001All right, welcome everyone. Um, today is Monday, December 8th. It is 6:37 p.m. and it is the Mount Mansfield Unified Union School Board meeting, the only one that we are having in December. Um, I'm going to run us through the agenda and then Pat will take us through a roll call and we can get started. Um so we start with community comments and then we have a principal report. Um we have an opportunity after that for a conversation with our legislative representatives and then we will review our draft budget which is our second to last draft before we get going. I hope and so does everybody else I think. Um then we will um vote on approving the budget information sessions. We will warn the um employee unlawful harassment policy and then we will um
002have a quick conversation about our board compliance and monitoring that we're going to do in January. We will do our policy governance module finally that we have had on the agenda a number of times, a superintendent update and approve our minutes from November 10th. Does anyone have any changes to that agenda? Okay, Pat, if you could take us through the role. >> Sure. Thanks. Tara Arnison, >> present. >> Kevin Campbell, >> here. >> Heather Chadwick >> here. >> Allison Conant, >> she will not be here tonight. >> Okay. Steven Diglio >> here. >> Edy Grining, >> I'm here. >> James Granzo >> here. Susan Lillick, >> she will not be here tonight. >> Sandra Lamoj >> here. >> Hel Mida >> here. >> Ethan Mauer >> here. >> Stuart Morio. >> Katie Nelson >> here.
003>> Lisa Pollock >> present. >> Helen Stoddard >> here. Student reps Eli Wattt >> here >> and Jack Connell >> here. >> All right. Thanks everybody. >> Great. Thank you. Um so now we open the floor for community comments. Um community members will be limited to no more than five minutes per person. The board requests that participants clearly state their name, place of residence, and topic of comment. School board will take no action on items raised during community comment and dialogue exchanges will be for clarification. Um, I can't see very well in the room, but is there anyone who has community comment? >> We do have members of the public, Edie. >> Great. I see Stacy. Go ahead. >> Um, so I have two requests regarding Oh, sorry, Stacy Lang Undergo. I regarding two different
004topics. Um on November 10th, the board was scheduled to collectively rank our district for teach quality standard and to provide supporting documentation to justify the ranking. On the 10th, that was unable to happen. Now the task has been taken online, which means that the community doesn't have the opportunity to understand where you got what your perspective is on where we were for each standard um and what the supportive documentation is. So, I'm requesting that you review the survey results along with the evidence for those rankings at either another board meeting or that information can be posted online so that we can understand where you guys think we rank, where the gaps are, and what documentation justifies the rankings. Um, number two is related. So, as a community member, one of the things that I did
005like about a previous budget was that every section had a header that more clearly explained what dollars in the section were being allocated to what, like whether it was special education or general education. Um, this draft two budget is a little unclear. And honestly, like when I dig into some of these lines, I have absolutely no clue what they're for, even in the detailed version. like I wouldn't actually consider the detailed burden detailed at all. Um and I really really want to emphasize to the board that I think it's important that we look at our October monitoring report and we say okay so we've seen some pretty significant gaps between kids with IEPs and kids without IEPs. Right? So like an average student is operating at a 50 to 60% proficiency level but kids with
006IEPs are operating at a 27% proficiency level. I would like to understand what the root cause of that is and if it is something that needs to be addressed in the budget understand what considerations are the budget. If it's like hey we're changing how we or you know our organization or who reports to what and how the information is slowed down then maybe there isn't a budget constraint or budget consideration. But if it's we have a lack of resources or we have a lack of professional education or professional development rather, those are things that would necessarily be addressed or could be addressed in the budget. And so I really want to understand like looking at our performance against our budget like how are some of these things being addressed? Um and right now that information
007is is so overall I'm just requesting that we have more detail. I know John probably has already done all this work and we're going to have some um committee sessions that we're voting that you guys are voting on today, but it's just really important that we understand what we're voting on and that we agree that these are you know essentially going to this budget is going to help us meet our ends and track more to the 80% goal that you know John you set for academic performance. >> Uh great. I know you're going to be here so you'll hear answers to both of those later in the meeting. Um you said there was somebody else in the room, >> John. >> [clears throat] >> I'm Christian Matthews. I'm also in Thunder Hill and I'm speaking
008on the FY27 budget. So, thanks to the board, all the staff for the work you put into this budget and kind of how I think about this. There's two big buckets that drive our costs. There's the things the school board cannot control, healthcare, inflation. There's two main things the school board does control. These are capital projects and salaries. Controllable one is our capital project. So, a little bit of a refresher here. So, we already moved out about $800,80, sorry, $880,000 out of the capital fund this fall, leaving us about $800,000 in the capital. Guidance that we got from John was that the amount of money you want in there is what's your largest roof? seven of you will say it was about $700,000. That means that our capital reserve fund has more than enough money
009to cover our largest expense with a little bit more. So it's unclear why in the FY27 budget we're increasing capital project spending from 500,000 to 1.2 million. That's a $700,000 jump without a clearance initiative of what projects we're actually committing to spending on. My first ask the school board is is that to cover a new roof because that 700,000 was the same number we've already heard. What is in full on? Why are we increasing? Can we get the detail on what those FY27 projects called two is our salaries and again they're little numbers here. Sorry. I pulled some information from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve between 2022 to 2025 inflation CPI growth in a compounded rate of about 19%. Looking at our MMU USD teacher agreements in that same time following those increases, we got up
01024%. So that's a 5% gaps. We're increasing salaries faster than the pace of inflation. We've also signed up for a tenative agreement that commits us to further increases. So if we look out through the 2028 plan and if we use the average of 3 years of inflation, we get to about a compound inflation of 24 sorry 26% where teacher salaries would now be growing at 38%. So you've gone from a 5% gap over inflation to now 12% gap over inflation. These only represent the teacher salary increases. They don't include education support staff raises of 6.25% which are this year and next year. They don't include annual step movements. They don't include the removal of step one and other factors like our lead teacher pay. So the actual gap is going to be greater than 12%
011when you look at the year 2028. And that's over inflation. What that means is that when salaries go faster than inflation year after year, they become the main driver of our budget increases. This is reflected in our FY27 budget where salaries and wages represent 60% of the variance dollar increase. Combine that with a seniority based layoff system and that rate going to all employees, we lock in these higher costs with almost no flexibility to adjust. So, I disagree with the three-year teacher agreement that this budget is built upon. These salary increases above inflation pose real risk to our community's ability to afford property taxes. They guarantee that newer teachers are always going to be laid off and they limit what we can offer current and future students because more and more dollars are tied up
012in compensation rather than programs and services. Committing to raises that continue to outpace inflation guarantees higher taxes, reduces our capacity to invest in anything else. So in summary again, two asks for that controllable one capital projects. what makes up the FY27 $700,000 increase for controllable two salaries. I think the most realistic responsible option is to go back to the negotiation table and adopt an inflationbased salary approach. South Burlington has done this in their recent teacher agreements. I think if MMUSD really wants to lead on balancing affordability with retaining excellent educators, y'all should consider removing seniority based layoff systems and move towards performance-based salary progression as well. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And I think your questions might be answered later in the budget meeting at least a little bit. Um, anyone else in
013the room? >> Yes, Edie. Great. >> Johnson um and I don't have nearly as detailed or preparative comment before me, but um I just wanted to say that I appreciate everyone being here. I don't any positions that you're in. I know this is tough work. I know these are tough times. They've been taught for a long time in education and they're getting tougher. It's winter. It's cold. It's dark. It is a Monday night. And I just um I get to go to sleep every night knowing that my kid gets to go to a good school and that is something that I'll take and a lot of that is because of all of your hard work. And so I just totally say thank you and I'm excited to hear um what is on your day. >>
014Great. Thank you. Um any other comments in the room? Anyone remote with community comments? I'm not seeing any hands. Okay, let's move on to the principal report. Um, Katie, I assume, is in the room. I don't know that I can see her, but Katie, if you could introduce yourself. This is your first time talking to the school board. >> Can you hear me? >> Perfectly. >> Awesome. Thank you, Edie. Um, first I just want uh to say that I'm thrilled to be part of this district. Um, I've been leading in Vermont for the past six years. Um, and it's been a really special experience to now be leading in my home community. So, I just wanted to start with that. Um, you all have a comprehensive version of my report. Um, but I wanted to
015pull out some of the key details that I wanted to share with you. Um when I was hired in the spring, I met with every single staff member here at JEES to kind of find out their hopes and dreams for the future of JES. And two things um came through that were really clear. There was an ask for to kind of bring back back a sense of community and belonging amongst the staff in the building. And the other piece was they were really looking for clearly defined systems to support academics and social emotional learning and behavioral systems. Um, and so with that, I created a theme for the school year, new year, new tracks, throwing together with Cheetah Pride. And that's kind of been our throughine and will continue to be our throughine. Um, and
016what I also want to say is the work that's currently happening, which I'm so proud of within this building, would not be possible with just any staff. We have a phenomenal group of educators here who show up every day. They want to collaborate. They want to do what's best for kids. Um, and it's been really amazing um, to start some of this work with them. Um, one of the things I wanted to highlight but not go into too much detail because I know you've already heard from Dave Marlo and Michelle Patnode. Um, so you all know that we have a new literacy curriculum. Um, we have adopted the American Reading Company um, as our core reading resource. Um and so you you know about that at this point. But one of the things I wanted
017to share is um just a quick little tidbit of um excitement from staff and something I saw in the very beginning. Um I was in a third and fourth grade Spanish emerging classroom I think the second week where of unit one. Um and one of the teachers came running up to me and was like the kids are citing evidence from the text and it's week two. Um and so there's definitely been some excitement along with any new implementation of any sort of resource. Um it's also a lot of work on teachers to be implementing a new resource. Um and so I think they've done so um with dignity and we're trying to provide them lots of grace. Um and I'm excited to kind of see what continues to unfold with that. Um in the realm
018of social emotional learning, we started a new weekly time called Cheetah Connect this year. And so every Wednesday morning, we paired a classroom teacher with another educator um in the building. And so those two teachers, so for example, in our kindergarten classroom, um Lexi is working with Glenn, our PE teacher. And so they are teaching our social emotional learning curriculum, Second Step. Um and so they co-e those lessons together. And then they plan some sort of community and belonging activity that they're doing along with the kids. And so um one of the goals of that was to pull in adults across the building, um and give kids a second adult to have that positive connection with that isn't necessarily their classroom teacher. and also provide our every adult in the building. Even Julie in our
019kitchen is partnered with one of our classrooms um an additional opportunity to be really closely tied to those social emotional learning standards. So that's been really fun. Um we also within uh Cheetah Connect once a month we have an all school assembly and so that's uh attached to whatever our theme is. the most fun assembly we've had so far this year. We um had a month where we were focused on growth mindset and I got six staff members to learn a rap along with me about growth mindset. Um and so uh that was just really fun and the kids are still singing uh the power of yet around school. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> that's um we are a PBIS school positive behavioral interventions and support by name. Um, and staff members also shared with me
020that kind of over time we really are just kind of that in name right now. And so, um, I knew about the phenomenal resource of PBIS Vermont and they have a grant-f funded free coaching. And so, we have partnered with them. Um, they came in and they're doing an audit and they're helping us make an action plan um, for next school year around kind of recommitting to those practices because postcoid it's I'd say we're we're PBS light right now. Um but students have renamed our reinforcement tokens. So they used to be pom poms. We had a whole little competition or not competition. Um students just submitted names and so they're now called cheetah spots. Those students earn those um each month as we're working towards something. And then we have an all school celebration. They
021are currently working on positive self-management. We intentionally selected that during the month of December when everyone is very excited um and uh ready for what's to come. And so we are going to have a popcorn and movie day on the last one of the last two days before break. Um and then I think the work that I'm most proud of um and that has just been really rewarding and exciting is working to really take significant steps to build our multi-tered system of support in both academics and social emotional learning. And so uh this summer um we have a new guiding coalition for this year. This summer I worked with them to develop a shared understanding of professional learning community practices. Really clarifying how a robust MTSS system um can really drive high levels of learning
022across a building and what goes into that and then establish our priorities of creating clear collaborative teaming structures and what data teams uh data routines really look like. So our guiding coalition members are leading collaborative teams on a weekly basis where they are engaged in teaching and assessing cycles. teachers are um at each grade level, including Spanish immersion. They're all working together, coming in, looking at common formative assessments, and then coming back to the table, looking at data, planning next steps for students who need additional time and support. I go to those meetings. I tell the teachers, it's my favorite part of the week. Um and so that's been really fun. And then we've also added an additional layer to that where they also have anal meeting each week where we are following a very
023similar process where we're looking at data. We're looking at lagging social emotional learning and behavioral skills for kids and making uh decisions around different supports that students might need. Um and then also um we previously student council here was um open to multiple grade levels and students were kind of voted in and so we shifted that model this year to it's open to all fourth graders. Um and the teacher who's leading it changed the name to Cheetah Litas. And so um that group um has already taken on um a few different impactful activities. So, they helped with our fall harvest fest that's put on by PI. They developed in um conjunction with our kitchen and nutrition survey around what are some of the favorite meals that are happening that are already being served, what are
024some future meals um that kids would like. And then they're currently planning a December spirit week. Um have lots of fun together. And then the last thing I wanted to highlight is um I met with uh Laura, our president of JES PI when I was first hired and she um really desired a connection between school and that group. Um it sounds like for the past couple of years it had really been kind of like outside how can they help and so um I've been going to their meetings and um they're just working to really strengthen that relationship. And so they've been really amazing in helping us you know manage volunteers. because we have farm to school taste testings and I just have to message we need two two parents to come in on this day
025and so um they're they're really helping lighten the load and also just enhance our student experience here things I have to share any questions >> that's great thank you um questions for Katie >> I'm I'm really excited by everything you shared so um thank you I'm Just curious, you mentioned um you have PLC's that meet once a week and then you also are meeting to go over SEAL data on a weekly basis. Y >> separate meeting. >> Yeah. So they actually have two separate meetings. Um and this is something that I had done in my previous building and so I proposed it to our team. they meet um one day a week during the recess time when the kids are outside. And so we started just with like a very short chunk of time to
026kind of see how the teachers would feel about it. Um and pretty much every single meeting now extends to the entire block by teacher choice of feeling like it's valuable time. Um and so it's Yeah, >> it's great. >> Yeah. Speaks for itself. >> It's great. Thank you. I just want to say thank you. I have two two kids here and my kids are loving it. So, thank you. Um and as a kind of general question, what are what is um you're talking with principles across the district? What are some particular challenges and strengths that Jes has relative to the other rest of the district? Like what are what are things you're dealing with that other people aren't and what are things that you have that maybe other schools don't? >> That's a good question.
027I think um just being a district with five elementary schools, two of us are similar sized, three are smaller, and so I think just the makeup of the schools creates different um pluses and deltas. Um I think one of the things that's really exciting is as elementary principles, we are collaborating on a regular basis and as I understand it, that is something pretty new. I think it started maybe in the spring last year, but we are really trying to align our elementary schools. Um, I think one of the things that's maybe different here, um, is just, you know, thinking about we have Spanish immersion here. And so I think one of the things I'm really proud of is the work that we've done to try to, you know, make sure that there is collaboration happening
028between our English-speaking classroom teachers and our Spanish emerging teachers. And so I would say that's a challenge that has resulted in a positive. like it's something that we've worked really hard here and at Richmond this year to not have it be two separate things and so really looking to see where are those through lines for teachers to be collaborating um and I would say it's something that needs a lot of intentionality um but we're seeing the benefits of it so I would say that's like a challenge but also celebration >> anyone else I actually had one more um comment question Um I think it's fantastic that you've um together are strengthening the MTSS system. Um and I think that's you know absolutely right on. I'm just curious how how is the the staff um feeling
029about that? Are they too excited or what's happening there? So, precoid um the staff at JEES were engaged in data team work um which is very similar work and so I would say the veteran staff this is not kind of something new. It's more getting back into those practices but being a lot more intentional and doing it in a collaborative way. um if they're not excited then they're lying because they [laughter] >> they in in you know in our collaborative team meetings like they are showing up I'm not begging them to be bringing data to the table um you know if I'm not at the meetings they're they're still going through those pro processes so I would say I think the staff this is what they were asking for they they wanted the structures and
030support to do the work >> thank Thank you. >> Anyone else? Last call. So Katie, this was a fantastic presentation and having only been with our district for what, five months maybe, um, you've [laughter] come across as a very seasoned person and so I really appreciate it and I apologize that I'm not there in person. So thank you so much. We really appreciate. You do not have to stay if you don't want to. So >> we won't be offended. Thank you. I will add one thing, Edie. Katie was very upset our tour got cut a little short for time. So, you didn't get to see the kitchen if you were here in person, which is a particular treat here at JS with its uh vintage uh uh stove and oven and other related equipment. So,
031if you want as we wrap up, I'm more than happy to to walk you through. >> Thank you, John. That one of the pictures, Carol. >> Many of Carol's pictures from the budget presentation were from this kitchen. [laughter] Thanks, Katie. >> All right, so our next agenda item is our conversation with legislators. I see Rep. Brown is in the room. I'm not sure if anyone else is there, and I see Rep. Wood and Senator Lions are online. If I'm Oh, and um Senator Ram Hinsdale did send a representative, so I don't um Why doesn't Why don't folks introduce themselves? Janna, why don't you start? I'm going to keep my schoolboard hat on as much as I absolutely can tonight, but I might jump in with my legislative hat also. >> And if there are task
032force questions, I might need to lean on you for that. Um, uh, good evening everyone. I'm Representative Jana Brown, representing the town of Richmond and, uh, heading into my sixth year in the House and I serve on House Education. I'll pass it to Representative Wood. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, good evening everyone. Uh, I am Teresa Wood. I live in Waterberry, but I represent Huntington and Bolton in this school district. I'm chair of the House Human Services Committee. I also sit on the joint fiscal committee and the joint justice oversight and a couple of others uh health reform oversight uh and am happy to be here this evening. So thank you um uh Edie for the invitation to join and I'll pass it over to Senator Lions. >> Thank you Teresa and good evening everyone.
033I'm Jenny Lions. Uh I represent Chitten Southeast which includes all of the the rural parts of Chitten County as well as South Burlington and Williston is in between rural and not rural. um a little bit of Burlington and uh so so Underh Hill, Jericho, um Richmond, uh the towns that are part of with the exception of Bulescore and Huntington who that are part of the MMU um district. So it's a pleasure to be here. I chair Senate Health and Welfare and I chair health reform oversight committee. I serve on a number of other committees along with Rep. Wood and some that she's not there, but we do work well together, all of us. Uh I am also on the appropriations committee in the Senate and as you know this year is nearly as frightening as
034last year probably more so with all of the changes that we are seeing uh particularly within health care but also the downgrading of education at the federal level is an extreme concern. Can I add one comment Edie? Uh I I wanted to say thank you uh to Katie for the comments on the multi-tered system of support. Uh I worked hard on that when I was uh vice chair of the education committee and thinking that um [clears throat] I don't know the answer to this but what kind of development funding or resources do folks need in order to continue the program um and make it s you know sustainable. So, just um something to to help me with because I am on appropriations. >> We could do some buildings. [laughter] >> Yes, I know that. >>
035I I've got a whole list for you then. >> That's all [laughter] that's the institutions committee. So, you I'll have to put pressure on the other way. >> I think that's a great question. Let's um finish going through Will Cox. I don't know if you had something you wanted to say for Senator Ram Hinsdale and I just did want to say that Senators Hardy and Chittenden both had other engagements tonight that they couldn't um join us for. So, just wanted to make the board aware of that. >> Sure. Hi. Um my name is Will Cox Elliot. Um I am a junior at CVU and I go I live in Hinesburg. Um, and I recently started interning for Senator Rahm Hinsdale. And so I'm here on her behalf and I'll just listen and I'll report back
036to her. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um, does um, John, I don't know if you want to answer Jenny's question or and I'm sorry I'm going back and forth between being formal and being relaxed. Are you all okay with me being relaxed? just that. Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. I I'm happy to respond. So, I think uh J, I think you're referencing Act 173 and then the establishment of the MTSS framework um across the state. Uh and and I would say we are really fortunate as a district here. We've got really fantastic people like Katie was referencing and we have principles that are working together to develop systems. Um, I think one of the the key pieces from Act 173 was the flexibility to view students, of course, across a continuum from general ed to
037special education and for schools to have the flexibility to redeploy assets within that that span. Historically, there's been a really rigid um divide between special education and what special education teachers can provide um aka not servicing general education students. and act 173 was pretty transformational in changing that paradigm for us. >> Um I think the the continuation of that work and then act 139 and the requirement for literacy intervention also supports the intent of act 173 where we come um up short as districts is on the human capital side of things. Um we do not have uh enough reading specialists and I would say there are not enough reading specialists or math specialists in the state to be concurrently working with every child um that requires um you know some form of intervention or remediation.
038And so our our fix [snorts] and that's a national problem. It's not just a state problem. Our fix is to have classroom teachers provide some of those first layers of intervention. Um but we we have gaps in that in that support structure that um is both human capital wise there's not enough people in the state with that knowledge or in in the country but um also just financial we could not afford to hire the number of reading and math specialists that we would desire to uh comply with the full intent of those two acts. >> Can I ask one followup on that? How much support from the agency of education did the district get and are we able to implement it because we have um a big enough district with enough staff or is it
039for some other reason? >> So uh districts received a tremendous amount of support from the VPA and the VSA um with act 173 and then act 139. there um are some really knowledgeable PE people at the agency of education that have been um available for technical support. Um and then with act 139 there's been more support behind um structured literacy instruction in the state and providing some resources there. But I I think that across the state the consensus would be that um schools have not gotten uh as much re as much support as we would have um liked in in the roll out of of either of those. And then I'm sorry Edie, you had a second part to your question. >> No, I just um what makes our district successful in implementation without those
040supports? Because it was a little bit of a leading question because I knew the answer. >> Yeah. Well, I I can tell you and I um uh was actually talking with um Helen Stoddard about this before the meeting. Um there we know the biggest controllable factor in um influencing learning is the quality of the professional we put in front of the child, right? So the classroom teacher, the interventionist, the special ed teacher, whoever that professional is, we need to make sure that is the most um uh qualified person that we can, the most skilled person that we can. We know the second u biggest impact is in that guaranteed and viable curriculum or that MTSS system. So the strength of our systems as a district. But the third leg of that stool is the quality
041of the principal in the buildings because they're the ones who make sure those systems function and they support teachers or students or families when there is an issue. And so I would say that we have strengths in all three of those areas. We have teachers like Katie described who are are happy to give up um contractual prep time to work on things related to this to support students and we have principles who are collaborating across all of our buildings with our instructional leaders to make sure that the systems are functioning as as they should. >> Thank thanks for the layup there. That was a good question to respond to Edie. Other questions from legislators? >> I do have one more question. Um, one of the bills that I've been asked to introduce on behalf of
042the administration, and it sounds it sounds like a good thing to do on my part, uh, and for all of us, but is to transfer the administration of special ed Medicaid funds from the agency of education to AHS. I don't know whether that has been a has had will have um influence in the district. Uh if you have any comments on that. It is a bill that will be in um introduced. >> Yeah. So I I'm familiar with the um intent there and it is related to something else that I I I'm going to bundle it with something else. Uh two for the price of one. Jenny. Um, but I I think in theory the switch to AHS uh could make sense if it truly allows schools to bill for eligible Medicaid services, which I
043understand is the intent. Um, I I have not seen very many details related to that. Medicaid has for the past three years been a perpetual budget issue. So, we've gone from receiving more than $1.2 $2 million a year in Medicaid uh reimbursements to less than 400,000 over a three-year period. So, that's been a significant budget pressure for us. And and part of that is because some of the requirements around delivering services that the agency of education then says are eligible for Medicaid uh means actually doing what is not in the best interest of children. Um so for example if we were to if a child needs a one-to-one aid uh and we keep the same aid with that child for the entire day then that is eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. Um but if a child
044has differing needs and we have a variety of trained professionals like we do in our buildings and we have one aid in the morning and we swap to a second aid in the afternoon but the child still has onetoone covers throughout the day. uh those expenses are then no longer eligible according to the agency of education for uh Medicaid reimbursement. So what a lot of districts do is keep one aid on the child onetoone and then they layer in additional supports on top. So it actually encourages inefficiency in in schools. So the proposal that you mentioned I believe would remediate that. I just haven't seen the the specific details >> and I would say sorry go ahead. But this is related to the way the agency of education also uh determines eligibility for extraordinary costs
045which is something we desperately need help with. Um so right currently highcost students that cost more than $60,000 a year or 60 Nicole is it 66,0006 >> $66,000 a year were eligible for an enhanced reimbursement rate. So that uh that's a pressure relief valve for schools. Um because you could have a child that moves in that is in a residential placement in southern Vermont and their services cost half a million to600. So that's a a critical piece. Um currently there's a little bit of a loophole in the way that this is covered. So we believe as a district here um at MMU that we want children in our community schools as close to our communities as possible. And so we have developed specialized programs across the district to service students that have extraordinary need and
046to keep them here. And the cost to taxpayers is much more reasonable actually in doing that than if we were to transport them to a specialized program sometimes one to two hours away. The challenge that we have as a district right now, we're currently saving money, but really not a tremendous amount because none of these children are eligible for extraordinary cost reimbursement despite the fact that there are a lot of extraordinary costs. So, a lot of school districts have stopped developing um internal programming like this, which saves state and local communities taxpayer money because it's much easier for them to send them to an outofd district program and then just know their exposure is limited to $66,000. So, a change in that rule to accompany the change in waiting for special ed students would be
047a huge relief for school districts like ours that have invested in specialized programs. >> Thank you for that. Um, and we I did meet with some special ed folks and they also touched on this issue. So, it's um it is a concern. Uh as so as we go I I'm not on the education committee but certainly can bring it bring this to their intention. Um obviously the Medicaid piece is something I can we can look at um within the healthc care committee. So I appreciate your comments and uh John and you're not you're not off the hook going [laughter] forward. >> I never am. >> Thank you. I've got a whole list, so you can call on me anytime you want. But [laughter] >> go ahead, Teresa. >> Thank you. Um so uh recently the
048uh Department of Vermont Health Access has changed uh some is proposing changes or has made a decision to make some changes effective January 1 for um Medicaid billing for um individuals with autism um children with autism and specifically around who can provide different types of uh applied behavior analysis and um how that can be done um with supportive staff. And I'm just wondering if you have um received any notification of those changes or if that's had any impact on the programming that you provide um within Mount Mansfield Unified Union. Yeah, I've just taken a note, Teresa, because I'm I'm not aware of that change in Medicaid billing for um autism uh spectrum students. So, I will look into that and and see see what's >> Okay, that's that's actually just as important to know that
049you haven't been notified or aren't aware of that change because it's happening soon, January 1st. Um, and that that um tells us something about the notification process or lack thereof. Uh, particularly I was concerned particularly in schools um about how this information was getting out and so um thank you. >> Well, I I don't want to throw anyone under the bus. It's possible that our student support team has received notification and I just haven't been briefed yet, but I'll find out. Janna, do you have any questions before I unleash John with his long list [laughter] to stand in the way of that? Um, no. I think I don't have any at the moment, but I can I can certainly follow up. I just wanted to um express some appreciation for your comments about um internal
050district programs for students in need of specialized support. Um, I think that I know that's something, um, as a member of the education committee, I'm really looking interested in looking at how we sort of remove those weird disincentives not to continue to create and support those programs because I think um, what you said is really important that not only they're they're better for students and they have the ability to save money through efficiencies. And I think that's I mean that's a win-win. So I know that's an issue folks are interested in. I mean, just as a a quick example, um we have a a program similar to what we're describing here at our Smiley Elementary School that our board members saw maybe about a month ago when we had our meeting there. Um and we
051have 10 students in the program. That program saves a little more than $700,000 a year compared to an out of district placement. Um yet none of those students are eligible for an extraordinary cost uh reimbursement to the to the district. So, it ends up being a mild savings for us, but a huge savings to the state um considering the statewide for education funding. So, I I have uh two really wonderful principles and a special ed director that would love to provide testimony if that ever comes up as an issue. [clears throat] >> You ready for my list, Edie? Okay. Uh so, I can't take credit for the whole list. So, this these are uh issues that have surfaced in board meetings um since I began my transition into the role last March. Um and some
052of these will be really reflective of conversations that we've had in meetings, but also one-on- ones and small group meetings I've had with board members. Um the first is really that we are excited for the transition to a foundation formula for budgeting. Um that level of predictability is going to be fantastic for schools. Um the the big question mark that I have and I'm looking at our director of finance right now. She knows exactly what I'm going to say is if health insurance is not addressed as a cost driver in the switch to a foundation formula, we will end up slowly uh hollowing schools out. Um, and that's because there's no way, the intent behind the foundation formula is to slow the rate of increase and for those decisions really to be made um outside
053of local school districts. And if our main cost driver um that we have no control over is not also um curtailed at the same time, then um we'll actually see a lot of these services that Katie was referencing and a lot of the wonderful programming we saw in our tour today. Um those are going to be hauled out of our our buildings just to pay for health insurance. And so any kind of way to either address the cost increase or to cap a district's exposure to it would be um really key in my mind for the foundation formula to be successful. >> I saw your hand go up, Jenny. >> Yeah. And this is uh obviously an area that we've been working very hard on understanding that last at in May we passed um a
054law which gives authority for reference-based pricing for uh private insurance and for that will very much and greatly affect um your negotiations and uh healthc care coverage to in the in the tune of millions of dollars. It it will be significant not for each school district and for the state. Unfortunately, it won't begin until next the next budget year. So, but my question really for the finance director um is how you see it fitting into the foundation formula. I see the pricing uh payment reform for reference based pricing and we are as this is a first step. We're also going to other um regulatory another regulatory environment for hospitals called global budgeting. We're also looking at p payment reform for primary care. All of which are going to begin to corral or not begin but
055continue to corral health care costs. Uh I I can't tell you what will happen because of the federal problems but I can say we're working very hard on this and I'm acutely aware of the effect of health care on schools. So, but can I is can I hear a little bit about foundation formula and healthcare that would help me? >> So, if I'm understanding your question correctly, it you're wanting to I guess understand the impact of health insurance on the foundation formula as it pertains to MMUSD. that would be helpful and because as we go forward it'll be nice to know a get a comparative analysis of the effect when a reference based pricing happens. There are also other changes that may well uh bring some of the costs down uh and that will begin
056in January the the highost infusion drugs which I do know affects u state employees. I don't know to the ext the extent to which it affects um school employees. >> Yeah. So for some context for the 27 budget that we're proposing, the 7.4% increase in health costs this year is about $678,000. So if we take that over our long-term weighted ADM, that's 34 $3,500 increase per student. So, if we're looking at, don't quote me on what the most recent foundation formula number was. It was somewhere in the ballpark of $15,300. Right here, we're allocating $3500 alone of that just to the increase this year. >> Thank you. >> I hope that answers your question. >> It does. No, it does. It It is It is a very discreet micro answer. I mean, we keep talking
057in the millions and we keep talking globally. So, this is very helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you. >> And and I'll just add one thing that 7.4% this year feels like a sigh of relief. >> We saw 16 We saw 12 almost 13% last year and 16% the year before. So that number was well over a million dollars in last year's budget alone. Maybe we've done something. [clears throat] Oh, they said and Beehive said in their letter with the increase that thank you to the legislature because so that was lovely to get that recognition. >> Yes, thank you. >> There's a secondary concern I think that I would just raise related to health insurance which is that VHI has depleted their reserves. So we have not actually paid the full cost of the increase over
058the past three years. So now VIH has very little in reserve and so actually their initial request that they met with superintendents about this year was still above 10%. I think it was 11.3 or 11.4. Does that sound right Nicole? Um and the 7.4 is truly if they're not replenishing their reserves. So I think a key thing from some of those savings if not rate increases in future years that is going to first go to replenishing the reserves with VIHI which I agree with as a financial move but the savings are going to be very slow to show up for school districts and if if there's a gap between when the savings show up and when the foundation formula happens it's going to be a really ugly reality and so I think the I support
059all of the things you mentioned Jenny I wonder if there can be something as simple as a legislative move to limit school districts exposure to future increases and and what percentage of that cost of future increases we own versus the employees. >> Tell everyone what Beehive is. >> Sorry. Yeah. So, uh Behive is the statewide insurance pool for um for educators. Um and and so we're a sh self-insured pool um but it is administered for us by Bluec Cross Blue Shield of Vermont. good question that you've asked. Um certainly worthy of evaluating and I I appreciate your um your responses on all this. Thank you. >> Before we let John go to his next letter, is there a board member that has a question for the legislators that's here or a comment? We can let
060him keep going through his list, but board members, any moment you have something you want to add, don't hesitate. All right, go ahead, John. >> All right. Well, I I do have one that's Terara's favorite. Um, so currently, so we really schools need some help when it comes to capital needs on a lot of different fronts. I'm not going to go for the big pie in the sky school statewide aid for construction, although that's desperately needed. Um, a really simple change would be really meaningful. Currently, uh, schools must use any funds they put into their capital reserve fund within five years or they're penalized, right? Um, and that does not so in a era where b we're penalized if we go to bond right now to pay for capital needs. Um, we're subject to excessive
061spend thresholds in our normal budget. Um, when we're talking about capital projects and there's no statewide aid for construction. Uh, a key a really key and very easy reform would be changing that five-year requirement to 10 years so that school boards and finance committees could make decisions about their operational margins every year and decide how much they want to transfer to a reserve fund without feeling like they're going to be penalized in the short term. Some of these projects that we talk about take more than five years just to plan and and execute. I I actually only have one more, but [laughter] >> it just looks like a lot from where I am. >> Well, I I keep it keep it up with that last one because that's that seems like an infinitely doable one.
062Uh and something that [laughter] could happen this this session. So, >> very very doable and very >> Yes. Yeah. The last one is really just from conversations in the finance committee. Um so a challenge that we face every year and if for whatever reason the foundation formula's implementation is delayed or it doesn't happen. Um there's key information that determines the tax rate that we don't have access to and isn't set until after our communities vote. >> So we're talking about the yield and whether or not there's a decision to buy down the tax rate. I know that those are political decisions and we, you know, they they typically happen at the very end of the legislative session, but um a frustration the finance committee has voiced is that we have to go out to our
063communities and explain our budget without the most accurate or even accurate information about key variables in determining their tax rates. >> What is your solution for that? H how do we how do we how do we put things in synchrony? How do we bring things together? >> Well, the foundation formula would solve that problem. So, I'm a big fan of that of that solution. >> Um and I I recognize that um both that we have currently have what I would say is the most or I think what is generally viewed as the most complicated funding um mechanisms for education in the country. Um, so I I don't know unless we're changing other things about it that you'll as a legislator legislature have the information you need early enough in the season, but um, >> as
064a Okay, I'll ask a really, you know, the dumb question, and that is what is there any way we could look at two-year budgeting? Oh, we we could on the operational side. It's a challenge. I I say we could very easily and a close eye say something different. [laughter] >> But knowing your um collective bargaining agreements a couple years out that m that's for sure more helpful. >> Well, right now you have collective bargaining uh contracts that last how many years? >> Depends. Depends. sometimes one year, sometimes two years, sometimes three years. >> So, if it became sometimes two, sometimes three. Um, I I've always been an advocate for looking at longer term budgeting knowing that you're always going to have to do some midterm adjustment, but um it seems to me it would make
065your lives and I think of the school board and administration uh so much better. would make my life better too in the legislature. I know. >> Yeah. >> And full-time legislature might help that process. [laughter] >> Be careful what you ask for. >> Can I John, are you I'm >> good. since I since I got the room there real quick. Um, I just have one comment and it it relates to John's superintendent report talking about the um uh the uh folks that are uh stay-at-home learners >> and and this idea of uh creating some developing potential flexible pathways and I think with you know the education committee representative here it's hard for me and this is my my background but to hear flexible pathways being brought backup in this way for not even students that
066are in our system is really hard. And if there was a way and I think the AOE, you know, had a a grand initiative to bring flexible pathways and I and I extend that to career and technical education, but there needs to be, I think, um, an effort to to remind schools that this is part of actual legis there's a legislation behind having flexible pathways for all students and and the idea of personalized learning plans for students having And and I'd love to hear one day from from student reps about what their experience has been since you've probably lived it from seventh grade on. Um and and what does that look like? But I it's hard for me to see something like we're trying to capture students back when we're not even necessarily meeting students
067experiences that are in the system already. But that's just >> thank you for that. Um, uh, the flexible pathways program is an outstanding program. Um, not because I helped write that legislation, but al personal learning plans are so effective with kids and and it is time to look at the outcomes for those because I do think they're highly um support productive for for kids. >> Thank Yeah, I' I've been in a lot of meetings about um tech this and other education meetings that will go nameless in the off session. And flexible pathways um was law in 2013 and has been implemented erratically at best across the state. And um you're right, like to understand where it's working and where it's not and how to implement it better and with more fidelity across the state would
068be incredibly beneficial to our students. So other questions, we are a little past time, but we started a little bit late, so I don't know if other board members have questions or comments. All right. Right. Well, I want to thank um Jenny and Teresa and Jana and Will Cox for being here tonight. Um we truly appreciate this. I think we've been doing this for about 10 years. We've been inviting you to come and um you all are regulars and we really appreciate that. Um we appreciate the conversations not during this meeting as well. um you work really hard to represent us and um we truly can't thank you enough because um we have an awful lot of um legislators who we invited who um are not quite as engaged with our district as you are.
069And so we just want to make sure that you know how grateful we are to you for showing up tonight and for showing up for us regularly. So thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Yes. Thank you. And um I I think we would be remiss as fellow legislators if we left this meeting without um extending our gratitude to you and the role that you have played in the redistricting task force. And um you know agree or disagree or somewhat agree or somewhat disagree. Um, I think that it it really um needs to be recognized all the time and the energy and the effort and the uh carefulness with which you um undertook that um that assignment from the speaker and um you know hopefully your board and you know the community that you represent
070uh appreciate that because um I know that um you know the the house members in particular just speaking as your house colleagues. Um certainly appreciate um you know all of all of the effort that you put in um during that process this summer and fall. So um just wanted to thank you publicly in front of your hometown crowd. [laughter] >> Let me let me just concur with those comments and as as a Senate colleague um thank you for your work. Uh it's not over. [laughter] But you know Edie just in case in case you don't know and you do you all do know what a strong leader uh Edy is and uh strong representation you have. So thank you for your work this summer and ongoing. >> Well that's very kind of you and we
071are ready to move on to the next thing. So thanks everybody for [laughter] for this great conversation. If you have to leave, um, you are welcome to. If you'd like to stay for the budget presentation, um, please stay for that. I'm going to turn the meeting over to John and Nicole. Is that Sorry, that is our next thing, right? We're not voting on >> That's right. >> Okay. People excited? >> So excited. All right, let's see if this shows up accurately. Okay. Um, so this is one of the super exciting times in school budget development. Um, because we so we have a good handle on our internal data from the very beginning. Um, and as time goes on, we start getting more and more accurate data from the agency of education that we can then
072use to model um, the rest of the budget process. We we start really with what we control which is our own expenditure budget and how much we're spending. Um and and then really there are a whole variety of other variables that insert after that point to uh before what we spend turns into tax rates and and tax dollars. Um and so we're at the point now where uh we're closer to accurate with those variables, although not still completely there. So the information you see in terms of our expenditure budget will be accurate, but what comes after that in terms of modeling tax and tax rates and things like that, that's still all very much um draft and and subject to revision still. Uh and I I will share right before the weekend, we got new
073information which thank I am super thankful for Nicole. worked uh through a chunk of the weekend to update and then we received additional information today which invalidated all of that work and had to be updated. So um it's been um uh been fun. So uh there's some important context uh related to the budget moving forward. So um the first piece is that uh we do have a tentative agreement um for the not this school year but next from the two years that follow. Um we uh can't get into too great a detail about the tenative agreement because it hasn't been ratified by the association and we have some procedural um safeguards there. But um the agreement does represent um what uh myself and the HR committee consider to be um a a good deal for
074the school district. It's settled below recent norms um in the region and the state. It's below the target range for factf finding and mediation which is something that is unique to collective bargaining in Vermont. um we can reasonably predict entering into negotiations a very tight range that we would end up in if we're not able to resolve the contract oursel and we have to go to factf finding. Um and so basically coming in on the low end of that or under that is a um a good outcome for for school districts. Um we also have so last year we were very aggressive with the budget. the actual budget increased by 1.9% which is substantially lower than districts around us or in the the rest of the state. Turns out we were a little too aggressive
075um with that and so we started this year with an operational shortfall of about $1.8 million which we have filled um with some one-time a combination of one-time funds and one-time measures in this um this school year. uh that has to be absorbed into next year's school budget before we can actually begin to absorb any of our increased costs. So the first 2.9% of the increase in our expenditure budget is actually just covering that shortfall from from this school year. And then um I don't want to waste an opportunity to highlight the health insurance cost and the impact that that has. So that's going up 7.4% which I think is the first time in four years is below double digits. Is that right, Nicole? Yeah. Um, so the the key piece here is we have
076some really highly accurate information about our internal budget and then we can model with uh somewhat accurate information what that looks like for taxes. Um, I'm always a fan of just kind of establishing some common context because our ed finance system is super complex. um we control what we spend in our district, but actually when it comes to the tax rates and everything else, we're participating in a statewide pool. So I always like for this example to pretend we're district B in the middle, which is not increasing at all. So even if we didn't increase the size of our budget at all, the way other districts around us spend will impact our tax rate. So in this example, district C actually decreases their budget, district A increases their budget, and the net impact is an
077increase. So that would mean even without increasing our budget, our taxes would increase because the overall spending in the state has gone up. Right? So this is a super simplified example of how the statewide pool for education funding works. And there are four main ways that your tax rates change. So the first one is looking at that spending across the state. The second one is paying for so other than our local expenditures, right? These are the reason. Um the second one is when non-education things are paid for out of the ed fund, which does happen. Um changes in property values compared to the state. So you we'll talk about this later, but if your CLA is changing faster than the state as a whole is changing, then your tax rate will could swing pretty dramatically
078in a short period of time, up or down. Um and then a change in the number of students. So we have a student waiting system in the state. Um we're uh pretty stable enrollment wise as we'll show you later, but changes in our number of weighted students compared to the total number of weighted students in the state actually will impact our tax rates as well. So and uh like I said, enrollment has been pretty steady even if it doesn't look it. So this is a graph that requires some explanation. So the very straight line in the middle or the almost perfectly straight line that is the number of actual students in our buildings. Okay. So this is the total number of students that we serve. It has been very consistent. Um this includes K to2
079enrollment, preK enrollment and itinerant students. So those are students that receive services but are not actually members of the school district. Um, and so the students, I think this year we have about 188 students that would meet that criteria. So they could be students attending a school outside the district that are eligible for special education services. But most commonly, this is early childhood special education services for students before they reach preschool or for students attending a preschool that is not run by the district. Okay, so that includes all of those. Those numbers change over time. Like right now we are currently seeing a decline in our prek enrollment and a rise in our itinerant student rate. Um so basically students not attending prek in our public schools. The feedback we're getting there is that Wednesday
080not having u school on Wednesday for those students is a real barrier for for families. And so they're electing to attend uh private preks uh for 5 day a week coverage. And then what we end up having to do is push services in. The challenge we have with that situation is itinerant students don't count in our student weight. So anytime that happens we lose out on the budgetary formula. Um and then this line with the jump uh so this is so from FY24 and before this is what the state called equalized student counts and then for FY25 they changed to weighted students. So you can see there's a change in the way the state counted our students. We have as a district really not benefited from this change at all. It has uh even though
081it looks like we've gained students, the vast majority of districts in the state gained many more students than we did because students that qualify for free and reduced lunch, students who are English language learners, students um in very rural communities or from very small schools all receive um preferential waiting uh because they cost more money to educate and we have lower numbers of those students compared to other districts in this state. And so when we look at our tax rate over time, you will see the impact of that um in those graphs. >> Can I just make one point to drive home? I know that looks like a significant jump, but our district really was so negatively impacted by that that and we'll talk about it a few slides later, but we receive a tax
082rate discount, >> right? >> Which speaks to how much we were negatively impacted by that. >> That's right. The state had a mechanism for districts that were grossly impacted by that. That's not the right word, but severely impacted by that change and they have a tax rate discount that phases out over time. >> Um, so this is a just a I interesting chart. We always talk about enrollment when we have um uh budget conversations. So I don't know why, but the agency of education calls attenerant students negative2. That's the code. So, you can see that -2 line 188 uh itinerant students, 133 prek, and then the rest of it is pretty self-explanatory by grade. Um, we have a very stable enrollment overall, but we actually have huge swings every year from grade to grade and
083from school to school. And so, you may have noticed in Katie's budget that over the past three years, her student count has dipped a little bit and staff has dipped as a result of that. Staffing across the district has not dipped. those resources have been reallocated across the district to meet bubbles as they form in other schools. So, the elementary schools in particular do lots of resource sharing um to address these bubbles of students as they as they come up. Um and this is uh this is Kevin's favorite graph. Um this is just good context. So we always hear a lot of anecdotes about we have too many X or there's too little of Y, right? This is our total percentage of the FTE that we have as a district. In green is is our
084number and yellow is the statewide average. So you can see in general the trend here is that we've made a decision as a district when it comes to classroom teachers, pair professionals, and leadership to go a little leaner so that we can funnel more resources into student support. Um, I will also note that none of these graphs that you will look at are ever going to be perfect when we're comparing to the state because some school districts like us, we run our own bus fleet. And so we have FTE here that someone who contracts and pays just dollars out instead of having employees in the district want, but it's a pretty accurate comparison. And then this is one that has come up in my listening uh sessions across the district. we have a lot of
085perceived inequities um from the community in terms of uh resource allocation. And so I thought that this was actually really and I I could make this graph any number of different ways if anybody wants it. But um what we have is we take our weighted student count which is the WADM weighted average daily membership. We compare that to our weighted FTE, right? Um so in the waiting two pair of professionals costs approximately the same amount as a classroom teacher. So that's what we mean when we say weighted FTE. So uh pair of professional counts as a 0.5 in this because it's a cost function, not a not a value function. It's just a cost function. So the target for us for secondary, which would be our two middle schools and our high schools, would be
086about 15 weighted students per FA per staff member. Um, and all three schools just slightly exceed this target, which means we have we're slightly more efficient than the target. Um, there's no statistically significant difference between the two middle schools or between the middle schools and the high schools, which is exactly what we would want to see. Um, we want to see them really capitalizing on the efficiency that you can get in secondary school models and this shows that they're doing it. They also share resources between the buildings. So, as they have a bubble in one place, they'll move student or staff around between between buildings. This is really interesting. And so, I was I played with a lot of different ways to show these next uh graph lines, bars. Um, but consistently in my listening
087tours, I heard about a perception that Jericho Elementary and Richmond Elementary School receive significantly more resources than the other three elementary schools. And so I actually just decided for the purposes of tonight to show Richmond and Jericho here in the middle and uh Brewster Pierce, Smiley, and Underh Hill on the right. And you can see the target is the same for both of them. Elementary schools are not as efficient as secondary school models. So they're more staff intensive. So the target here is to have 10 uh weighted students per uh staff member and both schools or both categories of schools slightly exceed that target. There's actually no statistically significant difference between any of the elementary schools and the way that they are staffed when you back it out by student. And I can also share
088that across all of our schools, we did the same exercise with staffing budgets at the start of the school year. So when it comes to supply I'm sorry, supply budgets. So, when it comes to supplies, field trips, activities, and athletics, and staff, so we're talking now about more than 90% of the budget. Um, that's all equalized for weighted students across the district. And, uh, really equitable, which is great. >> Did you did you get like an anecdotal sense of why that perception exists? >> Yeah, here's my take on it. Um, people see a program at another school. So the a classic example that comes up is Richmond and Jericho have a robust exploratory program. And so often from the three other elementary schools communities I would hear why don't we have access to something like
089that? And it's not that it's not that they don't have staff a proportionable amount of staffing. It's just that the schools make different choices with with how they do it. And so for us here in this building that exploratory program is really part of the experience. But in different in other different buildings, they would say maybe it was the outdoor programming or um uh principles and guiding coalition sometimes make decisions around uh specialized programming like more robust or embedded intervention in kindergarten. Right? So the resources are the same which is really that that job at the district level and then the principles and their leadership teams in the buildings look at how they need to meet student needs in in the building. I ask a clarifying question there. >> Yeah. >> So, if there are
090community concerns, parent concerns about um our students in town X, Y, or Z don't have access to say the exploratory program. That's a you're saying that that's a principal level decision that parents could speak to the principal about. Well, they could I would say people could talk to the principal about how resources are used in their building, but I can tell you just the the reality of so uh use Smiley as an example, right? And so Smiley has 52 students, K to4, they have that specialized program I was mentioning earlier and then they have about 13 preK students. So, a school that size, even though proportionately they're getting uh the right amount of resources, they would never be able to fund a full-time exploratory student or teacher, right? Just based off the size of the
091building. And so, while the resources are distributed equitably, what they look like is is different. And that's okay. Like, I would say our smaller schools do many things that our larger schools can't do based off the size that they have, right? Um, so it just kind of depends. >> Yeah. Kind of along those lines just some of the perception or are there programs that larger schools can have? Not with the ratios being the same, but you could hire you could have a full-time equivalent just the the net numbers of have more can be distributed more. Are is there do and smiley and BCS maybe share share some resources that JES and have in house like is that already being equalized the fact that someone can the the largest populations can support more is that does
092it happen to some extent? So I would say yes and so the elementary principles like Katie was mentioning really last spring started a huge push around collaboration um and this year they're sharing quite a few resources between the buildings. They've already identified further integration in terms of budgetary and staffing needs and sharing more staff across the three as as really important to them. So um I'm excited to see more more develop from them. All right, it's Nicole, it's all you. >> Um, so this just to start the budget conver the FY27 budget conversation, we've talked a lot about um CBA's collective bargaining agreements, health insurance. So just kind of put visually into context. Those are there's no way around it. Those are the biggest drivers of our budget. Salaries and wages at 57% benefits 23%
093just those categories alone are 80% of the budget that we put forth. So any percentage increase 4% is um the teacher CVA next year and 6.7 I believe is the support staff those are the biggest drivers of the budget and the numbers used here are based on a level service budget put forth. Um this is the draft one of the 27 proposed budget. This is what a level service budget would have looked like. And this was the first draft that was presented to the finance and facilities committee. Just drawing attention to that 7.4%. This was our starting point. >> And I I'll just add so the finance and facilities committee really looked at three budgets to get going. One was a level. So when I say three budgets, we're talking big picture now, right? Not
094high level, not lots of detail. Um but a level service budget, which was the 7.46% for a 6% increase, a level funded budget which is a 0% increase and then a 3% target budget. So that's where we started our conversations as a as a committee. Um, one of the thing, sorry did were you? >> Yeah, you're good. >> So as we think about the budget questions that we were asked in the finance and facilities committee that we just wanted to share was about the costs that go into that 80 plus percent that make up the budget with staff. Um, so our average cost for teachers when you include the benefits, uh, is just over $102,000. Um, so a huge chunk of that, like we showed in that bar pi graph, is um, actual benefits, most
095notably insurance, health insurance. Um, but it's also important to call out the first five-year teacher um average cost because if we are cutting and we do have to riff, riffs are actually really inefficient in that we're cutting our least expensive staff because of the way seniority works with the association. So you have to cut significantly more staff to make up the difference when you compare it to the overall cost of staff that we have. And so what you end up then doing is super concentrating your staff with the most expensive uh members of the associations. Uh also an interesting piece here. So support staff. So the educational support personnel contract their average cost is higher than our first five-year teachers costs and that is because of a difference in the way they elect benefits. So
096f teachers in the first five years are mostly not on the family plan for health insurance whereas the majority of our support staff are on the family plan for health insurance. And so you can see just there with this simple example um how much health insurance is distorting our staff costs across the district. >> I'm just going to interrupt quickly and to say that benefits includes the money we pay in for retirement as well. So, it's not all benefits that get paid to, am I saying that accurately? It doesn't all get paid to the employee immediately. That so that's correct. Um, and I would just say there there are a lot like we pay in for social security, um, the FICA taxes. There's lots that go into this number. It's just that the biggest chunk
097is health insurance, which is why I keep harping on it. But you're absolutely right, Edie. a a family health insurance plan is $35,000 to the district. >> That's the district cost. >> Um so we ended up with what I have affectionately called the FTE line um in the finance committee meeting. And so this is really where the decision started. So you could see level service is a 7.46% increase. um a 3% increase would have resulted in 2.7 million or so in cuts from a level service budget. So that would be approximately 45 FTE that would have to be cut from the budget to hit that target. Um when you go below a 3% increase, what ends up happening is you start cutting more expensive teachers. You're outside that first fiveyear average teacher range and so
098your cuts start becoming a little bit more efficient if we're looking for the silver lining. Um, and to get to level service, you would need to cut 65. So you, it's not as linear after that, but between 3% and 7.46%, the general rule is for every 1% you move the budget, you're talking approximately 10 FTE. So this slide is where we've currently landed with the budget. Um the board has agreed to a sorry the finance and facilities committee has agreed to a 6% overall increase. We've >> 5.99 >> 5.9%. [laughter] >> Um >> well the directive was to come in under six. [laughter] >> Uh no you're good. if it's >> linked I I will just share that linked in the agenda, we didn't put it in the slide because it would take up probably
099six different slides, but linked in the agenda is the detail version of this. Um, so operating expenses are broken out in that traditional form that people are used to seeing general instruction and sped and tech and superintendent office and schoolboard etc. So that fine level of detail is is linked in the agenda. >> Any questions on this one? >> I'll just say is this is approximately 1.47% down from level service. 1.48% down from level service. Um so using that FTE line that's approximately 14.7 to 15 FTE at this stage that we're talking about. >> Sorry, John. 1.47. Um, and so, but that's not the actual impact. So, Nicole, um, Nicole and I have worn like every creative hat that we could come up with. And so, in working with the finance and facilities committee, we
100agreed to remove the $300,000 that was earmarked as operational margin for next year. Um, so that was in that capital reserve line. So, that's um been transferred out of the budget completely. We have four near maturity bonds. [clears throat] Um so we have four bonds that in the next two and a half years will mature. Um that means that their payments because they're long-term bonds are actually really high relative to the principal balance um of the bonds. And so we have instituted some short-term measures this year with a firm budget freeze um across the district to uh in an attempt to recapture as much of this $425,000 as we can uh to pay these bonds off and free up cash flow in FY27. So this would be FY26 money used to free up cash flow
101in FY27 and every year there on to reduce the need for layoffs next year. Um, so this was, give Nicole a lot of credit here. The bond bank did not want to entertain this conversation at all. Um, and she was ruthless. [laughter] So we we've worked out the the details um, of this. And so this is baked in now into the proposed budget. So that really leaves us with $380,000 in cuts which translates depending on where they happen to approximately six and a half FTE um from across the district. >> One more question. So 5.99 uh minus 2.9 is like carryover from last year. Is that dollar to dollar? Okay. So, so if we didn't have that 2.9, we'd be looking at more of a 3% 3.09. >> Yep. >> Increase. >> Yeah. So, it
102No, this is a great point because I think if you look at the this FY26 and FY27, we're really looking at an average of a 4% increase in our expenditure budget for each year. It's just that last year we were came in at 1.9 >> 1.94 and and this year we'll be coming in at 5.99. >> In addition, there was a big payown from the state as well. So even though it was only average 4% over the two years, there's still an artificial drop down. >> Yes. Yes. In the state >> and you're to do with the tax rate >> tax rate, not the budget. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yes. But you're going to see the the hangover that we'll experience as a state from that in a minute. >> Thank you. Um
103some good foreshadowing. So, um really there is this question I feel like anytime we're talking about potential reduction in staff, the question is why not X to avoid cuts? And so we do have currently a small fund balance and a small capital reserve um balance. And so uh Nicole and I do not recommend using the fund balance to to delay cuts um just because we are so far off the targets for municipal budgeting as it is. So right now we have a 0% operating budget uh margin built into our budget and the recommendation is 1 to 3%. Um our fund balance is 1.3% of our total budget and the recommendation is to hold one between 3 to 15%. The 15% is recommended for districts with um significantly older buildings and significant systems at the end
104of their operating lifespan which is our districts. Right? So if we were to have an independent um evaluation of our budget, the recommendation would likely be between 10 and 15% for a fund balance. And then capital reserves the target for a district our side with our need would be about 10% but the range is 3 to 10% and we currently sit at 1.2%. So what this really means is that the focus for the rest of this financial year and next financial year is preserving services that are essential and really planning longer term targets and longer term work um to get the fund balances where they need to go and to have an operating margin as a part of the annual budget. Um, and part of that is also developing a long-term capital plan, which um,
105the finance and facilities committee knows, but we've re-engaged with EI to update the facilities audit they did eight years ago um, and bring that back to finance and facilities. >> All right, let's jump into the Right. >> Um, okay. So, the >> What's that? >> I said it's my favorite kind of map. Yeah, >> the formula can be a bit confusing. We'll walk through the different pieces. Um, so the education spending, the top line, what is the main um driver of our budget is what we ask from the ed fund. So you probably noticed a few slides up that our overall expenditures were about 64 point proposed overall expenditures were 64.9 million. How we get to the 55.066 066 million is um we have other revenue sources. We receive special ed revenue, transportation revenue on
106behalf, career and teched revenue, interest, etc. All of those um reduce the amount that we need to request from the ed fund. So, our education spending is up this year about nine nine%. that then is divided by our long-term weighted ADM. Um, John spoke a bit about this before. Our enrollment overall is pretty static. Our long-term weighted ADM is down about just under 1% approximately 25 weighted pupils and that's largely driven by a reduction in just a handful of English language learner students. So, >> I can just chime in on that. This is like an interesting math problem because so we referenced weights earlier. So we uh lost about nine elelll students from last year to this year. And so those nine elelll students with their additional weights comes in at just under 30 weighted
107students. Um so even though we we slightly gain students overall, our weighted student count is down just because we had some highly weighted students move out of the district. So once we take our ED spending and divide it by that long-term weighted, that's where we get our ed spending per pupil. And I'll just draw your attention to that number because this circles back to the conversation that we were having with Representative Lions about um uh a funding formula. So if the state was to say you receive X number of dollars per per pupil um per long-term weighted pupil, that is the number that we would want to be within. So we're we're right on track there. The yield is um an everchanging number in our budget process. This is version one that we received from
108the state. So 8849 and again I'll take you back a few slides to John was talking about um our tax rates are dependent on not only what we're spending in our district but districts around the state and how districts around the state are increasing or decreasing their budgets feeds into this property yield. So as states spend more the yield goes down. As states I'm sorry as districts spend more the yield goes down and vice versa. So, we'll likely see a few different iterations of this number. Um, and you'll some of you who've been on the board for a number of years will notice that that number has gone significantly down from what we saw in 23 and 24 where the state had um a surplus in the ED fund. So, a couple years ago, that
109number was 112,000 which really really helped our tax rates, but that is no longer the case. Um, go ahead. Uh, some some more MMS. And then we get down to our preliminary equalized homestead tax rate of 1.7. Um, again, because we were a district that was significantly disadvantaged by Act 127 and the long-term weighted model, we get the benefit of a tax rate discount. Um, this is year three, two, three, >> two of the discount. So, it's phased out 20% each year. So, we have an 11 cent discount, bringing our equalized homestead tax rate down to the 1.6716, which is 14 cents over FY26 or a 9.46% increase. So I I will just add one quick thing. Um so the number one question that I got when I ran this by people today um was
110I thought I thought that it was supposed to go up 12%. Tax rates are supposed to go up 12% or thereabouts. And so the reason that we can have uh what feels like a higher than normal increase for us on any given year that 5.99% um and still be at 9.46% 46% is because we're spending less per weighted student than the majority of other districts in the state. So our spending compared to the peer group has lessened the impact um of that tax rate increase. It doesn't protect us from CLA and a whole host of other factors which we'll see in a minute. But at the at the very least our kind of thrifty frugal budget compared to um our peer group has helped us here. Kevin, I see you have your hand up. Yep.
111Uh just to comment on this, it's been a few years since we we haven't had um an applesto apples comparison because the state's been working through the um changing the weight the weighted averages a couple times and um all of that. But this this year, if you look at the top line, education spending, it's going up about 9%. And if you look at the bottom line, the tax rate is going up about 9%. >> Which um you know, finally like makes sense because we're not changing the the numbers in the middle. It's just like makes sense. Basic math. If you're going to spend 9% more, the estimated homestead tax rate will go up 9% more. >> Excellent point. >> So, our next slide is just a visual representation of what um has happened with our
112estimated our homestead tax rate over the last six or seven years. Kevin, I added the percentage change in for you. >> [laughter] >> based on feedback. So, um I want to just draw attention to a a couple pieces here because we're seeing some volatility. So, number one, again, the big decreases that we saw in 23 and 24 were related to those AB those two years with our with abnormally high yields. Um, the ED fund surplus really helped tax rates across the state in that way. The six-year average for our district is really only a 2.76% increase. Um, but I do want to point out what's happening between 26 and 27. So, in 26, again, Kevin just spoke to that um apples and oranges that that we've been experiencing in our tax rate calculation. Last year,
113again, we were negatively impacted by um some Medicaid direct information that caused us to take a hit to our long-term weighted ADM, which really drove up the homestead tax rate. Um, but our towns did benefit then oddly from CLA being layered in. So, we didn't focus too much on the 23.1% increase in the homestead tax rate because it was out of our control with what happened with our long-term weighted ADM and the CLA really did benefit towns. Um, and that's seems to be what people care most about at the end of the day. >> The next slide could be titled Revenge of the CLA. Okay, next slide. So, this again is based on the most current and this typically doesn't change, but um CLA information that we receive from the state. So, you will notice
114um all of our towns increasing this year. And admittedly, it took John and I a few minutes in digesting these numbers today to really wrap our heads around what was going on. the biggest driver >> say they're not totally accurate yet, right? Like this is the part where we get where the math is still a little bit fuzzy, >> right? Sorry. >> So, the biggest driver in what hap is happening to the individual town tax rates is yes, it's in addition to the projected homestead tax rate that we're putting forth, that 9.4% 4% increase. But the biggest driver here is really what's happening in our CLA's year-over-year. So across all of our towns, CLA is going down pretty significantly in some of them. Um, so I am a Jericho resident and I will point out
115Jericho for example here. just a 10% decrease in the CLA year-over-year is um sorry going from 90% to an 80% CLA is an 80% change overall. When you layer that in with the 9.46% that we're putting forth, you can see how we're getting to the 23% increase year-over-year, >> right? So that's if you want to do some quick math and you can see why it's still a little rough right now. What you should really be able to do is take that percentage change in the CLA and add it to the percentage change in the projected homestead tax rate to get your individual town's tax rate. That should get you pretty close. That's like quick math. We're not not doing high level calculations there. And you'll see it doesn't match exactly. But if you do that
116with Jericho, for example, you get, you know, 20 right around 20. and the actual change is 22.97. So, >> and most of you know I think I think it's the state requirement that reappraisals are happen in in towns every 5 years if again if you're a Jericho resident like me and you came home to the notice on your door that you're ready for reappraisal. We can expect to see probably some change again in the CLA in the town of Jericho next year. But for context, that's why you're not seeing quite so much volatility in Richmond or um Huntington, who I think in the last two or three years just reappraisal. >> Where do the CLA numbers come from? Who's like who calculates those or distributes those? >> The state. >> And this this is the
117number for this year or is this subject to change? >> This is the number for this. Anything from the state is really subject to change, but we don't I don't see it too much in the CLA as much as I do in the as we do in the yield. >> And they've recently changed the way they calculate the CLA. So that that that is so to to pop Kevin's balloon, it's not a fair to make a year-to-year comparison when it comes to CLA because of the change in the way the state calculates it. Yeah, they are. There is some sort of statewide adjustment factor layered into here. There was last year also. >> This >> last year, the first year. >> Yeah, last year was 72%. I think the statewide adjustment this year is 70%.
118So they're >> Yeah, the CLA change in calculation was supposed to make the tax rate not move quite as much because of the CLA. I'm not exactly sure that that's how it's working in our district this year. >> Um so yeah, we'll do a little more digging into that one. Does that I guess For new members of the board or folks who may be unfamiliar, does everybody know what CLA is? Does anyone have questions around CLA? I >> think could you give us a quick primer just so we have it? >> Yeah. So CLA stands for common level of appraisal and um again I'll just use Jericho as an example because resident um the CLA for 27 at 80% means that it's understood that the homes in the town of Jericho are valued at 80%
119of fair market value. So, um, whenever a reappraisal is done, the goal is to get CLA CLA of 100% means that all the homes in the town are are valued at at fair or, you know, taxpayers are paying based on fair market value. So, um, I just lost my train of thought. Um, oh, the point of the CLA is if I live in a home right now that is significantly undervalued compared to fair market, the the adjustment of the CLA um causes me to pay more of my fair share towards the ED fund. >> The history here is that some towns would manipulate their grandless value so that their residents paid less in taxes. And this is a mechanism the state uses to equalize for that. >> Everybody pays their fair share. >> It's true.
120>> So we really just have one last piece and then we can come back to any point in the presentation. I mentioned earlier that the work for this year is really about maintaining service and developing those longerterm plans that we then start to implement. Um and then we did also um push out to the community that we want feedback on the budget. And so there's a very simple survey that people can access with this link or with the QR code and we also have paper copies in the room um if people would like to leave feedback for us. And so I just want to make sure that that makes it makes its way out into the to the the virtual and physical room. >> All right. So looking at the agenda and we are a
121little bit more behind than we were before. Um, what I should probably turn my camera back on. What feedback do you need from the board or is the finance committee the next step for this? How are we proceeding right here? >> The finance committee is meeting on Thursday and we'll be discussing the feedback that we receive tonight from the board and any feedback we receive from um the community in the meantime. And sorry, I'm I don't want to speak for you, Lisa, but we'll then be adjusting if needed our budget target. >> Okay. So, share the time. >> Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. >> Yes. Are we at 6 6:30 on Thursday? >> Six o'clock. >> 6 o'clock on Thursday. Uh online meeting. It's posted on the MMU website. Um, so board members, now that
122you've seen these jaw-dropping numbers, you can pull your mouths back closed and if we have concerns, questions, comments, um, let's be pretty concise and direct and in the interest of time share them with um, John and Nicole. I'm still thinking about messaging and that that piece about helping people understand that there was this buy down there's an artificial suppression that you know we're calculating that and I think also just in terms of the the hangover from last year's budget of 2.9% 1.9 >> 1.9% thank you sorry um what are the key talking points that you'd like us to share to help message that because I feel like that's going to be important because it always comes down to it's like oh the dollar change and some people like you know and I know Edie we've
123talked about you know the the community has been very supportive of school budgets um I think folks know I I'm I always try to advocate for those that it it might be hard even a small increase But what are the the things that will help us present this in the best possible light? >> Yeah, one of the things is if you look at your tax increase last year, some of the towns that had have the biggest increase in this budget had very little increase, speaking of Jericho specifically, last year. Right? So if we look at this as a number of years average and this is a year where we're catching up from keeping it pretty low last year. I know that doesn't work in every town. I know um Underh Hill had significant increases last
124year. I think Richmond did too if I'm not mistaken. Um but that's one piece on messaging. >> Yeah. Huntington would say, you know, we just got our we were just were reappraised, so we're very close to kind of fair market that fair market value. [laughter] >> Yeah, the CLA numbers didn't look right to me. So, I you know, [laughter] >> you're welcome to Nicole and my world this afternoon. We spent a lot of time with those numbers. Yeah, >> I would say there are a couple pieces just to your point, Ethan. Um, I think the So, we're talking about $380,000 in in cuts that to staff here, but the reality is we're we're talking about $860,000 less than a level service budget. So, we're we're cutting a substantial amount out of the budget, and I
125think that's something that the community should know um from a level service budget. Um I also think that when we place it in the frame of time like Edy was saying right I come back to this idea that you know four 4% average of 4% increase over the last two years in terms of what we're spending is you know not um you know unreasonable given the state's climate for um education spending. >> I really like the the language level service budget. Um are you there for the Thursday night? >> I think I just pulled my notes up. >> Yeah. I'm not sure I can't remember the superintendent's name, but when he was talking about that, it really it made a lot of sense to me to talk um to to present the the budget that
126way where we're not even hitting that level service budget, never mind a level funded budget. >> We're looking for we're taking things away from experiences away from our kids already, >> right? Um and I think making sure people are aware of that and understand that is important. Well, the easiest thing here, but the context of the the three-year average here or the two really the two-year average of both from SID rate and CLA and budget is really what the story is because we we combined these last two years budget and it does seem like the CLA did an over over adjustment or not an over adjustment but like that it If you do the moving average, I'm guessing of the three threeear CLA, it looks a lot more stable. So I don't know if like
127getting that clear that we've done an average of 4% over the last three years and CLA has been constant over that time. It's just plummeted in Jericho and went on the last year. I don't know. No. And I think like these are pieces once we get the final budget full detail um ironed out and approved by the board. We develop really the communications plan for our communities. And I think you I think everyone has seen the flyers and the mailers that we've produced from last year. We'll be producing those again. There'll be a podcast episode. I've offered to all the local select boards to attend and do a presentation on the school budget with a member of the board here. So hopefully some of you will join me for that. But um I I think
128we'll get a good kind of uh communications plan going. I think the big thing that we really the finance committee really needs is to know uh from each individual member whether or not this feels like the right path. So the 5.99% and the what did I say was 8 860,000 below level service budget or if there's feedback that we need to change course and so Edie is it okay with you if we just kind of go around the room and have individual members weigh in. >> Sure. But Steve put his hand up so let's let him go first and then we can do that. >> Mine will be real quick. Um, when [clears throat] it comes to messaging, when I was at my last town meeting, um, people want to know basically what the increase
129broke down to per household, you know, I know we can't do it for every single household, but maybe we can just provide a general per medium household what the increase represents because that was something that was asked for me and we tried to figure it out on the spot and we couldn't. Um, but I think that'd be an easier way because I mean trying to do the CLA and break all these things down. I mean, I this is my second year doing this and it's still kind of confusing and you're not going to get that through at a town meeting or even some of these public meetings. It's kind of hard. >> We've presented that information in the flyer in the past, what the changes per 100,000 and that allows people then to figure out
130what that means for their household. >> Do you want to start? >> Oh, go ahead. Well, I was just going to pick on Steve since he had he just shared. I don't know, Steve, if you want to weigh in on the the general approach to the budget and whether or not you feel like we need to make adjustments. >> I've had my chances to weigh in the finance and facility committee. So, I'll let others I mean, I I don't like it, but I feel like at this point to make any more cuts than we've already proposed, I think that has to come from the from the public in my opinion. All right. Do we want to just go around the room here and then we can get the rest of our colleagues online? >> You
131want to kick us off? [laughter] >> Similar to Steve, right? I don't like it, but there's not much that we can do. Um, and keep our fingers crossed that the legislature will figure something out around education funding. If you're interested, the Richmond interim police chief provided me with some feedback from AI. >> Um, around budgeting and what things could look like. >> [laughter] >> I know. I'm sorry. I know it's awkward, but I feel like this is the raw feedback the finance and facilities committee really needs. So, >> I I'm fine with this. I prefer a level service budget, but I also know the appetite isn't there. I'm really hoping the legislature rather than kicking the can down the road again this year actually tries to come up with some things that helps to relieve
132the tax rate without that will last longer than next year when we have to have this discussion again. Yes. >> Yeah. same the and like I think I can't remember this meeting or the finance meeting but there's not a lot of there's not a lot of fluff any cuts are going to hurt and I hesitant to do any it seems like have to do keep them as small as possible um yeah tax I think it's a I think at this point it's a selling thing that it's the health insurance went up and the the tax formula has changed and that's out of our hands and I think that it's fair to if voters aren't okay with that then we make the really hard decisions but I think that historically they have been and that's that's
133the right decision to make >> well so I don't pay taxes um [laughter] >> that's that's fair that's fair second semester for me I'm really learning about that Um, but I feel as though this is a difficult year to make a budget and I feel as though after looking at it, I just have a lot of faith in your like ability to make good choices. No pressure words, Eli. >> Happy. >> Um, I'm I mean, yeah, I'm like still relatively new to the board. Um, still just like really trying to wrap my head around all like the new terms and stuff and try to get used to that. So, I mean, I have a rough understanding on like the budget and all the stuff related to it. So, um I mean I guess I'm in
134support of this and what I know now, but I know I still have a lot to learn. So >> Jay >> feel like I need time to digest this and I can definitely give feedback before the finance committee meeting but I always think of things in the lens of communication. So, some of the things I'm thinking about based on community comments are that there definitely needs to be some learning around negotiations and our salaries and um a little bit more clarity for our communities about where that stands and what our goals are in regards to our neighboring districts. um which I know that we have touched upon in our flyers in the past. Just sort of bringing that back. Um and I think it would be good for people to see maybe illustrate what a
135a level funded budget looks like. So we can say that and we know that we're 860,000 below that. When were we there last? and what things are missing from that that we've been operating without. You know, plenty of people are really satisfied with the quality of education that their children receive in our district. Um, so when you're looking at the what a levelfunded budget is, you know, is that is it really like this pie in the sky? like if we had so many more things, I think it's hard for people to understand what we're missing or what what more can we do without. Um that's just my feedback. >> Um having sat in all the finance meetings, I know that a lot of work went into putting putting this together and I know it's not
136like an ideal situation. I do think that we've come up with the best we can do with it and also hope to possibly pass a budget. So, um, yeah, I'm for it. >> Yeah, I would agree. I think just, you know, the work John, you and Nicole have done to kind of [snorts] come to some kind of compromise from where we had said 3%. and it was a much higher sort of initial proposal. We're sort of meeting in the middle. I I think for me and and I've said this before uh as an educator it's really hard for me to say this but I think the community needs to be able to weigh in on what are the things that we are willing to give up and I think that that's you know when we
137when the adjustment especially on weighted um students kind of came down and it was a big kind of like knock upside the head there was I think in my mind a recognition that We have an tremendous school district with a lot of opportunities and oftentimes a lot more than maybe other districts. Um, you know, where are those things that we are as a as a large community of five towns? Um, willing to have conversations. Not that we're going to change anything, but we need to have conversations about what that might look like. Um, so I'm supportive of where we're at right now. I think all the factors it makes sense. It's as reasonable as we're going to get and the community needs to have a chance to um to to talk about what is it
138the future of our educational system look like here. I mean it's a reasonable reasonable thing to be asking them. [clears throat and cough] >> Um I am going to have to agree with Lisa. I would prefer a level service funded budget, but I I can't keep I can't stop thinking about what is this practicality like what does it actually look like in a day-to-day school life for a child? And I think that those are kind of the the questions that I anticipate getting from community members. And I want to have a good answer. Um, I want to make sure that if we're cutting things, we can say we've cut these things. I know we were used to having them. If we were used to having them, did we need them? Did we need more? What
139where are the gaps in in what we have and what we need? And I I just I'm having a hard time reconciling in my head cutting some services when I I don't see a lot of bluff. I don't see a lot of extra stuff going on, so it's hard for me to to wrap my mind around cutting some of those things. That being said, I know that there are things that are way beyond our control and we have an entire community of taxpayers that we we need to solicit feedback from um and rely upon. So, at this point, I think that there's been a lot of work that's gone into it. I would also be really interested to hear community feedback one way or another about um if that target and cuts are what what
140the community wants. So >> So I don't know if I agree um 100%. Um it's a lot of money. Um but um I would like to see if John would be opposed to going by like a campus by campus and asking principles if there's any um ways we can be creative with rehiring positions if there's I don't know if there's troublesome teachers or teachers not performing that have been here for a long time at the level we are wanting and we would like to try some young blood in here that could potentially do it for the same job effectively for half the cost. Um, you know, that might ruffle some feathers, but you know, if we could, you know, do more with less, you know, might hurt a few feelings along the way, but that
141would potentially save couple hundred,000 a year. So, I don't know. That's just one angle I've seen work in districts before. Um, and then I've said time and time again about doing things in house maintenance-wise. Um, that's always cheaper. Um, but, um, people don't like to have a maintenance staff. The town scene doesn't doesn't like to have it. But we pay for a lot for plowing and mowing every year. That would, you know, essentially hire two guys, three guys full-time to do and still be cheaper. And if we could hire someone local, another community member who would have a full-time job with benefits and but and that would save us once again thousands of dollars a year. So two cents. >> Thanks, Jimmy. >> Um I'll keep it short. I do feel like we're on the
142right path. Um I think it's re a reasonable budget. I think it's responsible and um and it's not going to be and further discussion around, you know, where do the cuts come from? Hearing from people will be important. Um but I think it's a responsible budget and I appreciate all the work that you all have put into it. >> Hey, we're we're back online. So, I think if my count is right, I just need to hear from Edie and from Kevin. Edy, do you want to go first? I usually go last, so why don't I let Kevin go first? >> Kevin. >> Sure. Uh, good morning everyone. [laughter] >> I'm in India in case people weren't tracking my whereabouts. Uh, >> following along mostly. Um, I I'm on the fence of wanting to invest a
143little bit more in in using I I think what was referred to as the uh the fund balance or the one-time funds that would be available to to buy this down. That's where I've been all along. Um, I I think we have, you know, we we have a one-time hit that we can offset with one-time funds to avoid um in the first proposal in the first proposed budget uh to avoid some of the cuts um that have been included in this proposal. >> Thanks, Kevin. Um, I think this is going to be um hard for our communities. I think that the increase is going to be something. And sorry if there's some background noise here. I'll see if I can fix that in a minute. Um, and I I think we do have to hear
144from the voters. Um, I also know that this is exactly what Act 127 was intended to do. It was intended to charge districts like ours more to pay more for the state bud for the state education fund. Um, and you can see this is year two of that and our decrease is going to keep going down. And that's one of the reasons I ran for office because I don't think it's I don't think it's the right thing to do, especially the way it was implemented. So, um, I can support this budget. Um, I know this is going to be a really hard budget to pass. So, um, how's that for feedback for you? >> Thanks, Ed. Lisa, you think we got what we need? I >> think so. >> All right, we're good. >> Okay,
145so then I'm going to move on to our next because we are past when we normally end our meetings and we still have half of an agenda to go. So, I'm going to move on to our next item, which is um I'm going to ask for a motion first and then we'll talk about it. I'm going to ask for a motion to schedule our budget information sessions for Monday, February 9th at 6:30 p.m. and Monday, February 2nd at 6:00 p.m. >> Can I get a motion? >> Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. And a second. So, >> great. Thank you. >> Um, John, do you want to do a quick Why? >> Yes. So, uh, historically the budget information meeting has been held on the Thursday of February break. Um, I have not attended one, but
146the feedback that, uh, the board has received for years is that attendance is either non-existent or very low um, because it happens during break. um when we have lots of our families that are traveling or um you know engaged with their kids otherwise. And so there's been a history of requests at moving that date to make it more amendable to people for participating. We do have some regulatory uh hurdles. It has to be held within a certain number of days from town meeting. And so really what the finance committee recommended was holding two separate meetings that covers the same topics, making sure that one was recorded far in advance and advertised throughout our communities and then holding one on the Monday before the vote for uh town meeting day. There is one conflict. So the
147Bolton um select board has their budget information meeting at that same time on the Monday the 2nd of March. I reached out to them um to ask if they had any objection to us utilizing that time um especially since we were going to have a second meeting far in advance. So hopefully if people had a conflict they could either attend or watch the video of the first one we hold and then attend the Bolton um meeting. We have not heard back from them and so I I let them know in the email that if we did not hear back from them, we'd move forward with this this motion. So that's that's where we are. But there's no other conflict then between any of our towns that we were able to to find for municipal meetings.
148>> And a quick question and I don't have the answer. I don't know if you have the answer. Do we know when the ballots are going to be available for people who um have mail in voting? >> I do not know. I don't know if you know. No, we do not know. >> Okay. All right. So, any questions com comments about changing the date? I can only see half the room. So, if you're [laughter] if you're past Eli, not on the side that Nicole is on, I can't see you. So, if you're hand up, please uh say something. Steve, go ahead. >> Uh when it comes to Bolton, I'll obviously be at that March 2nd meeting, so I could always do my best to provide, you know, answers to questions and pro provide education there
149as well. So, they haven't responded in any objectionable way. I don't think that should be a reason to not proceed. >> Great. Thank you. All right. I'm not seeing any other hands or questions, so we're ready to vote. All in favor of changing the dates um to Monday, February 9th at 6:30 and Monday, February 2nd at 6:00 pm. Say I. >> I. March. >> Yes. Sorry. March. [laughter] >> March 9th. I know. >> We're paying real close attention. [laughter] >> Um, any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Thank you everybody. Uh, next agenda item is to warn the employee unlawful harassment policy. Um so we are putting this out there as a new policy um for our district. This is not policy governance policies. This is more procedural policies as required by the state. Um we have
150to warn it at one meeting and we can approve it at the next meeting. we can have significant conversation about it at the next meeting, but if there's anything that anyone has reviewed that they need to highlight at this meeting, this would be a good time to do that. >> I would also offer Edie, if you have questions after you review this that you want to make sure are discussed at the next meeting, you can let Rebecca and I know via email and we'll uh be sure to bring material to work through. Again, I can now see Jack, but I can't see anybody to the side of Jack that is away from Eli. So, if you have your hand up, just start talking, please. >> It's like the camera heard me. >> Quick clarification. I
151assume this is fairly well standard language from the state. >> Yeah. So, this is um this is an existing policy. This is an update um required by act 80 um from the legislature and the updates were written by the VSBA. So they took the old policy which you've already adopted and just updated it to be compliant with the new law. >> I think it's uh based in the Trump policies from the last presidency I think. But because those policies didn't get updated in the last I think maybe I shouldn't say what I think and I should just hold to what I know. Sorry about that. All right. I'm not seeing any questions. We'll move on to our next agenda item um to talk about board compliance and monitoring. So in January at our second meeting,
152we will do a full on board compliance monitoring. And this is where we're going to talk about the DQS policies that we looked at >> um and filled out those surveys off session, offline. Um, so we'll bring back all of those results at that meeting and have a full conversation on why folks voted for what they voted for and why where we ended up um submitting to the agency of education. The reason we have it here is we need a volunteer. We need a board member to be responsible for making sure that the surveys go out um early January and get back on time, maybe even late December. Well, I don't know about late December, but um early January and then um coalate the information and help put that together. Um Tara and I are
153our hands are down and our fingers are on our noses and we need help. So, if we could please get a board member to volunteer to lead us through this. Um John will be a big support for you um to help us go through. We've had surveys from previous years and we want to um update those based on previous conversations and talk about how we are working as a board and what we need to do differently >> crickets. >> It'll be fun. I promise. >> It really is not a lot of work. It'll take probably two hours over, you know, the month. >> Lisa, you're volunteering. >> All right, Lisa. >> Amazing. >> Lisa is gonna be sick of me by the end of the year. [laughter] >> Looking forward to being sick of him.
154>> Thank you. Thank you. We will find time to meet you and me and John and then I'm going to turn you loose. So thank you so much. Um all right policy governance module. So this is the um 3 where is it? >> Sorry I had it open on my screen. 3.12 rehearsal worksheet. >> Edie, could I just give a disclosure with this? >> Yes. So >> you're gonna run it. So, I'm gonna let you I'm gonna turn off my mic. [laughter] >> Perfect. So, uh this was the the board uh elected this year to use this board members playbook. Um which I I have some additional copies if you you need a copy. Um and so this the playbook presents scenarios for policy governance boards to talk out um as a form of kind
155of ongoing embedded uh learning for the board. Um, we decided for this one, the first one we do together, for me to use the materials exactly as they are printed and then you all can give me some feedback if you want me to edit them or work with a board member to make them more applicable to us as board and maybe a little bit less formulaic. But at least for now, we're just kind of using it exactly as it shows up in um I don't know if people had general reactions to it looking at it that we wanted to talk out before we get into it in details because I have I do have some questions to prompt us, but open it up for general reactions first. I'm just going to read the scenario just
156so that we're all talking about the same thing and anybody who is um watching understands what's going on. So, a school board is aware that the CEO, the superintendent is about to reduce the number of kindergarten hours that will be offered in the district. It knows that some parents will be unhappy with this decision. What should the board do and how does that work within our policies? and Steve had to leave for something else and he let me know in advance. So >> my reaction was what? You can't do that. [laughter] >> Yes. Then I I thought more about it and I went back and I read our actual policies and can um and I think that this is where I struggle and also like policy governance at the same time where it's kind of
157set up those guard rails like you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this and it's less prescriptive. So it's not like you have to do this and you have to do this. So unless those guard rails are more specific then yes it is that it is something that can happen and our job as board members would be to support and if we want to change the policy so that it is more specific then that's a next step. >> My initial reaction was like no way. So, I think you're you're getting into the first two questions, right? Which is what does your policy say about it? And then has that authority been delegated to the superintendent, right? >> Because it's really a means issue. It's not a ends issue. So as long
158as the ends if the ND's policy was set up that we have to provide school kindergarten in some way I guess we wouldn't be that specific but where it would be implied then then there would be a potential issue of being able to say not you can't do that because of the ends policy but because it's not >> you can't >> yeah my questions were all about how was this communicated to the board? How was the need reduction communicated? Right? It was all about all of the all of those, you know, what was the conversation or was the only conversation this is changing or was that not even a conversation and the change happened? Right. Well, yeah, school board is aware that this is going to happen. So, it was all about what happened to
159until that point. >> That's right. because I actually Edie I don't remember the specific name of it but you have in multiple places language about information flow um and our or we have language about information um and notice and our policies and so I when I read this the thing that jumped out at me was I think what Edy was getting at is it seems like maybe this is a surprise to the board in this scenario >> which seems like the the real >> failing at least to me I mean I I would just, you know, from the experience of repurposing UID, you know, where there was a ton of communication that went out and a lot of community opportunities to to weigh in, there was a leadup. And I think, you know, in our
160in our, you know, policy structure, I was exactly where Edy was was like, was this just you walk into a board meeting and this happens? um that that wouldn't feel great, but I guess as Helen said, it'd be the CEO's prerogative. Um it would be really hard to I think there was uh something in the in the later part about supporting and and shielding the superintendent from like undue criticism. So think in our experience it's just about how how is this all playing out and when is it playing out to who and is there time to really digest that disaster that might be >> one more why yeah [laughter] >> I wonder >> uh I'll add I I think in this scenario um since the school board's is aware of it. Uh, that's a good
161thing, right? It didn't The scenario is not telling us how the board became aware. >> It's true. >> It kind of implies that the board found out perhaps indirectly, but I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt that the school board was informed by the superintendent um that uh they're about to reduce the number of kindergarten hours that will be offered. So, you know, that piece appeared to be working. And then breaking it down further, the board knows that some parents will be unhappy with this decision, of course, right? Um, but parents don't necessarily represent the whole of the community and we, you know, in this scenario, we really don't know um the why, right? and without without knowing the why and the intent and whether and therefore whether or not the why and
162the intent is uh going to help or hurt uh meeting our objectives and our ends policies it's you know difficult to to know so I think the action just based on this scenario that the board should take if they aren't already taking it is um to you know better understand the the intent of this uh of this activity not necessarily decide but just understand how it how it maps to our objectives. >> The other thing excuse me that I would add is that we would have to keep really you know be very closely um looking at the monitoring reports to see the impact. So if we don't have the ability to you know impact this decision we do have the ability to look at the impact of it down the road. So the monitoring wouldn't
163be critical >> if it just if it seems to so I would on further discussion I I can can come to what you're saying that like sure it's this is within the realm of what super can do but it does seem like a pretty clear potential effect on ends so which is the realm so clear to make that decision but it needs need to justify that it will meet the ends But when I first read this, I took this to be kind of a a school board has been on board with this and needs to and what is the response? Like this is a decision made together maybe made by the CEO and then made by the superintendent and then this the school board is are they the shield or are they do they turn
164having known having gone along with it and known it's happening. So I took that to be we were we allowed this we wanted we were okay with this happening. We did not put guard rails around this. Therefore we should support we need to be supportive decision or change the policy. But more as like a how is this policy governance type answer rather than how it would actually play out. It'll be really interesting to think about what you were saying about monitoring reports and how you know how the board would be able to show the the you would assume that there would be a benefit to that decision and and and weighing the the cost of that. And what would be the not that we're going to unpack that now, but like what would be the
165ways that you would monitor the effectiveness of that decision around a school closure? And as a board again, what would we be looking for to help affirm that choice? But it's a really like that's that's the piece that we're asking is to to to monitor the effectiveness of that decision. It was like a 180 is like shaking her head. Yes. I say so [laughter] nice gives me approval. >> If you put it in the context of what we just talked about, right, if the superintendent said we're going to balance the budget by going to half day kindergarten, then it would be our job, right, to say how are we messaging? Why, you know, why is this not going to harm students? How do we track going forward that it isn't harming students, right? Like in
166all of the pieces that are, you know, I mean, if somebody if if for example a community group moved into our community and was providing significant programming for, you know, preK through K, we could justify something like that super easily, right? If we were facing significant budget constraints and that was the only reason we were doing it, it would be harder to justify. So it's all contextual. [clears throat] Well, I just want to say when you first question is you know ends. So when you go to the ends our first ends is the school will support all students at a reasonable cost. So that really sent me I think with the framework of this meeting into like looking at this must be necessary right um for us to achieve a reasonable cost and so everything
167else the executive limitations the board management delegation the governance process for me all centered around then um communication is the executive limitations like 2.6 six three you know let the board were did let board know about media coverage um was did we spend more than more revenue than revenue can cover like I don't know I just really started thinking about budget when it came to that because it seemed like with the relationship that we have or that we've cultivated that's like the only thing that would besides some other gift to our community. The only other thing that would cause that type of interruption to what we provide for our students. So that is all based on assumption. >> I didn't Oh, go ahead. >> No, no, >> no. Kai, I did Kyle start talking. Oh,
168I thought I heard somebody else talking. >> Um, I think what we're going to find with all of these is that we're going to have some kind of assumption, right? There's going to be some information in the problem set, but not all of the information that we would normally have. And so, we're just going to have to make assumptions and then go forward with our discussion based on those. And I think that's really close to what really happens, right? because we all make assumptions about decisions that are made or information that comes to us every time we hear something in a board meeting. And so it's, you know, it's interesting that we the different assumptions that we make >> related to that. Actually, I wonder how did people like using the actual text from the
169workbook versus having something that felt more contextualized to our districts and it had more specific data. maybe use our own language. I'm I'm wondering in future exercises how much you all would like to use these workbook examples or for me to spend some time maybe taking an example and then kind of making the language a little more natural and reflective of our context. >> My feeling is just doing this is helpful. Um and I don't want to be using your time creating something more specialized for us. I think this is helpful enough for the time being. Anyhow, >> I agree and I think taking any any word of this out of context, you know, like is we just have to keep asserting that it's fictional and I don't want to have anything that is too
170close to home. I think there are plenty of scenarios that are that translate well enough without going too deep into our own >> plans. Yeah, I don't think the language per se needs to be changed. I think that maybe having starting kicking these off with maybe what we all come in with our shared assumptions that is actually relevant for us how we there the assumptions we're bringing to the table on things like this might match with some things that might actually come in. So that could be useful but you shouldn't you shouldn't be setting that we should be >> provide the great that's like our assumptions are our greatest point for learning. >> Yeah. >> Make that more explicit the next time we do it. Um, I think one thing that is going to be
171helpful for us as a board is to note the policies because we modified ours. So, I know that 2.6 is where we talk about communication and support to the board and if you look at the answer key, it's a different number. um you know it's a detail but it matters that we're actually referring back to our policies and not just the standard policies. Um, the other thing that I found fascinating was when I was reading the answer key on what what answer or what action number three should the board or board take board members take now. And one of the answers was the board is obligated to protect the CEO from criticism regarding decisions that are consistent with the board's policies, no matter how unpopular the decisions may be. So recognizing that it may cause
172a public outcry, the board may wish to verify that its policies reflect the needs and wants of the district. Right. And this is all about that communication piece that Katie mentioned and um you know and what happened to get to the point where the decision was made and the board understanding that. So I just found all of that really interesting, right, to understand all that. And the point is for us to be really digging into our policies and becoming more familiar with them, right? So this is at the end of the day that I think was the best part >> just to even be able to know which policy is what when we're talking about them. >> Any other thoughts? interesting questions, comments about this module. I know it's getting late, so >> All right,
173>> for Kevin, >> we had one comment. >> Go ahead. >> I said it's not getting late for Kevin. >> Oh, okay. >> No, it's still early. >> Yes, his day started very early. I think it's like 5 in the morning or something for him. 6:00 in the morning maybe. >> Lot of lot of sun. >> Um all right. So, are we ready to move on? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, superintendent update. Um any questions, comments? John, anything you wanted to highlight from it? I'm sure folks have already read it. >> Yeah. So, I just have three things to highlight. Um, so you'll notice there's a piece in here about the um winter weather calls and and pieces like that. Oh, actually, if Kevin's over there on a different Maybe Kevin could attend the
1744:45 a.m. weather call for me. [laughter] But, uh, I I think that that's just useful information. We get lots of questions about that. So, we've pushed it out in district happenings. We did a podcast episode on it. Um, I can share we did get to the bottom. We got some lab results back in the um situation with the buses on Friday. So it turns out at our early November fuel deliveries um despite us ordering the winter fuel blend uh were not winter fuel blend. So the total fuel blend and the underground tank was not adequate enough when we got the cold snap on on Friday morning. So we're working with the supplier to remediate that. The fuel we have is underground, so it's protected from temperature swings. The fuel's still good, so we're able to
175address it with additional additives, but um that was the source of our transportation meltdown Friday morning. So, >> be just as cold, if not colder, tonight. >> Yeah. So, we we've addressed it with additives already, so we're we're good to go. [laughter] >> Hon favorite mo moment since joining. just say, I know we talked about it earlier, but um I had a lot of feedback about how much people really appreciated the clear and transparent communication that went out on Friday. So, kudos and thank you for that. >> Is there going to be a close the loop? >> Yeah. >> Um that we this was the reason. >> Yeah, I'll work on a way to get that out to the community. I I don't Yeah, I'll work on a way to make sure we get the
176the word out and close the loop for people because I I do think when stuff like this happens, people deserve to know. So, >> I think we should put a little blurb at Allegent paying they fixed it for us supply the heat for the diesel. >> It's true. >> We could just do >> John. [clears throat] Oh, sorry. Uh, kudos to the mechanics and bus drivers. Um, the way in which you told the story just really made me question whether I wanted to be a bus driver when I retired. like [laughter] the coldest of weather, having to change a fuel filter in the, you know, in bitter cold and then knowing that, you know, you're st everyone's stuck on the road. What a horrible morning that must have been. And um I bet there were
177some interesting stories to be told. But, uh, thanks for their help getting everything back and communicating to you what the issue was. >> They did an amazing job. So, if you're connected with one of our mechanics or bus drivers, please like all the praise. They earned it that morning. >> I was just going to suggest that we could do just a an individual board member update on a front porch forum because my front porch forum still has a little bit of trickling about how this could have happened. I don't know if there are people who didn't see the communication yet or um [laughter] >> communication and >> they gave really awesome solutions. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. [laughter] >> So Paul I mean we could help with that. If you want to just put a words
178together I'm sure each person in each town could just give an individual update to the bus situation. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> And I I would just say too there are two other things I really want to highlight from the superintendent update. Um, one, so Ethan, your point earlier about flexible pathways, super on board. Uh, we have to start someplace and so we're starting with this population. We have the highest homeschool rate in the state. >> Giving, >> uh, as a school district, uh, which is interesting, and I've done some early outreach in, uh, some pockets of this community. I've met with a little bit more than 100 homeschool families. Um and uh there is a desire from these members of our community to engage with the school community and I think this is a
179rare opportunity where a potential solution is going to be good for these families and these kids and also good for us financially as it adds uh membership back to the student role. So this is something we're really exploring. Um the other piece I mentioned in here I just wanted to highlight is we're reviewing um summer programming. So, we have a real uh variety of summer programming that the district participates in to different degrees, partnerships with outside providers, um internal services that we run over the summer, uh support that we embed in external programs. Um part of this is brought on by a need by our insurance carrier to conduct some liability review. Um, some of it is brought on by guidance from AOE on what effective summer services are for special ed students. And we're
180taking the opportunity to take those two things and do a holistic review of summer programming. So, I'm kind of excited for what we come up with. >> Can I ask you a question about the home school? Sure. >> Is there um a skew towards a certain age group or is it scattered across preK through 12? >> Um, it's not scattered. So, we see a high amount of re-engagement in high school and um I think some of the desire I'm hearing from elementary and middle school families is about re-engagement is to avoid or start planning for and make that transition easier >> and do you think there was any of that uh was there an increase because of after co Yeah. Okay. So statewide there are two factors that I think have contributed to a major
181increase in um uh homeschool students. The the first is really co and then the second is in response to that the state has made it very easy for families to um sign up for uh that program now. So really they have to sign a attestation saying they're going to meet these requirements but the state no longer requires families to provide evidence or proof that they're doing that. Um and so the the barrier to entry has been lowered substantially. That used to be a really difficult process to navigate. So we've seen numbers shoot up across the state and certainly in our district as well >> and fairly distributed across towns or is it >> there's pockets but I would say there's pockets in age groups and I I don't know if I could attribute it to
182town or like I don't know the the cause of it. Right. So we have more middle school age families in Richmond and Jericho and we have more elementary age families in our other towns. I don't know if that's a demographic trend or what has informed that or if it's just happen stance. Yeah. >> Other questions or comments? >> All right. Thank you. And um it's a the most beautiful superintendent report I've seen the formatting. So I don't know who did that but >> light I thought >> noticed that. >> Well I you all gave me some feedback after my last two. So uh you can thank the fabulous Nora Peton for helping me streamline this document. >> Well good teamwork on that. Thank you. Um, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from
183November 10th? >> Second. >> Hurry. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> for Pat's benefit. Can I know who who made the motion and who seconded it? >> Ethan made the motion and Helen seconded. >> Thank you. Any discussion on the minutes? All in favor of approving the minutes, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Great. Minutes are approved. Thank you. Um, any other business? So, this is our last meeting in December. Our next board meeting is January 12th at Camel's Hump. There is a finance and facilities meeting this Thursday. There is an HR meeting next Tuesday, a week from Tuesday morning, I believe. Um there is a um communications meeting I think the first Monday in January if I'm not mistaken. Community engagement communications. So those are the upcoming meetings for the board. Um not
184seeing anybody with any other business. So um can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. Tara Arnison. >> Thank [laughter] second. >> Thank you Heather. All in favor? >> Sorry. >> Oh, sorry. I was just we're only four minutes over. We made up ground. All in favor? >> Great. Thanks everybody. Have a great night. Have a great December. I will see many of you at these upcoming meetings and um maybe at some school sporting events. So have a great December. Good night. >> Thanks everyone. >> Good night is