Warrant Committee with School Committee - November 3rd, 2025

001Good evening. Welcome to this joint meeting of the warrant committee in the school committee. I'm the warrant committee chair Jay Funling. It is the 3rd of November. Uh Karen, can you call roll the warrant committee? >> We have Jay Funling, Michael Stalis, Ela Craighead, Lorraine D, Grace Dohy, Larry Johnson, Andrew Co, Brian Maguire, and Nicholas Tangney. You have a quorum. >> Okay. Uh I do want to say before we get into the business of the meeting which is mostly talk to our friends on the school committee administration our next meeting is two two weeks from today and we're going to start with our I'm calling them budget overviews. The we're sorry where do things stand on these budget items. Boy, I might need to steal one of your seltzers. Um, and I asked for the

002first ones to be from library, health, consolidated facilities, and IT. Um, I specifically chose people who were either experienced warrant committee members or experienced with the topic they're covering, such as Larry. Um, I realize I gave you a little direction, but kept it a little vague as to what I wanted. Um, so in the next two weeks, maybe even in the next couple days, I'm happy to connect with any of y'all and sort of talk more about what you should be presenting two weeks from now. But if you have an idea, run with it. Even better. >> I think I have a pretty good idea for the IT committee. The other ones I might need some help on. Fire department and the other one that I have. >> Yeah. >> The IT committee over a

003ton of time. So >> are we all presenting? >> Talk to Andrew, too. >> Not all next week. Four people next week. Oh, and then not even all period. There are like >> there are like 10 different budgets that I want pres presentations on and you may not >> connect all of >> I'm not going to present on every budget. >> Definitely not every budget. No, >> it's too bad. I was looking forward to that. >> You're going to be on Zoom for that one. >> All right. So, the main point of this evening's meeting is to talk to our friends at the school committee and school administration and hear the plan for the budget and uh get us kicked off right for the year. Uh I would invite everyone to come join us. I

004count five of you here. We have five seats in a row. You could intermingle with us if you're if you're feeling social either way. Welcome, Chair Serio, who served with me on the war committee two years before we're leaving. >> You guys get set up. I'm Amanda Serio. I'm the chair of the uh school committee and I'm here with um Mark Luring who is the chair of the finance subcommittee, Nathan Huau who is a member of the finance subcommittee, interim superintendent John Failen and assistant superintendent of finance um Katie Blake. Um thanks for inviting us. I think it's it's a great opportunity for us to introduce um the team um introduce the budget process. Um I know for many of you this might be new. For others, you probably might do budgets within your job,

005but I think a school budget can be very different. Um, so what we wanted to do is just take you over the budget process. Um, talk a bit about maybe the strategy and the philosophy behind the budget, talk a little bit about the roles and responsibilities between the school committee and the administration, and then talk high level about the timeline, and then I think there are some other things a little bit more in depth with respect to the budget that um, Katie and John will go through. So with that, I will turn it over. >> Sure. >> Thank you, Amanda. Just want to introduce myself. I'm John Fail and I am the interim superintendent for the school year for Milton Public Schools. Uh fortunate uh former Milton public school employee for 16 years. So very

006familiar with the town. Also a town resident uh here in Milton and previous superintendent in Belmont. So I'm very very familiar with the town and the school system um and the work that's being done. So very very happy to be here. would like to introduce Katie Plague, assistant superintendent for finance who is in her second year. Uh, and I think for Katie, uh, one year was like a dog year. It's kind of it was a very very uh, big learning curve coming into Milton last year. And I just want to say before we start that I'm very very grateful that she is uh, my partner and our partner in this work. her ability to understand the budget, communicate it, and work with the staff that we have in the school committee has been tremendous um

007since I've arrived in May. And uh I'm very thankful that she's here. So, thank you, Katie. >> Thank you. >> And I think I'm going to be the one that is um sharing the presentation tonight. So, um can you enable sharing? Is there >> You should be able to share screen a bit. Do you share screen? >> It says host disabled. Oh, the back room might be the host, too. Wait, it wouldn't make sense to go through the agenda. Aenda just while we wait does it make sense to go through the agenda just so >> I think it's fine >> sure if you could try it now >> no that's fine Okay. So, just to kick it off tonight, um I just wanted to overview some of the topics that we'll be talking about. We

008have a number of topics on the agenda. Just starting with the budget timeline so you have a sense of um some of the key dates in the school budget creation process. We'll also talk about budgeting best practices um and the budget philosophy which also introduces and talks um about the teaching and learning uh priorities for the school district for the current year. Um we'll also overview some of the budget roles and responsibilities. So who's responsible for what um within the school department? There's information on the components of the school department budget and that's more from an expense standpoint. Um and then also information on education funding account. So that's more from the revenue side. Um we will overview the budget frequently asked questions talk about some next steps and then hopefully have some time for

009questions and discussion at the end. So, starting with the budget timeline, and I apologize because this is pretty small on the screen. Um, but I just I did want to add much of the information that we'll show you tonight um during the presentation can be found on the FY26 budget page on the Milton Public Schools website. Um so one of those documents is the budget timeline and this is just a snapshot of um the timeline. You can see that um we indicated where we are tonight which is the initial meeting between the school committee and the warrant committee with that high-level overview of the school department budget. And there are a number of um meetings that are already outlined that bring us up to the public presentation of the school department draft budget and that

010will happen um late January, early February. So, as I said, this budget timeline was reviewed um by the finance subcommittee and it was also reviewed by the full school committee. And if you want to actually see a version of it that hopefully um you can read a little bit better, that can be found on the district's website. So an important part of our work during the year is ensuring that we're following budgeting best practice while both administering the budget and also while we're creating the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. So for FY27 um the government finance officers association alliance for excellence in school budgeting recommends that all districts fall uh follow the below steps and so the the steps in budging best practice are first of all being able to plan and prepare. So,

011we want to make sure that we were reaching out to our partnerships, that we have principles and policies, that we're analyzing student learning, and that we're communicating all of that information to our stakeholders. We also, as a district, um set our instructional priorities. Uh we pay for those priorities, we implement the priorities, and then we want to make sure that we're ensuring sustainability. And so this is just a an overview of the budgeting best practice that has been established and the budgeting best practice that we truly are trying to ensure that Milton Public Schools is following this year and every year moving forward. And so with this information, it was really important for us for this year to talk about the Milton Public Schools budget philosophy and also what our budget priority was going to

012be. And so in order for us to do that, we established five district teaching and learning learning priorities, which then really spoke to what our budget priorities were going to be for the fiscal year 27 creation, which is the 2627 school year. So, I'm going to hand it over to Superintendent Felen so he can talk more about the creation of the teaching and learning priorities that were established by the administration team and then we can also talk about the budget priorities. >> Can I ask a question first? You said that the timeline is on the website. Is will all of these slides be made available to us or Okay, great. Thank you. Just uh to that point as well, um last year there was a a budget page of the website to codify and put

013in place uh a spot where folks could go get the material where needed and we wanted to be proactive this year. So that budget page we're recreating for this fiscal year is being emailed out to all of our families in the weekly emails and the monthly email newsletters. We'll have a budget corner that we refer folks to. There'll be uh videos of the Wednesday finance subcommittee meetings. All the documents that we present will be on that website. Uh everything that we send out to families related to budget and anything that we present either here or at finance for school. So every budget related document not only will be stored on that page for easy access, but we're actually emailing it to our families and anybody can join the middle public schools newsletter that goes out

014monthly if you don't have to be have someone in school to do that. So I encourage everybody to to log on call central office and we can put you on that as well in terms of communication and and I think that that goes back to the slide uh with the budget budgeting best practice the planning the partnerships and the in the communication. Uh we met all summer when I was introduced to to Milton and Katie and I really talked about uh what were some of the things that we learned from the last few years and what are some of the things we want to make sure that we shifted in practice in order to have a sustainable budget for Milton moving forward. And uh it absolutely intertwines with what is your instructional goals. Our budget

015resources should follow the teaching and learning goals that we have for our children and our educators. Um, with that said, we created a budget philosophy and priority statement because it's really all about the teaching and learning in the classroom and the budget and the resources follow the priorities of that behind the teachers and the students. So, uh, we got together with the leadership team which is our principles and our curriculum directors uh, in our central office cabinet. We spent a full day analyzing all of our data from the last few years, student achievement data. Um and we as a larger group of about 31 professionals came up with these five district learning priorities identified for the school year. Uh they are provide uh all students with robust in uh and intentional tier one instruction. That's

016the teacher in the classroom. Nobody else but that first teacher. That is where the intersection of learning happens. There's nothing more important in a school than the classroom. That's the main focus point. It has to be the first priority. The second thing that we really paid attention to is we want to use data to inform how we're teaching and learning in that classroom. We want to use data to inform how a building is organizing the teaching and learning in that classroom. And we want data to you to be used to inform how the district organizes all of its resources to follow it right to the classroom. So, um, the next thing that we looked at through the, um, through the data was the the concept of wanting to increase rigor in our schools. We're looking

017at our data and we're seeing that we really need to make sure that we're engaging kids at students at a high level in different ways in order for that learning to stick and and keep with them through not only that unit of study, but through the year and moving forward from year to year. Uh, so really coming up with high expectations and high support. Um, and then we're looking at some of our students who aren't meeting with benchmark, and that's just not acceptable in this town. We need to have every student be challenged and engaged by that first tier one instructor. We need to use data to find out who's learning and who's not and why. And then we need to actually take strategic steps to actually go after those students who might need something

018different in order to access learning. And so we're we're making that a priority as well. And then the last priority is all of that needs to be done in an environment that is friendly to learning. Seeing people who for who they are, who they come to school, how they come to school, what they may need, and making sure that they feel safe in school to learn. You can't learn if you don't feel safe. So all of those things are the priorities that we're focusing not only all of our budgeting on. We're focusing all of our professional development on it. And we're even uh uh evaluating our educators on their ability to provide those things in classrooms. And I'm in buildings every week with a checklist of those five things looking for them in classrooms uh

019in all six of our schools to to make sure we can support teachers and providing those tools in their teaching tool bags to support students. Um so they may seem simple, but they're actually grounding all of our work. Tomorrow we have a full day of professional development. It's a very expensive day. We have all students at home, all teachers at school, and we're actually having professional development offered uh for all of our elementary teachers at the middle school and all of our middle and high school teachers at the high school. Just focus on those five things. Really digging in deep to what that means. Um the budget priorities that we set that are connected to our our learning philosophy and priorities are the first thing we need to do to keep learning going in Milton

020is have a long-term sustainable budget. We need a budget that can last and utilize the the override funds uh and stretch them out but also support teaching and learning. If that budget goes ary, learning doesn't happen. So, we want to make sure that we have a sustainable budget. We want to also put money towards strengthening our tier one instruction, actively addressing student uh learning gaps, and improve our climate culture. So, that's what we're organizing our our thinking about. So when we start to talk about what we're going to move forward with or what we're not going to move forward with, we have to apply that thinking to these priorities. So uh the full uh philosophy document is on the website. So when you go on you can click that full document. It was presented at

021uh finance subcommittee on two occasions and it was approved by the school committee last week. um into our timeline that we were talking about. The timeline uh was voted by the the school committee was also given to our uh budgeting uh coordination committee that's that's uh and it's also in line with what the town's budgeting uh calendar looks like. So we're we are all aligned and trying to make this work work for the schools. Um so we are um also really wanting to unpack go to the next side Kitty if you like like there's any questions about the philosophy before we go forward. >> We also just always want to remind folks how we can organize the work and get it done. We all have to uh work within our roles. And so we have

022a school community that's very supportive. uh we have a warning committee that's supportive and a select board and a town uh administration that's supportive. But when it when it comes to our budget, uh the school committee has the the role uh through mass education reform law to establish the goals and strategic direction, which they've already done. Uh provide resources and budgeting to achieve those goals, which we're doing right now. Uh set guidance and parameters through policy, which we've already had several policies approved this year, and then monitor the progress. We're actually reporting out on all of our MCAST data on Wednesday and letting the school committee know that we'll be back to show them what we're doing about it. Um the superintendent and and our folks and my colleagues in central office uh we need

023to implement those policies, manage daily operations, district staff and resources, implement approve financial plans, and oversee day-to-day fiscal matters. So right now, as Katie pointed out, not only are we supervising and working the budget for the year that we're in, and we're planning for next year's budget, we're always looking backwards to see what we can learn from the previous year. We always want to make sure we're comparing what we're doing to what we did in previous years, how we can learn from that, how we can budget appropriately, and really asking the questions of our educators and our principles. What have you been doing with the resources we gave you? How has it been working? And how do you know it's been working? what are some of the outcomes that you're looking for? And that cycle

024of learning and that cycle of support for our teachers and principles and that cycle of accountability I think is really important. So that accountability then comes to us to make sure that we're supporting the cycle of the financial planning that we're doing to make sure that they have what they need over time uh through the budget process around these areas. I'm going to let Katie take this next slide unless there's any questions. I give her all the hard math. So, the school department budget has hundreds of budget accounts. Um, and they are grouped by salary accounts and also general expense accounts. So, we review each account individually every single year. However, what drives the budget increases year-over-year is fairly consistent. And so, some of the budget drivers we detail on this slide. The um main

025budget driver, which 81% of our overall budget is made up of salary expenses, um is due to our salary increases. And the salary increases in many instances in in a majority of cases with our employees are driven by our collective bargaining agreements. So with the collective bargaining agreements in which the teachers fall under, our instructional assistants fall under, custodial and food service staff, um it dictates the increases that are received year-over-year. And again, that's 81% of the expenses that make up the school depart school department operating budget. There's also a number of mandated expenses that we have to account for um every single year and those include transportation and you can see there's a reference to the mass general law. So in many of these instances there's mass general law that is saying to us

026um as a school department within the commonwealth of Massachusetts we are mandated that we need to provide certain services to our students. So that includes transportation, um some tuition costs for our Milton students that may um attend schools that are out of district, and then other special education expenses. And you can see that that is um special education expenses are mandated by both mass general law and also federal law in many instances. Um there is also a statute called chapter 70 which establishes a minimum net school spending. So schools are required to spend at a minimum that amount based off of a formula that is set by the state. So those are just some examples of mandated expenses that we need to take into account in the budgeting process every single year. We also need

027to make inflation adjustments and increases to current annual subscriptions and services. So, we may have services that we pay for on a consistent basis year over year, but those services, much like any of the expenses that you may find at your home, typically increase yearoveryear. Sometimes those increases may be higher than um the two or 3% um that is that has been typical in the past. And we also have to make inflation adjustments um and increases um recent fiscal in recent fiscal years inflation reached roughly 7 to 8%. And so when we're seeing that 7 to 8% increase on subscriptions year-over-year, um it just means that in some instances we can only afford to pay for a fraction of what we may have had in a previous year. So that's something that we have to

028take into consideration when we're building up the budget for the upcoming year. There also um during the process of creating the budget we have to consider fluctuations in revenue offsets. So a revenue offset is an outside revenue source um that is used to reduce or offset the school operating budget. After considering these factors, the department can then look at investing in other priorities. But in many years, um there really is little discretionary spending that the school department can invest their um their funding on. So, in looking at um that was more of an overview of the expense side for the school department budget, but in looking at the revenue side um in overviewing some of the education funding accounts, funding sources to support the schools come from multiple sources. So, there is local funding um

029through the district operating budget. We also have a M Milton special education stabilization fund that was established last year. Um there are a number of capital investments that capital funding is used to invest in our facilities and our technology on an annual basis. And then as we had said the revolving accounts are local um or the revenue offsets are local revolving accounts. So, we have a number of accounts um that fall under revolving accounts and that includes facility rental accounts, athletic accounts, um community schools accounts and others. From a state level, we receive chapter 70 funding and that funding goes directly to the town um as a part of the the state um budget allocation process. We also receive circuit breaker funding, which is a reimbursement program for past special education expenses. Um, so we're

030reimbursed for a portion of special education expenses that fall above a certain threshold that's set by the state. And then there's also funding for the Medicaid program. And that's also a reimbursement process. and we receive funding um from Medicaid on a quarterly basis. And then there is also federal funding and federal funding has been um a topic that has come up um more recently just due to some of the volatility with the federal funding. The school department receives an IDA grant from the federal um government which is a special education grant. We also received funding for an early childhood grant. Um, and then there's a number of grants. They're titled the ESSA grants. Um, but they're commonly referenced as the title grants, and it's title one, two, three, and four. >> Are you okay with

031questions during the presentation? >> Sure. >> Um, I don't know how much or how little we want to get into details, but I'm curious about the circuit breaker. Can you say more about both how much it is and when it comes in? I know there's a timing question. >> Sure. So, circuit breaker is um the special education funding program set by the state. Um it is a reimbursement of previous year's expenses. So we submit our information to the department of education um in the summer and then with that information they calculate they create a threshold that over a certain um they set a limit. So over say $51,000 in expenses, any expenses in excess of that, the district is reimbursed at a set rate. So the current rate that was funded at the state level

032is 75% of expenses. So, anything in excess, any expenses in excess for a specific student that's over that amount, we're reimbursed that 75% which is that was what was built into the budget for this year. So, it's reimbursed um we're being reimbursed this year for expenses that were incurred last year and were reimbursed on a quarterly basis. So are you talking about that percentage for this coming budget process is the 75% in place. >> So it's the 75% of the in excess. >> Yeah, I understand that. >> And then we use a portion of that to offset the special education costs for the current year and that's built into the budget. >> Right. What I'm saying is will the 75% remain? Is that just for this fiscal year or for next fiscal year? So, I

033believe it would be for um next fiscal year, but that's set at the state level. >> Okay. >> To Elaine's point, do you expect any of this funding to be impacted based on what's going on in Washington and funding and the government, everything? >> So, some of the federal funding and the federal grants we'll have to keep an eye on because um those could potentially or even the timing of those could be impacted. Over the summer, there was a question on um the title grants if they were going to be allocated to the states for the states to be able to use. So, those that fall under the federal funding will definitely have to continue to monitor. Um I don't know if there will be advocacy at the state level if the federal funding declines

034that the state will then have to try to backfill that because um the amounts that we receive for the ESSA grants for the title grants they do certainly offset a portion of the budget but some communities receive a larger portion so it be pretty impactful um to communities if they lost that funding. So, it's definitely something that we are tracking as we're moving through the budget process. >> I I would actually like also to come back to the the circuit breaker account and uh just to add a little bit more depth to uh where we are locally. Um it's important to note that this is a reimbursement. It's not a grant. It's not a gift. It's reimbursing the the cost from last year. You just get the money in the next fiscal year. And the

035state guidance that that we get uh through my organization MASS and through Katie's organization and also through the school community organization is the money that you get this year should be held in a payance in a revolving account. So you could actually plan on knowing exactly how much money you'll have for that important expenditure in the following year. So you should always actively have one year's worth of circuit breaker funding. So hypothetically, that means that we should take every dollar that's given to us each quarter to represent that reimbursement from the state and keep it in a separate account. So when we're making the budget for FY27, we know that those base bases are covered financially and we're looking at all the other pieces, moving parts that we're doing in other parts of our budget.

036Some districts get behind on that and start to use those dollars and dwindle and draw down on those those revolving accounts when times get hard. Uh and that's what happens in Milton. So that revolving account right now is truly a budget priority. We need to be able to make sure that that account has a sustainable balance and that we work each year over the next 3 years to deposit money into that that account in order to build it back up to where the state recommended um balance should be. We couldn't do it any in any one year cuz it's significant amount of money. We get $3.1 million in circuit breaker reimbursement. So the state's saying that you should have that in this account right now. So you're planning next year with that in your pocket

037because you know you're going to have at least that many bills next year for special education. Um that's how our revolving accounts work generally. This other revolving accounts that we would need support in our uh our our transportation revolving account, our athletics revolving account. This is where money comes in and money goes out and where we're working with different revenue structures in order to make these service deliveries work. And that revolving account acts as a as a I would say a shock absorber. So when we're going over some bumps, if something comes up that we need to fund, it can be relieved. The pressure can be relieved by using that revolving account. So it doesn't upset the general funding that's in the general budget for uh that's that's classroom issues. So, we're working really hard

038on this behind the scenes budget priority that might not make as much sense to the general public when you're talking about should I hire this teacher or how many um extra folks we need for this when we're going to be actually advocating for putting dollars into those revolving accounts because our first priority is a fiscally sound and stable budget moving forward. So it makes good practice from a financial planning perspective to have every every line in your budget funded in in the recommended guideline ways. And so we're behind in that a little bit with our revolving accounts. So our fiscal role this year will be to pay attention to that and and incrementally build it up so we can all look back and say FY28 and know that we have those revolving accounts and have

039healthy balances and and then begin to make sure that we're doing uh other things with our budget. But that will be a priority for this this year. It's not a very sexy thing to say we want more of, but it's actually a financially sound thing to do uh for the long term long-term stability of the budget, which actually connects to the classroom. Ask about how the circuit breaker is calculated. You gave the example of 50,000 per student and 75% over that. Like, okay, last last summer you submitted our numbers. At that point last summer, did you know what the 50,000 number would be or did you know what the 75 would be? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, like right now, do you know what those numbers will be for this year? >> Yes. >> Yeah.

040So, this date um sets the threshold for us and then the circuit breaker funding information is released in October. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Great. >> But the one variability in that is that these funds go through a process at the end of the year that Kate described. So think about the x amount of students we have and the pieces that are moving in that and the 75% reimbursement and the the threshold those are set but what's not set is the expenses that every single town puts in. So that becomes a big formula where every town submits they're giving us they're giving every city and town general guidelines 70% reimbursement goal >> and a $50,000 threshold. >> Okay, >> but then all the expenses get pulled in. So they draw all the expenses from all 351

041towns >> and the expenses fluctuate year to year with something might happen drastically in one town or uh one town might have more expenses. >> They have to navigate that and resolve that. So that does impact your they they we we're pretty good at it now and the state's pretty good at it now. So it's fairly predictable but it's not certain the amount of money that you'll get every year. >> Okay. So they're saying 50,000 75% it might not be that. They're saying that's >> the amount of dollars may vary slightly based on how much action is going on in that statewide pool while they're trying to do it equitably through the formula that they've provided. >> So the budget is set at the state level and their budget is passed in July. So back

042so in January they say okay this is what we're going to fund circuit breaker at in July and it's similar to our process where they're doing it so far in advance and then to John's point the towns may submit all of these expenses and when they look at the budget that was appropriated and then the expenses that were submitted they can in some um years only submit or only reimburse up to 70%. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So it's it's expected but it's not for sure. >> That's correct. >> When do they tell you what the percentage is? When do you know that? >> So they tell you when the information is released in October and then what had happened last year. So there's two pieces to it. There's tuition and transportation. The goal is

043to fund both at 75%. Last year tuition was funded at 75% but transportation because our ex the expenses statewide increased so significantly it was only funded at 47%. So what happened though through the um millionaires tax is the the governor proposed a supplemental budget and so they increased the funding through a state supplemental so that we then received more money this past July um which was a portion of the funding that we used to make sure that we could close the books. >> So you know what what the percentage is for at least this year. >> For this year we do. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a little confused. So, what we learned in October was what we would get reimbured for last year's expenses. >> Correct. >> And for this year's expenses, we got the guidelines,

044but we don't know what really >> the because you don't know if the governor is going to put a supplemental budget in to take that transportation reimbursement from 49 back up to 75. >> Correct. >> You don't know that until July of next year. >> So, there is variability there. That's why you want to use the revolving fund because you basically want to collect from last year and use that to spend for next year. >> So, so if we took all this Thank you. If we had the uh we want to make sure we show that discipline to create that account. So, we always know that whenever we're going into the future fiscal year, we're carrying that number forward. So, whatever they decide in July of next July will impact FY28, but we'll have plenty

045of time to work it out and and do something else in the budget to make sure that those expenses are covered. So that's exactly why. >> But it sounds like that revolving fund is pretty small right now. >> It's $8,000. >> $5,000. >> So you're going to try to have a million extra a year setting aside. So 3 years from now, you have the $3 million in the >> We'd like to work towards that goal as best we can without impacting the classroom. >> But you know, people might say, well, you'll never get there. You have to start somewhere. We have to be disciplined. We have to begin the process. And that's what our goal is this year for sure. And so anytime we see a decrease in a revenue offset, it has the same

046impact to the operating budget as an increase in expense. So we always that's why reviewing the revenue offsets and the fluctuation in our funding accounts is really important because if we have any federal or state funding that is reduced that could add pressure to the operating budget and how much we actually have to fund through our local funding. asks, "Does the state are there big fluctuations in year to year on what they reimburse percentage- wise in for circuit breaker?" >> Yeah. Right. It they stay pretty consistent. They really work hard to stay at whatever threshold they set for reimbursement in the fall. They really try to stay with. But you just don't know that until you get to that July point. So if the if that bigger bucket gets gets impacted by all the communities

047putting in their expenses and it goes over that amount that they have originally budgeted, they have to decide either to go with a lesser percentage of re reimbursement which Katie just described in transportation went from 75 down to 49. And then when our local representatives start to say, "Hey, you know, we were all budgeting this with a 75% expectation." Most of the time they go back and give you a supplemental um uh budget that impacts the state to get everybody whole. But there's just no guarantee of that, which always speaks to having one year in a rares in your hand going into the next budget year. >> But they've never ended up at a big jump though, right? >> They they've ended up lower than 75 before in in the last 10 years on multiple

048occasions. >> And when they reimburse, is that in June or what is it like monthly or it's >> quarterly? Okay. So quarterly this year. >> Okay. So you're taking the quarter and trying to put it that in that fund or a percentage of that in the fund. That's correct. >> Okay. Can you guys can you ever see a circumstance where we use that circum circuit breaker account again like in the future? >> Would we use it again? >> Yeah. Would you use it into it? I mean, you said that we're at $8,000 now because if we weren't fiscally responsible that the past, I mean, can would there ever be a circumstance where we'd have to do that again? So the the the rationale of having one one year's worth that 300 that 3 million is

049because it's a there's a lot of variability in what the expenses are that happen throughout the year. So right now we're where we actually Katie and I meet every two weeks with the special ed uh special student services director and we go over every single bill transportation out of student district tuitions and contracted service fluctuations what happened what's going on. So, can I see that changing in and out of a year? I can. Do I see the potential need to access circuit breaker money to make up the difference in any one year? I do. That's why it's there. Do I ever uh want to get in a situation where I have to go into it so deep that I actually damage the future year? That's the That's what we're trying not to do, right? So

050the bigger balance we can carry that's within the state guideline gives that lever that we can use to expend some of that dollars in the current fiscal year but have the majority of it follow us into the future fiscal year. Uh so where the reason why the state has that kind of system is because historically every school department in the in the state has different needs for children that come forward each year that need to be addressed and that gives us the lever to be able to do so in a way that doesn't impact the general school budget. Um so that's why it's so important to build it back up to its guidance level. So I think I think it was two years ago that we we had the unexpected increase in out of district

051tuition. So that would tell me that last year and continuing into this year we will have extra big you know our circuit breaker receipts for the state will be higher. Is that right? Is that what we're seeing? >> So we know the amount of money that we're getting this that will be deposited quarterly by the end of the year and that would be roughly 3.5 >> 3.5 million. Yeah. So, it went up by about $400 $300,000. >> Okay. Thank you. >> She'll be getting 3.5 for this year from last year's. >> Correct. And how much of that you think you'll be able to save in the fund? >> Uh, it's early. It's November 1. We actually had the meeting at 1:30 this afternoon. Uh, we'd like to think that um we can carry um maybe

052$800,000 over for next year if we're very very lucky, but I'd hate to give a number out and have people sit on it. Uh it's a there's there's a lot that can happen between now and June and if we do that in the next year then we'll have 1.6 and if we do that in the next year then we'll have 2.4. >> So it's about four years together. >> Yeah. That's that's why we want to do it incrementally to be to approach it in a very realistic way. >> Thank you. So, um, there are a number of questions that come up when talking about the school department budget. So, um, in an attempt to answer some of those questions, we've created a budget frequently asked questions document. And so, again, that can be um found

053on the district's website. Um, we've reviewed that previously at finance subcommittee meetings. Um and that's been shared with the full school committee. And just some of the an example of some of the questions that are answered um in that document is um where can I obtain information on the school budget? Um who sets the budget for the school department? What is state aid for chapter 70? We talk about chapter 70 a lot especially when we talk about the revenue projections for the town. Um so that document gives more information on chapter 70. Um what is a budget offset and what is a budget deficit? Um we had additional questions that were asked of us last year that we were um provided that were more specific to the override. Um but there are um some questions

054in that document that speak to what an override is, what an operational override is. Um so that document we have again on the um district's web page. Um and that's just for anyone if they wanted to um if they had a question that we may not potentially address tonight. um that document is shared there and we're more than happy to if there's any questions um that you think that are not contained in the document that you think would be important for us to add um we're more than happy that's a living and breathing document. So we're more than happy to add to that as the questions come up especially during the the budget creation process. side. Thank you for that. That's awesome. >> So, we we want to make sure that you also the budget

055page that we are proactively um emailing out to families and you can get on that list serve as well also has our uh FY26 first quarter report uh that you may want to take a look at. It is this is the kind of reading that Warren community folks like. Uh this has the narrative of um the shifts in the budget and the percentages. This this could be our budget page could be the best streaming channel that you get. I know that YouTube TV just took ESPN off and Disney and everything. So, this this could be the next place that you want to go if you're blanking. Uh we also uh provide tables that show exactly where some of the money that we save through not filling vacancies this year, where we put it and what

056we put it towards, which ironically is revolving accounts to support those accounts have what we need. It also um has great detail about uh what I think a lot of folks were talking about last year which is the exact expenditures and the actuals and the projected that provide. See Jay's on you're in >> forget about Netflix. You're on our website. So uh so please take a look at this. This is going to be what we will do every quarter so people can see what's been encumbered, what's been expended, how much is left. Uh Katie and I uh especially Katie has been working really hard to encumber every single anticipated expense. So we have a placeholder for those dollars to be known and understood that they'll be expended on a certain service so there are no

057surprises at the end of every year. And we'll also be probably closing down uh our general expense POS sometime in April to not so people will understand that whatever is being requested at that point will go a different level of scrutiny cuz we want to give ourselves that last quarter to make sure we know exactly what's going in and coming out so we can make sure that we um end fiscal 26 uh in an appropriate way. Uh that doesn't mean that things will not be purchased after that point. It just means that we're going to take that that extra measure of going through every PO in a very thoughtful way uh to make sure that every line in the budget can be supported all the way through June. So um the measures that we're taking

058throughout this year are very um specific and conservative. The measures that we took over the summer to make sure that our projected budget aligned with our payroll and align with our FTE count. We took extraordinary measures to do that by hand. We went through every single employee and that's when we decided to not fill some vacancies in order to have some dollars put aside to ensure that that some of those revolving accounts that are down to balances that are worrisome to us that we had some extra funds in order to put in places that we could access if we needed to during the fiscal 26 year. So we've been take we took some real clear action in uh the months leading up to school. We'll continue that v vigilance during the school year. Um, and

059we hope to balance the budget by the end of the year and provide a budget moving forward that's sustainable and still supports the classroom uh in a way that uh is afforded to us by the town, which by the way is um, as I always say, I'm very thankful to everybody who uh, voted for the override. It was incredibly uh, generous gift to the schools and to the town. And for the folks who didn't vote for it, we want to make sure you know that we will spend every single dollar in a very thoughtful way and we will do so in a way that supports the good stewardship of those dollars uh through the school budget moving forward. >> Yeah. Uh superintendent, great. I saw the uh reporting on budget taxuals which fantastic when I

060think back to what my colleagues uh who are on the school committee review team um on the war committee. Um that was one of the things that we were requesting. It was great to see that change. Um and I know you can't boil the ocean at once and this is like incredible progress. Uh but one of the problems that I had was sort of connecting the dots and you talked a lot about uh data data informing outcomes, data informing uh spending uh etc. And I mean there's a lot of pages in the budget like basically 90 pages of expenditures, >> 571 lines. >> Yeah. and and it's really difficult to connect that to um need for example uh what is a and I I think one of the other things that uh one of my

061colleagues had commented on last year was um it's impossible to figure out what the organizational capacity is um uh what sort of teaching capacity do you have in specific uh domain so I'm sure you're doing it in some fashion. How are you connecting the dots? Cuz I can't It's like really difficult for me to look at the budget and say this is what we're spending, this is our need. How do we >> sort of marry the two and how what sort of processes or systems are you looking at to track the data to inform um your outcomes and expenditures that you're talking about earlier? So, um, uh, it it's it's challenging to do so in a very direct way, in a in a in a, uh, in a dollar and cents way because we're really

062talking about human beings and students and learning. And so, it's the matches and, you know, it's kind of a round peg square all kind of thing. But what we're what we're doing uh this year is that uh we've already begun meeting individually with every principal uh to find out what their needs are, what they would like to realign in their budget to make sure that they were addressing needs of the students that they have. Once we finish those six meetings with each building principal, we also do that with the special ed director because that individual is in charge of a lot of different moving parts that go over all six schools. Um, and when we're asking the question, um, uh, we're also, uh, starting next week, uh, actually starting Wednesday of this week, what have

063you put in place to improve student learning? How do you know it's working? What do you what what have been some of the challenges? And what would you need to do differently to make those challenges turn into successes? Um, so each one of those questions is really important because I think things have been put in over time like in every school district. We have to measure them. Did we get the did we get the appropriate outcomes for our children with those added positions over the last 2 or 3 years or do we want to use those differently and maybe shift what that position does? Take that resource of that 1.0 no educator that may do a certain type of service delivery and change that into a math interventionist because we see math scores that might

064need to be enhanced at the high school level or the middle school level or we might want to add literacy curriculum which we just did by this with the support of the town by uh coming up with dollars to support the literacy um uh package that we're actually p purchasing this year. So we'd like to be able to point to the successes and the shifts in student growth that are positive to some of the things that we see teachers doing and the funding that we're giving them for professional development from materials and supplies and also the type of intervention that we're looking for uh to make sure that students are being engaged and growing. So, uh, we're really trying to connect the teaching and learning to the budget, which is why we have the philosophy

065that's connected to the to the learning goals that that's connected to how we're approaching our work with our principles for their learning goals. Uh, and actually what we're meeting with our 600 staff tomorrow on those five learning goals. So, I don't know how to connect the budget directly to that in a way that people would understand. You know what I mean? And I and I understand the question that really what I'm digging at is like how are you measuring impact rather or outcomes rather than outputs like >> yeah so outcome out outputs is obviously different from outcomes and uh part of the the the um part of the glue for these things that we're asking teachers to do and the five priorities and and making their goals connect to these priorities uh is that I'm

066in schools every week. So, I'm watching what people are doing and I'm asking questions and we're all talking about is this working in your classroom? I saw the interventional has come in. What do they do? How long are they in there? What does that do for students? How is how are we measuring the results of that? You know, we have some really wonderful programs that the peers to uh for some um math enrichment and writing enrichment. Uh so that's great. So, how do we measure whether that's working or not? How do we want to think about it differently if it's not meeting what you know the growth the the money is uh needs to follow the good practices that we see with good student outcomes and uh I'll give an example our science outcomes have

067were very very good last year so when we see that we ask well how did that happen what worked and we meet with the the the uh director of science talk about their hiring practices their meeting uh frequency what they talked about for student data how they use that data to inform instruction and we're going to have her meet with our other directors and talk about what was successful. So, uh there's no direct uh there's a lot of dotted lines that we're trying to connect uh but it has to center around the classroom. It has to be connected to what's good for kids, what we think is working for students, the data that we're using to decide what to do and what not to do and the outcomes. If if there's no outcome after we're

068investing in certain things, then we need to revisit it. That's the cycle of improvement. They would like to engage and make sure that we're all doing. I think educators are used to doing that from a student outcome perspective. We have to overlay that that district-wide budget conversation on top of that. You know, we just can't keep giving folks money to do things that we think might do well. We actually have to assess that and then have those hard conversations about what's working, what's not, and decide how to realign our our current budget in a way that supports the things that are working. And that goes back to sort of your question. What would what would I love to see on that budget page is um some some way I obviously anecdotally is measuring it anecdotally

069is important. It's an important part of that process. But how do we measure progress without letting creating a tool that people are going to beat you with beat beat you with uh beat you down with a stick with and so that we can see as a warrant committee or as a town or a taxpayer that um some of the methods or intervention methods or investments in uh processes um are are having an impact. We'd like to think one example of that and usually these happen over a period of years, right? So it's hard because it's not it's not a month-to-month thing, but what we'd like to say out loud for example is that we just in we're investing in an early literacy program. It's uh best practice um uh that Desi has explored about five

070or six programs. We're exploring all of those with the committee by the uh so that was a meeting that we had of the school committee two weeks ago. We'll come back in February to let the school committee know which platform we're going to use. Uh we'll be putting money in our budget for next year. Time for staff to meet, talk about it, get trained in it, and then we would like to see over the course of two years those early literacy scores rise. They have to be that it might be a 2-year window where we have to wait to see that connection. uh I know we live in a world where we get a lot of immediate application with you know but these things do take time for the training and the setup and then

071for the students to be engaged in so we'd like to see those kind of cycles in each one of our important content areas begin to show what do you need what can we do based on the data and then have a cycle where we look back and say all right for the last three years we've been supporting this what does the data look like are we you know are we doing the right thing do we need to shift anything so we would do that annually but we would probably let the scores play out over the course of 3 years to get a couple of data points before we decide to start doing something, but we make annual shifts at that. >> Thank you. You're welcome. I >> I I like that back and forth, but

072I was also thinking the whole time. I mean, I know nothing about education or measuring educational outcomes or any of that. The first couple slides you gave with the goals, I thought those are great, but they don't mean a whole lot to me. I might ask the school committee chair. you've seen both sides of this. So, you know, turning the budget into educational outcomes. That's, you know, primarily with the school administration and then the school committee oversees them. And then there's the warrant committee. So, if you don't mind me putting you on the spot, Missio, >> you know, you've been on the warrant committee, you've been on the school committee. You know, when it turns comes to turning a budget into educational outcomes or just thinking about those things at all, what's the warrant committee's

073role? What's the school committee's role? sort of an open-ended question. >> Um, um, >> you didn't think I was going to ask. >> I didn't think you were going to ask it. No, I I just go back to where we started with the goals. I think you have to know where you're going. Like, so those five priorities that that sets up sort of that road map. So, if you're talking about tier one instruction, then that's where the effort and the resources go. And so that helps you prioritize the budget. So then it's our job to well we you know we work with John and we work with Katie and we come to agreement on the you know we they share those priorities with us and then there's there's agreement to them and then the it's

074sort of like that funnel right the priorities happen then the budget falls out of it and then I think where we come in is say yes that that seems appropriate that seems like the funding that and that's where I think the warrant committee comes in I think it's you I think you have to know the why but um at the end of the day it's saying okay we agreed to the we understand it and we agree to it and this seems like an appropriate expenditure this seems appropriately the appropriate way to spend the money so I'm not saying that you don't need to know it but I think when you think about sort of the the roles of each group I think in order to understand and recommend funding a budget to a particular way

075you have to you as the warrant committee have to understand the why that went into the budget development and I think that's where that comes into. So I think that's sort of what we've tried to do this year which which is set up those priorities and say these are the priorities and then what does that mean everything goes through that filter. So if it doesn't fit into those five priorities then it's all likelihood not going to get funded because it doesn't drive to that goal. So I think if you use that as your road map and you use it as that road map as you're looking at the budget and as we look at the budget we do the same thing and as John and Katie are going through and they're trying to figure out

076how to prioritize spending they're using that. So I think if we're all using that as that same road map then we're all looking at it through that same lens and recognizing whether or not that the budget seems appropriate and recommended. >> Does that answer one question just on other salaries because salaries are so important. What are other general salaries? What is that if it's not professional? There's a line item in there. >> Um, our support staff. So, instructional assistants fall under other salaries. Um, our technology staff would fall under. So, some of that support. >> So, that's a big line item for your salaries. Okay. >> Mhm. Can I touch on something you and Amanda had said which is I think important um and I don't want to suggest that we're we're set we're as

077a warrant committee should say what the goals goals are because I think school committee has done a fine job of establishing those goals. I think the bigger thing is in order for future budgets to be able to say, "Hey, this is a reasonable ask or not a reasonable ask is that we need to understand is what we're funding having an impact and so um outcome uh by nature is fuzzy math. Uh I can think of a lot of different things uh that might help us measure it and some of it being facitious, some of them being like honest like graduation rates, uh college graduation rates, surveying students on how do they feel prepared, how were they prepared when they got to college or how many kids are going into trade schools. And uh anecdotal success

078stories are are just lots of different ways you can um sort of track outputs and outcomes and sort of try and get get to some middle ground. And I think one thing we can agree on is uh are the proposed sort of metrics on the outcomes piece something that help us understand connect the dots between a proposed budget and uh whether whether that gives us the information that we need to support or um pull away from a budget budget that's being proposed. So if I can tell you what's going through my mind and I don't I don't have the you the question I asked wasn't a loaded question. And I really don't know the answer, but I guess if we were to get the data, you know, specific data you said that would tell me

079did the schools do a good job in the previous decade. >> That's an interesting thing to learn. But I don't know if that tells me then if they are coming to us and asking for, you know, an extra 1% over what we expected them to ask for. >> It it's different. And I think since we don't histo have historical information today, if we start tracking some of those outputs and outcomes uh and establish that as our baseline uh it informs us going forward, it gives us something measurable to say that hey these are having impacts or not and that's not necess to say that it's going to give us an answer. It may give us an answer because there may be economic factors or COVID or something going on that impacts it. But uh better

080than just guessing and saying uh this is having a material impact on on educational outcomes or success stories. >> I mean they've been tracking standardized testing for years though. That's a pretty big one, right? MCCAST. >> We we have we we have an MCAST presentation on Wednesday. uh we uh look back several years to make sure that what are we growing, where are we growing, where are our scores flat, you know, other data points like SAT PS, SAT scores, graduation rates, uh you know, we keep track of where students go to school uh as a one one dipstick of what that means to folks. Um we uh I feel like our scores are good but can get better. Um I feel like we need to uh as you have described really start to try to

081connect what we're doing uh to a strategy that's based on the data that has certain outcomes that we're looking for and and go back and ask those hard questions. Did this work? Did we get the outcomes that we wanted? Do we need to make any shifts? And and I look at everything through the lens of a classroom teacher, a building principal, and then the district. So, um, you know, we're asking our teachers to make all of these important teaching moves like, you know, when they're working with students and they're not sure if they got it or not. I was in a great science class last Wednesday at the Pierce, a week ago, Wednesday, and in the teacher literally had the definition of mastery on the board and at the end of the lesson, she asked

082every student through a Google doc. I don't know how these things work. I don't that stuff but uh and every student self assess this is what I understood this is how I understood it this is what I need more help on and then she gathers that data in one document through a Google doc and she can see where her classes gez this concept really resonated the majority of the kids are getting that data they're getting the information but I have a few who didn't or this concept dropped no one no one picked up on it I need to reinforce that and revisit it tomorrow so that's how they use data in the classroom in the building we're looking at that aggregate data where am I putting my resources how many math individualists versus reading specialists

083how is that impacting the data for that and as a district we're listening to the teachers and the principles and asking them what do you think is making that different difference and then connecting it to the aggregate which is usually the MCCAST scores is that bigger picture trend that we're looking for that kind of point to uh to follow along and in the MCCAST has always been for me not for the child but more for the district to pay attention to what you're teaching teaching well and engaging students in well or what the adults aren't doing well, not the child. You know, the child is learning whatever you're putting in front of them. So, we want to make sure that we're aligning all those data points so we can be with success. And in other

084parts of this is that I think Katie said this earlier, so much of our budget is already expended. There's very little discretionary budgeting funds in the $72 million budget. And that sounds kind of crazy, but 81% is salary. Uh then you have bills uh like utilities. Then you have mandated costs that that you have to pay. So after you get through paying salaries, which are mandated through contractual obligations and mandated bills in utilities, all of a sudden you're really where's that where's that band of money that were being used for discretion. We're also dedicating ourselves this year to say, well, within that 81% of dolls that represent FTEES, do we want to change what kind of FBTE we have? Maybe not add any, but actually shift, maybe we need more of this and not as

085much of that. So, we're trying to be thoughtful uh around how we realign the resources that we have uh and whether or not we need to ask for more or we just can realign and get that done. But we do need to connect everything we do to some way of showing measurement that that backs up why we're asking for the money. >> To to that point though, I I think what what I'm hearing you say blends a bit into what I think of as the school committee responsibility of like again we are responsible for setting like what are the goals we want to see as a district. John, Katie, their team's responsible for carrying out those goals. We are responsible then for looking at the measures you're talking about like what and being clear with

086John and Katy and the team on what measures we want to see like we are interested in graduation requirement MCAST requirements um student attendance right uh culture surveys um you know diversity of uh staffing teacher hires like any all there are all kinds of metrics to the point you made that that we can look at and that is >> I think our job of how we are evaluating the superintendent uh and the department as a And then that's, you know, if we're doing our job and the town is evaluating us as elected officials on kind of a a threeear cycle to say we approve of the direction of the school committee and the department as a whole and so we are going to continue carrying these people forward or not or we want a different

087vision whatever that that's like the town structure. My in my opinion the role of a war committee as the finance department here in supporting that is is the budget we're putting together aligned with the town budget as a whole fits within the town kind of long-term financial projections. Is it a sustainable budget to John's point? like are we doing the things necessary to ensure that this is not going to be a roller coaster budget that we we have some expectation over time that can continue these programs and these expectations for town residents to have a certain experience within the public schools and you know as a committee is the school committee on top of kind of evaluating doing our job or there there are some concerns in that standpoint that the war committee would like

088to flag for us to think that hey you might have a gap there and you should look at But but the actual like performance indicator program evaluation standpoint I think lives squarely based on national master law squarely within the school committee role um and not not kind of within the board committee side may ask question by the way are you done with the presentation >> oh you are next >> um I have a bunch of questions but um like maybe to what Andrew was asking Okay. So, like the the budget's in for 26, right? That's >> baked in. And um like just for example, like I would ask like going back like special education professional salaries are up budgeted to be up 7.2%. And special ed salaries other is projected to be up 14%. Like

089how do you quantify for that for us? Like how do you say how do we is special ed students up like why is that jump point? >> I I would assume that the number of students who are in IEPs or get services would be increasing in in alignment with that increase in service delivery. And I also would say that maybe within their IEPs the need for more services within that IEP. So it might not be more students but it could be more services needed to be delivered for that student that would require more services from special education professionals. So, but is it I mean like the date in front of me, but I I I would assume it I would assume yes. >> And I think if if I can say if you have the

090opportunity I can find the date for it. um uh Danielle Wetmore came and presented to the school committee I think at the end of was it the end of last year and she went through because one of the questions really is about people do wonder because it's one of probably the most um it has the most sort of ups and downs within the budget the special education does and I think it was really helpful the way that she sort of described described the budget and the reasons for that given sort of the variability you So students being referred at different times of year, different level of need for different students. Students can go out of district at different times of year. If you have a student who is medically complex, they might have they might

091need a higher level of service than some. And so that impacts the budget. And so as Katie had mentioned before, there are those there are those different mandated services that we want to and we are required to, but we want to make sure that we're providing the services that our students need. and that um that in and of itself bears a variability within that line. So that's one of the probably you know that's why you know John was saying that he meets with he and Katie meet with the director of student services you every two weeks that's where you can sit down and say okay who has been evaluated do we have new students coming into the district or into the into the special ed program that have needs and that's where that variability will

092come and it's probably the least predictable thing just because they're people. So every special ed student has a different level of need. >> Yes. >> And I don't know how you quantify that how you say this is a >> but the level they have an IEP and it's it's an you you have an IEP and and a student has something on it that says that the services that they require and is every person is different. Every student's level of need and support is different. And so that's what quantifies it. So that there is a a grid that basically says this is the service that this particular student gets and here are the people who are providing that service. And so then that informs the budget. >> Literally literally the IEP could say something to the

093effect of three half hours of specific reading instruction per week. So then you add up how many students have that three half hours per week and then you quantify how many teachers you need to deliver that service. And then to uh to Amanda's point, those meetings happen throughout the year. because of those services could switch throughout the year. They could be added on to, they could be subtracted from. So, we need to be prepared to fluctuate with that over the course of a year. And and I would gladly I think that um because this subject to me is very uh student sensitive. um would would gladly meet with anybody from the warrant committee to kind of go over a special education 101 with folks through a financial lens to let folks know kind of the

094details of the moving parts of this that that sometimes are hard to talk about cuz I think sometimes families feel like gez every time we talk about budget it's always a special education conversation. Um it it it is to the point that it's a fluctuating uh expense that goes in and out that's based on the children that we work with and their needs which we are obligated by law and glad to do and want to do. But from a financial lens the questions get awkward. So uh if if anybody would love to meet sit down and talk about that process, how it's starts from beginning to end and how do we quantify it and how does that look from a budgeting perspective we'll gladly I would gladly take time with folks to do that um

095at any point in the end. I'd be curious because I think sometimes it's like, you know, you say, "Why are you going up so much?" I'd be curious to see if maybe I'll take your pilot. >> I'll take your interest. >> Um, can I ask um is are we so I see this sheet and um you have like the expenses for the first quarter on here. Uh is it are you on target? Do you know for the year on budget? Great. Do you do budgets on a monthby-month basis? Because um you know like do you say do you budget like uh July 25, August 25, September 25? No >> annual basis. >> You do an annual basis and then you look at what you spent but it varies. So that must be hard to really

096figure out and get a handle on. And then we try to so the incumbrance portion which that's a column in the report that is where we're earmarking what we're projecting that we're going to spend for the remainder of the year. So that is almost like the forecast of what we're projecting the outstanding expense to be. And so that's why it's we're trying to make sure for all of the department heads that have a piece of the budget that they oversee that we that they are alerting us of what that incumbrance is or what that outstanding expense is going to be for the remainder of the year and then we're memorializing that by putting it in the accounting system. >> So the principles which is the people that are in charge, right? >> Yes. >> That's

097great. they're figuring they they do figure out what it's going to be for the rest of the year. They have a some calculation spreadsheet. So, you're there kind of doing that on a month by month basis. >> So, so I I would say I would say it differently. I would say that every principal gets an aotted amount of money for tax materials and supplies as one example >> and we go over all those lines with them. They know what they need to buy and how how do they know what they need to buy and how much? We all look back three years at our actuals in our projected budget and look to see where they were consistent. So if I used x amount of paper every year as a principal, I could look back three

098years and say, geez, I always buy x amount of pallets cost x amount of dollars. So that's how they actually they don't do it by month. They do it by service delivery and the material that they buy. And sadly, the material budget is a very small portion of it. It's really the only thing they get really discretion over is some of the smaller amounts of money that they spend on paper, materials, supplies. We're trying to uh put the budgeting for things like professional development at the centralized level. So when we see the need that the district wants to do something that we think is important across the whole district that we have the lever to use to fund that. So uh so we have experienced principles which is great. They do know what those students

099need and you can kind of see some of the budgeting for non-sour things. They're about 8% spent or 10% spent. We're 10, we're one month of 10 months of the school year. Uh you can see some of those lines have more things incumbred because we're actually working really hard to identify every expense we have and encumber it and hold a spot for it. So we know that we won't have surprises at the end of the year for something that we didn't know was going to be purchased. And that's why we'll kind of maybe move up the um the time where we pull back and have all the expenditures done a little differently so we can actually make sure that we're watching everything a little bit closer. >> Yeah, I I'll have a lot of experience,

100but I would say I bet um if you did have everybody do a monthby-month budget, it would be a lot easier to figure out where you are and tracking it. It would be much simpler. And I bet a lot of towns do it. >> When I think of a month-to-month budget for a school department, there's fluctuations throughout the year of the utilization. And so schools spend a lot of money at the beginning of the year to prepare. So they're purchasing all of the crayons and construction paper and everything that they need. So a lot of that happens over the summer. So we can make sure that the teachers have what they need and then they'll draw from that. And so there's there tends to be a lull for a couple of months and then it

101will pick up again and then the months of April, May, and June when we're trying to close the books and then all of the events are happening and there's a lot that happens in schools during that time. Graduation, concerts, just all of that. And so it's almost hard to do it on a monthly basis just because that's why it's it's more of knowing the cycle and saying, "Okay, you said you needed last year you used four pallets of paper. This year you said you needed four." I'm not going to tell you when you're going to order it, but you know, we know that you're going to use four pallets of paper this year. And we're going to make sure that the expense is memorialized. Yeah. >> I mean, I've never worked in any place that

102had a a monthly budget cycle. >> It was always annual. >> We're monthly budget cycle. I mean, you track budgets monthly, though. That's what Brian's talking about. >> Yeah. Most companies do it. >> But to the point of cyclicality, I mean, I work in small business and commercial and there's a lot of business that are cyclical. So, kind of like you budget it when you know like this cycle is going to come up and then you kind of lull it down depending on what like the business is. That's kind of sounds like what you guys are trying to do. We budget our budget is already established for the year and so the es and flows we really have to manage throughout the year from a budgeting perspective. So the the schools and the principles they're

103really utilizing the resources but from a budgeting perspective we're running those reports. Sometimes when I get to January, February, March, those reports, the accounting system reports, we're running them on a daily basis. So, we're constantly running. What's our balance? What's our projection? Are we going to be able to close? Are we managing? Do you want another pallet of paper? No. There's no money. We need to potentially wait or do something else, right? To try to manage the expenses. So, it is kind of a ongoing iterative process that we're working. I don't want to be the dead horse, but if you had a monthly budget and you could see what they did like 5 months budget versus 5 months actual, each principal could just see it on their own and they would have an idea of

104what's going on. >> And so I just >> save you time. >> Do they not have their own budgets if they manage to? they do have their own budgets, but I think just from a school's perspective, >> the principles are so busy running buildings. Um, and so we're trying to help support them with the budget. In many instances, some of them didn't have visibility into their budgets before this year. And so this is a somewhat new process for them that they're trying to learn at the same time that they're managing all of the concentration is teaching and learning and the kids. And so I'm trying to help them with the budgeting and supporting all of that, but the focus is always going to be the students. They need to be in classrooms. They need to

105be calling families. Um so it's just trying to measure what we can do from a business perspective and supporting the principles and then the making sure that we have realistic expectations that their primary focus is on teaching and learning and students and staff. >> Thank you. So I'm I'm thinking about like what the warrant committee is going to be doing this year and how you know how we're going to be working with the schools this year. I think I mean at the very fundamental level the biggest question is what's the school's budget request going to be for this coming year and you know why is it different than the previous year or what sort of justification do we need to understand that budget request um and I'm just trying to think through and this can

106be a discussion of everyone at the table how do we what information do we need what information should we be getting to understand the budget requests that we're going to be getting from you in the spring and there are by I count sort of five groups that are interested. One is the whole warrant committee and second is the warrant committee school subcommittee which is I don't know if you met the people sitting to your left Elaine and Lorraine and Julia's not here tonight. >> She's online though. >> Oh good. >> Yeah. >> She's always listening. So that's two groups and then there's analogous there's the full school sub full school committee and the school budget subcommittee and then the fifth group is the administration. So what you know I'm sort of asking everyone at the

107table I'm asking the board committee members I'm asking the school members you're going to be presenting your budget to us and you're going to be saying this is why it's an appropriate budget. What's the the way of communicating information to us? What information do we need? Some of the information will be going through our school subcommittee. I don't know if you paid attention. Were you forced to be at the at the town meeting? I think John was. Good. Good. That's the right answer. Good. Um but the way we prepared for this fall town meeting is we had one or two experts, two experts for every article and they came back and reported to the bigger group. You know hopefully for the most part our school subcommittee can come back and report to us and tell

108us what's going on might still have other questions. I'll stop rambling. So sort of opening up to anyone on any side of the table. >> So I think it might be helpful if we pulled up because there are the timeline that we have. So I do think you know it's on the time. So I think >> so I think just >> it's very tiny >> to address this just generally is that we uh we are making every effort to be proactive and transparent with the work that we do in the budget not only for the year that we're in but for next year more importantly to your point Jay uh we've been meeting weekly on Wednesdays. We record those meetings. So we invite if if if the subcommittee folks can't make it to the meeting

109or they can't watch it live and be a part of the meeting then they can always click on it and take a look. All the documents are posted there. Uh so in anytime that you all want to meet me to talk about any questions we can uh while we're drafting and while we're coming up with the budget that we want to put forward to the school committee based on what we feel the students needs are and the principal's needs are. there's going to be some moving parts and there's also a real there needs to be an opportunity for the public to weigh in on what be work for the community. So, uh while we're building it, we gladly welcome the feedback and the questions as we go along. Um uh but essentially we'll come up

110with a budget that uh is at a revenue uh spot that fits what the town's projections are. uh we want to be able to show folks what the ins and outs that maybe we're realigning some of our positions in order to address certain needs that are connected to some priorities that we have. Uh there might be some debate about those. We might maybe need two more of these and we might need to reduce one of something else. And so we want to do that very openly and let people have some opinion on that and make sure they're aware. Um, but as we're building it through now to say January, we then really want to get in front of folks and start to say this is our draft one. This is not just rolling everybody over

111and calling it a day. We're actually going to, you know, try to be thoughtful about any realignment within our budget that we think we want to make in order to address certain needs that our students have from from a lot of different ways and also try to address and the reason why I spend more time on revolving accounts is to say that behind the scenes we're really also trying to build fiscal sustainability into the budget. That really isn't a popular thing to do because it's a long range plan, right? It's it's what preparing the next 2 or 3 years of budgeting. If we can just stay conservative a little bit and do that, then we can breathe easier in the next couple of school years after that's established. So that's not a really idea that

112might have someone to get more recess or it might not be another math specialist. It might need to be those priorities are going to have to be part of the picture. So, we're really going to be in a really healthy tension around fiscally appropriately budgeting for sustainability because we're not getting an override anytime soon. So, we need to be responsible because we just got a very large one, but also delivering things to students and staff that they need in order to make sure that those outcomes that we are trying to receive, we get. So, we'll we will be working on that between now and December as the timeline outlines. We'll be meeting with committee members at some point in January, February to say this is our first draft of that. Uh we are always meeting

113with uh Nick um and Amy from the town side to get any um understanding of what's changing from the revenue perspective. Uh we're making some general assumptions, you know, that we're going to get, you know, at least the same amount of chapter 70 that we're going to get this much money. So, we're embedding this process in assumptions that we that everybody makes every year in school districts and then trying to demonstrate what we're doing and why we're doing it and why we need the amount of money that we need that hopefully was is within the parameters of what we're uh able to spend on behalf of whatever the town's revenue is. any other >> just totally echo John's point and hopefully the sustain piece is a popular opinion at least within the war committee rather

114than the finance folks but uh to the point of like just the collaborative I don't think we need to answer your question I guess tonight I assume you all will have these conversations kind of on an ongoing basis and we look forward to getting that feedback from your experts I assume that's also part of that process is you are funneling stuff to the experts they're getting information bringing it back getting more questions coming back and forth and so really excited about that and uh I I saw how I thought I thought your vision of that and the board committee's work in that went really well with the fall town meeting and so I'm excited to see that that play out in the overall process and I assume that's not a question that's also unique to

115the schools. It's unique. It's, you know, applicable to all town departments like exactly what what is the information you want to see about DPW, schools, police, you know, all all the kind of local areas. And so don't think we have all the information. I'd also suggest like you look at some of our budget presentations from last year as a a baseline of what we've tried to share with the Warren Committee before. I think we we shared a lot. It was obviously a different budget process than we expect this year due to the override, but um that is a a foundation kind of for I think how Katie and um you know band and I at least were all here and how we were thinking about trying to impart information to the warrant committee. Um and

116then certainly you know we'd love additional input just make sure that whatever time we're putting in front of y'all or taking up in front of y'all is the best possible time, right? We're being efficient with it. We're we're getting to the point and um doing the things y'all are expecting of us. >> Yeah. >> I just I know you're wrapping up. You sound wrapping up. >> I'm not necessarily w Okay. I just had some more questions. Can I >> Well, well, okay. I guess I will say back to that question that I just asked that John and Mark responded to. Um did you have any other thoughts? Did anyone in the war committee have other thoughts about you know the information flow from one to the other? >> Yeah, I think the one I guess

117the two things. One is the goal of this meeting was really to make sure that all of the warrant committee had was entering with that same level of understanding recognizing that there are going to be two or three people who will become sort of those subject matter experts. And then I think um I would just say any questions where we're getting more specific about the budget or past budgets or budgets moving forward, we would kind of use that within those planning meetings moving forward. Just really treating this as sort of like a a general overview of of the process and the roles and responsibility and timeline. Um, but I I think if I think from there, like we were saying, our meetings are open. Anybody is welcome to come. And I just think as um

118you and the two of you and Julia get more involved if there are times where if there's information that you want, I think uh one thing that's been helpful in the past is um if there are questions sort of getting information, you know, getting a set of questions all at once, making sure that there's sort of a streamlined process for having that come through. I would say it goes through Mark being the chair of the finance subcommittee. um and being able to be efficient with that. So sort of there isn't like questions here and there that there's sort of a a consensus and agreement from the committee on what they're asking and so that then we can go back and get it to the right people. So I think just making sure that the process

119is streamlined is really helpful. Um but yeah and I think just really and then I'm sure that that the three of you will have questions around what's the how do you want to meet if there are the meetings you want to come to you know is there time that you know we want to make sure that you feel free to be able to ask questions within that so >> I think I can distill it down to two really basic questions which is um historically we've been very good at being um well a lot of things we're always informed about what changed like what are the deltas and and that's the easy piece and the harder piece is what's it's a baseline and is that the appropriate baseline and so not being experts about schools will

120leave outcomes and um sort of a lot of things to the the experts being the school committee and and the school administration. The real piece is just helping us understand how do we understand that what we have as the baseline for the budget is appropriate and I I love a lot of the things that I've heard from from you tonight about um looking at whether or not it in terms of staffing does it make sense uh our resources given that salaries are 81% in the budget I mean that's the biggest place where you can have an impact And so um is that being allocated um in the best financial and uh outcome oriented way? Then as long as I understand that then that's a budget that I can get behind whether it's a bigger number

121or or the same number. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Is that 81% like similar in other districts like school districts? That's kind of standard. >> We're in the middle. Yeah. >> Oh, we are. >> Yeah. So I saw I just did a dangerous quick try but somewhere between 70 and 90% >> okay >> 70 and 90% >> right you had >> yeah just a few um is contracts up this cycle right >> do you know when is that >> we start negotiations tomorrow >> oh okay so that'll tell you what the next salary so when it's completed >> when when did that when does that contract cover like next three years. >> Right now, right this minute, we're on the old contract. >> We have a one year agreement that's covered for this year. >>

122Okay. >> Oh, August 31st. >> Which um school committee members are on the bargain? >> Anybody from finance? Okay. >> And Katie >> and Lesie. Okay, great. >> Okay. Um, do you have do you know what the population I don't know if when you submit that to Desi is that >> what the school population is this year versus last year? Is it anything you submit? >> Are those Do you have those numbers >> the our enrollment numbers for this year? >> Yeah, we do. We uh they'll be on the they're on the agenda for this Wednesday night. >> Oh, okay. Cool. Great. Uh we're we're actually we're when plus from the aggregate standpoint we're we're up a few students and I think Mark you had said this that we're this I think this is maybe

123the largest student population that we've had in Milton for for a very long time. >> You're up a few students or you don't mean two you mean like a lot. No. Meaning over time we've built we've the districts but the district's enrollment has gone up each year incrementally to the point where this is the largest student enrollment we've had in the last many many years. I think it's over 4,000 13 4,000. We just submitted the data. Every October one the state takes that. >> Um okay. Um it's been kind of flat for like six or seven years. The population >> the enrollment it's roughly around 4,000 students but if but it hasn't gone down it's >> it's been going up by a couple of students a year hasn't gone down and every level looks a

124little different and every entering kindergarten looks a little different which is usually the big marker. Yeah. Um yeah 209 was the highest 4425 I don't think it's that much >> that was 2020 that was s20 >> what >> 2019 2020 sy was the highest ever this year will be at least based on projections was the second highest ever >> 4381 something around there but again that was earlier projections we'll get the actual numbers tomorrow okay >> October sims hasn't been published by the state but that also comes out >> the state data >> so It goes up by October and they hold a little bit each year. >> They call it the October. >> That's for funding purposely snapshot. >> That's a snapshot. Yeah. >> Um asking for a friend. The bus thing people asked.

125I know this came up. >> Are you asking for a friend? Is that how you say for a friend? Yeah. >> I know somebody who worked at our bus. >> What? Um, of all the people on all the students on buses now, are they able to get on buses? Because I know there's a big 116 or something. >> So, right now, uh, we have we at the beginning of the year, we had several, uh, a number of students, families on weight list. We made some adjustments to routes and some adjustments to bus capacity. And we took over 50 over 50 students off the weight list and onto buses about 3 weeks ago. We promised the families that we would do a second assessment of ridership. Uh we've done that over the last two weeks and

126we're getting ready to inform probably about 25 more families that they'll be able to come off the weight list. >> Oh, that's great. >> And that will result in um everybody who applied for a bus on time would actually be on a bus this year. That does not account for those families who did not apply for the bus on time and they would remain on a wait list. >> How many is that? >> Uh it's a good amount. It's a good 40 folks. Um, and then what we're what we're analyzing for next year is whether this means that we need an extra bus. Do we need to reexamine our routes? Uh, do we need to start the routes farthest away and then to come in from a strategy to make sure that us families that

127live the farthest away from school get buses first? Uh, we will do all three of those things as we prepare for next next year. So, we have remedied the situation considerably without adding resources or financial burden to the district. Um, but that's something that we want to make sure we can do in a very more thoughtful way next year. >> Is it worth I guess it's like 533 or something like that a day to run a bus or something like that? >> It's $100,000 a year. >> $100,000 a year. And um is it worth just increasing everyone's like >> a little bit? So yeah, part of the analysis will be how much of this do we want to come from our operating budget which you guys can you know have and how much of this

128do we want to increase fees to make that formula work. So that's the offset that's the revenue offset that we could use for that. So that will be an analysis that we do if we we feel we make it easy for >> make it Yeah. And I think similar if I can just there was a meeting again we can get you the date that we went through and I know that Katie had done the analysis of what would be the required increase per family to afford an additional bus wasn't that and it was like $1,000. It's there's like the cost of the bus you can't raise the you can't raise a family fee enough to cover another bus. It's just it's not feasible to have fee >> cover the cost of a bus. >> And

129so there is a portion that the dis that that will always come out of the fund, but you couldn't >> that it's just not a it's not financially >> no family could afford they should just hire a private driver. That's >> right. An Uber account. This is another example of why revolving accounts are important and why we do balance fees that are reasonable >> to offer the service >> that can be funded in part mostly by the operating budget and in part by that fee. Same concept goes for athletics. So we charge athletic fees to to play a sport. Some of that money that we pay for athletics with it comes out of the budget. Some of it comes out of the fees the students pay and some of it actually comes from the gate

130receipts that you pay to go to a game unfortunately. And those three revenue streams make up our ability to have a an athletic department. So it's always a balance between that. Uh but it speaks to making sure your revolving accounts have sufficient balances so you can actually use them in a way that interact thoughtfully with the services that you are delivering. Maybe in this case it might be something to look at because if the incremental cost increase would be $100,000 and there's like 500 kids I think that take a bus but it would be probably 600 with all the additional kids that you had. So then it would be more like inund because it's a step right and >> it makes sense if the incremental >> buses incremental >> increase the feeds on everybody whereas

131maybe they were saying for >> I think that's something I think as we're looking you know I think again it goes back to what are the priorities and we heard from a number of people that solving the transportation problem is a priority and we we understand understand that and recognize that and that goes into that climate and culture piece. And so as we are looking, you know, we have a set amount of money. And so as we're looking at the budget next year, you John and Katie, their job is to prioritize that. And then if a bus becomes a priority, then we need to figure out what moves, right? So because we can't just add so we have and so that would be part of that conversation and and part of that would be is

132it an exploration of fees? Is it an exploration of adding a bus? And you look at again like ridership and roots and all of those things that go into that equation to then figure out, you know, the solution that makes the most sense that that we can afford as a district. So I think all of those different scenarios are are going into it and and and determining what the what the best solution is for the coming year. >> I think this is an interesting discussion. It's been a very free form discussion tonight without a sort of specific agenda. Um, I think going forward this may not be this may be a level of detail. >> I think that maybe the whole warrant committee isn't going into >> I mean we we've talked about this over

133the past few months. >> I I think >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean we didn't have a specific agenda for tonight to say accomplish this and this and so that's why I'm >> opportunity to talk to the school. >> Exactly. sense we have public I want to say I'm being a little loose tonight but I think going forward like you know if if two weeks from now we're talking it we're talking library we're talking board of health want to be a little more focused on >> so I I I do think though that that helps to say when when we come back if again we're looking at what the priorities are and then what the budget priorities are and that will frame the discussion of what's being presented in front of you. So, you know, in

134the back of your mind as you're thinking about transportation or something else, um recognizing that that would fit into that framework that that that that whatever has come into the budget has gone through that funnel that we talked about. >> And um >> yeah, I figured I figured but it's a hot button issue now for some people, so I figured I'd pass. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for looking into it. Um I just have one more subject if that's okay. Um, I know that they built the three classrooms over at Cunningham, which I don't know if those are completed, but I assume it. And I assume it helped alleviate but not fix the overcrowding issue. Right. So, we we added significant square footage with the renovation of the library to classrooms and office space and

135office space being not just where adults have their desk, but where they do small group instruction. So, we gained several studentf facing spaces that were dearly and sorely needed. Uh the work was done between the end of school and the start of school. Uh Nick Milano and his team who uh and Tom McCarthy from facilities did a wonderful job of uh organizing it. We went to meetings uh construction meetings. The team did a great job. So the added square footage was incredibly useful and it continues to be super useful. Uh over the course of the summer of 26, they'll do the into the attic. They'll build the library out. So right now our students are getting the library on a cart at the Cunningham Collie Garden until that's fully done. Uh the budget came in

136uh the the construction project I believe came in under budget. Uh and uh the facilities committee tooured the space a few weeks ago and uh it's really beautiful space. It's very well utilized and um it it even uh so we're we're very thankful that the square footage is super helpful. There's still some crowding at the Cunningham Collie Club, believe it or not, uh that we would like to alleviate for sure, but uh it was a very good start and very thankful to the town to fund it through the capital process. >> Yeah. >> Did you say library on a cart? Is there no physical library now >> in for the one year? >> The library will be put in the ad when it's done next year. >> That's what they told. I'm just like envisioning

137Shaw Shank a little nicer than that. So um so I talked to the school building committee and um one of the questions I had on it two things is that NASDAQ is projecting a decrease over um in the population but small like 3% student population over the next uh 10 years. I think >> I think again this you know we're sort of being loose here tonight but you know >> well I'm going to be loose. >> Okay. So they're projecting a decrease of like 3% in the next so many years, 10% student population. And I know Liz was here last year and we talked to her and she said, "Well, we should look at other options." And when I looked at the school building projections, their student population projections were higher than what NASDAQ is

138now presenting like by a lot. Like look at just the elementary school. >> It was over projected. It was over projected by 254 students for 2028 versus what they were projecting. >> Yeah, I don't think that's >> only allowed to do it via births. They can't account for people who move into town for Milton for Milton schools. >> So that's a question always higher. >> So that's a question. So I was wondering if it's worth it. A two things. one reooking at those numbers and seeing if they're still valid. I think that's worth looking at. And the second thing is looking at um maybe other options if there's other school options out there. >> I think that's what the school building committee is doing. >> Yeah, that's outside of the scope of this meeting and

139even that that meeting under the school committee, aren't they? >> No, >> school building committee is under itself. >> Town established by town meeting. >> Oh, I figured they care about crowding. definitely care about it, right? >> Yeah, that that's what the school, you know, they're going through that whole process with the state and, you know, the state won't give us money unless we justify it to them. So, they're going through that process as we speak figuratively. So, and I it's not in my nature to shut down conversations, but I also don't want to stick her too far off topic. >> I think it's off agenda. >> Oh, off agenda. Yeah. Oh, we're not voting. Thanks, but um are we a stopping point? We are. >> So, I welcome anyone to contact uh me if

140you have questions about any of the things that we talked about tonight. Uh I welcome uh comments uh from the committee to work with you this year. I look forward to it. uh and um however we can be helpful moving forward with information uh so we can go through this process in a way that's helpful gladly to be partnering. Thank you. >> All of this information is on the website, >> correct? >> On the budget page. >> Super nice website. >> Thank you for the >> other departments have that. I mean, I mean, it's the biggest budget, you know. I was like, the IT Thank God. Stephanie O'Keefe is our person who manages that uh and is vigilant around, making sure everything goes up on time. She also does all the communication out to families.

141So, uh, it's not enough now just to have it on the website. We really want to make sure we're pushing it into people's inboxes. Uh, when we ever have a change or we have a document that's added, uh, in order to make sure that we can we're getting to people, uh, so they're fully informed. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And the meeting is, does anyone want to vote for a journ? Yeah, it's unanimous everyone.