001All [Music] right, people call us at 8:03 a.m. um um get a little yeah feedback from you. Um we will start first with the U assistant superintendent report. Wait, it's a bit until our new slides you shared. So um Katie shared some slides on some of the transportation stuff earlier. I'll share the screen here, Nathan, just so you can look at the same stuff. I just want to go to the slides for a second. >> Yeah. So, um John and I had had talked about um during these meetings being able to provide some information um around the budget and just breaking it up into pieces and being able to go through each one of those pieces at our different meetings. And then taking that information that's shared and talked about in the meeting and then
002also posting it to the website as a way to not only share the information here but share the information hopefully um to the broader community and then breaking it up into the pieces. Hopefully that helps so that when we get to the full budget conversation, we will already have talked about kind of the really important um major areas or budget drivers that make up the operating budget. So the first piece um that we'll review I think is really um is pretty relevant when it comes to the timing because there's been a lot of feedback on transportation for this year. So it's just going to be an overview on transportation. Um so the first slide it's just a general overview on what our obligation is for general education transportation and our obligation is truly driven by
003Mass General law. And so um transportation is at the town's expense. Um, it shall be provided to all Middleton students grade K through six who live 2 miles or more from the school that they attend. We also in addition to our mandated application, we also provide feebased transportation which is an option for school bus services for stu students grades K through six who live less than the two miles. So who live closer to the school that they attended and also for all students grades 7 through 12. And the 2m limit um this is the language that is set by the state is the shortest distance using a commonly traveled vehicular route. So it's not cutthroughs, it's not as the coral flies between the nearest walkway to the student's residence and the nearest walkway or gateway
004leading to the front door of the school. So just to provide some information on the fee structure that we currently utilize here in Milton. This is part this fee structure or this fee is part of the conversation that we typically have in December and January when we're creating our fee um our list of fees. And so students in grades K through six living more than two miles, those are our mandated students. So there is no bus fee. Students in grades K through six living less than the two miles and all students grades 7 through 12, we charge 325 per student with a family max of 650. So it's essentially charging for two students. Students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, they are not assessed a bus fee and families. Um this is new. We
005just instituted this late fee this year. Um the fee was approved last uh I believe this past January. So families that register after the transportation deadline, we assess a $50 late fee and that's per family. And that's just to encourage our families to register on time. That really helps us operationally with creating the roots and getting all of the information in um so that we can do all that work in a timely manner so we can communicate that out to our families. Quick question on the the uh so 325 or 650 that's for the year. We just from a billing perspective is that just a onetime payment that families make we still charge them monthly. Correct. It's a onetime payment and the payment is due at registration. And so if the family registers but they
006don't pay, we'll hold that bus pass until we receive payment. And we try to work with the families if there's any needs or any um if they may qualify for free, but they don't know that that is something that they can um the fee waiver that they can take advantage of. We really try to work with the families to make sure that um the student is um getting that bus pass if they need it. >> And then if a family starts in August and then quits in December, says like we know busing, there's no reimbursement for the remainder of the year. Correct. And then family leaves and so somebody gets off the wait list and joins in December. >> Is there a reduction? And there's it's still 325 32. for kind of a deadline. Is
007there a deadline at which you're sort of like to like even with the late fee just can't >> that doesn't make sense or we just we've created groups or whatever. I mean is there sort of a drop date doesn't matter if you just can't >> we try to accommodate all of the students the best that we possibly can. Um, so we do continue even if a family registers late, we do add them either to the weight list at the secondary level because we do have an active weight list or at the elementary level if there is a spot on the bus. We do our best to try to accommodate them knowing that um in some instances we may not be able to change a route. So we can accommodate that family, but they have to
008go on um on an existing route. So they may have to potentially walk to get to the bus stop. Um and there may be some timing implications. So if a family registers after the deadline, we can't just automatically assign them to the bus the next day. So, um, we try we tried to this year and I think moving forward. We really have to be very careful about making changes too close to the start of school because that's when miscommunication happens and that's when students potentially get on the wrong bus which can become scary and dangerous for those families. Um, and so we do we try our best to accommodate everyone just knowing that we have to be kind of mindful of the timing and um, just making sure that all of the students are safe
009and we want the drivers to know really their kids, who's on the bus and what the rooms are. >> Um, can I have one more question? So, if you're on a wait, say you're you got two kids, you pay the fee. At what point does the fee get reimbursed? You know, if you're a number 112 >> on the list like is there I guess is it held through the like what's the timing for that for for return? >> Typically around December. >> Okay. Um that's when we know that the roots are are well established, the wrership is well established. Um and if we still have families on the wait list at that point, we start reaching out to the families. And um the families can certainly at any time if they've found alternate um alternative
010transportation, they can always reach out to us for a refund as well. Um, but it's usually around December that we start issuing refunds >> questions. >> So, this is just some um comparison data so that you can see compared to our fees that we're charging what some of the other school districts are charging. So, we took some information from geographical um comps. These aren't our comps that are assigned to us by the state. These are just more of um districts in the area. So, this is just some more information just for um for context. And this information is also I put some um I put some bulleted items of where to find more information about transportation and all of this comparable data is also in the FAQ document. So let's see. So as far as
011the budget is concerned, the general education transportation budget um the original FY26 budget, the net budget was $733,000 because we are in year one of the bus contract. the um the rate that we actually signed in the bus contract was higher than the original uh rate that we had put into the budget. So, we did need to make an adjustment to the budget for FY26. So, on the top section here, you can see the FY26 adjusted budget. That's the gross number. So, that's the total number um that we're charged for transportation. And then you can see the $235,000 revenue offset. That is the revenue that we received from charging that bus fee. And so the FY26 net budget, that's the updated budget. It's $840,597. And so the breakdown is shown on this slide. the cost
012for the 11 buses, um the cost per year we're also charged of fuels are charged. Um you can see the user fees that we collect. So the um net cost per year for the 11 buses is the 840 number and then that's broken down as a net cost per bus. So it's approximately $76,000. Could I just clarify something because this will be watched by folks as well. >> Sure. >> So what that last number means is that after we include the fees that folks pay Yes. >> it still costs the district 76,415 per bus. >> Correct. >> Even after folks pay that's about 20% of the buses paid by fee. 80% is paid by the operating budget despite the watch fee. >> Yes. to clarify. So for FY26 the actual expenditure that was for 12
013>> FY20 >> I mean 25 for 12 >> and that actual expenditure is a net number. So that doesn't include the 200 and how however much we used from the revolving fund which is that fee revenue that we put in. Mhm. >> And and so the the 20% by the fees is doesn't pay for the whole bus obviously. So that was one of the questions that we got. So we wanted to make sure folks know that if we just escalate the fees a little bit or we >> if we add a bus and refill it, it's still >> that's only 20% of the bus cost, >> right? >> But uh it's still a big 20%. So the fees are really important to make this work. but it's it just doesn't selfund itself for for a
014bus to be added. >> And then just a note on here, we're also uh we also provide transportation services to some of the private schools in Milton and that's for students K through six >> and that's by law. >> Correct. >> So St. Mary St. A provide transportation to those students. >> Correct. So we do not receive income that's criteria. >> Yes. >> Hey. Yes. Thank you. Katie, a clarifying question here um on extracurriculars and field trips. are um the costs are are we sort of are we spending this million dollars on 11 buses and we get to sort of use them as much as we want or um is this million dollars specifically for transport to and from school and then anything else is additive on top of that? >> Yes. So anything else
015would be an additional charge. It's all all of the rates fall under the transportation contract, but um athletic transportation is separate. That's budgeted separately. Field trips are separate and that's typically we do not have a budget for field trip transportation. So that's typically funded by PTO or outside organizations. Um, extracurricular is similar as well. That's additional and funded in a and um would be funded in a way outside of this regular bus. >> Thank you. Are those rates also negotiated in our contract? >> Those rates are defined in the contract. >> Yeah. in the rate the cost per day for the 11 buses that 533 we run our transportation is a three tier system meaning that we run the um middle school high school that's one tier Cunningham Kolycott is the second and then Tucker
016Glover is the third so that cost um just incorporates all three of those tiers Thank you. >> I have some other questions on this one. I'm happy to continue. Uh >> question. Um so for FY26 the transportation budget which funds 11 buses is able to support transportation for almost 800 elementary students and again our elementary students are broken up into two tiers. It's um Penningham Collott. It's our second tier. And our third tier is Glover Tucker. And then transportation for 509 Pierce um in high school students, so secondary students. So for FY26, we currently have 116 secondary students on the wait list for transportation. 84 of those students were registered during the initial registration period. However, the buses were at capacity um and they it couldn't our buses just can't accommodate all of the students
017that expressed that they were um interested in receiving transportation. We also had a number of students that registered after the initial registration period and again they go they are on the wait list. Um, and then we've only had three students that were relisted um, and have requested to receive a refund, which essentially is un unenrolling them for transportation. Um, some of the considerations for fiscal year 27 as we look to um, start the budget building process. One of the um considerations I think that we need to take into account is enrollment specifically enrollment at the secondary level. So our enrollment has increased historically um and it is continuing to increase. However, our transportation capacity has largely remained the same and even this year we went from the 12 buses um to the 11 buses this
018year. Um, so I think that's just something to consider as we talk about building the budget for fiscal year 27, looking at what our proposed enrollment will be at the secondary level for school year 27 and then seeing um if we were to be able to accommodate some of those students that are on the wait list, how many buses would that require and how much would that essentially um what additional cost would that be? And then also just looking at some of the quality of service. So many of um some of the feedback that we've received from um community members and from family families and um guardians has been just feedback around the timing of the bus routes, the bus routes and schedule, some of the communication um from um around the bus routes, some
019of the safety of the stops. Just some of the different areas in town. Um just being mindful of the safety of um when we try to create the bus routes. Uh the bus company and we partner with the bus company and looking at those routes and they truly are trying to find efficiencies to make sure that the buses can run on time. But with those efficiencies sometimes um in trying to do so there in some instances is a sacrifice for safety and that's not something that we're willing to do. So there was an update this year um that put one of the routes on a street that is just not safe to have our students picked up. And so we adjusted that and we adjusted that back to a route um that was familiar to
020our families last year. And so I think those are all just pieces of what we need to consider when we're looking at transportation. And when um when we consider those, we also have to be mindful that there's budget impacts to many of the changes that we make. So, um that's just the reason that I think it's an important note to make and um that we just need to continuously consider that as we talk about the budget um for future fiscal years. >> Nathan, >> yeah, thank you. Um Katie, this is really useful to look at and hear you talk through. I think I think it would be good for us as a school committee and and to hear from you all as management, not necessarily today, but um as we plan for next year's budget,
021you know, right now my back of the envelope math says we're able to provide bus transport for about 90% of students who want it. And it seems like about 30% 35% of students in district want transportation. Um, do we have do we have a a sort of philosophy as to what percentage of our students who need bus transportation we want to be able to provide? Um, and what would it cost to get there? Maybe it's 100%. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's more than 90 but not quite 100%. I think it would be good to to norm around that so that we can um it it feels like with this um and this is this is not any like this is just the the outcome of of a tight budget. the tail is wagging the dog
022a little bit like we have this amount of money so we can provide this much transportation to people as opposed to saying we want to be able to provide our goal is x amount of transportation how much will that cost. Um I think it would be useful to model that out for next year so that we can just know what those parameters are going in. whether we can afford to provide it is is obviously a different question. >> And that was part of the conversation that we had had last year um when we had talked about the budget and what were some of the needs kind of above that level service. um having the 12 buses last year and saying, you know, obviously with the level service being able to maintain that number and then
023with um the additions that we had talked about above and beyond level service, saying if we could add one more bus um that would be able to hopefully accommodate all of the students that were uh looking to receive transportation. And so unfortunately we went from the we we really would like to have 13 to now we're back to the 11. So um >> I just say that out loud because I wasn't here for that. So you're saying that that assessment kind of was done last year and 13 seems to be the number >> that would to your point Nathan >> rise the percentage access rate to a you know above a 90%. Mhm. >> Um so, so the the the general goal is 13 buses would accommodate the highest percentage of students. >> Thank you.
024>> Okay. >> Always just taking into account like looking at those trends in enrollment because the 13 we were thinking for this year, but certainly um >> I think that it would be safe to say that the 13 will probably be appropriate for next year too. But we would just have to look at that data one more time before we kind of made that assessment. >> And in the other part of that in the planning is not just how many buses but to what especially being middle school and high school students. Do we want to create any zones where we don't provide busing? Right? So we want to push out that that distance and say we have to take care of the father's folks first and then work it in this way. So, we're going
025to draw a line around the high school, around Pierce. Are we just not going to provide any busing for a certain distance, >> whether folks want to pay for it or not, as a way to start that process from the furthest point in? >> Uh, we received calls from our folks who live in East Milton who didn't get in the lottery, and they're our father students. And then we have some families who live on Greensdale or Brook Road that might be quasi within walking distance 100 mile who have had the um the history of getting a bus at a certain distance. So just looking at that as part of what what does 100% access mean and for who and what are the rules around it because then you also will be from a financial perspective.
026if you go for 100% and you don't have any limit on distance, you could have buses that are a third or >> 40% filled and now so it's definitely a delicate balance of trying to find out that um and and I really want to say thank you to Katie because of all the emails that she is returning in the FAQs and the communication. Um, and I appreciate her putting uh the quality of service down. We have to have that conversation about what that looks like and how we can do better at that, but then what does it mean financially and how do we how do we overlay that whole that larger conversation. So, I'm glad that you already did some of the leg work last year so we can just resurface that and start to
027have a conversation for for 27. Is there also the opportunity and again this would be within time frame of discussing it but recognizing that are there other ways to think about it for example um and maybe I like the idea of like the the radius thought and then the furthest ones out but similarly if say 13 was cost just giving an example are there options where there is you could explore anter term like a single stop where kids can get to that's for you know that's a lack of a better term a shuttle bus or or a single bus that's not making mult like multiple stops if that was similarly like on the two furthest points of town or you know and then I think another thing maybe is and obviously it's not appropriate for
028everyone but being able to communicate some of the public transportation options that maybe for some people are more accessible that you say, you know, in the beginning of the year, you can sign up for this if you live in this area. You know, this bus route is accessible and might be an option as well. I think especially for if you're playing sports or you have activities and it's more sporadic use. Um, just not saying that we don't it's not saying that we don't fund it, but also just saying to families, here are other options as you're considering the bus, you know, that might make sense as well. >> Yeah. So, I don't know. I just think it's it's obviously there's that big budget number for the the buses, but then how else can we think
029about it in a way that recognizes that there's that financial challenge? >> The buses, I think it's um it is somewhat tricky because we base the registration based off of who who registers and the number of seats that are available. And we when we're registering the students, we're essentially assuming that everyone is taking the bus every single day. But we know that in many instances that's not necessarily the case. And so we have um at the secondary level we try to register enough students that it's two students per seat because they can't sit comfortably having three per seat. Um but at sometimes at the secondary level not everyone is always taking the bus. So sometimes we'll go a little bit over the capacity. So if the capacity is 50 sometimes we'll register up to 52
030because we know not every single student it's just it's it's difficult to measure because you may have a day that all 52 say it's raining out. I don't have sports today and I need a ride home so I'm going to hop on the bus. So, it's just it's a it's a really tricky balance to figure out what is like the ideal number that we're accommodating on these routes. Um, and I know it's frustrating to some families because sometimes they'll see a bus and say, "Well, it doesn't look like the bus is full. Why can't you why can't I come off of the weight list?" Um, so I know that's really frustrating to families and I've definitely heard that feedback. Um, so I just want I just want to be clear that we are just trying
031to register knowing that they that the students that are registered do have access and there may be some instances where all the students are utilizing transportation. So that's just another kind of like complexity of when we talk about the routes and the number of the correct number of buses. That's something that we also consider. I also noticed one of the districts sorry that um in den I know that there's a complex I don't know if that just like creates a whole crazy >> so that the there have been that there have been times in Milton where we were A and PM you could buy a half uh pass for the morning or you can buy a half pass for the afternoon. Mhm. >> Um and we there were times when we tried to, you know,
032make it seasonal for our high school students because they may have played a sport during a certain season. This this and what happened over time is when you provide that much choice, you end up having real deficiencies in how you can deliver that service and and how much actually behind the scenes you can actually >> uh dedicate time to actually surgically make sure that that's all working out. And um so that that's why those things slowly faded out. There were ideas that people had that that felt like they could work. You pilot them for a couple years and then you experience the the challenges of that. The same for what you would call shuttle bus. We used to do a shuttle bus to East Smoke Square where children used to just come to Rugers and
033then they'd all get dropped off in the center parking lot. Kids would walk up to the port of Rugers. The bus would pick up come. But you couldn't you can't do that for your grade six students who go to the middle school because you have to pick them up and they have to be picked up a certain distance from their house by law. So all of a sudden that becomes a little bit of a variable. So so we have tried those things and and they have worked for certain periods of time when there was excessive enrollment. Um but that only serves one one one um circle of our work, right? So that's just the one that's just the first circle, >> right? that means you're really only you're expending that money for a bus just
034for middle school high school they're not servicing the middle they're not servicing the other two routes >> so you're trying to be it's definitely a a balance and if we want to expend more to make sure to to Nathan's point that we're just focusing on the percentage that have access and use that's one conversation and then when you layer over cost and efficiency over the course of the three routes that we do you're going to start to find that that's going to drop dramatically including at some point you're going to add a bus in and it's going to be not cost effective >> despite the fact that there might be eight families out there that say I still need access to the bus and that just might be the cost of doing business which at
035right now I'm sure a lot of families are saying that and I respect that you know so uh but there are different ways to do it but we should be sure to reflect on what were the pros and cons of those uh alternative ways of doing it before we uh move forward and and one one alternative of adding more students to a bus because you do have fluctuations before school after school kids being out sick. You could be on that bus that has a majority of sixth and seventh graders that could be three in a seat and then all of a sudden but you could be on the bus road that was majority high school kids that are bringing in frost bags, field hockey bags and you can be able to get one person a
036seat. So all of a sudden you have people standing. So there's definitely >> fluctuation that you're going to try to maximize, but there's a reality of what it could look like that could change bus by bus just by the nature of who's on it and who's riding. And this is mainly a middle school, high school thing. The elementaryaries are good. >> Well, I think having your the history is helpful to know as well sort of as these things come up >> in bike racks. Katie's writing a grant for bike racks. I know it sounds like a small thing, but I think encouraging students to bike to school within a certain distance, they can do so in a safe way. Uh Katie is looking into a safe to school grant for that. Again, that doesn't help
037the person who lives in East Milton Square right now. We understand that. That's why we're hoping the bus passes from the MBTA will help. Uh, but anybody who's a bike rider away, if we can get can make biking a different option for folks that I think is a really healthy one. Walking and biking the school and then coming in for breakfast is a really is a really big deal. Um, and the other option that Katie is exploring with the middle school is asking principal Bill Fish to find a staff member that we could pay to open the school earlier. So if parents have to drive their child earlier to school in order to drop off and make that commute happen that they have a place for the child to go that's not outside the building
038because the system's not open yet. That's something that we are floating right now. Bill's working on identifying staff and that would be a cost to the district but it would be worthwhile. So if I can actually drop my child in 705 and move it to work then that's a remedy that might help x amount of families out there and witness. So we are exploring things that are you know connected to this issue that might be helpful for the folks in >> weight list and Katie's exploring all those with a lot of effort. So thank you very much for doing so. >> Just want to last slide. >> So just areas for more information. We did provide an FAQ document that was sent to our families on the wait list but that's also on the transportation
039website. there's um a button that you can hit and it um provides some of the information to questions that we've received and then if there's any questions specific to bus routes, bus timing, um there is an email to reach out to. We do have an app. Um the bus company has not updated the app yet for this year and what that application does is it allows families to track the bus that their student is assigned to to see where the bus is and to get a better sense of the timing. That app still needs to be updated with the information from this year. So, we've reached out to the transportation company a few times to um ask them kind of about the timing of when the app will be updated because I know um our
040families do depend on that in some ways to um to figure out the timing for the morning and the afternoon. And I know our schools use it as well just to make sure that the students and um the timing of the buses are all working in the way that they should be. So, um, that is, um, that app information is listed on the transportation website. It's just not it's not updated, like I said. So, we hope to have that updated as soon as possible so our families can start using that. >> Um, it's great. And I like going back to some of your numbers. Can I just go to things and share my screen? went few places that Nathan was going to and I can really appreciate all the data. It was very interesting. So
041just a couple things that I'm taking away. They want to make sure that's right. And I think Sean this is a little bit to your point like the fees are really important but they based upon kind of the numbers you shared out of a million dollar costs for transportation don 35 that's covers 22%. So, you know, I think there's I've heard from residents around like what we pay for this is pay for costs and it's like again at least for less than a quarter of the cost is the fees because a lot of this is mandated if that makes sense and the ability to separate out what is the cost of mandated versus nonmandated because we use the same vehicles. It's really difficult to do. >> Um kind of thinking total wrership information. One thing
042I was looking at is again you talked about the three tiers. So if this tier division is equal, which I'm sure it's not exactly equal, it's about 435 per tier plus 11 buses, about 40 kids per bus, right? >> So that's about our writership what we're able to accommodate per bus. It seems like uh this is a bit to your point, Nathan, in terms of the percentage we're looks like we're supporting 80% of middle school demand given the total demand and the number of current writers, right? That's the the math there. So again, but I think your question is a good one, Nathan, of like what do we want to do? As we talked about, I know the school committee the goal was to meet the full demand and that was the goal within the
043needsbased budget last year. We were just not able to kind of push that through. So um that's the the current information. >> The number I came up with, Mark, was that's right. And once you add in I was just thinking about the total wrership including elementary school which brings it up above 90%. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think elementary school we're at 100%. We have no weightless students. >> We do not have elementary school. >> Correct. >> 100% satisfaction. >> Um so this is the cost piece is the piece. Obviously you the demand is there's request from families on like how do we get can we get another bus? to meet this demand. So I was trying to figure that out. So total user fees, cost per users. So right now it looks like we have
044about 720 paid users um that are kind of within the district. So it's about half of the total number of riders are paid users, a little over half. Um and then I was trying to figure out the costs per bus, taking out the fees that offset it. Right. You said $533.13 for a bus, 180 days. So this is the cost per bus, not taking in any fees. >> So we were just to do this $95,000. We created that and soon we could get another bus to help this weight list. I think last year when we added that extra bus, it only served an extra 30 kids. That's actually true. Maybe some other >> um I think when the bus was added, it was added for the just the secondary level, not the elementary level. And
045I believe it was we tried to fill it to that capacity. So it was around 47 students. >> Okay. >> We still have the weight list. >> And we still had a weight list. Correct. So I did a simple math of like okay assuming the average number of kids on the bus about this 39.5 what would the cost be if we just tried to create a bus we're saying the cost to each of those families would be you know nine times what they're current we're currently asking every other family to pay. So again, I was hopeful that we could figure out some way like can we just tell families, hey, we can get a bus if all of you just agree to pay this higher amount. Higher amount is so much significantly higher. I I
046don't know how we I can I guess in my mind it's a question of like do we still share that and say like hey if 30 and this number obviously changes if we have less demand, right? Um, do we send say like, would you be interested in spending around $3,000 for the year to get a bus? That feels a little inequitable because you missed out on the lottery. Everybody else paying 325, you're paying 3,000. But that this is the only financial way in which we could afford to add another bus without negatively impacting other parts of the school's budget, right? Without reducing it elsewhere. So, I don't know. That's just a thought I want to throw out at least for to like give them the option to say like this this is what it would
047actually cost for the family to say we pay for the bus that covers the cost. We should get the bus like well it doesn't. It's only 22%. To pay for the full cost, you need to sign a check for $3,200 for the year and we need at least 30 families to do that and then if that happened have enough money as a district to be able to provide that extra bus. And I just want to clarify too on the weight list we have some families so it's multiple students. So if that's an estimated cost per rider for those families it could be for some families there's two or three students. So >> um I think that's just so significant. >> Yeah that's huge. >> Um a couple things to point out. One is um that
048when people are looking at this the the average rider per bus is that's such a low number because of our some of our elementary buses fully subscribed because we provide everything. So our high school buses are full. So look whether or not people are both morning and the night. the the the offering of this first first and foremost, this exercise just demonstrates to the public that the the 350 that you normally pay just wouldn't fund the bus. And when when folks are coming up with this idea that they might be able to fund it themselves, that would be the cost. uh from a very broad view of this, >> the the reality of that would be that you'd have to that that this sets up the district for a lot of access issues that public
049schools uh always avoid uh in terms of best practice. The AP class is 32 students. Why can't I just add three more kids to make it 36? Why don't I why don't we get together and pay the salary for that teacher? You that's against the law. You mean you can't fund it. So funding the operating budget in a way with private funds in order to have some folks have access to something and some not or even having folks have a fee that's larger than not just from an from an equitable standpoint just just is inherently concerning. So, this exercise is great to answer the question, what would it cost? Right? Roughly 3,000 per per student if we got all of them together and if the bus could hit every single one of those 30 houses
050and get to school on time, >> right? Jamine, so just just to remind the public that there's so many layers to this that that if it if if we you know that the the goal would be to uh to everybody's full understanding of the school committee that they did the work last year, we have an ideal number of buses that we would like to to fund. That number is either 12 or 13 depending on the ridership. That's going to cost a certain amount of money and that there's some issues that we might be some pieces that we might be able to shift. Maybe the the rate goes up a little bit. Maybe we have to do something else in the budget if this is the importance of this bus service for next year. Um in
051in communicate well at the beginning of the year to make sure that everybody knows what the drill is. >> Um the I'm sure the district over the last 15 years have always had a weight list of a certain amount. So re reexamining those variables and talking about that. But I think adding a fee that would be different from independent upon uh a certain set of circumstances would be a problematic road to >> not to be that Debbie Downer on the subject. >> No, I completely agree with you, John, and Mark. I'm glad you did this analysis. I was having a conversation with a community member yesterday where I ballparked it at 2500 and that was even low. Um the other the other factor obviously this is basically an intellectual exercise is that the weight listed
052students I assume are somewhat randomly distributed around Milton and so to build a bus route for those students would be you know we we would have students getting on the bus at 5:45 in the morning probably. Um but I think for next year and John sorry I broke up for a second so I don't know if you were saying this. I think we should experiment or or model out at least what a higher bus fee looks like um that's more than 325 but less than $3,200 um and what what that provides. My guess is even doubling it would probably not doubling it for every fee payer might not get us exactly what we need. Um, but it would get us somewhere. Um, and we should just we should just explore that using this year's data
053and see what what happens for next year. And and you know, I don't know what the community appetite is for that. I don't know how many riders we would potentially lose uh by raising fees, but it would be worth at least doing our homework on that. >> I was I completely agree and I was just trying to like model this out. So if we say the cost of bus is this 96,000, if we then take that cost and say, "All right, instead of these 39 people doing it and it being $2,400 per student uh per writer, like if we split this across everybody, right, all our estimated pay users, the 323 plus these extra people, then it looks like what you would need to do to increase the fee to add one more bus again.
054place to talk for every family would be an extra $125 >> that still would, you know, leave us with a weight list of 70 kids. Um, so to have two buses, right, is obviously could be more. Um, but yeah, I I agree with you. I think we could do some of that math and see where does, you know, where would a $450 user fee and a $900 family fee fit within kind of the other data obviously you've already collected. >> True. Honestly, >> based on >> Yeah. And like that's $900. That's that's a big jump from 600 whatever current capitals >> in in the other part of this is that the we're assuming that all the other parts of the budget are stagnant not so >> right >> if we're looking at the FY27 budget
055in its totality uh there's no home runs in this if there was a home run >> that the district went out of it years ago right so the reality is that this is a series of base hits that if this is important enough to the community, which it is right now and may continue to be, then it's a series of smaller >> incremental steps of uh incremental increases in user fee and finding something else in the budget that we need may need to do without and putting it aside and then evaluating that. >> And so I think that that's our job for FY27 is doing that not only for transportation, but how how we support the whole district. you know, what are the priorities of the district? What are the funding priorities? And if transportation
056rises up that ladder for at least one more bus to get to the point where we're servicing a higher percentage of our families, uh then that's that's where we would sit because it's going to come at the expense of something else and that'll be another service that folks or some folks won't have access to. Um and and that's fine. We we that's the hard conversation that we have to have every year. Are we flexibly addressing the needs of all of our families and students in a way that supports them in school? And so, uh, we've already demonstrated that we're going without nine positions this year. >> Yeah. >> In order to make sure that we have enough money to, uh, actually when you look at the transportation number that KDA offered earlier, some of the
057dollars that we saved this year are going towards that little ad to the budget to make this >> right size for this year. >> Mhm. >> Like, you know, 840 to 733. That's the number, correct? >> Correct. >> So, we've already supplemented with that 920,000 that we saved that the the delta between840 and that that's $100,000. >> You know, so we would have been 100 short for buses this year if we didn't do that kind of due diligence at the beginning of this year. there's room to have those conversations and we'll find out what the appetite is for reducing certain positions and reallocating those dollars to the things that the town feels they need and what we feel as educators is most important for students to access school and get what they need and for
058the school committee to decide what they feel they want to make those moves. I just had one more thing which is more around the MBTA part of the conversation which I think is an important one of how we leverage that. Right. I think this something share with committee members I was trying to investigate like where seem like we have actually the least support with for families who aren't able to get a school bus out. You know we have some MBTA access. It's not great within the town but I know we've talked about East Milton Square. Again, East Milton Square, as as I can see it, has some of the best, you know, access through the MBTA of anywhere within town. Uh, even some places that are closer are like, you know, they really don't have
059much ability to kind of get on any other bus. I mean, I guess they take the 217 down here and then switch over. I'm not quite sure of all the transfer things, but I'm especially thinking about kind of the west side of town where like they have nothing that goes that they have to go up to then come back down and you know they got to make a transfer. >> But that was my question. So the other one that's about do we have access to anything from the Brockton because Brockton comes up right off of and it comes up 716. That was the one question I had. I don't know if they are locus. Yeah, I I have would have to look into the bad more. I only have what is obviously on this >>
060number if you click. So I went on to the bat site and that just might be something to look into because there are a number of stops along Grand number of stops along camp >> um that come in that bring you to square. So that is you know if it's going on blue gets you towards >> get you towards I think it's just another piece to think about because I was trying to figure out those two I you know you mentioned that west side of town >> if there's a if there is something near there because a lot of it too they're trying to um support some of that for curry students. Yeah. And obviously that both these this the red line goes right near Pier says the 40 the the high school is a
061bit more above they have to get up and kind of walk up. So I mean one thing I was wondering I don't know if we have any relationship BTA I know in Boston certain high schools during the school year BTA does an adjusted route to get those high school kids to Boston Latin school does you know a special stop for that. >> I don't know if there's enough demand that MBTA would be interested. I I don't know what that is in terms of like being able to say, "Hey, can you actually do a quick turnaround, stop here on the 2:45 or the, you know, whatever the route that leaves at 6:30 and said whatever, you know, whatever time it would need be need in order to make it to the school uh on time, but
062you know, I don't know if we have a contact to leverage that because I think the points around, you know, removing cars off the road is a good one. The environmental impact and being able to leverage an existing public infrastructure that isn't a further operational cost demand in the district um would be great. >> I I think this this demonstrates like everything's not a home run, right? So, East Milton does have access to a bus and they and the kids used to take it all the time a long time ago. I don't know why it goes in and out of favor. Um that you can get to the library and walk up to go to the high school. We did try to change that bus stop a long time ago. It is an arduous process
063for a suburban district >> to make those kind of shifts because uh it it we didn't success for that and that was a long time ago. Um but for your middle school or high school students, high school students have to walk from the library. That's not a bad walk on a regular day. >> Um and it's also a lot better than uh any alternative having to drive your child all the way up. And then the middle school students really have a nice spot of getting dropped off at the intersection. Again, there's crossing guards at both of those spots. Uh and um so for the morning and the afternoon, uh that's definitely an access point for our for our East Milton uh in Cunningham Park area folks. Uh we don't have any information about the BAT
064in Randolph A. Uh we can explore that to find out how they do bus passes. Do they even do that? I'm not sure if they do. Um they're not affiliated in the same way with the MBTA um as we normally get the bus passes from just the MBTA. um in coming back towards the other side of town, the Brook Road um side, you can have access coming back with the 245 um coming in the same way. So, if you were on the end, I do see a lot of uh the pier students walking down uh from um that area of town all the time, you know, walking into so that that's not a bad walk. So again, I think that the real hardship is that folks that are up Randolph have that's a neighborhood that's
065just hard to access and it's a it's a Randolph a is a state highway. It's a really busy road. It's an awful road. >> Yeah. >> Uh so how how that works for kids is different than how it works for adults. >> Um and again we're really about middle high school students at this point. >> Yeah, Nathan, >> just a quick comment on the 245. Um I it's important to note that this bus runs very infrequently. Um there is a bus in the morning at like right at 7:00 which will get students over in that over to the other side of town, you know, within it runs quickly when it runs. Um and then in the afternoon I think there's a bus at like 4:30 coming back from the secondary school area. Um and that's
066it. So, I think it runs in both directions like five times a day. >> Yeah, that's great context. Thank you. >> The other ones I don't know. I I almost rode the bus to like see what it was actually like at 7 o'clock in the morning. I don't know how full it is. >> Uh really appreciate all the information you were able to find and as well. Um, so it seems like y'all are continuing to communicate with families again sharing that kind of email bus at.org. Uh and then this is further context that we'll just need to talk through within the budget season that will obviously depend on townwide revenue forecasts and expected operational increases in other areas. What can take on transportation if anything in addition? >> And can I ask just one last
067comment? We, you know, Katie is the d assistant superintendent for finance and this is a part of her role and then we have a part-time person >> who does the the handling of this this is the busy time of the season right from May of collecting all the money in the passes and making sure the roots work and then it it settles down a little bit. So it's a seasonal role but there is no transportation department >> in a district this size. Right. this is a certain percentage of Katie's work that's high right now because of the seasonality of it and then it will go back down and then this person who's part-time um has the same kind of flex fluctuation where this is a high season for her. Um but just for the families
068out there that we do not have a transportation department as much as we have uh you know several people who have this as part of their job that they are trying to facilitate and and that's not that's very uh consistent with how other districts do it uh for the most part which makes it a challenge for all the other pieces that uh this is not their only focus every day. >> Don one quick comment on that. Um, I actually learned that through this process. Our our the school website, the district website says that there is a transportation department. Um, and it may just be it may it's it's a minor thing, but it might be sending mixed signals to the community. We might just want to update that nomenclature a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah.
069And we don't know what else to call it because we don't want to say it's a person because it's not even a person, but it's a it's a it's an email box that that both Katie and the other person uh are accountable to and and connect with. Uh but there's no one just doing transportation in the district and and so uh yeah, I agree that that people may it gives the impression that there's three people working on this all day, right? Exactly. Yeah. >> That's just not accurate. So I agree. We we'll take a look at that on the website. The other thing that just concerns me around the ability to expand service next year is the expected contracts. >> First student was 5% increase the year. So that's the best uh >> so year
070two will be more expensive. >> So yeah, year two can be 5% more. So unless the school's allocation operationally speaking exceeds right not just the 5% needed but then adding another bus so that 96,000 plus an extra 5% >> um >> you know it is transportation is really costly was a 13% increase this year >> so five and then the option years are six and six so that's not not getting cheap anytime soon that's only I know that is not unique what a challenge that all school districts are having. >> And and what you also see is some districts that have uh over time decided to only transport students via bus that they're legally obligated to. So towns like Randolph and Malden, some of them are more, you know, however they are made up in
071terms of their geography, but they're more suburban or more urban. Um, but you've seen Boston public schools go to make, you know, all their children who are middle school and higher take the tea and take tea buses. Uh, their access is different. Um, and also, you know, when you're you're working in a town like Milton and you just passed them over, there's an expectation that just part of the school process was taken care of. So really being out there with what the what the priorities are that we're trying to achieve with our budget and identifying what we can do as a as a school district with the funds that we have to accommodate as many folks as possible within it, you know, within the ability to fund it. This is an ongoing conversation. Mhm. >>
072And I'm not recommending that we don't transport students that we don't have to. But some folks actually end up doing that in order to just take this budget expense off the plate and move into it to the classroom because that's what they needed to do. >> I think our just expect a certain amount of transportation being part of their experience in the town. >> Any other questions on Oh, yeah. I think that's nine of them. Um, great. Uh, all right. Uh, old business, uh, we can kind of push that to next week structure. We're already at time here. New business is covered in the wonderful assistance report. Uh, vote on meeting minutes is not here. >> Um, so were you changes? >> Okay. to the minutes. >> Yeah. I'll make the motion to approve the
073finance committee meeting minutes for June 11th, June 18th, August 6th, and August 2nd. And all in favor? Our next meeting is scheduled for um two weeks now, right? So we're on the 17th. Um any kind of the finance we can get back to that. I think we got pretty far in that discussion. I'm not going to be too much to discuss with that. But any other kind of topics you all would like to cover? I think we talked more about the try and get some updates on the one committee coordination for that. Um and we will have a uh Nathan and I have a meeting with the finance budget coordination committee this Friday. >> Yeah. So um lucky twice >> three times. Um so we'll have that update as well. >> Can can I just
074put something on the table? Ky and I were talking about a uh a finance committee calendar that we were that we worked with on the school committee side to try to anticipate the topics that you might want to address. I think Katie's idea of having a I'm going to call it a budget 101 chunk it at every meeting or every other meeting that might be uh aligned with where we are in the budget season. So this transportation 101 is great. People can go back to watch it. if you want more detail, they can see the the the handout uh PowerPoint so they can see the video. Um but uh Katie's idea of kind of doing something in terms of an educational moment for parts of the budget that we could use as a resource I
075think is part of what we should think about and also want to make sure that we include uh the really good idea Mark that you had about having a discussion about revolving accounts at least a certain amount of revolving accounts that have real leverage points that we want to make sure we address for minimum balances so we can use that as a tool when we're going to in front of folks folks are on budgeting and why it's important to keep those minimums at a certain level and just identifying those revolving accounts identifying you know the what we think is a minimum balance that we would like to achieve creating language and then having that voting because I think that's going to be a good tool for uh the overarching 27 conversation about why we're budgeting
076>> and why we're using money to put in those um important revolving accounts because as you can see just in this conversation the the transportation account with the revolving account still didn't have enough money in it to run transportation. So that you know absent any additional revenue that we were able to approve just the beginning of the year. We would have been we would have been upside down on transportation. We know that we're looking at community schools right now that's not paying the only reason why they're working year to year is because they had a balance that they're using to make it work. athletics facilities, you know, so >> uh and certainly circuit breaker which is sitting at an $8,000 balance that should be between two million and three million. >> So having that discussion
077I think uh and we may be doing it pieces that we we will help coordinate maybe we talk about the first chunk the second chunk and between now and October we have some policy journey to the war committee and say this is why we're budgeting a certain way. I think that'll pay off uh greatly when we have these discussions with you. So >> I think that also helps when we have the discussions around fees. Do you mean because the fee in it like a fee discussion itself is sort of a it's in a vacuum but if you know that the goal is to have x amount of involvement fund or the why behind it helps you inform okay is that enough is that you need to increase the best rate to deliver. I mean, you
078look at athletics that part of the a good amount of their uh budget is transportation >> to get youth to games. So, if that's going up by 5% a year, we already know that that's going up by 5%. And >> um so it's just baking that in I think is a helpful tool. So we don't have to do that every year. If you have if you have a healthy revolving account that builds the offsets into the new maneuver maybe every three years you have to address those things because the revolving account can be that shock absorber uh that can let the fiscal years work well with expenses go up and down. Uh great. >> Uh if there's nothing else then I will take a motion to We'll second. All in favor? >> Very much. >>
079Thank you. [Music]