001All right. I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Hamptons United School Board. I'll rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Hello everyone. Like to thank everybody for coming in on on an off day and squeezing this into your schedules. Um we are going to begin by asking if there is anyone who has public comment on agenda items. >> Do you want to say anything now, Mark, or are you just going to listen? It's okay either way. >> Right. I I uh I just uh well, you know, the letter I sent is basically all I had. >> That's fine. I just was checking
002while while we have public comment during the meeting. Okay. So, seeing none, uh we will table the rest of our public comment time to the end of our meeting and we only have one item on the agenda today which is amendments to default budget and one article one and we are going to just let Mariah and potentially Dr. Costa talk about that. >> Can we start? >> It's up to you. >> I can start. So, so as somebody who has been in the district for a while, um, and has known Mariah for 15 years and, um, somebody who takes this position very seriously, as you know, um, formerly h was the principal, the assistant principal at Mars School and now entering year six as a superintendent. Um you might notice that my office is situated
003in between the business administrator and the people service director and that is intentionally um given that the oversight of both departments are pretty pretty critical to the work that we do every day. Um I have known Mariah now for 15 years and I have seen her um be very instrumental in the SA90 um office when she was the accounts payable person. She had a big hand with Nathan Lenny. I know that firsthand as somebody who was a principal here at Marsden school. um in my six years I've seen her grow exponentially um with her work and duty and how she is um conscientious, how she dots every eye, crosses every tea, it is just the nature of our work. In fact, we we tend to be um probably we go overboard with how careful we
004are. We do work countless hours. you you'll see our cars here odd hours but you'll als what you don't know is we are also we work home like on Monday working at home I work at home I work even when I'm not here we are always on call we are in service to this district so when I just want to make this comment that I stand behind the budget that we did present at the hearing and to the town and I do that knowing that we operate in the gray. It is the nature of our work. It's the work that we do. And people can challenge us on different things and depending on who you ask, including our own legal counsel, they would say to us, "This is a great issue and it depends." So
005when you put a budget together like we do as you know as we sat in here for countless hours. First we sat with our leadership team then we sat with the board and we did go page by page by page and we talk about every line item um extensively and we talk about where can we cost save where do we need to add based on on spending. We try to make adjustments. We have a very bare bones budget. I'm just going to say this right up front. We we have a very barebones budget when um what you see is exactly what we have and what we don't spend goes back to the community and you've seen that time and time and again that we do we give back to the town. Um so I just
006want to start by saying that we put this budget together very conscientiously. I stand behind the work that we did. I stand behind this budget. Um I appreciate the questions. I do because it makes us all think more deeply about the work we do. It makes us reflect a little bit more. So I appreciate um feedback from the community. It's always helpful to know where people stand. So today, as Mariah is going to go in a little bit deeper into the budget and she's going to talk about some of those gray areas, I want to just be very clear about it. The budget is bareboned. And when we take away something, there could be devastating consequences to a default. I just caution you. We know that things in a default have gray area items which
007you will talk about, but we did it based on how we've been guided legally, what we have historically done, and we've done it with um the best of intentions for the students of Hampton. So, with that, I'm going to pass it over to Mariah, and she's going to walk you through some of those gray areas. and we have some things to talk about. >> Yeah. So again, thank you. Um again, I am not by any means one perfect. I um put my whole heart into this job and then some. And this the budget piece isn't my only job. I do have multiple jobs in the district. So um it becomes is it's this is a big part. So, um, I just want to one start with last year's warrant articles and kind of guide you
008into completely understanding what our general fund is this year and why it becomes the default and um, and try to make it a little clearer because I know it can be complicated. Um, so last year's Warren article number one was approved and the voters approved it at 29,766,431. So that's article number one and um I do have that on the back of the sheet so you can kind of look through that. Then we go to warrant article 2 which is um so last year we had agreements. We had the teacher agreement and the pair agreement up. Um and warrant article 2 was the collective bargaining for the teachers. And what happens with that is in September of 2324, the lawyers and the union and all of us get together and they come up with a
009salary schedule for a year or multiple years and um they agree on rates, they agree on health insurance changes, they agree on um longevity changes, they could agree on multiple things. Um, so it was finalized and um, when we put it on the warrant article, the lawyers in the union agree on what those numbers are. So it's 2023 24 employees at that time where they're at and then the approved salary schedule for 2526. So 2425 um 23 24 salaries would be in the default budget of my warrant article 1 but any increases on that article 2 is in article 2. So they it was um passed to have a salary schedule for 25 26 26 27 2728 25. So when teachers get an increase every year it's a salary schedule change and then a step
010down. So I would have to take we took 2324 salaries at that time for 2526 gave them the new salary schedule and brought them a step down and that's how they come up with the salaries for 2526 and then you put FICA Medicare retirement all the benefits that go with that on that. Same with health insurance. At that time, there were no health insurance increases for 2526 and it was all in the default in the war article. So in 2526, it was just salaries. So then you would go to 2627 and you would do the same thing. You would take the proposed salary schedule for 2627 increases. take the positions that now had gone down a step and in a salary schedule from 25 26, move that over, take them down a step and you
011increase their salaries. So it's almost it goes stacked, stack stacked, right? And then you have to figure out the benefits and everything. So you do it at what you know for the time. So usually in New Hampshire retirement will give you a 2 to threeyear window of what their rate will be. Usually you know that. So we could figure out FICA if it doesn't change. New Hampshire retirement and benefits at the time which wouldn't change. So there's no benefits in there because we don't know the change. Then you do the same thing for the third year. So I would have to then take the 29,766,431 and add the increase of salaries that were raised and appropriated for 2526 and put that in with my general fund. So then I would do the same exact thing
012with article 3 with parents. So it would be article one, article two, article three comes up with a new fund balance which is 30,636,91. So that I have to report to the department of revenue and the department of ed as my this year's general fund which then in turn starts how I do the budget process for 2627. So I start with that number and then we do what we would do to estimate teachers and paras. So I have to take their salaries as of September at the rates that they are today take that new salary schedule move it to that and then take the teachers a step down. then do New Hampshire retirement, do insuranceances, do all of that. Um, and that's where I put what would go in my default. Now, on the warrant
013articles, they're guesstimated because they were from employees in 2324. Multiple things changed. We have retirees. We have um people that leave. We have people that change um from a bachelor's to a bachelor's plus 15 or bachelor's plus 15 to a bachelor's plus 30. We have um all of those items that could change their salary schedule, their budget for the teachers. So I do that both for the teachers union and the parent union. So with that said, um that's how I get that starting number. And then if you look, I took that starting the starting number and I added the estimated increases that were on the warrant article as estimated ones and gave us a new kind of estimated um default budget. After that, that estimated default, I'm going to give you that number so that
014you have that. It's $31,595,896. So that is default plus the estimated warrant article 2 and the estimated warrant article 3 for 20 627. So then we took that and we went through the budget and we adjusted all the teachers, all the unions, all the salaries, anything that we needed to do did proposed. Um the question was why that the question entitled that the default changes really are not 1,118981. It's that's the total. Yes. Um the the um estimated is a little different but we get to size right. So samronization is we can change the salaries for the teachers that we have at that time to match their contracted rate and that's what we did. So going through the budget, I wanted to look at anything that did not make sense, that could be gray, that
015could be questioned, that stood out. Um, I double checked the teacher salaries, double checked the Paris salaries. Nothing stood out. They were asis. Um, so then I went to the non-union salaries and I had um put in a credit of non-union salaries for $1,828 because I wanted to um help the default budget at the time. Um, but there's so many questions on those line items about contracts of going in and going out that um I removed that credit of non-union salaries and left it as um default. So, I took the original default budget, put back all of the adjustments for non-union salaries, and then I went again and looked deeper, and I found that we had um a $3,500 docu sign for special ed department for IEPs and Medicare in there in default. and um
016a special ed item. We are by law supposed to put special ed items in there. However, it's part technology and it's not a service and again so to me I could probably argue it but it's gray. So I removed that. Um, and then they I I kept looking and I we had um put in default $8,000 for Plaza and Sanders for the auditors. There's an RSA198 that um colon 4 that tells us that we need to by law have an audit and um HB121 and HB1 1823 is now telling us that we have to have hasn't been approved yet but the audit within 3 months if that passes and um so by law we need to have it we have put it in default um but again it's gray area so I took that $8,000
017out. Um the other item that I had taken out was um liability insurance that was 7,469. Um again, it was a very gray area gray area. Um it could have I I could argue it, but again, I'm trying to be responsible and respectful, so I am trying to get this lowered for us. So, I removed it and put it into proposed. So, that really only comes out to being about $20,000. And I looked at it and I was like, I can't justify that little money to do all this work to amend the default budget. So, I dug even deeper and deeper and talked to legal quite a bit about this back and forth. And um the only other thing I could really look at was benefits. So I dug through the benefits and dug through
018the benefits and um there were a couple gray areas that I could probably fight against, but they're personnel issues and I cannot talk about them and to to um leave them in there. Again, it's gray. And to be respectful, I and and not just to change 20 to to do all this work for $20,000. I adjusted those items and it that came to 67,000. It's in green, so I can't see. $439. >> So, my total adjustments for the default budget was $84,580. Can I can I clarify that? So that would be if you um take out the benefits, take out the liability insurance, take out the um the work with plots and Sanderson around our audit, which we're required to do, take out Docu Sign for special ed IEPs, and take out >> and put
019back in all non-union in salaries because I had a credit in there and I do not have to leave the credit in there. I by law I go by default. >> I guess my question is is how comfortable is the board with taking out >> I think we actually I will say I think I think we jumped ahead a little bit. I'm going to sort >> a little bit which is I think we should clarify particularly for the public since we are recording this in 11 minutes >> which is that the default budget was done set it's been voted on by the school board. Um we did receive a letter from a conservative member of the community who also happens to be our town moderator who's with us today um questioning items that he did
020not believe were appropriately in our default budget. we felt they more appropriately should be in the proposed budget. Um Mora Mora, as if I've never met her, Mariah um went back basically line by line addressed all of the concerns that were raised. Um she did discuss all of these issues with um our our attorney in his office. Um, and I think the general feeling is that we can stand by the budget. I don't think there was anything that you came up with that was glaring that was like that's a huge mistake. I should not have left. >> There are very gray areas. Um, >> and so it will be up to us to decide. I feel if it's going to become an issue sometimes the fight for that much money is not worth the fight.
021>> Sure. >> Um they're very gray areas. There's the benefit one. I like I said I did not want to change this budget for $20,000. I think that's ridiculous. So, I really really really dug into the benefits because that's the one of the biggest expense expenditures, right? And um >> I'm going to recommend that >> I we take a minute and go into non-public. >> Yep. >> And I feel bad Mark, we need you to step out for a couple minutes, but >> Well, can I explain finish this? >> Sure. I'm sorry. Of course. I didn't mean to sort of interrupt your whole thing. um to clarify what I want to discuss in non-public is simply this issue with the benefits and we'd like for Mariah to be able to explain it but it is
022a personnel issue correct and I'd like the rest of the board to understand the details of it but that's not something we can talk about publicly >> no I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt >> HR issues and it could >> it's gray yep >> it's very gray >> um >> okay so why don't you >> so Then again, I don't want to do it for just $20,000. So, if I'm going to go with all gray items, I'm going to go all gray items, right? Like, and be respectful. Um, so really once that once I amend all that, the difference of what was estimated on this warrant article for my default and what the actual amended default is, the difference would be $159,986. Um, I think I think Mark or and some members were a
023little confused about how how article 2 and article three become part of my fund balance, right? And that makes it look like I'm a million dollars off. And and it's that's scary because I don't I'm NOT A MILLION DOLLARS OFF. And I saw that email and I'm like I really need to I think explain that better because that is a very confusing thing and the samaranization and um how to pull that things out. But again it's I understand this a lot of money and we we really need to work as a community. So I want to now if we do those amendments explain to you what the new default changes would be. Right. So, we would now have a default of $31,755,882. And those um and the default changes would be1,18,981. And I want to
024explain what those changes would be. So $489,548 of it are teacher agreement salaries that new salary schedule with that gets attached to their position and then each position gets a step down and um the FICA and all of the it's the FICA and stuff's not included in this one. Um that's benefits and then I do the same thing with the pair agreement. So the par agreement is all the salaries associated with PAR agreement services is $30,954 again where they are now the new salary increases on their salary schedule step down um transportation $82,118 and then benefits. So benefits is health insurance increases, um, percentage changes on their contract, FICA, Medicare, New Hampshire retirement, workers comp, and and so forth for the benefits. That comes to >> $495,376. >> And then um an increase of the
025academy bond. that's um it's switches for principal and interest. So our principal goes up, our interest goes down, and that's um $20,985. So that totals an adjustment of $1,1181. Um, again, if I take what was already approved last year with our default and put the estimated article 2 and estimated article 3 in there and then take what our amended default is, the difference is truly only $159,000 986. Um, you just don't see that because Um I people would have to understand that they they truly need to go back and look what they voted on and that know that they are um synchronized estimates and that we can take that and correct it with all the payroll adjustments because these were synronized at um the year of 23 24 and there's been a lot of changes
026since then. Does that help at all? >> I have a I have a question about the auditors. >> Didn't you say that legally we have to have that? Isn't there Yes, there's an RSA by law. We have to have an audit every year >> and a stance. So, how can you just eliminate that $8,000? >> Because it's a gray area. >> Can I ask what's the argument in favor of taking it off? I mean, I agree. We're required by law to do this. >> We're require I've ne So, here's the thing. Um, this is the first year in um the five years that I've been in the seat that the auditor's rate has gone up. The auditor's rates have gone up because one, they have to audit so much. I was just audited today for
027our grants and so I have to do a normal audit and I have to do a grant audit and um and they don't have the employees and all their rates have gone up and and so our rates for the first time in the seat have gone up and um I by RSA said let's we have to do it. It should be in default. So talked to the lawyer about it and he goes, "Absolutely, Mariah." But but nobody has taken that one to court yet. So we don't know how that would land. >> Roll the dice and hope that we don't need that 8,000. >> Oh, essentially. >> Essentially, he said he he did the liability insurance too. >> I did say go ahead, >> right? that you you put your best effort into this, right?
028You put your best effort, you want it, you it's a default budget is RSA 413, whatever. And it's the amount of the same appropriations contained in the operate bing authorized by the previous year reduced and increased as the case may be by debt services contracts other obligations previously incurred and mandated by law and reduce one time by expenditures contained to the operating budget and by salaries and benefits and positions and whatever. So, it's gray because by law I have to do it and I have a contract because and I want to keep my contract because the new law coming up is I have to be audited within 3 months and my audit is July the last week of July and I had to fight really hard to get that and it's really hard for me
029to get that date because um it's just me in the office and so I have June from June 30th to the end of July to get all my numbers in and get all the audit ready and have it done. So, I don't have a vacation. But, I'm okay with that because I want to I want to be audited. I want to have that audit. I want to have it clean so that when I have to do the DOE2 that's due in September that I've already been audited, I've been proven and I can do my DOE 25 accurately. Um and and and the new laws if they pass, if I don't have the audit done and completed within three months, they can find us. They could find us. They could come and take my job, they
030could multiple things. And I worked too hard to to But anyway, so it's a gray area. Yes. Do we have to have it by law? Yes. But it's not been ever it's not been in the books as a res as an issue and fought before. So it becomes a gray area. >> I think what happens is we have to have the audit. We're going to have the audit. >> Whether the money is in default or whether the money audit >> is in is in proposed is going to happen one way or the other. >> If the budget fails, the audit still happens. the $8,000 comes from somewhere else. >> That is the short that it is true for everything. >> Same with liability as well. We cannot default liability insurance. That's just >> anything that
031is moved out of default. Correct. That's we would if it is something that is required by law >> then we would simply have to find we would have to find another way to pay for it. >> So the thing with our budget it is um it's not line item it's bottom based budget once it's voted on. But I really try not to do that. I I if you notice when we went through the budget, I overstate my lines. If they're overstated, I understate the other ones. I don't move things because I want to be very like this is what we spent it on and then let's correct it for the next year, right? Um some districts don't do that. And the other thing is because it's bottom based, some some people put extra money in
032special education because they're afraid that there's um ins and outs. There's so ins and outs of special education and we don't do that here and we we have a retainage in case that does happen so that we don't have to pad the budget, right? But some districts have the advantage of that because then it becomes bottom based and if they don't have that student come in that they extra budgeted for they can utilize that money. We don't do that here. >> So we're rolling the dice on. >> So we're rolling the dice. >> So hoping that >> but we're also adding those RBT positions which >> which was a proposed >> cover that as well as part of it. >> Right. like that was the goal to propose two positions in so that we can
033keep our students in house um instead of having them >> but again if you can't something happens >> 150 to $200,000 >> by law I have to yes >> just so people understand that >> you are rolling the dice on all of these things and hoping that they don't happen or hoping that we don't need the money >> I got to tell you putting a bud default budget together on hope and a prayer is very risky. >> And I I understand why we have a default bud budget. I understand that. I understand why we have to um size because we have union agreements. I understand that. That's great. Um I understand that um we have to prove out our contracts. We have to prove out certain items. Um and we have have by law. I
034I agree with it. We we we need guidelines. We shouldn't just be throwing things in default. I agree with that. >> But we never have. And I really try to >> at least not in the last 15 years. >> But again, like I said, if >> I don't want to just willy-nilly I and I'm not going to just do it for a little amount of money, if we are going to really focus and do something respectively because it was requested or looked at because requested, I don't want to just do $20,000. I really am going to do everything that's gray. >> I just I feel like what I'm getting from all of this is that these are items. Yes, they might not happen, but they're probably all going to happen. And from a budgeting standpoint,
035yeah, we could whack away at all the gray areas and bring drive down the budget as much as we can, but if it's going to happen anyways, I don't think that's prudent or responsible. if it's a gray area and we know we're going to have these fees, it just concerns me. It just does not sound responsible for our students, for our community, for our town. Um, I totally agree with both of you. My question is the concern that we received from a community member of members. Is it over what we're talking about here or is it because of a misunderstanding of the calculation that's off by a million dollars? Cuz those are two different things. That is >> the the discussed it but that is my gut. >> I mean >> if if the calculation
036and the concept of my default budget >> and and because it does I mean a million dollars looks like a lot over default. But I think people forget that we've already voted on an estimated amount and that the previously voted on money becomes part of my default because we have to pay those salaries and we have to pay those salaries again the following year and then we have to add salaries on top of it because we promised them another contract. So it's three years stacked of salaries that are going to end up in that default budget and and that was approved by voters. And so to be very clear, this is not an underestimation of a million plus dollars. The the best you could do digging to find anything that might be gray was 151,000
037total. Like that's that's >> 84 84,000 >> and and we're going to we're going to go into non-public because we need to discuss that $67,000 >> which is the bulk of it. >> Yeah. >> But again, I if we're going to do grays, I want to do all grays. That's the only thing cuz it's not worth >> this criticism of you. I just I want to make sure the public is aware of like we are not talking about an underestimation of a million plus dollars where really it's just these numbers here. >> I mean it is a so Mariah and I went through it because I >> it's a letter and it was very confusing and it took me several tries but essentially where we end up with on our our default budget this year
038if you take so this is last year's warrant. So if you look at it, it is this 297 which was our proposed plus 707,000 y >> plus 786,000 y >> plus 163 y + 172. There are some other smaller pieces but that is I would say 98% of our our default for this year and I think personally the confusion because it was and I say that because it was my confusion was the 786 the 2627 and the 172 the pairs uh 2627 but it was stacking all of 707 to 786 is not an increase of 69,000. It is an additional increase of $786,000. And I wondered if that was what some of the confusion was. So, >> let's take Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, but I just want like it was it was presented and you
039do your due diligence because I take my job seriously and um I just want to do what's right. >> Yeah. >> I'd like to call Senate nonpublic. I'd like So you can explain to the rest of the board the $67,000. That should only take a couple minutes. Mark, if you can just kind of hang out right there. We're going to tech we're going to officially call it and not public. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> I'm I'm satisfied. >> Okay. Uh, I've learned a lot. >> Great. >> And I apologize if I've created all this confusion, but I'm satisfied that you're on top of it. >> We 100% are. We appreciate it, though. There's There's nothing wrong with >> members of the public taking a Okay. And I would um >> I apologize for my confusion.
040>> No problem. That's okay. And and Mark, I would like to invite you next year during budget season to come sit with me because I do have quite a few people that come and spend like an hour with me or not more and we go through every line. Like I actually sit with them and explain items because it's important to have multiple people understand what we what's out there. Like they don't get to see this like the the town does. they don't get to see the detail that I go through. Um, but I have um Jerry >> and a few other people that >> I don't know if you knew N Silvaic or Jerry Zenoi. They would they would come in in the summer and we would sit down with them because they wanted to
041understand it, right? Um, and so in the summertime we all have a little more time minus the audit. Um, but we do we can sit down and we can walk you through it so you can have a clear understanding of all the pieces that go into it so we can show it to you. It it might be helpful and then you become the person that can explain it to other people who may have the confusion because we really do operate in complete transparency. We have to uh we have to be law, you know, and we're small. So we we welcome the questions. it it allows us to know it um more clearly and maybe to help to better explain it. But if you do want to come in, we we are we're open to conversation.
042>> I also do want to explain my BSB. >> I couldn't get it to print. I had to call the state and work with them to get my backup to print. Um I actually had to do it manually this year because I couldn't get it to print. So that completely was on me just I am sorry about that. But I did get it um to corrected and I posted it prior to the storm. Um and uh if again if there's any questions that you want to dig deeper on, please feel free to come and chat. >> I will. I appreciate it. >> Thanks. >> Thank you for coming in. >> Good luck tomorrow. >> We're going to consider that our public public comment on agenda items. Um, let's take a minute for non-public just so
043that low that that Mariah can explain. I'll let >> We're gonna call under RSA 91- A 32 and um we will figure out of nonpublic. Okay. Um, I think after all of those discussions, I'm going to echo what Dr. Costa said earlier, which is that the school board stands behind our budget. We feel that it is accurate. We feel it is well prepared. We feel that Mariah did a great job and that the issues that were addressed today were more a matter of misunderstanding and not a matter of actual um errors in the default budget. the community member who raised those issues is satisfied. I said he no longer um has any concerns. Um and I felt did not think the default budget needed to be changed. So if anyone would like to make a
044motion to change the default budget, you are welcome to. I am not going to and don't plan to support. Seeing none, I vote our our business is concluded. Would anybody like to make a motion to make >> to adjurnn? All right. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor? >> All right. We're done. We're done.