001e e e yes I would I feel thee only you guys that okay all right thank you good evening this is the regular Workshop budget of the bber school committee today is Wednesday March 5th please rise for the we have any adjusts to the agenda no adjustments right so next up we have public comment and as a reminder members of the public May address the school committee for up to three minutes on school and education matters public comments shall be directed to the school committee and be free for not repetitive the school committee's practice is not to respond for the speakers during public comment period we are here to listen the superintendent or her staff will follow up on the comments outside the meeting as appropriate the committee will not permit profanity or shouting and
002request that speakers be civil discussion of specific Personnel or student matters and complaints concerning specific employees or students will not be allowed but will be addressed through established policies and procedures before speaking we urage speakers to review the school committee policy AC which provides that the school committee does not and will not discriminate nor tolerate discrimination against students or employees on the basis of membership in compend in class speakers who share comments contrary to this policy will not be allowed to continue before starting please state your name and place of residence have any public comments tonight Not Right Moving On we are to our discussion item for tonight The Bu budget presentation right so uh I'd like to share uh our proposed budget presentation got a little switch you Jerry and I worked in collaboration
003but uh I said I would present this okay so um this is our budget Workshop draft proposal for this evening and uh we're going to go through each of the slides okay just a reminder I like to start out with kind of an overview of the department um just to give us a reminder of you know why are we looking at this budget why are we examining all of the budget categories and trying to make determinations on what's best for our school department I'm not going to read all of this out loud and our budget goals uh when we start this process we really try to make sure that we're putting together a budget that's going to be a high quality educational program that's aligned to our strategic plan and we really want to make
004sure that we're optimizing student learning but also keeping that fiscal responsibility in mind the strategy and process uh so this is um pretty straightforward um buildings put together their uh specific budgets and then that comes to the building level the building levels submit that all to the business office and then director Heyman and I and the business office we take a really close look at that we have meetings with each of the administrators that put together the uh budgets and then we really take a close look at you know are there areas that you know is everything in there that you need is there anything in there that you may um be able to reduce for looking across departments is there something that we could do to restructure in a way that allows us to
005utilize staff or materials or supplies that we already have so that it doesn't add an increase to the budget and please stop me with any questions in the middle that's perfectly fine so I'd like to um lead off with some of our areas of Pride for this year we've had a couple of uh actually several now state championships um another one just today math team excellent uh but we have our sof team and our indoor track and field and just some other areas uh just some other photos of some highlights throughout the school year that have been captured and now moving on to uh looking at enrollment um enrollment is a key piece uh when we are developing and thinking about our budget strategy uh we had the uh New England School Development Council enrollment
006projection report was conducted this year so uh there's a link at the bottom of that it's a it's a quite in-depth report that I think um really offers uh a lot of information about how they came up with these numbers but this of course is historical and then we look into this goes out 10 years again this is a projection um but we do see similar to what we are witnessing Nationwide with declines happening in public schools so that's something that we need to consider here we have the demographic data the breakdown of student ethnicity and socioeconomic status give you kind of an overview now we have the estimated general fund Revenue so as you look through again I'm not going to read all of these lines um I do want to just point out
007a few things um we have our state aid which uh was an increase this year so that really helped us um does this have a a laser pointer so right here state aid that was a significant increase that has really been helpful in supporting our budget and if you go all the way down the right side at the bottom you'll see that the overall dollar increase is a little over three million so we're looking at a budget of 62 a. half million approximately right now and that is comprised that that creates a 5. um 11% increase what I think is also important to note um is that the subtotal here for the local that's required the additional local is a little under a million so we were uh really trying to be mindful of taxpayers
008as we make sure that we're doing everything we can within the department before adding on and this breakdown is the St the state budget categories so the state has requirements for how we have to put together our budget and it goes through the regular instruction special educ other and straight down that line and again recognizing the um numbers aligning to the first slide and there's also here I've added this just recently that link at the bottom and you've also received an email with a link to this that's on our website right now uh the the budget category details are all in there um so that's a link that can be clicked and specifics are explained as to why changes have gone up or gone down uh we put together a a budget pyramid um I
009always like to know you know what are the driving factors that are contributing to an increase so if you look here um we're looking at student support expenses which includes a number of different items um contracted Services some work on playgrounds our um typical increase the contractual increase for transportation and then increases to um outside placements and those um and then also the food core is in that bottom section of the pyramid and then we look at the second the next one going up and that's the benefits so overall we have our health insurance of course we have the Paid Family Medical Leave tax that's Incorporated there and that leads to the Medicare Social Security and retirement so those are the benefits that have contributed to the increase and then of course the typical contractual
010obligations are listed there and then in looking at our strategic planning um we have uh four new positions in this budget uh those position positions are an assistant athletic director a guidance counselor at the elementary level one elementary teacher and a maintenance position that will be uh systemwide to support uh the upkeep the regular upkeep of our facilities and here are uh the breakdown of different of the different cost centers so you can see that in a uh py graph form the majority of our budget close to half of it is on regular instruction and then special education comes close second and then it goes down from there each of these next slides um break down each of the cost centers so you can look at each of those lines and see where the changes
011have occurred again I'm not going to read on someone wants to you know just call out if you have a question and on the right side so what I try to do here on each of the slides is uh regular instruction includes a number of different things and you'll see that with each of the cost centers so I included that on the side of the slide so that you know what is comprised of that cost center can I ask um superintendent Robinson for for instance mileage reimbursement 100% so that just was cut from the budget is that am I understanding that correctly well that is for a specific component um that that amount is probably in another line specifically I'd have to gather that information and get back to you okay um I me thank
012you sure there are many many changes that we've made so I haven't memorized all of them yeah but I definitely will take notes here thank you sure yes would you rather us ask questions as we go through or would you rather you can ask questions now okay yeah perfectly fine um could you go back to the slide that the pyramid slide um the four the four new position well let me ask this first you mentioned the four new positions are there any positions in this budget that are are being cut the positions that uh only positions that were removed are those that had been unfilled and we've been working fine without them at this point so uh we did remove some of those and where I'm going with this is we a document we've had
013in the past that I found really helpful is just a sheet that lists any new positions that are in the budget and and just a sentence that explains the position and then same for any positions that are being cut and again just a sentence rationale for sure why that position is going away and and what it what the position does and why it's going away and then new what position is and why we want it absolutely I can I can take care of that thank you the other questions so and let me ask you about this on this slide with the regular instruction too so when it um and and we don't have to go through like you know line by line but when it says like 20,000 down for textbooks for example that decline
014is can you in the technology as well is that just for um you know things that we don't we could do without or sure so what we've what we've really done is done a close audit to uh the budget very very very um gradually to identify you know sometimes we have cushions in areas sometimes we say oh we think we're going to be getting um science textbooks and this year we're really focused on math so I'm really trying to be mindful of if we're really not going to be purchasing those textbooks then we can take that portion out knowing that we still have um the money that we need for the math curriculum and that's our main purchase curriculum wise um but the technology as well um we've done um you know there's been an
015inventory overall inventory and we recognized that there weren't as many needs plus with um the recent Federal funding we've been able to really build up our our technology base okay so this we can say that I mean there's no real cushion here we're removing we there's less of a cushion less of a cushion right really to the essentials yeah thank you here we have special education and I think uh the purchase Services that's our um see that that has gone up significantly and what we have done is shifted this is our speech and language shift yeah so um one of the key conversations I've had with director Babin is the struggle we've had to um hire speak teach and language teachers within our contract so we've um had to that so that's an example of
016position positions that have been removed is the speech and language positions haven't been filled so they've been taken out and then you see we've added to purchase services so we're Contracting with companies to um have those Services provided to students so that's an example and then also the tuition to the regional programs we're seeing again this this reflects the increased student needs that we're seeing that um have reached a point in some cases where we're unable to service them within the department so they need an outside placement and other instruction includes the co-curricular extracurricular other instructional programs summer school and postsecondary enrollment um thank you I feel like I I have heard um other folks say things like oh we have all these new students that need you know um additional language support as you
017know having English um being a multilanguage learner and a multilanguage speaker I know that we filled those positions last year um really increased the number of program uh positions that we put in last year it doesn't look like I just I'm saying this out loud because I want to make sure that it's not I'm not missing it it doesn't look like there was an increase of in I'm trying to frame this in a way that I've received this question in in a way that is recognizing that we are bringing in more individuals that are going to need Services as multilanguage Learners that said I know that we fill buil a bunch of those positions last year are we doing that again for next year is that in the budget I don't see it you know
018having these new we don't have additional ml teachers in the budget at this point every we have uh what we need right now um are they at I'm I'm not sure if they're at capacity and they're not at capacity so awesome we have space there great great because I I just feel like that's always something we hear about you know a service center and this going to be this increase and you're going to see it in the schools and I'm not seeing it this year so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing that right thank you yeah we did take a close look at that thank you yes and just a question I might have spaced out and you might have answered it on the special education slide um where it has a
019tuition to Regional program other I see that if I'm reading it right is is it doubled and why it yes those those programs are very costly and uh what we're finding is that we are seeing an increase in students that are coming in with high needs and some of those needs have exceeded the Department's ability to meet them so when that happens through the IEP process they may be assigned to an outside placement so that's what that's for is that anticipation of um what 2026 will bring or based off students that it's based on a weit list currently that's happening and we're anticipating those students off of the waight list any questions on other instruction okay here we have our student and support staff includes can you move that little box a little bit it's
020not all the text great perfect so um this includes guidance library and Health Services instruction technology um Support Services uh student assessments instructional staff training and other staff support services so um there any questions on this system administration includes uh my office the business office and a portion of the assistant superintendent's office and School administration the administration of all the main offices in the school the schools and transportation this is what I was uh speaking to in the budget pyramid um so we have a contract with our with for transportation and that's a 4% increase which you see reflected here so sorry um the school administration um we go back yeah so that increase with salaries is that just due to inflation the salaries increase in school administration I can get the specific details on
021what that involves um increase in uh Personnel so right just to yeah just so that we know what absolutely assistant ad assistant oh the assistant ad is that oh okay okay that's I said Thank you any other questions on that and here we have facilities maintenance um so this is the operation and maintenance of the plant custodial care and and the capital Improvement and enhancement and capital renewal and renovation so we do have a couple of different projects in this area um smaller projects and from what I understand last year was um brought forth but we are looking to ensure that we continue to maintain the facilities and keep them up to date um so that the learning environment is what it needs to be and this is our current debt service and we have
022our other expenditures the school lunch remember that's remember that is separate from um the regular school budget and we do see uh that has an increase and that's connected to our food core initiative uh but I will say just a side note it's going really well and the principles are excited about it they're interviewing food Corps members um actually I think that happened maybe today so it's exciting has there been any talk at the I know there's there's plenty of talk at a higher up level but granularly in the SCH is there a talk about the um free lunch for all of our students that is being offered that going away anytime soon there hasn't been I've been checking in with um director Scott about that and um initially when the the fedal changes begun
023to happen had begun to happen we discussed that and um at this point that was a thought but so far we've been okay I haven't had any updated guidance I don't know you were in that Federal webinar or that address that but um didn't address state of main is paying for a lot that was my epic question yeah well it'll continue to stay under the state so that'll okay thank you very much now this breaks down um all the schools so that you can see all of the increases uh based on the different divisions within the school department question yes um well first I want to say I'm I'm very happy to see the school committee is helping to lower the there you go um what's what is the difference and I've seen it broken
024out like this many years but I've never thought about it what is the difference between pupil services and special education pupil Services includes the um ml students and more social workers School nurses transportation is included in that for some reason for the entire District yeah and then special education is just and it varies you know from school to school or District to District I any other questions and again I have um a link to the details on the current uh presentation so that will um be on the website so if you click the link in the email that you receive you'll be able to access all of those details yes may I ask um first and forgive me if this is very obvious I don't know why I can't recall but Community School on that
025list of um our schools what is that at cover yeah so Community School covers after school programming does after school and there's a there's four different pieces to it thought you had the night off Jerry I told you be [Laughter] ready I don't have a beard I can exp BS into outside the regular day of the regular okay sorry alternative education one of the biggest pieces that okay is summer school summer school and after school activities which has been um complemented with their 21st century Grant so they're both doing like things okay thank you thank you very much so so that that's the reason for the the um decrease is that we looked at a redundancy so the 21st century grants are covering all of that so for now we took it out knowing that
026once the grants um are finished if we don't apply again then that would be something we would put back in so that that's another example of how we're trying to be really mindful about what we actually need and what we can maybe put on hold um and and you know come back to when we uh truly need it thank you thanks for that clarification can I ask one more question only because I thought that I didn't to but I can't get it out of my head on the facilities maintenance um slide for the grounds uh Services just seeing that almost 300% increase and to my knowledge I mean are we are we getting a new sport field or is something what is h what would that what would be included in are those the uh
027those are the playgrounds Jerry right so yes we have um a piece playground going in pro street a full playground going in a Lincoln we have we're finishing our Landscaping I call it Landscaping but it it's the hill behind dowy that okay homeless camps have taken over we're taking it back so this is phase three um we're doing some paving at down east so we have a a number of things making that up so we they're all smaller and major together they look oh that's a big number yeah yeah um and that's I I would like to assume that that would be the case and not just some one giant expenditure but I it kept rattling around there so thank you for the clarification I really appreciate it are there any other questions on the
028categories so uh this next these next couple of slides are just highlight the state versus local funding um and it's a little small to see here but we're a little over the 28 million um that's being supported and then we see that in our percentage and how that has um shifted over the years but again like I said um this past year we were fortunate to be able to um get an increase in our state subsidy which was very beneficial and then we have our five-year Capital Improvement plan which is also not in what you receive but is also on the website and that's a link that goes to the plan that we've been working from uh so when Jerry speaks about the um playgrounds and the paving and things of that sort we're going
029through and having those conversations specifically with principles um to make sure that you know is this a priority list that's going to work should we you know um rethink which items are a priority um are these still a priority are their new priorities so um we've kind of been going through all of that with the list um that we have already in place and we've been asking a lot of questions about any other questions I'm happy to answer any questions and let me know if there's you know specifics and if I don't have the answer I'll absolutely gather those mine's more of a general question um would you and Jerry characterize this as a needs based um budget versus wants right because I know sometimes we get asked that question are those needs or just
030wants so how would you characterize this I would characterize it as both um I think that if I can dig in a little bit with the um you know in terms of needing support so all of the principles submitted you know what they would love to have and Jerry and I took a look at that and we put that on a grid and looked at for example who needed who requested an item most and then guidance popped up so Elementary guidance is where we went with that um again trying to be mindful um the other piece too uh well I'll go to the athletic the assistant athletic director this is kind of a two-fold addition uh because not only is it going to support our Athletics but it's supporting the assistant principles to be freed
031up to be able to offer more support to students on a day-to-day basis um so when we looked at the requests for additional student supports at the middle level we felt like this was supporting that um in a really good way and uh so yeah I would say and then we've had you know a couple of um vacant well one electrician position that hasn't been filled um but there's also been some additional challenges with maintenance getting everything done because just little things here and there across the the 11 schools you know it's it's a it's a lot so we felt like that was really a need I mean I think it's it's really perception because um you know they could be needs but they also could be characterized as wants but I think if we
032are I think we did a nice balance of yeah we can't add you know all of the things but if we can think carefully and be strategic in you know creating a position is going to free up these people and then you know the other um piece that we talked about at the last meeting was uh looking closely at our inclusionary practices and and you know doing some restructuring so uh we feel confident that that is also going to uh support Staffing moving forward no I think you've done a fine job so thank you thank you than for your welcome um could you go back to the slide that shows the historical enrollment sure does this and I I know that our our prek component has changed over time but does this capture our prek
033population our enrollment this doesn't no no okay yeah is there a reason why it's the way the stud's done it's all it's all I have for they don't they don't always include okay but could we could we capture that number absolutely you know can we have a a graph like this that includes that that inment absolutely sure any other questions any other requests yes this is more common um I appreciate the way that this budget was put together and the presentation of it I feel like there is it's nice to see a decline in certain buckets to make concessions to improve in other areas and I really like the balanced approach to it this year in particular so good job to the entire team um who worked on this and put it together and and
034to you Dr Robinson for presenting it in such a concise fashion it's it's easier to digest for me this year so so thank you for that it is a lot and it can be very confusing so yeah I also want to extend my gratitude to all of the staff because this is a this is quite an undertaking um and when um Jerry said to me there's six over 6,000 lines in the indiv in the actual budget like wow okay it's a lot um so this is this is new for me you know at this scale uh but the process is the same so I really tried to bring things that I've learned in my previous roles to here and make sure that we can um do the best we can with the the budget and
035uh support students and and keep the taxpayers in mind I agree thank you very much director Hammond and superintendent Robinson pleasure and so what what are our next steps next steps will be uh we will go back and do another review um and then make decide if we need to make any changes and if there are any changes I would communicate those out um if you have any further questions for me or thoughts of you know what about this that you remember after you leave please email me let me know um and I can definitely speak to those um and then we'll come back next week for a first reading going through the link you're talking there very informative really appreciate this sort of helpful additional information so thank you there's um I'm way too
036deep now into this the enrollment projection like this is 90 pages okay there's uh there is a lot of information and that's why I included the links um so again once you have an opportunity to look through that some new questions may arise I would expect that that certainly may happen so please reach out um if there are specific questions that you have so for the first reading it could be a little bit lower could stay the same depending on your you know the consensus of the team right potentially potentially yeah I feel really good about this at this point uh we are meeting with the city um uh director heon and I are meeting on Friday just to review this and um see um one piece that I think actually is neglected to bring
037up is the two days ago we did get an email from the um around health insurance so there is a potential of a significant increase in health insurance so that's the one main item that we are considering which would be very Hefty so director Heyman and I need to consider that they're talking about a high high potential of 17 over 177% which would be very significant and would add about $700,000 to the budget so we are in contemplation about that who is B that's the uh mea Anem okay okay so the insurance the benefits yeah not yeah sorry when do we think we might find out well here's the tricky part with that um it may not be until the last minute because their timeline is they they tell us towards the end of March
038I don't think they decided on the end of March and typically we don't find out until the early April so we're GNA have to make a decision on you know do we add that do we hope it's not going to be that much because right now we have 10 right now we have 10% in there so that would be an additional that's where that that would be additional so it would be an additional 7% additional 7.89 yeah right and that would that additional 7.89 would translate to 700,000 yes now are we bound to that or are there other options Insurance they'll get me started on health a whole so yeah we are that the mea um benefits trust is like what the insurance for schools is that's where we get that insurance so it's every
039year it's April this is exactly what happens every year we hope when we make guesses they they typically will send a range but this time they didn't send unless I missed it not a range so they'll give you the the email update like here's here's what it could be and then later on then we'll get a range that could be what 10 percentage points it's it's never never a close enough range that really is helpful so you know we kind of look historically um you know what have we had in there I know last year was a little over 11% is how is where it came back in so that's where there may be a potential for um an increase and it maybe even I mean unless we want to just throw it in there
040I would think that we might want to wait and see if we get any further information to give us a better idea of what that might look like and and I know this is a question you probably won't ow the answer to but would the city be able to help us with some of the facilities the maintenance I know they were able to in the past they' they've talked about the capital um the the um onetime Capital Improv um so that will be a discussion item on Friday to determine find one $700,000 Capital project slide over we don't have any that large so that's the tricky that's the tricky part a good thing it's a good thing yeah so yeah great thank you very much thank you this is great other questions for now or
041we're good to on to I guess I have a question it's not directly in the budget um but just to keep in mind or my own um I know we've been in talks a lot about um facilities of the school district and what the plan is on that I'm not sure what um the timeline is on that when that will start to um come into play with our obiously that this year but yeah so um do you you mean in terms of the larger plan with the schools and all of that um that is a great question so right now what we're looking at is um I should have some initial information that might help us with our timeline for the Strategic plan in May and then July is the date where the state will
042be posting the list that is the result of the needs assessment that was conducted back in um before winter break so we'll I we'll be able to know whether we are on that list and if our schools are on the list then there's a whole another process that we would follow which is a 10-year process um I would like to launch into the strategic planning process you know at the end of the school year or into the summer so that we can take a close look at where we are in our strategic plan being five years in and decide whether we want to revise or refine or U make some modifications to that that is it for Budget chop we will move on to uh informational items um so the next couple of important dates
043we have coming up are Wednesday March 12th regular school committee meeting 7 pm here at bang School library Wednesday March 26th regular meeting 7 p.m. Bor High School library Wednesday April 9th 2025 regular meeting 7M High School library and Wednesday April 30th 2025 regular meeting 7 p.m. bang High School library I'm gonna move to ajour a motion second all in favor all right move