001Right. Uh, we'll go ahead and get started. call the meeting to order here at 8:03 a.m. Committee finance subcommittee. Um start with uh new business which is the FY26 budget update. >> Sure. I want to thank uh Katie Blake for her patience and her work in um uh closing out the FY25 budget. Uh there's been a a lengthy conversation from June and July and through August about whether or not after um adjusting some of our funding from the town to support the close out of FY25 um and uh with the gift of the override that's a very very uh uh incredible um support mechanism financially to the town from the community. We still felt that there were lines in our budget that needed to be reconciled from what the actual expenditures were through not only
00220 FY23, FY24 but also the recent data points of FY25. Um uh during that analysis um we felt there may be a need to reduce our staffing levels in order to provide revenue to disperse to those lines of the budget and net by 26 in order to make sure that we were setting ourselves up for fiscal success. Uh given the the the lack of um the last two fiscal years meeting that obligation, we we wanted to make sure we were good stewards of the of the funds. So, uh, as we began to discuss whether or not we could reduce, uh, any folks, we first started with reviewing every position to make sure that if there were any vacancies, we could pause those vacancies in order to save some money to put in the lines that
003have some deficits in them for FY26. And over the course of the summer, as you can see from the list provided, we were able to identify um 7 thou $772,000 worth of reductions through not filling vacancies with the exception uh of a nurse position, which we are reducing. Uh that is a real person who who position, but we are offering them a separate role in the work groups that they will have access to. So, uh, the sheet that you have in front of you, uh, represents the FY26 operating budget realignment draft, uh, that was printed out yesterday and sent to you. Um, as you can see in that document, we have, uh, 8.5 positions and also some overtime dollars that we're reducing from the budget. Um, these positions all have tasks that they do. Uh
004we have worked with our staff, our principles, our leadership team and and also have notified and discussed this issue with the Milton Educators Association because there will be some other work that will need to happen in order to get these services delivered that these folks would normally deliver. Um, so the good news is we feel uh that we're trying to meet a goal of roughly $600,000 or more in order to feel secure that we can redistribute these funds to the lines of the budget that have uh some have small deficits, some that have larger deficits in order to make sure that we are fiscally solvent in FY26. Um, we're also thankful that we did not have to actually terminate any employees in order to get to that dollar amount. Uh we did have a list
005of potential reductions that would have resulted in us having conversations over the next few days with people who would have been very disappointed as they were probably on the list in the spring when the override was coming about and then felt uh grateful that their job didn't get reduced to have to reduce anybody's position in August prior to a school year. So avoiding that kind of um reduction process was really helpful. So to go down this list, would people feel comfortable if I explain each reduction? Does people have questions about the reductions? >> Yeah, I think walking through the the reductions are any additional detail beyond what you've kind of provided here. Just >> if there's any budgetary dollar questions of lines and how we want to, you know, how we're going to utilize these
006funds, I would then ask Katie to step in and talk about that as well. >> Uh the first position was vacated in June. Uh the director of educational technology is a unit B uh administrative position. Uh that role supports teachers in the classroom related to their technology use and access. Um it really works around our school and different types of applications that are used in our classrooms. Uh this individual oversees the business education department teachers at the high school which is food service not food service but it's uh culinary the wood shop and also one or two business education teachers that will be absorbed by the school principal and administrative team for evaluation purposes. Uh he also oversees two educators, one at the high school, one at the middle, uh who will then uh there
007might be in that cost of giving one of them a stipen in order for them to pick up some the roles that age left in its wake. There will be uh concern related to some of our teachers reaching out for some of that services could be delayed. It might look different. Uh but we think that we can pause it for a year, reevaluate and decide position comes back for the following year. The equity coach was uh vacated in June as well. the educator who been with us for several years went to Boston public schools. Um that position we're pausing um the equity work this year will focus more on hiring and retention and policy and we felt that uh not filling that role would be something we could reevaluate as we talk about FY27 as
008well. Um the Milton High School team chair, there are two team chairs at the high school and two team chairs at the middle school. uh we felt that we could reduce this role uh or not fill this role because she resigned in July um and have the three chairs combined between middle and high school work uh together in order to overlap grades. We're really focusing on the transition grades. So, one of the chairs will be an 89 building shared not to make their life harder by having to move but actually to make the families and children's life easier in order to help make the transition between eight and nine. uh we're looking at similar types of approaches from a service delivery model from five to six and from preK tok those decision points are really
009important and the team chairs are really uh integral in that work. So we feel like this new model will be helpful to them um despite the fact that they'll have more on their uh list of uh families to work with. We also have talked about potentially utilizing some um administrative assistance support in the in the high school that's existing uh to support any kind of paper in back of the house functions. So, we think that they'll be fine. The nurse is the only individual we'll be talked to today related to their position. It'll be a float nurse who currently the district has one nurse in every building. That's six. two float nurses that go between buildings when someone's out and a nurse director. Uh we felt that that was more a COVID level related hiring
010staff um number and reducing the the one of the flows allowed us to save the salary of $89,000. The asterct is that we also have a unique onetoone nurse need for one of our children who has medical needs that has been paid out of the um the contracted services budget for special education. That was a one-year contracted service agreement. So instead of this nurse losing her job, we are able to offer her that role. Uh so if she would like to maintain employment, she has the opportunity to do so with the same pay just in a different role within the district. So whether they take that role or not is to be seen. Uh but if that would that savings out of payroll is a real number because that will be taken on the payroll.
011So ultimately we will have eight nurses for six schools, one nurse per school, one flow and one director. All of which will be re-evaluated for service delivery need for 27. We ended up building some of the preschool who was ended up leaving the district sometime in the spring and was not replaced. We feel like the preschool can utilize our daily stop work as as others have as they have in the past. Uh we had a special education position that was vacated uh and no longer in need at the Columbia school. That position was targeted to be utilized at the high school if needed. Um, after reviewing the class sizes of the programs at the high school and also looking at the therapeutic needs of some of the programs at the high school, we decided to
012maintain the adjustment counselor that was previously on this list in order to support the peers in the high school's therapeutic program that didn't have a therapeutic component directly connected to them. they were using the the adjustment councils that were already in the building at Islook and we felt the um distributing the students and working with them in the two programs at the high school and then working with them that would settle the class size issue the position we're going to add. There's like needs uh between the the students that we are working with in that program. So that educator will have more students but he'll have another educator with him two or three periods a day. you'll have a par professional for the remainder of the day and those children also go out every period
013for inclusion opportunity. So it's never a full room in that space. But what was important for our special education service delivery is that all of those students need some direct support that an adjustment council bring to them that we felt was needed. So we opted for a little bit higher class size for our special education students who were going in and out but adding the therapeutic component. So that was the choice that we made. Um, and that's where that position originated from the F25 budget. Uh, and I'll go through them all and then we can ask any question you want. Keep talking. Uh, custodians, we have two openings in the custodial ranks. Um, and we've been going through overtime in order to pay folks to work the added um, attention of those people. We feel
014like putting in two brand new custodians at a low level of pay initiating their start pay and then being able to reduce the overtime would be kind of an analysis we felt comfortable with. We feel like there's no need for overtime to go higher to go lower with a fully staffed building. We haven't had fully staffed buildings in a while. So, we would prefer to cut the overtime to hire two hardworking folks and only hire one position, not fill the other, and maybe have the overtime get creeped into and have it maybe not be financially as clean and successful. So, I want to thank Cage for doing that analysis and working through that as well. Assistant director of student services. This position was vacated during 2425 school year. Um, this role is important to the
015success of our special education director. Um, after going through an interview process, we really didn't find um, candidates that we felt uh, were going to be um, in the role that would be a good fit. Uh, so we decided to put it on pause in the hire this year. Um, I can say that in the past two years, uh, Daniel Wetmore, who's the director of student services, the she's responsible for our English language learner program, she's responsible for guidance, she's responsible for the nurse, she was responsible for registration, she was responsible for residency um, in order to support this reduction in her office or not providing her with the support that she had had maybe in the first she because I don't think anybody's been stable in that position since she arrived. We've taken away
016registration from her. I am taking that work on. We're taking away residency from her. I'm taking that role on uh we're providing her support through a high school and an elementary uh principal and assistant principal in order to provide the EL functions that she needs. Um and we are discussing whether or not we take the nurse um director and put the nurse director under someone else. The goal is to free her up to be successful, set her up for success. As I sat with her yesterday, her department and her work that she leads from a service delivery standpoint, from the importance of the students that she works with and the teachers she works with, and from a financial perspective is one of the most important roles we have in the district. And we wanted to
017be able to move as many things off our plate as we can in order to be successful. So, this is a hard thing not to fill. Uh, but I'd rather fill it in a way that made the job uh in the department more effective and I didn't think that was going to happen this year. Um the speech pathologist, we did an assessment of the uh the case lead uh and instead of hiring a 1.0 speech person, we hired a uh part-time speech person. We just made that hiring this this uh this week. Uh so they actually were someone that immediately uh and didn't want to work full time. So we just happen to be the parttime job pick that person lifestyle and we've got a very experienced um uh capable uh speech pathologist. We will
018keep an eye on that case load. Uh that person will be out of the collot. Um, so we have an eye on everybody's building based needs in terms of case load and Danielle is keeping an eye on the districtwide because sometimes speech OT some of the BCBA functions really should start to be distributed districtwide according to need. So no one should be getting in a position like that and locking that individual into that school because they may have a year when the need's down and some school might have a higher need that that goes year a year. So we are really clearly stating that those types of positions are districtwide. You're just you have a home school, but you you can be redistributed. The same thing for my for our nurses for them. These are
019districtwide school nurses, not the glover nurse or the high school nurse. So uh we're ready to be flexible in how we uh deploy the resources depending the case load. So the speech pathologist just is a good example of that. Uh lastly, Zena Hamada brought to our attention that the French building sub that they hired uh actually had resigned somewhere during the school year and that those the demand for that position was low on a daily basis. Uh that they had been using the regular school building subs and the building sub process for French program. Uh the loss is obviously a French speaking sub when the person happens to have it and the child happens to have it and also that's a great way to build a movement of uh teachers of French because they're hard
020to find and it's good place to give someone a job who's beginning the the education field and you know scaffold them into a teaching job. So we understand that going into it that we're missing out on a little bit of that but we agreed to pause that as well. So, uh, the reductions that we had originally proposed were the director of education technology and the equity code. So, we knew we were going to save roughly $200,000. We added the remaining vacancies. So, we are reducing the payroll line in this unit A, unit B, and unit D scenario uh by $772,279 from 126 budget. Uh, those dollars will be dist redistributed and utilized uh in that 126. So, I think it's important for our folks to understand we're not giving this money back. We're not reducing
021our budget, overall budget. We need every dollar budget. We're actually realigning funds within our budget to make sure that we're keeping our resources where we need the most. Uh, and we just happen to get some vacancies that we can actually do that with. So, this prevents anybody from losing their job. uh the these the $772,000 will be instrumental in making sure that we can continue to respond to any needs this year and come out at the end of the year uh fiscally solvent which we have to do this year. That was one of the main goals that we had. So we feel very confident that uh dollar amount moving into the fiscal year and I open that to K. um questions. Um >> um thanks John, thanks Katie. Um recognize this has been a long
022process. >> Um two observations. One is how much you all know about the operational impact of not following these rules. >> It's really good to hear it >> and appreciate hearing how central office principles other there's a lot of burden sharing happening like eliminating these roles is going to have cascading effects and it sounds like folks in the district are taking on that um absorbing that extra work. Um, I had a couple of questions. So, uh, I heard like the elimination of the edtech role results in having to give someone a stipend, we'll be using more daily subsidy schools from the foot branch and until there's one or two new custodians. So, I was wondering so like these position eliminations will create some new costs. And I was just wondering if this number, the 772
023was the net of all of these new costs. These are baked in. >> Okay. >> And so under the budget savings, that's why some of these numbers um are rounded because in some instances we did try to net out knowing that there would be additional there be the daily sub costs or the step in cost. Um, so the numbers in the budget savings aren't exact because we were trying to take into account that there would be a corresponding expense. Um, and the corresponding expense at this time is an estimate. >> Right. Okay. Great. And the only other question I had, so we're offering one of the nurse one of the nurses a new role. Can you just say again? I just sort of >> Yeah. So we have a a young person who needs a
024one to one all day. >> Okay. >> And that comes out of the special education uh budget for contracted service that has already been in place. So that number is in the budget for the contracted nurse. We've been using a non-miling public school. So we just we terminated the contractor for now on pause because we wanted to be able to offer our mil schools nurse that available job. And if they decide to take it, they'll be also the payroll budget will go down by the nurse's salary and the nurse's salary will be taken and put into the contract to contract service line. >> Next question. >> Yeah. And I think we talked about this a bit before. So I know with the speech pathologist and I would assume similarly team chair but it's I think
025the team chair is is different so I'll leave that apart. Um in looking at that recogni when you went through and looked at all of the projected case loads I assume that you did that like with all of the services within the IEPs >> is that and then this is where we found like given case loads. This is where we found like with the speech the speech pathologist that we had um that maybe we needed a.5 or so. >> So so we we um to raise the the um the lens in this just a little higher we went through every staffing level of every school and a lot of those are consistent with what you would think they would be. There's three first grades, there's three first grade teachers, there's uh two French, two English,
026you know. So we the elementary chart is coming to my brain that we have a big chart that literally is this big and then it goes across to all the service providers at the elementary school. Um the section where we have OTP speech etc are all moving parts because it really is the service delivery of the IEPs of the students in that building or across the district that we want to be able to make sure that we can fulfill. Um, we thought about reducing this position in full because we felt there wasn't a need for that based on the number of students that they serve. And I want to give Danielle and also the building principles. The building principles know exactly who their students are who are exactly who they see and what they need
027and how many days a week they need. So, we feel comfortable with that case load. That would be uh that is a Collie Clark hire that would service the Collie Clark Cunningham and potentially the preschool. We try to utilize those service delivery professionals in a way that captures all three organizations preschool. So right now we feel comfortable with that number. But remember also the bigger picture is this this amount of money that we're trying to uh actively repurpose will be available for us if for some reason OT goes up and we need to hire 2 or.3 or this number for speech goes up and we we will have money in order to to respond to any variable service demands that we have to across the budget. So if that that investment comes to one where
028we have the need for a little bit more, we would have to let folks know we need to move that person from 5 to 8.6. And that could happen to any position that we're looking at. And that's why being conservative and having these dollars aside to redistribute is so important. That's how school budgets work. That's why we have bottom line authority. So you bottom line authority is only great when you have a bottom line money to actually redistribute. And and that's what we're trying to do as well. And I think that's where um excuse me Danielle came and spoke with us at the end of last year and gave a presentation talking about because I think some I think unless you're in the world of it you don't recognize when we talk about like variability
029within the budget recognizing like children getting referred for special ed services that that it's not necessarily the beginning of the year >> is what you have that that it it there's this eb and flow and that right now we don't have any cushion for any eb and flow and so I think it's important to realize that um this and that is also where we have historically um had budget deficits at the end of the year. So I think that's why having this built in there recognizing that the budget is built for the current level of within special education the current level of service that we have but recognizing to G's point I think she said last March even just at the high school she had 35 students referred that's a lot and so that could
030be a huge budget impact in March this gives us that that cushion that's needed. Um I did have another question. Um so around the equity coach, I know one of the things in the past in in a past meeting um you referenced some changes that have been made with respect to um hiring and even just sort of the platform that you're using for hiring. So to the end as part of the end goal of having greater diversity in hiring and having can you talk about that a little bit? >> Sure. Um so uh any one of these positions if they weren't vacated we probably wouldn't we don't know if we would have reduced them. So if the equity coach didn't leave we we would have kept the equity coach we would have kept FJ Chambers
031Dr. Shambers who's a director of DEIB and Adena who was in that role and uh Cyrus the gentleman that make up the group. So um in rethinking the department with one less person because it did become vacant uh and because our equity work um has had many leaders over the last five years and this is Dr. Shaver's second year. Our goal together is right sizing her work, focusing on some concrete goals for the year that she can accomplish without having that position and then as we get ready for by 27 forward with maybe hiring that position back. And what that work would look like to your point is uh we met 20 brand new teachers. They're up in the library right now with their third day of orientation. And as we look at that group
032of 20 educators, they are all white males and females. It's just not acceptable. we need to diversify our so we uh were saying as we were welcoming the group and we had a presenter I said FA we need to take a picture so we can take a picture next year and see that this group of individuals that we bring on to the schools looks different looks more like our community and and has a real clear that we have a real clear intention on hiring retaining people of color uh and so our our goal through FA's initiative this year will be we do have a new platform for supporting hires of people of color and also retention. It's called the teachers lounge. It's a nonprofit group that works with students, works with teachers in the Boston
033area that we've already signed up for. We're going to look to have equity training for our I would call hiring agents and that's our unit B staff and our principles and our central office staff. So we can actually be trained in how we want to look at our own bias, look at the questions that we ask, look at how we operate around the search and interview process in order to not only uh make sure that we look at higher pools of diverse candidates that that should result in higher numbers of people hired that are diverse. Um and then what are the retention issues that we have start talking about that. So that's a goal we're going to we want to give Dr. was very targeted goals to meet um shrink the work a little bit
034because we do have homeless persons in the department but that does not mean that that work will continue and as we met with the leadership team yesterday to talk about my goals which become part of their goals which will be then communicated to the teachers on Monday uh number one is the classroom um which has room for DEIB initiatives embedded the second goal is culture and climate in the building and in the classroom how do we support students and families to feel safe and ready to learn that also has DEI embedded in it and the fiscal uh guard uh uh stewardship of the dollars which generally is our responsibility to make sure that we're ready to respond to anything. So we can we really looked at and actually the chart at the end of the
035day of our five themes all had DEIB themes underneath that embedded into that work. the DEIB work uh will happen this year. It will be uh intentful and it's discussed uh as part of our big patient work and continue. I just appreciate the clear explanation of the work that you've done, the thorough process that you've been through, very transparent, um, inclusive and detailoriented and I really just appreci appreciate the decisive proactive active steps that you're taking. So, thank you Amber for all this. So, this all started because when we when Katie and I first met and I had watched Katie go through a challenging spring, the the first question that we had all together was making sure that we're solving it and and uh I I want to thank Katie for being the driver of
036having the clarity of what the budget has in it, what the budget does not have in it, looking at every single line of the budget over and over again, and then putting in the actuals for 25 after resolving a very high 25 so she could provide me with a comfortable level of funding that we needed to reach in order to make this year solve it. So Katie's behind the scenes work of the numbers itself. I don't know those numbers. I'm so thankful that Katie now has kind of her own budget to move forward as opposed to shephering somebody else's budget and recalibrating it where needed and then taking the steps to do so. I think um I'm thankful that Katie has the numbers and that we can name that and there are going to be
037variables that we're going to have to respond to this year, but um we're feeling more comfortable with the FY26 budget every day. So, I want to thank Katie for her work last year and moving into this year. >> Yeah. And I would only add that for anybody who listens to this conversation or when we have it in the community tonight who's sort of wondering or feeling like this is coming out of middleware, I just would remind them that actually what this is is the follow through on what Katie you were saying all along over the past year you were going to need to be doing. So, I hope that is clear and appreciated, you know, by everybody. Um recognizing it's not easy, of course, you know, and these are hard decisions, but um that's why
038I'm, you know, all the more grateful to you for just stepping up to make the decisions because that represents the follow through on the commitment that that you made and all of us who were here not yet made, but everyone on school committee made that commitment. Um, so I just thank you for following through on it. >> Yeah. Uh, totally agree to start with just that like I love the detail with which you were able to walk us through this. That's something Katie has obviously done many times with us. Not something I've seen from the superintendent. So love how in the weeds you are given how important this is for our district to be in the year as you talked about like a stable foundation our budget and bright side that issue that's been plaguing
039us for two years at this point. Um so really appreciate that. Love that we're talking about this obvious January. Um, I also feels like a little bit separate from the budget conversation, but all the stuff you're talking about with the DI department just really resonates with me that presentation, it's great, but there was so much she was talking about a meeting like too big would be effective at failing for one person. So I think narrating having our biggest goals staff hiring diversity attention stuff is something talked about a few times like can we get a presentation on what what is our current state what is our goal in terms of diversity and hiring so all that really resonates love to see some presentation from her or you on just yeah where we're at now what
040what you'll see as like our goals the next next year or next couple years um to try and reshift all that two questions question on the finance piece like Lizzie you said it well like this is a follow up for recasting and told people we were going to need to do after this feels like first giant step towards doing that is there anything else within the recasting process that in your mind we need to be doing before we like feel really good about the next budget or this is kind of that we track this quarter on the 14. >> So in the quarter one report um I was planning on providing you information by that off center breakdown. So it's each one of the schools and then the major departments with the salaries and expenses
041and just providing visibility on what our original FY26 budget was so that you can see those numbers and then what the realigned budget is. And so you can see um a piece of that may be shifting within the lines and within the class centers because that's the realignment piece and all of that is going to encompass all of the changes in all the work that we've done since we originally created the budget and the budget was approved in May. And so um that will take into account some of these shifts. there is um budget transfer authorization. So that may potentially be a piece of it that the school committee would look at the changes and then collectively as a group would approve those changes just to say okay we know when we approved this budget
042last May we approved it we voted on it as a school committee and we're acknowledging that those changes are present in the Q1 report and we're authorizing that we're approving that those transfers um as John had mentioned it is a bottom line budget so we do have the ability to make these changes as long as we meet that bottom line. And you know, as we all know, the past two years, we haven't been able to meet that bottom line. So, these shifts certainly are moving us to to have the ability to be um to operate within our budget for this school year. So, does that is that >> Yeah. So quarter there will be a follow quarter one report more the budget reallocation. We also need to vote on this authorize these reductions without specifically
043within >> confirming where the exact line items amounts that are going to each line item but that we're going to reduce the salary essentially broadly speaking the salary line item by this amount >> to move over into the operating line item. I I would even say that maybe the vote today is more about a vote of conference for this approach to realigning the budget and that the actual categories will be unpacked at the Q1 meeting. This is more I I would because technically I think the vote really has to happen in the Q1 reset is actually so you can actually see where money went from here to here. Uh we're showing you what we're doing in order to make that happen for Q1. Mhm. >> I I I would ask as uh as your superintendent
044in Katie in the district that the vote today is maybe less formal but more about a support for the work that we're doing in order to create this to start the ball rolling to reset the Q1. I think the the official vote for policy would be the Q1 vote. This is a vote of confidence that this is approved or whatever be transparent with the community type of thing. question. >> I just want to make sure I understand the last part. So this budget these funds will not start to be spent, right? They'll be once we once we sort of give you a vote of confidence on this idea to the 90, then you will begin the process of reallocating the money. What will it be? I guess what I'm not clear on is are do
045we when the school committee votes on the budget transfer are we voting to approve a transfer that has already happened or voting to approve a transfer that will happen and I'm just wondering what will these dollars will start accumulating by um as savings and where go if not to pay >> that's I'm just trying to check totally understand and so as far as the timing is concerned and why we're Why we're not looking at the transfers or um voting on the budget transfers today is because we are very much in the process of finishing up hiring and confirming kind of positions and um salaries for this upcoming year. And so that's all that will all continue um this week, next week, and sometimes it even continues into the first couple weeks of the school year.
046And so, um, because that work is still taking place, those salaries are a huge part of us making sure that each one of the lines is accurate and that it's also funded appropriately. So, I need that work to kind of continue into almost finish up that work before we can take a wholesale look at the budget and say, "Okay, we had some of these reductions, but we may have to potentially put it over here because this salary is a little bit higher than what we had originally put in the budget. Um, and then there are some reallocations that we currently know based off of looking at last year's actuals in the budget that was originally approved for this year, we already know of some reallocations that we need to make. Um, but it's just instead
047of having to vote every single meeting line by line by line at each one of the transfers, the timing just works out well to do it with the quarter one report. >> Got it. So, so these funds will actually stay where they are vote on it. Correct. Quarter one. Okay. Got it. >> One of the custodians I couldn't understand. Have we already hire both custodians or they're just supposed to? >> So, we we've posted to one of the collegiard and one of the uh peers. >> Okay. So if for some reason those aren't able to be filled with those savings. >> I mean so it's interesting to say we're already almost we're a month and a half into the fiscal year. >> Yeah. >> We've gone without an HR director. We went a month without
048a assistant superintendent. We've gone a month without two custodians. >> But again burning over because they've been trying to make up the shift. So um every every month that goes by, every payroll that goes by, there are accumul stories that um to offset that we had to bring back Marty McKenna to help with re-registration and communicating with all folks. So to to the point of is this 772 clean money that we have in a bank account that we just look at and say, "Wow, isn't that this is it's complicated. It's not, you know, so there's some small offsets that we can go in order to to try to make sure that service delivery is happening. for kids questions or I'll take a motion. >> Um, okay. So the motion would be to approve the direction
049of the school department um in terms of moving forward with these budget realignments, right? >> That's the motion you'll need. >> Okay. So, I will make a motion to um support the district's plan to realign the budget based upon these deductions. Second um in further discussion. Uh all in favor that will be our recommendation and we'll set that to full school committee tonight. Thank you very much. watch the recording. >> I copied those. >> Uh, all right. That's it for FI26. Um, 843. Uh, discussion of finance report structure. This is something we've been wanting to get into a bit of like how we uh look at our budgets, uh, look at the reports. Katie has shared some documents previously and we've had on the agenda for a while and not been able to really dive
050into it. Um, so I guess the question to the team is like is do we want to talk about kind of this process by which we want to give Katie and John some feedback on reports that they've been sharing with us and any changes or additions we want to see within thinking about what she's producing and how best committ school. We need a sample quarterly report somewhere. I thought it was one of these uh documents, but it's not. Um >> um we could potentially use the year-end financial report >> that um the year end financial report was organized, the financial piece of it. there was a memo and then there was um an exhibit and that is organized by quest center. So that would be a good example and then I believe there were I
051provided examples from a few other communities at a previous meeting too. So we can put it maybe put a copy. >> Yeah. So in the folder I'll drop a copy here again but it is in the 86 folder. I think is actually too and one of our goals this year was being really proactive with our communication not only to you all um and to our colleagues within the school department but also to the community. And a piece of that was just making sure that we're posting information on um on the school district's website. And so I think you know these reports can truly act as a mechanism of a way of like communicating this information. I think there were some questions previously about like oh why don't we do kind of quarterly reports can we
052do and I think for just being able to um very easily point people in the direction to be able to read through them >> is important. So I would just say um just trying to like tie together like our goals of having that proactive communication and is this report working for not only us but does it provide information that a community and maybe even staff would be able to read through it and have a sense of how we're doing. >> That's because it's It's not written in a way that someone that's my best background to understand. I mean I think it's very clear and you know especially with the year end report where there were um significant overages like exploring what they were getting I think was helpful. Um, obviously looking not to have that
053be a factor this year, but anything but I think essentially calling out any variability and explaining the why is is helpful. Um, I mean I think the sort of next qualitative quantitative approach to the report works. I'm sure quarterly reports are different flavor than >> um when just a question. So your cost centers it looks like there's you know about 10ish major cost centers the the schools maybe 15 major like so the schools and then you have you know maintenance and repair and district administration special education at the school level does are the are the codes underneath that like more detailed like there's staffing office supplies >> whatever >> yes Um I think I think looking at budget trends by cost center just it's like just topline understanding of how money is going but then
054looking at how subcategories are working across the district. Um and I'm yeah just taking salary as an obvious example. Um I see total like there's salary by cost center and then there's total salary. It could also be interesting as as to to look at things like depending on what the what the data is showing, you know, total um total salary expenditure for certain grade levels, total salary expenditure for special education, total salary expenditure for whatever um or salary expenditure because some of these as I understand it now some salary costs are whether it's substitutes or districtwide are actually assigned to a school when in fact their services are districtwide and so it confuses how how money is actually used. >> Sure. >> So getting into that I don't I'm not sure what the best way
055is to do that but I think better understanding Yeah, just unpack that for a minute because the salary the salary by say grade level of school by school the teacher salaries a fairly consistent number right >> but the variable that we've learned is something that we need to keep an eye on is the coverages >> in the substitute that that that seems to be where that goes like this so the kindergarten teacher stays at 120th of their salary you go see that you know that would be pretty constant the variable of those lines if refer to again is something that we're cognizant of as well. So however that is reflected up is that something that we all have agree very intent on the shares is an example of a cost. >> That's a great point
056and is that categorized as salary or is that a separate >> it's it is okay >> and it is so for the substitute expenses it is within the cost center of um the school. So it it is broken out by school. But I think if because that was one budget area that we have been over historically for a few different years, we could potentially create a separate cost center that was just substitute coverage just to call it out. It would only be a salary line. Um and then that could be substitutes, extra duties, kind of those variable lines. Um, and so that way we could see that it's just district level, but if we needed to look at each one of the individuals, so I could I could take those from the school centers and
057just create a separate center. >> I think special ed has their own separate I believe there's a separate special education cost center. Um, so we should be able to see those salaries. So those salaries are everyone districtwide that um are I say coded because that's um you know the accounting term um as a special education employee but that includes every all of our schools. >> So that special education code of person districtwide could be the speech pathologist as they call them. >> Yes. Correct. That's where they separate. That's how the budget line separate. >> Thank you. >> So, so following up on that, similarly like sort of where we were before, you're not going to see variability that suddenly you have to add a first grade teacher. That's consistent in elementary. But within special education
058based on what we were talking about before, there is the possibility for variability within that salary line item depending on on students coming in for services. So is that a line item? So recog I guess recognizing that within special education that has been so variable, is there a greater level of detail that would be helpful to look at quarterly that helps us track any of that variability? Because right now it's a big it's a salary line item. So, you know, we recognize that transportation would be a piece of it and tuition could be a piece of it and that. So, is there something within there that would be helpful to go a little bit deeper because right now transportation in this case is big trans. It's not special ed. >> So, um just knowing that
059that was an area that makes sense what we got ignored. >> Is there a greater level of detail that would be helpful? So I think for um for the special education piece if we start breaking it down really granular then the it becomes not cost center anymore and the report is just going to continue to expand and so then we would want to be consistent with the other areas. But what we can do and what I can do is I think the memo section sometimes is is truly like that's the important piece, right? If it was just this cost center report, I could just send this report out at whatever frequency >> and I don't know if it was unless you have like kind of this context and the um the memo portion of it
060to explain it, then we really try to make the report kind of meaningful. And so I think if there are any areas where we're experiencing an overage, we could reference it. Yeah. >> In the memo portion >> and then we should be able to see it kind of tracking in the report as well. Um, but certainly as like as the year progresses, if there's areas that there's specific lines that we're like, oh, more consistently going over, then we can potentially talk about modifying kind of that financial piece of the report, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't and I don't want to get in the weeds of it. I just think is there a way to keep um be aware like have an eye on recognizing that of all the areas that's probably one of the
061most variability. So one of the things I think about from a from a in district special education view that in the scenario you provided them in is to say we do have an uptick of students who need a certain service delivery as the meeting start to happen and folks come in and that that speech pathologist that we just approved as a five that case load goes up we would present to you that we were increasing that.5 to6 we'd have to let the school committee know that we're doing that because we're quote adding staff right we're adding point six of that Okay. And then that's that's how we could capture that in the summary, >> right? >> That we we have an added need. We're going to need to be able to do this. So that
062that would be part of a discussion that we would have. Um that's part of that. That's where that would fit into and we would say it out loud. Uh the the out of district work and transportation and the es and flows of that is is a is a bigger conversation. That's that's more >> for non-indist folks. the industry folks think that service delivery and those expenses we we absorb pretty well within what we have staff but if we have to increase it then it should be recognized as >> and that's where I think we haven't necessarily recognizing if we have to increase somebody that should be very clear for you meaning in the future that will be very good for you um one of the big goals these reductions is to help replenish the funds.
063Um is there movement within the revolving funds on quarterly basis that is worth looking at >> and should that >> um I believe so if you scroll down I think it was paid by >> so it's a different format because it's not necessarily broken down by cost center. These are just this is the full list out of our revolving accounts um for the school department. >> I don't think you know we typically provide this on a quarterly. >> No, we have not. Yep. So we can definitely >> I don't even know that we need to see this full table every quarter if we do. Great. It could also just be you could have like a paragraph in a memo that's just like talking about where you know I I don't know. I'd be interested why
064we don't talk about now like are there are do we have specific replenishment goals for some of these funds this year or are we just going to be opportunistic about it and then if in the memo we could just talk about progress towards >> replenishment >> and many >> we talked about that in our last meeting I think it's a great idea to actually have a conversation this fall about what those goals should beh and begin the multi-year work of getting to a point where the balances are sufficient. Um just as an example, when you look at community schools isn't it's the fourth line down. Um revenue in during the 2425 year was 2 million1 revenue out in that same year was 2.9. >> Okay. So I think there's a uh an understanding here from
065the community that might not be 100% accurate that there's so much money in the involving the account from the community schools. Why can't we do more? Why can't we scale up so easily? Uh scaling up the community schools is not is not only about money. That's one factor. It's space. It's safety. It's appropriate staffing levels. It's program quality. So there's a lot to it. And I think that when people see a balance of $943,000, they say, "Why can't we do more?" We're actually back with we're upside down right now. So, there will be discussion this year to talk about whether or not the $648 an hour per child that they pay may need to go up to $7 per hour child >> in order to make that solvent. That has to be it doesn't have
066to be a generating positive revenue. It needs to be at least even. >> You know, we're not making money yet, but we're we're always trying to provide an appropriate balance. So that's one example of goals and I think Mike you brought that up of actually trying to put some policy maybe in place so we can bring it to the when we go to that bigger conversation about the 27 budget that we use those policy those levers to justify how we're presenting our budget which is a great idea >> for what it's worth I've never heard the hourly breakdown um >> it's like $78 I feel very helpful to message Yeah. >> Um yeah, I mean I generally agree with some of like having some additional breakdown in the salary to like break out vapans or
067subs coverage from salary I think would be helpful especially given kind of the the issues we've seen over the last couple years with the over places. Um the other thing I think is typically helpful with salary is like an FTE versus actual um type thing. I know again especially special education if thereual identified services needed that that can change but I think that's been a thing that has changed and has hurt us um just because obviously there are costs associated with them said earlier we haven't had quite the flexibility within the budget in order to assume there's a cost about um going over budget. So I think having a visual in terms of that of how we're doing around FTP and if we're above how we all are feeling about that and adjusting for that
068is to accept the other thing I'd say is like I I don't know if for me or at our level for members here like the difference between Cully Cotting Glover Tucker is a level of like the level of conversations we need to have versus school staff or elementary versus middle and high school. Um that's just a a level of detail I think actually is a place where maybe we're too low. Um >> say that again and make sure you >> just again if we're thinking about like there I think there are some levels within this that are too high. Okay. So again like salary is just I think too broad a number. I think getting a little more detail as we talked about would be helpful. I think in other ways like looking at it
069on a school by school level might be too low given I think point you made which is that and that came up during the subst but the sub coverage was assigned to Kyle Cott. So Kyle Cott looked over but actually that's not how y'all look at it. Y'all look at it across the elementary school. So if you're looking at across the elementary schools >> I don't think we need to look at it at like a Glover Tucker. Yeah, that's so um so that's just a place where again I think it might be I know those are your cost centers as you're talking to principles and things but >> we're not having conversations directly principal so that might be a a level too much um for the general expenses I don't know if there's any further
070breakdown that is helpful obviously yeah classroom supply instructional supplies there's like operating suppl supplies or things like but I'm not sure how much you break it down those are obviously pretty small. I do agree and I think with your point of the special education if the general expense there is something we can you know break down to say hey there's our projected out of district placement costs or like again what are the kind of top couple things that have been a concern over the last couple years and then the rest be like remaining or miscellaneous internal expenses. Um, >> so one of the ways that we would break it down kind of like in the financial system and the way that the the state has actually structured it. Um, so that all the school departments
071are kind of reporting our information in a in a consultant fashion is for salaries there's three major categories of salaries and similarly for that expenses there's three major categories. All of these expenses are categorized in in one of the six. So it would be for this report just under salary we could be we could put the three major categories and show you the summary for each. What the categories represent is it's at a high level but it is just one, two, and three for salaries and it's one is your licensed teaching staff. two is your administrative and support staff and three is your nonlicensed educational support staff. So that would be your instructional assistance and also our technology support staff would be in the three category. And so I could break down that information very
072easily adding in those layers. I just don't know. And that's like kind of providing the context >> that you're looking for because it wouldn't for general expenses. It's four, five, and six. It's um contracted services, supplies, and materials, and then other it's just kind of a broad bucket. Um so it's not going to tell you transportation, right? uh it's not going to I mean you know supplies um would just be our general school supplies but I I don't know that it's providing the context but that is to be able to expand it in that way and categorize it that is kind of functionality that already exists and there's a mechanism to do it. I just don't know that it's really going to like provide that context of those areas where we're like, "Oh, that was
073typically concerned." >> So, I guess digging into that a little bit more like you talked about the um administrative and support staff and and I so this is asking the question of recognizing things have been put in place so that those numbers don't change without approval. help. But if you think about like what we saw historically, those two lines like I think if you look at IAS and you look at those some of those those grew but we but if we're looking at just that top salary line number we don't know where they were growing. So to your point before like sub coverage was in that but if through the year four IAS were hired >> but there's no um we don't have a lens into that but we see that number growing if we
074saw those two >> those if you saw that breakout then you would see that that's where it's going because that top that first one in all likelihood wouldn't change because it's but those other two is where you might see the And I think it's just us having that lens into that would be would could be helpful if if we're looking for more detail. >> Do you know what I mean? Because that's where >> that's kind of what I was thinking about like the FTE like would the FTE actually be more helpful than >> salary number, right? Again, >> you brought people in who actually are under salary than the person left than from the budget. and you're going to see some savings there, but one person who's slightly over like being somewhat above it, >>
075but like those things hopefully watch out across the district >> growth in the FTE might be piece, but I don't know how easy it is to incorporate FTS with these reports. So, I'm trying to balance the the um the process piece for Katie to be able to provide right >> the most um clear detail in a way that's universal enough to get through >> the Q1 Q3. So it's enough detail but it also has a systematic approach that's that's achievable and also >> reports back to the state that we all have to kind of organize has a way of doing that that's pretty centralized through her association which doesn't work and then the sec the other side of that is the thing that I was just writing down is what have been the recent cost
076drivers of the district >> that we have been concerned about because we've been >> over >> you know what what are the things that we're all worried about like what keeps us up at night. So, and how do we want to keep track of that? >> Yes. >> And right now thinking about how FY25 ended, it was subs, it was coverage, it was um uh out of district tuitions, contracted services, special education, special education, transportation, community, >> Right. So, because that's where the variability has been. Right. So, >> maybe Katie and I think about how do we >> because we want to keep track of that as well. We have we have a shared interest in making sure that our expenses are being monitored in a way and we discussed you know every other week
077we'll be meeting with Danielle every other week to go over the bottom half of that those four things you know where are we keep going so we'll think about how we reflect that so we can all together monitor the ups and downs of that and if there's a point where we need to put up a red flag of we're a little worried about this line we're okay everywhere sort of a problem at the end of the year, >> but this is how this cost driver is behaving this year and we want to just be clear about how we're going to try to work through that >> accommod. And I think I think a piece of that too is when we're having those conversations, it's having those conversations and what is the impact for 26 then
078what is the impact for 27. So, so we so we'll be talking about it a lot because it's not just going to be something that we're tracking through the administration of this year's budget. It's something that we will have to really take into consideration when we're talking about building FY27. >> And can I foreshadow something for everybody? So with that thought, we're going to work hard to two big things that we're going to get the principles to get working on as soon as we open school and they absorb all these reductions and they welcome 4,000 children next week. Uh is negotiation prep and budget. When we start talking about budget, realigning it and making it by 27 the first year of the reset after this is the reset year, then the first year to reset,
079we could reset the whole thing, come up with a beautiful plan, tighten it all up, maybe redirect some positions to other service delivery, maybe save a couple of positions, whatever that is. But as we're doing that between October, November, December, the school world is moving. The variables are coming in and out. The unit might go down by two and up by three. the PT or OT person might go from a 0.5 to a point to a point 7 somewhere in the spring after we kind of reset the budget and get ready to be proud of how we presented by 27 and get ready to we need to stop somewhere in the spring of of 26 to say this was a perfect plan but now the cost centers or the cost lines had to adapt to
080meet the needs of the children this year. So we need to reflect that before we cement that budget for FY27 because otherwise you're already starting at a deficit or you're already starting with a budget you're presenting and improving a town meeting that's not it's all it's it's out of whack. It's outdated. >> So you you need to capture that last number as best you can and then make projections for what may happen in FY27 that you don't know about because you remember that that that'll be the comment. Why didn't you think about that last year? >> Right? Why didn't you accommodate for that in April if that student moved in or that thing happened? So we're we'll build this as best we can, but it's going to be a 95% cooked part cooked thing. And
081then we'll we have to adjust. And so we should prepare the warrant committee for that and the select board for that that when we present you this and we're working through this through the fall and winter months and all agreeing that the revenue is what it is and here we may we may need to make some changes in order to accurately to the moment that we can in the budget process most accurately reflect what I mean. A lot of places don't do that. And then what happens is that when you add that 0.5 or that point2 over the course of that year to make things work for kids, you're already you're already over your FTE count when you start the year. >> And that that recognition of happening it having those things communicated clearly during
082the year >> but then having them reflected after you set the budget in January and we start to shop it around. We have to then reset it again. >> If that makes sense. because that's really where a lot of things fall in fiscal budgets for municipalities because there's just so much happening in schools the last school. >> Yeah. >> So that's the Q3 report can can support that >> um sort of final piece of information. I'm speaking as a not finance committee person, so I totally defer to all of you as you figure out how this makes most sense. But to me, like the clock is pitching for Q1, Q2, like as long as we're in budget, like on track more or less, that like it seems makes sense to focus the information on those
083places that for whatever reasons are areas of concern or requiring attention, right? I mean, >> right, >> that's one of the main needs for these reports, right? It's like status updates. >> And so, even if and that may not be reflected in the table, but in the body of the memo, like that's where you can flag and maybe it's one of those same drivers that kept us up at like night last year. Maybe something else will come up and become an issue that you're tracking and needing to adjust. Um, but like that's that might just mean you're pulling that detail into the memo portion to explain like what this work is showing us. But I really reinforce the concept of not creating more work for you for the purpose of track of demonstrating that we're
084on track in the majority of the of the lines. Like that seems like not the best use of your time. >> Let me be mindful of the time. So I think we'll we can pause the conversation here and keep talking about we obviously have a little quarter of one report >> that would be >> so moving us down um townwide finance committee meeting. We're voting on that tonight in terms of placements um have discussion and full school committee as to who the members who we think the members of that should be on behalf of school committee. Um, have you heard anything about the finance consultants? >> So, we we had a um kickoff meeting maybe a couple weeks ago and then I met with the consultant individually to talk about the school department and talk
085about um they had some bulleted items that they had um presented to us during our kickoff meeting and so I was able to just provide them with some information. um they had some questions for us. So just kind of talk to them about my experience and some the work that we've done um since I started last year. So um I probably spent about two hours with the team. There were two individuals. So it's pretty good conversation. >> What is there to is it like a report and conditions? Yeah, that's my understanding. >> The first meeting was Katie and I with members of Nick Milano's team and then now they're going >> great. Uh great. Um we are going to defer meeting minutes trying to put the those together. Uh discussion next meeting date we have
08693. Um any particular agenda items that folks want to play for that? So Katie John I will check beforehand just to confirm we'll continue the finance report structure conversation. some of the other things that we have any discuss. Um, great. Well, that then I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> Is there a second? Second. All in favor? 16 a.m. Thanksgiving.