Budget Subcommittee Meeting

001okay oh she didn't hear i guess all right um uh seeing the presence of a quorum i'm calling to order the budgets when finance subcommittee of the amherst regional public school committee at 6 33 pm on tuesday october 19th um please we'll do a roll call um to see who's here um so we'll start with heather lord president carrie carrier president and margaret present and we also have um dr slaughter with us tonight um all right uh we don't have minutes um [Music] we don't have any public comments um so i guess we'll jump right into the agenda and i the first thing on the agenda is is the fact well the three items just real quick the three items are fact or facts um a possibility of a of a meeting with the four

002towns before we start talking about money just to see where they are in terms of their own town stuff and maybe what they would like to see from us in terms of budget and then the third thing is a public forum so we'll start with the fact um and i i received no suggestion for questions um i have talked with dr slaughter some thumb and we've talked in our retreat about some of the things that we think people might want to know so i think at this point dr slaughter do you have anything that you would like to tell us you had indicated you might start working on this well yes i sort of have uh in a way um i think there's a number of these kinds of documents around um i'm pretty sure

003that masbo which is the business officials organization probably has some um i know the massachusetts association school committees has some i'm sure mars which is the regional school committees has some so you know what i'm going to do is i've asked one of my staff to to kind of go and uh troll the uh the internet as it were for for uh existing documents that we can kind of leverage because i don't want to reinvent the wheel here but i think there's a number of good things that way that we'll we'll use i've seen some of them over time but i haven't seen them recently and then i think the key is going to be um you know sort of definitely leveraging the the existing um um you know questions and and and structures that

004people put together you know in trying to explain this and then you know tailoring it and editing it to our specific circumstances and uh so you know some of the things i think of in the in the you know an faq is really the broad stuff that absolutely is true whether it's a regional school or not um you know that might be some section in some of the regional stuff um from the town stuff but i think there's a bunch of stuff that that uh we can touch on that it's really true to anybody any school district massachusetts so we'll want to make sure to have that in place um you know i think that the trickiest thing with something like this is and is you can get pretty lengthy pretty quick uh how to

005structure it in a way that makes it easy for people to kind of get to and find uh what they're looking for um so if they have some knowledge and kind of skip over some things but if they need to look into some more detail then they can do that so some of us about how we structure the presentation that sort of thing um and i think the other question i have i mean you know so we we're beginning work on that um it's as usual with things you try to get started and something comes in hijacks your time but but uh um but i i think if there are any particular topics that you that any of you want or that you know of that people are interested in and wanting to have in

006in this kind of a a format um you know please make sure to send us along so we don't miss those things or or emphasize certain things if there's certain things you want to emphasize that'd be pretty pretty important terry so um so sounds great and i'm sorry margaret for not sending off questions but i having been on the committee and getting questions from folks just directly as a people know about school community i think some of the things that keep coming up are you know why is her pupil cost so high so i think one of the things that might be useful is to talk a little bit about um the makeup of the amherst like not just about the budget but like who are the students that we're serving and how that might

007compare in some ways to the students that we're serving um you know so i think they're you know one thing that changes our costs our students and one thing that changes our costs are the services that we're providing i don't know if there's i know desi has good data that we might be able to should you know compare our district to some others it feels like a funny thing to put in a fact because it's not like our student population is not necessarily you know part of the budget documents always but i think it drives some of this stuff so putting it in the faq might might be useful and talking about some of the services maybe that we choose to provide because they align with our district's values and because they're mandated by um

008the states but i i don't or linking to stuff rather than actually putting it in the fact but i think that's one of the questions i get the most and it's sometimes hard to and the other thing is like enrollment trends over time and how they intersect with the budget and also things like i'm sure you're gonna have the charter school piece in there and have what you know the funding impact of kind of these things that are outside of our control yeah another thing is that along with uh the enrollment is the um state funding the trend in state funding and other associate yeah yeah okay i definitely i mean i think that in in regard to the couple of comments that you guys have made you know i think uh you know there's

009sort of fundamentals of budget that go into it but then there could be things that are fundamental to our budget so you know two of the things that are like on per people that really drive our costs are our class size and we have a policy relative to that and we have um and there's and i think there's state data it's not always the best to look at it's a little you know it's misleading because you know you get certain classes and they have like three or four kids in them because they're super specialized um and so you can have you know an average class size of like 12 you know and i think if i remember from looking at i think like our average class size or something it's some weird number like 12

010or 15 for regional schools the reality is is that obviously our class is much larger than that most of them are that most kids attend but there's enough of them that have you know technically three or four because of a particular need or you know sophistication you know that the average gets kind of weird in that regard but at the same time that's true of every district so um that's that's a useful thing to show is is that by virtue of our choices around some class size um and then the the other thing is just you know we can also how we staff because one of the real drivers of us is how we staff things we have as as para educators is much larger number than most other districts and so um that's uh

011you know something we can include as well and and i i see those details getting a little further down the document just because that's you're more specific um uh but nonetheless you know very very useful sort of stuff um um i think one of the things i've been thinking about you know and is also sort of you know you know if we could build and i think this will take a this is a longer project but it's sort of playing in my mind at the same time is you know how do you build things that that uh sort of lay it out in some in somewhat of a visual way but then have ways to sort of allow people to drill down into more detail if they choose to but not if they don't want

012to um so i think that's you know that ultimately as far as like a website section that has stuff about the budget on it that could be useful in that way it could be just an instructive way for people to kind of get up to speed on things and sort of see some detail and then you know maybe ultimately branch into more specifics about our specific district budgets but um but nonetheless i think some some some faq on trends and state you know in state funding trends in in ways to compare ourselves to to other districts um you know class size being one and and number of staff you know by type because those really you know like we said before you know when you have this is from pretty much any sort of public

013entity 80 to 85 percent of most um you know public entities costs are the people that they have and the benefits for those people and so if you have more people it costs more and you know it's sort of as simple as that i mean it's overly simplistic in some respects but you know um that that really drives the primary things i mean you know the stuff that um and that's the hard thing when you want to reduce like a per pupil is that you then have to look at well which people are we going to get rid of because that's really what boils down to there's not there's not that much wiggle room in in the other parts of the budget we've talked about that that's also kind of thing under under this that

014people mentioned is is um is you know one of the the requirements um you know the the things that don't have um a lot of wiggle room uh as far as what you're required to do um and sometimes it's you know you can sort of state what those are but it's hard to understand sort of or hard to you know capture well i think um how significant those are or not because they vary every year it depends on you know kids are and that sort of thing but certain compulsory things we have to do um we have to transport the kids we have to provide you know pre-appropriate public education which has very much broad term but but really gets to you know the heart of what special education costs are and the needs we

015have to meet there um you know gonna heat the buildings turn the lights you know those things and you know so we try to shrink those as much as we can but but those start to really um you know there's not a lot of wiggle there so it's really around when it gets down to the sort of nitty-gritty it's about how many people do we have and and what programs do we have which dictate how many people we need and and and some of those things you know i was thinking about this a little bit today there's some some of those staff you know you can't shrink it's like you know you need a certain number of bus drivers a certain number of custodians you just can't do the the fundamentals of you know keeping

016buildings open and getting kids to school with less than that so those people you know that part of the budget's kind of uh also inflexible to very much change relative to uh how many staff you have so those are other things that you know how well to sort of put that into into a an faq is is gonna be you know the the work is how to how to do that in a way that's uh meaningful and concise i think because you know this can get really really long really really quickly um i think though what you said about um sort of the broad the broad things that really apply to everybody you know we really need to have those things in there um uh i think also something well you i mean you're talking

017about it but you know where we have options and where we don't have options um because i think people don't understand how much of our budget is about people and benefits and um those are the less flexible things so doug i hate to ask but um i i think you know we would like to get this out sooner rather than later and have a chance for the for the whole committee to review it too so i don't know is there any possibility of having this ready for our next meeting which is a week from tonight or at least a draft maybe for people to look at alison i was just gonna ask if um i wonder how much of this we needs to be created the new or if there's examples of from other districts

018that you know we copy and paste or adapt um i can't think of i always go and look at the budget presentations from worcester but i don't recall if they also had an faq or something like that but i wonder if there's other models that might make it more of an editing and adapting exercise as opposed to creating from scratch yeah so before you joined i gave you really to that uh so i asked one of my staff to do a little bit of that i think that masc mars mars um potentially even the map you know the massachusetts uh business officials organization any and all of those have some pieces of that so i think we can kind of accumulate those and help um so i i think that next week would be a

019little quick and i also my understanding is the agenda for next tuesday is pretty full okay so i think that you know the the next meeting after that is is what day in november the 9th the 9th um uh that's that's a much more you know likely and it'll be fairly polished at that point so i i what we may do what i may do given that time uh would be to potentially sort of circulate to you guys and have you provide feedback if you do it individually it's it's not an open meeting law violation as long as i don't get all of you on the same email chain all right um and for that matter i mean we could also you know you know depending on after you guys have looked at it and

020potentially you know broaden the the the reach out to the you know the broader um full committee to to provide any uh feedback on it at that point before the meeting of the night so that that um if there are edits that they they want or things that they're wanting to have in there we can get those incorporated by by the ninth um in preparation because if the meeting is on the ninth which is tuesday it's gonna be in your packet on friday probably um which is you know like the fifth or something like that right yeah you know which is two and a half weeks um but that being said i mean i think that that's that's entirely doable i think that that it'll also mesh well because i think we're going to talk

021about fourth quarter and first quarter uh at that meeting on that on the night so it's um there are examples of of sort of budget-related stuff that will also play into that overall conversation that that evening as well so okay all right does that sound okay if if i put something together you know obviously i'll have to but but if i can get this together sooner than later i will sit it around is that okay for you guys to to do that and provide feedback that way does that seem agreeable to the group well is how do people feel about that that's yeah okay great that would be good all right um and then i guess another question then that comes up with about the fact is how are we going to present it and

022when are we going to present it and is that going to tie in at all to a public forum for example might we send out the faq in some way to to notify the public so that they could have it before we have a forum um any thoughts about that well i think that i mean it's certainly um you know useful to get on our website and you know make available and and uh i think there's going to be an update to our website really soon um so i've heard uh i've seen it but i've heard so this could be something kind of new that we put out there that could be something we put on sort of you know like on the current website you know there's a sort of scrolling banner we can

023put something and we could put a link to it there um uh and obviously if you know if we're trying to do outreach for a general public forum about the budget you know putting together that and having that available for folks is is obviously you know there's a number of ways to sort of share that so maybe it's something that we either have attached or or easily linkable to in the notification of that that medium reform for the public at bar um and then i think that you know obviously we can circulate it to uh members of select boards and councils and finance committees of of the four towns um just you know hey we finished this here's your copy if you want it you know some background information some of you will need it

024some of you if you're new might neither want it um you know and and to be uh just long since amherst has an election in a little bit and you know that uh may that will influence um there may be new counselors not well there may be new counselors but there may also be new uh school committee members who will benefit from having a kind of a document too so we'll consider it to all of them once the election results are are final um so it'll be a nice primer for them to get ready to go for for when they take office in january okay all right um that seems reasonable um [Music] maybe we'll jump down to public forum i'm uh well no so i think in terms that the town meeting or meeting

025with the four towns the possibility of one of those that we talked about prior to assess the actual assessment meetings um i guess i'd like to know if people think that's a good idea um i would be interested dr slaughter in in sort of your view and um timing on that um because time is moving along and wondering whether mid-november would be appropriate and i'm sort of wondering too if uh and well and then there's the question of will it be a full full school committee meeting with those people which would make it a school committee meeting or not so those are kind of all questions in my mind and i would appreciate feedback from anybody if i could i think that you know traditionally we do a meeting in early december um to give

026a first look at sort of what the the broad budget is going to look like um but i think that the the and that and that gives some sense of where we think we are and we have some some uh you know initial projections about what we think the uh state budget is going to look like and and you know usually amherst has some some indication about what um it's beginning to think about what it can sort of afford um and so you know i don't think that i mean i think we still would have that meeting um it's it you know it's kind of interesting because we're kind of in a we would be in a circumstance where we'd have uh potentially you know folks on their way out of office and on their

027way into and new people in there on their way into office so certainly um i think i think we still i would still want to keep that meeting as we've kind of traditionally done and it's a it's a an opportunity to get a sense from from each of the towns uh more immediately sort of what they're knowing about their budgets and their circumstances and and answer questions and and that sort of thing um you know i think one of the things we've talked about that you know that might precede that which would be more of a mid you know november would have to be what it would be would be to have some conversations about just the assessment method um and sort of the constraints people are operating on and the facilities now you know

028we've done this traditionally through these kind of conversations traditionally been done through um in working groups and that sort of thing um you know and we could do that again we could kind of do a quick working group to do a couple meetings in november potentially to talk about assessment methods and constraints that that different communities are operating under but but it's um i think one of the struggles we've had is we might have the agreement in a working group because people have a real fundamental understanding of of the assessment and then when it gets to a larger audience of select board finance committee or thinking about town meeting as a as a whole there get to be a lot different opinions and and a little more um polarization of opinion between towns and and

029so i think it it there's part of me that's of an opinion that it might be nice to just talk have a have a meeting kind of mid-november ish that is about not not getting into the specifics of this year's funding and that sort of thing but to talk more generally about uh our collective you know approach to assessment methods and and you know it's it's been uh the last couple of times you know i mean we heard folks from you know i mean mr remember this but i think folks from all over there like we'd like to go back to the you know the regional agreement method that's you know the five year rolling average of students period and they sort of said it that way and then likewise you know uh i think

030shoe spray was we'd like to go to the bullying statutory method and those can't coexist you know um those are those are not the same i mean but i think one thing that might be useful and this could be part of the faq i got to think about this a little bit but you know the the difference be differences between some of the things we've done or are have big financial and difficult financial impacts uh for the four towns um but when we you know when we really kind of step a bit back from the particular mechanics of each of those methods i don't think that the general change for any given community is sways wildly one way or the other through those different methods um you know if you did all statutory or all

031you know regional agreement method that's those are very different looking but as we start to blend as we go and have these conversations around you know 45 percent 55 65 you know those kind of things um you know those those differences are are are smaller in other words the difference in what you know the communities are paying um you know as far as their share is is not changing wildly from year to year which is kind of by design but but it also is um the level of support that we're giving uh from each community is kind of similar um so i think there there's a i'm hopeful there's a way to sort of explain that so it's um clear to everyone the the we're talking about sort of smaller percentages of the total than

032what we might think we are in other words you know when we get into the specifics of a given year you know the the ability for one community or another community to take on the particular changes is difficult and and specific to that year's sort of finances and whatnot but the overall kind of slice of the pie that everyone's owning uh doesn't really change that much so you know when you when you think about a particular year it's it's how big is my slice of the pie but also how big is the pie is you know those two pieces are completed with each other and i think we talk about assessment methods we can talk about well just how big is the slice of pie regardless of how big the pie is it's like what

033seems like it's a reasonable approach as far as slicing the pie and then the second conversation which i think is more of what happens when we get together in december is well how big is this pie there's how big is the overall budget um so i think trying to separate those so you can have a more meaningful conversation about the assessment method might be a useful first meeting but that's just my thought so i'll stop and let you guys talk carrick terry i think i don't know why they're waiting i'm sorry um i don't disagree with anything you're saying guys themselves that might help if uh if if you mute yourself while kerry's speaking um so i don't disagree with what you're saying i think there's also this piece of it that's for lack of

034a better term it's it's emotional like it's not technical it's about kind of the the towns have a long history and i think some of it has gotten now to the point where even if some of the numbers aren't that large some of the frustration around it is is not about the amounts but about kind of relative to so and so how much is my amount going up or down or who's potentially going to be making up this difference that has arisen or and so i don't i guess i want to put out there that like it feels like there needs to be some at least open dialogue around these more um these less technical issues and i think if we keep approaching it as though like we just have to write to find the

035right formula like i don't think there is a correct formula um that's going to make everybody happy and i'm a little like it makes it a harder problem to solve and one that um i'm not sure we can do without some outside help to be honest like i'm i'm i want to think creatively about what i'm not saying we shouldn't do any of these things but i think it needs to be this and a little bit something else and maybe it's even bringing in you know outsiders who aren't part of you know intricately in the town or part of the school committee to help kind of for lack of a better term mediate some of these kind of long-standing historical issues and i think there's a lot of different viewpoints that you can have about

036these issues that are totally valid and have to do with where you sit and stand you know within our community allison i i think that that's what the the assessment working group did before is they i think the district did hire a consultant that came in and looked and examined all of those and and did that that work um and what we've seen in recent years is that didn't matter so so i i share i i totally um i totally have that same opinion that it that a lot of there is a lot of emotion tied up in this and i'm not sure that sort of that kind of mediation i don't i don't i hate sounding like a pessimist but i don't feel like that's going to change or that is something that we

037can tackle in in just this one budget year right so we're it's already too late in a way um so if it's something you know we don't know how this budget year is going this budget process is going to go this year and if we encounter some of the same things maybe that's the conversation that we have in march at the time that we're finalizing the budget say okay we need to kick it off now and have and work on this over the summer so that we can sort of work through this um i like the idea of decoupling it and and really um just using the numbers as as a way to sort of raise all of those issues and and and sort of have that open discussion ahead of time before we're trying

038to work through the budget so i i i like your suggestion doug of a november-ish meeting um if we can if we can pull that off that because i think if if we stop changing the assessment method every year then the year on year changes for any one town i don't i'm you know this better than any of us doug but in mathematically it seems like if we just stick to the same assessment method your changes year on year may not may be a little bit more manageable than what we're doing is we're sort of changing the assessment method and both the size of this the pie slice as well as the size of the pie every year versus let's just change one thing every year um so i i think if we can get

039if we can demonstrate that um that might help folks reach some sort of compromise at least for near term i don't know but yeah so if i may um so i think you're i think you're right we're we're in a little bit to curious original points like it's a little bit of the happy feels mccoy's here where it doesn't matter what it is we're just agree we're disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing sometimes um but i do think there are fundamental differences in difference of opinion and and um so i think making sure that people fully understand their point of view because i think sometimes people will have a particular point of view uh and we want to make sure that everybody's fully informed in having and staking out that point of view is their

040point but then i think the second piece is definitely want to get to a place of compromise and um you know it's and so that's and that's really like you say kind of a difficult piece and i think that that um it's a it is a multi-year thing i think the the point you made about sort of we're sort of dialing too many knobs simultaneously to try to solve this and and they work um you know we do that i think in in some respects to try to keep the end point for people as far as what their particular assessment is moderate um and and manageable within their budgets for the year and so i think that's why i like the idea of decoupling because it starts to when you are moving multiple variables um

041simultaneously and you know you can't be as planful so you know um uh and and so the impact of a particular thing whether it be changes in your student enrollment or changes in you know your town's eqb and all that sort of stuff that plays into the stature method you know those those kind of things it's hard to see how those are specifically impacting and whether they're um whether your point of view about whether it should be statutory or five year assessment or some combination you know um you know is is it's hard to make a true judgment about your point of view sometimes if you've got too many things kind of simultaneously moving so i think that's that's um i think part of it but i mean i think we're going to continue to

042disagree about what the right thing is i think it's just you know can we get to that compromise of for just holding things steady for a while that that allows people to uh truly measure their their uh the impact of of change um the regular sort of changes year to year uh independent of the assessment method also changing um uh and then and then make you know and then you know suggest changes after a few years of something sort of steady um you know just to that point i mean i think one of the difficulties i have with the purely statuary method is that the it's it's a one-year look and so um that you know sort of minimum contribution that you're required to to have as the sort of basis for for figuring that

043out changes every year and that for small communities like ours uh not so much for amber's but for the other three communities can be really uh that can significantly change from one year to the next which is one of the reasons why with the rolling average and even with the methods we've been using we've been using a five-year average of those minimum contributions because it's decidedly more it mitigates spikes and valleys which are much more likely to happen in smaller communities and much more catastrophic for planning and budgeting for those communities so so that's that's another piece i think we talked about sort of size of the slices and size of the pie that's important to impress upon people's i mean there's some folks that you know are all in i think there are a

044few folks that that are are all in on um on the statuary method as written which is which is i would recommend against just because i've i've seen the impact of uh and that could be a thing we can demonstrate some of the sort of informational stuff to kind of play that out for folks but um anyway yeah if if if it's amenable to people you know a november meeting you know i'd want to push it as late as we can without getting into the thanksgiving weeks but you know not to rush anybody but to have that conversation but then probably like two weeks later have that first meeting where we're like all right here's what our budget looks like and here's what is your level services looked like which is you know the other

045piece of conversation that we sometimes will have a little bit of and and in and curious you know people's thoughts about this is you know that's really their opportunity at simber meeting is if there are things programmatically they would like to have done differently so if they want to offer input to the regional school committee about we like this we don't like that as far as what we're offering anybody know what it costs i mean they want to have an opportunity to say oh i like do we offer chinese i want to have more of it or i don't want to have it i don't want to french anymore who speaks it the french and that's it you know or whatever it is you know i'm just picking poor language because it's a simple analogy

046but but that meeting in december is an opportunity to have them provide that feedback we don't always have that piece of the conversation i would hope that we can kind of structure our our meeting a little bit to to talk about that distinct from or in part uh you know on its own but as it as it plays into you know and is separate from the the other conversation about sort of how people's uh projections of what they think their budgets are looking like you know um because if they you know if people have meaningful or or thing you know thoughts about you know what kind of programs we have and that sort of stuff that would change significantly sort of what we're coming back to them in you know january or so with as

047far as what stuff looks like you know what cuts are necessary to make that happen or if we somebody's like i think we don't need to do this anymore you know what kind of savings that produces and therefore what other things are available to us i mean it's it's an important question i think to ask that we don't always spend as much time on i think i would suggest we should be deliberate about asking that as one thing and independent of sort of the cost question because i don't think we can necessarily depending on what what people suggest we wouldn't be able to sort of answer how impactful or not that is plus or minus so i think that's a useful piece of conversation in a december meeting um as as well so i don't

048want to suggest that so allison yeah i i think it would be helpful sort of when we come back in that november ninth um meeting if we had a sort of roughed out timeline with with some of these ideas for when might that sort of assessment method four towns meeting happen when might that sort of more i think the word you used was like the traditional december four towns meeting happen um and what i like about sort of your your the way you framed that december um fort towns meaning is that could also then parallel a a broader community forum as well right so it maybe it's part of that we actually maybe we actually include a public comment period at that four towns meeting um and uh we don't have to i'm just i'm

049just throwing out ideas like just to sort of get our sort of thinking going on that is like what are some of the ways that we can include that and i and i think having um a presentation maybe from the school committee that's talking about our objectives even though we haven't started the planning we're going to have the superintendent of objectives we have the strategic plan we've had conversations so we can sort of just remind folks about some of those trends and and what's happening in the district before we get into you know to your point doug you know we don't need this anymore this this program we don't you know if that's going to cost us x much we don't want that right like before we get there that the school committee sort of

050shares here's our goals for this year and remind folks about sort of our mission and sort of trends that were that we're seeing and working on um in the district so anyway long story short i think at that november 9th meeting it would be helpful if we had sort of as part of that discussion here's our proposed timeline and process for that um i think that that's good i think we have to sort of start setting some dates because time is time is moving on so um [Music] so we're looking at sometime before thanksgiving um for the fourteenth for the meeting with towns the question is will that would that be a full school committee or not and we're then looking at right after the early december for the first of the traditional meetings about

051the budget and also a forum i alice and i like the idea of sort of having those not too far apart you know sort of in that beginning part of the month in december um any other thoughts about that allison i i think um how we've normally done or typically done the four towns meeting is we post it as in in all zones and if we don't have a quorum we don't have a quorum we're not making any decisions at those but i think um any like it gets posted so that in case that we do end up with a quorum there which is quite possible with you know four towns um then then we just call it as that meeting so okay thanks for that clarification i did not know that if i may

052yes um so i think that what i can do is is um and because i think it'll just be easier for for the regional committee to sort of process it if i put together timeline with these meetings um for that meeting of the ninth um and then obviously you guys can and edit accordingly but um but i might also you know sort of in in and amongst that sort of you know select some dates i mean the four time means we typically do on saturdays because saturday mornings because that tends to work for for everybody um their weekday evenings or meetings like this one and and uh and then during the day people are often at their at their at their job so i can put together uh a rough sketch of some of those

053dates and and also some you know kind of an outline of potential topics as well um and then that way uh you know or ways we might present material in in those meetings based on this conversation and so that would give you um it's a little easier to edit than to create from scratch so if i can give you some some of a frame to work from i think that'll be time efficient but also productive for the for the committee as a whole um and again that's something i can share with this group in advance to sort of see if there's other topics that the folks are are thinking of and again we do it and it you know that's really kind of an agenda one so we could actually all be on the same

054one it's not so much an opinion as it is you know coordinating uh uh agenda and uh agenda dates and times and topics so we might have a little more latitude but we can still be cautious about that so um if that sounds good to folks um we'll target that i'm just looking at the calendar here and and so the fourth thursday which is thanksgiving is the 25th of of november so you know that means the 20th or the 13th are the likely you know sort of candidates for for uh you know sort of early meeting so that i'd lean towards the 20th because you know if we meet on the ninth it's a really quick turnaround um if there's i mean depending i mean you know it could be if uh if there's not

055a lot of you know edits or suggestions relative to the to the meeting of the ninth and the third is possible but i would want to count on that for sure um so that would lean toward the 20th um and hopefully that's you know not so close to the holiday that people are starting to leave town um but i think that you know again we want everybody to come you know to that one i think it it it but i i would want to make sure people understand we're we're not just talking mechanics of how things work i mean it's part of what we're going to talk about but i think we want to keep the conversation focused on understanding each other's your place and point of view and and demonstrate the sort of impacts

056of certain things from uh from the standpoint of you know these different assessment methods and how they function but um and see if we can kind of soften the ground as it were for a compromise because that's you know back to carrie's original point that's what we ultimately need um and and you know and and make sure that we're we're being uh logical in our are are compromising and not as emotional but you know there will be some emotion regardless i think but but i think if we um you know are working through that a little bit in in in november you know around the 20th you know and get some feedback from folks because then that can give me there may be some really clear points of view or ideas um relative to the

057assessment method that may provide some some clarity about how um you know shape a conversation you know at that that meeting in december which would probably be either the 4th or the 11th um typically we've done it that sort of first saturday in in december but you know two weeks may not be enough space for everybody um and i don't know if 11 is still fairly early i don't think it gets us too late into to things um and if anything that gives everybody a little bit more time to to kind of digest their and and estimate their uh their own budget stuff because uh you know stuff from the state comes out late uh november i think they are during november so it gives a little more time to kind of get there get

058them uh get their picture of what their projections might look like a little bit longer it gives them a little longer to do that so that's um those are just kind of glancing at the counter looking at the dates that might work and then i think you know um the you know when we when we have this what would be this year the third meeting but traditionally it's the second meeting of the of the four towns um usually do that one fairly late in january occasionally early february but we can kind of leave that one open-ended let me get feedback from folks um at that meeting in december about their their preference there or what what works we can kind of see what their individual town timelines for budget are and whether uh they're ready

059to have those conversations um but that's that's kind of just taking a quick glance to the counter that's what i'm seeing is options and and sort of i think it creates enough space for us to get some things prepared but also enough space for people once they've seen something to sort of think and digest and come back with some some thoughtful input for us so hopefully that'll work carrie um so i remember attending these meetings i think as a candidate or like a elected but not yet seated um member of the school committee i i i guess just as i'm thinking about this i think we should unless there are any barriers that you all can see they probably try to bring in folks who have recently been elected but will not be seated until

060january to not as like speaking members but as like sitting in the room listening members is that an option on these because they're publishing meetings are public meetings so they are absolutely welcome to attend but um but they're not officially seated so they can't actually participate yeah yeah yeah can we invite them like i just think it would do us some good to like say hey you know you can come attend this i'm just thinking like the typical person who's maybe following school committee pretty close they may not know about these four town meetings and i just think it would be a courtesy to and make things to go better in january if folks have that background i would i would strongly recommend that as well um because i think you know i've been around

061this a while and not in this role but in some of your type of roles so it is invaluable to have people come and start to gather information and start to get there you know get up the learning curve because i know when we when amber switched to a council i as a select board member you know met with some of the counselors that had been elected um a couple of different types to talk about a variety of topics just because they were like uh you know they weren't they weren't panicked but they were definitely they were aware of how much there was to learn um you know and and and so i was able to you know there was a lot of i couldn't answer because it's like well you guys have to figure

062that out as a new council but you know here's what selectboard did and here's how this structure worked and what we did and here's some things you know you'll need to be able and or things you'll have to figure out you have to figure out what your own process is around some of that but but i know that you know newly elected folks who haven't uh kind of been through the through the mill before are are definitely going to need that and so i think at you know inviting them and trying to formally welcome them is is very useful and powerful and and you know they don't make it or can't make it that's understandable but yeah we can't start educating folks too early on this stuff and so i think it's helpful and i

063think one of the things we probably well i guess you know the election cycle for the other communities is all in the spring so their staff they don't tend to have a turnover so generally that they're not working with with newly elected folks but but if there was somebody that had resigned and you know like a select promoter resigned and they've replaced them with a full time meeting like that we want to make sure to explicitly get those folks all invited so no doubt about that all right thank you so um so we'll look forward to you're presenting that at the meeting on the ninth um and i think we talked about um allison i don't know if if you were had joined us yet we were talking about the fact and the time sort

064of timeline on that was to have something a draft a hopefully pretty well ready draft or um presentation for the ninth on the fact something he would share with us ahead of time so that we could suggest changes and ask questions and then present that also on the ninth so that might be a heavy heavy budget meeting um okay so then that that really for now leaves the question of the public forum um and finding a date for that and also you know what is what is that going to be the format of that public forum and i think um we talked about providing the fact ahead of time so that if people were interested they could see that before the forum um i i'm not real familiar with how to run a public forum

065because i've not done it before so if if anyone has any thoughts about that i'd appreciate them allison what um the amherst school committee held a couple forums in the in the last year um and we typically and actually this year on the um middle school the sixth grade question so what we've typically done is had a short presentation um at the very beginning um to cont to frame and contextualize the topic um and then um just invite uh attendees or whoever in the public to um to speak or ask questions um we've done it this year we used um google meet so people were actually in the room um the room and could either um add their question in the chat or raise their hand to speak if i could um so let me

066pose this question to talking about a short presentation i assume that would largely fall on me at least some aspects of it would i mean i would presume that we'd want to do uh a little bit about the in very broad terms the sort of mechanics of the of the budget like we're talking about on you know sort of the beginnings of an faq um just to again sort of you know frame and contextualize you know the environment we're operating and what can and can't do that sort of thing but then uh the source richer conversation which you're wanting probably more feedback about us about sort of what are the things we're doing what are what are the sort of programs and offerings we have um which might be better for the superintendent to provide

067or school committee to provide you know some of that and and i think that um sort of having those two sort of pieces and keep you know probably both of them brief so that people have an opportunity to to wrap their head around that but then also to then offer whatever suggestion they might have brought with them um would be kind of how i'm thinking about that um does that sound kind of what you were thinking about as far as how to approach that i was thinking you know it would be a good time to um speak again about our mission and our goals um so that that would be something i suppose more appropriately done by dr morris or maybe you allison as the chair of the committee i um i was thinking that

068probably the very similar to how we did presented budgets to the amherst town council last year um for their in their fincom i think could that was a you know exactly how you just described it um so we we talked about mission values and gave sort of just some basic statistics about the school as well as talking about the goals and priorities and progress and then the financial side of things um doug doug presented that brief all right well i that sounds good to me i doug yeah the the other thing i'd say is one of the one of the ways that allows you to have a shorter sort of uh presentation beginning is to have good materials prepared for it so like the faq will be a pretty significant piece for that um you

069know having the budget book in its entirety sort of prepared uh with some of that uh as well you know if people are really wanting to get into the nitty-gritty of something then they will have had the opportunity to kind of read through and look through that um you know in advance so they can offer uh their comment to it so i think that helps make the presentation a little shorter but this presentation can still provide some some uh uh tie through between the different pieces there for folks to to help them get get prepared to that um oh shoot not lost my train of thought about what the other question oh i know it was um so you mentioned google me you know that and it may all be driven by you know the

070state of public health when we get to you know mid to late november and december may change things especially december because uh after thanksgiving holiday you know it may you know uh change the thinking you know i didn't know how comfortable uncomfortable you know uh in-person meeting would be and whether we want to even contemplate that i'm not suggesting one thing or another i just don't you know it it is i think it's difficult to do a virtual meeting with 40 people um you know because it's it's just hard because you know i mean it's hard to do it in person too so i don't want to divide the difficulty of that larger meeting um but i and i don't think anybody needs to you know sort of decide but we should think about that

071i think a little bit i mean i'm just offering that as a suggestion because we've been virtual they have to we may have to be virtual maybe the wisest choice for all of us but it does i think change a little bit what and how we present and how we interact and how we try to engage people in that we want to be thoughtful about that if we're for fully electronic or hybrid of some electronic summon person or fully in-person that kind of thing i think that's that's a another layer that you know sort of impacts us because of the how public health circumstances we're in at the moment so um i don't have an answer to that question i just wanted to pose it so people kind of let that percolate the back of

072their head and think about how we might go about some of that stuff um because i think to to do things well and have people feel engaged in and that they were heard and that and that we were able to hear people's you know thing uh points of view is is gonna be it's important to structure the meeting in a way it lets that happen thank you um so i don't know if we need to decide a date right now for the public forum or if that's something maybe i don't i i'm thinking maybe oh i don't know what i'm thinking um uh if i could make a little bit of a suggestion i i would i i would think it'd be best to have that um perhaps after the second four-town meeting um but

073before we get much later in the you know later in the either holiday end of year season or january you know um just because you want people to be able to provide input early enough but at the same time you also want them you know some things to have been uh surfaced by the sort of leadership of the communities i think i think they they often have had those conversations and sort of surfaced some things and so um that can be kind of in the public realm and then if people want to uh provide additional uh feedback input etc i think that that may be uh helpful to kind of keep it focused a little bit um but that's it's my thought at 7 30 today so we we have a regional meeting on the

0747th um and we're going to try and schedule that other meeting probably for the 11th um [Music] so perhaps it could be that week of the 12th it starts monday the 13th i do have a pelham school committee meeting on wednesday um but that i mean thursday the 16th might work yeah that might work and that's still that's still a ways off this gives us another week before the holidays so um so maybe tentatively then on the 16th for that for the public forum okay all right i think we have a plan for going forward we just have to implement it now it's a little matter of doing the work just yeah just just a little bit thank you doug yeah so um i don't know if are there any other things that people wanted

075to bring up tonight before we adjourn no okay great then um would somebody like to make a motion i move that we adjourn the budget subcommittee uh motion motion made by me by kerry seconded by heather um i will take a vote um [Music] heather moore uh carrie terry i hands dancer uh you muted margaret you're muted i know i have to i'm letting sasha know that we're done yeah good night good night everybody i have to send it right okay you