December 4, 2024 School Board Meeting

001Yes. I call the regular meeting of the South Bownton School Board to order on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024 at 6.02 p.m. agenda item two, announcements and amendments to the agenda. Are there any announcements or amendments to the agenda? I have one I'd like to amend item 10 to add an additional check to the Howard Center. Amendments. being done, we'll move on to agenda item three, public comments from the public. This is the community's opportunity to share feedback and concerns with the board. We ask that you keep your comments concise, two to three minutes, and that you refrain from using any information that would identify a specific person. Let's raise your hand in the room. or use the Zoom raised hand feature. We will only use the online chat to manage any tech issues. We are

002not able to take action on many issues brought to us during public comment. However, any board member may suggest tonight that the issue or question be added to a future agenda for discussion. We may also delegate addressing issues to our superintendent, Violet nichols. And it is always helpful if you can email us a copy of your comments from all of them. Just as a reminder, this is a section for comments on items not related to the agenda. So if you're here to make a comment about the budget, we may have an opportunity for budget comments later in the meeting. Are there any comments from the public at this time? Please come up to the podium and say your name for the record. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. to the members of the South

003Burlington School District School Board, Superintendent Nichols and members of the community, my name is phil search and while I do not reside in South Burlington, I have served as the curriculum area supervisor for science and technology at the high school for the past 13 years. I'm here this evening to express a few concerns regarding what I witnessed at the last board meeting on 1120. Are you really into budget conversation? Firstly, this panel expressed, quote, disappointment rather than concern at the small number of respondents to the recent community budget imprint survey. This lack of community engagement should rather be an urgent call to action to bring more community members into this vital conversation. Additionally, any quote themes that have been gleaned from these responses should be considered to be null and void as they're marginally reflecting

004views of only a small slice of the voting population And it's completely inequitable to amplify this small number of voices from within the community. At another point in the meeting, a board member said that this year's budget will require, quote, all of us to do more work for less pay and then reminded the audience that the board relinquished their stipend last year. and are now quote doing this work for free. I really want to thank the board for volunteering their time to perform this essential and often thankless work. What I'd also like to point out that your former stipend is not your main source of income from which you're feeding your families or staking your future clients. I later heard members of the panel opining about the unfairness of property taxes on the uneven distribution

005of wealth within South Burlington. school funding formula in Vermont is indeed flawed and unfortunately the confluence of negative factors are colliding right here in South Birmington. And I'd like to remind the board that these are not issues that you were elected to or are empowered to resolve. There are other elected officials who need to lead that charge. They need to feel the urgency and the impact of these issues and how they are affecting us from you and from your constituents. The school board association, Superintendents Association, even the Vermont NEA will likely not advocate this for you. charge of this school board is to provide governance as well as to promote, safeguard, and defend the integrity vitality and the proud tradition of our schools. regardless of the tides and the currents that are working against us.

006I acknowledge that this is often really difficult And this year is going to be no exception. However, you must resist the stance of creating a quote digestible budget for the community and consider the long-lasting impacts of your decisions. the cuts that you're considering in order to reach this seemingly arbitrary target are austere. They're going to leave our schools as unrecognizable shells of what they once were. I'm certain this is not what your constituents desire. South Burlington schools are the most valuable asset in the community and people who choose to people come choose to come to South Burlington because of what we offer And when we stop offering it they will stop coming. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alex McHenry and I have spent seven years on the South Burlington School Board and enjoyed it

007very much. For most of the time. I'm here to discuss the school board election that is coming up in March. I believe we are adding two positions to it. as well. And I also want to express some concerns about the lack of turnout to the public, not just turnout, but lack of interest in serving on the school board. And I appreciate it when people step forward when there's a vacancy uh you know not on town meeting day but otherwise, but also the need for more people to step forward on town meeting day even if it means competing against somebody else for another for for one of the scenes. With two more spots, it could be they go unopposed and whoever signs up wins. But in particular, I want to talk about some experience that I

008had in my final two years on the school board and one in which one The school board appointed a teacher to the school board who teaches in another district. That's you, Laura. And you have to recuse yourself because see this is you don't want to hear what i have to say So you can't just stifle public comment because you don't like it. Just in our guidelines, we ask you not to identify a specific person. No, I have to speak. This has to be said. we should not have people who have these conflicts of interests on the school board, it makes the credibility of the budget that the board puts forward difficult. And also, if you're varied or engaged to a teacher, that also is a conflict of interest. And now with two board members who

009do not have these conflicts of interest. It makes it difficult. for the board to have credibility When presenting a budget to the community. So people may wonder, well. does, you know, is this budget here to preserve somebody else's job? Is it here because it's the best for the community? We don't know. And there's much more that I can say. But if you don't want me to identify somebody. I'll do that some other time. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? We're going to move on to agenda item four, focus on students and representative support. But our first announcement is that there will be an SBHS band concert this Sunday, December 8th at 2 p.m. Admission is free and we encourage students and families to support SBHS musicians as they show off what

010they've been working on this semester. Yeah, and winter sports have officially started at the high school. So the first sports event of the winter will be JV and varsity basketball on December 13th at Montpelier. JB will play at 5.30 and varsity at 7. Show up and support the student athletes this winter. Chamberlain students will be holding their winter sing on Wednesday and Thursday, December 18th and 19th. Each performance will be from 1.15 to 2.15 p.m. and families can attend Either day. River Hot Central students will also be performing at their winter concert on December 18th. kindergartners, first graders, and second graders will perform from 5.30 to 615 and third through fifth grade students will perform afterwards from 745 to 7.30. This is also an important reminder to families that Wednesday, December 11th, will be a

011late start day for both the high school and the middle school students. So school will begin at 1030 and all elementary schools will be having an early release day. So school will end at 1230 p.m. And finally, I promise this is my last announcement about the winter clothing draw. But Key Club would just like to thank all of the students and families who donated. We gathered over 100 items and they're going to be distributed locally. And then we also received enough items to start a care closet at the high school. So that'll be a fully stocked closet for students to go to if they and winter clothing as the winter progresses. With that, we'll move on to agenda item five discussion items and first we have the finance committee So I have some updates for

012tattoo list. I sent an email to the field finance committee summarizing our last visit, share the doodle poll to try to get the next meeting time scheduled. and sent the budget slides that were sent prepared for tonight, although they were yesterday's version, so I might resend them today. And at our next meeting, we're hoping to create a timeline and goals for the finance committee more concretely now that we've had a few ways to shape the work plan i guess Just a couple. I have the finance tracking workbook that I mentioned at the last meeting. prepared. I would just like to have a few people look at it to make sure it's appropriate and that it's doing what we think it will do. When that's done, my question is, do I just reach out to Julia

013to have that posted off the website? Shoot me a note and on both of those fronts and we'll vetted and boost it. Okay. The other item I'd like to post off there is the state agency of education prepared a really nice document on how taxes are figured and I think that would be really worthwhile. I ran through it and it's an excellent explanation, very consumable language so I think we should post that as well. Is that different than the one that we've already posted? I'm not sure. I haven't seen that you posted. Yeah. I think it is. But if not, let me know. Yeah, I just want to make sure that's broadcast because the first 10 pages are excellent. They are. Yeah, we talked about that on the 20th grade Yes. It's on the website.

014Thank you. So I haven't heard back, but I did add in there. Anything else? Any questions? Okay, so up next we have the opening article. Our deadline is going to be next Thursday, December 12th at 4 p.m. If you could have your 200 words email to me. I'll collate them all in one article and send them off to the editor As a prompt, I believe we decided on why you would spend your spare time serving on the South Burlington Supreme Court. So I can send that in an email as a reminder for you all, but I just wanted to my children have a firm deadline. Would you mind not sending any email because that'll help me if it's in my inbox. Throw a wrench in this, but given that we've got interviews tonight um might

015the board consider budget relating topics. I'm just changing. When is the next other paper article after, because this would be for publishing at the end of the December, right? So like, so we could do budget in January, right? Yeah. We could also try to craft a one around the budget and do this one at the same time and try to figure out which one we'd like to submit depending upon circumstances. we will still need to communicate about the phones through town meeting day, given that tomorrow. Makes sense. Okay. Well, I think the reason we decided to post this one in December is because a number of people on the board currently that would be a surveillance issue. We require it to be used through this campaign. So we wanted to get this article posted and

016then Great. Okay. So next we have our second reading of revised two security camera policy. As a reminder, we run it at our last meeting, so we don't have to read through it again. We just need to discuss the changes. Thank you so much. So I've invited our IT director to be a part of this conversation. Edward, if you want to come to the podium in the front, we'd love to welcome you. So last On the 20th when we had our first reading, Tim Warren had some really good questions around some of the technical components related to storage. We had referenced a number of model policies for other districts and there was language included regarding storage time. And the discussion on the 20th was this is not really how our system is wired, if you

017will. I realize that's probably a bad use of words given the technical fun. But I wanted to invite Edward, who's got a good bit of knowledge on this, to talk through your concerns, Tim, to make sure that the language we're including is crafted in an appropriate way that both jives with our system accurately and the need for protection that we see. I agree. I'm director of IT. Exactly. Yes, thank you. Did you want me to ask the questions again? Oh, sorry. Okay. Sure. We can open it up for discussion. Yeah, I guess I had two primary questions from the first reading, Edward. The first was regarding just retention and the time of retention. I think, I don't know if this is more policy instead of IT related, but In the current language of the policy,

018there's no specific mention of a time where we just simply delete the videos, right? They're not being used for anything. From what I can read, there's no indication. It looks like these could be permanently stored someplace. And I'm just wondering if that's the case or there is. There is a process for deleting these if they're not needed after a certain period of time. So there are two categories of videos. There's the rolling recordings Which would not include video requests. security camera request for specific events and then there's Another category called bookmarks, which I only learned of this today when we met with the security company, Royal Group. I think the bookmarks may be the security camera requests or they might be something else. I'm not 100% sure of those. are permanent until they're deleted. We

019don't know exactly what those are. So if anyone wants me to get back to them on that, I can look into that. Security camera requests. are pulled from the footage, the exact requested time is is asked for and then we store that on our file share and share it with only the appropriate people And those are those remain there until we're asked to delete them which And then as far as the non-requested footage. The footage that just exists that's available to be requested that is um I've got my notes here. There's a range. It's based on the amount of storage and the amount of data that is being sent to that storage which so for a specific building, if it has a lot of cameras and there's going to be a lot more data and

020shorter you know the storage will be used up faster so that ranges from 20 days available to be requested for the bus garage at the shortest amount of time and 203 days for this building. Probably because there's fewer cameras here. And then there's a range of numbers of days in between those two values. So I'd be curious what a specific policy would look like well i guess that's i guess this is what i would post to the board is do we want language in the policy that says if these videos are not bookmarked for retention, they should be deleted after you know six months or nine months. which would institute some sort of policy on your side, Edward, to make sure they're deleted and right you mean the specifically requested footage or just the footage

021that constantly rolls I think the rolling would want to retain the specifically requested footage, but I don't see a need to keep any other footage past a certain period of time. So for the bus garage the shortest amount of time based on the hardware that's recording is 20 days and the longest One is 203 days. That may be too much. And 20 days might be I think from my perspective, and I'm not sure how the board feels, I mean, we could set the policy at 12 months, right? But I just want to make sure that in the policy someplace there is something very clear that says we don't retain these videos in perpetuity, right? So not more than certainly not if they're not needed for anything, we should, you know, the community should feel like

022these videos are just they're gone, right? I'm not going to have to worry that five years from now, you know, some video is going to show up someplace that didn't get inadvertently, you know, right? Yep. Yeah. So today, the security company gave us a walkthrough of the admin panel I'm new as of july and are the systems engineer is also new so this was new to us There are settings that can be input to automatically set a time that the stored footage is only available to be requested for a certain amount of time and that can be set by number of days. And then the stuff, the footage that we actually pulled based on requests we could have a specific retention policy where on a certain date, we delete that footage you know after a

023certain amount of time. Because like I said, the requested footage is stored on a hard drive and there is no automation currently in place to delete it. So the two categories are just the hard drives that are just always storing the footage right and that's not and those are on-prem or are those? Those are in the server room in the servers or they're on-prem. Yeah, they're on-prem. That's the K drive? You know, I can't picture exactly which equipment is they're digital video recorders and their hard drives and they're running a certain operating system, maybe Windows or most of them and Linux is one of them, I guess I learned today. I learned a lot of this stuff today at the meeting so So those are on-prem and we can set specific amounts of time so

024that footage that has not yet been requested but has been stored could only be requested up to a certain amount of time and then after that too much time has passed. Right now, we're based on technical limitations for the storage time So what I'm hearing is it wouldn't be operationally impossible to set a duration of say 12 months and then yeah we could we could make sure. After which point it could not be even requested it could not be done. And then the requested footage um you could tag and hold on to as you need. And we are holding on to it, but it would probably be good to have a retention policy for the old footage as well. I guess I'd like to offer the board to add in language to this to say

025that video that's not bookmarked or held for some other reason is is removed and deleted after 12 months if it's not registered. Okay, we'll happen. Yeah, it seems really reasonable. I really appreciate that information. So that would mean we're going to modify under The section on storage and security. Storage and security. So item four. we can put Any videos not requested. be deleted after 12 months. And then, Edward you can we'll work out once the policy is approved, we'll work on the procedures, which will um So those will have to be worked into the procedures, which will just be some kind of thing, you know, working with Royal to make sure that we have them cut that off. It's great to know that that's part of the administrative settings though. Yeah, and right now, 12

026months is longer than our storage even is storing right here 203 days was the longest. And then it sounds like a separate policy should apply to the footage that's been pulled And that might differ for different things maybe if there has to be a legal proceeding relating to some footage that has to be flag to be held and other footage that's no longer needed should have a retention team but yeah And I guess Violet, my question then would be if you do have video that you can pull because of a request of some kind Is there a duration that kept in perpetuity or is that then yeah so In my experience i do know video that is still relevant after some period of time. So depending on what the footage was or the severity of

027the situation or any legal proceedings, which are extremely timely. They're not timely they go on for long periods of time I think there is, from what I can see, reason to obtain the video that is still relevant. So we could add language there for preserved video to keep For relevant reasons, you know, if it's necessary to do so after 12 months. But we could put that provision in. So we could say, you know, all all footage, including preserved be deleted after 12 months unless you know the superintendent has good and valid reason to maintain it. Yep, that would be your discretion. Okay, great. I'll make that modification. Thank you. Any other modifications we're discussing? 12 months still feels like a long time, but I know we Do we have a sense of what other districts

028are doing as far as policy I had a number in my head much lower. I was thinking like 90 days, but that seems like maybe that's probably the low end of the spectrum. I'm just trying to get a sense of we're doing all that. Yeah, I do. I think it's we see these all over the map. I will provide an example where an issue of great significance was brought to my attention more than 90 days after it occurred. So we pulled video footage after that And… I think given that experience, I wouldn't advise operationalizing a policy that had less than six months. helping with my recollection here. Is that what the Essex Westford's policy was? If I remember, they had like a really short two meters but i could be really i could be wrong

029but theirs was pretty brief. My only concern is I'm not concerned with like anything under 60 months. My concern is that there's something in policies that says they get deleted it's something in place for you already, but we would just make sure that 20 days for some of the cameras. And if we upgraded the hardware to much more storage and it exceeded the 12 months, then we to set the 12-month limit. Okay. Chris, I'm fine if you want to go shorter, but I was just trying to get something in there to make sure that they It's a policy. We can change it later. 12 months. I'm just trying to understand what is the purpose for 12. versus six months, right? The whole reason we deleted it is kind of a privacy thing like if we

030don't need it, get rid of it. So just coming in from a privacy perspective also understanding uh you know understanding uh change and change in federal government and the use of that information just it raises privacy concerns. At 12 months, we don't have a business used to retain it I guess just hearing Edward, if it's only retained up to 200 days anyways, 12 months would be reasonable, so they're not operationally having to go in and figure out which ones to delete. Programmatically, probably. So let's move. I'm okay with 12 months if we're open to revise it, actually. I am. Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much, I really appreciate that. So next is agenda ASAP. We are 30 minutes into our meeting. What's the board feeling? You want to try and raise us after. I'll

031check in. We'll check into that. All right, so that brings us to agenda item seven, school board candidate interviews. So we're going to begin the process of interviewing the candidates we have for the board seat vacated by Elaine. We did have two candidates. Unfortunately, one of them is sick and cannot meditate. So I'm just going to read out the process and we'll get started. So I'll remind the candidate before we begin that each board member will ask a question. That question will be repeated Each candidate will have two minutes to answer the question. If the candidate does not utilize all of their time. They will have the opportunity to use the remainder of their time at the end to share anything they believe is relevant to their candidacy for the school board sees. The timing

032will be enforced so that each Once we have concluded the interviews, we will move on to our remaining agenda items. Then we will retire to executive session to discuss And we will return from executive session to open session to announce our decision. Canada is welcome to stay. They're not expected to do so. To hear who has been selected, and we will send a follow-up email to everyone regardless of whether We studied the decision or not. So at this time, I'd like to invite Karen up to the podium. Yes. One, two, three, or four items. That's three or four. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. So just to be clear, we're going to give you up to two minutes to answer each question. You don't have to use that full two minutes. And at the

033end, you'd like to share anything relevant. So each board member, including the student combined, are going to ask a question. And… Sure. Laura, would you have to start with? Why are you applying to be on the school board and what are the strengths do you agree? Well, I'm a parent in South Burlington. I am a former planner, so I have attended many meetings of his sort, usually as staff. And so I feel like i feel like i I have watched the process. from the sidelines. I've lived in South Burlington since 2017. And I'm just sort of Just been watching the dynamics and i I really love South Burlington and I love the school district and I love the experience that my kids are having and i sort of feel like, well, as I said to

034Violet earlier, kept extending the deadline and I said to myself, if they extend it one more time Fine. I'll throw my hat in. So here I am. Because, you know, I just feel like we're at a like it's a critical moment and it's a good moment to have as many people around the table as possible And I guess I feel like I understand how the table works. And that I could be an asset in that way. Sure. Can you reflect on a time in your life where you've worked on a team that hasn't agreed on a common issue but had to build consensus anyways well. I mean. Everybody in their life has had those moments. I was working on a team trying to build consensus anyway. Well, I mean, again, as a planner Being a

035planner is a tricky job because you're pretty much always the one who's wrong if you're the staff person in the room. You're either too much you know for the developers or you're too much for the environmentalists, from everyone else's perception and So I think that training ground um Again, going back to the basics and going back to what the policy is and looking at the language and reminding everyone what we're here to do. I mean, that can't always clear up objects of opinion, but at least it keeps everything on an even keel Everyone understands what the process is and what their role of the process is and And kind of having an open attitude of having an open Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you have to give, sometimes you learn. something new about

036your own opinion by listening to other people that maybe it wasn't as complete as you thought it was when you walked in. And so Yeah, I just think I really believe in this type of governance and I believe in this type of system. The way that we have done this for a long time. And I believe it works. I believe it works when it works people are paying attention to, again, like, you know, you're reading the policies, you're writing the language and then And then we fix it if it doesn't work to move on so Yeah. So we've talked a lot about creating engagement on the board and our job description states the board has direct responsibility to create the linkage between the ownership operational organization. So as a board member, how do we want

037to serve to make that Oh, yeah. So on the application, it said, what do you think the top three problems are and i for a moment debated uh better pr as one of the top three problems. And I think that's getting to the heart of this question. You know. communication is everything. Listening posts I mean, it is This is a tough sort of world that we're living in right now that just everybody's attention is so scattered and you know there's like this self-care of I'm just not going to pay attention sort of attitude going around and this is too stressful for me to deal with and trying to find a way to engage people I mean, I mean, I don't know. I think that's actually like at the core of the whole mission here, to

038be honest um is. how do we make this a place that people want to come and feel like they can say what they have to say? also understanding that you know there are huge problems that are outside the control of the people sitting in this room. And how to communicate that. to people and what you are actually capable of working doing. in this situation. Board members are privy to confidential information yet have an obligation to communicate and engage with constituents. How will you maintain confidentiality and engagement? I don't think I really have that much of a problem with that. You know, again, I mean. That's part of any sort of professional job and certainly as a planner i had a lot of very private Otherwise, information at my fingertips. I don't think that that's you

039know a big problem we just i guess watched a moment earlier today, early in the meeting. just being able to maintain those types of civil guidelines about guidelines about privacy and um particularly when you're dealing with student information is critical. What do you see as the most important work for the board to support during the next five years? Well, I mean, I'm concerned about the buildings. I mean, that's like near and dear to my heart. really concerned about that. I'm concerned about getting lead testing emails from high school. I'm concerned about the temporary buildings. RMCS, I'm concerned about the i mean the physical plant you know it's like everything's sort of like held together with like held together with duct tape and um like i'm in the next five years there has to be some

040kind of a decision about what's going to be done about that because I don't know how much longer They can be held together that way. And that's a really, I understand that what are being incredibly difficult conversation that is. when we're not even sure that we can put together an operating Budget. So, but I still, if we're looking at five years, then I would say that's definitely on the list. And then just the work of retaining and attracting the very best. It's always at the top of the list. I guess I mean, I just I… So this is a return trip to Vermont for me. I lived in Vermont. 20 years ago, and I worked as a plant and blah, blah, blah. We won't revisit that. And my oldest son was born here and then

041I left Vermont. And then when I had the choice to move anywhere that I wanted to move. I chose to move back here and i chose to move to South Burlington, having lived in Williston and having lived in Winooski before and I have not regretted my decision at all. And in terms of my decision making my kids And the schools were absolutely at the forefront. And if you've ever seen a planner make a decision about where they want to move, there is a matrix involved. There are spreadsheets. demographics there um and so you know you could say out of the entire country you know i i chose this little corner of the world very carefully And I, you know, so I and I haven't regretted it and I love it, but I'm also sort of

042watching what's happening and do you think that this is the time that My kids are older. I've seen the way things work and I think now is the time for me to step up and say I'd like to say i'd like to I'd like to bring what I have to offer. That's all the questions that we have. Okay. And so at this time, we're going to move on with the rest of our meeting and then we'll go to executive session to discuss and we'll all make the discussion. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you very much. How are you doing? Or jump right into coordinator? No ma'am. Right, it's for 750 and we're a half hour ahead. Yeah, it's wild. But we can't take a 30-minute recess. So might as well jump right in and

043get started with agenda item eight. Thank you so much. So I would like to welcome Tim Jarvis, Senior Director of Finance and Operations um jody Valancourt, Executive Director of Learning, Kristen Romick, Executive Director of Education Support Systems, and Monica DeRochers, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social-emotional. And I'm going to help just add another table here. Do the three of you want to sit close together or should I add another okay um monica is online you know that's okay yeah all right So hi, everyone. Thank you to all those who came in person and were joining online. Really happy to have engagement in this conversation. And I'm looking forward to talking to you about some incredible developments. That we've just, we're seeing right now unfold with the December 1st tax letter. So on December, on

044December 2nd, we received what is called the December 1st tax letter. This is historically a letter that is released around December 1st every year. Announcing the yield. And the yield is an input in the education funding formula, which has a pretty significant impact on how much funding we'll be receiving. and um The December 1st tax letter was extremely favorable for two reasons. One. The yield has been flooded, if you will, with revenues, including independent sources such as the non-homestead tax rate source, for instance. The other piece of the yield that should be noted is that this is a factor that isn't finalized until the end of the legislative session, which typically happens in mid-June. So I want to share cautiously and with trepidation that while we're seeing really good news from a high yield this

045year, which is going to provide us with significantly more relief than we anticipated prior to getting this information just 48 hours ago. So we're still very much calculating, evaluating, and processing the impact. But I want to be very clear that this yield number can change. It can change often and dramatically. And it is a political factor. We also have the power as school districts to what we referred to last year as sync the yield. So some of you will recall with Act 127 last year and this 5% tax cap provision that was a part of that legislation, which is now law. What happened is districts in a similar position to ours elected to draw more money from the education fund Which in layman terms we could simplify to say, we opted for higher budgets. And

046so that brought the yield down. And when the yield goes down, homestead tax rates increase. So I want to be clear that we've gotten some really excellent news on the yield and that this number is not finalized and can absolutely change. So we have to approach this with a lot of caution and exercise still a significant amount of restraint. Because even after a budget is warned, approved by voters. the yield could change. This year's, for instance, on our third vote, we voted on the community approved a budget that was 1% higher than it ended up being after the yield was finalized. 1%, not a significant deal, but at this point in time and given the budget season that we saw last year. I just want to be really clear that the yield is not a

047number that we can count on as being stable, consistent, predictable, and it certainly could change So with that, I want to share that the fiscal year 25 income yield was $10,110. This year it's at 12,260. So you're seeing a pretty significant increase there. And if you want to look at the tax rate information associated with that. We're looking at a tax rate, the non-homestead tax rate of $1.39 for this current fiscal year versus $1.79 for fiscal year 26. Again, with this initial yield prediction. Now, I've linked a few pieces of information here for anyone who wants to go into the weeds, and we've had some good conversation about the mathematics here. So I encourage folks to check that out. All of this information is going to be on our budget page. So I encourage anyone

048interested to really dig into these letters that are hyperlinked here. So the other really interesting piece of information that came with the December 1st tax letter is regarding CLA. CLA stands for common level of appraisal, and it's what we call in layman's terms real estate inflation. And we know in South Burlington that we have some of the highest cost of living in the state. coupled with pretty significant housing shortages. And that really puts a crunch on the cost of housing, right? If we look at simple supply and demand. So typically, the common level of appraisal is put out around December 28th, 29th, right? And we all anxiously await that. It doesn't have a finite date like the December 1st tax letter does. The reason that it's typically put out at that time is because the

049state often, historically, this year being a departure from that approach, the state has historically waited until every single town or city has been appraised or reappraised. And then they, in one batch will release that. Oftentimes, many communities have already been reappraised There is a shortage of appraisers statewide and many cities or towns have been waiting longer than a decade for reappraisal. We in South Burlington last year had an appraisal in 2021. CLA is calculated on a three-year rolling average, and that is designed to help cushion negative impacts associated with real estate market volatility. So being that we are one year further out from our reappraisal and that we have seen back to back nine and 10 point dips in the last few fiscal years, we were anticipating a 10% dip this year. So the CLA

050for fiscal year 25, which is our current fiscal year, is 82.5. And we were anticipating something of 72 and a half, which seemed reasonable based on the housing conditions home sales and being one year further away from your appraisal. However, we received the preliminary information that our CLA is 75. Which is a seven and a half point drop. So this is, I think, more good news it's um certainly better than some of us anticipated. And this number, unlike the yield, I think is more, it's more firm. So it's not something that the agency has said this is finalized. However, unlike the yield, there aren't other factors that will change this number. So no other community's CLA is going to factor in and impact hours. So this number is pretty good and valid for our budget

051calculations. And we're glad to have this input this early in the game. I say the game, it seemed like that the last few years with just the changing of the rules, right? So this is good news for us. What does this mean? It means that the conversation that we've been having Since before our budget was even passed for fiscal year, has dramatically changed overnight from this information. So what we were seeing as modeling of dramatic reductions in programming and truly decimating an incredible system. And still with all of the reductions that directors and principals had brought forward for discussion, we still would have been at roughly a 25% tax rate if you use CLA of 75 and the long term, the LTW ADM, which is a student weight as last year. I want to be

052clear that while we've been saying, given what we know, we're facing dramatic reductions The yield as it stands now really provides some relief for that, as well as knowing the CLA. we are still going to have to make reductions. However, this news is quite welcomed and will certainly provide significant relief. And I want to just be clear again, this yield factor could dramatically change. and um our board and other boards, particularly those in Chittenden County. decide to decrease reductions as of course we are going to be discussing. We could collectively really dramatically reduce the yield, which would increase our tax rates once again. And again, that is what we saw last year late in the game after the board had already warned and approved their budget. So… What does this mean for us? We are

053still in the stages of engaging in modeling. Per pupil counts are incredibly important. So this is a figure that the Agency of Education used to call equalized pupil. It is not the same, but for those of you who are wondering where that input in the formula is there's now a it's not a comparable figure, but it's a replacement of that factor. And it's now called long-term weighted average daily membership And it is associated with the provisions in Act 127, which are designed to increase equity by acknowledging that every student needs different supports in order to be educated, right? So with this, there are greater weights or monies associated with each student. Some of the factors considered are home language, free or reduced lunch eligibility, special education status. There are significant weights for those who live

054in rural. areas, right? So that clearly is not a factor where we're gaining significant revenue. So for now, you know, we've received the letter on December 2nd and we're going to model with the yield. We're going to model with fiscal year 25's LTW ADM. figures. So when those are finalized, that'll be the final input in the education funding formula, which will determine where we go. I just want to reiterate this pretty dramatic shift in how the yield and the CLA have impacted our modeling for the positive right now and also be really clear that this could change and we must still be restrained and we will still have to make programmatic reductions. We don't want to be in a position where after town meeting day, residents are seeing dramatically different tax rates than were warned.

055So I hope I caveated that enough. So hopeful and yet, you know, being realistic and understanding that this could change. So I am going to pass this along now to Jody and she's going to talk through our vision, which is driving our entire budget and all that it includes. So the vision is grounded in a commitment to working toward equity for all students. And an important thing to understand about that is that achieving equity may require an unequal distribution of resources. and services due to the impact of historic marginalization on student achievement. So the budget will be developed to maximize equity to adhere to regulatory and legislative requirements, which we'll get into a little more specifically on the next slide. And to come in at a cost that the South Burlington taxpayers can sustain. And

056still allow us to achieve our ends. So because of the impact of Act 127 and the use of the surplus funds last year. there will be reductions that are required. And when making the reductions. We will prioritize people. over possessions. and ensure that we preserve the effectiveness, availability, and equity of services provided. to students who require additional support. And to close the gaps. that our district has been identified as having by the Agency of Education, the equity gaps that we have been identified as in need of improvement. So we talked about maintaining compliance with legislation and with other requirements. And some of the requirements that we need to maintain compliance with are Act 173. Which is meant to enhance the effectiveness, availability, and equity of services provided to all students. who are in need of

057additional support in school. So that would be our multi-tiered system of support, special education, services like that. And then Act 139, which is a new one, and that law is specific to developing strong readers in the early grades. And it does require us to provide explicit evidence-based instruction. in both code breaking and comprehension strategies. And also to universally screen students. and identify students who are in need of additional support to develop their literacy. And so, of course, those things come with costs right And then the education quality standards also have some requirements that we are needing to stay in compliance with. There are things like ratios of certain types of staff members to numbers of students that we need to maintain. And then also the education quality standards does require us to ensure that a

058tiered system of academic and behavioral supports are in place for all of our students. So I'm going to go to the next few slides, really just to provide all of you with the approach that we took to formulating our initial budgets. you know where we go from here. So at the beginning of this whole process. The business office and senior admin team were working together and engaging with the principals of the five schools And just trying to get feedback on the budget, expecting that this was going to be a particularly brutal budget cycle for all the reasons that Violet has already described. I mean, we were really anticipating we used the word Armageddon last year this is like Armageddon on steroids What we were thinking was going to be required to present the community with

059a budget and a tax rate that would be accepted and voted. Positively. There was a lot of data collection. we have these budget sheets where principals would submit some specific budget line items for personnel, things in their school as well as possible staff reductions. the hardest part of the whole process by far. is that piece of it. Regardless of initial information. And kind of, you know, put that to the side for the moment. We then worked with the communities, there was other inputs now, right? There was the community survey that we did, there was a finance committee inputs We looked at data, student data from social and emotional learning And I'm sure you've been at a senior admin meeting So we started off kind of high level and then we started to ensure that we

060were not making these decisions by ourselves, but that we were getting all of these inputs that would be required to go forward. We also look at other school districts. which are which in some cases very different than arms in the way that they staff positions and the amount of money they invest in different types of expense categories. and whatnot and looked at them, you know, not to copy by any means, but to just take it into consideration. What is their structure and what are their best practices around around budgeting because especially in Chitton county they're all in the same boat they're wearing. So something that we probably haven't done as much in the past. In fact, all of these things are things that we haven't done as much in the past and we really wanted

061to make sure that we had engagement and consideration of various stakeholders Given what we went through last year with two failed boats and what we do expect it to be a tough cycle this year. Then the central office administration, business office, the leadership. got together and started evaluating all this data that we had collected incorporated some more direction for the last board meeting and other forums and As Violet said, we were predicting some budget factors related to the CLA and tax rates are fortunately are very different this week than they were Friday night. And just on that, you know, just to sort of reinforce what Violet said i mean Tuesday was a crazy yes it's only been 48 hours. The last 48 hours have been crazy. You know, I'm a member of what's called LASBA,

062which is the Long Association of School Business Officials. essentially around the state, people like me, my peers and colleagues, and we have a google chat And when we're just asking questions regularly about different things like what do you think about that? Have you ever done this before sort of thing? it was on fire because it was on fire we couldn't believe that the yield was what it was because it's sort of positively impacted all of our calculators and our budget forecasters and We checked and double checked and triple checked and checked each other's work. And is this right? Is this calculator working the way that it's supposed to? And it was. And then yesterday we received a new calculator from the from the state, we plugged in our numbers and it is what it is

063right and and so Whatever the state has done, and people have asked me this question constantly for a lot, like, where's the money coming from? Like, how could this really be true? The state also published I think I'm getting way ahead of myself but the state it's on the internet that you can find in the Joint Fiscal office of where this new money is coming from to fund this education spending increase that was in the December 1st letter The Homestead Education Property Tax that that source of new revenue, it's up 10.4%. The non-homeset education property tax is going to generate over six percent uh more funding sales and use tax, almost 3% purchase and use tax almost three percent meals and use tax almost six percent so It's not just the homestead tax rate that

064is contributing to the new funding for the rise in education spending. It's across the board of all the different sources. that the state has at their disposal. And also, I think the state simply doesn't want to have high property taxes like we did last year. And so there's a a very strong political motivation to find a way to support a modest increase in education spending without causing these double digit tax increases that we suffered across the state last year. Fortunately, ours was under 10% because of our surplus, which we don't have this year but But anyway, it's been an exciting couple of days. It's encouraging because it's encouraging because we were modeling really, really significant cuts and painful cuts you know and i keep i say this at almost every school board meeting but i

065have two kids in high school And I am, I was really really worried that the high school experience that my own two children were going to have was going to be devastated by the budget that I was working creative, right? But as it stands now. Although we do have to make cuts and where the cuts are prioritized is a work in progress It is way better than we thought it was going to be. And we're thankful for having this information to share at this meeting because otherwise this meeting will have a very, very different tone. So anyway, I got ahead of myself. Then we put forward. We put forward a budget That also has to align with all of our policies. And I think both violin and Jody touched upon that. So it isn't just

066an independent analysis of debits and credits and cut this and save that. It also has to be done in a context of supporting school board policies and our vision and where we want our schools in our community to So those are obviously impacted. I think a lot of that is around special ed Special ed is a very, very expensive part of our budget by both need and stature and so That's a very important part of the budget that we need to continue to support. We also asked the principles and administrators because we all had some skin in the game here to speak to their staff. about what we were potentially facing. And we referenced it in the context of possible cuts because decisions have not been made but At the same time, we didn't want

067to hide behind a rosy picture and then have the hammer come down which is largely what happened last year. So, you know, throughout this entire process and approach, we try to as best as we can, because it's not It's not something you can be 100% transparent about but We certainly wanted to err on the side of transparency and communication. and engagement. in order to have sort of this scorecard of where could we possibly make cuts if we needed to into this state. Which was actually a good practice anyway And we'll serve a purpose going forward, regardless of where the yield is or ends up this year or next year. It really forced some self-reflection about priorities and impacts. where we don't live in a world where we can budget year after year increases to our

068win. So it was a good it was a good fiscal you know house cleaning kind of an exercise to understand better where money is in the budget and what the impacts would be if we needed to make cuts. So that was the approach. The process. There's some overlap. We've spoken before we've spoken before about the fact that we have adopted, first of all, we've moved to a new financial software platform which was a painful transition it's difficult to compare every line item, apples for apples between fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 because fiscal year 26 is now using the uniform chart of accounts which the state mandated us to use in 2021. We didn't adopt it until this year as we struggled to a false start with an earlier transition. But we're also cleaning

069up the budget a lot. Last year, or our current budget has 3,000 individual line items, each with a 36 digit code. Which is ridiculous. And so we made some decisions, which I think will help all of us, the board meetings are like the principals the administrators that they're not dealing with so many codes and line items, but rather they're cleaner now and they're more and they will become much more comparable So that was part of the process as well. So we went through and updated line item budget sheets in two months that we've been doing this now We reviewed academic proficiency. And look at any possible personnel and programming changes in the context of student and educational impacts and so a little bit of an overlap from previous slides but Again, it wasn't done in

070a vacuum. It wasn't like Where can we save the most money? And let's cut that. All the decisions that we were making and the considerations that we were investing in those discussions was in the context of impact on education. not just the dollar amounts. Violet had further meetings with school leaders for fine tuning We met with the school-based staff to discuss the possible reductions. And throughout this, we're trying to really try to have collaboration between the building based leaders and central offices. Which is critical. Both to have alignment as well as ownership in the process so That's what we went through to get to where we are. A few factors. Some of this is probably a repeat from last board meeting but I think we all remember budget passed only on his third try And

071an 8.18% increase. Again, that was significantly lower than in other communities in children county across the state. because of our surplus. We knew that the CLA And I should also, these slides were prepared before the first two slides right so We knew the CLA was going to go down. There was no question that the CLA was going to go down. The question was by how much? But in any case, any decrease in the CLA was going to cause a tax increase just because of the way the calculation works. Both the teachers and the union support staffs have their collective bargaining agreements expiring at the end of this year and the state mandated district contributions to employee health benefits is proposed to increase by about these are just collection of factors, right? that impact our thought

072process in approach. This is just a slide that we actually used last year just to remind people of what our historic tax rates are and the relationship between tax rates and CLA. You can see over the last 10 years or for the first seven of the 10 years, it's a pretty steady Pretty steady CLA and tax rate. Until the reappraisal was done in 2022. So that's where you see the spike in the cla and then the CLA drops off a stone. And so what that says is that in the years 2015 through 2022 or so there was not this great real estate inflation in South Burlington and but coming out of covid And with the housing shortage we certainly are seeing a much more aggressive decrease in SCLA, which means that it's an increase in

073home values relative to what their on-brand list, which is our tax table. But now I turn this over. tongue? Hi, all. Can you hear me? happened. Hi, Monica, we can hear you. Awesome. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about the community feedback themes that came up. So it's Violet had sent out a community survey that was anonymous and open to anyone in the community. So students, staff. community members. There were only 38 respondents but Something to note is that we'll be looking for more feedback. I'll talk a little bit about that. And in addition to that survey, the board had a finance committee that hosted a budget forum. And then additionally, feedback came from different sources, whether it's emails, conversations, committees, groups. But just several different people invested in this community and

074what came up. So the community themes that came up were cutting administrative roles or reducing salaries. Prioritizing student-facing positions, cutting central office roles, reducing teacher salaries and curriculum area supervisor structure at the high school. in favor of public education but cannot afford extensive tax increases. present budget in terms of what district controls and what is mandated at the state and federal levels. would like to see the data to support multi-language and multilingual programming and coaching positions. cutting athletics or reducing the amount of co-curriculars. saving world languages and keeping AP and honors courses. So this isn't the only time to give feedback. Today, there will be a forum after this presentation. And so the feedback that we're collecting will be ongoing, but this is just what we have so far And yep. So this slide just

075depicts the cuts, the reductions over the last three years. So you can see in the fiscal year of 2024, we lost over 23 positions, which was huge and devastating. That was already a significant cut. So what we're operating on right now is not, we're not operating on miss you know. getting everything we want. We are really having… We're a tightly funded district. The year after in fiscal year of 25, there were 6.8 FTEs. And then in 26 is obviously still in flux, but we should have that number by our next board meeting. Okay, so the possible reductions to discuss, and I think it's important to note that this was previous to the December 1 letter that Violet has spoken about and Tim has spoken about. So these are possible reductions and it's important to note

076that no decisions have been made. that will reassess what it is we've been discussing over the past two to three months. And these are the cuts that we've been reductions that we've been discussing as an administrative team. And we've done that based on, again, what Monica just talked about, which is the community feedback, the board feedback, as well as our ongoing principal feedback. To help support the decisions. So if you take a look at those, the possible reductions to consider included athletics and co-curriculars. underneath that you'll see underneath that I won't read all of that to you, but you can see the possible reductions. Understood. Again, based on the feedback, the central office staff, some leadership and administration instructional technology education, instructional coaching, elementary schools. classroom teachers, traffic monitors I think it's really, really important

077to note that this is significant. These are significant reductions that we looked at based on the information that we had previous to this This past Tuesday, SEL supports that you know again middle and high school arts world languages band teaching nursing If you go on to the next slide, again. with facilities, we looked at where we could make possible reductions in facilities. Our IT, again. thinking about the vision which was thinking about the vision people over possessions. prioritizing equity of services in particular to our students who require additional support. And to ensure that we're closing the equity gap based on what it is that our vision is. But there isn't. anything in our district, pre-K through 12 that wouldn't be touched based on what we were looking at as of last Friday. So special education,

078transportation curriculum instruction and assessment. are all possible reductions. Again, we have more conversation to have now that we had the December 1st letter so um We'll have more information in the next board meeting. Thank you all for your support and your work in presenting this. And I'll turn it to you, which is very nice. So at this time, I would like to introduce you brief clarifying questions or comments. And then a little over time. Mm-hmm. We can stay just for now and then um The community forum is an opportunity for community members to provide feedback. It's not really a dialogue or discussion. So I can get that time. we could move back to your other seats unless we have a clarifying question, we might ask you to come back up just for a second. Yeah,

079could you guys just stay just for this? Oh, okay. And then once we invite community members up, we'll ask you to make a space at the table, whether that be. I always have questions. Sorry. Jordy, can I ask you a question just for more clarification? So when we use the term equity. Can you just describe that a little bit in more detail when you talk about looking at things Google Lens and equity? Absolutely. That means ensuring that every student Guess what they need to learn? And because humans are variable. their needs are different. And some students need more supports in order to reach proficiency. than others. And so rather than giving everyone the same thing It's ensuring that everyone has what they need in order to learned successfully. And can you share some examples of

080what that looks like yeah absolutely um so some students need additional support intervention For example, after they've had their great classroom instruction, they might need more time with someone with a higher degree of expertise in an area like reading, they might need more explicit instruction and opportunities for guided practice in order to reach proficiency. Not every student needs that, but some do. And so rather than thinking about the budget in terms of everyone gets exactly the same thing, we're trying to ensure that we are able to provide students with the things that they need specifically in order for them to learn. best from that sounds like there would be additional staff support needed for those after okay yeah exactly we want them to be true for every student in our district. as we're currently funded

081and staffed. We think we're achieving that. like if you had to give us a letter grade, how would you say we're doing and achieving trying to give all students equity it's my impression based on our funding there are something that we're falling short My point is we're striving towards that. We're striving for every student. And I feel like at our current funding, we're missing that mark. And we're talking about having to make up and further reduce. theoretically be missing that month by lower. And I think I'm just asking is that perspective from do you think that perspective is right Yeah, I think that that is accurate. the general terms are that really high quality first instruction results in proficiency for about 80% of students. About 20% of students need more than that. And then there's

082a small group of students who have more intensive needs than that. And so, you know, just having the manpower to support the 20% of students who need the additional support I don't know if we're there yet everywhere yet. And that is required academically and with social emotional learning behavior. In the compliance with policy and law. You mentioned Act 139 the literacy component and we approve budget monies last year for a new literacy program right so are we in that risk there or are we pretty much are we pretty much From a funding perspective, good from a rhetoric perspective yeah the upfront cost for a purchase for a program are pretty high and we um you did approve funding for that last year that is true um but there are consumable materials that are required each

083year. So in order to maintain the effectiveness and the being able to implement that program with fidelity which is kind of part of what app 139 is about. You do need to make sure that you are replacing consumable materials, renewing subscriptions, and so on so that the teachers have the materials, the evidence-based instructional materials they need to provide that instruction. And so that students have the student materials as well that they need. And that's included in this this is what we're talking about is making sure we've got this budgeted for making sure that we have budgeted for that yes that we are protecting on that and also the assessments that are necessary to do the screening. There's costs associated with assessments as well. And Tim, I'm going to ask a couple of questions because you're

084sort of a guru here um Based on your interpretation of these new CLA calculation and such. in your discussions on VASBO, is there an overall consensus as far as who from a statewide perspective might be winners and losers? from that because it sounds am i hearing that they're generating more revenue outside of property tax And then so they're able to put less emphasis on that or well there is shifting the burden somehow i'm curious they're raising They're raising revenue from multiple sources at different rates So… I think it's premature to talk about winners and losers until you see the full picture of long-term wave languages, the end number until you see the final tax rate. It's really that high It isn't the same way as it was last year when they introduced all these new

085pupil weights where it was easier to see these were missing boots are used. Because there was more comparable data to look at. The truth is that the education fund is obligated to fund every town's budget. I mean, that's kind of kind of a strange strange formula for a state to add. You can be mad at them raise your money and you get taxed for it right and so The key is your budget can be as big as you want it to be, as long as you're willing to pay higher taxes on it so I think that after this sticker shock of last year. everybody went into this budget season like we did. I mean, I remember seeing you published a public letter about this and you know that they announced months in advance of even

086starting to talk about their budget that they were going to make such significant cuts. I think that with this news And I haven't taken the time of looking like what percentage did other district cla change and things like that right because that's important like the did the towns of Mount Mansfield go up and down did the towns of the Champlin Isle go up or down right the information is out there, but been a little busy. not to do that level of analysis yet. But again, I think the state is trying to address this issue of property tax for homeowners. And to the extent that they can shift reallocation methodology to other sources of revenue I think that's part of it. But, you know, it's too early to talk about winners and losers. I mean, I'm…

087happy that our figures are working on our work experience. Still a little skeptical, which is why we We spent much of the last two days double checking everything. But as we stand here today, the numbers are I guess my final statement, I would say is just based on listening to all of this It's not clear sailing we really need to continue to control spending and look at budget and there may be still pending cuts and such we have to be very careful because I think we learned a valuable lesson last year right so about control of the spending going forward. Thank you. I mean, you know. a lot of people are talking only about spending. And that's the problem. is spending. The problem isn't that house price values are going up and and whatnot that

088that you know the state as a whole is spending too much money on education and that's why You know, I applaud the efforts that the state has undertaken since last year with first yesterday in this room we had a listen and learn session with agency education director and interested stakeholders that are going around the state to get feedback from teachers administrators. They're publishing materials, which is trying to help joe q public better understand an extremely complicated funding paradigm and paradigm And they're trying to ensure that the funding methodology makes sense in this state and that It's not at the expense of students And education, educational aims and means but rather that it's fair and it's um it's sustainable and it's, you know, but I don't think anyone is saying that the education funding mechanisms fixed.

089far from them, right? the committees that are ongoing in the future state of education in Vermont you know they have like another year publish their results and so It's an ongoing process for sure, but I think that it would behoove everybody to behoove everybody include in their lens the sustainability on the financial side. And as much as nirvana would hope that you have unlimited funds. to build a new high school right for one thing i mean the So much of the conversation on yesterday's meeting was about our facilities and and that you know the modern child can't fit into our desks anymore because they're from the 1960s. And things like that. um you know it's a it's a complex problem that needs to be continuously resolved. And I just think that One part of it

090is to have fiscal responsibility To the extent that you're not harming educators, you're not harming teachers, you're not harming students. who are in the trenches every day trying to do the best job they can with limited resources. Can I ask you, is it your opinion that the sales and use tax is part of why they yield is so much larger this year? No, it's a small piece like the um It's a $2.4 billion education fund. sales and use tax is $622 million. So, I mean, it's, you know, it's pretty big It's that consistent year on there or is that accurate? I don't think there is… I'm not sure. It was 606 million last year and 595 million in fiscal 2024. So, you know, what levers I mean, the state can do one thing the sacred

091ways, the sacrament. Last year, to try to address the um the deficit situation that we were in, you'll recall that they started taxing the downloading of software And they talked about other things you know which they didn't know they're actually doing but putting tracks on sugar beverages. with that money going to the edge fund putting allocating the cannabis tax a portion of it to education so they still have all these levers And I'm sure we'll be discussed further down in the new session will help this it will help us because it will require less funding from the homes of property taxes. and still get the funding that we need and the outcomes that we want. Without the full burden always being placed on the home state tax credit. I think what I want to be

092aware of and be cautious of is if somehow the yield was positively impacting the economy this year. And then it's not going to be next year. I'm very I want to caution against us creating a budget where the economy going down is going to lead a bigger cliff for us in our budget, if that makes sense. I see where you're going there. So, you know, I mean, you know. I'm not the state economist who's projecting sales and use tax. there's no um there's no there is no solar eclipse this year. Which I understand about a lot of netting expects. As an example right but you know you're right. So if the economy tents people don't go to restaurants people don't go to hotels. Tourists don't come to Vermont. the projection for how much sales and

093use tax and rooms and meals tax goes into the hedge fund is too high. I'm not sure how the economists hinged on when they come up with these estimates And I think it's a good point. And it's a point that I personally never really given much thought. So what I hear you saying is one solution would be to orchestrate in a place. I received an email from a board chair in the area who's trying to get board chairs together. particularly in Jackson County. Do you have any specific like other reporters in the area? If you can't think of anything right now, feel free to do now. Violet and she'll pass it on to you. Bye. we are really encouraged the opportunity to collaborate. Any other questions from the board? I think the only other thing

094that I appreciate is the more intensive approach has impacted the budget this year and i I'm glad it was a good learning opportunity. I think it was a really good responsible approach that I've learned to see between us. That's great. Can I ask one more question. The state produced that evidence-based best practices report where they rehired somebody to model a different number of different Did you look at those numbers at all from like numbers or people in central office and such based on models compared to what we're doing here? is what you're referencing yeah yeah so um so we did um and we also looked at our, you know, our per pupil spending with that um I think the risk of being repetitive, I think this is something where um I've said before, I think

095South Burlington is thin with leadership, administration, central office in our per pupil spending is some of the lowest in Chittenden County. And we rank um This slide last year of something like bottom third in the state would hurt people spending So when we look at the PICUS report reads to me in some ways, and I think this is what you're getting at, is economy of scales are at play. So districts who have pretty significantly disproportionate or ratios that are out of alignment are not us. They're districts who have or schools who have many facilities with fewer students in them. So, I mean, we're running pretty efficiently and we're within in a lot of ways and um Two years ago, we had to reduce almost 24 staff members and last year 8.6 and without the 3

096million surplus that would have been far greater. At this point we don't have a surplus to apply. And so we're really thin heading into a difficult budget season. Again, we've gotten some temporary reprieve from the yield and I filled that with gold. Again, it'll depend on how the budget conversations transpire in the next few weeks. What will our neighbors do particularly I'm watching CBSD, Fulchester, Essex Westford, Burlington pretty carefully. As well as Stowe. USD to see where some of the neighbors who have similar situations who are in similar positions who they're going to go. Because if big budgets are coming in with fewer reductions. So I thought the PICAS report you know it was thorough it was interesting and i i didn't find this to be significantly out of alignment as far as any kind

097of egregious staffing level. Yeah, we're pretty thin here. And I didn't mean to apply that we should be you know exactly like those numbers. I mean, I think that's the whole intention of the report is it's a model right and that's it's another piece of information. You know, we've evaluated we've been looking, you know, it's important to learn from our neighbors and to work with our counterparts and the superintendents have been having the same amount of conversation and we ask each other about all sorts of questions relating to operations so you know working with our administrative teams to get feedback, factoring in the law, evaluating data You know, Hindu led to careful consideration and uh you know after the feedback in the forum, you know, we get to work on presenting details of what that

098budget would look like before we come back together like 18th. Thank you. At this time, we're going to move to our community budget slide. So again, this is the Communities Opportunity to provide feedback. Generally, if you have clarifying questions, we can try to answer them, but really we're here to listen. I'd rather you could raise your hand. We're not out of time to chat. And if you're in the room, you can raise your hand. Please put up to the end of the screen. Hi, good evening. Members of the board, Superintendent Nicholas and members of the community My name is Megan Sweet. I'm speaking tonight as a deeply concerned SV resident, taxpayer, and parent of three recent SBI high school graduates. And current CAFs of school counseling at South Burlington High School. South Burlington schools have

099long been a beacon of educational excellence, and I have been proud to represent and advocate for this district. However, I'm alarmed by recent discussions and the ongoing lack of transparency in the development of the budget. which appears poised to significantly and negatively impact our schools. At the 1120 meeting, this board discussed the elimination of the distributed leadership structure at the high school And the curriculum area supervisor role specifically. While eliminating the curriculum area supervisor positions may seem like a cost-saving measure, the consequences will be drastic and devastating. This seemingly random proposal without building leadership input, reflects a troubling lack of understanding of the vital role CAS play in maintaining SBHS's high standards innovative practices and commitment to equity. At the November 20th meeting, Chairperson Tillinghast referred to the CAS model as a more expensive model

100and suggested it's designed for administrative advancement. There's no evidence to support these statements, and they mischaracterize the cas role CAS physicians are not luxuries. They're essential to the success of our distributed leadership model which has been a cornerstone of SBHS's achievements for decades. CAS responsibilities go far beyond. would teach your leaders can handle. CAS ensure curriculum alignment across classrooms guide instructional practices, support MTSS, create an effective and thoughtful master schedule that meets the diverse needs of students, manage budgets, supervise staff, and handle daily challenges. Their leadership ensures that SBHS remains Vermont's top-ranked high school and a source of pride for this community. Without CAS, these critical tasks will speculatively fall to already overstressed teachers and administrators, putting both equity and quality at risk. who will take on the work CAS routinely perform? This question remains

101unanswered, and the implications are clear. inconsistency, inequity, and diminished student experiences. CAS leadership has been instrumental in shaping SBHS's culture, climate, and student-centered programming. Removing these positions dismantles a system that has supported longstanding building leadership stability High teacher retention, and the educational excellence this community values and celebrates. The decision to eliminate CAS also threatens equity. CAS ensure that every student receives a consistent, high-quality education Regardless of teacher or classroom. without their oversight, disparities will grow and our most vulnerable students will suffer the most. The distributed leadership model allows SBHS to address student needs proactively and maintain high standards. It's removal risks undoing decades of progress. My CAS colleagues with me tonight and I implore this board and the superintendent to preserve the highly effective leadership model at the high school. and reevaluate how decisions are

102being made and communicated. This community deserves transparency. Our educators deserve respect, and most importantly, our students deserve the excellence South Burlington has always promised them. Okay. little handout to go with that. Anyone else in the room? I really have just more of a question. Bridget Burpert. I guess my question is what kind of input you're looking for from the community, because this is sort of billed as a budget forum But I'm not sure what you're expecting people to react to. So there's kind of a list of potential cuts. There's sort of a broad discussion about the yield and some of the state factors. But I'm not sure what you're hoping to get from people because they're not really a number or a set of numbers next to all those potential cuts or no discussion in

103materials about what the potential impact is of each of those types of cuts. So I'm not quite sure what you're hoping to get from the community tonight like what kind of input is helpful to you at this stage of the budget process or is this really just sort of a bookmark to say. We'll talk about it in two weeks. It's confusing. I think that's a great question. Generally, I would say we don't always have a lot of engagement around the budget. And given the numbers that we were seeing before December 1st. This board has been trying really hard to raise the alarm to the community and all about how devastating these numbers were looking because the last thing any of us wanted, especially with the cries for transparency all the time, is to be very

104clear about the decisions we were going to have to make and let people know that the reality of the situation Like, you know, speaking about being respectful to teachers and staff and considering physicians how not transparent and unfortunate to have what's in this meeting or the next meeting and say, by the way we're looking at like 50, 60 staff cuts. I mean, that would be devastating and And that was the real situation that we're looking at. We're trying to increase engagement. It does feel like frequently we only get engagement when things get bad. Or when something unfortunate happens. I think that happens each of us on the board feel the responsibility to listen to everyone who has something to say. we all represent like portions of the community but we can't actually represent the whole

105community because we're only four people at this point. But I think we have a responsibility to listen to everyone and whether we agree with them or not. And so that's what I'm trying to do is give everyone the opportunity to have feedback about budget and ultimately we trust our professionals to craft what legally and financially makes the most sense. And then we try to center the budget on what we think the community wants to center so You're right. We're not asking for people to say this tax rate's too high or this tax rate is too low or you're cutting too many programs. You're not cutting enough programs because we're not really at that point in the conversation. But having the opportunity for people to share input and also for other community members to hear what

106is being said. I think is an important part of the process. Yeah, I'm just confused about exactly what kind of input you're looking for at this point, because if you're talking in such broad terms without numbers in front of people. I think you'll get a lot of input that is just sort of like, hey, don't cut this one program that's really important to me and you'll get a lineup of people coming in and saying, don't cut this thing that's really important to my specific child or don't cut this thing that As a district, we've worked so hard to build. And those are totally fair comments, but I'm just not sure that's helpful input in actually crafting a budget because it's what you would expect, right? That people are not going to want programs cut. So

107until their numbers, I think it's hard to expect people to give you really valuable input other than just sort of broad sort of reactive emotional input. I agree with you. So I will share that um over the last uh 48 hours this deck has changed dramatically. So for those of you who are in this room who have canceled meetings with, for instance, we've been deep in it and so we had a first draft of the budget that included positions and corresponding tax rates. And then we got the yield letter And, you know. Given that, it would have been premature and alarming to share what our outlook was which was roughly 30 FTE reductions with an equal amount of equivalent of another 30 staff members and programmatic reductions, which would have been a 25% tax rate.

108had we use the factors from last year's budget we made the decision. So the six of us, including Monica and april who are virtual, you know, met and decided. So we eliminated the slides with that now obsolete information. I very much agree that when we have these conversations, we very much want to center students and it isn't a menu of what can, you know, you referenced emotional responses of a menu of picking and selecting. It isn't that. I mean, we were facing such great devastation, nothing could have been protected and it's not through a lack of respect or understanding or value. It was the reality. And the conversation uh you know. dark. And so for the reasons of this dramatic shift, we don't have physicians and tax rates for tonight. However. You know, we will

109for the 18th. I still think feedback on broad priorities is really is helpful. And I also think, you know, for those people who want to share their feelings or views on tax rates, absolutely. And again, Bridget, I'll share appreciation for what you expressed that, you know, it's not helpful if people, if, you know, there's emotional responses evoked, which I completely understand they would be because it isn't picking and choosing, right? And we spent a lot of this time talking about how decisions haven't been made and there are pieces in addition to feedback that has to be accounted for, such as the law really just trying to center our vision here of achieving our ends and being equitable as we do so. So yes, this has not gone as planned. That's really helpful clarifying information for

110me because it was just a much different presentation than I expected. And so that's really helpful to understand that it was changed in the last minute. And I think that was probably the right decision as well. I would just urge one note of caution because I definitely don't want to see those kinds of cuts made. preemptively or I don't want people to be scared about that. I will say I just spent the whole day in Montpelier like talking to people and there was a huge shift in Montpelier this year about who was elected based on education funding. people read the tax letter there very differently than we're reading it here. And there's still this sort of sense that there's a huge amount of pressure for a major change in how things are done in ed

111funding. And I think those of us who are sort of knee deep in education or have some history in education, want to make sure that that's done at a pace that's realistic and that is sustainable over the long term. There's a lot of pressure to make some really major change really quickly. And I think there's going to be a little tension about that. And so I would just urge caution about, you know. being fiscally responsible Anyway, and I don't think slashing and burning is fiscally responsible either, but I just want to make sure that there isn't sort of rejoicing in Montpelier about the letter. There's still a deep concern about it. And I think there's going to be There's a ton of discussion about it. I really appreciate you saying that because I very much

112um want to be the community to understand that last year we were on a roller coaster with the budget And there were reactive and they were reactive the fastest decisions I've ever seen made regarding change policy and law. that happened within days and um learning from last year's ups and downs there was premature rejoicing and we did follow the rules as they were laid out and they were changed. And so, you know, someone with your experience both as a board member community member, a parent, and then someone who's going to be a part of the legislator in a few short months here. I really appreciate you highlighting what I was trying to communicate earlier, which is the rejoicing is not something that we can count on here and there is significant public pressure to reduce

113taxes and so the yield will very likely go down. So we will still have to make reductions that are not best for students and that don't reflect a value of any individual staff member whose position will be discussed. Again, no decisions have been made. But I appreciate that you clarified that. And I think we'll have to continue highlighting that in our discussions that This is the shifting sand and political will. We saw last year dramatically impacted our budget at multiple times throughout budget season. Yeah, and last final word. I went to the AOE listen and learn last night in Burlington because I wanted to make sure that I could be here for this meeting tonight instead of going to the one at CVU. And I did express, you know, because the Burlington folks were very

114excited that they sort of won the 127, the ACT 127 lottery in a way, but they had all this additional task capacity. And I said, look. It's super frustrating for a district like South Burlington to have lost in that equation when we're meeting as we were talking about the picus report we're at the right full sizes. We're doing all the right things according to lots of different studies. And yet here we are being asked to make significant reductions to a program that's working for a lot of people and in some ways still not working, even with the amount of resources we have and so Yes, just know that there are people fighting the good fight. And I'm not alone. There are a lot of people in Williston and other places that are working on it

115too. But yeah, so I think all we can do here, probably my advice is just to be fiscally responsible, but not go overboard either direction and And I'll do my best to try to keep you informed about what's happening. that other direction. Do you want to put in a plug for Monday night while you're on? Yes. Monday night. So Monday night, the five South Burlington state representatives and Violet and Tim have very generously offered to come. We invited all the school board members too, but I kind of said you guys would have to work out because we're not going to do a warning for the meeting. So 530 to 7 in the public library. I'm not sure exactly which room, but you can ask at the front desk when you get there. The five state

116representatives, Martin Lalonde, Emily Krasnow, Kate Nugent, Brian Minear, and myself, though technically just a reflex. And I'm not sure if Noah will be there. He might still be there. are there basically to do a quick little overview as quick as you can about how ed funding works in Vermont and why it works the way it does. So the Brigham decision and how that led to our current school funding system. And some of the ideas that are being floated in Montpelier that are not, none of them really have legs yet but what's being discussed about potential long-term changes to the structure of ed funding so a brief presentation, probably half an hour out of that hour and a half, and then an hour of just we want to hear from the community and all kinds of

117folks in the community. So people who work at the schools, people who live in South Burlington, taxpayers who may or may not have kids in the system, we want to hear from everybody before the legislative session starts. And so we're all sort of going back work for real on January 8th. And we would like as much input as possible because pretty much every committee of the House is going to in some way be working on something that touches ed funding. So healthcare is going to be working on healthcare costs and how those are related to transportation. Every committee is going to have some need to hear from our constituents as much as we can so We would love for people to come and join us. 5.30 to 7 on Monday the 9th in the library

118in Southern. Thanks for letting me take so much time. Sorry. Can I ask one question? Sure. Really quickly. Logistically, are you recording that meeting, at least the first part? I don't believe that we are. And that's probably an oversight, but you know what? I can double check. I am sort of new to running these legislative forms, but I can check with the folks who have done it a few more times. I know the library is a pretty easy place to do that because we've done it for South Collington Dems meetings and and we've done zoom and you can easily hit record on Zoom if you're doing zoom um And that's another good question that I'm just now asking myself, which is whether we have a Zoom link for folks to dial into that meeting if

119they can't be there in person. I'll work on that and get back to you. Great. I think it would be a great resource to hang off the website just so everybody has access to it who can't make the meeting. Excellent. Thank you for joining us. In terms of the form, I did solidify child care, so I would like to go. I would like to go with more and Chris, you're okay with that. I traditionally have enjoyed going to those forums however I would really love Chelsea to be there. Thank you. And then perhaps yeah yeah yeah Anyone else in the room who'd like to make a comment? Just a quick comment. I wanted to respond to um Something I definitely heard tonight during the budget presentation, but I've also heard in other contexts of previous

120meetings too and it's the constant desire to want to see what our neighboring schools are doing. And I feel like there's definitely value in understanding what people in similar positions to us are how they're handling certain situations or how they solve certain problems But I want to point out and make sure that I highlight this point that other school districts and other school buildings make the best decisions that they can make for their specific situation, circumstances, and for their communities. And they're all unique and so are we. So what might be a best practice or a best decision in a different community might not necessarily and most likely isn't the best one for the best model for us. So I just want to make sure that we're all being mindful about what we're doing with

121that information and how we're approaching those questions. Thank you. Can we unmute Alyssa, please? Hi, Chelsea and Violet. I just had a quick question. I don't know if Tim can answer this, but does he know at this point what the dollar impact to the budget would be of a half or a point movement on CLA and yield that would be helpful to know even if it was on the 24 baseline or 25 baseline. Thanks. Melissa. Elizabeth, great question. Thank you. It's, you know, of course, as you know, dependent on the budget. And we'll share those figures on the 18th. Thanks. Thank you. Maria, is there any other public comment this time? Before we moved totally off budget. I do just want to highlight for the board and county department meeting to discuss budget with the

122city council. I had tossed out January 22nd as an option because it's a board meeting already the city council was amenable to that if we can start at 4 p.m, but I'm not sure if that would be possible. it's possible for me Thank you. I will endeavor to make it before I can. So I'll get back to Zoom. voice. I'll get back to the city and say we can do 4 p.m. on Saturday. And I'm going to be helping craft the agenda for that meeting. Has anyone been following the all-resident voting The decision, from what I recall that the charter committee deferred and I tripped upon me today. citing that there will be a complex topic and they want to sitting on that. So copy action. Thank you. All right. So let's see, 806. I

123think that was… I think it was Lindsey Hunter. Before we move on. Could we unmute. Hello, can you hear me? I just want to respond to chairperson telling him you made a comment about receiving a number of requests for transparency in the process and I detected some frustration in that and I can certainly understand the challenges of the decision making and the confidentiality and parts of that but i just am voicing a hope that If you are getting multiple requests for increased transparency, that is met with curiosity and questioning rather than frustration. Thank you. So with 807, we were scheduled to start our budget conversation with you. Would the board like to take a recess now, or would you like to set our agenda and do our consent agenda and then move to a second?

124Frank Racers. All right. And we are going to move on to agenda item nine. The December 18th agenda. Currently under discussion. We have our second draft and we'll be taking action on my security camera that obviously And… Anything else? we have um executive session for labor negotiating class board we think we will do that. I'm not sure where we're at. I think it would be helpful to yeah Right. And so… There's nothing to report back other than waiting So we will take it off then and just between now and we have an update We could always add it back up. Whichever. One item for the possible agenda. I've had a constituent who's reached out regarding verification of renewal figures. very passionate about this. We identified a discrepancy with other people that are just with our

125budget figures how do we how could you incorporate perspective? Yeah, yeah. I heard from two community members on this and our communications coordinator reached out to The other paper on this a few weeks ago. And then I have been in correspondence with Lauren Gabby, the editor of the other paper, contacted me and I reshared our information. I think from what I can tell, there was a misunderstanding regarding pre-K figures. And an older enrollment projection. I think that that's where the confusion lies. The other paper has been great. They want to make sure that they can have accurate information. So I re-shared with them Our current enrollments and our most recent demographic report, and I provided some additional information regarding prepay numbers and also what the state has been reporting. So that's another figure. And I

126think that those pieces will provide some good clarification. But we're working together and we'll stay on top of that. And I agree that it's important for infrastructure to be accurate and the other paper really wants to ensure that it is as well. So I'm appreciating the partnership on that. Is that something that we think we resolve ahead of the next meeting or is it something that we have to kind of put out. Add it to the agenda. I think I can't imagine it wouldn't be resolved given the speed at which the editor has been responding to me, but I can add it on should we need to. Anything else? Then we move on to agenda item 10, consume agenda. For a couple of minutes. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes from November

12720th? Yes. Any changes, questions, concerns? a meeting that's not approved. The board acknowledges the resignation of Jenna Wilkhart. Approval of AP orders 1177-1178-1179, 1182, 1183, and 1184. Who I have. Any questions about those important orders? Yes, I have one just informational question. 1178 and included uh one of the categories medicaid iep reimbursement category for a total of 42,000. And I'm just trying to was trying to map the line items back to that category and I'm not quite sure what Medicaid IEP reimbursement was, what I should be looking for. have an idea on this, but we will look into this. Could you tell us what number it is? 1178. Yep. I didn't have any questions on the numbers. I was just trying to match line items to figure out what yep so i think i think

128it's Howard Center clinicians But we will follow up with you on that. Okay. I saw Medicaid in there and it kind of caught my eye. Yeah, Howard Center. some of our clinicians and social workers are paid through Medicaid reimbursement. And we've been cleaning up those figures. So that comes to mind but um I'll have Tim follow up with you on that. There's no rush on that. Just clarification. My only other question is that we were getting these in Excel format at one point. Is it possible to do that or is there a… we've undergone. What's that? I assume. It's just I don't mind the PDFs. I just have to like rotate them all the time to look through everything. No, I mean, every single one we've been sending in Excel. Oh, really? No, she's just

129been sending. It could have been a communication breakdown with Don. Yeah, no big deal. It'll just be a little bit easier to peruse them if they're an Excel format. I appreciate that. Well, Tim, follow up with Meg on that. Make sure we get those to you. Yeah, thank you Other than that, I must never have any questions. Does anyone ever had a chance to see the email, we actually have two accounts payable transferred this evening. The first is, do I have a motion to approve the check to the Howard Center for Human Services in the amount of 1,44 DAPA? 1,44. $567 in bootcence. Laura, second to the discussion. Howard Center that wasn't grouped. Do I have a motion to approve a check to the Howard Center for Human Services and the amount of 168 $1,131.65.

130Just move straight in a second. All right. So that brings us to agenda item 11. And Do I have a motion to enter into executive session under section 313A3 for the purpose of appointing a public officer to the school plan? Laura Lewis had a second. Sorry. 30 seconds early discussion. I'm in favor. The motion passes unanimously. Tim Lauren, Chris, Laura, Violet, and myself will be entering into executive session, and we will return to open session within us. board member. At this time the board would like to thank Kat and congratulate her on her appointment to our school board. looking forward to working with you and you will very quickly get emails from me so okay and me thank you all right thank you But thank you guys, too. Thank you. All right, agenda item 13,

131adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn the regular meeting of the software and principal board? So words? Second, and discussion. Aye. Aye. Your motion passes to minimize sleep and the regular meeting is adjourned at 8.37 p.m. Thank you.