RSC Budget Subcommittee Meeting

001thank you so much okay um seeing the presence of a quorum i'm going to call to order the budget subcommittee of the regional school committee at uh 6 35 p.m on thursday december 17th and do a roll call um holla holla president kerry miss spitzer present yes mr president um and i guess uh stance are present also um so doug did uh i wasn't quite sure what to do about the agenda so doug had drawn dr slaughter i'm sorry had drawn up a tentative agenda and the first thing on that agenda was selecting um the chair of the subcommittee right so because we haven't met in a while i thought it would probably be an appropriate thing to do so i can kind of take the meeting ask for nominations we can do a quick

002vote and then whoever gets elected can take over from there okay so i'm happy to do that all right thank you are there any nominations for chair you can nominate yourself sure i'll nominate myself is there a second lord second are there any other nominations hearing none is there uh we don't need to do some speeches i suppose so i think we can probably take a roll call vote on this uh in order in no particular order uh holla lord um i uh margaret uh i carrie hi so we have a unanimous selection for chair it's margaret you're on the short strong so you can continue to leave the meeting okay thank you um so uh i think that i'm gonna turn it over to you doug um to proceed uh sure so i think

003there's a couple different things that we've talked about um relative to to sort of getting started here and i i'm hoping we can um you know not take too too much of your evening this evening hopefully you've had a quiet day inside because it was really helpful out there but a couple of things that i think we could we could do is i sent uh uh some history of ads and cut sheets and of course one of the things that i noticed and this was something margaret wrote me about earlier today is that how we've defined the terms on those have not always been consistent or or even within a year and i think i've been guilty of this both in making those kinds of lists and also in in being in the chair like

004yours and and reading those kind of lists and so there's there are things i think of as more permanent changes and things that are more sort of temporary changes in those ads and cuts and adjustments and and so i think we just uh one thing we will probably want to do just as a framing thing is is that is to define those clearly and maybe um you know go back through the old lists and and uh you know kind of retune those based on things that are are temporary versus a more permanent kinds of change and then i think uh just to sort of frame the whole of this you know i think that's a useful sort of place to start but i think we should think about um you probably talk just general timeline

005first off and then you know sort of what kind of benchmark times we have to meet and then strategize about what kind of pieces we want to put together for um sort of telling the story because i think that's really one of the sort of critical pieces here okay um so i have some suggestions about the definitions if we want to start there just for something to kind of frame it a little bit and get okay so there's adjustments and then there's you know ads and typically cuts or reductions and what i was thinking along those lines was that it should be a little more dislocated about the use of the term adjustment to say that it's um kind of a one-time change not as much a permanent change and things that are additions or

006reductions or additions and cuts are more permanent in nature or presumed to be permanent so we have things where like we know a certain software is increasing in price well that's that's actually an addition you know um it has typically been cast as as perhaps a an adjustment an adjustment on the hand you know um there are times we'll make uh like this last year um we had a um we reduced the amount of money that we were going to put toward or on the budget line that pays for the msan membership that was a one-year adjustment to the budget um and we often do that we have some that are there and up for consideration every year um you know around sabbatical leaves or um uh what else things like that certain retirement incentives

007and the like um that i think are really more adjustments they're more single year they're things that we wouldn't permanently take out of the budgeting process um but on the other hand there are in the additions and and cuts uh piece that's more you know sort of more fundamental change or or regularization of something so if we need to um and especially at the region so if a student we know is moving from sixth grade one of our sixth grade buildings in amherst or pelham into the to the middle school um we know we're going to have them in a potential need for say a paraprofessional for that child or a particular kind of service that's going to be a pretty permanent change for a number of years um and so that would be an

008ad or or a cut if someone graduated or something like that so that would be my suggestion on those to just and and that'll be a if you guys are comfortable with that definition or you want to articulate it a bit more that'd be great but i think what i would need to do you know in my role is to make sure that i'm always sort of operating from that from that um that definition base so that we're always telling the same story about how we're doing this because i think it's sometimes uh you know as you look through those it's like we cut almost every year except for two in the last seven um the the uh you know which is which is true um and it is difficult to do um but there

009are there are many of those things that you know sort of come on and go off as far as cuts because we um we don't want to permanently take them out of the budgeting because there are things we really do do all the time but um you know like retirement incentives or sabbaticals that sort of thing um but they are ones that that sometimes come up and so being clear about those as we as we are public with this information is is probably for the best and that also requires i think sometimes why we don't you know adjustments always get put at the top and then the action always happens down in the ads and cuts part and i think what might be uh advantageous just on that ads and cuts kind of list is

010to be uh clearer about how it's evolving through the process so as things go on or come off the list um you know sort of finding a way to demonstrate that either by you know dating the additions or uh you know organizing the the layout in a way that that makes it clear that uh it's progressing in a certain way and then that way we can keep things in the categories uh as we've defined them and and be consistent with that so that um i just think that would be helpful i'm obviously open a suggestion for many of you about those those things but that's what i was thinking we'd start with as far as just thinking about ads and cuts because that's that's really where most people spend the time thinking about the budget

011they don't really dig into the specific lines um um because that's the point you know that's where you're making those critical decisions about what is or isn't going to continue and how it's going to continue and that's where the crux of the conversation happens when you're in budget like we're going to be in this year okay so so in some cases ftes were in adjustments and in some cases they were in most often in reductions and there were many many ftes i mean i added up a total of 46 i think over the course of these sheets that you've given us which is i mean i know there's probably some other reasons for that than just money there's like decreasing enrollment but um but it would be helpful to know i guess the difference between

012ones that we're definitely saying these are going away or these are are coming back versus this is like a one-time thing right and i think that that's one of the difficulties in looking at those over time and and you know uh while i didn't get an opportunity this last year often in years previous the the big budget book you can page in there that has fte and it has fde history and so you can see how the fds sort of track uh over time and they have decreased not to that level that you're seeing there um i think for a couple of reasons one is um you know there's some uh growth in fte during the fiscal year sometimes depending on kids move in and it's not an option sort of thing and so we

013take that on um and i think that you're you know the other point is is uh you know that there are some of those changes that were more permanent than others um so you know if you look at the year when we you know uh cut back on the foods program that loss of a teacher was permanent that that position is not remained in place that was culinary position yeah that was the culinary position and then there's the the child study position was the same year um i think some of the others are harder to characterize that way but i think if we again if we place those you know that are more permanent into the cut section or the ad section um and those that are more um temporary in in in basis you

014know into that adjustment section i think it'll be easier for people to kind of think about the whole and how much it's changing as far as the concern okay so um can i just one more thought i think the other really big question with the fds is whether or not folks are being lost to attrition or is it actual kind of layout for or um yeah i think layoff's the right word so i think that's the other thing to think about when we're when we're looking at those changes over time yeah they they call it riff reduction force um and we've been you know as a superintendent has said we've been fortunate the last several years that retirement has generally captured that and that's often how we prefer to do things um you know uh

015we've had a number of retirements you know the the baby boomers are retiring and that's taking a sort of cluster of folks with them um you know but that's not in forever circumstance so we will and and in a year like i think we're going to be experiencing this coming year um it's more likely to be you know actual people we know not just positions that go away um so it's it's you know it's unfortunate but i think it's it's also very relevant to the conversation is is when are we talking about doing it through um you know retirement and and people choosing a different job and that sort of thing and when is it we're actually not doing as much stuff as we used to do um the one other thing i'd like to

016mention just to is also which is a difficult concept i think for people that kind of look at these is that you know we talk about level services as we go from year to year but each year the what is a level service is different than the year before and and so that's also a difficulty is that the sort of frame from which we're building that new list uh is always different from the previous year and part of that's just you know kids are different perfect because of the choices we made in the previous budget and so on so that's that's a difficult thing uh to see the other thing i think that sometimes is a little more subtle it doesn't always get demonstrated you know on on that kind of a list is there'll

017be times we'll know we have supply lines for for all the different classes and and so you know science has to buy you know chemicals and and traditions and that's our stuff and and uh you know and art classes buy paints and you know clay and that sort of those kind of supplies and in textbooks and replacement books and those kind of things often will hold those um with no change from one year to the next and then you know every few years we do need to actually increase those and that's not something that often will show up on those on those documents and and you know i was having a conversation with sean mangano a few days ago about this topic and and trying to prepare some stuff for the poor towns meeting he

018said yeah we were fortunate we'd gone you know three or four years without making any change at all to supply lines like that and we had a building one of those years that was a positive that we can make a small increase to that because those materials cost you know sometimes don't change price much but sometimes they do but over a number of years they definitely do so that's another more subtle piece it's harder to sort of work into the conversation but it is a real you know it's a real number and it has a real impact okay so in terms of re sort of re-identifying things doug is that something that you can do i think largely i can i mean you know i'm familiar enough with most of it um unfortunately sean still

019works in town so i can bug him um i don't remember but there's plenty of them that i can tell just by looking it's like oh that was much more you know a one-time type of thing uh you know uh when we have you know um i think even last year we had a small reduction in like health insurance costs because we knew we were uh you know we had a couple people that were leaving and so we were shrinking because of the change in fte we knew that we'd have fewer you know a little bit less health insurance cost so there's there's those kind of things that are identifiable as as potentially temporary and and many other things that are like that they're you know and and there was one i was looking at

020where it had you know a number of special education cuts and they were you know a few thousand dollars and unfortunately it had the budget line so i can actually look at those budget lines and see whether it's personnel or whether it was things and whether it was because you know uh a change in in staffing or retirements sometimes it's retirements and you go oh well this person was at the top step and had a phd very expensive and will probably not hire someone that expensive so you know those kind of things make their way into that as well um but i can i can go through those and and kind of uh you know sort of tune them up i guess as it were and try to identify you know things where it's uh

021like uh carrie was asking is is a rift versus a versus a a permanent i mean a permanent versus a through attrition type of reduction in force so would the attrition if somebody retired when you say attrition meaning we just wouldn't refill the position that's what you mean and so potentially some of those ftes that were in the budget reduction section could have been retirees not not not actual cuts to academic programs um well it still results sometimes in in in that um you know so it it the the sort of uh hidden piece of of doing them through attrition is that you know we're not actually putting a person essentially out on the street but what we but we are still having fewer people on set and so that could be some programming reductions

022as well a lot of times with paraprofessionals it kind of depends on you know our student population and the needs of the students um and so sometimes you know we have a you know a class that has a few more students and paraprofessionals and they leave you know the kids graduate or whatever and and so our overall demand for staff goes down a little bit um not too often but it does happen and likewise we've had bump ups uh a couple years ago um i think that that that incoming seventh grade class had four or five kids and so there was maybe it was seven yeah there was a big bump up the number of paris uh that one year and those are you know you know driven by who are who are the kids

023and who's coming and and obviously we won't know a lot of that information you know until much later in the process but we try to anticipate those if we can okay it's the same with like the out-of-district placements which you know are tend to be very expensive um but we try to have a sense of how many of those we have because those can can impact the budget in a pretty significant way and and those are for me those are always tricky because we want to recognize and and articulate the sort of financial impact um and yet not you know identify students or or families in any way and so it gets a little more subtle and and likewise with when we talk about staffing reductions we want to be very uh careful with those

024as well because you know it's an evolving process we don't want to panic people we have a requirement of how we do that relative to our contracts like the timeline in which we need to do it and the way in which we want to do it and and there's just a you know sort of decent you know decency factor there too um right uh so you know those all play into the mix as we go along okay well it seems like um if that would be one next step would be to to sort of have those uh a little clearer um can i the other thing i was thinking that would help kind of with the telling the story and the data that would be useful in that is i think you know thinking about

025the special education out of district placements it's not like we have the ability to say no we're not going to do that we are legally mandated to pay for those and and we don't control the cost so i think it would be really um helpful to be able to kind of isolate the pieces of the budget where we are you know like health insurance it's not like we have any control over there they're big fences that we don't have control over and so where are these you know places on the margin where we can because i agree with you like you don't want to like call attention and say you know make people nervous this early in the budget process about where the cuts are going to be but i think we know where they're

026not going to be and where we don't have any flexibility and so um that's a good point it might be helpful in kind of illustrating like this fraction of the budget is you know beyond our control and regardless of how the town or the school committee feels about it we're going to need to to meet this cost and these are the items where we might you know have some flexibility but i think often they're the things that people are you know make people excited about going to school and you know sending their kids there i mean i i believe that all of the things we do are important but i think that in particular some of the the things that are optional you know optional are the pieces that that might be worth highlighting right

027and i i think you're right i think to you know sort of define and outline for folks those those parts of of um our budget that that don't have wiggle room or have very little um and some of it you know you gain more wiggle room as as you move along because you learn new information but but i mean another example where you know we have to go contracts that have steps you know and call us we don't have one right now but we have to make an estimate assuming that that will happen and so that you know is a bit of a black box that we have to put in place we want to be respectful of the of the negotiation process but we still have to put some some estimates for those kinds

028of things into our budget but i think you're right there's things around ell there are things around special education in particular um you know someone mentioned pe actually it's required by law to offer pe um so you can't completely eliminate pe you can count a lot of things so like we can't play sports you can count that as pe but you have to actually you have to offer that um you know other quirky things you know technically have to teach flag etiquette not that anyone does but you do it's don't ask me why i stumbled across that in the law but it's there what we really should do is get you know a booklet from like an american legion or something like that and hand it out to everybody but that's beside the point um

029but i think yeah articulating those components that are that have uh more or less flexibility and and and what that means and i think that uh for those that have you know we have more control over um you know that's the conversation about what do we make our school like you know what what do we you know that's where you express your fundamental um uh value system most in that in that area and so uh and that's where the debate really happens as far as you know so what are we what program are we offering what's it cost to offer that program are we comfortable or uncomfortable with that is it important enough to offer it uh and challenge those who uh you know that uh actually you know uh authorize the appropriation to to

030do that um you know and and and you have that debate of those things in context of other things those you know the communities are trying to find and that's and it's okay to have those conversations i mean you know they're uncomfortable sometimes but that's i think that's the other piece is it's okay to have that debate about what is or isn't um what we want okay oh boy i just um a couple of questions that or thoughts that came to my mind as i was reading through all of these are that um you know along with uh level services and understanding that that means we actually have less money because of the things that we can't control um okay where was i going with this oh there's inflation right so you know we can't

031control that either and it doesn't necessarily i mean it is doesn't impact personnel but it does impact things like the supplies and the bus you know so it would be interesting i think to know what the inflation has been over this period of time that these sheets cover um some people pay attention to that you know are we staying up with inflation um yeah i can i can definitely um so interestingly in our bus contract we actually use a um an inflation factor to set the price so you know they bid the contract so the first year so from last year to this year was a pretty big jump in price um because it's a new contract but there were the years after this are prescribed in the contract based on a on a you

032know a price index so i can you know i have several of those from previous years i can go and look those up and so that's a that's a normed or or standard you know national standard of of of of inflation we can use and then we can also you know i mean the other sort of educational pieces that people know or don't know is you know fully 80 of our budget is about people and their benefits um and so if health insurance goes up considerably or not that makes a huge difference in what we can and can't do um if we uh you know the contracts we negotiate with our employees um if their cola their cost of living adjustment is bigger or smaller that makes a big difference in in in our budgets

033as well and so those are all you know different knobs that we can turn in some respects and sometimes you know something like contracts we have negotiate so we have to come to terms with with a group of employees about what what that is but it is one area that we have some leverage i guess um you know the the insurance we do because you know only because uh we keep you know either adjusting what you know program we have who are who we buy insurance from uh what the plan looks like or doesn't look like you know those kinds of things you know there's a lot of it's out of our control but there are some things we can still adjust in that regard um another thing i thought would be interesting to know

034is number of students enrolled over this period of time you know where were we in 2014 in terms i mean we've heard about decreasing enrollment so i think that would be something that would apply in this conversation as well yeah yeah i think that you know what's interesting is a fair amount of this information is is and has traditionally been in our budget books it wasn't last year sorry i will continue to apologize for that i fully meant to but but i think the the difficulty is is that you get that budget book and it's 200 pages and yeah people just go and gloss over immediately i mean i know i do and you know i work with it all the time so i think to have uh a briefer and more concise you know

035tool or or pamphlet as it were to explain some of those things you know is is a good starting point for everybody um because i think it you know it gets everybody on the same page as far as understanding that you know what the terms are the definitions the history in in a nutshell um i mean i think and i said this at the meeting the other day talking about student you know enrollment is that while the enrollment may decline very smoothly over time um you know the changes you can make in say staffing and programs tend to come in stair steps um it's it's easier to sort of explain that case with an elementary school because you either you know if you think about fort river for example it's like you either have four

036or three sixth grade classes right and when you get to middle school high school where there's you know a different you know format it's a little harder to sort of explain that same kind of thing happening but what happens in that circumstance is you offer fewer sections of a particular elective and so some kids can't get in because their schedule doesn't work and so they end up in a study hall instead of in a academic class they'd really like to take um and that's that's a much more subtle conversation but it's still real as far as you know what kids can and can't i mean there's the broad offerings like well how many foreign languages do we teach but then more subtly is like in departments we're not ever going to get rid of we're

037always going to have a social studies department you know are we offering three or two or four elective classes to our juniors and seniors to choose from which they need to graduate same with english same with science same with math same with and then you know as you get outside those critically core ones that are required for graduation requirements when you get into your arts your performing arts your science uh you know your technology those kind of things then then um you know you have more latitude about how much of it you offer if you offered it all but but again you know if you don't offer any of it then people start making other choices about where to go to high school yeah miss pitcher kerry so i feel like because i'm looking right

038now at the fiscal year 20 budget document i it's an amazing amount of information i you know and it must take a ton of time to put it together so i i i'm very loathe to like ask for um anything else but i'm wondering and i'd even be happy to work with somebody on this potentially but i think it you know something called like program budgeting where you don't just because because what you see when you look at this is you're looking at the english department you see like this much for teacher salaries but you don't see the account of teachers you don't see the count of class offerings and the thing that gets tricky is when you're trying to show tell a story those are the details we need so i'm not faulting the

039document i think it's it's a good document and if anything you guys it's got a lot of detail and if somebody wanted to take the time they could do it but i think what we need to do is a little hand holding and walk the public you know through what these reductions are going to mean and i think the only way to do that is to like put meat on the bones and that's going to be the things like well if we were to you know make this you know several hundred thousand dollar cut to this department you know it's going to entail cutting this many you know potentially getting this many full-time equivalents and it may mean a reduction in our course offerings from this to this in particular these are the courses that

040might you know you know that are optional and we could leave off the table i i i'm i don't know i guess i'm looking at you for if if that's something we could do or if it's just too much and you guys are totally over taxed right now so i'm not i'm i'm trying to think of a way we could collaborate to do this so that you're not the one who's having to to take the time on this because it's a lot but i do have some experience with program budgeting from prior work experience and i i think it's it's it's the way that we communicate with the public the best because i don't think anybody's going to make their way through this 200 page document yeah and i i would suggest you know it's

041it's it's a circumstance where um what i might suggest in that regard uh would be to um sort of generically speak to the to a department uh and maybe set it up that way and sort of say you know here's you know you have department x could be english science math social it doesn't matter department um you know here's what it takes to offer you know this many courses you know certain or required you know and and kind of play out it play it out that way a little bit um so it's it's less specific to any particular department um and of course you know you'd have a little bit different model at the at the middle school because they use the team model so the structure and so some of it's built on well

042how is our how are our classes offered like well how many sections you know i mean how many you know periods do we have what's our rotation of classes that sort of thing so that's so it's partly about scheduling and partly about um what staffing it takes to do x number of sec sections and that sort of stuff and so i can reach out some of that material is stuff that um the principals in in high school middle school definitely have uh you know so readily to mind because as they think about um how they staff and how they change uh you know they have that kind of in their thoughts so i think we might be able to do a um a a sort of generic department and sort of you know what that

043impact looks like because then then you can talk about you know average teacher salary and sort of you know so like when mike said oh it's 26 teachers that's because it's an average salary he's using to to project that um you know and so we could do something similar i think to to to um to have that conversation about sort of you know how it starts to impact um it doesn't impact it's not the full story because it doesn't talk about sort of the inner relationship between the departments which is a little more subtle kind of scheduling problem but but i think it might be a way to do it that's not completely you know um like a zero-based budgeting from the ground up kind of thing that would be a whole whole other project

044but but i think that might be a manageable approach and i think a useful thing that um you know we could we could kind of build and and and work uh and i'm gonna need to have some of those kinds of conversations with principals here in the next few weeks as we start to meet and talk about budget so um you know i think i can keep that kind of frame in mind as as i have those conversations to think about about that because i think that's um as you you know sort of suggesting i think it's it's uh you know powerful and concrete way to describe it through to people um without getting into the you know subtlety of you know the 15 budget lines that you know talk about pd and supplies and

045you know all those kinds of nuanced things that we like to track and need to track for some state reporting purposes but but kind of you know create a bit of a blur when people start to look at them if if they're not needing to know the specific lines um so i'm just to recap if i can you know where we're at right now on this i'm thinking about so so on the ads and cuts i think sort of renorming those to a stricter set of definitions um looking at on on fte changes uh particularly identify those that were sort of permanent changes um well and and generally across the boards or permanent versus temporary types of changes but also things that were accomplished through attrition versus through actual uh loss of employment um and

046then you know sort of framing certain aspects of the budget that we know are um less mobile than others or less under our control versus those that we do have control um some sense of of of uh inflation over the period that's a fairly simple thing um you know our student enrollments over over the last several years that's easy stuff to pull together um and then and then make one more note here about um uh just sort of that the the notion of a program you know whether it be a department or or a team and sort of um you know sort of what and how it shaped and um um what's involved when you you know sort of as you make cuts to things you know sort of what kind of decision points are

047there um with offerings and you know ftes and that sort of thing in short i think i'm not going to add work but i i think the the inflation factor and this is something i brought up at the last meeting could also be coveted factor so like what new costs do we have related to cova that aren't going to be covered by any karex act dollars in the next year so what are we now gonna i mean i know it's a big unknown but i think there is gonna be some fixed cost going forward that's not gonna go away um and then the other thought i had was just to put it out there and that is that if if the frame of like doing a program budget doesn't work then we could also maybe

048think about like what would these cost reductions mean to the typical kid you know so like oh johnny in ninth grade is you know now i'm gonna get to choose from only two languages instead of or you know i i'm just thinking again i don't go into the specific i think we need to either frame it around a program or bring them around a person and just give it a face not not necessarily a face of a person but it could be a program which is something for people to latch on to so i just wanted to put that out there if that's an easier way of thinking about how to frame the conversation yeah i mean i i'm certainly open to that i you know i'll mention this to mike and see um what

049he thinks uh he may have some some really good sort of insights into or you know you know stories from colleagues about work what worked well or didn't work well in their conversations in their communities um you know what what told a good story what was not too burdensome for them to you know put together or that sort of thing um you know the um but i do think you know it it it like i said the other day that you know as much as folks may have uh that are on the council in particular but this is true in any of the communities you know um you know the your experience in those things is is very different you know well there's how much experience you have and then there's also what that experience

050has been so you know the last couple years for the for the council and amherst in particular has not been particularly difficult as far as budgeting is concerned um you know the the state was doing pretty well the economy is doing pretty well and so you know the the choices you're still making difficult choices because you're always wanting to do more things than you have resources for um but it's different than i think we're gonna face this year and and so um i think it's critical that we have good ways to to sort of a make the case for the district but also just explain you know what their choices are and and the impacts of those choices okay so doug this sounds like a lot of work for you is there anything that i

051can help with or others of us can help with at this point i mean right now it's like information gathering i guess yeah and you know i mean some of this is stuff i need to do anyway um because it's kind of part of putting the larger book together and and and it'll be part of the um you know it's the natural part of the process um okay and so i think that you know that's the case you know if if um after i get the really bare bones stuff together i'll probably share it out with you guys and and then that may be where where you'll have uh you know much more desire willingness capacity to sort of you know uh you know put more narrative to it or think about how that narrative

052is going to play out and and uh and what else we might need to augment sort of telling the story um but to start with here i'm certainly happy to do this and it's all part of what i've got to do to for both internally and you know and externally so it's it's not it's part of the job okay all right um pilot you have any questions or thoughts in particular you'd like to put forward no i think they've been covered okay my ring curve is being exposed but i'm also um writing a lot down and just there's so many unknowns because we don't know what our enrollment's going to look like what our requirements in terms of ppe how many people on the bus so right i don't admire your job dr slaughter but

053it was it was a heck of a time to sort of take on this this job like that's not so bad that covet hits it's a whole new ballgame in some respects um so you know every day i'm more appreciative of the kinds of stuff and the amount of stuff that sean you know did for us um and uh you know there's a lot uh a lot going on that he took care of um you know and i'm not sure always everybody knew exactly how much that was but i'm coming to appreciate more i guess i i do have one question um that came up at the sctf meeting in terms of it okay so we as a school committee or the budget subcommittee is it ours to go to the town and say we

054actually need more than level i think that's what i heard peter saying i'm a little slow i need to hear it a lot or mr demilly but that might be when we look at it that's something we can do and say we can't make we'll obviously have to make it but it's that one of those things where we sort of reach out to the town council people right i think how we how we do that is going to be you know interesting i mean you know as we spoke at the at the school committee the other night i mean i think the in general the relationship between the school committee and the various towns has been pretty decent over the years um you know the towns have had their their conflicts about how they think

055we should fund things um i mean that's another piece to this is so there's how do we you know assess this cost you know sort of what burden does each town bear and then how much should we be actually spending and both of those are uh simultaneously kind of in in the mix um and so we have to you know navigate that a little bit but i do think that um when it gets down to brass tax it you know we need uh we need all four towns to agree to an assessment method in other words how we're going to divvy up the cost and then three of the four to say yes i'm going to pay that because if three of the four do it then the fourth one has to all right that's

056my thing we do before our next four towns meeting anyway no no so that's gonna we got time on that um so we got yeah we got lots of time on that because i think you know the the this kind of leads naturally into kind of next topic which is sort of what is our timeline i mean traditionally you know school committee votes the budget in march we're probably going to still need to meet that that deadline um because uh you know the the town meetings have you know happen in late april and early may and there's deadlines for getting the warrants put together and all that so i think we'll still have the same you know trajectory of a of march for us approving a a budget to recommend to folks obviously between now

057and then we're going to have lots of conversations about you know what's the what's the cost what are the the pros and cons what do we think we should be doing and what we you know can or will do um and you know the towns have their responsibility they say no you know we offer up a budget and say this is what we think should happen and they go no that's not what's going to happen because we can't afford it then we have to go back and sort of go okay well then we're going to work with something else and you know we all want to go nice and smooth it may not it's okay we it's okay to you know i mean it's trickier because it gets you get started getting a time crunch

058on some stuff but but the state has mechanisms you know if we don't get a budget approved and you know we we hope not to be there but at the same time it is maybe complex enough that that's where we end up so that's also you know i think uh to the superintendent's point you know you guys are um a committee that that you know you set the budget and and you know you're going to make the decisions you think are best for the for the kids that are coming obviously not being completely blind to what the you know economic realities are of the communities but at the same time um you know you get to make that choice and then make the you know make the people who appropriate the money make their choice

059and then deal with the result yeah yeah it's not right so we don't have to start out saying okay we're going to cut all that money we can say this we think is a reasonable way to go this year and then they can tell us if they'll do it or not right and i think that you know i'm i'm you know the the numbers that we put out you know that i put out in the last couple weeks very rough so there'll be things that change i mean we're hopeful that like our health insurance uh won't go up five percent i mean we picked five percent we've had better luck in the last couple years if that goes down you know like a percentage points i forget the number of it's a hundred or two

060hundred thousand dollars you know i mean that's how big a number it is you know so so those kind of things can make huge you know positive or negative impacts hopefully positive which is why we take a conservative approach to start um so i think you know that's one area that could be um a positive for us i'm hoping is a positive for us um but there are others that we just we don't know and and you know we've made some what we hope are decent guesses to start with but you know things are going to change a lot in the next six weeks um because the you know the governor will come out with his budget and you know um i will say i was i caught the last like four or five minutes

061of the you know at the at the state house the uh you know chairs of the two um ways and means had a had a revenue projection meeting they do they do it this time every year they get a lot of different economic advisors to sort of offer their suggestion as to what the tax revenues are looking like surprisingly good yeah i read that somewhere that you know that's reassuring that you know that funding will at least be kind of level which is a you know whole lot better than than it could be um so you know if our funding from the state stays kind of level that you know makes it a lot easier for the towns as well as the schools to to to plan that doesn't mean we still don't have money

062to make up in other places but but it does help so doug when would you so i mean you probably at this point would be making a guess but perhaps an educated guess on when when would it thinking about the timeline you're saying we would probably still have to approve a budget in march unless you know unless the towns are going to move their town meeting like they did last year which would change you know sort of debates um i know in in you know in amherst they have a much later um approval process i think they're in may and june whereas whereas with the town meetings uh they're the last weekend or the of april and the first weekend of may and so and they need a 30-year 45-day lead time for the warrants

063and all that so so at what point would you expect to say okay this is what i where i think we're going to be on these things that right now we don't have any idea i mean what's your hope or best guess on when you might be there well um so health insurance you know we'll find out in january they usually um you know the maya miia which is our you know our agent for health insurance uh and they're part of mma which is the mass municipal association they have the mass municipal has a meeting in like the third week of january and it's usually during that weekend of that meeting that maya makes their projections so that's one number that's a pretty big number that will help uh us get clarity about that same

064time is when the governor kind of releases his budget so they've got an estimate of what chapter 70 is going to look like at that point so okay you're kind of kind of uh you know in that point in january we'll know uh a little bit more um about both of those that have a pretty significant impact on on the overall budget um they're not solid you know i mean well the health insurance one will be a you know kind of a firm number at that point but the um but the chapter 70 still has to go through its usual process um and and so you know i think that what's probably um likely to happen uh is and i haven't had a conversation with superintendent about this but i'm guessing that it may make

065more sense for the four towns to get together pretty late in january because i think we'll have another good set of numbers at that point but that would also be a good time to have kind of a document together that's got this sort of you know history and fundamentals of the budget put together okay um that's kind of what i was thinking of is that you know we can kind of gather this stuff and and kind of polish a little bit and because it's you know it's about it's about things that are known our history uh and or things that can be described somewhat generically and again are are fairly fixed and so we can kind of i think put that together and and have that you know uh available um you know in anticipation

066of that meeting maybe have that and send it out to people in advance and then um but i think that and and the superintendent may differ on this opinion i'm just thinking about the sort of um droop a quick glance um if we you know if we had a you know i hate to say the 30th of january because that's the sort of last saturday but that might be that that might be a target for towns meeting that might have some real significant uh you know at least reasonable numbers to put in place we should have health insurance at that point we should have uh some greater clarity from the governor as far as his budget is concerned which will help really kind of start the frame there okay also have a sense on how

067much people are gonna debate that so you know our representatives in the house and senate would would have some sense about how much the governor's budget uh has people fired up to make a change to it okay so i mean that's kind of you know and then from from that sort of late january i i just think i mean it would in some ways it'd be nice to meet a little before that i just don't know that we'll have enough new information okay i may talk to the superintendent he and i and and uh during cunningham are going to have a meeting tomorrow and talk about sort of budget we're going to have it earlier in the week we pushed it back to today so we're going to lay out sort of a timeline for

068ourselves as well so um you may have a very different take on that i'll let you know if he does um but i think that for me i'm what i'm thinking is this this sort of background information that that uh i think is useful it's always useful but but uh you know to kind of get that put together over the next month basically and then try to get out the folks so they can be prepared to have the conversation when we have a little better numbers to contour the end of january would be okay where i think we could be and then from that late january to march um is when you know uh we get a lot deeper into questions about what's our assessment method and what's what's our uh choices we're making relative

069to what programs we're offering and how much and what kind i mean those are that's when that real debate is happening and and the deep thinking about the specifics starts to happen in that really month half two-month span between the late january and mid-march so you're anticipating that that if we had a another four-town meeting at the end of january that would be the point at which there would actually be a vote on the assessment method you know i i think that would be lovely whether i think that would really happen i don't know okay um but i think that what we could do is is potentially get a you know a deeper commitment from folks about their comfort level okay um you know which is often what happens you know a lot of times

070will happen in in the in the december meeting because you know they're a lot more flu less uh variability as much as you don't really know what chapter 7 is going to look like you don't really know what state aid is going to look like you have a sense of it at that point a little bit you know from um not this year so but not this year so that you know and so and you know oftentimes we kind of take everybody's temperature in december about what you know assessment methods they thought they could could you know could uh could afford and sort of the level of funding they thought they could afford i i think palum was was probably clearest in that regard um at our last meeting um but i think that kind

071of conversation is more of what we'll have in late january and then i think we might have another one in in february where we really kind of do what we usually do with the second one where we really get a firmer commitment from everybody to to sort of back a particular idea that's how i see it playing out whether okay so i'm thinking for us then we we will wait for information from you and once we have that then i think we need to consider what we want to do with that information how we want to present it and um we want to have that ready probably a week before that four-town meeting yeah so go out to people and they would actually have time to go over it right and that means we would

072probably need to get together earlier in january rather than later so um yeah what i would what i would suggest is sort of this this sort of fact gathering stuff and putting some things together for you guys it won't be in a pot as polished estate is it will ultimately be in but getting that together basically kind of by the end of this month um and then we could make maybe that that first couple days of january then we can kind of divvy up the tasks at that point uh as far as what is the sort of product going to look like and again i think about this is about telling that story what's the background what's the frame what's the you know uh you know as we discussed the particulars a little later in

073the month where the wiggle you know the places of of flexibility or inflexibility uh so everybody's operating from a similar understanding in a similar history um that's kind of what i'm thinking is going to be reasonable all right yeah it would be nice if we could kind of uh yeah if not a few days a week if not if you if and if not a week at least three or four days before that gets stuff out to people so they have a chance to kind of spend some time with it would be would be beneficial i think so that okay because you know when we talk about these assessment methods if you haven't like really dug into the nitty-gritty of them over the years they are super complex i mean just the chapter 70 formula

074the statutory method just on its own uh you know what's involved in what's called a minimum contribution those are really complex um uh formula with a lot of deep thinking about it but a lot of debate about what is or is an appropriate way to fund schools and you know and we can get into that and and it's not that we don't want to get into those weeds but but we do want to be we don't get we don't want to get bogged down in that either right that can get to a place where it's like not constructive to to really going well what can we afford what do we want to afford and what do we think is the right trajectory for us as a district okay all right so then what i should

075do with you is uh boy the time is going by um is some time before the first of the year uh set a meeting date um okay yeah i mean i'm you know like everybody i'm not going anywhere so you know regardless which holidays one might celebrate there's not a lot of places to go so i'm kind of around um but what i will do is as far as putting this stuff together i'll try to get that out to everybody as soon as i can so you can start to look at it and think about it and then when we can have those conversations you post questions and and you know see if there's something missing in the in that so that when we actually meet again like this we'll be ready to to um

076you know uh think about how we sort of shape this into something for the broader public to look at um so um yeah i would suggest connect with me the last week of december um okay and we'll set an actual date and talk about agenda specific stuff but but i will try to get materials to you in and around that same time frame um so you guys can look that stuff over and kind of think about it and you know think about different ways to sort of present it and explain it and have you know have people interpret it okay all right uh any other comments or questions before we adjourn all right well thank you everybody and i will take a motion to adjourn all right we'll take a roll call vote holla um

077lord i carey and margaret hi um the meetings adjourned and thank you all thank you thank you all thank you you