001e e e good evening and I'd like to call the meeting to order of the Sak school board for February 28th 2024 at 50:6 p.m. would you please join me for the preg of Allegiance okay item number three tonight we do have the approval of the Schoolboard meeting minutes dated February 7th 2024 is there a motion to approve the minutes Madame mayor I move we approve the school board meeting we need to motion made by Council uh School School Board member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member prebble don't I have to make the motion first yep go ahead sorry I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated February 7th 2024 thank you second I'll take a breath now we can School Board member probably keep your second any
002discussion on the minutes okay roll call vote councelor uh Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes motion to approve the minutes passes 70 item number four there are no adjustments to the agenda this evening item number five there were no correspondents item number six public session if there are any members of the public wishing to speak please step up to the podium state your name and address for the record and we have 3 minutes to speak okay not seeing anyone recognized we move on to item number seven and that is the superintendent report okay good evening everybody um good to see you all after uh you know a good vacation week
003that we were able to have and I know last month we had our meeting kind of a week week early because of the vacation week uh piece that was coming up uh I don't believe we've met since we had a challenging day here in Sako based off some community activities but uh you know one of the things I want to say is that anytime you have an event that disrupts the normal process of the school day um you try to reflect on the things that happened well the things that you can improve upon uh the Rel relationships that you have with certain city departments and other schools uh and you know I've had a a good a lot of time to talk with fire chief police chief uh Headmaster manard at uh ta and you
004know at the end of it I think that we are just super impressed by the our ability as a community to handle a tough situation the way that staff admin responded to that the way we were able to work our way through uh the events um really impressed with our ability to communicate uh with the Police Department fire department and chain of commands uh the ability that we had to work with Thorton Academy and share some of our decision making processes along the way uh using technology and good correspondence uh and then at the end of the day the you know people who help make that the most uh seamless as possible possible is transportation staff and their ability to um know where kids live move without the city adjust on the Fly uh share
005Services between communities and and police officers coming from all over the place um I think it really is a when you when you can kind of decompress from that situation and you reflect on you say yeah there are all the things that we would like to do a little bit different that would help it at the end of it you say well you know what everybody worked really well together and I think that's uh you know a testament to a lot of the strong relationships we have with our other department heads throughout the city and how we can keep people informed and so while we certainly don't ever wish to go through those again it's always a way to to refine our practices and and think about U how we respond in the future so
006a big thank you to all of those who helped uh work with our schools protect our schools protect our city uh and get through the day I think job well done by all uh as you know we're coming back from vacation week and typically once you come back from vacation week uh in February you're six weeks seven weeks till April vacation and then you're Sprint to the end of the school year uh thought I'd kind of jinx jinx myself last time but I didn't did not jinx myself with the with the snow day you were Within just a couple inches I'm just we will all storms are within a couple of inches of going or not when when when you Bo boil it down but uh I don't know I I think if this weather
007is going to hold up like it is out there now just rip the Band-Aid off and let's bring spring on uh or bring us some more snow so that people can enjoy winter activities and Rural Maine can you know have their economy be okay based off snowmobile and skiing ice fishing those pieces so um as you get towards April vacation then we can start locking in those end of the school year important dates as we start to firm up what the last day will be uh a little too early for that yet um a lot of time being spent right now on just budget process getting things ready for the 18th to present to the city council uh finance committee um just met and our budget review is looking like it will be May 7th
008at 3:00 for the finance Comm committee uh here just trying to coordinate everybody's schedule so there still could be a change to that but looking for that to happen with a review tonight more discussion on the 13th presentation to the city council on the 18th uh and then wait for those health insurance numbers to come in and hope for um some positive news um Megan and I will be in auguster again tomorrow um as we continue to push for the building project to get over the line and follow you know we're kind of working on those end of document types of needs um with our hope Meg for March 28th I believe it is um for the next draw poll is the target date is the 28th uh and again every each time we go
009to Augusta we learn more about what other boxes need to be checked uh for us to move forward uh was corresponding with the attorneys today um and the city manager was involved about making sure those Bond orders language is really tight and that's ready to go uh and to move forward um and then finally for any of the school committee or city council um there are a lot of athletic events and event and community events that happen every single year but if you can get yourself to a unified basketball game those are really special events and good events for our students communities uh kind of shows you what school and uh teamwork and everything's all about and our next one um is March 5th so next Tuesday night it's at 3:30 at SMS uh but
010if you can get to one of those um I think that's our only home game left um those are uh those are just special for the for the kids for the community so I encourage you to uh to attend if you can happy to answer any questions any questions for superintendent Ray okay moving on that takes us to item number eight School Board chair reble have a report uh nothing major this evening but thank you okay item number nine there is no staff reports takes us to item 10 and that is the board Ward subcommittee minutes item a is the policy and Personnel committee meeting meeting agenda was 31324 at 5:30 Item B finance and infrastructure committee next meeting 22824 at 4:30 which was today and item C curriculum committee next meeting 226 24 4:30
011item 11 there is no old business item 12 under new business number a we do have new hires there is no motion needed for that item B is resignation is there a motion for the resignations Madame mayor I move we accept the resignation of Christy Gomez pre special education teacher effective April 9th 2024 second motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman second by Schoolboard member prel any discussion or comment okay not seeing any roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member prebble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 7-0 Madame mayor yep a second motion I move we accept the res retirement of Marco lamth CK Burns teacher effective at the end of the
0122023 2024 school year second motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman second by Schoolboard member prebble any discussion or comment on that item just want to say thank you to Mr lamth for all of his years I don't know how many years he's been here but it's been a hot minute I'm sure so uh thank you to to him for going on doing his thing at CK Burns all these years okay not seeing any other we call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School board member roach yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 7-0 okay that takes us to item C and that is a school construction update so I briefly mentioned that uh during our
013superintendent's report is that Megan and I are back in auguster again tomorrow um working on the final items of you know essentially you're submitting this huge document of requests um and part of the strategy we've been going through is trying to turn things into the doe meet with them get answer their questions about the documents and then be like okay so what else uh needs happen and there's a list of things that we are working on um the big piece that oako is working on right now that we'll be discussing tomorrow is one the overall budget uh because the budget number has to be locked in for the state decide before the state board can approve um the state share of the project uh and then obviously we are trying to work on the energy
014consumption of the current buildings and what there's part of it that's required to say here's your existing state and this is how much you're paying in oil electricity those types of things and this is what you would look like in a new building um to make sure that uh you know items like the geothermal or the heat pump situation right now we're looking at this would be a geothermal heated building um which what that means for us in this situation is geothermal does cost more money than what they provide for an oilbased system but we're working um with uh efficiency grant that will bring that entire difference back to us from say the cost of what the oil system is to the geothermal that would be repaid to cover the cost through um the inflation
015reduction act there was a program there um and that's what we're working through now because having the ability to use something like geothermal will give us the ability to heat and cool those buildings um all year long uh and that's going to be a pretty special thing is to think about having those two buildings have uh cooling uh in there and what that will do summer program uh and what it will do academically for students is you know that temperature is around 70 degrees all the time that's a big difference so those are some final things that are we putting over making sure the bond language is in order um and then I suspect mean I will spend a day a week up in austa until the straw pole and still uh we're at the
016point where we would go on uh March 29th as the state construction meeting which is two weeks before your state board meeting on April 10th uh that's the target we're looking to hit we're feeling pretty starting to feel pretty okay about that KN on wood kind of want to jinx myself uh or ourselves for tomorrow and just to let you know the city council did approve the special meeting on April 10th awesome thank you so we are set for that on Council side any questions or comments on the construction Schoolboard member Gil then roach just following up on the bond piece of it um I guess kind of what are the next steps and does doe have any guidance or suggestions on having it one question versus two or do they just leave that up
017to the locals that will be a local decision the doe is going to be only concerned about the one bond for their project um and so that's what they're going to be focusing on the others will be our decision uh and and really that will become you know we can when we do the when we present the budget on the 18th we could add that as the other joint item to have a little bit more discussion about that piece um because ultimately that's your guys' decisions you um have heard my recommendations you just have to wave it those pieces out of what you think will be best politically and and best for the system and you know I think that as we get to that vote with uh the state board and you know that
018that's moving forward and then you're really Plastering those photos of what new schools are going to look like around uh the community um and knowing that we're going to be able to solve a problem um at a rate that is so much different than what the other surrounding communities are dealing with I think it's something that we've got to be able to talk about I know that you know we know that the scar bro situation 160 million failed um I was reading in the paper the other day I don't remember what the the paper for that covers Cape Elizabeth that you can get into the store and they're you know they're talking about projects in the you know 110 to $150 million for fixing all of the their schools um and doing something to to
019each and every building and looking at our reality and thinking that we're going to move into possibly um two brand new buildings that will impact the next 75 years of the educational system at a price that is probably one quarter of what scarbro faced or hopefully in that you know in that ballp Park um that I think that really needs to be something that we talk about uh you know of taking a situation that is a challenge for us and and really doing a pretty pretty decent job I think for the community in the long term we will be um looking at and part of the work some of the work that traded back and forth today um between uh the attorneys city council uh si uh city manager was looking at current Bond INB
020indebtedness and then being able to figure out what it would look like with this piece and how that would impact you know your medium home price uh tax rate here so I think that's really the next steps and you know my hope is that we would have some of that information done prior to that 18th meeting in a ballpark so that you guys uh with the city council can then have that conversation of okay which which direction do we want to go and what does this all look like I think yeah I think that's great I think we had a great conversation to kick it off and I look forward to that on the 18th just to kind of close close the loop on that because you because the city council will have to that
021night of the 10th yep that decision is final it's yeah okay thank you School Board member uh yeah the up on the Dual versus one Bond question um Windam was successful with their $40 million local was was that the same situation did they have that selection to make or did that kind of stand alone so they had one question in Windom but they also were dealing with one school so I would say the difference in what what their project is is that they had a much larger local only share and I believe it went towards theater and some other upgrades that they were looking at for that building and they made the choice because it was one project to have one question now what I I when I worked in uh Westbrook Westbrook had a
022question when they built their new Middle School that was like here's the state school and here's what you would pay if you wanted to add the theater on so they had two questions um again I think that's just a local decision of how you guys want to run that process um I'll reach out to um I'll reach out to Sanford too and see if I can get some history of what what they put on their ballot question because I think in the area that would be the new school that was state funded was that just the high school one school too or was that seventh and eth they also rehabed several of the other schools well so they may have had a bunch of different questions for because they were doing things at the middle
023school they closed a couple of elementary schools we'll see if we can get their packet and of of what they were dealing with here um and you know I think that if you were looking at if we were not considering the second School in this and we were only dealing with the one through five school and a state share that's going to be under 10% I'd be sitting here say no just one question on that only um to me I just uh for two reasons one is I think that it's kind of two big decisions that the community is making and then number two because we're building on the same site and keeping those budgets and making that just very clear that there's no overlap uh in those budgets and that everything's budgeted for I
024know that we asked Rob we have a state like budget template that we have to fill out uh for the doe and that we'll be filling one of those out identically for the local piece just for Clarity on the state side of things because you know you're there's some shared infrastructure and things like that that we want to keep make sure looks and appears very separate um the other question is um the top number the the bond amount that the state would offer does that get affected based on timing of our vote June versus if it some had to go to November because of whatever cap is there for the whole state funding for that fiscal year so I think what they tend to do and what my percep ception is is they have they
025look at their cap they know what slots are available and they try to time things so that as items come off and things come on there's you know that no do I think that November messes with things no but I think that they're looking for you know one of the questions that we had um for the construction committee for the site approval was you guys were approved in November of 2020 why are we here in was that December or November of 23 like what's taking so long those types of pieces and obviously we talked about land and those challenges but they want to move this along any other questions or comments School Board member Truman just a I know this is probably already considered but like they're going to cap us at a certain amount
026at the state how much they bond you know the question is what if prices go way up again like they did during the pandemic and everything was three or four times more than usual so so again once you'll you'll set a budget um and you'll work really hard to stay within that and when you think about was a 10% contingency that's in that you know that's a pretty big number on a a project like this um I do believe that there were some situations where there were some projects um and and I would not speak 100% correctly but I thought I heard that there were some projects that were put into play before the pandemic that did have to come back and make some budget adjustments because there's just nothing you could do um I
027think that we would hope in any situation that we actually entering a situation where we may see some construction prices coming down uh versus going up um and that would be the ideal situation is that you would get to there and then you'd be like okay we don't need to borrow everything we need to borrow um and that does happen on projects but okay anyone else okay next item but not uh D is a 25 budget presentation item number one is a budget presentation and item two there is a memo in your packet as well so um we will start with a budget presentation piece and and the overview and this is where we'll uh work on tonight you've seen the budget memo uh with the with in preparation for the city council and kind
028of the reason I do it two ways is that gives people who have different styles of absorbing things to different uh ways to kind of take in the budget uh and go from there um just for those who are looking at at pictures on there and say like how do you choose those ones either I had them on my phone or they were easy grabs off Facebook so so that's how those get chosen like how's there what's what's what's the easy ones to grab um so as we start the the budget overview um you try to think of the things that we've talked about a lot and we and we talk about valuation valuation valuation because we know that that means so much in the funding formula uh and one of the pieces as you
029know we think about our current situation is that we know that through our review at the city council piece that we've got approximately aund uh $1.4 million more in state subsidy this year than we did in a prior in Prior years when essentially our student count stayed about the same our elll count stayed about the same our uh free and reduced lunch rates went up a few percentage points um but the big piece was the city of sako's valuation grew at 7% and the state average grew at 8% and so in this scenario that's a great day for Sako because if your growth and your valuation growth is staying under the state average you're not going to be penalized now as you move forward and you think about what comes in another year I do
030start to think and get a little bit worried about that when we're preparing the budget for 2026 we know that our valuation is going to be $343 million more at a minimum and I know that throughout the the process uh the budget process we'll be talking the city and the school department will'll have conversations about tiffs and Tiff districts and some of those pieces about valuation of what needs to be done um but as the valuation is lower than the state you get more sub and so always something for us to watch as this tends to creep up um in York County if you go to the next slide you'll see where Sako is um compared to other communities in value um in York County and then just looking at the you know the Staggering
031fact that Sako from 2020 you have 42% of your valuation has occurred now that's pretty similar to others in York County but such large valuation growth time over time again if you really go in and you focus on the Secretary of State uh report on valuation you'll see that York in Cumberland County consistently grow in their valuation more than the rest of the state of me and so what happens to us in the future is important for you guys to think about important for the city council to think about as you think about development businesses tiffs all of those pieces of not only the impact that it has on the municipal side but the impact that it has on school subsidy because they do go hand in hand yeah so you 11% that 353 million
032valuation increase is that is that a guesstimate or is that coming from kind of City circles that the 26 the slide before the 26 estimate so so instead of seven it's 11 and a half per. so when you when you go to what happens on the on the school side of things is every January the Secretary of State releases what your new city valuation is and then you take that number and you look at the two years prior and you create your three-year average and so that is the three-year average increase that we know we're going to get so that's a that's a locked in number what I haven't done Kevin is looked at every single municipality in the state for three years and tried to calculate the state average on that piece um which
033could be done uh if you want to go through every single town you could you could predict where you're going to be but you you don't think the state average would be like 12% it would be under yeah I mean what we've seen the last couple of years is that you're in that six to eight% range and anyone that's typically in most situations and you know why would if someone said to me why do you think SOS was seven this year ver because you probably already had some higher home PR haven't necessarily added large manufacturing type pieces so that keeps that down a little bit probably are on the higher end of your Tiff piece um with shelter some values would be my guess but again if you if you have water those communities seem
034to be uh having the greatest the other piece that seems to be is when you look through and you look at service center communities there's like uh uh I think there was an article in the Press errow whether it was this weekend or you know the week before where Lewiston is having um major spikes in valuation increases as well and you're seeing we we last year when Bill was was mayor we met with the mayor's uh Coalition Statewide and you could you could see it coming as at service center communities and places like Rockland Camden on the coast were having these major valuation increases that were you know way more than anywhere else which is going to be trouble challenging because some of the service center or larger uh Urban settings tend to have higher
035free and reduced lunch more diversity um those are some PL things that challenge us a little bit more uh and then from the city Side of Things tend to be challenged a little bit more by emergency calls those types of uh services that are needed so yeah that's a real that's that's a real number Kevin if we go to the next set of slides um this is what I shared at the city council uh and this is how when we had our joint meeting of what makes up EPS um and I won't unless you want me to I won't go through 100% of that again um but again what I would highlight is the fact that we had some Pockets if we we look at our on page two and we look at our disadvantaged
036students that piece is essentially your free and reduced lunch rate and you try to capture as much of that as you can but that's a rate that has increased and you're and you're looking at a point where almost three out of every 10 children in our school department are disadvantage category um and that has significant impacts uh on a community kiddos the needs of kids and the offerings that we have to work on uh at school to make sure that we're meeting the needs there um and so as you follow through this uh formula that we've kind of already gone through it goes back to at the end of the day the city of Sako pays for about 50% of the education on their own and receives 50% from the state um and we receiv
037again looking at that $1.4 million more in subsidy helps when we look at our expenditure side of the table the other piece that the next piece I'd want to draw your attention attention to um would be the next slide which is just for points of reference of cost per student in Southern Maine um and if you go one more slide Meg or a couple more slides Frozen up is it oh yeah there you go if you look at the cost per student in Southern Maine um there are a couple of categories that we take out of this one is um vocational education um you're Frozen it's all garbled up it looks fine on here if it's any consolation okay now it's better vocational education and Debt Service because one of the things that that you
038would see is if you're comparing the debt service numbers you put Sanford on there and Sanford has so much money coming for New School construction from the state that it appears that you spend uh a whole lot more money than you actually do locally through the formula just like in a couple of years when our building project hits the budget someone's going to look through the spreadsheet on the state of main piece and say why did Sako get4 million extra dollars in EPS funding formula what's going on down there and really it's the amount of money that in your in your state construction runs through the formula and so we take that Tab out so that when you look at your core uh academic pieces you will see that essentially the cost of Education in
039Dayton per student is around $16 16,898 which is slightly above the state average now you could ask some you would ask some questions here about okay so why is regular instruction so much higher in Sako than it is in another place and the reason that it's higher is not that it's that much higher it's just that because we pay tuition to thoron Academy it's that's a regular education expense versus if that was in a school department many of those same things would be carried across all of the lines uh that are remaining so it it it skews it a little bit here but when you look at things like School administration or Transportation this gives you a good idea of what we spend here locally uh versus what uh others in the state spend and
040you know we do this exercise so that for you guys here as a board or for the taxpayers at home they can clearly see how we rate with you know there's about 20 schools in Southern Maine of what the expenditures are when we look at this year's budget and we look at okay so what's driving the cost of increase in this budget it at this point is really about four items so you have a budget that is 800 and something pages long with crayons markers desks Windows cleaning supplies staff Etc and at the end of the day you can look at four major categories of spending that that shift our money first one we pay tuition 9 through 12 which is a little bit different than other communities do and that has an increased cost
041to it and that increase is 867,000 for next year 5.6% was what it was this year yeah we had like a six and a five and it kind of it typically Cycles into 3 to four% over a 10year period um and so 867 uh K is in tuition salaries and steps for our employees is almost $1.3 million um when you look at the FMLA payroll tax law that we are learning more more about every single day uh and we learned yesterday that if you have existing collective bargaining agreements in place you may not have to pay this for those bargaining units until they reopen so that number I might be able to bring down a little bit Jason and I are thinking that that's a possibility that we're going to be able to decrease and
042then you look at health insurance increases and changes and while that's only uh only $26,000 remember that as people come and go from the district there are different plans that are pull in place or things we did during negotiations it would change things um but when you look at a percent we have 10% in there Jason and that was $37,000 a percent I believe $44,000 a percent so there's $440,000 in there in a percentage increase so you know 2% brings 80 something thousand back to the table for us to have conversations about when you look at on the expenditure side of some of the things um that I've recommended to you guys is that even in this budget that has an increased expenditure wise well over $2 million there has been a reduction of two
043classroom positions at SMS based on student enrollment a recommendation to eliminate uh a technology coordinator at Young and Fairfield school we have a reduction of contracted IEP coverage for state agency clients and we'll be handling that in house reduction of General uh funds summer school expenditures we've been pretty lucky to uh through ARP money and Title One allocation we can cover that through grants that we've been able to obtain we reduced Capital expenditures by 150k In This budget because we had the bleachers in last year's budget and we're taking that piece out um you know we've looked at supplies and various departments and things like that and then we have added 1 0 uh positions for facilities maintenance that still only gives us three districtwide um for facilities and maintenance and I really hope that
044we can continue to look at the size of that because I think it's very important for us to be planful of that facility staff as we move into new buildings because the last thing that we can have want to have happen in four years of opening new buildings saying hey what's what's happening here why aren't we keeping up on things and you have to have staff to do that or are you paying more in contracted surfaces out um I think that when we look at considerations uh finance committee we had some uh conversations about Capital Improvements at SMS replacement of the module or building um and again not looking for probably um additional funds in the budget I think we can look at carryover and an expense to offset that um continued increase of out
045a district placements cost or alternative programming um students that have those needs those costs in those facilities have Rising costs and tuition is something that we have to uh continue to make sure that we're programming for students locally um looking at energy cost and fuel cost really um want to have a discussion this spring as we learn more about the new building about we whether we should be the owner of solar panels on the roof whether we should lease those out and be part of uh that be a least how do we reduce some of our costs as we move forward um using more green energy for our buildings uh it doesn't make a lot of sense now to make some of those changes based off the infrastructure we have like to make those based
046off the in infrastructure we're going to um because I do think that again if you're looking at a geothermal system you're not looking at a payment in natural gas and or oil you're now looking at probably an electric electricity charge for the heat pumps and the running of those Motors and so having a better understanding of what we would need for solar capacity on that roof uh is is an important piece um making sure that we have Equitable staff assignments based off uh student ratios uh through throughout the district and where our staff is aligned um just refinement of costs as we go through the project and you know finance committee notices something or we notice something in central office or a principal just continue to refine those piece um examining um the staffing needs
047as we uh transition to new buildings is important so that we're kind of looking at what the future holds and whether we have right positions in the right place and what those counts will look like because certainly there will be some efficiencies as we go from um you know four different locations uh to two um and then longterm those operational costs in programming for prek uh in FY 26 budget is something we've talked about but needs to be you know considerations making sure we don't do something here that would hinder our ability to to do something in the long term when you look at um the overall cost on the next page your your kind of cover sheet or Revenue sheet you're looking at a situation um where you bring all those categories that we
048have together um and you look at a percent change or an increase off expenditures and again when you think about um positional accounts in here min three on teaching side and plus one in the facility staff we kind of we're down uh but yet you still have a difference of $2.7 million expenditure increases uh and when you go back you can come up to 2.4 of it 2.5 of it off four lines so that makes it a little bit challenging because those are lines that you need to have in your budget when you transition this to the revenue side of the piece and you look at the the revenues that we have uh Jason and I have gone through and you look at your local share of eps your additional local that's just kind of
049how the formula works because in order to get the state money A lot of times they're saying that locally you have to raise a little bit more but you always here in this community raise additional local so that number doesn't fluctuate as as much you look at uh Dayton regular ed students and we're we're expecting that to be down um about $30,000 and a lot of that's just class sizes and Dayton smaller we get some of the students but uh you know they only have 17 in a classroom uh the cut of that probably is going to be a bit smaller you can see that our state share of eps is up $1.44 million uh that's the majority of it um as we've looked our carryover over the last couple of years has been uh
050pretty good in the $800,000 range per year we've got about a million and a half in carryover funds now and so uh based off where we are budget wise I think adding another $100,000 to a $400,000 carryover can make some sense in this scenario we may have more conversations about that uh and then when you see the last one the undes fund Capital if we were to move forward with uh a building at SMS to solve that portable Solution that's where we would put a revenue the reason it's decreased now is because we had put a revenue in that last year for the bleachers to match that expenditure and since that's not there you don't have the revenue or the expense in that when you look at adult education costs um um and you look
051at your total local to the tax levy you're looking at 1. 1436 million dollar or 4.75% in the current state it will be our job as a committee uh as we review this piece and through the finance to figure out in conjunction with the city council and you know remembering we're one half of the equation and they're the other half of the equation taxwise to figure out what will work for us and what number um will be something that can be acceptable to voters essentially um being mindful that we also will be asking for Fairly large bond issue at this time uh in this budget to move forward so trying to balance all three things that we know uh tax rate but as we sit today the impact to taxpayers from the school side percentage
052wise is 4.75% I think we are a long ways of figuring out how that impacts your mill rate based off all the things that will happen on the city Side valuation you know their revenues that are coming in um but starting to have uh you know had some great conversations with uh the city manager who um guys is very fortunate to have uh he's a very intelligent man and a good city manager um and just thinking about their side and ours and what might be that sweet spot um for us and so certainly would entertain any questions from this high level overview again looking to have finance committee meet uh hopefully on the 7th next week at 3 um and then kind of bring some of those recommendations back to you guys uh on the
05313th as we prepare to go uh to the city Council and it may be at this point in time that we're not doing a whole lot until after that city council meeting and but starting to get some direction from the board that if you know more or less needs to be adjusted um we start developing that plan that least impacts uh students in the classroom um and hoping that a health insurance number comes in really good because that sometimes that's an easy place um what I can tell you is that if we were looking to get that number of tax increase below or at 4% you're looking at about another quarter of a million dollars in change that has to occur uh and that can be done through a combination of reductions or in Revenue
054happy to answer any questions any questions on the budget piece Madam mayor I have a couple questions um they're expend your questions so um one of my questions was if there was a way we could get a spreadsheet breakdown of classroom sizes for SMS and maybe for any other schools if we have to Red reduce anything I'd be curious what the classroom size for each grade level would be things like that um and then I'd also like to I've had some of um parents reach out and ask about classroom supplies and things for each school and I was kind of flipping through the budget so I'd like some clarification around um how much teachers have for each classroom things like that and I know that's more for the um Administration questions but I'd like at
055some point a breakdown of that I know you I have a more condensed budget than others on the C on the school board here but it'd be nice to know like at each school what they have for you know seal music art stem things like that libraries so if you guys could point me in that direction that'd be amazing thank you so just uh to answer your question if you look at the B budget memo uh it does give you the projective enrollments and class siiz teachers in an easy form there uh and during the budget review of principles um again we're we're not a a district that says hey you get $200 per classroom or one that says what a request in and let's evaluate the request because a science classroom may need more
056than $200 you may have a piece of of furniture that you need replaced in your classroom that would eat up that entire 200 so we try to evaluate those quests uh individually versus that blank here's an allowance go through it um other pieces like uh take library books for example we use a a figure and I think off top of my head is $13 per student in that school roughly for library book Replacements some of those types of things thank you I look forward to that any other questions or comments School Board member roach so I I brought a little bit of this up at the finance committee meeting but for the whole group um there are positions that you struggle to fill um throughout the year and it could be a carryover from the
057prior year but we budget for them and that that's test so you have three positions that you have being dropped and not to get into two specifics and it could be settled through attrition and work out the classroom size and all that but would there be a way um to utilize reclass uh still because it seems like we're really short on student support in those positions where could could some of these positions be reclassed while we're still saving because we're not budgeting for these empty positions that we are getting by with and then we could you know that the headcount would still be the budget head count would still be less but the head count itself would basically stay the same sorry need to turn my mic on I think for the classroom positions again
058looking at uh class size throughout the district and the and the and the data and knowing that you have attrition that can take care of those pieces so you know job loss is not there there's a recommendation of a reduction of a position that someone's currently in um but there that person would have rights to another open position or open positions in the district that we tend to have every year so that job loss uh is not a problem I think what becomes difficult Kevin when is that you're mixing where we tend to have our openings is not sitting in the classification of instruction and teacher but you tend to have those in that support staff kind of revolving door um positions of Ed techs tend to come and go and change a lot you
059know hopefully we'll have some good contract negotiations which allow us to fill those positions so we meet the needs of students uh that have those uh and get some more um you know kind of permanency in those positions um but it's very tough you know if if they're we're looking at a reduction it's just so tough in a budget like this to find it in you know I always say pencils and paper clips because it's just so little in the grand scheme of things um I think you also if if you're kind of look to try to play that game of of knowing that things are going to be open or not I think that just makes it tough for us to manage and it would be better to say these are the positions that
060we know you have these are the ones you don't have um and kind of just handle that up front would be my recommendation because um I think as you as you can see I know that you guys may have picked it up over time but when you see a resignation from uh a support staff on there you probably tend to notice a little number behind it like one of the things that um Jess and I and Jason have worked on is that you know because of the turnover and everything and sometimes people will move from building to building based off needs is that we're coding every position so that I know that of the 78 uh edtech positions that are available in the district we know which ones are open um and if 72 becomes
061open like I believe it did tonight that slides into a list on the bottom and we can manage that I think we we've been much more successful understanding what our openings and our needs are by doing something like that so going back to something that was a little bit looser and and could float a little bit would probably be something that we would suggest not to do because we like having that ability to say hey I know what positions are open I know what our needs are um you know and really my request would be to you guys to say let's make a decision if if we need to eliminate something let's do that um because I feel like we're doing a much better job managing the resources that we have um over time maybe
062even to a point where we can have some of that conversation of projecting with finance committee okay you have two years of having carryover amounts at around the $800,000 Mark is that becoming more of a trend where do we you know as we get to look looking at the March expense report are we trending in that same piece knowing that we still probably have a lot of uh Capital pieces that happened in that Springtime and in June and do we feel comfortable that you know we've put $400,000 and carry over in this budget because based off the last couple of years we've been at 800 and I said Jason I think we can you know lower the help lower the tax rate and not have a reductions by you know do we have a conversation
063of what another 50 50,000 looks like um you know I you know we know that 50 or $60,000 is going to be about a quarter of a percent um so I think those are some conversations that we can look at that may not just be cutting but maybe the revenue side of the pieces okay anyone else yep Schoolboard member Argie so I was wondering if I could pick on um one of our principles if I could have a young or Fairfield principal come up I thank you I was just wondering if you could explain to me the technology coordinator position I don't have a grasp of that um the technology coach basically operates as the same as like a literacy coach or math coach um where they go in and train teachers um how to
064like incorporate technology into literacy or math in kind of in your in your daily kind of lessons and maybe on the side do some coaching Cycles okay so that was more on a faculty side than a classroom side yeah less y thank you you're welcome he anyone else School Board member Gail um I guess just uh a couple questions just for clarification on that student enrollment by grade level chart um there was the two red boxes for 10 is that post the recommendations of the reduction yeah yes that's that that's highlighting where those that's highlighting where those reductions occurred yeah and that the 10 would be there gotcha okay um and then on the presentation on Slide N where it says the cost per student um on the column student and staff support um why
065why are we one of the lowest there I guess what what goes into that cost so so again when you look at what makes it very difficult for us in Sako versus my other world in bord is that when we pay the tuition payment that captures all of those costs for a student 9 through 12 which is you know 12,000 something dollars that we're paying and throws a major throws most of that into regular that's why we have a regular if you look at Sako we're at 9200 you look at Dayton there's there's 10,000 there and then you look at the Statewide average and it's you know 6,800 some of those costs for student Support Services if we were in a district that had the high school as part of their K12 budget would spread
066in that direction so things like uh other instructional support uh support staff and students that's where some of the cost for say guidance Ed Tech at the high school level would pull out of that regular instruction and move to there because when I'm when you when you look at your budget here and you look at something like other Support Services which would be social work um or guidance you'll see a code in the budget for the guidance counselor that would move under that line just like high school at bitterford I have that guidance counselor that's under that code so when I report that up to the state it's taking the whole system here because of our high school students being tuition what we report to the state is a tuition dollar under regular instruction because
067that's the code they provide us for and that's why you see that difference here so it makes it much harder for you guys to compare yourself you in some of those categories um because of that and then just sticking on on the slide here just so I can from my education so $6,890 is the total average cost correct without the debt service and and for each student and then of that 16,000 the state share is 40 is let's say 50% rounding up and then our property taxes are paying for that 8,000 just use round just the $8,000 right you can roughly say that and again remember just as a just reminder we're working off information from 22 23 budget yeah but that's what they've released at the Year's End so yes okay okay um in
068simplest forms yes yeah that exactly just very simple form um I guess following up on the the technology coordinator question if with the reduction of that one how many coordinators are we going to have available so we we still would have one at the elementary level in grades three through five uh so we would have that situation there uh and we still have our technology staff throughout the district um again looking at where we were budget wise and having the conversations um about where I thought we needed to at least come in first piece we had to make that tough decision and after weighing some of the other whether even though there was a there is a position that's open I think that we evaluated what that direct work with students is versus this one
069and you know ultimately I had to make a recommendation to you guys and you guys work through that piece um and then the last question just on the overall Budget on slide 11 um just wanted to ask because it was one of the top ones on the central office um what what was the change there and um I think last year we also had an increase too so I was just curious as to what what's driving that year-over-year increas I I'd have to look at that some of that is because we are sharing more and it's a contracted service so it's pulling out of one place and and being that piece I I'll get the information for you for the next meeting right so when we shared the we're sharing the data manager position now
070between the two districts and so that data manager piece part of that that's just one of the items that was falling under the technology budget and now because it's a shared service and essentially is saving us or equal to the same amount of money that is a shared service so that it becomes a central office cost not a technology share that makes sense we moved it from technology because you'd see the tech technology budget went down8 some ,000 uh and there's a shared cost there you also have items I believe there's an increase in um lawyer fees and some other things but we can bring it a breakdown okay all right thank you anyone else remember Arie I'm gonna make you flip slides again can we go back to the the chart with all the
071other schools on it um something that just kind of dawned on me is so we have Fairfield and burns that are Title One correct correct so with putting the two schools or three schools together would that hypothetically change that 49.9 3% in the future no because that a curiosity no because that 49.3% is your funding formula made up straight up valuation and student count so you're not going to see any by putting the schools together the drivers are student counts in valuation not Title One pieces or any of that coming into it what will drive that number will be if you yeah it will not change that piece yeah roach um understanding that um the schools are not entitled to uh whatever cash reserves they they have it's with the city so you can't you
072can't use that but how that gets increased is things that are under budget but also con contingency as well so I don't know what the rules are in terms of like if if one section of one Department goes over budget like either you can't go over a budget or you got to shuffle things or so you continue to shuffle things if you had a major from the 11 lines theoretically if you had a major increase like a boiler go and you needed to and that now because that would be more than 10% over um a change in say that line which and again in this situation you might not even be at 10% uh based off the cost you would have to work with the school committee and the City Council in order to make
073that expenditure um again those are rules that are set by the state but at the same time you know there are rules set by the state that a school department can't overspend their budgets and we know that that's something that can happen uh it's really a local control situation Kevin that You' need to be mindful of what is uh before these the two year the last year's budget um do you know what the contingency was the last three budgets before fiscal year 2024 it was 800,000 last year and again the the only reason that contingency was at 800,000 is because we were in the middle of negotiations and we needed a place to think about yeah money but you brought down to in the 600,000 range but was it and the reason we BR because
074we are dealing with and the reason it's down is because we're working with smaller collective bargaining units the teachers unit obviously is much larger than the than the other piece okay and if we and if we had a Jason the year before that when we were not negotiation did we even have anything in that contingency line I think we operated at zero okay yeah School Board member go I guess just following up on that and looking ahead to next year do you anticipate do are we going to be bargaining or having a large contingency piece in there well we would have a I mean we're we're on we'll be starting the second year for for the following year we'll be on the second year of the teachers contract uh and then still have another year
075and then hopefully we'll be have a successful support staff contract so you wouldn't have necessarily have that large contingency line again just remember that in this situation contingency line is um nothing more than something that will filter out into the other pieces um I believe the other years when we haven't done that we haven't put haven't said oh there's this much in contingency because I kind of feel like if we're budgeting this way and we've got every item there and every staff member listed we need to kind of operate within what we have and if we have an emergency or a challenge that presents itself just like when we had a motel become a residents you know that was not something that was on our radar screen um but we were able to you know
076if you remember those budget pieces we were worried and then as we worked with the state and we worked on getting different funds and we got true numbers and we looked at all of the things that we had in the district we managed that throughout the year so there was no need for that contingency uh piece and you know I I hope for us to continue to do that of not having to just say oh yeah there's a quarter of a million dollars for the things that could come up um I'd rather think about and then continue to adjust in manage our budget throughout the year when those things come up uh and then if we can't we go back and we talk about the situation at hand at the board and then we talk
077about that with the city council because a community could experience a true emergency uh or something that you know planed for but that's probably when it comes to that point that probably should be a you know a very open conversation I do know that in one of you know in in Dayton we operate with a contingency fund because obviously that's a much tighter budget in a smaller number but in that situation um we don't we don't spend out of that fund unless we have a discussion and a board vote to spend out of that fund actually just one more question sorry it's so so on the on the SMS positions and the recommendations on the classroom positions so are these positions that we've had open for a year or more that have been unfilled and
078we're talking about eliminating them or are these positions that are filled so they're current positions okay but they will be open at the end of the year based off person leaving oror retirement um okay and when we look at the data for numbers um I think it is in my opinion fairly clear to look at what the class sizes would be and if you were saying to me Jeremy what would you Rec if we were going to have larger class sizes anywhere or smaller class sizes what would be the grade level you would pick um I probably would be looking more at first and second grade or looking you know I wish I had another room at Burns School the other piece that's an interesting piece of data is Meg can you uh go back
079to the first sheet of um uh the 279 want to highlight highlight something for that so if you look at the first sheet of the 279 in that second Square down tell us all of the percentages of of Staff throughout your district and where they are based off State recommendation and you'll see in the first line that you know the state theoretically says that 1.0 is like the magic number well we know that's not necessarily true but obviously we look at this situation and we're at 083 which in means in the eyes of the state the ratio is higher than what would be part of the essential program service for uh formula when you run those numbers of classroom teachers that includes your UA teachers Specialists across the district you will look at our one
080through five schools operating at a level of about 102% which says that they're a little bit more efficient uh than as a district uh than the 083 so they're kind of running right at what the number is when you look look at our number for Sako middle school again based off uas and some of this is to be expected at a middle school or a high school level but that number is about 72% so when you look at the spread and you look at the numbers or you look at the recommendations that I would come to you as a superintendent and say it would be very difficult for me to recommend a reduction in an area where the math shows me that we're operating super efficiently ly and towards the formula versus an area where
081the math or the recommendations uh is so skewed um to why we're you know the why we're at 0 83 um because we know where where the concentration of Staff in the district are in the per pupil ratios uh if you look at that building it's about 12 to1 uh for students of Staff ratios when our other buildings are more in the 16 to one level no that's currently but with our current situations where we would be at 72 at the middle school so could we move those two positions to say fifth grade to then reduce if you can get me a classroom we could I mean that that's that's not uh that's I'm not joking on that it's we don't have a classroom at Bur in school right now to accommodate that unless we're
082asking a teacher to teach off a cart um again the other piece that we looked at too and we can provide information is we try to look at similar communities in class size and where are you in a band one of the things you guys don't have uh here in the district which I'll be asking you guys to do during policy committee is you don't have a class size recommendation policy that I can find anywhere whereas many of the other surrounding districts do U and Meg would be able to bring that piece forward is what are your recommendations of class size knowing that you have es and flows but you also have just the the piece of got to have a classroom to put him in um had a conversation with uh gorm school department
083their Elementary classrooms in gorm are about 23 to 25 students per CL classroom and their middle school is upwards of 27 per classroom they have nine teachers at their middle school for like 270 students in there uh and so certainly we could look at what the ratios are locally what those policies from other districts we kind of looked at those um but some of it is mechanically driven of just the space that you have um while at the same time looking at a situation of being conscious of the of the tax rate the same time I'll also tell you that I have a belief of when the N numbers leads us in one direction that says here's what class size and looks like I believe that we program that way so that if I came
084back to you and said we can't do 24 to one that city council public knows that we're willing to look at the data that's in front of us and lead us into the direction of of what we need um to make or match our policy or our convictions on what class size would be and so that would be part of that piece anyone else School Board member Archie uh really quick under um SMS the elementary co-curricular what is that group so that would be all of your that would be all of your stien positions okay I was just looking at the supplies and that's almost a $177,000 increase I was just and I believe and I believe on that one um there may be some uniforms or something that sticked in that one we had
085a conversation about that I'll double check and again you'll get to ask Marie all about that one next week so finance committee next week uh on the 7th certainly everyone's willing to attend that meeting is when principles will get to come up and go through that piece that is the Hope is that it's right here all right certainly if you have questions beforehand that you need answers uh you certainly shoot them that way so we make sure that we have the materials ready for that okay any others okay moving on uh that takes us to item C first first reading of the policy there are 26 listed policies is there a motion to approve Madame mayor Schoolboard member Johnson um I'm going to make the motion for these 26 policies but thank you for mentioning
086that there're quite a few of them so I hope everyone will bear with me as we go through this um I move we approve the first reading of policies jeaa student attendance administ ative regulation jfab D admission of homeless students jfab d-r education of homeless students administrative procedure jhb treny JH b-r treny administrative procedures ji student rights and responsibilities jicc student conduct on school buses jic drug and alcohol used by students jcj student use of cell phones and other electronic devices jic K bullying j i k-r bullying administrative procedure j i c k- E1 bullying report form jic k- E2 bullying investigation form jic k- E3 documentation of disciplinary and remedial actions taken jj- student fundraising guidelines jji philosophy of of Athletics jjif management of of concussions and other hand head injuries JJ if f-r
087academic expectations during postconcussion recovery jk- expulsion guidelines jlcc communicable SL infectious disease JL CD-R medication administration on school field trips jlc first aid and emergency medical care jld dbg reintegration of students from juvenile correctional facilities jld DB g-r reintegration of students from juvenile correctional facilities administrative procedures J R student educational records and information and J R a-e annual notice of student education records and information rights second good job you got you got to write you got to list all those off when you're second you know and second has been made by Schoolboard member Truman any questions or discussions on any of the polies Madame mayor Schoolboard member of Johnson I just wanted to say that uh We've accomplished a lot in the last couple of these meetings um and it was the request of the
088committee to our assistant superintendent that we try to cover as much of the basis as we could so we move ourselves along um because this is an ongoing process always but we like to get to a certain point where we feel like we've accomplished a certain level um so a lot of these policies are policies that they msma had suggested to us were in pretty good shape and we didn't have to do a lot to examine them we did go through all of them of course and check them out but we did not do a lot of debating and trying to uh make a lot of changes on them but so I think these are all in pretty good shape but I just wanted to say that um we have made you know a stretch
089of of accomplishment here thank you thank you appreciate all the work and again the housekeeping stuff is what takes the time get the quick stuff out of the way and then focus on the larger stuff anyone else roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes and School Board member Johnson yes motion passes 70 okay that takes us to item 13 is there any additional information not seeing any item 14 there is no executive session this evening and item 15 is there a motion to adjourn so moved second motion made by Schoolboard member Truman second by School Board member Fel roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member
090Richards yes School Board member roach Here Comes Sunshine Jeremy yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes motion to adjourn passes 70 at 632 thank you everyone