001all right this Regal School District committee and budget hearing order [Music] please stes stand na indivisible and justice everybody um couple things about the budget hearing tonight if you want to make public comments there's a signing sheet near the door um real quick should I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda tonight so move Megan second Lor any questions all right all in favor all right that passes uh next up we have a a quick discussion or not quick discussion but a discussion with C over from MC is's going to give us a little update on our interm superintendent good evening good to be back with you again this evening and I again I will Echo the not taking too much time because you have other important business before you this evening as
002well um when we last spoke um you made the decision to to essentially do a two-part superintendent process um work on interim um for next year um with the sort of guidance of the department and and then do a full um search for a permanent replacement in the fall um so consider this the first of all the preview upcoming attractions um my plan you have a regular meeting scheduled for May 13th by which point you should be moved through this process and so forth I'll plan to be back with you then to actually give you a fall schedule by then the administration will have a little bit better idea of timelines days that kind of thing so for those of you who are looking ahead to that I plan to be back um for that
003in the meantime you each have this hand out in front of you um remember of course this is entirely under your purview so um this is a proposal you should take it as such um looking at your calendar and looking at um sort of what else is going on really more or less in the universe at this point um if you move ahead with um this this evening we would plan to have the position posted on our website um and actually give you the information so that you can post it on the district school spring by the end of the week um we probably can do it actually the next couple of days our Communications people have already been starting to work on this based on the draft um my proposal then would be that
004you set a deadline for the interm applications of Friday April 4th um that gives a good three weeks it doesn't take things too long um gives a bit of time for things to circulate um without that sort of thing we are going to make it clear um and I this is again based on really the timeline of what you're trying to do that applications are going to not be confidential so usually a superintendent search the first round of of interviews and so forth isn't confidential in this case because you're looking for an intern position to fill the position for a year um and because you're looking to make sure that this happens well before the end of the year my recommendation would you do that you can as long as you sort of say up
005front applications are public um that's fine what that means is that they then can go directly to you as the committee and I would share them with you that evening um you get them electronically as PDFs you have access to um a Dropbox folder that's how we collect it we would collate it all for you um and then you have a regular meeting scheduled that foll Tuesday April um 8th if during that regular meeting you review the applications again they're public we do it in public session um decide essentially who you then would want to bring in for interviews um you then have the following week now you don't have be meeting scheduled that week it is the week before April vacation um but if you during that following week um scheduled and evening to
006have to have interviews you could bring people in for public interviews make your selection that evening and have a decision then made before everybody goes on April Break um and that also then gives you the advantage of having made a decision before you do things like move into town meeting is in May um which is also a nice um so was partly focusing on April intentionally because that I wouldn't say It's A Lull in the budget process I never dare say that with um your Director of Finance at the table but from a school committee perspective you've got one section done it's before you move on to the other section um the other thing is that interviews because they're conducted in public session um you can't internally deliberate your interview questions um so my my
007suggestion to you again without trying to give you a whole bunch of additional meetings would that I work with Mike to to collect what topics you'd want to make sure were covered and then we sort of put together an interview to make sure that we cover everything you think needs to be covered in those interviews and just have that ready for you for that week before April vacation so that you have the questions set you walk into the interview you know what questions you're asking you to move ahead again that's a proposal you can do you will then the next section I'm not going to read it aloud to you um is actually what we would then post um and so what we would do is um I know that you've seen our formal full-time
008permanent sorts of brochures this one doesn't have the pretty pictures and so forth because you're going for an inter room but it would have some of the same sections right so um the the burin wson regional school committee seeks an experienced administrator who will bring continued stability as the interim superintendent for the 2526 school year and then we've got a couple of sentences here that describe um the successful C will have a professional record of building and sustaining relationships with district and Municipal offic officials the committee seeks an individual to provide strong financial oversight curriculum alignment and completion of the district strategic plan as you're probably gathering this is based on what I've been Gathering From attending some of your meetings and sort of hearing and your discussion so that's what that's intended to do
009again that paragraph is entirely subject to your edit deliberation what have you the next section is a pretty standard you need someone who LIC and someone who experience um and then the next page is are yours two sided they're supposed to be two sided oh that's not good um actually has the has a disc has a description of the two communities that's not there they didn't two sided okay that's in the electronic version B pardon it's in the electronic version it's in the electronic version do you all have it in front of you okay and I don't but there you go um so the two things that it has is it does have a salary range which is based on both the region and what you have have budgeted for superintendent salaries over the last
010couple of years we are moving towards being required to post that in position descriptions um under a new state law so we're trying to get in the habit of doing that um and then it does have a description which we actually I worked with Administration on which I believe is coming from some of the work that you're doing on your strategic plan free to edit that as well I would never tell someone else how to describe their Community um does have the information in terms of how many schools you have what the enrollment is and what your fi25 budget is so that Mr chair is what I have for you I'm happy to take any questions and also this is for you to decide what to do with all right anyone have any questions um
011so should we vote to stick with the schedule or we just if you the things that would be useful for you for you to vote is in particular if you can vote the position disc deson if people are are good with that um and then yes if you could at least affirm the the the timeline you would actually put the timeline on the position description as well just so that people know when are applications due when are you doing interviews I have a motion to accept the position posting as presented by Tracy some second just all right anyone have a question about this discuss I'm concerned about it being the week before break how realistic is um so I don't know if have another meeting before the fort you know I don't know you're you're
012talking about the April break yeah uh yeah yeah so the week of the 14th doing the interviews that week what's what's the problem that's a school week yeah is there a particular concern or no just it seems like a very tight window so so hi that we tell Africans on the a that they're going to be interviewed sometime during the week we would yes we would actually put this we um you'll see this again we do this in the call too but we actually put this right on the application and in my experience applicants then tend to understand that they're going to need to be available that following um last thing we want is applicants asking HR when's my interview when's my interview why taking my well so just so that you know what we
013also go on this we always put as a tagline do not contact the school committee if you have any questions we'll contact me um which is partly just so that you don't get driven B questions and emails um but yes no understanding and appreciating your point it is I um it's a tighter timeline than we would run for a permanent position we usually would pose for something more like four or five weeks for a permanent position um I'm always I'm always reluctant to so you have regular meeting on the 8th if you took two weeks then at that point I'm sort of reading into what you're saying so um you then end up with sort of this two week lag before you have right vacations are always awkward in scheduling that's absolutely true one of
014the advantages you'll have in the fall actually feel breaks um but yeah the February and a vacations definitely are part of it right I mean that as a Christian it's Holy Week so I would like to avoid Thursday and obviously Friday before break so you know I just quickly looked at the calendar and what that week mean so I me I think it would be good for us to kind of nail down a date maybe now that we all can agree on before we and honestly if you did we could put that right in the application about the 15th that's Tuesday do that all right you want it uh yes I would like to make a motion to amend the motion uh to set the interviews for April 15th evening I don't know 5m uh
015you need a second for that second anybody want to discuss that all right all favor the amendment anyone against all right the amendment passes so now we're on the motion of the Jing with the interview date the 15th April any pres discussion all right all in favor of that anyone against all right that motion passes thank you Tracy I think we have our schedule set for the superintendent excellent so if those of you who are the committee members could think over the next bit of time what topics you want to cover in an interview feel fre free to shoot me an email at any point and I'll work with Mike on that right EXC all right uh before we get to the budget hearing uh we do have one more piece of business that came
016up so several of us met last uh Thursday or Friday February 28 at toono with several members of DCR along with Senator Kennedy representative Phil toin some members from their teams and other Town officials uh to discuss or look at the process of expanding parking here at Tanto uh I want to thank specifically Boon selecting Matt M he sort of a rang brother us and been driving this part at least recently about this so thank you Matt uh so we talked about where we might put a parking lot if we were able to expand it what issues that brings up um a lot of issues around water runoff because of the reservoir and everything so PCR is involved they gave us a good indication of what they um not necessarily what they might approve or
017not approve but the process of going through an application to actually start talking about something so I think what I'm going to do here is I'm going to create a subcommittee to study this a little bit more so we're going to have the tont parking subcommittee it's going to consist of Megan Gro myself and Matt M Matt will be the designated Point person to speak with DCR about this the subcommittee will report back to the full school committee on a quarterly basis whether that's in person or through a written report uh the first step is going to be as DCR requested to submit a sketch to them so they can have an idea of what we're talking about and then once they have that they can sort of point us in the right direction for
018which application process to go through there different application processes for different types of variances that we might need depending on what we're actually going to build this is only a first step there's no commitment here to anything this is just exploring what our options might be so that is going to be a new subcommittee for the school committee and we're gonna see what comes with that now I do have a a actually does anybody have a question about part yeah yeah um I've had experience with the DCR historically and um since I'm no longer on the negotiation subcommittee I would like to offer my services as well for that subcommittee okay thank you anybody else all right so before we get into the budget hearing Alan a present I do have a few things I'd
019like to say and I wrote them down so that I don't miss anything or mess anything up uh but first I want to thank the administration and this budget sub committee who have worked incredibly hard to come up with this budget they've been in constant communication with both towns about the budget uh I want to thank Aaron specifically and Dan before him for coming into an incredibly difficult situation and owning everything that they found Al you built a great competent team from the ground up nobody actually in the central office as far as I'm aware of who's working today within the the books of the financial of school was actually here before September I don't think that's the case so I can't imagine coming into this type of situation with zero historical knowledge left over
020uh it' be incredibly difficult for anyone to realize the scale of the issues that they face even being a comp I can't imagine or begin to imagine what they might be facing trying to sort all that so thank you Alan Aaron for still being here today uh this is pretty helpful to have you guys here at the budget hearing thank you very much uh especially I want to thank Megan for being part of the budget subcommittee meeting I don't think anyone has a deeper grasp on the issues in the budget than Megan does and she's worked harder than anyone probably realizes to help them get a grasp on this so thank you everybody uh so before we begin I feel the need to provide some ground rules for our discussion tonight as well as clarify
021something um first of all there's a signup sheet if you'd like to make a public comment just so we can keep everything in order and keep it moving it's at the door if you'd like to sign up for that there's also a QR code at the door and around the auditorium here if you'd like to scan that you get an electronic version of this presentation directly on your device so if you want to follow along there feel free to watch on one of the screens um but I do have to clarify something that I keep hearing uh out in the community this false idea uh around the idea that taxpayers of one town are paying expenses or specifically to the elementary school of another town uh it's been mentioned several times uh Burling finance committee
022in February that Alan Aaron went to this was brought up uh Aaron does have some certain aspects of the regional agreement in his presentation how that dictates certain costs be allocated to both towns uh we can discuss how this happen how one town share burland share might be growing based on the student population and how that's growing faster than Boon Boon is still being a larger Town student population wise uh but the growth in these towns is is different we have the data from ndaq to support that we have our enrollment data to support that nessi data to support that but I want to be very clear that no one on the school committee the committee the budget that we have believes that any town taxpayer dollars can be used to pay the other towns
023Elementary School costs or any costs outside of what the regional district uh the regional agreement specifies unless I'm wrong do anybody on the committee feel that we can do that no okay so I want to clear that up um I've asked to speak to them individually but haven't had a respon so clear that up another thing I want to clear up that there are some districtwide costs get allocated to both towns districtwide cost being things like the central office salaries for Aaron and the rest of their team there uh aon's presentation is going to detail the formula but essentially goes based on student population and there are slightly different formulas using different student counts depending on the area of the budget that we're discussing Aaron will go into more detail about this but for example
024District costs might be split a quarter to bees ACC quarter to BMS and 50% to Tanto it's going to look like these costs are bigger percent percentage of let's say the BMS budget than they are in the BBS budget because of the different sizes of the schools the different sizes of the budget but the equal dollar amounts Bal there uh as based on historical practices uh we know that BR student population is growing it's grow faster and boil population recently that doesn't mean it won't change in the future it abs and flows oil C is still larger than burlin but as a percentage of the too costs at least Berlin may be picking up a larger piece in some years than in other years so I want to make sure that we're clear on that
025it changes every year if could go down next year if could go down as easily as if could go up also in the regional agreement the capital costs are allocated using a slightly different formula than the operating cost so when it comes to Tanto there's a different impact to Berlin and Boon than there is with the operating cost there so capital is allocated using a formula that uses a four-year average of student population versus operating cost allocated using a five-year allocation so each of these use a different method on students as well whereas in the capital formula it includes something called the Tanto enrollment percentage uh which is only students enrolled in the district and addition to a ratio of the foundation enrollment which is another account that desie has on their website the operating
026budget just uses Foundation enrollment so it doesn't use a ratio using any other type of student time so uh the foundation enrollment might include students that don't necessarily attend the school but that the district is still responsible for or financially responsible for compay uh it makes it really interesting when it comes to the debt at Tanto uh this is something I learned well I guess we should have realized this but only just realized recently so the bond or the debt for Tanto is a fixed rate bond that's what the district pays but because it is uh split with the capital allocation to both towns it effectively creates a variable bond for the towns to pay every year it could be one it could be the other I don't know if the towns have entered into
027any sort of hedge or rate swap agreements for that but that is one reason why you need be seeing things moving differently from year to year is the way that's out so clear that up get that out of the uh when the regional agreement was written those who wrote it this is what they intended we're not saying it's right or wrong it's good or bad we're simply executing on the way the were written uh so that's what Aaron's done in his presentation tonight um we're going to talk about what's to cost to run the schools U but based on a review of our question we received last year during this presentation I have asked Aaron to explain some of the less understood concepts of why we get what we dos with a how that might
028be allocated to the schools what it means for circuit breaker and things like that so I've asked you to do that um we're going to do the budget presentation first so after the budget presentation we will invite anyone who would like to make a public comment uh to do that the reason I made this decision is to allow you to hear the presentation first maybe that might answer some of your your questions maybe it might create additional questions for you you'll have the chance to then ask or or talk to them after that um we're not going to have a question and answer session it's not going to be back and forth you can make a comment then the school Community is going to discuss uh we understand or I understand last year was a
029mess uh it was difficult it was excruciating painful comfortable fun uh we understand that and we're moving past that we're on to Kansas City uh I personally I personally reached out to both towns uh to see what we could do about fixing things from last year changing things from last year to to the Committees in Berlin uh that's where the troubles were of course uh I didn't get any response in November uh except for maybe a couple and I'm grateful for those who did speak with me about that uh but as we've gone through this year I've try to make sure the school districts is doing everything we can to fix the communication issues from last year I believe we have a great competent team in place to do just that so tonight we're focus
030on the cost to run these schools next year and not rehashing anything from last year during public comments if you want to speak about this budget the FY 26 budget we're happy to hear what you have to say we'll stick with our policy which is posted at the door three minutes each um but we're not going to entertain any wres or comments or questions or issues relating to last year we're just not going to do it it's not on the agenda we would be in violation of open meeting lot if we did so we're going to do that um all right I think that's all I had to say I covered everything Al please your presentation thank you um so I I swear Mike and I haven't really had that many conversations about how we're
031going to present tonight and and completely in a different vein this year we're we're looking to to move in a positive direction and and that's that's outside I seriously think everybody so let me start out by as well with Mike I'm thanking everyone for the work the extremely high work over the last several months to create this budget presentation in the budget that we're going to be presenting you tonight that includes our principles our directors school committee who we have spent many hours both both as a committee individually with um as a budget subcommittee as well too towns of Bon town of Bon town of Berlin and certainly Aaron Alman I new Director of Finance and operation thank you also to joose bado and Kyle as well too um Kyle cat who are doing our
032tech for tonight um for us to be able to have the stting that we have having the projection so everyone can see it being able to have it live streamed as well too QR code so they can follow along with us and be able to you know that constant communication we're trying to get and making sure that we're being the the where as transparent as can be and making sure people have the information that's available so thank you Joe and thanks how so this is the start of our budget season we present our budget to the school cing tonight and then within that week of between next over 45 days Volk toown Mees will take place in burin Boston scheduled for May 5th where we that our project will be going to them as well
033too in between then there'll be many conversations that will be having we now have meetings SCH with Finn car select Bo for both won and Burling I think Bon we were settled on March 17th will'll be going speaking to them their come meeting in berin I think it's March 19th as well too so those are the conversation that we'll stop having directly after our presentations um tonight and going to shortly um turn over this presentation of the budget Aaron but before I do I just want to let people know that in this budget you'll see some reductions taking place some fpus and I know school committe and people have reached out to me as well um about these please know these are very difficult decisions to make we make them in conjunction with conversations with
034principles and directors these are very precise moves in my mindset with these with these conversations I've had with our principles are our our directives about reduction and staff was to redistribute and I use that word redistribute their work and positions to others that are working in our district right now when we're looking at the decision we always look at the student and we really try to keep that student the center any of our conversation and how is it going to impact our students and certainly any decision we make any reduction any redistribution of work that we do is certainly at one point or another is going to impact our students but we always look at our students and what's the least amount of disruption we're going to haveen them so please know we do that
035also I want you to know at this time I I still haven't had all of those individual conversation with people because we're still working out this budic so our professional C courtesy along with still in March we still a few months left in our our school year three months I will not be going into the very specifics of these newes of these redistributions toight at this time I hope that you can appreciate that at this time that these are still sensitive conversations and still individual conversations that need to be happening with individual people as well to last we my job as instructional leader of the Brin bston Regional School District along with our school committee our directors our principles our staff our parents is to make sure that we are providing the highest quality of
036education for our children that is our number one priority that and keeping our children safe and the best way to do that is to have a high to have high quality teaches and programs that are a cost our account and we understand that and we appreciate and we thank you for that so we know that but please know that providing this type of high quality education is making an invest in that future so please try to keep as we're having any of these conversations moving forward not only at school committee but in the town of bston in the town of Berlin fincom select board that were keeping our students at the center of these conversations many many times we stop talking about adults and budgets and stuff but we really need to remember that we're
037talking about our students and making sure that we're providing the best education we can for the fiscal year 26 so at this time I'm going to turn over to Aaron he'll start his budget presentation I apologize in dance because I I tend to you know Aaron and I go back and forth on each other and trips to present of presentation so I'll try my best not to to interject too much apolog so uh sure so you have our our slide here um I'd like to take a moment before we start a month from tonight I believe Lisa correct me if I'm wrong is the opening of Beetlejuice Jr here in this Auditorium absolutely I encourage everyone listening at home and everyone in the audience to please come uh it may be slightly more exciting than
038this presentation hopefully better intended um yes hopefully bettered let's come out for it let's have a good time enjoy what have so um I think we as we go into this um you we want to begin by by saying a few words and I think I'll to this uh some of the numbers we've provided in the past were level service right this is no longer a truly level service budget um we're making some Some Cuts now uh we do understand and you particularly see in the capital lines that we may not be where the towns want us to be in this moment um we we have a lot of capital um that's a mass we understand some of it may have to be put off and that would be part of those conversations ideally on
039the 17th and the 19th where the things look like and where can we um have some conversations about the things that we give you prorities on I think Al also alluded that we're really trying to keep these away from direct student facing roles as much as possible um you know as we look at this further the school committee may have to make some hard decisions um you know hand in hand with the administration but we'll do the best we can um always always always to do um so really quickly Where Do We Stand we start with operations and then we're going to get to Capital a little later um interwoven with this is going to be a little bit of information um around um how this this whole Regional agreement works and the assessments because
040um as might alluded to um every single item in this has a different sort of assessment formula so um we'll be getting into a little bit of that at a high level um one of the things you notice is even though assessments are going up uh the budget is going down um last year there was a last minute effort to reduce assessments um even I think on the floors of town meetings and things like that in order to make things work um interestingly um you know there wasn't necessarily a budget Ved in accordance with that and so um um you know as desie became involved was talking to the district we had to approve a budget we had a budget in our system and rather than make sort of draconian Cuts me year we made
041an active decision to sort of hang on to that budget we as the school committee to hang on to that budget number um which we know is higher than the assessments with with technically warrant so I think this is a little bit um it's it's not intended to be smoking mirrors but it doesn't entirely public picture we'll get into some of that and where we end up being as we go so breaking down that budget one of the things we've shared a couple times is we have added a district office you'll see I use uh the term District wide here and a couple other places I used district office I apologize there the same uh items they're analogous terms I thought it caught all the district wides and made them district offices but I think
042I left um in accordance with sort of uh proper fund accounting um you want to arrange your uh your District your municipality into cost sectors um and individuals have different responsibilities over their cost center so principles have responsibility over their school cost centers the district office cost center would be more or less under Al we do have individual departments you will see within there those are sort of sub cost centers and we may in future years look to just call those out a little more but for now we're really just trying to identify these these district office costs I want to be really clear that this in no way changes the assessments to account you will see um this the money for the district office costs R back into the school budgets in accordance with
043it Mike said past practice and we'll speak to that a little bit later um uh so um as we go to the next Slide the next few slides um get into sort of line item is budgets so you can see what each of the major cost areas within each um I think worth noting um following along with the regional agreement in hand I know some of you are very excited to doing so um this this is consistent with section 6A item one of the regional agreement so as we're going through um that section that section refers to a budget that is to be provided to uh I believe the chair of I want to say the finance committee of the towns uh this entire presentation should be and we speak to that compliant with that
044budget that's being requested via the regional agreement um different items are in different places on the table in the back of the appendix that gives you those reference points so not going to dwell on every single School uh this is the bur Memorial budget these are the major items we're going to talk a little bit about the major drivers shortly so I'm not going to dwell on each one of these items you can see in the notes though where we have some some factors and some items to think about um as well as some of the offsets I made sure to note when we're offsetting some costs by school choice and circuit breaker we'll speak to those later um those are in the notes section oilon Elementary pretty much did a same thing um offsets
045any offsets are in the notes any interesting comments are in the notes um things worth looking at again I will have a BRI slide in a few minutes to go through um toono again same thing um a little bit more here because they have Athletics and activities as as a separate light item so they have a few more line items but this covers the major line items um covered in um that section to the regional GRE again if you go back to the appendix it'll directly with specific slides that cover each item in that section of the regional agreement [Music] okay so next um this was allone else have 3D no okay um so this is a visual representation of the budget I think it's really important to understand um how impactful this budget is
046and every school budget is to students um you know what what is touching students well that's the instruction section and that's not sorry um there's clearly in the presentation 3D and there's a call out line for instruction and support that is the big brownish area you see down at the bottom um Health Services Athletics Transportation custodial keeps this place clean and sanitary things like that for our students um technology infrastructure keeps uh our Wi-Fi running things like that uh benefits Insurance that's health insurance for our staff our teachers um total tuitions those are outter District tuitions um as well as tuitions to um uh for school choice students to other districts um so again directly sering students um School administration that's your principls in some cases instructional coordinators things like that even districtwide admin right
047so um our payroll person make sure that every single teacher is paid that's really important to us right if our teachers weren't paid I know you know I'd love them to be here but I think if they weren't paid they might not be here right I know I I know there were some payroll concerns over the summer I'm not going to um we're doing our best to make sure this so speaking into um Mike's comment on how we allocated the district office costs uh so the regional agreement doesn't really say anything about how to handle district office costs it speaks a lot to schools it doesn't speak to uh district office specifically um past practice and I did reach out to the former business administrator vress I remember him regional agreement was begun he clarified
048for me that these are the allocations that were used prior and after um that Regional agreement was put in place and it been used ever sense so that is a 25 25 50% split between Burl Memorial boyon Elementary andto uh Tanto just for for clarification is allocated in ordance with Foundation enrollment so that 50% does get split in in accordance with with enrollment um so the note does the do below just talks about the origins and how that so as we plan this budget um every school district has certain things that are available to offset the budget to reduce costs these invariably end up reducing the assessments depends right so the lower the budget the lower the assessments so you'll see two sets there's two sets of offsets that I see in a budget the
049first is the direct budget offset that's what these are the others are the direct assessment offsets and talk about those so the major categories we have MoneyWise is school choice circuit breaker and then we have an idea grant that funds a number of things our total direct budget offsets um for major items is 23,4 I want to be clear we do have a handful of much smaller items that do also offset the budget they just they're just not as sign ific we have a small Title One Grant um that Sally manages um we do use some of our PK uh tuition uh account to offset some some cost of running back program um but I'm really focused on here the major items right rather than thinking into there's also erate off sets um and some
050other very small items the project that don't it so what is school choice a lot of people have questions how does this work um uh so school choice quite simply allows families um to enroll their students in uh school districts that are willing to accept students um into districts that they don't live in that they're not um citizens are so we both receive tuition for school choice students who choose to attend our school district and we pay school choice tuition to other schools the the Department of Education acts as an intermediary um so we receive and or we pay $5,000 per student um but there is also a special uh an increment for students with I needs so if we have students um with IP needs who go to another District we would fund the
051cost of those needs if you take in students who have I needs we would receive the cost of those needs it's done on a calculation that standardized by the the state of Massachusetts um it's pretty consistent staff completes that as we go through circuit breaker yeah sorry so circuit breaker um is a program that provides financial assistance to public school districts um to offset cost of Del deling high cost special education to students that's straight from Desi um it's uh we did a reimbursement based on the state appropriation so this is really important a lot of people think we get either a full amount or a full amount a set amount it's really every single year based on state Appropriations um I can say it has consistently been around 75% for a while but there
052are some other Pats to that so if you look down at the B towards the bottom we have to pay the first four times westall Foundation enrollment cost which is about 54,000 up front before we get a cent of reimbursement then the dollars beyond that 54% are then reimbursed at that 75% so you can see the example below a $100,000 placement would result in a$ 34,500 reimbursement so we we're often out out of $100,000 um for another District student and that's in the lowend in terms of relative costs um and we have to wait until the following year to receive $34,000 in reimbursement for that stent so what we have is an ongoing set of reimbursements that carry over from year to year to year um to help offset our budget support those costs it's
053not insubstantial but it doesn't as you can see it's nowhere close to meeting the cost finally uh the the last item is our I grant um this is the individuals disabil disabilities Education Act this is a Federal grant um and it is pretty consistent year to year in terms of our total um it is to some degree based on our uh our um District's uh poverty uh levels so much like many years ago it was based on special education needs it has been since been shifted to be based in um a District's you know poverty low income um uh profile so one of the items to note again another Regional agreement item we're going to pop pop these through in Alex so in accordance with the regional agreement Section 5 subsection e article 3B um
054all Grant and another District fund shall be a portioned to school budgets by the district AC the district's discretion so I want to be really clear we are doing our best to allocate These funds where necessary in an equitable manner I think you will see if you go to the prior slides um it is divided up pretty equally um a few nuances um here and there again um going forward you know the school committee can have comments about how some of that money is out and um what we're going to do with it but uh it's um um getting into our assessment off so this is the second side to this stage two of the process so when we get into the actual assessments there items that are used toset the actual assessments themselves the
055first is chapter 7 education Aid Second is chapter 71 we also use a little bit of medicated reimbursement money we receive uh and interest in I would want to explain each of these so Chapter 70 this is the sort of standard Universal program for state aid from the state of Massachusetts um the state of Massachusetts requires towns to contribute the minimum mulle contribution uh based on Foundation enrollment uh and Foundation budget and then they pick up an additional amount to um meet the total their total determination of what that Foundation budget would be um that's usually if you've seen um minimum net School spending requirements and things like that it's very similar to that I won't get into next spending requirements in this res um again the regional agreement has something to say about how
056we allocate this um this is a two-step process so um the intent is for chapter 78 to be portion so that changes in Chapter 70 are closely correlated with changes in minimum local contribution um the state changes its minimum local contribution numbers and then additionally we allocate those minimum local contribution numbers in accordance with Foundation enrollment so that's where this gets a little bit complicated so this twostep process means we take all of that mlc money and we adjust it based on um the changes in minimum local cont tracking how those changes come about and invariable there's a little bit of leftover money doesn't always add up perfectly so that's when you go into step two so step two you take that difference and you proportion it by each building's relative Foundation enrollment for the
057district so twep formula I will say um in $3.1 million sure 349,000 uh there was $37,000 in my step two calculation so small amount but there's a little bit of left over that ends up in that 7 very ex uh chapter 71 this is Regional Transportation reimbursement uh some of you will recall that once upon a time when desie was pushing schools to regionalize there was a promise of 100% Regional Transportation reimbursement um that has never been the case uh it has varied uh in my tenure as a school bus official uh has vared anywhere from I think I've actually seen as low as 70% but it's been 75 usually 80 to 90% over the past few years I want to say State and various State officials have done a reasonable job of lobbying for
058school districts and pushing this through legislature so that those percentages are at least reasonable but not 100% the other important piece of this is this is not a 100% reimbursement of all of our transportation costs it is a reimbursement of Transportation of students who live more than a mile and a half from the school so every year when we you are end of report to the state we do a calculation so I literally get all the mileages from the bus company or the whoever the business administrator is all the mileages of all the students from from from the bus company and we do a calculation how would live a mile and a half away or more um one of the challenging realities and a lot of people will say well you transport a lot of
059kids who are less than a mile a half um one of the challenges are towns don't have sidewalks right um really kind of the expectation is um for that for those most of the transportation requirements is that kids will be walking on sidewalks um it gets really challenging when you don't have sidewalks and you have children walking down streets that are being plow um and have giant mounds of snow in them things like that right so if you're in a an environment where you have sidewalks everywhere and those are typically cleared um that you know provides us with the opportunity to provide transort not provide transportation dist so as for everything else um this has a calculation that uses acronyms um b o r e BM no on b r please BM bbr um so
060really what those are is this gets down to the ratio of students enrolled in each of the schools Rel to the entire District so b o r e is Royal still enrollment right um B plus BM plus bbr is the whole District Ro so it's the ratio of oil students through the whole District you follow it down the same I don't imagine um I have sort of the definitions in appendix one if people want them I just add a little something well too so I know some of the questions were asked parents are are are seeing buses going by without full people without full buses right one of the things that we need to make sure as a regional district is we're providing every student seting the bus so that means mom and dad in
061in the fall might be driving their student to school or for whatever reason but then in January decid they want your child to start taking the bus because the Sports season ended or half to score activities always have to make sure with that 1.5 miles that every student has a seat in the bus at all times so I know that some people talk about why don't we reduce them but again we need to make sure that no matter what time of year that student always will have a SE in that bu I'm sorry so all the folks who are following along the regional agre that's very exciting um you will notice I have a little sic in there um this is confusing language in the regional agreement so it says Regional Transportation shall Aid shall
062be allocated its sharable our assumption that's that doesn't really make a lot of sense um our assumption is that it should read um each School shall be allocated with SH Regal Transportation based on its relative share so again this is just another place where we're having to make a judgment call I think it's a pretty safe judgment call on what the regional agre means um with that challenging and so one of the things we shared with you and we'll share later on one of the appendant is a letter that we just received as of yesterday from the Department education and school Comm you have it cting there as well too where they're really stressing us to startop revisiting our our regional agreement right um we're we're a little over five years into it right now
063is the opportunity for us get the town of Bon together town of Berling school committee Administration and really start looking at and revisiting the the regional agreement and making the necessary changes or adjustments that we should be making whether it be semantics or something like this are are the other the purpose of it as well too so um it's certainly something the H education is wanting us to look at and certainly guide us with that as well too and that will go hand inand as we're developing our strategic plan the district as well too so we'll be talking about that a little later on and we'll show you as well on the slide um the letter that we received that's part of the QR code that has that the so two of items we budget
064to help offset the assessments Medicaid reimbursement Medicaid reimbursement um uh provides us with revenue for Medicaid related services that we provide in the schools so nursing many cases uh Speech and uh speech language pathology occupational therapy things like that that we provide in schools um it's a it's a relatively small um amount of money but you know we do receive it it's thanks to the work of all of those folks who who kind of take care of that work and make sure they document it uh they perform uh what's called random Moment In Time studies I'm looking at Janelle because she knows it better than me um to document their work a lot of that can be a little tedious and we really appreciate that work because it does bring a little money into the
065district uh interest income fluctuates based on um interest rates um our interest income has been up a bit in the past year so we're happy for that um who knows what it's going to do in the long term so we try to you know kind of plan through what we think is a longterm um assessment of what we might receive um so and then finally you know a lot of these items if if we don't spend the full budget they end up flowing to which is another component uh we're working on certifying our D this year so we won't see that we've actually put more school choice in place the understanding that if we that certified we use um so again uh Regional agreement is silent for these two items in particular but just the
066assessments I'm sorry because is split by Foundation among the towns it just SE the place when I look back at historical documents that's where um minimum local contribution this is an important part of the assessment calculation uh the state requires every contri a minimum amount education children uh some of this feeds into that full net School spending calculation earlier um so the state determines a minimum spending level needed to provide an adequate education to the town that's what they referred to before as sort of a foundation budget the state considers what is the minimum amount of money that this municipality needs to run this district and then each Town based on its property values and personal income report to part of the revenue is assess a share of that in accordance with their ability to
067pay um there's a formula I don't know the whole formula I trust see come up with that or the state to come up with that I've dug into it in the past for certain components but I would not pretend to be an expert in that so uh Regional agreement allocates that minimum local contribution and this is important when we get into complet the discussion of um the minimum local contribution is kind of the first thing each Town pays it's a piced amount but it's important in that changes of minimum local contribution lead to those changes in Chapter 70 so you know the minimum contribution regardless of which school we put it in comes right off the top account's paying that amount but then when we allocate that Chapter 70 regardless of where it is it
068becomes important because it shifts in minimum local contribution it carry over into ships in chapter 7 um but uh this does use Mike talked about these moving averages um mlc uses a fiveyear moving average so uh the most recent year plus the prior four years [Music] foundation so when we get into the schools start talking about earing individual event content so these are the major drivers um to uh Berlin's budget um we've really been working to figure some of these out you will notice employee health and reti health are both at 18% uh we got the retired Health number a little earlier this year um we get that in uh the end of November um and that is for our retirees and that that rate applies January 1st through December 30th our active employee rate
069applies July 1st to June 30th um and we've been kind of waiting for the final uh sort of shootter drop on that uh we just met with our representative and that's right about 18% too so those are big factors um health insurance is a big cost um to uh the district um a couple of the other items are a talk about transtion um electricity in the past there a normal um uh when we get into special education transportation and against theves um we have used some offset on District commissions from uh circuit breaker the offsets and the liquation of these costs and special education Transportation uh can sometimes be a bit of a moving Target Janelle and I have been in pretty consistent conversation about this we did have you will see shifts away from
070the elementary schools towards Tonto uh and and that is because of student grp students are moving up toono we kind of finalized the conversations about those GRS those weren't in the very initial ones we had as we were putting the budget together um and there of course you know there are very small variances between other lines throughout the budget these are just major items so so we're talking about what are we going to cut and how are we going to save some money um that's important again those asss um one of the things we've talked about in many meetings is this District employed I want to say 12 plus contracted Care Professionals dist supplied those contracted Care Professionals cost substantially more than regular employees um it varies we have a number of different contract vendors
071agencies we work for and those the hourly rates of those can be um pretty substantial um so we're estimating that you know per pair of professional that we hire um directly would be about $35,000 in direct savings um that that gets into we are going to commit to that across the board so we' committed Al's committed has committed that we are going to make court press to hire prent professionals uh one of the realities is I mean these agencies are somehow hiring people right so there are people out there who should be able to get this so we're taking it as our job our role as Administration to figure this out and make it work please understand it might be a situation where a new student might come into our district or with with some
072special needs or special uh things that they might need there might be a situation where we might have to reach out to an agency as well too um but like Aaron said in the conversations with Janelle is this is something we know we're going to move on um it it it's it cost us a lot of money and we want to actually have our our employees internal as well TI and we're looking at our whole process of hiring as well too the minute we post a job posting I'm getting emails within within minutes from agencies saying we have people that can fill your spare right as well too so it's it's our role in the central office as well too to and we've talked to Janelle and principles about a better process of of being
073able to not only post these jobs but also being right on it so when people are applying for these jobs they we're reaching out to them getting them right in as well so we're we're going to be working on that during the summer of tightening up that H process point is production allocations of workloads um we have um I've done a a pretty in-depth analysis of our Sur what we have available um in doing so uh freed up a little bit of money for us to use toward some of our tuitions see the school um we've allocated a little bit more funding in that area uh to help support uh the budget and the assessments uh special education Transportation like I said there are students moving up to the cont see some of that money
074we also you'll see in Prior versions of the budget um um we were working with as Valley to figure out what the increase would be we' confirmed that the increase the annual increase in that cost will be a little lower than anticipated so we're building that into that number so we get to BR Memorial operating assessment SL uh so we have this budget and I mentioned right we're putting the district uh office shair right back in this is that 25% district office share going right back in you see oil Sy the exactly the same number uh then we get to a total for Memorial School budget uh we take out the Chapter 70 calculation that's using that two-step formula and then Chapter 70 using the r uh formula um and we get into a total
075assessment foror now Bo very similar drivers um I won't bore you with all the details but you know 18% health insurance is going to be a universal issue um some of the uh Transportation we're seeing some um small what we expect Transportation uh special education Transportation same thing uh students moving up to the H special education tuitions again uh there was some move outs um this year and a move up to the Ponto um as well as some offset for circuit breaker we're factoring into that the circuit breaker amounts are in that detailing budget you have in the earlier slides so I'm not dwelling on those but you can see what that circuit breaker amount is uh what El Elementary School one of the cuts be made and one of the savings so again we
076eliminating those contracted Care Professionals same thing same story uh staff reductions reallocations same thing same story uh we're trying to save money there um we uh in my earlier versions I I I realized I had allocated some of that school choice money um inequitably per se so we put a little bit addition school choice in oon to help offset that insurance cost um and then special education [Music] trans so calculating the Berlin I'm sorry Bo Elementary outg we start with the school budget uh which is in Prior slides uh we add in that District share again identical to burlin uh to get a total budget we take out the share of Chapter 70 using the same calculation and we take out chapter 71 using the same calculation and we get into a total Elementary Wilson
077Elementary School so we move in the toool and we have again drivers one of the things you are going to notice salaries go up that is um in part due to um the moves we've had some student moves up to tono that impacted that impacted the need for things like professionals so when you have par professionals who will say one to one or supporting students the par professional moves with the student so some of that is and some of it is just other you know normal increases employe Health retiring Health special education transportation is going up right so we said that some of that the reductions in the elementaries led to an increase at the H that's normal uh we applied a little bit more circuit breor to help with those special education tuitions um
078that have been a significant part of the compan budget um and then we also have collaborative commissions which we've also offset so a lot of that's in there you can see some of the notes spoke to down below um oh um in Prior slides we showed a pretty significant increase in substitutes um I I would like to say that in speaking with Lisa the tto uh she has made a commitment to keep that number down um that may have some may involve some enabling and providing Al alternative coverage um things like that and really looking at um where those balances stand we similar to the care professional commitment we made we've made a commitment to try to manage this so we to end up um some of those contracted Care Professionals we did all the
079movement uh actually moved up we're set to move up to so some of the savings that we have is in those cont Prof we are ringa and we used a extra circuit breaker to help off so from so then Tanto is not directly allocated to a SLE town like the elementary schools uh Tanto um has a formula and on those formula um involves each member's local minimum contribution that be calculate out to the school B Foundation en um then we take out appes oh yes uh so there this is a fiveyear moving average I was trying to make sure I saw the language in there and I didn't forget it so you will see um the language States um for proceeding 5 years for a 5e moving average so um those of um so we
080get to the Danto uh school budget uh the district S I think you will see this is exactly twice the share to each of the elementary schools for that 50% uh the total budget taking out their share of Chapter 70 calculated um using the formula chapter 71 using the set formula Charter reimbursement looking back historically Charter reimbursement um is something that has has been allocated directly to the H so it's it's a small amount um and it's be proportional to pound um it's hard to calculate exactly what you're getting that Charter reimbursement for and fluctuates a lot so this gives the sort of foundation based share so then we get down into the total so then we get into thein minimum contribution minim contribution uh then we get that gets us once we take those
081out we get the total above minimum contribution uh that is then allocated in accordance with the foundation enrollment formula that 5e moving average of foundation so then we get to like what are the what are the operating assessments for each so the BMF the BMF operating assessment is4 milli2 angle uh Theo minimum local contribution calling that out is at 1.9 million and then the above [Music] another that represents a 57099 increase at this time which comes to about 7.32% again I think in our conversations we understand that this may not be exactly to be particular we add capital in um but this is where we are in this moment um we are excited to have this conversation uh bo same process um the total operating 12,7 um one of the real realities in this budget
082is the number of District students last year who have since moved up to ton so those have become sort of shared responsibility so when you look at that percent increase it's a little lower and that's a big driver for that reason to that end result so now we get into that Capital um we have more Regional agreement conversation uh and more formuls um so Capital costs what exactly are they um there's a pretty long list of what's covered but it's really all expenses major it is um you know all tangible items um that the district may need to improvements on the building um upgrades to the building what have you sometimes equip put some of that in here um the regional agreement um in this case Mike alluded to this uses two two numbers two
083separate averages to calculate the capital assessment so it uses uh what's called The pound's Running average percentage um and this is a four-year moving average of an annual average percentage that annual average percentage is a an average of its Hanto enrollment percentage plus and I'm going to say the regional agreement says District um Foundation enrollment percentage um we have taken that in theed most appropriate based onto Foundation this is another place where maybe we should look at the regional un for clarity so you average those two numbers for each year and then with that average you do a fouryear moving average to determine the ratio of capital costs a portion to each town is that crystal clear to everyone we all 100% ESAT great so uh really quickly when we get into the debt assessment
084there are two Bonds on this building we're sitting in one is a 2021 refinance of I don't know when the bond we both of these Bonds were initially actually out 2018 is probably history um but uh both of them I believe my notes um is retired in 203 oh 2021 retires in 2031 and 2018 retires in 2033 so you been about six years on the 2021 Bond and uh yeah eight years sorry Matt um on the 2018 so you know you've got a little while but um that's coming it's looming so you get into principal interest um we shared uh the de assessment um worksheets with both towns so they have that now it's something interesting they didn't have before they're kind of Partners in this de so they should have the de schedule use
085the wrong per um but they have those now so they can see these um and that's simply from the de now again this is a portion in accordance so Mike spoke to the variable nature to the towns even though this is a fixed rate bond because you use a moving average that changes every single year it's really a variable rate of pounds right so the total dollars don't change how those dollars are mixed up between one and the other can change so that's an important thing to remember again something to think about for the reg so getting into the actual toic and this is where I think as we go through the the final conclusion to the budget and what the final assessments are this is where some Sticker Shop will set in this is
086where some of these conversations can happen uh you will notice some items are stable um every one of these items on our Capital request is an item to be addressed there are some we feel more comfortable potentially pushing off if we have to um and those are the ones that are braided out our priority items are the ones that remain top our final assessment that we're sharing tonight includes all of the C I like to have those discussions with the towns before we have sticker shot and things like that we just want to make sure that we understand this is a conversation meeting both towns 1 19 and and we can have those those conversations uh absolutely Berlin Elementary School um the elevator controls are going to be an mediate compliance issue so I'm going
087to absolutely you know push to those folks uh who might be listening or here uh that is a pretty significant PRI for us again you know these are buildings that need to be 8 comp we could have some real issues before you we were asked to prioritize those that's why they're listed the D water I know Aaron said you know these still things like going a home that we know need to be done right and so we ask them to be to prioritize them that's why we put them in that way and Gray in the other areas but whatever we those are conversation we have go with scho the founds but whatever we we don't see funded this year and we understand it the financial piece of it you'll see next year right there are
088still things that we believe need to be done and by the way these are all in conversations with our right who know the building that know needs to take place I know for gin replacing the elevator control is a huge piece and and you'll see and hear from me multiple times that adding the cameras to the outsides of gillin is extremely important for the safety of not only when the kids are in school but the school is out as well too and you'll see that in all of our request as well you know again isn't going away it's not going to natur get fixed by ignoring it you know we're going to continue with this we understand you know funds just like your home budget you have so much money to deal with hopefully a
089little bit longer down the road on so we did Boon uh Boon I think many people know in the midst of major roof project um that is not on here because already underway committed to uh but we do have a water pump and some other repairs happen uh as Al shared um we need some camera updates at that elementary school there are also a couple doors that need uh uh bo so those are the access cards we use there are apparently two do grouping that under [Music] theur those are things priorities and then you will see at all schools we have some degree of student staff device replacement um there is no line item in the operating project to cover this it is traditionally gone through Capital year after year uh we have had some
090really good conversations with the towns uh with the understanding that they oper a capacity may be tapped out but maybe at some point in the future we could move These funds into operations where I think we call with be they belong more appropriately so these are largely uh staff laptops and Chromebooks relatively speaking to Capital costs low individual dollar costs and we cycle through them every year right almost similar to textbooks and things like that you have to repurchase these on a fairly Reg this probably more often than textbooks they have a lifespan of five years given take and we try to cycle through just for Clarity on that that Wilson um Ro project that's an msda project we're working on we just want to make sure clar down that that's why you're not seeing
091it on the on Capital in in in terms of student and staff device replacement um Joe bado our our interim Tech director he is in the process making fiveyear plan and I know when we met with wson they both asked for that to take place in terms of technology so we'll be ready to to roll that out shortly we can working with Joe and get that in place as well so when we get to the H um similar um you will see that Middle School Furniture is is kind of a number one priority there um Lisa really um TR out upon us I have the opportunity to sit in some middle school chairs um I know there are some Middle School who are my size and I think it's to sayable in those chairs um
092I I don't know if you know this number is something that towns are amenable or able to fund uh in this year but I think what we'd like to look at is what can we replace right could we focus on eth grade first right and could we find some enough to serve those Aaron Osborne size right because they're they're going to be struggling sitting in those CL of chairs um there's schools there's desks and there's chairs that are just not sized for um particularly some of our eighth graders who are you know 6 fet above right that gets really ch um your projector here um is coming to end of life one of the challenges with projectors is they're not really based in lasting X years they last X hours so it's hard to say
093you know exactly where it's going to be but it's been around for a while a lot of hours on it it's original to the building um so we're looking at you know 13y old projector that used for a lot so you like to look at that in the controller uh students have device uh because there are just more students here and more staff we kind of split that out for two separ items um it's the same as for the elementary school students um some of those other items the the building automation system um that's somewhat an efficiency item um you know does help make your building more eff we understand you know that may not make it you can look up at the lighting above that's all kind of florescent lighting so it's flickering um
094you know may you know we'd like to look at placing that consistent couple other it you can see related to this the lighting the actual stage lighting the lighting and the sound system those amounts I I think it's fair to say those were based on a threeyear plan that was not elected to move forward in the first year so that RS two years together um those are going to continue to pick down the road um we we use this Auditorium quite a bit we have a production next month that I didn't mention it um before and uh we also do things that rent this theater out to community uh events we provideed services so you know we would love to engage in that conversation with towns um we feel like we can down the road
095right now but again at some point that money this this building really is a hot of our two communities right and so any events that we take place in this Comm we need a log of facility Park take place here right from the National Junior AR Society all the events we're bringing families in for the first time as well too so it really is the the heart of our school we want to make sure that we're maintaining it right so we can continue to do that so like we said earlier you know all these things are things we met with the principal that with facilities directly these are things that need and we prioritize those in order but you'll see these year after year until either we have to because it's emergency that they you're
096not working anymore um but we we really feel like these are the things that we need to be looking at as a community to make sure we're keeping our schools current and in the best shape right curbs out appeal it's so important for our families when they're coming into our buildings as well and I know Joe that final in the phone system Joe Joe and I had a lot of conversations about this we're we're picking that that's the lowest priority we're piing that down we're fairly certain the towns aren going to be amenable to doing that and we're looking at some options for that maybe lower cost so expect to see that back maybe next year but with a much lower cost May more dist so again um you know to avoid um the obvious
097sticker shot that's going to come up um you know Capital cost piece is a big component to this we again relish those conversations with pounds in terms of what their capacity is to look at that as we shared some of those items if we picked them down the road you know the the Burl Memorial roof right I mean at some point you can only patch a roof so long only take a roof down the road so long before you have issues um we're comfortable kicking it down the road year um but you know again that's something we really want to keep looking at seriously so those are you know the intent of a lot of that make sure so we get down to um you know that debt assessment Capital Hondo Capital those are some
098pretty big numbers for Capital assessments we understand that we're not living in a world so when we get into the total assessments that we're talking about again I think you know in this moment we want to really focus more on the operating side of things and understand both the operating and the capital but we know that that Capital number is going to be significantly different so a total assessment number we all capital to 10, 585,000 again we know and keep saying this that a 24318 increase is not we understand that so I think the more we put that in the record so then we get into uh assessments uh same thing we have a again solid increase to operating assessments Mak year um but g capital really and particularly the capital items are particularly where
099most of that money is um we look forward to those conversations we looking at total assessment of6 and that to end so so before we we go any any further just a couple of things um Aaron and I might be presenting for the first time to to Brin B and leave the school district but not our first time doing a budget presentation um we we we usually don't have a 41 or 40 slide presentation but at this speak like that chair and school committee we knew was extremely important really lay down and really have people have a good understanding of what it looks like and what these figures mean and what capital mean and school school choice money means um what our regional agreement looks like and where how it is a little gets a
100little complicated in certain sections and make sure people have a clear understanding about that as well too so we really felt like we wanted to give this information we put it in spats that people can see it and can goow back and refer to as well too the other piece I just really need to make sure that is clear is with everything going on with this budget here please appreciate that we contract negotiations right now with our teachers right and so that's a piece of the budget that's still uncertain for all of us right as we're going through that school committee and in the towns we will keep you updated and informed about that but that's a huge resour budget at this time of year that we need to make sure that people understand that
101that's an unknown figure that still we're working out and I'm sure you're paying attention to what's taking place across the state of Massachusetts and the figures that are out there so we're being mindful of that and trying to do the best we can and presenting a budget to you at this time all right um we're going to do our public comment section anyone else before up to the chair that looks like to sign up for public all right um first April not saying last April Stewart right and you want to come out to the mic M and let us know what you think first I thought it was a sign in sheet so I didn't really have a com one of things that might help with I'm so sorry just for a record so could
102just your name and April stator thank you sorry no problem I will give back my thank you Bill Phil sing as same I okay all right no problem thank you very much for signing in know you will not be able to say didn't know about this good deal uh just to clarify Bo select uh next on the list is a Mary Porter from Berlin come on down Mary Mar you didn't think it was just a signning you don't want to say anything do you rep burin finance committee yes it looked like a sign in sheet and I thought I were signing in but I'll talk I'm up here right I walk the the way down so I want to thank you uh Aaron Osborne for the clarity transparency all the work you've been doing I
103know how hard it's been because I've been involved for the last few years so I want to start with that I do have a question directed to you Aon on on slide 11 the revenues so slide 11 totals up about 2.3 million in revenues one I'll give you some time back Mary but just rep play it's not a Q&A you can po a question we we'll discuss it C our sure it's not a back and forth It's just sure all all right yeah I won't harass you with follow-ups but just if you could walk through your philosophy either either what the this dist district has done or what you're applying and what you do with those revenues and I asked that question because as I look at applied circuit breaker and school choice revenues I
104don't understand how among the three schools they they were what is the thought process to apply then and then what's the philosophy uh who Reserve in the and right those sorts of things so that's my question if is it is it okay do I need to stay here and keep talking or should I sit down you may you may the only I can you may you may have missed the beginning did talk a little bit about that we can talk okay in the first part of presentation as okay all right thanks are you sure good got a minute I I have a minute that was a name uh anybody want to talk about net School spending we're we're really high across the the common wealth in terms of our net School spending so we're really
105funding our education at a comparatively very high level um thank you thank you any any last minute any comments anyone even if you didn't sign up so I did not sign up up so our forer Bo Hason fincom chair so I like to reiterate what Mary just said the communication compared to last year Aaron thank you very much this is a much more detailed we've been asking for this type of breakdown in the past it's clear uh the two towns are quite a bit different in their financial situation as you're well aware we've expressed that to you guys uh last year and the same situation Berlin I don't know if they've got any better but that's not my call uh again on the elementary school side we will work with you on the capital items
106contining what we started last year and to try to address the issues this year so I will leave it at that thank you thank you all right so that concludes the public comment on the budget hearing and so now we will discuss as the school committee take the votes um I think uh what's the plan we want to make a motion to get the budget out there and then we can discuss and vote yep I'm going to ask our secretary and what do we have here this the motion is based on what those what we have here sure um so what what you're going to be reading here is the motion that includes Capital as well too so the overall motion um for the both towns um I think if she reads it it's pretty
107self-explaining here we have and then we'll um open up for conversation school that the Berlin Boon school oh I'm sorry I move at the Berlin Boon school committee vote to approve a fiscal 26 operating fiscal year 26 operating budget of 24,393 in a fiscal year 26 capital budget of 4,597 2,000 resulting in a total assessments of 10,585 31133 to the town of Berlin and 14,26 353 to the town of Boon second second all right what do you got anybody thank you Aon and and d and everyone on the sub committee as well any you I I know we gave you a lot um and just we're being mindful of the 45 days that we have to present budgets to both towns of B to make sure that we're ready for that date um for want
108to have their Town meetings as well too all right any so that Capital includes everything including the grade out yes yes it does so so again those are I think I think it be very beneficial at conversation 1 towns um and you know as we revisit the budget down the road um do so in a way that doesn't get us to the Flor meeting to make some of these decisions and just for clarity right so one of the things that we've talked about when we spent hours with school CR members and budget that the the budget that you vote tonight can always go down it can't go up right so if there changes and conversations that we're having that F comes in both R and bolon with the capital we can come back and visit
109the school and bring that down as well too but we're looking for at least a bud uh a number to we stop the conversation and stop those individual conversations with our commun as well G address Mary uh yeah Mary's [Music] question 11 in terms talking about philosophy so sure so there's a couple items there um your school choice account represents your kind of rainy day I think for a couple different reasons um acknowledge um there's at least sprinkling a little bit outside ofast and there challenges we're facing as as we forward um additionally we don't have em certified I'm pretty confident we will have um money available at once that is certified so we could arguably replace some of that choice with the after the back or we could just not spend D and carry
110it all over the next year and use more next year so those represent you know some accounts that are available basically to the school committee spend um I'm trying not to wildly overspend school choice will take in probably between 435 and $450,000 in school choice this year I would consider you know school choice like a personal savings account right you can spend it when you need it but you need to know that at some point can continue to over spend it um you're going to run out so we need to have those conversations uh circuit breaker is based on figures received last year a lot of conversations with Janelle talking about um what things look like this year our conversations have indicated that our numbers in terms of out of District placements which are the
111biggest drivers to our circuit breaker number are going to remain pretty consistent um you know you don't I don't see a huge in them but I also don't see a big drop so we're carrying over partially a similar number from last uh from last year in terms of what was available uh if you look at the circuit breaker files I don't know Mary if you've gone out and done that um last year I can talk about there were some impacts to that so you'll notice a big negative number in that file that was uh a an emergency relief amount that was really a loan from Desi it wasn't circuit breaker back in the next year um so that's a factor but I anticipate we will receive about $950,000 in circuit breaker for fiscal 26 give
112or uh built into that larger number I have is a carry over so circuit breaker is available before it falls into D of its own cord uh it is available for use for two years so so we did not use a lot of the fiscal 24 circuit breaker we received I am holding some of it to use in fiscal 25 to help with the budget 25 and I'm carrying a little bit over to fiscal 26 to um I I think that's a reasonable approach to take even given our numbers and Trends uh and we can go from there if again don't fully spend that some will then roll over to the following year and we can then use that and so bet that should just because we keep it at schol gr level that should
113answer the question that you asked about making sure we answer's question okay um I'm curious the Ia of the federal gr do we feel that's threatened I know that that is a million many many billion billion dollar question yeah we haven't had any direction at that at this point um if I mean if if that goes away there will be a lot of districts having some very big conversations um about the the real challenges that is an item so the governor's budget items came out the the state budget items came out at the end of January those may change also so one of the items we may look at is if those change we could amend our budget based on changes in uh the budget items um but uh that that would be that would
114be a Monumental change particular communties as well to cities as well but we have not had any guidance so we don't even want to go there yet in terms of that add allation does not usually come out until July either um it's been very consistent year to year so I've never had an issue I had a big issue with pay one in the last District where I one numbers came out we anticipated but I've never seen that refur significant so I'm pretty confident in assuming it exists um and it may be that it exists in the form of more a block grant or something like that um I think it would be really hard to eliminate that that just have to be I guess I'm just wondering if we did add more from school choice
115would it significantly impact um the individual residents of the towns um I mean every dollar we put in impacts um I think that that number of 850 is what I feel comfortable saying that you know we can we can use um within within our means so like I said to save these right at some point um if you spend for your savings it doesn't exist anymore right um but there are times when you need to di into your savings and make some moves that I don't think is inappropriate uh I would kind of you know want to have those conversations with school committee about what what create some scenarios that the school committee wish um as part of those conversations um you know part of future meetings that you can be also working group meeting
116um I could you know apply different things um one of the things I do that I spend a lot time doing this is I build a spreadsheet that allows me to make changes and those will be reflected in the assessment instantly make those changes so if we're sitting down it's not conducive to this sort of environment but we're sitting down with us all M work trying to figure out the hard part for as being a Regional School District right unlike the municipality like we can't go back right to the towns and say we something has occurred and we need to come back to the to right and because so that's why that to have that rainy day fun for for lck other better wording it's important for us to have we just don't know right
117and I don't want to go there back to co but we just didn't know at that time right and the things we don't know we need to certainly make sure we have some Sav put aside as and that's we feel Aaron and I conversations we had even with school Comm and and M is that that's that's a number we yeah I kind of want to say something about just offsets in general looking at the BMS assessment the operating assessment 4.5 million 12,000 so not to rehash last year but on June 17th at that meeting we did in addition to all the offet and school choice money that we had already applied we applied another 250,000 roughly so we went into the June 17th meeting with a BMS assessment of now don't poke me on these
118numbers I'm talking off the thought my head I believe it was 4.5 million 8,000 uh that then got reduced along with tono assessment to something like 4.2 4.28 is around there by using that extra C that's extra cap that went towards that last year we could possibly talk about doing more now so we're having a plan to phase it out like Scott mentioned um but if you look at the BMS assessment 4512 compared to last year's 4508 you know it would bring our percentage change from seven to like 3.9% or something so it was money spent last year uh but comparing last year the 7.8 total the 8.3 total for operating 7% increase isn't really what we intended it would be more like 4% roughly if we hadn't applied that extra cash last so cash
119that we applied last year isn't available to apply this year basally um so you almost have to look at a twoyear increase this really the true cost versus using up spending down all of our cash so we got to have that out there just not to rehash old feelings but that is what happened uh that's what the very first slide or slide great mentions the having re budget that's what program so to go from 4508 to 4552 we'll have the capital conversation but it's not that it's not as shocking as the sticker shock shows to the point we we don't want to go back to talk about last year but we want to make sure that we're ready so we go to town meeting right and for that V we make sure we're prepared and
120ready and that's why we we're putting this budget up here now looking for spooky to vote one way or another and then as engageing those conversations so that everyone's prepared and ready for we go to our town meeting in they um and that everyone has a number we're not doing it at last second for guys we made that promise to school committee that we would not engage in that we'll make sure for that and I just want to point out those numbers include for the MS cutting two FTE for be putting two FTE and Honda three FTE which is not thrilling sure that that that is please know those were precise Cuts right we're being very careful and we're not even in terms of cutting but reallocating right so those Services might be provided in
121other ways to our children um again we we took that really into a c right and so we didn't want to make these Grand cuts um but they were difficult decisions that we had to make but we we feel it's going to have the least amount of impact on our children and redistributing the to work on all of us here the people that are sitting and our directors positions and people that are sitting in our school roles and and some other positions in our school I mean if I can just say it's hard to downplay to not recognize insurance I mean we have millions of dollars so we're talking about increas and I understand pounds have significant increases as well uh I talked to other uh School business officers throughout the state everybody's wrangling with
122us you're looking at increases of that magnitude on something that's that big it it's almost impossible to um have to to to have reasonable percentages in this whole without for applying more and the other part is we we also had to negotiate our busing contract as well too so that was an added expense um that is is is difficult as well um and again I can't stress enough we're in the middle of contract negotiations as well making sure that we we do that fair and Equitable as well last chance all right uh bug we have to do a r yeah all right so uh Lor I have you V hi Meg hi be hi Lisa hi J hi all right motion passes we we thank you we really do school committee our work is now
123moving forward working with n school committee but our towns as well too and make those next steps and those next conversations we'll absolutely coming back to school for this is an ongoing conversation just so because we we we we put a budget in front it was pass today we will continue these conversations over these next 45 days as well thank you all right uh next up we're going to move into executive session and will not return to open session executive session 3 21 a discuss strategy barain and the M meeting have effective guarding position of public body the chair of players I have that motion please all right uh La Hi Megan hi Lisa hi yes hi all right and we're going to be in the multi-purpose gr for the executive session all right so
124we are now out of General Session thank you thank you everybody thank you