001forward to hearing from you what you your thoughts about the um budget the fiscal year 27 budget um but before we start I need to say that the forum has been changed and I think to explain that to all of you I'm going to read the email that I sent to the committee this morning um I'm writing to all of you about a change in tonight's forum I was asked yesterday about the form format and decided that I needed to consult council to be clear about what constitutes a forum. What I learned is that a forum is not a regular school committee meeting. Rather, it is an opportunity for the public to provide the committee with feedback regarding an issue of importance. In this case, the fiscal year 27 budget. However, because this is not
002a school committee meeting, we as committee members may not deliberate or have discussion as I had posted. Clarifying questions from the public may be a answered, but no committee members opinion or response that invites deliberation may be made as it may lead to an open meeting law violation. And that's because we're not um we are not in a in an actual meeting. Um council advised that I have two options. One is to cancel and reschedule the forum. The second is to go ahead tonight, explain my error in posting and then proceed with receiving feedback from the community and answering questions that we can. I have chosen the latter because I think it is important for us to hear from the community now and assure them that we want their input about the budget. When we
003have the budget hearing on February 26th, I will post it to include budget committee discussion about the community feedback from tonight as well as additional information that we asked the administration to provide us at that time. Tonight, I will explain my error in posting the meeting before proceeding with the forum. I'm sorry for this change and hope that we can still achieve our goal of listening to the community and deliberating as we should. Um Margaret, is this on Arps Tube or only Zoom? >> It's both. It's on both. >> It's both. Yes. >> Um so that being said, um I need to say that this change means that because this is not a regular meeting, we are not taking public comment tonight. Um, I did receive one voicemail and I will hold that and I
004will play it at the next meeting, our next regular meeting. Um, if any of you out there were hoping to do public comment about something other than comments in the forum, I apologize for that too. And I hope that you will bring those comments to the next meeting as well. Um so the procedure for tonight is to have a presentation by Shannon Bernacia. You probably all know her by this time. Um she is the executive director of finance and operations and the director of finance. Um after the presentation we will listen to your comments. Um and uh the comment should be addressed to me. Um, if you want to speak, please click your hand icon. Um, and Megan is going to track those hands and we'll try to give everyone one turn. Um, and then
005if people have a want to speak for a second time, um, we will recognize those people. Um, so >> point of order. >> Yes. Um I just want to say that in my definition a meeting is any gathering of a quorum of a public body and we are a quorum of a public body. So we are in a meeting a school committee meeting because we are a quorum. >> No >> my understanding from the attorney general's open meeting law guidance is that members may deliberate at a properly posted meeting since tonight agenda includes committee discussion at the FY27 budget. It's my belief that deliberation would be permitted. I just wanted to publicly say that. Okay. I um I am going to say that the legal council advised me that this is not a regular committee
006meeting. I have not called the meeting into order. Um so I am going to go with what I was advised >> then it's an open meeting violation for there to be a quorum on here tonight. So if we are not calling a meeting then one of us needs to log out so you can continue the meeting. Okay. I was not advised that there could not be a quorum. I thought >> if it's a quorum, it's a meeting. >> Have I thought we could have a quorum as long as we did not call the meeting the the committee to order. If that's wrong, then would you like to log out? >> Sure. >> I will log out and Rachel, if you can please update me after the meeting, I guess um as to what's going on.
007It's recorded, William, so you can watch the recording after the meeting. >> Okay. Thank you. I'm really disappointed. >> Well, this is something that we need to clarify. Obviously, >> if there's three of us on here, it's a quorum and so then it is a school committee meeting and we would need to be called to order or we would be in violation. >> Well, I am going to go by what legal counsel told me. So >> yeah, >> if you want to log out, Rachel, I'm not logging out because I have to preside over the meeting. >> And it it's a meeting. So I I I I don't understand how we're not >> It was It's a forum, William. It is not a meeting. And it makes >> it's a meeting if there's more than
008three of us on on the call. >> I mean, that's what happens at town town meeting. You know, our we have four towns. They have to call the committee. if a committee is present. So if a committee is present then we have to call or we will be an OML violation and you did post a meeting. >> I posted a forum >> any but you posted that the school committee was going to be there and so then if we show up it is a school committee meeting. >> Okay. Well >> I'm gonna stay on the call and we'll see if there's an OML violation filed or not. >> Okie do. We will. All right. I am looking for hands. Megan, can you see hands raised? >> There are no hands raised yet. Oh, now there
009is one. >> Okay. >> Are I see her? >> Yeah. Are you Are you doing Sorry. I just want to clarify and make sure I'm doing what you need me to do properly. Was Shannon going to present first or question? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, I got a little discombobulated there. >> Um Okay. Yes. >> Um Shannon, how would you go ahead please with your presentation? >> Yes. I'm going to share my screen. Um can you see that? Okay. Could be a little bit bigger maybe if you can do that. >> Okay, that's better. Um, so I'm not going to be presenting anything new from what we saw on Monday. Um, but if there were, um, community members, parents, um, staff that were not able to watch on Monday, I was going to
010do a a quick recap of that and then, um, we could move to questions and things of that sort. Um, so posted to the meeting and to Monday's meeting was the, uh, first draft of the budget book. Um, so this is a highle view. All of the budget account lines roll up into either the salaries category or the expense accounts. Um, and down here we have a total budget for FY27 of 2.8 million. So I'm not going to go through the detail of here because the next page has more information to speak to that I think would be more helpful. Um, so in the left column here we have the FY26 budget, the current budget for this fiscal year and on the right is the proposed budget for FY27. And the column here you can
011see the differences if there's an increase or a decrease and and then I have labeled what the what the increases relate to. So, in the payroll accounts, it's mainly because of the increases in steps and colas for staff. Um, this one decrease in the student services is not that there is a reduction there. It's where we're applying the grant funds for rural aid and rural reap. Um, so no position is being removed and no staffing has changed. It's just that um the grant fund is in that line. Um, >> Shannon, do you mind just giving explanations for any acronym you're using for folks? >> Oh, just REAp as I I think is the only one you said there. >> Yep. So, it's rural REAp. And, you know, I don't remember what it is off the
012top of my head. I'm just so used to calling it that. Um, >> it's it's funding for rural schools. Maybe that's all that's relevant. I just wanted for folks to be able to follow along. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um, so rural and there's rural school aid. So there's two different ones and it is for rural 8 as you can imagine in in the title. Um actually Pelum is the only elementary district out of the three districts that we manage that receives rural reap. Um so down here at the bottom we have our expense accounts and again FY26 is here 27 and then the difference. Um so we have an increase for our regular education. Um and that is for the expenses non salary lines. Um and that's due to the curriculum uh for training and
013materials for the I Ready literacy program and the I Ready math program. um in special education. Um there was an expense that we had bud or we had budgeted funds here um in FY26 for um some student needs that student that has moved uh has actually choiced out of the district. So I'm moving those funds to other programs um to support the needs of that student that will ultimately have to pay as a choice assessment to another school. Um so other programs is for school choice assessment and um our charter school tuition that we have to pay. Um so there's an increase to the um choicing out and there's an increase for the charter tuition, but I'll talk a little bit about the charter tuition um when we get to another slide. Um, we did
014go through all of the account lines and we've made some reductions in some print materials and an increase for our copier contract and but we've also reduced some supplies and travel within the central office line. In IT, I worked in conjunction with our director of IT to determine what he has um, plans for the needs or anticipates um, IT related things for Pelum Elementary School. and we were able to decrease that by 7,000 for this year or for FY27. Um, our utilities has increased and that's just uh natural inflation and aligning more with what the actual costs that we're seeing now in FY26. Um, we're going into the second year of our transportation contract. So, we do see an increase in that as well. And then we've heard a lot about our health insurance. It
015started out as 18% that we were projecting and we it's been now finalized at 8 and a half%. So that's the the increase for our health insurance. Um and then there's other insurance like um the liability insurance and things of that sort that fall under other insurance and benefits. Um then I wanted to so the next page in the budget book I won't go through these pages. These are a little bit more detailed. um that you can take a look at and I would like to come down to um this page. So this is the information for how Pelum's budget is funded. Um so again we have the FY26 information on the left and then the FY27 information over here. So the salary information that I showed you on the previous screen and the expense
016information comes down and then we want to look at the bottom and this talks about how the the budget is supported. So we have normally we anticipate from Pelum from the town of Pelum a 2 and a half% increase over the prior year. Um however this year the town has stated that they will be level funding um all of their departments and not um providing an increase. So while the amount so we would have expected to have um 1.913 here if the budget was fully funded um and no reductions. Um then we have our separate payment for charter. So the town of Pelum is going to cover the charter tuition cost that we must pay. So it's in the budget as an expense that we'll pay, but also the town of Pelum is going to
017offset that. So that charge becomes a net wash. Then we have an increase for chapter 70, which is a significant increase. We received a significant increase last year which was extremely helpful and we're also receiving a nice increase this year as well if you compare it to what we've received in prior years. Um we also have an increase to our Medicaid revenues. Um and so we receive reimbursement for certain expenses related to Medicaid and that will also offset this budget. There is 500,000 currently applied in school choice to assist with the budget as well. And then we have the grants. Um we don't actually receive circuit breaker in Pelum. So I can remove this wording at some point. Um we only have the um rural reap and rural school aid um that's supporting the budget.
018So down here I have the target tax levy support from the town of Palum. So this number is 1.804 and that also matches the same number that we received in FY26 per the guidance of the town of Pelum. So that means that the uh deficit that we have with this budget is $109,74. Um and I'm going to bring us down to another page. So this page, if there were going to be additions to the budget or if there were going to be reductions to staffing, this is where we would typically list it. After some guidance from the school committee, um we are going to use additional school choice of 109,000 to bridge that gap and not make any reductions to this to staffing for FY27. Um and so that's the the main there um gist
019of it all. There is some information about our um FTEES for students um and whether their choice or Pelum residents and then we have our school choice funding information here as well. Um, so I guess the last thing I want to say before we move to questions is I know there was a lot of concerns uh from one of our budget meetings where we had talked about if the regional assessment increases um that that whatever the town of Pelum has to pay for that regional assessment um the town had said it would be decreased from the Pelum elementary school budget and that created a lot of confusion. Um, at the last meeting on Monday evening, John Tricky was here and he stated that that was no longer needed. So, that is really great news. Um,
020hearing that on Monday. Um, so we're not going to we won't need any further discussion around that because that's not happening anymore. Um, so with that, Margaret, I will turn it over to you and I am here to answer questions. Okay. >> Could I just give a couple of like asterists on words and people reference before people ask questions? Margaret, >> um I think Rachel, I'd like you to wait if you have a question that would clarify something for people. >> Sure. Yes, that's that's what I meant. Um Shannon, could you clarify these things? What is chapter 70 funding in as simple as you can? you maybe you can do it simpler than me. Um, and who is John Tricky? >> Yes. So, the easier question is who is John Tricky? Um, he is on
021the finance committee at the town of Palum. I don't believe he's the chair. It may he might be. >> He is. >> Oh, he is. Okay. I thought he was. Okay. So, yes, he's the chair of the finance committee for the town of Pelum. And chapter 70 in the most simplest terms is funding from the state to support the schools. That's the very simplest version. Thank you. All right. Now, um I know there was a hand up. I think it was Diana Epstein that I saw. So, that is correct. Um I'll allow her to talk. >> Okie do. Hello, Diana. >> Hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Great. Um, I have a couple questions. Do I just need to do one and then wait to see if anyone else has one? >> Uh,
022why don't you go ahead and ask? >> Okay. So, for I mean, sort of alluding to your comments in the beginning, Margaret, how is this meeting meant to be different from the committee budget hearing on the 26th of March? >> Um, it actually will be very similar. Um I the budget hearing is also not a regular school committee meeting. Um but what I will do for that meeting is post in such a way it will actually be two meetings. It will be a budget hearing and then it will be a regular school committee meeting and at the regular school committee meeting we'll be able to discuss amongst committee members the feedback that we get from all of you. We've also asked for some additional information on Monday night and are hoping to get that information
023also at that meeting. >> Okay. So, the main goal is more um feedback and not necessarily a back and forth Q&A. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um my next question was about the budget and I was wondering if someone could explain what the technology equipment tied to that 7,000 uh decrease was. And that would be a question for Shannon. >> Yes. So, I will um I'm going to pull up my notes from when I met with Jerry if you just give me one moment. Um Jerry is the director of IT for the district. And if any questions are asked tonight that um that we that either we or Shannon aren't able to answer in real time, I think we'll be able to come back by the budget hearing to share answers. >> Yes, >> precisely. So
024that was in our technology equipment line and it looks like in FY24 and FY25 we spent about 247400 and 256 $6,300. Um and in FY26 I'm assuming he planned to purchase some additional things then. Um, but making that purchase in 25 or 26, we didn't need as high an amount for FY27. And I will just go onto that account line. Um, I'm just doing this in real time so that I >> Yeah, thank you. >> Um, and look exactly what we purchase from there. Okay. I can't speak to the specifics of what this is because the items of here are really technological things that I don't know exactly what they are, but I'm I'm sure that Jerry knows exactly what they are. Um, it has to do with um Dr. WW Gator and then a
025a whole number. Um, so so I'm I'm guessing these things are specific to computers is these seem like computer parts of some sort. >> Shannon, >> yeah, >> Shannon, maybe that's something that you could get the information about and then we'll bring that back on the 26th. >> Okay. >> Those are those are usually storage storage. Rachel, I'd like to to go on with letting Diane ask her other questions. >> Okay. So that my Thank you, Shannon. The last question was um for the central admin salary and expense lines. Can you just describe a little bit about what those are or what they're funding? >> Yes. >> So the central ad administration lines are for staff that work within central office. So that would be a portion of the business office, a portion of HR,
026a portion of the superintendent's office. Um so staff are split between the three districts and the most common percentage that we use is 54% in the region, 42% in Amherst and 4% is charged to Pelum. There are some staff in central office that um are not don't have that same split and it varies based on their workload. There are some that are um 5050 Amherst and region because they don't have any involvement in Pelum. There are some staff um principles fall under um well I guess not in this case cuz this in this budget the school administration is set is separate. So uh the principal of Pelum would fall under there but it's mainly it's like the IT HR business office superintendent office. Oh, actually we also separate out it on this one. They're all
027a little different. >> Okay. >> And then for the expenses, it's just the expenses of those uh staff members. >> Um not for the staff members but for the department. So non-s salary related things. So um for instance in the business office we use the Munis accounting software. So the accounting software for the business office a portion of that is charged to Pelum. um in HR a portion of the software that they're using for their um professional learning and their recordkeeping is charged to there. Um any audits for the like a financial audit that we have um that's related to the school district also is charged to there. So a student activities audit, an end of year report audit um those are also in those lines. um legal fees. If there's any legal fees that
028Pelum pays, that's um charged within the um HR department line. Um there are some small supply lines um very small in in there as well. And that's majority of those costs. >> Great. Thank you. Uh anything else? >> No, that's all. Thank you. >> Okay. Rachel, would you like to >> Yeah, just my understanding is that we're that we are allowed to be answering um clarifying questions. Shannon and I don't have the whole list that you were starting to read out there, but it sounds like from what you were describing from um what I know those those are um those are supplies for storing things like iPads and Chromebooks. um in terms of that tax supply list. That was what I wanted to clarify. >> Thank you. Do we have any other hands? >> Not
029currently, but I will keep an eye in case someone is about to raise their hand. Uh yes, now we do. Ramos, um I'm gonna allow you to talk now. Hey everyone, can you hear me? >> Yes. Okay. Um I was wondering if um part of the sort of shared expenses with central office includes any like I guess like mutual separation agreements or like you know payouts to personnel for any legal reasons that are outside of the column sort of like scope of the environment. Um just thinking about some of the things that have have been happening that have been happening recently and whether um we are being asked to contribute to pay those. If there is a settlement for an employee of some sort, if they are a central office employee whose salary is split
030between the three districts, it would be charged to a portion of that in proportion to how much of their salary is on Pelum. Um, so if 4% of their salary is on Pelum, then 4% of what that is would also be on Pelum. >> Okay. And uh do we know if that happened? >> Um I I I want to be careful with that question. I I don't know who you might be referring to and I don't know if that we should say that in I guess Margaret would you like to >> Oh, sorry. Yeah. I'm not I'm not trying to like get names. I'm just curious like if um if maybe part of like the the budget that's sort of sharing and what we're contributing towards are um HR decisions and and if um those
031decisions are sort of brought to the attention of the school committee to like also contribute towards just because they impact us financially. Um I know that those can be kind of expensive and uh um just curious like what the impact it is what the impact of it is on the on Pelum and how you guys are involved in both positions if if you're involved at all. >> Um I I think that's something that we should check on. I don't know that that's something we can answer tonight, but I think that's something we can take back and see what we can find out that we can tell you. I can tell you just in as the the scope of the budget um that those are unfortunate circumstances that happen. Um, I don't specifically budget a a
032line item amount for that and build the budget on that. If that is a circumstance that happens during the year, then at that point is where we would how much it is, how much is this going to impact the budget. Um, and if adjustments are needed, I would go to the school committee for that. >> That makes sense. All right. Sorry if my question was very specific, but I'm just curious. Um, >> anything else? >> Uh, if I have the floor. Um, sure. Um, I was wondering if uh we benefit from any vacancy savings when our um positions are left vacant. We get to benefit from say like not having an a music teacher for a while. There was vacancy savings from not having a music teacher for a while. if that is a positive
033impact on the budget or if that's not considered. >> Yes. So, if there's a position open and we're waiting to fill it, um then that means there's we're not spending the money out of that budget line. So, if somewhere else in the budget um we were spending higher than we anticipated, those savings can offset it. Um, if we get to the point at the end of the year where we might be under budget because we for some reason there was many staff that were out in unfilled positions, it it doesn't happen so often in Pelum because it's so small. Um, but then that at the end of the year could allow us to use less school choice money than we planned, saving more for a future year in most cases. >> Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Thanks.
034>> Okay. Um, have we got someone else out there? >> Not yet. But similarly, I'll watch to see if a hand comes up. >> Okay. We like to hear from you. It doesn't have to be just questions. It could be observations or comments as well about the fiscal year 27 budget. I will just add I mean given that um there are no hands raised um in terms of um advocating at the state level advocation towards rural school aid would be tremendous help to POE. Um, so if there's one thing that you're going to support, um, as the the at the state level we move through the budget process, I would just encourage you all to consider advocating for rural school aid money and an increase to that. >> Thank you, Shannon. >> Well, hi, William.
035Yeah, before it sounds like we're going to be wrapping up soon, I just need to say something about the process tonight. This event was posted as a public palum school committee meeting. The agenda concludes committee discussion and feedback on FY27 budget. We have a quorum of committee members present. There's actually four of us and members of the public have taken time to participate expecting a meeting of their elected body. I find it very concerning that the meeting has not been called to order despite these conditions. Not calling the meeting to order prevents committee members from participating in the discussion of that agenda itself that says it will occur. I believe that undermines the transparency and the public expectation of their elected committee will actually engage with them. I respectfully believe the appropriate course would be
036to call the meeting to order and then proceed with their posted agenda. >> Thank you, William. Anyone else? Yes, I see another hand. Lori Regozen, >> you should be allowed to speak now. >> Okay. All right. Lori. >> Hello. Yes, Roy. Her her husband. >> Oh, hi Roy. >> Hey. Hi. I just wanted to observe from what you said at the opening, the legal advice was that for a forum, the members of the committee cannot deliberate. If there's no deliberation, I'm not sure there's a violation of anything. >> Thank you for your comment. Um, anybody else? All right. Well, then I believe that we are finished for tonight. Um, >> Margaret, there is one more. Someone else raised their hand. >> Nicholas. Nick, >> you should be allowed to speak now. Nick, >> hi. Thank
037you. Um, I sorry I I logged in late, so I'm not sure if anybody answered this question already, but there was some information that was um put out about um uh numbers associated with the um expenses for students just at Pelum versus having expenses for students uh living in Pelum and um choice in students. And then I think I didn't I didn't see and I think there was some question as to whether there was a number that we would come up with if or that could be come up with that had to do with if we had to if the school were closed how much Pelum would have to spend to send their students to Amherst. Um, I think that maybe that's another piece of the piece of the puzzle here in terms of um,
038everybody thinking about numbers. >> Nick, I think that that's that is certainly a question that has come up, but I think it's not a question for tonight because it's not specifically part of the fiscal year 27 budget. That's something that I I'm sure is going to be part of the conversation that will and the research that will be going on with the select board committee that's been set up. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Okay. All right. Going to give it a couple more minutes and see if anybody puts their hand up. I don't see any. All right. Well, I want to thank Shannon for um >> Roy put his hand up again, Margaret. Sorry. I I hate to interrupt you. Hi, Roy. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh I I want to
039take a risk and and maybe I just misunderstood, but from the opening discussion, it seems to me like we're in pretty good shape for 2027. >> Um I guess I I'll respond to that. Um we have not Yes. Uh the administration took into consideration the recommendations that the committee made to them. Uh not combining the cla the classrooms. Um not sending sixth graders to Ammerst. Um I'm trying to think there were five or six things. Um using school choice to bridge the deficit. Um couple of other things. So we are losing we are losing no personnel in Pelum. Um which is a really great thing Shannon or you want to make any observations about that? Um, I think you said it well. That kind of recapped where we are and how how we got or
040how we why we presented this the way that we did um at the committee's recommendation. >> Okay. All right, >> Margaret. >> Yes. I I without voicing any opinion, I just want to make sure it's clear that the way that Pelum Elementary is is keeping all the positions as it stands is is tapping into that choice revolving fund in a more significant way than ever before um for for our for this district. Um just to be crystal clear for folks listening. >> Thank you. Okay, >> Matteo's hand is back up again. >> Okay, Matteo should be able to speak. >> Hi, thanks. um you might have got over this and if you if you did I'm really sorry but how much is going to be left after this budget um in that revolving fund and
041how long would you be able to maintain this level of of draw from that fund? Um so I was just going to quickly share my screen on this um sheet you have the um this says planned or projected in this column but everything up to FY25 is the actual amount of school choice that has been applied and if there's been anything additional during the years um it falls in this column. So, under ending balance of FY25, we had $1,31,000. Um, we're projected to use $500,000 in school choice this year. Um, and then we're projected to use 500,000 in FY27 with an additional um 109 to bridge the gap, which would leave our balance at 929,000. assuming that we received the projected amount of revenue for school choice in FY27. I will tell you not to
042be confusing um but it's likely in FY26 we will have to use um more school choice funds because we have a student that choiced into the district but then had an out of district placement and that's quite costly. Um but because that was a choice in student their sending district will be reimbursing us. So hopefully or it will be a net wash but we will be requesting in Q3 or Q4 additional funds for that. Um but we will also receive more than we projected in FY26 because of it. Um so I hope that answers your question. >> Yeah that does. And um what's the methodology around determining the the incoming funds? Um your projections are based on projected enrollments for school choice. >> Um we do an average an average of five years. Um and
043that's how we come up with the 67 and then we do the um obviously it's 5,000 per student in here. So, um it's mainly averages and looking at the trends um for the past few years. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> All right. Um I think that we will end the forum for tonight. I want to thank everybody for being here and um we will hopefully see you again on the 26th when we actually have our budget hearing. And just a reminder that the vote on the budget will take place on April 7th at our regular school committee meeting, regularly scheduled school committee meeting. So, thank you all for being here. Thank you Seth and Megan for all your behind thescenes work. And thank you, Shannon, for your work on the budget and your presentation
044tonight and all the answers you've provided for