> we usually post it after but we can make copies of >> All right. Um so we have two issues here we are dealing with. One issue is the FY27 budget
008um and the request from the town administrator that we cut our level service funding by $2.1 million essentially. Uh we also have the longer term concern that I think came up on the finance meeting last week which is that the town administrators is long-term projecting an allocation of 3% for the school department budget. school department I think I shared at that meeting school department budget over the last 16 years has only had less than a 3% increase three times um that was right around 2008 session period um the average increase has been 4.72% median increase has been 4.74% so it's not a circumstance in which the schools have found themselves in a long time and again this is not just that it's a one-year thing. It is a perpetual thing is what we're hearing from
009the town administrator. So, I think we expressed uh we all have long-term concerns and what that means for how we sustained um a program for students and staff um within the district. Uh and so I think Katie, you were putting together some projections on like what the implications that would mean and what this means in terms of advocacy for the select board. walk us through this. >> Sure. So, there are two documents um that are in the folder for this morning's meeting. Um the first document is the one that is displayed on the screen and this is more of a budget projection document. The second which we'll review after um we look at the projections is just an update on some of the work that we've done um after initially creating the level service budget
010and then looking at some of the changes that we would have to make in order to match the new revenue um that we now know is available to the school department. So this first document is just some different budget projections. We've talked a lot um about the difference in the annual cost growth in the percentages and what would the budget need to look like in order to be supported by the um the annual cost growth that was built into the operational overhead last year and built into the town budget. And so this first spreadsheet is just showing if we say that the annual revenue increase is 2.1 million and that is specific to the school department that is not townwide. So the information that was provided to us this year for the town was that
011there was new growth of about $4.2 $2 million. That was 2.9%. And that was before um there was another line where it was then further reduced because of some of the changes with the health insurance. So if we take about 50% of that new growth and that number is $2.1 million, we I just tried to do some modeling to represent what our operating budget would need to be if we knew that our annual cost growth was a certain percent. We don't know that year overyear, right? We don't have settled contracts. We have um a variety of different expenses that change year over year. Some of them tied to special education services. So we don't know that. But what we do know is the budget history and the history for the past nine years is that
012the school department has been supported by a 5.9% operating budget increase year-over-year. So, I think that's good context to know when we're looking at the percentage increases and kind of the difference between a 5% increase, a 4% increase, and a 3% increase. So, in this um this first tab is just showing the budget size versus a projected cost growth. And cost growth is just that percentage increase year-over-year. And so if your annual revenue increase is the $2.1 million and your annual cost growth is 5% which was similar to the level service budget increase that we projected for FY27 and it was that on a consistent basis the total budget would need to be $42 million. So 5% of the $42 million is 2. It's pretty pretty straightforward. Um, and you can see the calculation there.
013So, there's the budget 42 million growth at 5% your new budget is $44 million and your um revenue increases achievement. >> So, that's how the math works. And then I just walk through that scenario at different percentages. So if you know that your annual growth rate is 3% or 4%. What would your budget need to be? So out of 3% a 3% increase um would be reflective of a total budget of $70 million because at the $70 million at 3% $72 million that's a 2.1 revenue. So that just kind of shows that school departments typically on an annual basis for a level service increase could be anywhere from and we've said this a few different times a 3% to a 5% and there are outlier years. So if Mark if you can just go to
014the historical increase which is the last tab. So just um I pulled the historical operating budget increases. I know Mark went further a little bit further back, but I pulled back to FY17. You can see the increases for each year. And so our 9-year average has been about a 5.9% um increase, which is if it's 5.9% year-over-year, but we know that we're only going to have $2.1 million in new revenue, that's more reflective of a $40 million budget then. And why I keep saying that $2.1 million is because it's half of the new revenue projected by the town at a 3% of the $4.2 million. Um, so these are all assumptions, but they're assumptions of numbers that we try to do some modeling so that we can see the impacts year to know that our
015current budget is 72, right? And so having if we're only having that new revenue of about 2.12 million every year, then that it goes back to um the town administrator's initial projections of just being about a 3% increase, which is does not match with the history. And so what I did on this um historical is I took you know showed what the historical increases have been since fiscal year 17 and then what the equivalent what the equivalent would have been if we just got that 3% increase year-over-year. And it's a it's a pretty significant difference. Um, and I think that that's just important because it goes to show that um, that's those are pretty significant cuts year over year if you can only sustain a 3% increase, which we haven't received to that. We've received
016higher. So, um, the budget would have been significantly lower if we had only received 3% in the past several nine fiscal years. D just a question on the this valuable data. Um in what years? So obviously FY25 there was a million dollar over there. >> It would be interesting to see >> like you're painting a picture of a counterfactual where where we we would constrain expenses to 3% on in regular years. It would be useful, I think, to marry this with the overrides that the town has historically approved and those allocations that went to the schools. >> Sure. um which would probably let's assume those overrides would happen in at those same levels in a town that only increased expenditures by 3% which think probably stretching the reality a little bit but it would be
017helpful then to see like okay this is actually what the true counter time >> yeah we could do that >> I just don't know what was allocated to schools >> yeah well I mean the 9.27% the FY18 was the only override year other than last year and so that that high one is the override. So if you just change that one percent >> obviously so that that changed yeah a little bit because of the bump in that gear >> but still a huge gap clarifying question and and is it is it typical that and I'm sure times vary that it is a split revenue. So you're saying if it's if revenue is uh two to 4.2 15 million is it typical to it did get it probably I would assume that we are the larger
018>> right it's typically um closer to 60 40 65 30 definitely don't 50 is not >> I mean I I would expect us and I know like what's been budgeted what's been put on paper by the town administrator has been 50 Yeah, right. >> Just I'm I'm assuming just for the sake of getting the conversation started that I would like this will be proportional allocation of >> um the revenue time and this modeling can change based off those numbers. But I think it's just really important to see when we talk about percentages, when we talk about splits, when we talk about like we need to see what the impact is going to be to the school department and how that looks in the future years. Um so the last just kind of like modeling or
019um tab is just a revenue to expense projection based off of different levels of annual cost growth. and it's just comparing um the school's percentage increase to the town if the town is staying at a 3% increase. So the first column that you can see and it it's projecting forward because that's again like we know that we're we're talking about the FY27 budget but when we as a strategic leadership team here at the school department talk about um what changes that we need to make we don't we're not just making changes for a year. We're making changes so that we can support teaching and learning for the next five years. And so that's a piece of what we tried to do here is just to say if the town can only support a 3% but
020the school's budget is increasing by a three, three and a half, four, four and a half, what is the variance between the revenue that's available and the expenses that potentially could be incurred? And you can see the revenue to expense variance is in column D. And so, um, the models aren't perfect, right? Because we're not resetting to what actually happens year over year. It's just a projection to be able to show that there's there would be variances in each year just because we we know that our expenses may not be able to come in at 3% consistently um up until fiscal year 32. So just more more information just trying to look at it from different different ways to be able to provide that information. It all of this could very well change depending on
021what the revenue split is. um if the revenue is going to change um and kind of if some of the expenses even the shared expenses change but just hopefully some more information. >> So we're trying to answer some questions that have been asked over the last week um like um what's the history with the percentage increase in and does 3% work? The history of it is it's it's higher than 3%. It's more like 4 something to 5 point something over the course of nine years in the big marker model presented the other day. So that's that question. Uh is 3% a sustainable number over time? The answer is no. We don't think it is unless we're going to see reductions in the budget every year. Um the the other question was well how much would
022the budget be if you if you only 3% a year? What would that what would that look like? What would that number have to be? So we're trying to model that out to Katie's point. There's a lot of assumptions here. There's a lot of smaller pieces, but we're just trying to give a big picture first overview what that would look like so the community can understand what that looks like over time because I think we come back to there's a short-term situation we need to think about and then this is the the beginning of the foundational discussion about what does that long-term discussion and what's sustainable and what's not stable. Um we spent a lot of time talking about revenue fall. Um but now that the revenue picture is fairly clear. Um backing into the
023expense part of it uh is really eye opening and not only eye opening for the for the FY 27 school year but eye opening for the the you know the the whatever the future planning looks like for revenue versus expenses for the town. So um you know my hope and expectation from this is that we come up with a better short-term plan in 27 spend a lot more time talking about not just revenue but how expenses interact with that what the town needs to say that if you know if we want a uh a district that provides the services that the town wants and so so that this this is part of a bigger conversation that I think would be beneficial to if we could re re-evaluate how we want to approach 27 questions. What's
024that? >> Katie, what are you um outside of this committee? How do you anticipate communicating this information to others in town? Well, I'll share my opinion. I think it would be I think it would be really important for on the governance side for the budget coordinator community to see this and be able to absorb these these narratives and um just as just when you're interacting with staff on the town side um I think it would be number one maybe it would be useful for them to do this but with the town um I'm not sure that this exercise has happened on the town's side I don't know but I think it would also be useful for the the rest of the rest of town to see this sort of analysis and make sure they understand
025it. I have a chance to scrutinize it. Maybe they have other ways of thinking about it too. >> And I I also um if there are other ways of thinking about it that are productive to our conversations, we can look at them. >> We're open to that. I think whatever we can do to support these conver conversations and um come up with a way that will help support from a numbers perspective, right? Like the numbers are are pretty clear here, then we can do that. We can do whatever. So if there's um she's open to suggestions or feedback, comments like uh definitely open to that. So um I'm happy to share it anyway. >> So we have a meeting today administrator related to insurance and given the circumstances asked to meet an hour early. So
026just kind of continue this conversation about what does FY7 look like and what does the thing look like moving forward. We can certainly print out these documents agreement to to make sure that um these are the questions that were asked in the long-term planning committee meeting a little bit on Monday. Uh so it would it will be interesting to kind of to Katie's point, put some numbers on the table and also any other ways if people want to kind of reflect, you know, the the attempt to quantify the answers to the questions. Is 3% annually an acceptable number? What did we do in the past? How do we learn from that? and what would your budget have to be to be able to be sustainable at 3%. How do we how do we bring some
027consensus to that with some numbers so we can show this to Nick? It might be helpful if if that conversation we then bring that to our meeting Tuesday morning. It might be helpful for that group to see that. Um the sustainability piece definitely fits into the long range budget planning committee because that's at work. um the FY27 stuff uh situations is a not just sits in that not doesn't just sit in that meeting but sits in other meetings as well between the school committee and the select work center. I like >> I was just looking at your like I like your stuff. It again shows the compounding interest. I mean compounding effect of what this means kind of over time and kind of change in revenue forecast for the schools which obviously means a lot.
028I think the other piece I'm thinking about is just on an individual annual basis what we need to deal with if this is the difference here right this 4% versus 3% and I'll say again 4% is on the low end of what schools have annually get uh so that is a conservative estimate but let's say we can somehow restructure the budget the contracts whatever it is and drop that to kind of a 4% annual increase the town still only gives us 3%. Let's say again the town's not giving us 3% giving us 2.38%. So that's also conservative. In that scenario, if we just assume like this is ultimately what the budgets will end up being and we assume we do a projection based on kind of the prior budget times 4%. This is the delta
029on any given year. >> So every year we're seeing an $800,000 gap between level service. if we have this kind of variation. So every year we're cut I just like that is the thing that terrifies me about just how we are establishing this as a town and this is assuming kind of a average FTE of $76,000 is the number of FTE that we're got to cut. Again it's not all FTE we have 20% of our budget operating and certainly our goal is not to just cut staff. It's to figure out how we do this in ways that best support students. So this is Olympic crude but if we mostly to fill these gaps will need to be cutting positions that's how many positions on an annual basis. So it is not a one-time we cut
030these 26 people this year we're fine we cut the 26 people this year we're cutting 10 next year 10 the next year 10 the next year. That is that is the thing I I want to make sure as a town we are this is what the town and select we're saying schools need to do. This is what they're saying the effect is going to be and that the direction they're giving the school department is going to be you need to cut 10 people every year. Um and that that's the place that again really worries me. Um and we'll get into the what we need to do for next year just to close next year's budget because obviously it's >> it's worse. Yeah, the other piece I was thinking about said I think it was the
031last meeting when we look at the reserve like so if we look at that does not take into account any of the right of like the circuit breaker or I mean those are this is yes it's a budget impact but we're but part of the part of what we've talked about for next year is looking at like right now um working back up the circuit breaker or adding back to the all of the funds that are being completed. So, how I guess that doesn't take into account the reflects an inability to um >> you know what I mean? We're talking numbers, but it still leaves us very vulnerable >> in in any kind of reserve funds to am I looking at that correctly or >> Yeah. So, so that that's probably like a deeper level
032of this. So in our 5.2% increase for this year, which was love service plus money for negotiations, we were embedding filling up those revolving accounts over time within our budget at 5.2 in order to make sure our balance sheet at the school level was was adequate, right? I.e. those revolving accounts as sufficient funds that that we feel should be in place. Um it would be challenging to do that under the scenario because you we would be our goal was to realign our budget again in FY27 prior to this uh keep some reductions in place or keep some vacancies not filled in order to continue to develop those accounts over time you know small chunk of money small chunk of money so we end with a balance sheet that had all the revolving accounts with sufficient
033dollars in so that would challenge that so that 9.82 82 might be 12.82 because we might need three positions in order to kind of cultivate enough money. So it it would just it would exacerbate that scenario, >> right? And I so I understand why we're trying to explain that level, but there are still I think there are other things that there have been challenges that we're trying to address that this scenario actually is conservative. >> Correct. >> Yes, >> Amanda. I think the more we can talk about the vulnerabilities on the reserve funds to the public, the better. I think it's a widely misunderstood and >> undervalued problem that we have which is our savings accounts are at zero. Um and I think I think we need to talk about that a lot more and
034generally appreciates that challenge and and I think that the uh the way that uh the town administrator is operating to support with one-time funding understanding that one-time funding for onetime cost is the goal. um continuing revenue for continuing expenses is the goal. It's hard. We we don't have that many one-time expenditures. So, it's really hard to take advantage of that offer to be supported. If it is a special education stabilization account fund that at the town level, which would be great as an anchoring place where if something happened in any one year, we go to that would be that would be very very helpful. However, once that one time event happens in any fiscal year, it becomes part of our existing cost moving forward. So then it doesn't really adjust to the fact that we
035then we'll have it just a larger already budget due to that circumstance. So it it's I I I and I appreciate the offer to be supportive in that kind of onetime cost and onetime revenue perspective. I just wish we had more ways to take advantage of the we actually have because our revolving accounts are fluid year fiscal year accounts that we use as covers to protect the general education budget um against any athletic things that go up and down or any transportation things that go up and down special education things um or any facilities and rental things that go up and down. So um those are fluid accounts. So putting deposits into those as a one time as a one-time offer to help be helpful is helpful, but everybody should receive that in a way
036which is that now becomes part of what we're doing for work over time, right? >> So it's one timing offering, but it starts to melt into the operating budget to be very transparent about what that money can do >> and and I want I would want to make sure that everybody understand that to your point, Nathan. So if we do uh are able to secure funds for one time like costs that we're really clear about that may you know any revolving account melts into the upcoming budget >> during the course of a year will be years. >> Oh I'm sorry. >> I just wanted to add all the expenses truly it's um there's a difference between what our gross expenses. So that's the total expense to run the school department. That's the total operational expense.
037The revolving funds just offset a portion of that. So any change to those revolving funds is going to have a corresponding, right? So if we have less available to us, it's the same as a increase to expenses. The intent of the special education stabilization fund is just to be another mechanism to lessen the impact if we have unanticipated or unbudgeted expenses in one fiscal year. The intent of a stabilization fund is not to replace operating budget funding or to replace funding from a rural VA account that is within the review and control of the school. And so I just think that that's really important and that's something that um the stabilization fund was put into place to do that. And so while we need we do need to fund the stabilization fund, we can't do
038it um and impact or negatively impact the operative rate or any other account. >> Mark, if I could just this analysis here in this bottom row is really useful. Um, one push back on this is there even in in the town administrator's analysis or forecast there would be an overhead in FY29, FY30. Realistically, if this was if this was accurate portrayal of our future, I sort of would I would imagine there could be one to two overrides in this period that might offset the pain and just leave that hotel accept this. But I think it paints a useful picture and it doesn't also include the potentially 26 staff we're talking about 27 which >> is a redu if this was accurate this is a reduction in the range of 15 to 20%. Um and I
039think we need to this this is more complicated. We weren't even sure how this how this would happen but like I think it is important to paint a picture for ourselves and for others to what the actual impact is on learning experience class size in particular. um when you when you go in this direction and then I would argue that in this model the revenue assumptions are actually you mentioned um the revenue projection you're projecting 3% when we're actually getting 2.3% so they're they're aggressive. Um, if this was an accurate portrayal of our of our school system, our revenue would go down because our property dollars would go down because our school system would be uh a shot of itself. Um so there is a there is a vicious cycle that plays out here where
040um every year that our school the quality of our school system decreases uh our property values theoretically decrease which affects um the value of the >> I don't know how you can't model that but >> yeah I don't really >> yeah it's it's not a it's not a strong long-term picture and so I appreciate in terms the action step. It seems like again meeting with the town administrator tomorrow appreciating the SC and sharing this like this what you're telling us you want the schools to do on a basis uh otherwise we need to adjust your your models or we need to figure out like how else we figure like think creatively as a town about how we are setting aside resources that allow for us to sustain these services. Um and then I I don't
041know if it also makes sense for us to look back to if you talked to the chair of the select board or something like that just to make sure they also somehow getting this information this is a problem even if we again even if we drastically shrink the problem for what the problem is this year um it's still a long-term significant problem. So some are there other >> might have point out just put in a soft change for FY27. Yeah, it's the FY27. I copied and pasted over so it didn't formulas. I'll update this >> so it's >> Yeah, I mean this isn't right. >> I think it's I think it's helpful. I think there's this this challenge of the reality the money is the money right and so recognizing that but also I think
042what we're saying is trying to find a way well twofold one to creatively have some that impact because we can't create but the other piece is um I I think having people be realistic and recognizing that um I personally think the formula was flawed to get here. So because we've never been at 3% or less. So think that that was um I think it was I think whatever I I just think that that was a not the best way to um map this out talking about sustainability when we're saying this actually is not sustainable. Um, but the real, as I said, the reality is what it is. The revenue is what it is, and we need to be as creative as we can to lessen that impact. But I do think it's important that we
043have this um laid out to see, you know, to that point, is it not a 50/50 splitting? Are there things that we can do to do that? But the reality is for the next coming years, add projected budget increase of 3%, it has a detrimental effect. It's just important that we're transparent about any concerns. >> I'll be mindful of time and you have the current FY27 which any other questions or thoughts on this. >> Thank you for doing that. Okay. Great. Yes. So in anticipation of having to make an FY27 reduction, um we want to kind of put a framework together uh to let folks know methodology that we're going to work through uh to whatever level those reductions need to be, whether it's the 2.1 that we're currently being asked or hopefully something less
044than that uh in order for us to kind of um you know what I have been saying on the edges of the impact of this first year and then have the community work out the long-term 3% issue that we just discussed. Uh the first thing that we would do, a lot of folks have been asking, I've already been at two PTO meetings and I'll be at the third PTO meeting on Thursday or Friday. um is there anything we can do before we start to reduce FTE? So the answer is yes. It's minimal but it's important because every every chunk of money we get is is another educator that we can retain. So we had already talked about in this uh room about increasing certain fees and haven't addressed over time. Um I believe some fees
045have gone up recently uh in a small way but uh we're hoping that through reviewing the fee structure for uh transportation um athletics clubs uh and also uh building rentals that we really need to see that that those are really our only places to increase our school department base revenue. So we will look to increase those by an amount of about $100,000. that fee structure request will come to the committee in the next few weeks uh in order to support that. Uh we had already presented to you the change in fees for community school summer programming as an example and we plan to be community schools fees be increased because of the situation their fiscal situation. Uh this will be another round of that. So, we hope to be able to increase fees and transportation
046clubs, athletics, and building rentals to achieve $100,000 gain to uh to support this budget situation that so we will be presenting that fee structure or that changing fee structure to the school. >> John, >> yes, I'm happy to hold questions till the end if you want. I just have a question about fees. Um, I I believe there's some history here that I don't fully understand or I don't I don't know the history here. As you think about increasing fees, I am thinking about the impact that the increases will have on um lower income families and their ability to participate. I'm not sure what mitigation strategies are currently in place. I do believe Milton had at one point um a like a means testing approach to fees that allowed um that allowed for lower no fees
047for lower income families, higher fees, you know, just based on typical means testing approaches. I'm wondering if we should I'm wondering whether we do that now. I just don't know and whether we should consider re reinstituting something like that. >> So we have that structure in place. >> We do. >> Currently families who want to take the bus uh or want to play athletics or want to join a club are supported. They need a different differentiate fee structure. >> Okay. >> We use and have been using which is not as as solid as it used to be. We use the um the uh free and reduced lunch mechanism uh that's provided by the federal government really to bring lunch and we use that as a backdrop to uh to be able to provide reduced free
048services for any check for I I guess I would I would just say um I don't know if the juice is worth the screens because chair but that there's a way to more aggressively look at means testing so we I love this idea. You're saying thinking out loud here. Aggressively raise the fees. More aggressively raise the fees than we might comfortable with, but more aggressively means test them as well. >> So, let's say the fee goes from $10 to $4. Um, but if you're at 200% of the poverty line, you get X percentage off or whatever, we can like scale that down. Um, something to think about. Again, it's a small number. So, um, we we agree that we want to make sure we have access for our students. I think I think that we
049do a pretty good job of that that that students need, but to your point, if we're going to aggressively increase, we make sure that we maintain vigilance around what folks can not be able to access. So, that should go hand in hand. Totally. >> And, uh, >> yeah, my only thought on that is just how do you administer that? I think the reason most districts use the free and reduce lunch applications because that's more get or have systems to kind of collect other kind of uh income based kind of needs testing some schools. >> Yeah. >> So very few districts use a methodology that you need to their own town because it's a lot of maintenance of effort. you know, you're asking now you're asking for W2s and you're asking for demonstrations of of of
050income on a daily basis and uh that becomes problematic uh to do or sustain the maintenance of effort from the business office to do that. Um and you know fees like everything have gone up and down over years, right? We >> we tried to get more students involved in athletics and we reduce fees for a while. We didn't have any gay receipts for a while and these things have history. They have you know we've attempted these things over time. Uh but the reality is is that you know we are at that time these fees the speed discussion goes up and down like the budget goes up and down right there are always different levels that we try to support the bigger picture. So we will look to increase fees. Um and what people should understand
051is that the fee is now a double tax for the actual user of the >> you know when you uh so I'm not a big fan of fees quite frankly at all. Uh but I understand it needs to increase them in order to be reducing this. Um the next section of the budget that doesn't include um staffing is on non- salary. Again, we're roughly 21 uh 81% salary based lines in uh 19% of our budget is non-s salary baselines. So there's and of that 19% of non-sary baseline some of the bills that you have to pay i.e. utilities etc. Um so there is a smaller window of of uh opportunity here to to cultivate savings but uh with a very quick view of that list we have already identified about $25,000 of non salary based
052reductions uh they would come in the form and again this is our beginning of this this isn't the only part and this might change but we looked at potentially um we have an extraordinary maintenance account that we try to keep in place for our maintenance team to be able to address any needs in the district. Uh that I just fall to the facilities department in general. We have to we have to work with them to figure that out. We have a district-wide furniture account that we use to set up classrooms uh and or replenish classroom furniture issues. So the an example would be we had a new special education that went to the club. We had to set that up in a way that was different from the normal classroom with different types of furniture
053needs. So that would be the annual way that we do that instead of having that come out of that schools. budget. It wouldn't be fair to have that. That was a district-wide program. So, that was a placeholder to support that happening on a year-to-year basis. Um, districtwide text, we do have uh a number of dollars put aside for curriculum and professional development. Um, and we also have a legal account set um I mean sorry districtwide tax, we take out 100 leaving of 280 community to move forward. Keep in mind that we have an early literacy program that we're recommending next year. Part of that was funded this year and would be funded to the maximum possibility in our FY26 budget, but there will be some lingering needs that will help to address next year to
054implement the early program to Jesse um state expectation and then settlements. Uh there was aligning out budget assignments that we will uh reduce by $30,000 in to try to create at least a $25,000 um uh revenue source that we can put back. >> Maybe it doesn't you don't sort of >> everything. >> Yeah. No, I No, I understand that. I think that one just seems to me like a um >> um So, you know what I mean? That's what >> but but I recognize that I'm not criticizing. I'm just curious. >> I would also say for the extra extraordinary maintenance account. So, that is a recommendation that we have that account. Um, we did not have it previously. We funded that at $25,000 for this year. And so far this year, um, over the summer,
055we had an issue with an elevator at Tucker that depleted that account. And then we also had an issue with, um, the, um, hot water um, system at Cuttingham Poly Pod that was 90,000 bottles. And so, um, those are are pretty concrete examples of how, um, yes, we're putting that as cuts, but these unanticipated maintenance expenses are real. And we had put that funding in the budget to reflect that, thinking that, hey, it's it's not going to cover everything, but at least it's an effort to um, cover some of it. And the impact for us is when those expenses come up, we have to we have to fix whatever the issue is. And that money has to come from somewhere. >> And so the best that we can create, not buffers, but the best that
056we can fiscally plan for these things that may come up so that we're not impacting general education, special education, and teaching and learning. That's what we try to do from a budgeting perspective. So I would say any of these reductions any reduction to um non- salary accounts just leave you at least you >> and this is where we want to look at the relationship that we have with the town water facilities program and how's that works and the salary adjustments we need to that are those our expenses their expenses how we want to work that out. I'm sure that their budget's not prepared to be able to handle that kind of expense either. So we would need to be talking about that because that was part of the deal to you know that that was
057a town program. We continue to pay the custodians and they pay for the the facilities part but so that might have visited just also um acknowledged and baked into whatever long-term planning that we do about facilities which is um always always a reason why there's an account in amount of money in that account is something does always happen. It's just a natural to >> that many square feet to take care of. >> Yeah. I I would just say $50,000 is a a small amount like you said. I mean elevators if you have a single elevator issue that's at least like 20 $30,000 by itself. >> Yeah. I'm surprised with budgeting for one time expenses in operating. I wouldn't I would think that would be an involvement. So, it's a one-time expense in the fact that
058it um but it it's it happens that instance of expense happens every year. So, we know that there's always extraordinary maintenance that we have to um that we have to be able to account for completely for >> in the facility account. another one of those accounts that had been completed would normally be where we would like to restore it wasn't to that account to take care of that above average year of circumstances it needs to be. It was originally put in place to take care of just small times but um it is another revolving account that should be brought up to a level of balance that the other ones that we talked about in order to provide that um the insurance against these one time dates have time. >> Yeah, I I do think your
059point of just a cut for making and I don't want to spend too much time on just one line here but the conversation with the town administrator on like these our elevator breaks that's a cost that as a town then I don't know if the water heater and the fire department breaks that in the fire department's budget or that's in the town's facility budgets not sure but they're cutting here we would expect that we would be coming to you because we don't that funds to cover the elevator expense that we've come through the town of that funding facilities. So that might be again just another piece of >> the name for him. Um John, one one thing I know we've got to staff and running out of time. Just it sounds like you're not sure
060yet how the district wise tax reduction may impact that legitimacy like I I would be just as your thinking evolves there. I I would be curious to know >> just to stay on top of Yeah, we we we can implement that. >> Yeah, we're reducing 100 but we have 180. It's a $280,000 line. So we're think that we can we can move forward the word. >> Okay. So you think that that full implementation will still absolutely have you have to follow through on that? Yeah. They voted for that. So that's >> so that changed just the impact. We last year when we talked about the budget, we talked about funding outline. been really talked to for giving our folks the ability that we've been talking about the ELA curriculum implementation for a number of years
061and I think one of the barriers to be able to move forward with that was the funding and so by having this line and funding the line that removed the barrier that if there was another piece of curriculum implementation that we wanted to move forward with that we identified and said okay our Next thing is we're going to look at um civics or we're going to look at whatever the example is. The money is there and so that it will move to that barrier. And so that's just another like we just need to be eyes wide open that um if there is something that comes up even if there is something that comes up that the state tells us okay like this is going to be a new mandate um we just the funding is
062a reality. So, and that is what the the impact >> so that the healthy healthy districts have money set aside to Katie's point in order to deliver on uh programmatic needs that are addressed over a cycle of curriculum development time that would be put in place and that there'd be a timing of what curriculum was being reviewed and what curriculum might need to be shifted and there would be money there to support that on a basis. So there might be some years where you might to add to it by that much money because you maybe didn't do a major addition of the year before, but there might be two years in a row where you would need to add to it because you would be expending more dollars in that line. So that would be
063but you always need to have money in that line in order to grow your district and do your curriculum and teaching them with a cycle that supports that as well. uh when we get to FTDs, uh we're we're organizing ourselves in a way we can just talk out loud about um uh trying to preserve classroom teachers in front of students. So, we would start with support positions as opposed to direct service positions. Uh we would look into any positions that were in place but didn't have a system or a workflow attached to them that supervised part of a a process that directly impacted the classroom in a way that we all predictedly knew it should and was strategic. Uh we would look at anything that was added more recently that may be a result of
064COVID related services that might now need to be um or can we can afford to uh reduce the amount of services delivered in that area because we're moving away from our pandemic years and moving into a new uh world of what teaching and learning looks like and what our students come to us each day. Um we would also look at eventually class size and get to classroom teachers at some point. Uh there are some class sizes that we can afford to maybe go in and and review and we have a meeting with U Bill Fish with the middle school tomorrow and Karen Kel because those are the two places that class size vary. It's a complex schedule for those folks whereas our elementary school standard. Uh we do actually have higher class sizes than elementary
065schools than we do in our middle school or high school. So we definitely have to explore that. And we also have to keep in mind that a good amount of our staffing is connected to mandating services that we have to provide by the law. So that takes a whole chunk of um off the table. Uh we just we need to provide certain things by law and we will continue to do so. And um so we're we're hoping again to shave down the uh the amount of money that we have to impact on staff by addressing those two areas first. We want to thoughtfully as we can in at least in the next three weeks identify support positions uh positions that we don't feel fit into a system that's functional or working right now. That doesn't
066mean folks aren't working hard in that role. It just means that we need to outline all that. Um and then anything that was added recently or bus size and just so the community understands and I think Mark said this earlier uh when we were moving our 5.2% 2% in budget forward with physicians not build. We had a list of realigning our resources prepared to get to the school. How can we do a better job with technology and data? How can we do a better job with addressing the needs of students who have certain behavior difficulties that we want to address? How can we go about delivering coaching services and direct service services to students and coaching services to children? um the budget did need behind in terms of how do we want to take what
067we have and put more resources towards functions that we think will have better impact on students. So uh that was already happening. This this conversation about doing that with less means that some of the positions that we wanted to realign. we will not have that backflow of putting taking this $75,000 position and maybe changing the role to something else and using it to benefit students in a way that we feel will move the needle and push the learning at a higher level that you're all looking for in Milton because we feel our scores have been flattening. So an example by what we did at Tuck, we noticed that we needed more time for team chair so we funded that this year. We needed more time to create an instructional leadership team. So we we increased
068the stipen for staff to do that and we have more staff going over there the the district to spend more time at that school in order to support the the concerning outcomes that we're seeing at that school. So that's the kind of work that we still have to continue. So within these reductions it doesn't mean that everybody gets less. it means that things won't come down to a certain level, but we still need to target things that we have to fix. We forward um and we're going to try to pull off that at a different scale now that we're doing that as well as reducing staff. So, you will see some realignment as part of this budget because we think it's really important to realign some of our resources to directly towards what what we
069think students need and there'll also be reductions obviously that stays at $2 million. the short-term plan on behalf of uh I'll keep continue to say we need to advocate for the schools and we need to be fiscally uh sustainable and I think that we should also go back to our uh budget philosophy that we we actually discussed here way back in um uh October I believe uh October 22nd uh our goals were to support the five priorities of the district uh our first thing was to be long-term budget sustainable And I think that that speaks to the discussion that we had at the beginning of the meeting that we know we need to be sustainable. We don't know if 3% is actually sustainable. We think that it should be a higher amount uh in order
070to deliver what we need to. We need to strengthen our tier one instruction. That means our classroom teachers really need to have what they need to support every single student in front of them. We need to actively address student learning gaps. We have them in the district. We need to spend uh resources and time and strategy uh making sure that we address those and we need to continue to improve the school climate uh in our buildings to make sure that people feel like they're popular with schools in the way that their children need to be addressed. So those were our goals that we set forward. We should ground ourselves in our values and our expectations for ourselves. Um and so I wanted to kind of bring that bring us back to that. Um, and I
071think the uh the advocacy for reducing this number from 2 to something low would be helpful. >> Just 3% to the 2.34 that we're facing is about $400,000. >> Sadly, if we just got to 3% that $400,000 help a lot. Mhm. >> Um and I think that um to editorialize that I think that I would assume that the operational stabilization account was a fluid lever that the that the town could use differently each year depending on the needs of the town and that might need to be 700 one year. It might need to be only 500 a year, but it might need to be 1 million one year. And so I I really believe firmly that that account to be leveraged in a way that's flexible time uh to support the needs of any one
072year despite the fact that it's an infusion of of uh one time money is a is a flexible lever that needs to be used strategically over the course of time. Um, so even though it's I would consider a dotted line, if we put free cash into that account in order to go from 3.5 to maybe 4.5 or even 6.5, if we have 2 million of free cash available, that that account is robust enough to be able to support a longer range support of operating costs over time when needed and at certain junctures, heavier at some times and maybe lighter at other times. I think that that should be used more flexibly and not rigidly. Uh, in my opinion, I'm not the town administrator. It's not my job to remove the town budget that ends at
073zero and it's good is uh but I so I support this thinking of not wanting to continue to use onetime revenue for operating expenses. But this is a blunt um this is a very uh politically hard year to take this and this is obviously a surprise to our stakeholders and I think that uh we we need to show some um flexibility in order to you know create a pathway of success with district in the town. I agree with that. So I think in my mind the two things I think we should be asking town administrator and select board to help us reduce the impacts is exactly what you're saying 100,000 the operating sision fund doesn't do it to think about that more as you said flexibly and what the allocation is for next year um
074and I think the other one is the town is has a deficit and the service of $2.5 million. Right now, the schools are being asked to take on $2.1 million of that $2.5 million, which is about 80%. And so I would uh my my suggestion would be that as a school committee we go to select bill and say that u that allocation of the deficit does not feel doesn't feel doesn't feel right and it's having obviously enormous implications for us in the scale that that creates for the schools and the number of FTE as we see here. So you know the school department budget right now is 69% versus the town is 31% around there. Um so how can create that application be closer to that vision versus the 80 plus% right now stay two
075things I think should advocate to the sub um in hopes that that reduces this number. I guess another question I have this John and Katie is they obviously have a number of positions here. We don't have a list of positions that you know as you said kind of take time to talk internally and figure out how these realignments happen and get input on all the important stakeholders within the district. What is your kind of timeline on when you'd be proposing those? >> We would like to be able to put this in front of our community before February break. that's about 3 weeks away um at 4. Uh we've already talked to the union. Uh we've met with our leadership team. We've communicated with our staff, communicating with our families, our situation. Uh we've had one
076leadership meeting uh which was the let's say afternoon this issue board on uh the 7th. Uh we have meetings with the high school principal, the middle school principal. Tomorrow we have a meeting with Nick today. Uh we will bring the elementary folks in early next week. Um and then when we begin to create the list, we're going to have to pause and look at what the effect of that is on the human we can communicate them first before we make those list because every position has a name behind it even though the names are discreet persons with this. So we need about 3 weeks to to determine what the draft one and I use the draft one as we are uh we need to be able to address this if this becomes the ultimate need
077to do. Um and uh and we know that there'll be discussion moving forward with the community about that's too much and and we think that that should come off and can we add something back there. There's going to have to be room for a draft one, draft two, draft three of this because that's that's the community voice that that we're going to have to acknowledge and through and listen to and respond to. So, uh that's going to be part of the process as well. So, we don't think that the one whatever we present is going to be the ending one. >> Yeah. because there's going to be feedback from other folks on the stable impact the fine stable subs. >> I appreciate you saying that. So just in looking at the calendar, >> would we
078be looking at kind of having a discussion here on the February 11th? >> 11. >> I'd say 11. >> Okay. Um All right. I'll look at the budget calendar that we put together and obviously shared with the warrant committee and the budget coordination committee that clearly it needs to be pushed back talked about starting a meet with one committee on our proposed budget now like essentially this week we do not have a budget to meet with them on at this point so I can talk to the chair of the um one committee just on give them an update on kind of this is our timeline >> I think we had two leazison that attending so it would it would be helpful if we do that. We worked in full market. We've worked as police, but
079we haven't had any anybody in attendance thus far as of January. >> Yeah. I mean, I think mostly what we told them is like we we are working through developing a budget and once we have a budget, we want to talk to the budget, explain more things, answer questions, and we were hoping we'd have that around. Now, I think to your point, it might be helpful to when I reach out to Jay say like, "Do you want to go in connect? Do they want to they might already be watching these meetings online but there's any kind of initial meetings they want to have with us to understand some things happens we don't have an actual budget that's wonderful even talking through now and the discussions we have I think more directing them to watch this
080robust discussion. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm just wondering if it's sort of if it isful for them to see the current and then as we just have an understanding of it and then they >> Yeah, it's a good it's a good point. I mean um I'll I'll email and um share the updated timeline and say like you connect us with I think it'd be worth just asking those numbers. >> Yeah. What is there is there interest? So I think um Mark should we just plan on meeting as a sub subcommittee every week up until February at least and see what happens after that. >> yeah we have next week is that brings us to our agenda of uh next meetings. We have next week is a quarter two budget report. We still have the work
081of the fees uh which he might be able to bring forward sooner than maybe um the staffing list but also like the overall kind of revolving accounts policies we were working on and that has been paused a little bit. So that I think gives us at least activity for the 28th and >> but say that works for everybody and then I'll talk to Charlene about scheduling this up. Uh I do John appreciate you bringing us back to these priorities because I think even in a cut budget we have to continue to be >> priorities and figure out how we can catch lean on >> other initial questions. >> Um do we want to moving down the agenda? We have the vote on the meeting minutes. Do we want to delay that because people got to
082run or let's do it. >> Okay. All right. I'll make the motion just because there's some that folks need to abstain from. Uh so I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for November 125. This one was not at Is there a second? Second. >> Uh great. Uh, all in favor >> and stay. >> Uh, I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes on 12 December 5th, 2025. >> Uh, all in favor? >> Great. And Nathan, you saying? No, say on that one. Great. Uh, and then I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for October 29th, uh, November 5th, November 19th, December 17th, and January 17. Second. Uh, all in favor? Great. Um, yes, the minutes. I just want to pause. I know there's people watching when people
083watch this, but we have been posting all these meetings on our budget page 27th website. all the materials will be and continue to be on that website. So, anybody that wants to go and watch any meeting a built-in materials to do so. uh it was set up uh back in August to make sure that we were uh fully ahead and we also will be sending out reminder emails so if any meetings are coming up put an email we'll put a section into the uh weekly updates from the principles and superintendent update monthly in order to bring people's attention to the budget and bring their attention to the website so they can actually access the materials and hopefully answer questions as they're going along so we can inform them. But uh we actively and proactively set
084up August and make sure that people stay safe aware of the issues whatot. So I just want to keep pointing the the community back to that so if they have any questions they can back watch the gates to uh to learn anything that's moving forward. Uh anything else we should discuss before we adjourn. Okay. Uh then I will make a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Um, all in favor, thank you very much. Thank you, John Kat, as always for your time.