001um is my my thing is turned on yeah okay good sorry um all right are there any changes or additions to the agenda I actually have two um we need to add a discussion of house bill h850 um with regards to our budget and also um I would like to add um uh I guess if we want to ask Brandon gck from the town office uh to help us uh review the Su budget and maybe even our own budget for this year to see where he thinks possible Cuts could come from um anyone else have anything to add to the agenda no okay uh we have approval of minutes from uh we have three different ones to do we got a little backed up um we have the one from December December 12th to do
002I'll take a motion to approve Mo okay all right uh so we have a motion to approve I would like to um make a small change um at the very not at the very end at the uh let's see if you go to um items for discussion under the fy2 budget um the end of the paragraph that starts there were a lot of questions about the Su budget um the last sentence says Weathersfield portion of the special education budget is higher this year because based on the system we now use and I think that's maybe a little confusing I don't think that's true um I would change that sentence to say the Weathersfield portion of the Su budget is higher this year based on the pupil counts for the three District weather field numbers are
003increasing while other districts are decreasing so our portion of the budget is larger there was a question about the special ed yeah there was and that's discussed in here too but yeah it didn't have anything to do with why our portion was higher it had to do with why the overall budget was higher and you can you send me that what you just said because that's a lot for me to write down how you it worded or I could just delete that whole sentence it's up to you um yeah I guess that sentence could just come out take that sence out yeah because it's because that sentence isn't really true as written yeah okay I'll just delete the whole sentence okay um any other changes to it okay all in favor say I I that's
004unanimous okay um let's see next we have the one from January 9th I'll take a motion to approve that so move okay Mark made that motion um I do have a change for that as well um under the administrative report it had Ed Connor explained the ACT 127 breakout the second bullet point the last sentence uh doesn't quite make sense uh it says our tax rate will be the same if the fy20 budget is and then it says up 1% under 10% it actually should read um fy2 budget is increased up to the 10% limit you got that Becky yeah okay right all in favor say I I I that's unanimous um then we have the budget I mean the uh draft minutes for the uh special budget meeting on January 16th I'll take a
005motion to approve that so moved okay Markman that motion um I don't have any changes for that one any else have any changes okay I'll in favor say I hi and that's also unanimous all right we got that housekeeping taken care of so we're all set with our meeting all caught up with our minutes um next we have public participation is there any public participation no no okay um there won't be a student presentation of learning today um so next we have the administrative report which budget which is budget just budget all about not enough all right there we go all right so wetherfield school annual town meeting March 2nd so we're gonna go through what what would happen if if h85 850 doesn't go through this is actually our budget as it was presented
006before yes so and then whatever changes we need to make changes so this is as accurate as it can be this moment okay first article to approve the reports of the school district officers for the period from July 1st 2022 to June 30th 2023 arle two to elect the weatherfield school district officers for the ensuing term article three to vote that the weatherfield school district is authorized to borrow money from the capital reserve fund or a commercial lender in anticipation of taxes to meet the requirements of the school district for the ensuing year and to authorize the execution and delivery of notes or orders to the Weathersfield School District by Australian ballot article four shall the voters of the Field School District authorized the school board to apply $349,999 of the FY 23 Surplus to
007the capital reserve fund by Australian ballot and then Article Five shall the voters of the weatherfield school district approve the transfer of $200,000 from the FY 23 fund balance to a property tax reduction Reserve fund to be applied as a revenue should increase expenses or reduced revenues cause an increase to the tax rate in future years by Australian ballot it's a lot to say a big mouth it is and so you guys might notice up there next to articles it does say page so once we get the page numbers from the town report we'll put I'll actually drop the numbers in there oh okay so people at home can it makes it we found that to make it easier last year so that's why that's in there it wasn't that I missed anything article six
008sh the voters of the weatherfield School District approved the school board to expend $ 8,779 600 $680 which is the amount of the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year by Australian ballot and article seven to transact any other business which may properly come before the meeting all right any questions on the Articles okay oh yes I think in the past articles one two or three or whatever that you said by Australian Val particularly with no money attached to them have been voted as floor articles that's one point and on article four is there any money in the capital of Reserve account now you're asking I think the public really should know that so you're asking for an addition I don't know you don't present that whatever so is that
009a brand new account or is there there already is an account it has about 28 228,000 um at our last meeting we went over some projects that will be coming up in the next couple of years such as um I believe there was the resurfacing of the parking lot um and some other you'll take you'll take that on on Saturday some type of discussion yeah this is probably mooded at this point that's probably not going to happen anymore I learned about that for the first time just seeing AR four yeah so what what you're seeing today is is what we voted on before the legislature decided to make these changes with h850 um yeah but I'm not there yet what I'm what I'm saying is you're asking the voters to that's either going to be
010a yes or no question on article four and okay and and and the question as a voter that just went into my mind was okay how much I think we should present that the reasons why yeah all of these articles will be explain I mean not not the simple ones but the ones any ones that involve money will be much further explained during the meeting by and they and also people can ask questions if they have questions at that time and then those are taken right from the warning that's why it said Australian ballot because that's what it said on the warning yeah you can't change that if you want to yeah so that's why it says exactly like it is so took it verbatim so no I was just getting to the reason so
011you pck that 300,000 and I think it's important to know that you have 200 and something thousand already in there so the total and after yes vote would be 500 something thousand in a reserve account for Capital Improvement right exactly all right any other questions one online no put his hand up okay okay no he put it back up okay Brandon hey Brandon go ahead hey can you go back to I think it was Article five or six could you pull that back up is that the one for the $200,000 for future property tax reduction yeah and it says Reserve fund is that Reserve fund already established no that that that's a new fund that would be established there has been one in the past there has been one in the past but it's you
012it was it now is no long it's depleted but we were going to add this back into or open a new one I don't know how exactly and Dave do you know if there's a different process for actually establishing a reserve account or will this article by to transfer the money in there um create create the reserve fund I guess I I guess I defer to the language in that article I don't know if it says it all in one does it wrap it all up in one sentence they they've allocated the dollar amount and the intent which would be to to to to put that into the reserve account so so if it does then then yes would be yes and no would be no this is again one of the articles that if
013h850 passes we would be most likely getting rid of I don't disagree with the article I was just wondering if it will establish what you're trying to do um if the reserve fund doesn't exist will Article Five create the Reserve fund yes I can't see does it say I don't my glasses on up to 200,000 or does it say it was 200,000 was the amount we were going to put that is the that was the amount we were going to put in there Y what kind of what we do at the town is we'll say so let's say you didn't have 100,000 you the vote would authorize you to establish Reserve account and you may have a circumstance where you can put in19 there was a little Freedom there oh this this one says you
014know exactly the amount and exactly the account so you're recommending that were to do this in the future we would say up to instead of saying exactly yes and and and Brandon would you would you rather see it say uh fund balance to a new property tax reduction Reserve fund like just add the word new would that suffice I would actually I think Consulting [Music] with went our coun okay can you guys hear me we we can't hear you but these did go through our legal council so we have okay we do have legal council on us and council did say it would create a new Reserve Fund in weatherfield uh the lawyer didn't say did not say that um Brandon he approved the Articles as written um Ed is on Ed might be able
015to speak to it I know I know there was a fund in the past I don't know if that just goes to zero and we have to open a new one or if we can add to that line Ed do you know the answer to that and and Christine I just you know usually when I look at what a reserve like how a reserve fund was created I to the town Mee meeting article that created it and it's just different than this article yeah yeah we took this article from the last time it was done the language right from that warning um but if it needs to be written differently you know please yeah share your share your feedback so we can get it right yeah I think I'm going to defer it to Steve
016H I'll ask him tomorrow okay and and you'll get back to us yes okay thanks John has his up okay John John Arison yeah he's trying to unmute it looks [Music] like now he put his hand down I think he's trying to figure out how to unmute okay John you can type into the chat too if you let me see if it's open actually okay I think he's saying go on for now okay um all right any other questions or move on okay are you on the tab there yeah hold on there we go there it showed up okay all right so Community it's from one of our community dinners lunch um so how we meet student and family needs so obviously special education for kids who qualify through the IEP the individual educ ation
017plan we also have support for high-risk kids who are not served through iip so we have we are hope um which is a coaching model for students that um we have uh a coach here that helps out some of the students that need it we do offer Advanced eighth grade math students May access high school algebra so they do that through Windor and they go there in the morning and that's their math class for the year um expanded food program designed to serve better food to more kids our food here is pretty amazing if you have the opportunity we do we are having lunch with the love one this week hopefully you signed up and you can come on by I know some people here have already done it and it is a great opportunity
018to get lunch um with your students but also kids eat breakfast and lunch for free um we have Hicks nickels grants PTO funding rise amplify Grant and other grants bring all kinds of extras to the school um at no cost to taxpayers which is amazing um four wins which we have through our budget it's a nature based curriculum and we have parent volunteers that come out and run the four wins program um it gives kids those opportunities to have some Hands-On learning and usually it's outside um pause which is not a school funded program but is amazing um we've got a brand new um pause director this year who has just really expanded the program and made it more um accessible for many families and they share the facility here in our AP room um
019we have High attendance by students our average attendance is about 93 to 94% on average um and then we do theme based activities after school hours for families and volunteer time so lots and lots of stuff going on at the school um opportunities for student and family engagement we did our welcome back kickoff again which we do our back to school night before school starts we find that it takes away a lot of the anxiety for both students and teachers and families by having that we do have a maker space we have a ever growing sports program our sports program keeps getting bigger and bigger each year we just completed our four weeks of winter activities which was amazing for the students to be able to have that because we're raising vermonter and being able
020to have them be outside or if they don't want to do an outside activity they can also do some of the inside things our wonderful PTO does a PA drop every year and I know they've already been planning for this upcoming fall again and it's always a highly um great turnout for that we just had our family dance on Saturday from 3:00 to 5:00 that's also a PTO activity and so um our middle level students get dances on a regular basis including they're doing an sui dance this year but our PTO last year wanted to make sure that our little ones um our elementary school kids got that opportunity as well so we did a K5 dance and they did it again and we had a large participation it was so big on Saturday when
021I walked in there I was a little overwhelmed with that many people and the dancing that was going on that I stayed for a little bit but I hung out in my office a little bit I'll admit that um our community Thanksgiving dinner is always well attended by our community um Family there's a line out the door for for it um it's really just a great opportunity we're planning a steam night in May um between our teacher Mrs Smith who runs our maker space and also we're getting our new arts teacher involved in that because what a difference the a makes in Steam um and so she's going to be helping out a little bit more with that we completed our high school fair in January where we had students that are eighth graders and
022below that too where they can have an opportunity to come and check out some of the different high schools since we are a high school choice District and then um we've had students that have been shadowing the different high schools around and making those selections for where they're going um we do monthly Pride assemblies where our students get recognized for being for having perseverance respect Integrity determination and empathy and so we invite families to those so that we can recognize the students um last year we did an amazing production of The Little Mermaid Junior and we're already in working on Beauty and the Beast Junior and so we're able to get that done and we have have lots of our families that participate and are um do the costumes and everything and they just do
023a fantastic job it was a really great opportunity for kids last year and last year we had a lot of students that had to do double and triple um parts and this year we don't have that many of those there's a lot of a lot more kids that are involved because they saw how amazing it was last year um our student council is part of our leadership class and so we have four student council officers that help out with our leadership class as well and they make decisions and help out with the school including this week they are doing a um activity which it is random acts of kindness week so they're involved in that they get here before school some of them to help put up signs and do different things and decorate so
024that's just one of the many things that our leadership class is doing including planning the Su dance as well we just did our spelling beat today and so we have three students that are going on to the next level for spelling be our math team that is led by Mrs Stillson and Miss koric helps out as well is constantly doing math um meets they have one more coming up and they've been doing really well and it's nice to see we have an all girl math team this year which is pretty awesome the Girl Power for mathematics which we like um and then our students do Christmas cards and Caroline at the Ascutney house so just some of the schoolwide activities that we've been able to do this year funding sources so we have lots of
025different funding sources we have local taxes state of Vermont educational fund obviously federal government grants private grants like we mentioned before Hicks Nichols Walmart burn Foundation rise amplify our PTO gives a lot back we get generous donations from teachers staff parents community and organizations and then we also have a tons and tons of volunteers um we just got a very large amount of furniture from Red River which we appreciated so all of our teachers got new chairs or just like the one over there so they're gently used chairs but they are really expensive and we could not have afforded them as a school but Red River donated those to us so which made it really nice for us we appreciate all of the generous donations that we get from our community all right any questions
026on community Dave has question oh go ahead Dave I just have a comment so I was in the town office today and I was talking also with Steve V the treasurer who's also um part of the uh team that handles the U public funds I would definitely check um to see I get into it with him about what the terms were of Dick Nichols I'm very familiar with that but but I'm talking about the interest bearing so I don't know uh they deposited into uh certificates I know and since that has changed dramatically it might be really good for you guys to check on that um because you know it's a long way from 05% interest right now it's more like close to five and I for annually that's a big deal so but I
027don't know the terms of what he's done to secure what banks those are in you know I don't know the length of where he's at right now but I know when he re-ups for instance I know that's an interest bearing account you guys can spend the interest but what I'm trying to say is you know it might be you know like like 10,000 but it might grow to like 50,000 so it's worth checking thank you I noted that appreciate it all right our goals um part of our strategic plan so our three main goals in our Strate in our strategic plan are Student Success and engagement information and communication and culture and student wellness um so one of the things that that we do leader and me we're in our core three part of leader
028and me um our classrooms continue to have mission statements um they set up their wigs that they change on a regular basis which are wildly important goals um we have student Le presentations um Panther Pride assemblies that go back into that and students help out with that and then of course like I mentioned before our leadership class and one of the things that we're doing for our spring conferences is they're going to be student Le conferences so the students have portfolios and they're going to lead their learning and tell their families what they've learned of course with the teacher being the guide on the side information andun communication so we work hard at building the partnership between school and home we do that with our Weathersfield Weekly Newsletter that we've adjusted to make it easier
029for families to read um classroom newsletters social media and other and our website um and we've also been thrilled to offer those inperson community dinners that I've mentioned a couple times already so more opportunities for families to be here not really sure what that sound is um so mtss and winter activities so we use a systematic approach to make sure that all students have an equitable and Su successful education we've done this this year by working with teachers on unpacking standards while working on high impact teaching strategies we meet as teams consistently to look at data and adjust instruction is needed so it's all part of the mtss process and then we were able to continue winter activities like I mentioned um students had a multitude of activities that they see I got to fix
030that right there two words are combined that they could choose to do either Outdoors or indoors and students had lots of voice and choice on that just make a note all right any questions on our goals all right supervisory Union assessments so the following expenses fall within the assessments we give to the Su so special education Food Services Transportation Administration and operations Early Childhood Program maintenance and curriculum so that's part of all part of what we get from our um wait um what we get from our Union supervisor Union assessments okay all right fy2 overview of the budget projected enrollment and K12 student enrollment so our projected enrollment um right now we um we have 25 as a placeholder for kindergarten that number goes up and down depending on it so 25 is a good
031ballpark figure um we had a really small kindergarten class this year so we have 20 students that are moving on to first grade 26 33 30 30 27 30 and then 17 will be eighth graders next year we had a really large class of 36 this year and then our seventh grade class is pretty small at 17 so we have 238 total students right now um and that number does vary usually we add more students as the year progresses so that's a very conservative number to figure for this year and then K12 wise you can see how our numbers have changed over the last four or five years um from 234 238 with 217 mixed in there and then our numbers increase as far as with high school and so we're projected to have 343
032students students K through 12 next year high school costs so um projected High School tuition so FY 2023 um our actual cost was $1,911 537 in FY 24 the projected High School tuition was 2,162 74 2 and then for FY 2025 2,371 338 so the high cost of high school goes up a little bit part of that is that we have eight more students this year in high school than we had going in we have eight more going in than we had out I think is what the number worked out to be and the costs have gone up and the costs have gone up too so sometimes we have this bubble year next year obviously we only have 177 going into high school so yes there'll be some some changes next year okay our budget
033goals for fy2 always to maintain a staffing plan and program of studies which support our whole the whole child intellectually social emotionally and physically and then to bring forth a responsible budget while meeting the educational quality standards that we have here at Weathersfield all right okay that might be a little hard for everybody to see so if you I could probably make it bigger yeah okay so I'm G to put bigger on that one but that gives an overview of the information as far as what wages increase um benefits benefits have gone up but I'll get into that slide in a minute um Contracting Services those are all the breakdowns I'll make that one proposed budget bigger okay and then budget increase drivers these are some of the things that helped make our budget bigger
034um so I can probably make this bigger as well okay bigger budget slide so that we had a 16.4% health care increase um staff negotiated salary increases High School tuition went up 1.0 full-time health teacher we have a 1.0 full-time equivalent World Language teacher we added a full-time art teacher that we didn't have before that was a 60% position before and then we have two full-time equivalent Sesser funded teaching positions that will go back into the general budget um we had the increase in the Su um share of the assessments du The increased enrollment numbers and then this was because of the 5% precla cap well field board would have to cut roughly 1.125 million to begin to have reduction in the FY 25 tax rate which would have a detrimental effect on our school
035yeah and that's if act 127 stays as is which currently the house is taking up um a resolution h850 which will totally change all of this yeah so it's anticipated then it's anticipated that it will pass the governor is in favor of it so um we talk about that when ran is done okay all right Su assessments there's a comparison of what our s assessments are from FY 24 to fy2 um I think it's big enough yeah okay and then increase in our tax rate so our current tax rate is 1.66 46 new tax rate um was projected to be 1. n606 which is a increase of 0. 296 or 17.7 n% from last year and then those are the increase in what the value of your taxes would increase as a home as a
036property owner here in butsfield based on your home value Mr um was that so the state announces the homestead that's hom right yeah you guys don't have anything to do with settings actually no the state gives the information and you get it back do you know if there's a year delay on that information that's gathered or is that I think it has to be right because the listers every year assemble the grand list by like May 1st so we're so it's already a little bit behind the information that's used to gather whatever the valuations are yeah so I'm thinking that that this is yeah I think the Homestead Rate is a year behind and income and and the income sens income sensitivity is two years behind so and they have in order to gather all
037this kind of information to establish this I think so um the reason I as that because we at the town we do a little bit different the state doesn't the state does not um set the tax rate we set the tax rate every year in June after the budgets um because we have the most current information on the grand list um so one it's for the last two years in a row I don't know if you've heard me say this but it's it's it's a little unnerving despite all of what the Uproar is about values of homes and if a couple of new homes are built in whether field or more whatever the land use permits are there is a Formula that a really large entity in town uses its utility and they use that
038according to the state law to factor in a little depreciation so that has lowered the grand list despite anybody putting a deck on or or adding to their land use things this will be the third in a row that's happened um as a result of that the rates are a little higher so when I talked to mik Todd and I don't know if I dropped this on Brandon yet today but we're going to make sure that we funel that information that the utility is using to the puc which sets the electric rates so you can't have it both ways you'll have your your assessment dramatically lowered and then the rest of us have to make up the difference through the tax rate through the homestead that's what's happening and then they file for a rate
039increase hold the phone I'm talking a lot of money I'm talking like more than I don't even know it's in the millions random has done this he's he's got all the sh on so that's just one and I don't know where this does this rate then implicate something else you're going to talk about with the legislature yes and well yes yes because because this this rate involves the 5% what the legislature is well we can talk about later but it's they're planning on change it they're not the cap is going to go away and so everything's going to get different but it's always an estimate Dave because they're going to set the yield after all the budgets have passed which impacts so they're GNA I I don't know but typically we just so you guys
040keep all this in mind I think I emailed you this I don't know if you Shar it with everybody but typically as we move along the the tax rates are set finality like somewhere in June so the first quarterly tax payment is due somewhere around August 10th or so yeah but you guys are this not going to hurt you because the financial year ends on June 30th of any year the new one begins on July 1st for school and town so um I don't know what's going to happen on our tax bills we're just going to get to the end about what the tax bills all right any questions on I those two corrections to fix on fiscal year 25 good all right and then any general questions and I was thinking on this slide
041but you're probably going to say no it' be really nice to have a picture of you guys because I rest of my slides just thought I'd ask okay the laughter says no right there but just to be you know nice touch but all right think about it maybe we I'll send you in pictures I I don't want one taken right tonight but maybe we can all send you pictures all right that's that's fair you guys even considering it I appreciate that so all right and so that's that's it for okay my part I can bre now okay I'm gonna stop sharing then and your meetings at 10:00 a.m. right Saturday March 2nd 10: a.m. yep at as of right now but that might change well well when I went I think I think it has
042to be on a warning that's part that's part of the that's part of what the legislature is working on that we will be able to actually resend all of our articles set a new date have a totally new vote but but the but the ballots are being printed right now just so you know yeah I know that they have they have I have paped persons that are running so some of this is going to stay it could either we can decide to have it stay or we can decide to take to have those crossed off and not be tabulated and be tabulated at a later date depends what we decide well if this passes it depends what we decide well then we're I mean we're still scheduled to hold a town meeting yeah um I
043I'd be working with the town course because the other I defin as soon as I have a more firm grasp of what's actually going to happen I will definitely be in touch with Lam all right did you're not gonna present okay um all right so what we were just talking about is what's going on in the legislature which um they've apologized profusely they understand um what this what kind of tumult this is going to cause amongst the state school boards um unfortunately the way the 5% cap ended up working out it sent the yield into kind of a downward death spiral and they had they need to make a change um they realized this actually back in November but because we have a part-time legislature they couldn't do any start working on this until the
044beginning of January um so they've come up with uh h850 which I don't know if every I emailed everybody a copy of that I don't know if everybody has it in front it's changed slightly today it changed a little bit more it's just very slightly from what I sent you um mostly it just sort of I think the two big changes from the one that I sent you were that we can resend all the Articles the originally was just budget articles now it's all the Schoolboard articles we can resend and set a new date for um and I believe also there was I forget there was also some kind of change to they're providing funds to do this also um day so you might FL know that she'll be getting some money to do all
045yeah rece save your receipts yeah if if that's what we decid to do but um yeah so um H 850 takes away the 5% cap if we take away the 5% cap and leave our budget as it is our tax rate would be so um that's an increase of 22.4% from last year with the cap it was 17.7 n yes so it's a little bit more yes so it's it's well significantly um so uh I don't I don't think that I you know I didn't think 177% was um probably not going to fly with a lot of PE voters um I definitely don't think 22 4 2% um the tax discount yes we did get um so well the things that are the things in H50 um so instead of the 5% cap they are
046going to give us um we're we're one of the districts it turns out it seemed like we were getting a lot more pupils but actually they're giving a lot more pupils to everybody so um comparatively we're on the losing end of the getting pupil scale and we are losing 5% tax capacity in weather scale so to help us to um moderate that and to work it into our budgets um each district that's on the losing end that's losing tax capacity is being given um a certain amount of cents off their tax rate and it's equal to the amount of percent that you're losing so since we're losing 5% tax rate we will get five cents taken off of our tax rate um and then that's going to be over the next five years we'll get
0475% this year 4% FY 26 3% FY 27 2% and then 1% and then no percent um so hopefully we'll worked it into our budget at the end of that time and this scenario is all of 850 passes tomorrow this is if well if it's it's set to go to the house tomorrow the house if they pass it then it goes to the Senate then they need to pass it and then the governor needs to sign it as far as what I've heard it it's looking like it is going to pass because if it doesn't I mean it's just it's not a good situation with the yield if this doesn't pass okay uh John Arison has his hand up first of all um your chair has been an excellent job of her presentation um she's
048probably learned more about the bills and the legislature than she probably ever wanted to know but anyway what basically what she said is is 100% accurate the bill technically is still in committee uh first reading is coming up and then they could Advance it to Second reading right then and there I don't think they will um and then of course it goes over to the Senate the Senate has a propensity to actually CH throw their two cents in and change things but I think the only choice choice that you folks have right now is to assume that act that uh 850 will go through basically as written uh maybe with some minor changes the thing that's going to be really uncomfortable is that uh the last date that they're giving to actually have your town
049vote on your budget is April 15th and that has to be warned a month 30 days early so you only get a month to figure out what to do and how to do it um fortunately I think the last meeting I attended with you folks you you uh you did not pad your budget with that money that looked like it was free if you will um other word didn't affect your tax rate a lot of schools did not do the Prudence that you folks did and did indeed um throw that extra money into their budgets um to fix roofs or whatever they planned on doing I have no idea but anyway the the goal hopefully is that some of these schools will back up the total overall spending for the state will go down which
050should help all the schools Al together um like I said when it goes to the Senate there I don't think they will make any wholesal changes I just don't see that happening um it this bill's got to go through you can't the 5% was was basically supposed to accomplish what what the percentage decreases that that Amory just outlined um and and nobody anticipated um the results that took place with with the extra spending Co and everything else because that was actually passed in the 22 session um anything else I can help with let me know um John do you know if the yield changed today I haven't seen the yield number period uh except for the one in December that was um released all I can say is that that state revenues are are pretty
051close to projections um and that's where a lot of that money comes from sales tax another the I guess the the nuts of both of it is that don't anticipate wonderful numbers or or improve significantly improved numbers from the yield um one thing that they did um Emily kouser um at the Ways and Means Committee was talking about was that um right now it isn't figured in that uh districts will cut their budgets but they are assuming that we will um so if that does take place that will help with the yield um so the yield should improve slightly because it does seem to me at least other um Schoolboard chairs that I've been talking to are also planning to cut their budgets so um I think it's pretty safe to assume that people will
052be cutting their budgets um due to this change and and just so everybody knows uh that's not my committee I'm in institutions and Corrections and we spent the day talking about uh inmates so we appreciate you keeping an eye on this I'm try to follow the Ways and Means Committee because there's a couple other bills that that will affect the town uh that I've been communicating with Brandon about yeah thank you thank you very much John we appreciate you looking out for us okay um so uh so in front of you you all have um a list of proposed amounts that we could cut the budget and what our tax rate would end up being if we do that um so let me see it's it's a little confusing because uh so you have with
053Surplus if we just take all the Surplus money um that's the those two other funds the $200,000 fund and the 300 and some going into the capital reserves and instead put that towards the budget um our tax rate would go would become 14 would become uh 1. n58 and that's a 14 and a half% interest I mean yeah increas increase um if like I said if we leave it as is it's 2.03 78 um and then you have the line where it says 500,000 now that's that's not including the Surplus so um that's why it's higher you know what I mean um I actually had a different one where it said different find yeah um I did fix that I didn't print that uh so um if we if we cut a million this is
054it oh this oh okay yeah this one is the one that makes more sense um although we have to discuss if we want to put the whole Surplus towards like and this and this is all everything that we're discussing now is if h850 passes if H50 doesn't pass then we're not doing then we can't do anything we have to go ahead with the budget that we have um there was mention of using ACT one which is a covid act to postpone our vote uh but that would not come with any money from the state for uh you know for reprinting ballots and so forth so I think if if 850 doesn't pass I think we would want to just um just just leave it as is and see what happens and probably you know having
055uh not pass and that and come back and work on it some more in the spring uh but um if H50 if h850 does pass um these are our options um we could use the whole Surplus we could use none of the Surplus or we could use part of the Surplus and combine that with cuts um I personally I don't recommend using the whole Surplus I kind of feel like that's a little bit of what got us into this mess in the first place um is that the governor used the used the used a lot of the Surplus from last year's Ed fund and B artificially bought down tax rates to 1.6 66 um two years I think actually two years in a row yeah so um if you go back to let me see
056what year was it if you go back to F to fy22 we were actually at 1.95 which um you know so it wouldn't it wouldn't be as much of a difference now if there hadn't been those buy down years of FY 23 and FY 24 so I don't I don't I don't like to use this much M use all that money and use that much money to buy down this year's budget because we're just going to end up paying for it next year and that we're GNA our budget's going to be too high next year and we're g to have to it's I think it's better to spread out the cuts um but I just I also would like the voters to know that you know comparing last year's 1.66 to whatever we come up
057with this year is a little bit unfair because last year there was all kinds of money being thrown at us and at the budget that is no longer available um so um if we if we were to use the whole Surplus we would need to also cut $250,000 in order to get a tax rate increase of uh 10.89 which is a tax rate of 1. 18458 um I think that's reason I mean I think that amount is reasonable in this year in this year um I don't know that I want to use all the Surplus and only cut 250,000 I think it's better to maybe use about half the Surplus and cut 50 thou 500,000 from the budget can we yeah I I think Brian's going to present to us he's going to present to
058us some possible Cuts so let's hear though first okay yeah oh Brandon has his hand raised Brandon do you have something to say before Brian gives the possible tax cuts uh just real quick are the other school boards in our supervisory Union also having these conversations yes yes the mutne board met last night and they decided to resend their budget and um resend their informational meeting date and um one other thing they were sended so they so they decide to go ahead with act one they and do that so they will be having a special election and um they're going to wait roughly two weeks just to see how things are playing out in the legislature before they start talking about their budget and uh Harland has a special meeting this Thursday to discuss the
059very same topic and I don't obviously I don't know what they're going to do yet but yeah yeah we're all having the same conversation and if we Sorry is the supervisory Union board getting together to revisit the Su budget or is that one approve um so uh I am planning on at the next Su budget meeting I mean next Su meeting bringing up the budget um I have spoken with the other board chairs and they agree that um if we all have to make large cuts to our local budgets that we would like to see if the Su has some cuts that they could um you know offer as well just to sort of you know we're all in it together so um so I've asked Christine to you know and to work on coming
060up with some cuts that they could possibly make um that has not now that would have to pass the whole board I don't you know I don't know if you know enough members are going to want to do that but that I am planning to do that at the next Su meeting okay thanks and that's also why I'm planning to ask that's why I spoke with you earlier and I'm planning to ask you to look over the Su budget yeah um sorry what's the what's the increase from the Su and what's the increase from our local budget what's what are the two like there's a total increase that includes the Su budget increase and in our local school budget increase right are you asking um the weatherfield share of the Su budget Brandon yeah how
061much did that increase it increased a roughly 500,000 this year okay and that was um the Su budget was up I think special ed was up about 5.6 and everything else was up about 3.2 if if I remember correctly um and so you you already know Weathersfield share went up because the enrollment in weatherfield went up and also decreased in another District so it's kind of like a double double whammy for weathers field this this year so our our local budget was around 700,000 and then the Su budget increase was around 500,000 is that the local budget increase over last year um I can look I think it was over a million [Music] um yeah our difference is 1.29 almost 1. almost 1.3 million but I think he's asking so 500,000 out that is the
062yeah is the Su and 700,000 of that is the local yeah so you are correct with your numbers brand and just to you probably already know this but any cut to the Su budget um so if the Su budget is cut by 100,000 wetherfield sees roughly 25,000 of that cut in their budget because it's Dy out yeah what what's the percentages of the Su budget per per District um weather's filt at about 25% little over 25 yeah I think we're 26 I think um if my memory serves correctly heartland's at 30 something and mount scut is at 43 I say you have that I can look it up and get you exact numbers if you but it's all it's all based on our um the pupil count this new um long-term weighted average pupil count
063yep except for except except for Food Service which is based on students in the building yeah that was something that Weathersfield and Heartland fought hard for because our our high school students don't benefit from that at all okay um so yeah so we were so you were going to go over what develop a couple different scenarios with some possible budget cuts um so in those budget cuts I offset it with the the $549,999 so that makes up about half of the budget Cuts in both of them um so the first thing I went I went ahead and cut our summer steam program which is a $4,495 world World Language teacher 95,7 health education 86 691 we are hope $30,000 Jim floor $40,000 I say that again what was it Jim Flor Jim floor oh Jim
064Flor yeah Jim Jim floor not Jim Flor who's that who's that guy guy like I don't know kindergarten Furniture 30,000 regular education Paris support 155,156 $1,212 with the Surplus with the Surplus and then the second one is the same Cuts with the addition of the two teachers that we're funding through Esser funds that we were funding through Esser funds we're putting back into the general budget so those total 7,626 17,6 26 and so that's a total of 1,1 18183 so what what do the um cutting the Ester funded teachers what do those do to our classroom numbers so what we do is we have two teachers that are leaving so we would um just absorb those two teachers in The Matrix okay and so I happen to have those as well so if you want
065pass those out those are different matri that we created that has all I explain you you so there's three different Matrix matrixes there I'm G look over your shoulder sorry I should have made more copies of that so this first Matrix is um getting keeping two kindergarten classes at 10 a piece one first grade classroom so not replacing a first grade teacher and then um combining making two fifth grade classes so that we have one teacher is teaching math science another one's teaching Ela and social studies and then just doing one sixth grade class so it's a little bit larger class it's at fifth grade class that's been together forever and then two seventh grade classes at 15 a piece and then one eighth grade class at 17 and that projected number is a little
066bit lower than what we have now because we're up to like 246 in projected this one is leaving everybody as they are is this these are different yeah there's three different onen this Matrix C let me do Matrix B first sorry I thought were all the same no I I did three we did three different ones come up with it so this one is again it's the same as it's making a kindergarten first grade combo okay so we would combine kindergartners we'd have a class of 14 Kinders a class of six Kinders and five first graders and then another class of 15 first graders are two second grade classes at 13 a piece hire a third grade teacher at 16 keep the other third grade teacher keep the two um fourth grade teachers at 15
067a piece and then do fifth grade 15 and 15 where we'd have math science and Ela and social studies and then the numbers would be the same for middle level and then the very last one Matrix C thank you would be to keep it the way we have sort of our Dream keep the two kindergarten classes the way they are One initial first grade teacher and then hire a second first grade teacher and and then hire a third grade teacher but then everybody else is the same with the exception of science where we left the fifth grade being the split between the 15 and 15 so it almost be exactly yeah it almost be exactly the same as we have now it's just we would only have four middle level teachers and we add a
068fifth grade teacher instead of just having one you mind sh yeah we probably can't share it's okay to share these with the No No that' be helpful y yep and do you want copies of anything else although the one thing I have to say here is that um this is kind of that guy's job to decide which of these three scenarios he goes with it's our job to decide how many teachers he has to work with it's not our job to decide which scenario he goes with so I'm not sure that we actually need to see copies of those I mean we need to see them then look at them but I don't know that we need to have okay sounds so the scenarios there that I gave one of them does do it it
069cuts the two s funded teachers by not replacing the first and the third grade teacher yeah so that was so that was a is believe that was a a is the one where so the most drastic cut that's the most drastic cuts um a didn't look bad to me um I mean the only class that I'm not in love with is sixth grade but that looks like that's the same no matter where we're going here yeah I mean six gr we can add you know back in there I mean we can we can play around with the numbers a little bit those are just some things that I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of yeah um that would also be from all the different scenarios the line that that pops
070out in my head too perhaps there's a a perhaps we can lose those two exra funded positions and then possibly augment some assistance on that six grade line yeah and we can look at some different things that we could do with the sixth grade I mean we would have they you said they've been to like have they been together as one class they've been to class since third grade since I've been here they've been together so I really would like I mean and they're right at that hus because the number goes back and forth there's not a lot of problems in the class start little start crazy together I'll be real on that one they've been together for for a long time now in the same room so um I would love to be able
071to break those kids up a little bit and so that's that's that was the one where I was losing sleep on I me I'm losing sleep on all of them of course um once they're a middle school the middle school middle level um they do have the opportunity to do some electives and stuff to get away from each other we could revamp our schedule a little bit and change things around spend some time with some other yeah we I mean there's some creative things that we can look at and see but it would just it's we're going to have to be creative with it because it's not an ideal obviously so I still think the first grade is an ideal I mean that next step from kindergarten into first which is more like second at
072this point I just think that's still high but yeah I mean it's not ideal but I don't think that 20 is this is a I don't think that 20 is ridiculous though for a classroom um what do the experts think yeah it's always better to keep them lowest in the youngest grades because they need the most support what I'm getting right um so if you can build a really strong foundation in those early years you're going to be better off um as they progress so I me 20 is the max recommended in the education quality standards for K2 less I think it says less 20 I can I can check on that for you um I wouldn't I wouldn't um I would recommend you have a full-time support person in there yeah if you have
07320 first graders learning to read and all the other things that um they need to learn in in school these days in that at that grade level yeah it's hard to differentiate you have a lot of different you know levels in a classroom and if you're a teacher of one um especially when kids are really learning to read you're going to want to group them accordingly so that you can give them the you know small group support that they need and that's it's not um it's not an absolutely can't be done but it's really challenging right so and it depends on the pupils that are in the classroom so and the needs so and um and as far as either having two full-time teachers or one full-time teacher and um and a support staff what's
074the difference in cost between those two scenarios probably um $35 to $40,000 I would say with with full packages benefits and all of that um so that's the difference um I will say that you know there was a study done and the recommendation the recommendation is you always want you know the most highly qualified teacher individuals with your with your students so when you're so that's something I'm good DJ a certified teacher and a support staff um it's not going to be the same thing it's not the same thing yeah that's a nice way to just make not the same thing so just to confirm Brian this these major matrices are excluding the SRA funed people you've absorbed them in no just a just a oh just a okay the other two keep the SRA
075funed okay positions but them into what does c do c I think it's just a different way to do it yeah C leaves the two funded teachers so it's the amount of staff that we currently have b gets rid of one oh okay so B is getting rid of one C is the same as current now I'm confused about how do you do kindergarten and first grade at the same time yeah I was G to ask like I've heard it's been done in the past that was my first teaching assignment um so you have to have the right teacher in there um and you just you differentiate the instruction based on the needs of the kids and so you really have to anytime you do a combo class as long as the combo class is
076set up prior to it and you have those kids that are going to be able to I always look for some independent Learners in those classes students that can really work you know on their own and be able to do things um and build the class from there is it tough to do absolutely but with the right teacher in there it can happen so um you you also have to consider the there are separate C curriculums for kindergarten and first grade so it's a teacher figuring out how to De yeah two grade levels and it's a balancing act I did it that teacher will work really hard it it is and it's absolutely hard but it can be done and it can be really beneficial to students in the long run too it really can't
077be it's just you have to pick the right kiddos in there and it's tough with kindergarten in first grade would you say it's easier at kindergarten first than it is say at 5ifth sixth no no okay I was just curious because there's a big difference that from done both yeah I would pick a five6 combo and a heartbeat over K1 combo they're more independent they're more you can do them you can start a kid off and say this group you need to work on this this and this give them short directions and work on the other group or kindergarten sometimes it's a little bit more difficult okay I'm just leave it with that great that's why I ask you guys um so I'm just I'm confused as to if so if Matrix B has one
078additional teacher in it why couldn't it just be that first grade has two teachers because right now um third grade has a lot more numbers because we're losing a teacher in third grade currently and we're losing a teacher in first grade and so my numbers are smaller in I have 32 students in third grade okay so if this one's minus two teachers why can't we just add a teacher right here because we're already adding a teacher the TBH we're adding the third grade teacher so this is only down one teacher only down one oh I thought a was down two no a is down a is down two B is down one yeah this is a two now I'm confused on what it is third there there oh a is just a is down a
079is down one B is down one but we combined to let the numbers off on first grade that's what I did oh okay so by doing the K1 combo I made the kindergarten class instead of 10 and 10 I made so so none of these are down two down the last one yes so we were creative thank you sorry yeah so let me clarify that then now I'm to rethink of what I did so third grade so a would be we just hired a third grade teacher and we have all the first graders together so that's one Esser position gone one one staying one staying okay Matrix B is we made a K1 we made a k a K1 and a first grade to offset the first grade number so there wouldn't be 20 in
080a classroom we sort of bounc them out 14 11 and 15 still that second kindergarten the K1 combo being smaller and then we were hiring a third grade teacher so same scenario one Esser St and then Matrix C is we're hiring a first grade teacher and a third grade teacher so both S A teachers so if we were to cut both user positions we lose a teacher from A or B Matrix so we would have third grade class of 32 students we couldn't have that you have to do some more combos okay um and this is on your scenario too correct like you had the first cut with the Surplus and then you have cut yes please yes I got a few points I guess number one I I think that's a pretty public document
081if you're sharing that with a quum and a war meeting and I don't need to see it but that'd be my opinion um number two I think the board should get around trying to figure out instead of um um talking about like individual teachers at this point I'm assuming it's probably going to that the legislature is going to vote for you to to do what you're doing which is to re go everything over so I get a couple of points to make early on you had said um that you might not be in favor of using all the Surplus and I don't know whether a b and c does does that or not but I I would remind you that there's still $250,000 in an account so that's point one point two Brian said had
082um the principal had said and I know that you buil you're trying to build the 2425 budget but in context with that there's 17 seventh graders which is really important to remember because you could foresee a reduction in the tuition by $200,000 so yeah the need for money maybe for something else you might you just got to look forward a little bit for that yeah um but I think probably this is a lot to take up for this one meeting so I it well it's not going to be decided at this meeting we're just looking over the scenarios and we would have another meeting I'm agreeing though being in and out of the school like for a long time that it is kind of important um to be able to keep the school and so
083consolidating grades doesn't scare me but it does I just listened to the point that that Brian made which was it does and I know you have to fit the numbers together but it makes a little more sense when they get a little bit more feet on the ground here like later on like second or third or fourth grade rather than okay one although I I see the numbers and they have to fit um but I think the board should probably focus on um having a few pictures that would say the dollar amount because I know through Labor contracts and everything you have to fit the puzzle together or the Administration has to but board members don't um and sometimes things happen through the year particularly through um reading or math on a federal level where
084you can hire back and it's a pleasant surprise what I think what you're trying to focus on now is the property tax rate which is really hard to De because it's moving Target what other s fund school or that might be up in the air I was a little surprised to hear early on that that the result of postponing the budget and redoing it made it s cents worse the tax rate I mean it went from a196 up to 20 well that's because that's because they got rid of the cap we were over the cap our increase was more than 5% we were using the cap to bring us down to 5% our increase was 8% but the state had set the Homestead at 196 right that's the information that they gave us and so
085I'm saying sitting here I'm going how come we just take that instead of 203 well you can um it's up to the board to decide how they move forward yeah I don't know I just it's complicated yeah and it's it's not going to end up being what's on yeah and I and I mean if people want to see these Matrix we could probably um white out the teacher names and share them but we can't put teacher names out to the public um but I would more focus on like know I think you're going to have to come to the reality of what you think the proposed tax rate might be and then it's going to have to fit whatever the administration decides this operations Y and and and I think I think Brandon's Point too
086about so much has been dispersed to the Su I'm happy that they're taking that up as far as the building whatever goes on buses everything that the Su affects USS I don't I don't need to hang around but you're going to have you're going to obviously warn another meeting or two we will um some questions that I was hoping you know you've been around a long time Dave and I and I know you have your you have your finger on the pulse of Weathersfield so um you know I'm just wondering what tax rate you you think the town would accept well one of the points that I really like to focus on is when we we have things that here held here at the school that it's so much more than having just the parents
087and the grandparents here that have children here that that somehow the connection needs to be further saying that even if you don't have any children here on like Thanksgiving meal or something going on here where people can come in and see what's going on in their Town um I know people that don't have any kids and then they they just kind of brush it off but it really is kind of fun to to be here and then learn about what the cost is and about what is going on it's a big deal um but I didn't see any of the thing that you were talking about um it's pretty obvious that no one wants to pay taxes um I'm wondering if you think you know what I was saying before about um fy2 2 we
088were actually at 1.95 um FY 23 we were 1.79 fy22 we were 1.66 um those two past two years were artificially low due to uh rebates Sesser funds and rebates from the state um the education fund everybody wanted to be in Vermont during Co it was you know they stuck around a lot of them yeah um so uh we had our moment that keeps going on um but uh so you know I feel like expecting us to stay with in a certain amount of last year's extremely low number is is is hard to do um I'm wondering if you if you you know what you think about you know if Weathersfield residents would would look back to the 1.95 and think that that was an okay starting point or if we should try to be
089somewhere in between those two numbers well I would say between them yeah uh but I would also do a lot of homework on any kind of federal that's why I'm a little surprised to hear the state kind of just say well now we're not going to fund anything or or whatever the level is I don't know what they bring back for state aid education non property tax revenue what's available I know in the past that we've had um reading and math grants here funded at a federal level and there was always that funny feeling where we didn't know if we were going to get them again then we did get them yeah we we lost them a few years back but there is the possibility um with the new way that uh it was we
090didn't have a lot of people filling out those free and reduced lunch forms that were eligible and um and it turns out that our numbers are actually much higher for um what's that rate called now not free reduc lunch anymore but is the poverty rate or yeah it's low income yeah could be but so we we may possibly be getting some of that Federal funding back but it's we can't count on that right now and we won't know that until the summer um weather Shields rate did go up witer rate rate went up heartless went down which is the opposite of what it's been but I know um and's on we're also expecting a cut in our title funds this year the federal level so can't count on it we hope we hope that we'll
091be able to support yeah so we won't be able you know we won't be able to present any of that to the voters um but when our budget was 1.9 did it pass that year it passed that year yes that was my big accomplishment that year that was that was we had a we had a large increase that year in um uh students going to the high school students there was uh I think $400,000 increase in people need to realize things go up nothing's cheap anymore no I mean you go grocery shopping every week I do my shopping bill is a lot higher than ever used to be yeah Farmers so I I insurance up% right 164 um year I mean my my usual goal is to stay below 10% um you know no matter
092what but I I don't I think that that's going to be hard to do this year um but uh I would I would suggest not maybe not considering those two articles that that potentially because I don't I don't think you're going to be able to when when it actually comes down to it to be able to open a new account for one that already exists for the to keep money in there I I I was sitting up there I'd probably be happy with the 250 it's already there uh um rather than making any reductions in whatever the plan was now that helps you a lot yeah um because you're not going to zero yeah if I was going if I if it was going to zero I might feel a lot differently uhuh I know
093I would yeah okay well thank you Dave we appreciate you okay um oh I'll keep in touch I think that you're gonna have a couple more meetings because you'll have this on new warning y yeah and definitely if you see flow and let her know I will be touch we talk okay great I just have two comments so first I totally Echo going back to Brandon going back to the Su so I think everybody knows from the budget advisory committee I was totally against the Su budget so I think the board of the weather School Board needs to sort of make a big president of going to a board meeting and sort of voicing their concern because we had uh I think one representative when that V got voted on for the budget so and
094I know we had one member on the budget committee for the budget but still I feel like that's a little bit not in our favor by any means um so just sort of echoing branding about asking the Su what their take on this is and if they're going to look at cutting some of their s funded people that they got via Esser or doing whatever you know we're looking at cutting two teachers we may we may not have to that's why I that's what I was talking with Dave about if if he thinks that the that the voters would um you know could go with you know upwards of you know 10 11 12% increase last couple years right so like I'm just thinking like we barely passed votes so yes it's great but just
095keeping that in the back of our mind right like we are making huge cuts for the weatherfield school like that are impacting our children in the weatherfield school in our school building like the Su board who votes on this budget needs to be made aware of that as well like their budget you know has impacted our budget and if they're not M to made any Cuts it's not really fair to the school in my opinion um so secondly on the budget advisory committee this is all shocking news to me right so I guess I know budget advisory committees not needed but it is something that the weather school does have on their things so not really sure what the purpose of the budget advisor committee now is because we weren't involved they be invited yeah
096you did um we we didn't even make weren't involved in any of the suggested Cuts so we have the budget advisory hasn't been made aware of this projected change in the budget so I guess I think I'm the only of theer committee attending the meeting today so a little bit shocking and you know I agree with a lot of Brian's suggestions of cuts but there's probably some other areas that I would have suggested looking into and these were cuts that I looked at to be able to come up with something on Friday yeah and I know it's been like a moving Target and stuff like that but maybe you know I just yeah I think for next meeting we would definitely like to have the budget advisory committee there to give their opinions um and
097should they have a presentation ready with cuts yeah yeah or so yeah yeah can we before yeah we can we can forward these cuts to the budget advisory committee um I can do that I can for it to and we can look name as well great um so it sounds like just for clarity to give us direction are you looking if you could give us a ballpark of where you want the tax rate to end up then it's easier to prioritize um what gets cut and how much how deep to go yeah um I mean if some of this though to me is not even yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't choose huh I just I had to look somewhere at things I know you did but I still think it needs to be a discussion
098I'm just not okay with some of this and this was just a list that I came up with on Friday looking at coming up with something when the sky was falling so these were numbers that I came up with things that could be the least impactful possibly for students but you're also putting in$ 550,000 plus dollars which Amry says she's not comfortable using all of that I and like I said on Friday I didn't more that were that I'm information [Music] so and those were prior to the prior to the yield changing right so the yield changed on Friday which which actually brought the tax rate down about 20 cents so it was 20 cents higher on Thursday M which was oh my God what are we going to do um so I mean I
099give Brian credit for thinking creatively it's not anything we want to do um yeah so and but that's I mean worst scenario scenarios that he presented include that $549,000 Surplus they do I included that in there because that was an easier way to come up with a little overon that's no cut offs from supervisor Union office and all that's just from us those are just our Cuts here at wetherfield plus the 540 million plus the 54,9 that's more 1.5 million no it adds up everything it adds up 1.81 and 1 11 11 and I also try to make the least impactful on people we at the town we did you know the inflation rate is pretty well known it was like 8% the year before and now they're saying three and a half so um
100if you combine the two years is somewhere between 11 and 12 the town has been able to offset some of the needs that we did by um um putting in some measures that collected a a significant amount of delinquent taxes um Brandon's got it to about 130,000 it had soared to like5 or $600,000 of outstanding money was owed to us that's helped the town keep its tax rate much lower than it's had to and allowed it to uh increase whatever the inflation rate was so T oh sorry go ahead K I just was gonna Circle back from a month or two ago that um there was the waiver that Dr Baker wrote that got approved for there to be still six members from m scotney board on the seie board three from West wior three
101from wior so I don't know that you can do it but would there potentially be the possibility to take that up as a vote to hold that waiver back so that Weathersfield and Heartland have more equal say in the Su decision making only take a vote of the Su board a majority yeah to personally I I don't agree with it um just because West Windsor is its own town Windsor is its own town weatherfield its own town heartland's it own town so each town is getting votes um so to me it feels it feels like if we'll be disenfranchising the West Windsor folks if you know we don't if we take away half of amount of scut of votes who would it take I guess maybe that's where I should go who would it take
102to initiate that discussion at the S board can a Community member go and start start making that point bringing that information to light because my understanding is you all didn't understand or know that that agreement was in place that that had been a waiver um because typically in in it states in the law that once you merge to a school district the school district has three Su reps and Dr Baker had to write a waiver to allow infinite waiver or is it that's what I'm asking and who um I can appreciate and respect that individuals may not agree with it but potentially the constituents of the Su board would have enough stake to um have them Revisited so that then it feels like a third a third and a third when you're coming to a
103vote whereas when you're sitting in Weathersfield or Heartland it's hard not to feel like we would never get to make change at the Su level we will it's not that we never get to make change because you I mean you'll see with this budget we're actually weatherfield is we're we we're really making out quite well compared to Heartland and even uh Windsor and M scotney we're doing better missing my point but I mean when when we all have when if we can make alliances with other districts like Heartland and weatherfield come together then we do have the votes to make a difference so it's more like we need to work together with the other U members of the Su again I appreciate your answer I understand your your response do we know who or how
104could start that conversation at the Su board level I think as in all board um procedures and rules mean you can bring up something during public participation the board has the option to address what you've brought up at the next meeting typically yeah um it's in their perview and so I think it would be up to the board whether they entertain it or not from and so right now it's it's six from m scotney 3 and three is there a TI break rule is there a way if you're I don't think we ever had it I don't think we have I'm not sure how we do break to happen how does the does the chair get the deciding vote does who gets who gets that have to look that up have to look that up
105I would do you know the answer to that one I don't know the answer but I know 25 years ago 25 years ago Windor wanted to change the makeup of the Su and I believe there's articles in Corporation of the supervisory Union um they wanted to make it student weighted they wanted five votes one vote for West wior three and three or something like that they wanted it annually to be so to their vote to to uh by population by population student population it is currently no waited right now it's three three vs wins or three vs West oh oh I'm sorry I was talking about the m so there was always 12 yeah that would be kind of difficult though because you'd have to have like a half a person going on current ver
106that a district within a union gets three Su mbers and we currently have a waiver yeah allowing madis School District to have six yeah I think that was part of the merge agreement for West wi to give up their their local control their complete local control and um but it is a separate yeah it's a separate thing um I'm not I mean you definitely can bring it up and um you know I don't know if it'll go anywhere um or but um I think it would be extremely unlikely that West Windsor and Windsor would vote for that hav said what I just said that that I was on that board for a couple of years too and and they they work a long time to try to get consensus so there isn't any arguing yeah
107there might be one or two points that come up that that get little now we usually we try to have things be I agree with you and where you sometimes can share like if you have particularly if you have a teacher that goes half time and half time or something there always some kind of working arrangement that works yeah um so and we worked with heart before on things like the Food Services um we both both districts felt it was important since we're both sending districts that we not pay for that for our high school students so we work together on that and convince some other people point of stating it so right now though 12 individuals decide to approve the SE budget and then those local budgets just have to e they have to
108absorb it and there is no fiscal responsibility to go back on the Su board to make Cuts there I I heard you said that it's a possible discussion but currently it's not required it's not required but um okay thank you okay um so uh I do think that we need to hear from the budget advisory committee as far as um the cuts go um also and and of course we don't need to make these decisions right now anyhow um it hasn't passed yet in order for them to make cuts that are reasonable we need to establish a parameter of tax rates that were comfortable with right now yeah so so between 1.6 and 1.9 is yeah but preco that's my opinion is pre-co we passed a budget at 1.9 95 95 okay pass bu 1.95
109preco we're living preco again mostly now with inflation yeah right so uh you know reasonably I vot start low lower and work higher if we have to lower in terms of I mean 1.9 seems like it would be 2.2 today yeah right so now you're going to take really .7 maybe is where we need to be looking at that' be my opinion yeah I mean I think I think as far as something that could pass we could go as high as like a 1.85 maybe one and that's a 10% range that's yeah that's 11% yeah so that's so with this if the bo chooses to use the Surplus mhm that's between a $250,000 and a $500,000 reduction that well actually 1.85 would be less than 250,000 just slightly yes but you're talking only partial of
110that not the whole thing right are we working we could go we could use the whole thing I'm just saying that we need to think about using the whole thing because if we use the whole thing this year we're just put off some stuff to next year for ourselves yeah okay we can do it because this is you know crazy year and we can just say it was a crazy year and we had to you know so we did that and and that is what we usually do we usually give that money back to the voters but now that I've seen what what artificially buying down tax rates does to your future choices I mean we've gotten ourselves we' dug ourselves into this hole at 1.66% that was not sustainable we can't afford to to
111do what's right for our students at that rate well it's not even really realistic yeah based off we'd have times we would have to cut a million dollars right for the for the appearance and use the whole Surplus use the whole Surplus and cut them another million dollars so just to Echo what Dave said we still have money in this surus we're not going to zero right right so the we have money in the capital small amount for this size of building yeah yeah I mean I would I would love to put a little bit more in it because it was we did use some of it I would love to at least re you know replace that money that we use how much do we have an average number that we might spend in
112a perfect year here Capital Improvements um and for mostly what' been here yeah since we've been here we haven't had a lot of repairs but we do need to do some repairs we have some boiler issues that we need to take care of we talked about the doors taking care of those a little bit Yeah so I would say we probably need to spend about 60 or so that doesn't include like the gym floor that we had right put on there part of the budget yeah so if so if we added you know 60 to you know took 60 from the Surplus to put for these need these immediate needs that we know are going to be coming up in the next year I don't I don't think that's a bad idea um but that
113means we have to cut another $660,000 off the budget to attain the same tax rate I mean there is things I mean that are less impactful than positions I mean obviously gym floor Furniture things like that to me are at the bottom of the list compared to teachers and Paras that to me like a no that's not an option but yeah that's my personal opinion yeah well I think the as much as I've always asked for it is this the appropriate time to say this I mean just the uh even though I've always pushed for it I think the World Language te teacher since we've had such a hard time filling it is is probably the first place to start um and and the health education I know everybody who's ever met me I've been
114pushing for this since the beginning I feel like there are cheaper ways to accomplish what I think there is I think there is two through curriculum coordination um you know more things being added in um with all the Willing teachers that we have here um we might be able to accomplish some of that learning through them um so that would definitely be another big ticket item uh that despite that's almost 200,000 right there yeah I mean I'm looking at that the gym floor yeah um it's not dangerous currently right yes receive a concussion so it's the oh and it's also the resurfacing it's not we're not talking about lines right we're not talking about in a new we're talking about making the Cur for safe okay can can you do me a favor since since
115we're i' I've I've seen the the tacky strips and whatnot left out by the stage um I I understand I'm gonna I'm gonna resend I'm gonna resend my suggesting that because that I did not hear that it was a safety issue so I also don't know because I I haven't seen what the budget is for and what intends to be done I think it may have involved some repay painting of like the the lines that could be cut break there's a safy if we can if we can hit the the safety concern first so if it's a resurfacing and then if it's the Aesthetics of the line we can wait for that but for me if we get resurfaced floor and we lose liability for an injured student or staff or volunteer that's well worth
11640,00 to me I mean so I I look at that and that's that's a cheap uh that's a cheap and then kindergarten Furniture is that a safety issue not at this point we can make make some adjustments in there it is some of the tables could be potentially pinch hazards so it could be is that something that we could get a grant for possible yeah so that that would be four or five lines right there that I would suggest under scenario one that we look at straight away and perhaps we can share that with the BAC yeah say maybe we could just give them some direction of like the the you know the boiler we need heat so maybe look at little things that can't be changed well that that's that doesn't need to be
117done right now that was something Brian was saying would be within the next year so that's that's something that we want to set that we would want to set aside some extra money to the G reserves for yes I know you want to put some of that money in the capital reserves if you want the people to see that you're cutting money I would take that 40,000 for the gym floor and put it in the capital reserve money that you're going to save from the Surplus so that way people will think that they're actually getting their money and you're actually putting money in the Surplus to go to Capital Improvements I would actually stop that money from your Surplus into Capital reserves and then take it out when you do the gym floor okay so
118that's a capital reserve appropriation it's taking it out of your basic budget yeah but it's just moving it into a different area yeah yeah it's a good way to look at it yeah same could be for technically for the kindergarten Furniture yeah yeah I don't think they need $30,000 worth of furniture either no that's a lot of money yeah y but the main concern is that gym floor yes yeah yeah we need it yeah yeah absolutely and then yeah and if there are some new tables that need to be purchased I just fig you move from one spot put it another you know budget it's just in a different area from Surplus yeah um I don't love to see the summer program cut yeah I would like to see the summer program start making some
119money though I would love to see us advertising and getting some people from out of the area over to join us and pay you know 100 bucks a week or something like that small based so we're looking at expanding as well through pause as well so we' got a couple options so yeah um because I think it's a great program and if I would you know back in the day when I had Littles I would have definitely been signing them up for it and I've paid way more than 100 bucks a week to get my kids into a summer program so yeah that seems like a pretty robust program for that little money yeah I mean if that's I would I wouldn't want to see that cut it's all positive coming out of there like
120it's absolutely love it yeah it would be so that that's a good yield for that money all right um yeah I'm in agreement with Mark as far as the World Language goes and the health education I do agree that we need um the health education um I would love to see that just Incorporated in curriculum though what what if ever happened to I thought when we originally presented it we talked about it being a joint position yeah within the Su whatever happened to that that's quite a bit of a you know a ticket for us to take on as one smaller school yeah that's if we had our own health teacher um there hasn't been any movement as far as if others schools want to join us on that so if you if you hired
121a part-time and another school wanted to um have a part-time they could be one a fulltime position I think heartland's already taken care of in that manner they have their own health teachers there gym teachers the PE teachers are certified as health teachers um and that's typical coming out of schools now um sometimes the nurses help sometimes it's built into the curriculum in other content areas I know um we're going to have to adopt a new local wellness policy by the end of this year and there's a um a WC if you remember that group whole school whole child whole Community but they're working on on a policy that's open to the board I think in March and part of that policy talks about health education and how you're going to incorporate it so Angie's
122on she's she started working with all the players in terms of a ro CL Health curriculum and how does that get implemented without Health teachers per se because we've been trying to hire one of the school for two years unsuccessfully there's no applicants so I don't think it's I think if a high school can't get one I don't see a yeah it's just it would be really hard to fill but if it was filled it could still be a a combination between schools yeah we talked about bringing the nurses to the Su level um and the nurses weren't ready for that just yet that's where that kind of stalled as part of the conversation around health yeah um does anyone else have any guidance they want to give to the BAC want to um ask
123a question just for clarity so just in terms of numbers that's how I'm thinking with the Surplus or um part of the Surplus we're looking it looks like we're looking to cut around 800,000 is that about right with the Surplus is 249 or 5.49 and the 250 gets you 1.8 so that's really $800,000 total with with whatever part of the Surplus you're willing to put yeah I mean if they come to us with that amount we might be able to do a little better than that okay yeah if they come with some things we don't agree with yeah it's helpful just yeah yeah um and and your thinking is using a good portion of the Surplus but not all it correct yeah yeah um yeah if we maybe like 100,000 goes to Capital Reser yeah
124and then move the gym floor and the kindergarten furniture out of the budget and and those two positions may get you close to uhuh to that okay that's helpful thank you um I will need everybody to keep an eye on their emails because it's probably as soon as this passes I'm going to call a meeting okay um and not next week Brian and I are away not together but oh you guys are taking off next week okay okay yeah um yeah so yeah soon as soon after I don't I don't expect it to have passed by and get signed by the governor back full of energy ready to um yeah but I would definitely set up some BAC meetings if you can Brian after that following week and make sure that they're involved in this
125because I Monday when we get back we have them for a reason right so just to clarify so we're moving forward with making some adjustments passing the budget that we currently have we're not talking about not voting until a later date no this this would involve voting on a later date this is this is any changes we make to the budget aren't included in the current that's right okay so but the state's pick St is St state is supposed to pick up the tab for a new yeah right we have to make sure get Quickly's listening well we are tax so we will yes just some things to keep in mind it is halfway through February yeah it would have to be posted before March 15 on March 15 to have a vote by April
12615 said the main thing yes because it has to be posted dat so it's really a big time constraint yes can I add to that um just so you know so that you are aware our CBA requires that all contracts go out by April 15 so if this is if we don't have a budget before that we have to rip our entire staff which is not um so so when so when do we so do we need to vote before the 15th then if you could um if you could vote by March 9th that would be 30 days prior to April 9th I believe vote March 9th Oh you mean us vote here yeah you don't mean the town vote so you got to post by March 99th okay yeah and then you vote in
127there before April 9th would be great so Tina needs a little bit of time to get contracts together okay okay for for a school town meeting to take place on April 9th yes what day of the week is that it is a Tuesday that is Tuesday okay it's a seven day you have to warn a school War meeting for seven days in advance or is there any like this can be this can be an emergency meeting um so hopefully this will all get decided and the governor will have signed it by March 8th at the very latest and uh and we will come together and get that done on March 9th um and then get it warned and then get it warned on Dat the election y all that stuff so um okay you know
128if is willing to help us yes okay great good okay um yeah so everybody keep your keep your eyes on your emails um I'm watching the legislature like a hawk uh I was hoping they were going to vote today but apparently it had to go to Appropriations first because there was money involved so H it's G to be tomorrow um let's see do we have anything else today yes oh yes we do okay all right um so is everybody good with that discussion or sort of know where we're at and I don't think it has to be horrible and I don't yeah but uh and I and I and I do appreciate that now we can have some sort of effect on the tax rate I really felt unored by the fact that we couldn't
129there was nothing we could do before it's not how I like to it doesn't feel good doesn't feel good that we couldn't have any say in what our tax rate was going to end up being and it's really hard to sell terms of public trust because you're telling people no matter what we cut we're not affecting our tax rate so it's nice to be able to and when we don't understand it how are we going to make all the voters understand so yeah I just even though this means we have to make some Cuts I I like it better um so and hopefully the yield will only continue to get better because I I hope other boards are doing the same thing they're doing um let's see uh go now yeah you can let Ed
130go yeah um all right so let's move on to items for discussion which we have Hicks Nichols on top of that yeah so hi Nichol has two applications that we have approved as comme so we are going to the board for their final approval of Lessing to move forward with these um the first one is uh flexible seating by um requested by Jett for her fourth grade class 16 plus students um she's asking to get some yoga ball chairs for her um fidy fourth grade student um so the her request was um for 16 shairs for total of $1,120 but since the request has come through the chairs have actually decreased a little bit in cost so it might not be the full $100 um the committee did approve for her to spend up to
131the 11001 $1,120 to purchase those chairs um she's hoping that they will you know sort of help with her challenging behaviors and keeping them sort of moving in um entertained a little bit during class to uh prevent more less to have less interruptions during class is there I guess there's some kind of like data to back up that these chairs do that well they have I mean there the bouncy ones um she did her research um and these ones are like actually like their chair so they're not like the balls that they're going to be bouncing around the pass room like there's they're stationary chairs and if a ball happens to break you can like get a replacement ball for it so you're not you know the actual chair C's there and it walks in
132so um so um she will do some assessments of determining how many um breaks are needed um uh she sort of referenced the new Ela program is really challenging um and this she's hoping that these balls provid you know help with getting through the ELA curriculum okay she's had a couple in her room for quite a while I know there was like the PTO like did A Min Grant and approved somebody for like bouncy bands and stuff like that just sort of fidget stuff for to keep and what was the total on that, um up to $1,120 for 16 shares okay um so then our second application um was put in by the PTO um they were requesting um assistance with an electronic community sign so I think the board has that has sort of
133been brought to the board before um and so the price in the request for that was like done for the day um $1,357 um and that would be for the sign the shipping charge and the data uh the modem to go with it um any additional work would be paid for through the PTO fundraising so electrical um site work anything like that there's really not any site work that's going to get mounted to the side of the school um this has been vetted through Brian we sort of talked to Brian about it um ET you know sort of did their due diligence the hi nichels committee um gratefully approved the full $1 15,35 um for that uh there is the funds in the hix Nichols Committee Fund for this from the interest money that's not
134going into the principal um can I just clarify something just I don't with that I was a trustee for many of years um we as a school only get the interest we never get any principle okay trustees are responsible for investing that money okay okay um do you know who the current trustees are I do okay I'll get that list do you want to explain where the sign's go yeah yeah I would like to know also like what the rules are around to so the sign is going to be 3 2 in by 6 feet 4 in um the plan is that the sign will be amounted on the wall above where the bike rack is so like where the the banners usually go for like the library stuff um so it's if you're looking
135at the doorage just to the left of the door it'll be mounted on the wall there um with this sign we can do up to 11 rows of text it is all controlled um via an app so whoever has access to the app can change an ad so nobody has to be physically in the school if we needed to put something up there um it can be dimmed it can you know change colors they can do whatever um it wants so um anybody's Jo by Springfield school they see how bright their school crazy school SI is down there yeah um but this is you know we can if we needed to we could shut it off in the after you know evening hours and folks had it but um there's not a lot of place
136to advertise stuff for the school we are limited right so we have the little board um that's right outside the door which you can't see when you're dropping your kiddos off coming into the school um we do have banners that we put up but we can use the sign for the library can you know put their Easter EG up there PTO can put all their events up there we can remind parents that it's early release day um we can wish our kiddos happy 100th day of school instead of you know trying to jve in steaks into frozen grounds might to vote yeah so um and the other thing is um another big thing about it too is promoting kids so Windsor does a great job um about doing an employee a teacher of the month
137and they have it blasted there so every time you drive in you can see who the teacher of the month is they do student of the month so their names so you know you can wish kiddos happy birthday like just trying to boost morale in the school as well um and using it for all sorts of different things so I mean I'm I'm okay with it as L it's not as annoying as the Riverside Middle School I think we all diable I mean that's pretty obnoxious uh but yeah um yeah and yeah I would definitely want I mean just for the people that live near I wouldn't want it on overnight or past a certain time in the evening yeah we want to work with our neighbors make so the um the actual control over
138the sign would rest in whose hands most likely the administration the office okay so it's central office or excuse me Brian brianj okay so it's our school staff all right okay yeah so I think you know obviously you would have a PTO probably Jamie as a president have access to it along with you know Brian Perry DJ School staff so if they needed to put something there but I think with it being a PTO sign we also you know want to allow the PTO to probably have a little bit of control about oh that that's fine by me I just when I heard anyone with access to the app but at least we could Grant more people you know it wouldn't just be a soulle person that would be having to do it at a
139computer well and it's I think it's also got a place for emergency address system as well um or hey watch out ice storm coming whatever you got um second can I make a motion for those two yeah sure I just had one I just had another question about it but I forget what it was um I can't think of it now it'll come to me later I guess um yeah so I guess yeah if you want to make a motion to approve the two proposals from X Nichols Yeah okay so Mark made the motion to approve the um $1,120 for yoga chairs and the $5,300 and what was it 57 $57 for the sign from the Hicks Nichols fund um any further discussion okay all all in favor say I that's unanimous thank you and
140H nich is looking for another member to join the committee so if anybody knows do we do we have a current School Board member on oh you are okay great sorry I forgot who we had on there great um let's see uh curricul curriculum curriculum information from staff um so first I want to just thank all of the teachers that met with Sarah and I earlier today to discuss curriculum um I'm not sure exactly how detailed we we want to get into um there's obviously issues with curriculum um sounds like both from English and math um depending on the grades um speaking of the the language um it's too difficult for students to access um overall teachers are really looking for permission consent and I'm not sure if it's us that can give them that
141permission consent if it's ansu Brian like I I don't know who gives that permission um but to be able to to teach at the level that their students need to be taught at um feel free to jump in that anytime uh the language includes science and social studies however it doesn't meet the the actual standards of Science and social studies uh there's concern that the curriculum takes so long to teach that we're missing out on being able to teach like Vermont history or weather's field history um from the eure squared perspective it sounds like there may be a lack of materials issue at times um that the staff was told that Paris and special Educators don't need access to the materials um the the curriculum was they were told that the curriculum was very easily
142scripted uh but they do not agree to this there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes behind the scenes in order for them to be able to teach it um I mean I think the clear clear message was a lot of it is very difficult so again they're trying to follow the rules and um really teach it as is but it is not necessarily Equitable across the board for their students um and so again they would like to kind of meet somewhere in the middle with permission to um be able to you know tweak the curriculum enough that um the other thing was that it's very just text heavy so um there's not a lot of fun in it um or going out of the box as teachers to teach it um a
143lot of the students it's hard to keep their attention mention um in a lot of the grades it's just not necessarily age appropriate um where they are um developmentally um so that's a concern and we're talking like lower grades um even down to kindergarten level um first second grade it's just again where they're at developmentally it's not necessarily um Equitable uh for them and the teachers are really struggling with that um they're doing their best they're all um again trying to be great teachers and and follow um you know the curriculum but they're just looking to make it more towards their students um there's also been a lot of mixed messages um where you know some like it's nonnegotiable as far as like how to change it or that you can't change it and then
144others where it's adapt to it um and this is across like the Su level so um you know bits and pieces from other districts or other teachers where they're um told they you know just kind of do their own thing but again our teachers are trying to stay the path but it just doesn't seem that it's working so um also going back to just the piloting of the program um and the data um they disagree that it was not necessarily successful um but it wasn't necessarily their it wasn't listen you know they nobody necessarily listened to their thoughts and concerns about it um and it just was implemented anyways and this is across the board so um all the grade levels which is difficult because as we're building on each grade um you know second
145grade's difficult then by the time they get to third grade it's even more difficult so um there's a concern there for um you know if each grade is struggling then the next year they're going to be struggling again um how that looks you know building upon that um yeah there's a lot um so we're just bringing it forward to try to I mean we want our students to be successful we want our teachers to feel supported and to be successful and um I think it's definitely an issue that needs to be addressed how we go about that I'm probably looking to you Christine for guidance but yeah that's our that's our feedback from them and I do have some emails from parents that I've been Gathering because they had heard on our meeting that we
146were going to be having this meeting before the holiday break um that you know we kept separate from today but um um so different things that I'm just holding on to for further discussion yeah and and Angie's here tonight um director of curriculum and so I've been taking notes and we'll we'll we'll we'll meet and talk through this um just a clarifying question did you have um K8 teachers was it a majority what um I believe one almost from every grade it was quite a turnout y um Ang I don't know if you want to say anything tonight or you'd like to come back next month and hopefully you're still awake I'm I'm driving and I I have I've listen I've heard the whole conversation and I would appreciate the opportunity to respond uh softly
147um after we have time to reflect on what we've heard um that that will be I have nothing else to say sorry like I want to make sure that we have time to think about it and if there's more to be shared um that that would be um really nice so that we can respond fully and um sofly so I put an email yeah we can that'd be great do that yeah okay thanks Angie we won't put you on the spot tonight back to your driving um okay um um all right so we will when we get to setting the next agenda we'll add that on there um so then I also wanted to um we need to approve asking Brandon gck from the town office to review the Su budget for us and see
148if what he comes up with as far as possible cuts that we could request or talk about at the next Su meeting um so if somebody would like to make a motion or if they want to talk about it does anyone have a problem with asking Brandon no but I just I just I guess I want to clarify from last meeting we weren't sure am I right in remembering that we weren't sure like his reach with that well if um we had a meeting and there is a law that allows us to ask him okay he cannot come at us with these questions right because I remember there was but um if we ask him for his help that's fine that's law just help with numbers you're saying or just to just review the review
149the budget and see if he sees any if he has any recommendations yeah so can I just ask if he does have recommendations that we agree with and we ask for cuts at the board level we still could could be totally outvoted for that and it wouldn't matter anyway yeah true I mean it's yeah there's no guarantee yeah so we're possibly putting him through a lot of work with zero result yeah he has agreed to this though okay one of his I think what I took away from one of the things I took away from that meeting that we had with him um some of the process he wasn't aware of so we we talked through that what it looks like and and the rules around it and school funding in general um he he
150said he gets a lot of community members to come in asking questions about the budget school budget and he can't answer them because he's not informed about it so I think one of my big takeaways was communication um with with the town manager about the budget so that he can support it to and and that's what he said so he can support it to the people that come in and ask questions which we have been asking for yeah I mean we're all on the same team and and he can review and I have no problem with that anybody can review it it's on the website right I say it's public knowledge um I do pause with mean a lot of work goes into that with a lot of experts in the field of of Education
151of what we do so if he has questions about something in the budget I would hope that he would come to the people that are developing the budget with those questions and so that he can be well informed about why the things that are in that budget are in it um I think we are fully transparent about what's in that Su budget we are not hiding anything it's um it's a well um thought through budget and there's there's not padding in that budget I mean we are a small operation where everybody's doing a lot of um of work so that's just my two cents um who would Brandon contact if he has questions Larry okay okay um har has a question oh yes I I sort of have a statement and a question wouldn't it
152be that Brandon at any time could be attending the school board meetings and get all of that information absolutely absolutely and so therefore why would we not afford our board the opportunity and the BAC to review the Su budget or potential suggestions on cuts when you all have been working the numbers from day one that's how I kind of feel I just it doesn't make sense to me why we would why we would ask someone who has not otherwise shown an interest in learning what our budget is in his town for his constituents and his taxpayers to be able to answer I I fundamentally think that that is disregarding the work the BAC and you all have done well I mean do does the BAC have any recommendations of cuts from the budget opportunity to
153look at anything we've been told that the Su budget is the Su budget yeah we don't look at we I mean we looked at it and yeah I some items I mean the only I can say is that this has come up very suddenly and there's not really a lot of time to which is why I wonder why you would entertain bringing in someone who's so disconnected from the process and well because he offered previously to do it and he said he has he said he found things in there that he thought but possibly the BAC and the rest of the board also could have yeah I mean if if I can make a recommendation that moving forward we also forward the same documentation to the town manager since he specifically requested it and also
154to the BAC as a whole that way it's automatically forwarded to them that way it's it's it's right there there and nobody has to try and track it down through the portal because yes the town manager and anybody through fre Freedom of Information has access to all of these numbers if they can track it down or they have the wherewithal or the connectivity to track it down so or they just ask for it right well I was gonna say what who is coming to him asking questions I mean it's pretty out there I mean these meetings the town meetings our meetings our agendas our minutes if you miss the meeting watch it it's all out there so I don't know what questions he would be getting that couldn't be answered by being more aware of
155our meetings be nice yeah right um so I just I don't know what I mean other than that he may like numbers and may be good at it I'm not saying that he's not I just I don't necessar I agree that I don't I don't understand I don't know why we have to vote on what he matters as far as that goes but because we have to officially ask him he can't ask him what to to review a bu to review the budget but why would we ask him is what I'm asking well we yeah we don't have to that's I just anybody can review the budget at any time I was G to say I mean it's all public knowledge the Su budget is on the Su website um and if he has questions
156he could ask Christine or you and I feel like the representation to the Su being us or the public is the ones that should be asking the questions or proposing any Cuts I don't know what the town manager necessarily has anything to do with that [Music] but well I Haven I haven't heard anybody suggest any I know there isn't there hasn't like the budget was set and you know we told the BAC that so I understand that they weren't looking at the Su budget um we have very little time now to look at the Su budget as we've seen with the dates that we have here we will need to move on this at the next Su meeting and really that's our only opportunity if it's even a possibility that the Su budget could be
157cut what would that even look like though for this budget season anything um if if the Su budget needed to be cut it would have to be cut before you could figure out your local budget right it's part of your local budget um so yeah there is a timeline in place and and I don't think anybody's not willing um and I think just so you know from that meeting we did agree to be more collaborative with the T with the temp manager and um make sure he knows that the budget is out there when it's out there and it's out there pretty early um so we we do want to have a collaborative working relationship we're not suggesting otherwise but um I thought the conversation that we had was more um moving forward what are
158we going to do differently to make sure people are informed and um it just occurred to me that it was that since we need to do it quickly and since he had offered and he he told this is like what he what he does like he went to college for and all that sort of thing so just given the timer constraints to put it to the BAC I mean next week people are off we have we have like no time to do this so that was my reasoning and that at least you know I mean I think that we should take his advice we don't have to use it listen to his recommend listen to it but we don't and the BAC all of it I mean we can get as much data right now
159and as quickly as we can if Brandon's willing to do that in the next few days he's not on vacation so just let's see what he thinks um it doesn't hurt anything yeah that was my feeling just that uh you know just that it just just because we're under such time constraint my my recommendation moving forward was not so much for this budget season but just in terms of procedure from here on out yeah I mean and that I think makes sense like everyone a collaborative effort to look at both budgets or possibly have a say in both budgets but I just knowing the time constraint right now it's like to wait from here from Brand you know from Brandon and BAC and us and try to make a decision I just think that's a
160lot of and exactly what are we going to be able to do I'm not even sure what we can do well that that my question looking at the calendar right now my question was if we have recommendations that we send to this Su meeting and we request we would like to get this cut what actually happens because we have three people Harland has three people M cutney has six people are we are they collectively I just want to say that every everybody's interested in cutting budget so Harland and Windsor is are also going to come to the Su you have confirmation of that that they're coming to the Su and they're asking for C I've spoken with their board chairs okay perfect perfect they discuss it there'll have to be a vote on it whether
161or not it's reopened I will say we well we appreciate um any suggestions it's helpful to have a conversation about it because some of the parts of the Su budget there might might be information that that people aren't aware of why that's there so I think Brandon looking at it in isolation I don't know if that doesn't make complete sense to me if he sits down with Larry and Larry discusses all the ins and outs of it I mean Larry spent months on it yeah and know is Larry available next week or he's off I think think he is available next week but just asking actually going to happen if we go through this you know as they go line for line and they're like oh I mean I remember from being on BAC it's
162eye opening right so to me he he's going to look at as a numbers guy but he's not even going to know necessarily what half of it means because and some of it it's not that is out of our control we don't control Transportation costs we really don't control special education costs I mean kids with IPS get what they need and that's that's what drives that budget um and so just like your local school budget there's uh personnel and you know what they do every day is important for you to know before the suggest Cuts can someone just say what what what would be the process I understand time but is it the Su board can vote to resend their budget reor and revote is that just the process yeah just like this well that's
163what I was asking well I felt was only we were only asking for cuts and it doesn't work if not everybody else is I wasn't aware maybe a doll figure and that would then be up to you to say where that 500,000 is going to come from they might they may come back with can you look at the budget and are there places where you could trim back because um it's just hard knowing without looking at the budget yeah I mean so similarly it may not be a suggestion that you cut a and C it's that we need to have collectively a reduction in the budget and then they revote yeah like we just told Brian basically and maybe it makes more sense just to go to just to go to Christine at the meeting
164and tell her hey we need you to cut 100,000 from the Su budget and then she and Larry work out where that money is coming from um yeah but like you said like then it's it's really not all that money because then we're splitting that up so yeah corre it's a lower amount yeah what I feel like I like it is it is real money even if it's $25,000 it's that's money but also it's showing that it's showing that we're all in this together yeah it's showing that we're all in this together it's it's a summer program for us it's yeah you know so I feel like I feel like it's just a good thing for the Su to do to show that they're that they're in it with us since you know we're all
165we're all going for the same goaler together and I just have a I just have a quick sidebar from something earlier but um did I hear correctly that the Su didn't cut any s people but schools did and but and why was that um no the under the Su after umbrella um we had the transitional kindergarten position which is being cut next year um we had okay so you cut yeah received s for funding for employees and you cut those yes no the that's really all I want maybe make maybe make sure I'm hearing you correctly we we cut we're cutting the kindergarten transitional kindergarten Position will no longer be in existence next year the other Sr funded positions were the recovery coordinator which were we were required to hire post you know Co and
166that position was not um cut but it was it it morphed into our mtss data leader which is Britney Preston um and I will say that position is invaluable for the the work we've moved forward um and the other position that is as refunded is our diversity um our coordinator of diversity equity and inclusion and that position was continued in the Su budget for next year only one position really that you eliminated that was as refunded yes okay we we eliminated the one um I will say the mtss and data coordinator and the coordinator of diversity Equity inclusion are two positions which um are are in our strategic plan that the boards have wanted to put in the budget um for the past several years so but we wanted for language and health too we
167have to lose those so wasn't there programs that were funded by S though that got rolled into the budget as well for the Su the the leader and me program was funded through Esser for the past three years there is um there is a a portion for next year in the curriculum budget for that to continue I think it's maybe Angie's got her hand up so she might have something D [Music] Angie Maybe not maybe she she's driving so yeah please don't talk while you're driving en um okay so uh I mean we also I just want to hear we're all in this together equally and it's not yet there also I just wanted to say that schools have not actually gotten rid of any exer positions either AR aren't we going to potentially possibly
168maybe after tomorrow no but actually that was not if if we go ahead and we don't need to oh is Angie there Angie no if you stay in $800,000 C did you want to speak I want to remind you that communication person too that is not no it goes cured it's currently funded be local budget next there is a part-time Communications person thank you Angie um who pended I think $115,000 this year that position is going to replace uh a tech so one of our it guys retired so through attrition that that position is going to be Communications it so it's not an additional position so the one position in the Su budget that was added for next year is the coordinator of diversity equity and inclusion yep okay [Music] um okay so so I
169guess given time constraints and stuff we're not going to ask Brandon to review the Su budget this year but we'll talk with him more about maybe doing it next year is that sort of what we're leaning towards or do on it I just I don't don't know how much time we have and how pertinent the information is but is he still on with us we could ask him no he's no long avability no longer on um so I mean if the time is is short but um but he and Larry would have time to work together next week um like it's eliminating the important people in the process I so someone from this board want to Larry the likelihood that we're g i mean because there's one asue board meeting that at this meeting we're
170going to vote potentially yes to reopening the budget and also being able to review the budget and make changes that's why I would like it if I would like it if Christine and Larry came with a couple of ideas so that it could potentially happen all in one night because it needs to that's the only way it works yeah and when is your meeting it's the Monday after break it's the 26th February 26th and if if possible if you have a recommendation could it be a line item or two that we can vote as an SU down instead of reopening and trying to Hash through with a million questions all of these things that you guys have already ped through that we I mean that' be helpful thank you or could it even just be
171a dollar amount just we approve the budget for a certain amount we just would approve it for what I would like to propose that I do um and I'm not opposed to doing that I want to check in with um I want to check in with Bill I want to check with Nikki just to make sure everybody's on on board and then and Davis yeah sorry foret Davis and then um if the if the consensuses come with that then we'll do that does that make sense yeah okay and if not it's just an observation if you don't have the approval of the board chairs it's just hey in future years this is something we might cut yes y yep okay I will do that thank you y gosh I was forgetting one of Y I
172just have one more statement yes K and the the law if I understand it is that the Su board does not have to be adopted until June 30th for the next fiscal year correct correct so it it potentially could always be contingent on local budgets passing that's correct thank you so it's it correct so if if all the local budgets fail it makes sense to open the Su budget um I'm happy to look and come with observations I think that does send a message we're all in this together yes but um yeah when you open it is decision this could have potentially I know the situation doesn't is unique but it could avoid this sort of situation in any this school year if there are it can yeah so the Su budget needs to pass
173before the local budgets get established because the S budget is part of that budget with language that it's contingent on well I don't know if there's language there but with the knowledge that you can open it up again yeah yeah so we would we could feel as a community that we can vote and have a say on the SE budget versus only weather still I think I'm following you I think you are only be reopened if all of the all of the that's that's if I understand it all the districts have to agree to that because what we constantly hear though is this is what you're stuck with from the S level which is frustrating if you're on the budget advisory committee which I have been on or when you're on the school board and
174you're talking about tough things and you're like well them up here you know they didn't they didn't NE not that I'm not saying that you can necessarily do a lot same as we can't always do a lot without it not feeling good right but the point is we're having to revisit we're pressing Brian to revisit everyone's pressing each other to revisit but then Su is like no this is just your piece of the pie you have to take it and it's like I think that's what everyone's message is everyone needs to open back up and look at what we can change possibly as a group because we're all again in this together so I think that's where people are feeling like it's just unsettling or not fair because it's like well if the Su level
175doesn't have to necessarily make changes but we're forced with all these changes that are directly affecting our school personally right here so no I totally get it I don't think it's come up I mean we we researched it to find out if you know the rules around it um I think we've been fortunate in this Su our budgets have passed for the last 20 years um and it's a tough year so it came up and we looked into it so apologize if that message was given inaccurately I don't know where it came from um but no and I know it always passes and ours tends to pass also but then on these harder years where we're having to make big changes or we're seeing numbers that that you know everybody's stomach turns then it's you
176know everyone's got to kind of push back a little bit and I think that message to be fair has been that the Su assessment is what it is I think we hear that all month after month after month I I believe that Carrie I don't know that it was researched I think that was an assumption that was made um because the question came up here I I went to the people I work with they're like I don't know so we looked into it so now we now we know well it's definitely not public knowledge that it can be reopened up until June 30 that is not a message that comes from the Su for sure uh I understand why but um maybe it should maybe there should be more transparency like that okay um okay
177so so what are we doing about Brandon we got to [Music] decide it's getting late actually actually actually we need we do need to wrap this meeting up according to rules and regulations we're supposed to be done by now um so uh so are we going to let Brandon off the hook for this one because it's too late or do we want for him to just look it over quick with Larry do you think it would be helpful to you or do you think be better for just you and Larry to get together and figure it out I think it would be better for Larry and myself to get together and figure it out to be honest okay okay so I'm I'm okay with that is everybody else okay with that okay and I will
178talk to Brandon let him down easy and uh and uh he's always welcome to look at it yeah yeah and he can look at it and you come to the next meeting it would be great but right now we're in a little yeah okay all right um we did want to have an executive session to go over some embargoed numbers but we're running late so is everybody all right do you want to stay later or do you want to do our next meeting scor that have been embargoed what do embargoed they can't be released publicly just indidual results can go out is there anything pressing that can't hold till next time it's not pring at this point I mean that they are what they are we just asked stared testing you know end of March
179again for this year so maybe there'll be embargoed prior to that Uno I'm here for you why are the state hasn't question because busy with funding they're so busy simplifying the funding schle gu let's move okay no other reason for executive session okay all right uh setting the next agenda so our I mean our next meeting is the this is is going to be March 12 when yeah our next official meeting is March 12th there will be another meeting before that most likely um that is our organizational meeting so we need well maybe this is all maybe um if if we have voting uh for school board members then we will have a new organizational meeting um and uh appoint your school clerk that meeting appoint do you do that um voted on here organizational
180the organizational we I know we like name the newspapers I forget what all we do but positions are done at or yeah yeah we vote on using Robert's Rules we haven't you're saying if we have to push out everything then we may not be organ reorganizing if we haven't voted on new school board members at that time um so we'll put it on and pass it over if we don't yeah yeah um so you don't avoid the school clerk at that meeting somebody run for that position somebody runs for that oh no um maybe I mean the moderator oh the moderator that's they run the town meeting um let's see uh what admin report ad something else besides budget um um I mean we may be discussing our postponed uh school meeting uh with the
181new some Revis slides um yeah it's kind of all up in the air um the one thing I do know we wanted to put on there was the you were going to come with some answers for the curriculum yes y so we wanted to discuss curriculum um yeah so I think I mean it's probably going to be more budget stuff even though we don't want it to be but it probably will be um we will hopefully already have post posted in uh a new uh article by them new warning um but uh we will need to discuss how to how to sell it to the town so okay that sound good I'm just gonna put dates for Budget yeah I'll figure it out yeah okay um we're all on anybody have anything else they needed
182they would like on next meeting no okay all right I will take a motion to adjourn then so moved okay Mark made the motion all in favor say I let's make sure we have um all the documents that have staff names on it back to BJ please yes