Budget Sub-Committee Meeting 3/4/25

001[Music] okay good afternoon everyone I would like to call this meeting of the Berlin Boon Regional School committee's budget subcommittee to order um so today we're going to review the FY 26 budget before the school committee votes on it on March 11th um and we are lucky enough to have the liaison from the Boon finance committee here with us today um to hopefully get a little bit more insight on where Boon stands as far as what type of wiggle room we have so we can try to find somewhere to be aligned that's the goal all right so we're gonna have a what we're gonna do how we're gonna do this today is Aaron's gonna present we'll hold questions till the end and then I kind of want to look at this like as a working

002session um this is more of like a conversation so that we can be prepared for Tuesday so that Tuesday we go in and we can hopefully get the vote done obviously things could in may change I know we're on your agenda for March 17th right I think that's right yeah um and I don't know where burlin same week Forin I you said it's the same almost maybe the same day think the same day they asked us for the same day but yeah it's gonna be hard yeah that'll be tough for you place at the same time yep so we can see what we need to do and maybe we're in alignment here and then I can go to Boon and you guys can go to Berlin so we'll figure that out after this um but

003I think today the point is Aaron's gonna kind of go through this give Karen the opportunity to ask some questions and see where we land and then um you know maybe see what else we need to do if anything before Tuesday um and when I say we I mean Aaron yes so the only I can add Megan if I so this is still a working document right so we're trying to get this prepared for on Tuesday when we put this publicly out there on the budget hearing we're advertising that absolutely everywhere but it's real important that our po sorry our budget subcommittee takes a look at this first right and gives us is this the direction we want to go in even the format right yeah so this is not Aon and I first time

004presenting a budget we we've worked together for many years and we we've done this multiple times but this is the way we're used to presenting it so we want our feedback from from the the school committee um the budget school committee so this way when we go to Tuesday we have everything in there that you feel like we need and even the formatting of that as well too so it's our chance after we present this for school commity to ask us questions and then we'll certainly have questions from other people as well too but making sure we have everything ready to go uh for Tuesday so not only that but ready to go for Friday afternoon so we post this right um that we can put this in the drive so people have access to

005see this as well too ahead of time okay okay all right awesome thank you good okay so I'm going to run through I think at the school committee meeting we'll have more time I'm going to sort of run through sort of each slide quickly why it's there what its purpose is and just how um we arrived at it I won't get into all the nitty-gritty of all the calculations to the degree but the bottom line numbers will be there um I also want to say this is a working document um you will see some notes that say updating those slides have not been updated to current numbers um there's some of the budget driver slides that I need to pull some data on um um I also want to say that the things like percents

006and things like that are to the best of my ability at this moment I I haven't gone through this three or four times yet so you know there may be a fat finger here or there on things and I just you know I want to make sure that you know this is a working document we're working together I left at 5:30 last night he sorry I left at 11:30 last night uh and he came in at 5:30 this morning so literally that's where we're at um and this morning we're still making challes this is just if you feel it's still war right like we're literally still making changes so that's that's where we're at so just appreciate that okay oh yes okay so um really quickly I want to based on sort of some of

007our conversations um we've sort of tried to take I guess the word is would might be a scalpel right now to the budget and and dig through the cuts we feel like you know get us at least close to where the towns might need to be right now um so I just want to be clear that what we're sharing right now is not a service level budget this is a below service level budget we're making some cuts um we really try to keep those cuts as far from students as possible um but the challenge is there's also the realization that there are things that will fall apart if we cut certain things um there are also positions that support positions so you know if we were to in the most extreme example cut our payroll

008person well people wouldn't get paid and that would make teachers very unhappy which would make students um unhappy so you know there are there are Domino effects that occur so we really try to keep it away but um these are going to impact operations in terms of what we have and the other part about that is you know I people are going to want to ask us the specifics of those cuts right so we're we're not I'm not at that spot yet to share that publicly um because these are Personnel issues these are individual conversations that we have to have and we need our employees to still be working from from this day right now until June 15th um but those conversations will be happening but the the professional thing to do is for us

009to be having those conversations and then not to hear them from a PowerPoint presentation or from someone who's watching us on online right now so we're going to be respectful to that process as well we will add what we can in aggregat that's right try to be okay so really quickly you get um you know maybe the 30,000 foot view of the budget in the very first slide um one of the things things I want to be clear about is the budget that was approved by school committee in December is certainly significantly above the budget that was used to base the assessments as people will recall there were some changes I think made in the town of floor meet uh the floor of town meeting that altered the Assessments in Berlin in Berlin um and

010you know as desie became involved with this whole process um they uh they were pretty clear that we didn't in their minds we did not have a voted budget because that wasn't a formal vote of the school committee when that was done so you know we had been operating at that point into December without a formal past budget in their minds we should have done on a 112 budget so we very quickly asked the school committee um I was looking at five or six versions of the budget and it wasn't clear which version of the budget if any was used to make those decisions so um we went with what was in the system with the understanding that we may not fully spend that there may have been intended Cuts but we weren't able to

011capture those so while this looks like a a decrease it may not be as much of a decrease it may be a little bit more of a level a level budget as it were I can't really speak to exactly what the intent was when that happened we we're working with Department of Education right one of the communities brought it to the attention sent a formal letter to the Department of Education we were in the process ER and I of coming on board and still working out our Logistics um but them involved with us brought us in the direction we need to go for here and having this budget using this number and school PR did vote on that as well too in December so Aaron that thank you for that that's a really at least

012for me I don't know if that's very clear as to why it looks like the change is actually going down but it the assessment for the budget it looks like the change is going down but the assessment might be higher yep that's corre yep absolutely so I don't know if it doesn't really right this is a big sticking point meetings of the last couple of weeks it's been brought up and I don't feel okay so explaining that in detail would be so so why me pause here for a second because I and I I we want us to go through but I guess a lot of people had a hard time understanding that right so is there anyone that needs further clarification than that right I when we voted on it I didn't necessarily fully

013I understand it a lot more now than I did in December a month into being on we needed a number we needed the budget that was voted on right so that we could work off that so I think our important asks we don't end up on the floor of town meeting doing things like this is that whatever budget is passed on March 11th can be amended right within the 45 days but let's do it before we get to the floor of town meeting let's have those conversations let's have meaningful conversations about what wiggle room we have where we can meet in the middle what our options are and and then we could have a meeting on March 11th and then April 1 or a whatever you know some whatever the first date in April is

014we could have another meeting and and vote a new budget that's you know a fair way to to think about that that that's not good for anyone in this room never mind the communities if we're on the town floor still still working that stuff out right that's not not a good look for any of us right and we we made that promise not to have that happen again this year and so I guess my question in terms of clarification of this is like you know voters like are just they don't want to have more increases in their tax right and so this looks like Yay like we might actually you know not have that does this mean we can have these numbers but still have an increase in our taxes because of yes you will

015see inre to the assessment starting the the the starting number is just a higher number number so all those numbers that get taken out Chapter um school choice circuit breaker money that comes out of it doesn't take as much obviously doesn't take as much out doesn't bring it down as far because your starting point is higher it's unfortunately I could not find and and there were five different versions of the budget in various places um and I just couldn't come to something that was like an actual budget while you know trying to close 24 pay bills um get this budget ready we just had to make some decisions about what was going to happen so what will voters know what their increase will be on their tax you will see you you will you will

016see the assessment increases here okay um you know as I said My Hope Is you know the school committee vote this in March and the towns may come back and say well you know this is higher than we'd hoped and we can have some reasonable conversations and then the school committee might vote a different budget that might be a little lower um you know we may make some cuts the school committee may decide to put in a little more resources like there's there's a school choice account we could we could draw from um you know at the meeting I or you know I I would definitely want to speak to responsible use of of things like school choice um which is really a rainy day but I would argue that it's raining right and this

017is an opportunity to say let's steady the ship let's figure things out if we have to have conversations about with the towns about how do we move forward with this if money isn't going up what do we need to do there's a conversation there right and now might not be the time but say anyways there's a there's a big piece that we we we're not sure of here right we're in the middle of contract negotiations right so that's just starting um and so on top of all this and I'm sure you're aware of what's taking place across the state right with MTA um and teaches unions and stuff and the numbers they're coming in at which we can't share at this time uh in executive session obviously but that's a big thing we have to

018we have to figure out as well too um so we're just being mindful of that as well what we're budgeting for that um and what what what they're asking as well to so sure just one quick question Aaron I mean at some point maybe in this presentation maybe I'm jump the gun am I going to be able to see it in the format that we presented and voted yeah pretty much yeah understand like that's sort of the finish line for the assessment I don't know so Boon was kind of a a lot of what you're speaking to pertains to Berlin Boon gave us a number we hit the number we correct were in alignment with fincom 100% of the way it was a very simple and quiet town meeting mostly about dogs and other things

019um but yeah it wasn't about the school budget it was a very straightforward I think the assessment and the budget should tie for Boon um so I feel like maybe that's something you know after the meeting you know now I don't know if You' met had met Aaron before but he's so easy to work with way back to December yeah you can shoot him an email and like if you have questions on specific because I know you guys have your spreadsheets and you try to fill in and you get the asset stuff so I think that should tie out your budget with the Boon budget and your assessment I think that was all kind of because none of that ever changed it should it would just be the total um and you know maybe to

020hunt do so maybe a little but I I like your capital and stuff like that that should be fine none of that changed at all so I think maybe like offline instead of you know sitting here and spending in the presentation he can absolutely get you whatever detail you need to fill in for your spreadsheets and then um yeah go from there what we're hoping what you described in Boston which were're here and probably didn't happen last year maybe in Berlin we're hoping that will it will be smooth that way this year right that's sort of what we're used to right we used to go to him and wilam and they spend four hours on on chickens right no exaggeration and yet 20 minutes on the school budget because the work we're doing ahead of

021time going up to the floor is all done so that it should be a no-brain that we go in there and andone no surprise sounds good good yeah okay so um the next slide gets into how everything's broken down by cost center one thing that's a little new this year is I've broken out districtwide cost so that's the superintendent myself the director of special education nothing changes in terms of How It's assessed we are assessing it the same but we're calling it out because um it really is its own cost center and um um public accounting really expects that you're going to manage things by cost center so principles for example the principle of Berlin Memorial really is the controller of his budget for the most part within within parameters right they own their budget

022they're they have authorization but not for those districtwide costs right so the superintendence pieces things like that so we're just trying to call that out so people see that as a separate amount they understand what that overhead looks like as well so it's not buried in the schools and how does that get split between the two towns ex I actually have a slide on that but I will questions at the end okay I'll get to it um one of the items we were asked to do one of the things we were asked to do is to break things down a little bit more by line items so each one of those cost centers is now broken down by sort of major line item um you know we don't get into every salary and every but

023these are the major sort of of cost breakdowns this also aligns with there is um some reporting expectations in the regional agreement this coupled with some of the later slides complies fully with I believe those expectations within the regional agreement um so I won't dwell on each item I'm GNA go ahead and peruse it if you have questions about them you can get back to me um a little further down we have a graph so this sort of explains where our money is being spent you'll see that big brown piece I'm sorry there's a big pie chart I didn't go over every single class Center I just thought that be a little redundant um I think it's fair to let people know where they're spending their money the vast majority of our money is spent

024in instruction and the vast majority of that money is is salaries um you will see um some other costs that directly relate to students that in many cases we really don't have much choice on um you know Health Services we have to have nursing we need to have that support uh transportation we have to transport students um activities in athletics um you know to what degree you can ever cut Athletics is a is always a challenge um you know custodial and utilities the lights need to be on the schools need to be clean we don't really have a choice uh benefits and insurance that's health insurance I think I've shared that both of our health insurance is retiree and general employee health insurance has gone up by 18% this year um that's a big driver

025in this um tuitions most of these are students um on IEPs who are in outof District placements um some of this is also um school choice costs so when students school choice out we have no control over any of those costs those are are sort of baked in um you'll see districtwide Administration and then School administration so School administration is principles Al and I are examples of districtwide administration so then we get into the million dooll question that was just asked so the regional agreement itself um doesn't say anything about the allocation of districtwide costs however past practice um that has existed since this region was a union before the development of the region was that each of the elementary schools was allocated 25% and toono was all ated 50% um you know that's unfortunately

026with a with a regional agreement that's silent I did call um Rob conry who was the in my position back when the regional agreement was founded um he was very clear that when they made it a a region they continued what they had been doing so this has been going on it hasn't changed what I'm doing is no different from what's been done and then that 50% gets split by the allocation for that allocation of so yeah so then as we're looking at the budget these these next slide represents offsets that are built into the budget so these are built into the budget we've already seen but these are helping reduce the budget so um we're proposing to allocate 850,000 of school choice uh we take in around $450,000 of school choice when of the

027challenges we're dealing with right now is that our end probably won't be certified in time for budget but I would expect that we would have a couple hundred, in available to support the budget that wouldn't be in here so I'm pretty comfortable putting a little extra yes fingers crossed um I'm comfortable putting a little extra school choice we have the balance as I stated it is raining um in the past two years the school district has not used much school choice at all so that balance has built up so it's reasonably appropriate to say okay now might be a good time to to spend it down a little bit and and use what we have um and eron just normally end would be certified by now correct yes so we're catch up a little bit

028right so we trying to get this work done we usually review the audit in our early February or late January meeting but just we just want to make sure for the public right that we're having this moralized which takes place here as yeah um so circuit breaker um I explain each of these items in the next few slides so I won't jump on them yet and then our idea Grant funds so those help offset the budget as well we do have some other very small grants that I'm not delving on so we get a very small amount of Title One funds uh sometimes we get some 274 Grant funds there's no reason anybody should know what those are but those are typically used to offset the budget a little bit 5,000 here 10,000 there um

029I don't feel like they're big enough to delve into here um a few explanations about school choice and circuit breaker um and then the idea Grant on the next slide I won't delve into it but if anyone has questions on these sort of explanations really feel free to reach out to me yeah take a look at that school choice definition we know that's been a question that's been asked nice see in writing yep so we we memorialize that we we talked to Katie manalar our attorney for special education say she gave us guidance on as well too so we know that you you guys wanted it somewhere right and we want to make sure we're putting that in the presentation as well and at the bottom you will see um at the bottom below idea

030Grant you will see I've explained how the regional agreement deals with these items so it's in italics down here below idea Grant so page are you on on page seven stilleven yes yes yes not yeah yeah so yeah page seven the top slide um so all of the budget offsets that I've described so that is um school choice circuit breaker and the idea Grant the regional agreement indicates that all Grant and other District funds shall be a portioned to school budgets by the district at The District's discretion so what we've endeavored to do and I can share that as needed is employ these in an equitable manner uh either sort of equally to the way say district office costs are assessed right so 25 2550 or um what have you um or in the case

031of circuit breaker sometimes relative to the numbers most of our circuit breaker virtually all of our circuit breaker comes from those out of District students so it's relative to the number of outof District students and the the overall cost of outof District students um and that you know in each school will go up and down year to year and you try to equitably manage that in a way that helps sort of offset those costs that are completely uncontrollable um and challenging to deal with I think in most cases it's been done what I've got is pretty equally split so so it's I I think it's pretty pretty close to equal um even aside from Equitable right the difference between those terms is a little little different but but um there's some Nuance there so then

032we get into what are we using to support the assessment so when we're through with that budget bottom line there are a number of items that go into reducing the assessments to the town now all of these have basically the same effect but they're just put in different places right so um assessment offsets we have Chapter 70 chapter 71 which is reimbursement for transportation we get some Medicaid reimbursement money um and we get some interest income so those are used to offset the actual assessments themselves and the next few slides I explain each of these items and how the regional agreement treats them which is how I've treated them um there is a little bit of you know maybe Nuance in the reasonal agreement that I speak to at times but um pretty much I've

033tried to follow this um so chapter 7 is that major aid from the state it's based on um student counts and relative um wealth of the communities in terms of how much you receive um so you can see there's a couple steps to how Chapter 70 is allocated um it tracks with minimum local contribution changes in minimum local contribution which track to uh Foundation enrollment which is a whole separate calculation unto itself so there's number of things that are calculated off of each other so there's step one um which carries through to the same percentages but if you apply those same percentages to the increases you're left with a little leftover so then you have to go to step two and do a second calculation to calculate how those have been apportioned I have done

034that um so then down to chapter 71 uh that's a little simpler that gets into um specific student counts in each school so we keep um October 1st numbers for the state and from each Town um this is literally how it's written in the regional agreement but that Bo BM and bbr those are just the number of town students Berlin or Boyston in each school so Boon that's the total number of Boyston students at Boon Elementary divided by the total number of students from both towns in the region right so you add up all three components that's all students in the region divided does that make sense this is like a true allocation because you're doing it by student which is probably how everything should be done yep and yeah so I I when we

035talk about the regional agreement and how I would Envision things this might be closer to where I sort of Envision how it would also be more transparent right this is pretty self-evident in our October 1 numbers y some of these other calculations are harder to get to so it doesn't change the spirit and that these numbers are very close to the foundation numbers it's you you you add in a few Charter students and choice students to get the Foundation numbers and it's a very tedious process um and students are Wy and that they tend to move around a little bit so you always have one or two students you're never going to be able to track down and figure out so best we can I'm just clarifying that the this chapter 71 is based on

036only Boon kids only Burling kids at these two three school yes yes not the school choice kids no does not include them so one of the things that's been asked of and I is about does does it does can we reduce the number of kids we don't see all kids taking the bus all the time and can we get smaller buses just sharing questions that have been brought to our attention so one of the things about being a Regional School District is you have to be able to provide transportation for all the students that's how we get that reimbursement so even though a Beth is not using it every single day and then also January 3rd her mother says I want her starting to take the bus yeah we have to and she lives within

037that distance away we have to make sure we're part of Transportation so it's not like we could do in some private schools right where I came from and Megan's not using the bus she says I'm not using so we're not going to stop at that stop anymore so I just want to clarify that for that Transportation piece we have to make sure that every student has a seat on our buses as a regional and I think the routes can't be longer than an hour right so if you have like if you're like oh just put them on that bus well if the routes go over like 61 minutes then you have to split that to two routes right correct we could be asked to do that Y and this is a question that Heidi and

038Mary had asked also behind the scenes and I I said I knew there was a reason but there was something to do with regional schools that we required to yes we are required um uh we get reimbursed for oh she missed it you go sorry no problem um we could pull up the chair I had a piece of work that I we're on camera I had to sure absolutely have a seat so we can catch you up after maybe sure okay so we're on page nine moving on to page n so page n has a quick explanation of uh Medicaid and interest um it appears that the again the regional agreement is silent to these items so um looking back at past practice these have always been applied to the Tanto assessment so by virtue

039it does get split according to the assessment to the Cs right so I think that's probably if something is is silent it might be the best thing to try to keep into Tanto right because that splits things like that so some of these things um and if you if you don't know what past practice was or what have you so minimum local contribution that's another Factor we take that out of things first this is where you really get into the formula allocations this is the foundation enrollment piece um this is um so there's description of it I'm not going to dwell at that on that the regional agreement allocates minimum local contribution in accordance with Foundation enrollment figures these are the ones that sort of take a lot to calculate um and figure out but

040it does use a five-year moving average which helps smooth some of those changes out variations um my assumption has been and it looks like that's the case um that the above minimum local contribution again the the the regional agreement is sort of Silent to this but the above minimum local contribution costs have been done at a five-year moving average as well so again that smooth is out Smooths out big changes um a it's very typical of most Regional agreements to have a fiveyear moving average of some sort and if you're going to do it with the mlc component there's almost no sense in not doing it for the rest right you're doing that whole that whole piece by a fiveyear moving average it Smooths things in the long run doesn't really change anything but it

041makes it a little easier when there's big adjustments um so in Prior prior versions I've shared these key drivers you'll see that in red I've put updating these are not updated figures but I've left them in just so you see that that we will be addressing these items and I will be updating these prior to when we we post this on Friday so then the next Slide the bottommost slide so this is the one that we looked at last time yeah you you've seen this in the the December version and the the the February version these are here will the numbers just need to be updated right these are still the major drivers they're pretty significant yeah but we'll need to just update those numbers as we said when we started this meeting this is

042still a working document right until Friday afternoon when we post this we're still making the decisions we need to make to make sure we're prepared yeah um the next gets into the specific um components of the operating assessment for burlin Memorial and then page 11 you have exactly the same two slides for boil sticks right so you've got um these haven't changed from the December um the the numbers have changed but the format hasn't changed the same format we're trying to stay consistent with that um but you will see the numbers have changed so those have have decreased significantly we will get to the percent increases and things like that in a few slides wait Aaron so your assessment calculations have the new budget numbers but your the drivers are the old okay got the

043the the the the slides that are being updated have the updating in Red so I haven't I'm in the process of updating them so I those aren't valid figures to but that bottom SL the bottom correen and Mary yeah those are the numbers we're voting on and by the way this is the first time that we're sharing this out with school committe right so this is the first that's why we're here with the budget sub for them to give us some feedback on that as well too yeah so by page 12 we get into to Hanto same format at the top what are our key drivers down below the tondo operating assessment is a little more complicated because you have both towns involved in that so you have you start with the budget you add

044the district share um you get the total budget you take out chapter 7071 and Charter um that's Charter reimbursement um as well as interest I should line that out I apologize um so that would be the total amount being assessed to the towns is at 11,286 688 and then the next slide of the top of page 13 breaks it out by town I apologize that green is a little challenging it's a little dark um but I try to highlight Berlin's components in green and oilon in yellow um just to kind of help people because this gets a little difficult to look at as we play so we get into those both of those minimum local contributions that then feed into the above minimum contribution amount that then is split by the Two Towns right so

045everyone's accountable for their own minimum Lo contribution share and then their share of the above minimum contribution in accordance with the regional agreement formula that I shared before that kind of make sense okay so Aaron this does not include any Capital the capital's coming okay we'll get the capital yep so but doesn't one of the towns use something from capital in their assessment was it Berlin I can't remember Mary uh Capital you just look at the definitions that are next to the numbers and then take it from there so okay uh we got instruction Berlin historically has always voted these things separately yes and so we got some guidance from desie that really you should just vote the entire number but in the budget presented to the town in the warrant you can List It

046Out separately which we do okay and our approval process for Capital and operating are are different you know there's a capital planning committee and this year is further complicated because we um we like you are struggling with some Financial records doing an audit and so we don't have our end of the year wrapup to give us the free cash number so we don't know and our guidelines say you spend about 30% of your your free cash you can that's a guideline towards capital projects and we don't know what those numbers are yet fair right that's a that's sort of that's to be yeah and so I feel you're I feel you're paying as you as you try to take you know take last year's numbers in there I'm glad you appreciate that well you know

047the the calendar isn't isn't helpful this year for either the district or the town of Berlin but we'll do the best we can with it okay so um the next slides get into the total operating assessments for each town and I think this gets into the first part of maybe some of what we were asking for the numbers broken down so um the very first is the burlin memorial assessment um the mlc component of Tanto and then the above mlc component getting to a total um operating assessment to Berlin based on this budget of 8,376 1875 that represents an increase of $575,500 increase um you know that we we understand that's a pretty still a pretty big increase that is down from more than 15% in our first round so we've been kind of continuing

048to pull that down and and again topic of conversation uh Boon Boon had some some things that sort of naturally helped the budget this year they they lost some um out of District placements um that actually went up many of them whom went up some of whom went up to Tonto so those costs ended up becoming share costs which then impacted Berlin a little bit and that happens vice versa right some years Berlin they have students go up to Tonto and then those get split um so oon Elementary a total assessment of 4,945 th000 you have the Tanto mlc the toono above minimum local contribution and then a total operating budget of that's not right so I apologize that's not that number isn't right because it's middle yeah yeah it's the same number I apologize

049like I said that's okay you can that would be just fine there's some fat fingers in here the increase is truly the 4957 46 I would call that so you could add for a 4.18% increase I can have that number before you leave if you need it again I apologize and hence the reason why this is what we're doing right bringing in front of budget sub right and looking at it and making sure we have all those final things before this is the point of this meeting that's right y yep so um then we start getting into debt and capital so uh one of the things um some of you may be aware of is the past two years there has been an error in the capitalist in the in the debt assessment um so

050the debt assessments that were provided to the towns were short by around $250,000 combined so that ended up being split uh the district ended up picking up those cost so that's about $500,000 of cost of the district inherently has ended up picking up excuse me in in the fiscal 24 numbers was there also a missing interest payment in those numbers so you two years running yes and is the 250 both years or one year that's one year one year so that's just the the 25 fiscal 25 from both towns yeah both towns right okay so this corrects for that so I understand you know people may may see an increase in that and wonder what that comes from um interestingly there is some some inherent variation because uh debt is allocated the same um for

051Tanto is allocated using the same Foundation formula which is a little different most districts I've seen and and been in uh when they have debt they lock the percentage at the time the debt was incurred so if you were 75% 25 it would remain 7525 for the life of that um payment um you know this it is what it is our numbers don't shift that drastically because of the 5year moving average but in terms of anticipating the next 20 years of that Bond right it might be a little more challenging for the towns if numbers do shift over time but it's important to have you both here right from both towns and both communities because when we put this out on Friday right so we're putting on our district website we're making sure we're pushing

052it and advertising so everyone's aware when people look at page 14 right and see that second slide about the debt they're going to ask those questions like what why why is that difference taking place there right so that you're knowing that story because we're not really all publicly giving that information out um but obviously we are now but it will be important for you guys to help tell that stories like this is the reason why believe we shared this at the last yeah we've been talking about it and then we we saw the two debt schedules which was helpful to see that too yeah um and I'm curious kind of this is a little side but it looks like the the one little bump in the amount may have to do with not making the

053with the interest payments missing from the previous couple years I don't know yeah so there's a there's one out there's like an outlier interest payment yes okay April payment I think okay it's that April payment that seems to have been missed y um and interesting from both communities right that where where that didn't catch this right and didn't say hey we didn't have but now that you have a schedule right and so I think we'll be a little yeah I get to the register a stop and shop and it seems they've missed something I don't always jump up and let them know so you know appreciate this this is big figure there though when you're looking at looking at both communities right we're making difficult decisions that Aaron and I and our principles are making

054right that's a that's a a big figure so correct appreciate that um so some of the feedback we received on the capital requests um is that that that towns would like to see a ranked Order of Things so these are in priority order if we look at the capital items um a couple things I know that for example you know Berlin is expressing that full Capital amount when they're talking about sort of increases we're not expecting to get this full amount but I I I think it's important for us to be clear when we talk about the needs of the school and we talk about say in the long-term unfunded capital and and this is I think this is something that hopefully the towns can Sharon as well when we go to the state for

055example or msba and we're talking about funds we should be tracking how much unfunded Capital there is right and then you know if we can't fund say replacing the roof and something happens right how we how we explain that is important right um what have you we've asked for this x number of times the towns wanted to do it but there's no funding available what what's a mechanism for this like how do we work together to maybe go to the state so I guess what we're hoping for is an opening of a conversation with um the towns around what they think they might be able to do um around say Berlin Boon uh Boon's got the roof going on so that's a really big one um that's one of the reasons you know their number

056might be a little smaller right now um you know to Hanto as well um you know I think when you go to Tanto um there were some questions about that Middle School Furniture number right um that is to replace all of the Middle School Furniture if the towns were to come back and say you know we can give you probably X dollar to help with a Furniture um the challenge is that Middle School Furniture is Elementary School sized and there are many middle school students who are my size um I've sat in those chairs and it is challenging um I've not had to sit them all day in multiple classes I've saddened them for 10 minutes maybe um and they're kind of fun for 10 minutes but all day would be a little grading um

057but we do have some students who aren't my size right so it's reasonable to say if we had the ability to even change out some of that for the students who are growing more right who are are in a place where they need bigger Furniture um you'll also notice we've we we tried to sharpen our pencil in a few items um there are a few items so student device replacement this was a much higher number we rolled in last year's number because it wasn't approved but we also then sat down and we went through uh our new director Joseph basado um IT director went through every single item and looked at what do we need to replace where is it in its life cycle um and we've come to a much lower number and and

058he has a full fiveyear plan but he's is working on right now that he'll be presenting to school about technology um changing over those Compu not only for students but also for faculty as well too so we're really a very well thought out plan he's got a real solid plan so can I wait I'm so sorry just um go ahead no l first please sorry uh we had talked a little bit about devices and whether or not they belonged in operating or Capital did you all resolve what you're thinking about that because it's sitting in capital now I think it is for the other schools I guess my question is that would increase so if we were to put that 100,000 in operations that would change our operating I get it but it's really a

059matter of the principle how do you how do you yes and and right so it's a great conversation that we'd want to have with Joe and with both communities sitting at the table right and figureing out how we're gonna where we're going to put that yeah it frees up things that are actually critical capital projects right so and makes you think about the operating because this is a recurring expense and each device is not you know I think it'll be important to see his complete fiveyear plan and how he's planning on rolling that out as well too um I I got to just go back to as well to though we're prioritizing these we use the example this one like this is like these are our homes right we got to take care of them

060so we're choosing that we got to do this but please know you're gonna if we don't fund five six seven and eight you'll see those next year still being on the list and that's the thing that we're going to be working on um there are things like Aaron has said that need to be done the elevated controls because we won't be able to open our schools if that's not working but my my priority as superintendent is cameras right we truly need exterior cameras on on our schools for not only the safety of our kids outside during the day but also we're starting to see some night activity taking place in our schools right that have been brought to my attention so we really need to have um and that's Joe's working on that working with

061a company to ensure that as well too so back to the operations if I can CL that um that would be my preference I mean that way we're not coming back every single year for very similar numbers because we're going to develop a five-year plan that that means every year we're going to spend roughly the same amount of money um but that's going to mean that the budget's gonna go up I can't cut a teacher in favor of adding devices to Tanto right so that's 100,000 is certainly the cost of a teacher so I we need a commitment from the towns to be able to do this in the past we had District I was in where we did this is we happened to have a bit of a windfall in the sense that we

062had a fairly significant out of District move out that saved us about equivalent money and we were able to sort of forklift that right in yeah um that's not the case right now sure so it's to me one town could decide to do that because you have your elementary schools and you're both accountable if you have a good year and you feel like that's something you could put in we could put into operations we can do that and then we can wait on the other town and we can wait on toono or vice versa um but I I just want to be mindful of like I don't know if any of us is comfortable cutting a math teacher to move those from Capital to operations I'm sorry does that does that sort of close the

063loop on that a little bit sure if there's a year where there's an opportunity to jump in and make the shift and it makes sense to and we'll I hope look for that kind of year and we'll keep talking about it every year because I think it's the thing to do you buy them every year right so that's that's my point and they're too small to be capitalized buy them every year they should be in the budget yeah yeah what you could start doing is maybe setting aside like a smaller amount in the operating budget each year so that you're setting up almost like a reserve fund for technology because we all know it's something that we're going to have forever and so in order to soften the blow to the taxpayers instead of just

064adding in another you know 200,000 or whatever in one year you start with like maybe 30,000 so I mean but I I don't know that this is the year to to and I still want to make sure that we have that understanding with the towns yeah that this is what we're mindfully doing yeah right so we're not just adding 30 we're not just adding 30,000 willy nilly were adding 30,000 and it would come out of capital right we so that 100,000 if it was toono would be 70,000 yeah each time we do that just to be clear about the computers right so one of the things you need to know is we have enough devices for every single student in our district we we just don't have a a plan right and that's what Joe's

065working on I think he started sharing that with you right like what are those older computers that were going off in what are the new computers that we want to bring on um that's what this that's yes that's the piece of it so um we want to make sure our students have the current devices not by the way that's not just computers when Joe's talking about his plan is also about some of the other technology that we want to have in our buildings as well too so there's another piece of that sure server switches yes understood y that kind of makes some sense it does I see Tod was not looking to put in cameras I assume that we ask have so that was something you funded I believe last year yes absolutely see some

066vigil on right outside and by the way what will happen with all these once we have them all they'll all be sinked so that either Cal office or in our phones we're going to be able to see that God forbid something was happening right emergency wise right last time we had an emergency in the district you know I I went over to that site right and and they don't want us at those sites they want us to be able to give direction and that will all be web based so we'll be able to see what's taking place if there was emergency but also just to keep track of what's taking place in as well too it's important y yep okay so getting through those the bottom of of page 16 you get into the debt

067assessment plus the capital you have your Elementary Capital items you have your Tanto Capital shares those are in accordance with the regional agreement uh that's similar to the foundation enrollment piece it's all broken out the same way um for total Capital assessments again I I I I want to just you know make sure it's really clear for everybody at home we're not expecting that Berlin is coming up with $2.1 million for Capital right the debt really needs to be paid but the 1.3 million dollar in Berlin Capital we we the plan is that that hopefully we can engage in a conversation about where um Berlin thinks it is we've met with the capital committee uh we did share our priorities with them and we've prioritized it here so that it's very clear to both towns

068sort of what what we really think are the the important things to get done the last piece and I I think M you might have missed it at the beginning is the the part that we're not that's part of this this presentation but we're in the middle of negotiations right so I just want to make sure everyone's clear about that right can't stress us or not that's what's keeping us up at night right and because that is a figure that's unknown to us right now so at least for the time being um you know sort of as the towns maybe sharpen their pencils look at the numbers here um you know our our hope is that this is what we can bring forward to school committee on March 11th um with the understanding that the

069towns may get back to us and we may need to have some conversations about what that looks like and we're with some expediency trying to resolve those matters and not make these decisions on the floor of town meeting but have votes maybe another vote in April needs be if that's where we need to be so does that seem fair to lower it we can't go higher any yeah we we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to go higher so we should right so the the vote on March 11 should be the highest so that yes know agree yeah so respectfully to to school committee first because this is a a budget sub um we we want to share this with you and then we'll certainly open it up Meg you know as as chair but is

070there something you you you you think that we need to add something that we're missing again this is not our first time doing this work but it's our first time doing it for berin Boston so we want to make sure if there's something that you need us to answer right we got a lot of feedback from a lot of people on school committee so we wanted to make sure we we put that all in there that's why it is you know we're not used to being this many slides right we're used to about 10 previously so we put a lot of information to give some people some information some history um some about whether it be school choice so we put that all in there so it can be memorialized um but is there something

071we're missing something you want more clarity on here's a chance for us to hear from school committee so that that then we're ready for to put this online on Friday so people can get their questions in preparation for Tuesday and then I'll defer it to the both towns of Berlin Wilson say what are we missing as well too to just dug tail what Al said um it is is our intent to add some information on the sorts of cuts we're proposing I know Al said we don't want to share specific positions at this moment just given that we're dealing with people and things like that but but the intent is to have those conversations um and make the proper preparations to do that so we're hesitant to do that right away but we certainly will

072have some information on the specific cuts the areas that those cuts areas not specific positions y so would we do that in executive session before we vote or are we just gonna I our plan is what we've done in the past is we'll give you a number it's just a general ballp like areas it's going to be in but not specific positions because it does have an impact right um people's contracts people sority right bumping all there's a lot of things that we need to take into account um so no I get that but I think uh before at least the school committee is voting it's hard to vote blindly on I know I'm voting on Cuts but I don't know which Cuts specifically and then to be responsible for that I'm just more looking

073at like y as we know you know know the school committee the shoulders or the responsibility well you guys decided to do this but we don't know specifically what we're cutting so I don't know if there's a way to maybe have that discussion in some type of executive session before we actually vote question yep have you done that in the past we've never had to make Cuts like this or at least on my time on the school committee so I don't know how um last year when there were proposed cuts um but we they were they listed the cuts out in public session sure sure yeah I agree I don't know necessarily think that was the right way to do it so it was almost like they were threatened Cuts because we weren't sure what

074was gonna happen um after please know like these these aren't the the moves we're making right are not just sort of high in the sky these are what we've got to get to this number right so this is what the work that we really had to do um and making sure that you know that there's there's some credibility with with each one of these cuts yeah art moves we made not necess C last year it was more like we're cutting all the art teachers so then all the art teachers are now looking for not the same situation and well it is it's just that we're not GNA announce what the cuts are so that's what I'm saying but those were more broad like swe he's made really targeted yeah I think it's most to have

075time to have conversations with people that's right um so it might be that shortly thereafter we could have a conversation about where those and if the school committee disagreed you can move money around freely that's that's School committee's prerogative so we could have some conversations about I will never do like those sweeping Cuts right I think that's sort of a probably inappropriate like a weak move when you say Arts are gone right all sports are gone everyone comes to your meetings and then we bring it back I want to be able to make sure these cuts that are decisions that we're making I'm Mindful and and very specific so that we could you know so they had specific positions on the board last year during the meeting yes the recess a in Berlin Memorial that

076was one of them you know I you know it was Elementary art there's one Elementary art teacher districtwide so it was it was pretty specific but it was like I know you know they had a Sit town and they spoke with the teachers and they got pink slips before town meeting so it was it was just publicized so I guess the question is this year do we do it an executive session because I think the school committee members were aware of what we were voting on or what would happen we didn't vote to make the cuts right we voted on the higher budget and then we were waiting to see what happened at town meeting so it was a different situation in that school committee was Voting no we we don't want to make any

077Cuts we're keeping this budget but if it doesn't pass the town meeting these are the positions that will be cut and it was literally listed out on a slide and put up so I agree with the way you want to do it this year I just think that before voting on a budget that has cuts we need to be aware of that that would be my only thing I think this is a good um a really I thought this was very uh comprehensive easy to understand um understanding yeah these Capital requests might be maybe not boil in elementary I can't imagine Berlin's going to come up with that much cash I think that's a pip stream um but without going to the capital meeting and hearing what they had the assessment I don't know if

078they need the if you need to compare the prior year assessment if that's something that you can get in a spreadsheet um we can work on that after the meeting and I don't know if Mary needs that as well for Berlin but I thought this was very well done I do have yes go ahead I do have one other component which we talked about last year and that is for our town we need the vocational um tuition and and um transportation for aset um do they come and present to you at all as no no we need yeah so they're not a partner in just to to maybe clarify um aset comes to us because we are a member town in the aset group okay and they cannot they don't have enough seats for the

079member town so they've completely stopped so Boon's not a member of town and you had to be part of the formation of aset to be a member town right so there are no seats at aset for anybody but member Town think you're just their and how much is it going to cost to B some there but just and if anyone graduates and if we have any one like going to agricultural school or any of those other tuitions that are not in your regular budget yeah but just for clarity there there are seats available possibly for students that are Bon even though they're not a member Community but it's not at the ninth grade so there might be an opening that they'll have in grade so I just want to be clear about that right so

080it's first member communities first and then others go in there um but they have more of a chance and I've had meetings right based on I think school committee's request and they'll they'll they might have an opening in 10th Grade it's harder for a kid to move maybe from Tanto there but there is an opportunity for so just for clar your best guess you know I understand that those things could happen and yeah that's G to get to do we have any requests so it should come through our superintendent first and there's I believe there's an April 1 deadline yeah for those um yeah I we'll have to check with we High School principal and the guidance Council well do do you have a sense of what the Boon population is right now at asit

081the the 10 11 12 I mean given our tuition this year was 223,000 it's rough Oh I thought I was going to say 20 per oh 20,000 22,000 per person exactly so 10 kids that's you don't have they don't give you a number when they come to present to you how many yeah um we have the number the number um last year was 37 out of Berlin this year coming up as 44 okay so I'm sure they would tell you how many of our kids yeah yeah we can reach out we just don't have that information but great question my reason for asking Al is that they don't have to just reach out to ASAT so permission that there may be another voke school that other kids have applied to that you're still going to

082hook for so we want to make sure we reach out to them as well so if Al has an application and has approved it which he has to do before April 1st um we need to know if I don't know what you mentioned potential a I don't know if as it as an A but which is which is the one that hasn't no it's nor Norfork we yeah nor you might have we the same thing with Smith vocation western Mass I is oh it was that was an expense I have not received any applications yeah um and I I do want to this is the time to tell you that as you know we hit our cap last year we are you know hands are tied um estimated new growth of 375,000 means you guys

083have 500,000 to work with for increases on everything total and does that not Capital though um I think it's Tanto Capital that's what I it's you guys you keep Tanto capital in the yeah operating assessment but not the debt I you know that I was trying to look through and figure that I it can't be the debt because the debt your piece of the debt Al the debt wasn't right last year your debt million so I'll tell you what yeah I'm not sure takes a um I'm sitting with it's Ken thank you um a little different approach on this and and we build up the town budget and we look at our revenues so one of the key things for Berlin this year is our new growth is estimated at2 200,000 000 and that's a

084push according to our assessor we are each year losing Revenue out of solom the Pond Mall so Berlin the the old Sears store and the movie theater are the only parts of the mall that are in Berlin so we have a we have an assessment tax assessment against the mall property overall and then against Sears and so on so Sears has been in bankruptcy for a while it's not been easy and every year we get an abatement filed and last couple years we've gone to Tax Court on it so I actually have the numbers so our Revenue in Berlin is dropping and I think it's really important for whoever's tuning into this to understand that it's it's an increasingly difficult position now Karen and Boon have done something very smart which is just say we

085put our numbers together this is what we can do right um if you look at fiscal 25 Boon had the same message 500,000 yeah yes it was yep last and and after all the dust settled into two Town meetings in Berlin Berlin ended up funding 832000 now here's the problem with that Berlin Berlin's population is three- fifths of Boon our student population is roughly a third and you know if you were and then when you take the the regional agreement for the district right that Regional agreement these numbers you can argue like you had the fiveyear running with the foundation amount okay there's another piece in that formula that says uh to run with the actual population in the three schools that is transportation reimbursement no it's it's I'll pull out for you it's not

086yeah' be inter so and then you take you average those you do another percentage right so so thumbnail thumbnail that thing with those numbers Berlin's contribution last year Boon anchoring at 500,000 Berlin should have come in at 250 300,000 and we came in at 832000 and we can't do that to our taxpayers again we got a you know Erin and I say this uh let me let me pull out You' got yeah I'd be interested so I've I think you missed some of the slides where I talked about I went into the regional agreement and I each component we calculate I pulled out the calculating process so there may be yeah here we go so does it talk [Music] um blah blah blah there is a an oper there's a a there is a a

087section on calculating the budget then there is an appendix one on the transportation no well the appendix one covers chapter 70 in in 71 and then the main body covers minimum local contribution with Section D um that's on withdrawal should we do this offline then you guys can or I I can I can thumbnail it the formula has four components um in fact I got it in an email right here because I sent it over to Christen Ruben and so the increase Boon increase was 832 is that what you said last yearin Berlin increased dollar figure last year for operating I just spoke with the Town Administrator was 800 and we had essentially no Capital last year very very very so it's pretty much all operating 832000 like a couple hundred thousand for capital for

088so you stopped shotting area of getting a number um just putting that out there let's because we don't we don't have a number I what I'm trying to tell you is we're looking at a 10% tax increase if we take the numbers out of the version two budget and that that's not feasible right so we have dropping Revenue we're not you know we're not getting new growth understood and it's it's simply not feasible now one of the issues we're having trouble here we go um here's the formula Regional agreement section D1 grade six 12 mhm you take the town total M and this is um this is to Tanto y yeah this too so they bring in the mass Foundation but then they average the actual numbers for tondo and this foundation and then you

089take that and then you look back three years on the town numbers thought it was a fiveyear moving average that's maybe the state the regional agreement said you look back three years plus last year yeah it's here but I'm not finding the regalement full we do that off yeah hold on I haven't seen that so I'd like to see in the and also it's 110 so I just want to be respectful of Megan to your to your point I would like to see that after to your point um what I I'm asking eron if you could do is take a look at the fiscal 25 budget numbers so you gave us with a lot of caveats a mid report yes and I and one of the parents that's very Eng enged took a look at

090it and for example we looked at districtwide expenses here's a total here 1.3 million in change yeah and then a portion of each of that was allocated to the three schools here's the deal just the budget column which even if you've had messy accounting and you know posting this year the budget numbers ought to be okay right so you take that total then you take the three allocations of the three schools they don't add up to the same number the three allocations do not add to this number and when I was working with this parent okay that parent that number in his calculations showed 23% of the district expenses going to toono with the remainder split between the two elementary schools and you and I spoke it's supposed to be 25 2550 yes it is

091not in the budget so what that means is that the budget drove an assessment y That's wrong for the three schools and the three and and the Two Towns and and so if you base your 26 numbers on that 25 budget you got you've got baked in errors so so I I I really can't I really can't speak to what was done in fiscal 25 um sure but one of the things to recognize is a the budget doesn't relate perfectly to assessments right there's there's Chapter 70 there's chapter you know all of the other pieces in accordance that get split out so Chapter 70 and chapter 71 are split differently in that equation by student counts that move right um understand that 23% I'm not sure where that comes from where that came from in

092fiscal 25 the the challenge that we talked about is that last year um which is why we're trying to be really proactive about it this year is that there were decisions made on the floor of the Berlin town meeting related to assessments correct am I correct in that that were never captured in an actual budget um so so so so there were agreements made that did not result in a voted budget by the school committee so then um when when desie became involved I I wasn't Alan and I weren't here we weren't aware that that had occurred we had a budget in the system that was the best we could work with I had five separate copies of the budget in different stages because five different hands had had been on the budget at different

093stages and they all had different formats but what was what was actually agreed to a town meeting through what was not a vote right so desie did not see that as a legal vote so whatever happened at that town meeting um they didn't recognize so when we revoted the budget we had school committee vote what was in the system because that's what we we were six months into the year almost right and we had to at least hold on we knew there were going to be some holes we knew the actual budget was much higher than what the what the assessments ended up being just by virtue of it but we had to have a budget for desie and we don't have another budget that is accurate more ACC accurate to those assessments so I

094mean I I unfortunately I unfortunately can't undo the decisions that were made on the town of floor meeting and undo the fact that a vote wasn't taken the goal here is we're having these conversations and I'm really saying that we as partners in this right need to commit to whatever school committee votes on the 11th great we can you know it may be higher than you want we're not going to get angry going to bang our shoes on the table but we're all going to come back to the table and we're going to say okay where do we need to be and we may have to have some conversations about how we get there um I'm happy to to sit down on the nitty-gritty how that's being done this year I would read through I've

095provided I don't know I I I if if I need to a little education on a component of the regional agreement I'm happy to take it because I thought I had it but maybe there's something I'm missing and everything he just said through his educ believe I think that was initiated from the town of Brin right that said we we want to take a look at this um so we met as a group um bran was obviously very involved with it and what he just said was memorialized and sent letters to the town of Berlin as well too right so here it all is here's what we need to do and here we need to go to make it to make it correct and we just recently and I'm not sure if Brin received their

096letter yet we met again with the dep of education and they they said to us this is the right way to move this is the path you should be going forward so that vote that school C took in December is the direction that was initiated from from Berlin to the Department of Education that that we brought it to their attention and did that so that's where we're at I it I've I've seen the correspondence on it two two points the town's voted that's what they're authorized to spend yeah full stop sure okay so it's a bit living in to expect the budget to be something more than what the towns voted and desie cannot argue with that I don't think I mean we can have that conversation so that's a real simple fact yeah okay

097and um and so we we get that we needed a number we needed a budget number budget Chang the assessment okay so Megan I have a question you know for the school committee in the district can you go back and vote that again on fiscal 25 number one and number two I take all of that as a given and I'm sorry that you're dealing with that but when I look at the plugged in budget numbers for fiscal 25 there are clear errors okay number one and number two when I look at what's expended at midy year I know that you gave the caveat that this particular report there's you know there's errors in it but if you look at what was expended at midy year I I I I find it hard to believe that

098we would impact teacher Staffing if you look at these numbers in fiscal 25 so my ask to you is to go back and in particular where we know the district agreements said allocate this way or at a minimum you can look at districtwide expenses and say why is it that the three amounts allocated to the school when you add them together that's a bigger number than this number huh all right so if you're using those fiscal 25 numbers if you're saying we need to apply I know we have increased Insurance costs I know we have increased Transportation costs yep but how do you allocate them and and it's a question I think I asked you eron at the end of the night back in December um is what does it cost to run the school

099right now and and and the reason I'm asking it I you know I say this all the time and it and it's actually really true I'm a huge fan of public schools I want us to have the money to do what we need to do but we cannot ask these small towns to do things unless it's Justified and and I'm sorry when I look at this this budget and I see those kinds of errors and I say well if you're driving I know Al you came in with the aspiration to to do zero budgeting yeah and and for lots of reasons I understand why we're doing what we're doing okay because because of not no the exercise I'm asking about is not a huge exercise is to at look at the first column on this

100report out of the financial system and maybe at the second column are we doing okay with booking our expenditures right can we actually look at that and see if we can get to a better place for the towns and Karen's told us where Boon is and I'm telling you where I'd like to see Berlin be based on our pupil population all the formulas if you boil them they yeah I was to say I missed that what you I'm not I'm not I'm not authorized to come in with the number but what I'm going to tell you Megan is we have two-thirds of the pupils and our and our population is three fifths of Boon so I think that if Boon's coming in at 500,000 I think Berlin ought to be between two and 300,000 okay

101increase over last year that's now I'm not speaking for fin I'm not speaking for the select board I'm not speaking for the Town administrat Administrator I'm I'm just telling you from my studying of the agreement and and and just the numbers you know we didn't Alon we didn't talk about pupil numbers at all in this budget presentation I think we need to look at it and look at the regional agreement because both Boon needs the fairness of following the agreement so does Berlin so so can we do that and I you know I apologize it's late in the in the process but so I I guess so again I I I can't speak to how how districtwide costs were allocated in 25 I I just I mean I I can the one of the problems

102is because they are Blended in to the school budgets so this is another reason why I feel like districtwide cost should be called out so if you go for example to the individual School slides slides 10 and 11 y you will see that the district share is very explicitly called out so the burlin Memorial operating assessment 26 BMS District share is 41855 if you then go to boil sorry sorry which one are we on there so I'm sorry the second slide so second slide second line so I want to see under your hand yes so you're there that's what I want to see I'm on 11 I'm sorry I'm sorry y 11's fine as well question you will see you will see that that page 10 and Page 11 are identical for that okay right

103so that is 2525 and then if you go to Tonto you will see that's slide 12 you will see the district share is gritty detail I can find line items where uh the Berlin piece and the Boon piece are there but I'm sorry the Berlin the Danto piece are there but the Boon piece is missing and I find the same thing so at some point someone made Cuts right and they didn't appreciate that this is a three-legged stool exactly right y the district office is a three-level stool they arbitrarily cut something so this further goes to some of those challenges yeah um you know there are also things so we are now a full region um it looks to me like there are certain costs related to being a region that were still allocated only

104to Danto right so they need to be allocated to all three members of all three legs of that stool right so I can't again I can't speak to how they did in fiscal 25 I can try to dig for that on top of other things I I I will if I I mean but I I'm going to do the best I can to give you a budget that's in line with the regional agreement and if there's something in the 26 budget that calls out something that I'm not addressing I'm happy to try to address that and we had the Auditors come in looking at previously and see what their findings are but here's where we're at and here's where we're moving forward for fiscal 26 so I think that point that Aaron just said is

105huge right if there's something we're missing for fiscal year 26 that's what we're controlling right in the 25 we're still trying to work it out we're still trying to figure that all out and using the the Auditors as well too we there some things that just don't match sure and and and my point is to the extent that that you're building the budget driven off fiscal 25 I think I don't know how you can do it when you see things like I saw and it's not the incumbrances which you pointed out you know mid year it was crazy but the actual budget numbers are really kind of out of whack and out of whack with respect to the the the three schools and how things are intended we are not just taking fiscal 25 numbers

106and carrying them over to 26 um we I always use that as a basine so we have all of our payroll figures I go through every single person every single person I have a spreadsheet that encap poates encapsulates every single person I look at prior years for you know it's hard for me to look at prior years for every little $500 item no but for example one of this the the pieces of savings we have this year is I want to say it's over $50,000 in oil at Tanto it appears to me that they had over budgeted for oil if I go back multiple years and I look at an average I see that so I have looked at every major item that might change year toe um significantly um you know I I have

107to assume that if there's $500 pencils to line item we might need 500 again it's hard for me to you know go through every single item but the items that that might change that might increase I follow Trends I look at that um another comment I've made is we looked at substitute use right substitute use and we talked about this in other meetings has shot up so that couldn't stay where it was I had to increase it to hono based on utilization you don't have a choice but to spend that I did me would Leisa so in this version of the budget we had taken it up to about $667,500 in version uh two at least um this version backs that down to about 50,000 Lisa sigara and I have met and she is going

108to try to manage that down using um it can be hard to do but using internal resources that might mean that an assistant principal substitutes in a classroom with the principal substitutes in the classroom where we try to use a pair of professional at a little bit lower cost it can be challenging but we're going to push to meet that we have we've established some stretch goals for ourselves for and put them into the budget so as you know we have 12 um uh agency par professionals districtwide um we've committed to eliminate all of those by next year so that's about 300 some thousand in savings we heard that we've heard that a couple times and yeah that's these are the unfortunate part is those were not budgeted into the fiscal 25 budget so those

109are all literally budgeted at half their cost so when we're looking at where we're going to end up this year Berlin does have the preponderance of those so the costs associated with that are going you will see drop into Berlin's cost profile right so it's Challenge and and we have we've eliminated those we're going to do every single thing we can we'll post um not only on school spring areir people St so all of that and the only other part and I want to be careful because I know this is a school PR meeting right and I know we're going way off I think we're getting a little off and7 so I'm going to give one more minute and then we're gonna kind of rain it all back in just just know I I I

110I think just gotta be careful the wording said I'm not really sure the wording you you but and certainly we're we're sitting with each department and going through line on by line on me every principal every Department looking exact exactly what so you need to know how careful and precise we're being with this stuff I I got full confidence and I want the transparency that we're doing right now has been really excellent seen anything for the only other part I'm I'm I'm asking for you and again I I appreciate this is a school Comm meeting and we went in front of fincom we went in front of your meetings and stuff like that so if you're looking for things like that what we're really trying to avoid is the gutes right so if there's something

111that you're looking for I know you're not I'm just I'm just saying that like we want to make sure that we're we're we're providing what you're looking for to the best that we can right now based on where we came into this situation so that's the point of us going to your town meetings you're going to your selectboard meetings going your fincom so if there's a level of detail that you're looking for something like that we we we would hope that you'd share them during that time right because we were just with you a couple weeks ago I think that we met with you was it two week three weeks ago yeah I didn't have the bandwidth to do the analysis on these numbers and then there is the caveat that Aon clearly gave that

112there's some errors in here but I was trying to look at the columns that I thought wouldn't have been affected as much and those would be the the budget numbers and the expended numbers and they're telling an interesting story that that that for example classroom teachers budgeted for Berlin L Mo 1.6 million and some and expended at Mid year was 620,000 so uh shouldn't it be closer to 50% of that 1.6 million but it isn't and I don't their salar technically start September 1st so it's not quite mid so you think it's three months and it's three months well that's helpful because right but I didn't I wasn't able to do this analysis until until a couple weeks ago okay sorry one we have through salar it's really not our right I want to make

113and you're really getting into detail detail detail tell you how much money and I want and I want to just go back to what you're saying and I some people might not appreciate this but our our budget's to the school committee right and we're like the Vatican right we're telling you this is the money we need to run our buildings right it's that's the analogy we use as Regional School school superintendent and and then you give us the money we need and then we we we need to do the best way we can we're telling you this is what we need to run the school successfully and we've shoping up from version one version two to where we are now but know that every one of these decisions that we're making is going to impact

114the schools somewhere along the way impact them on the classrooms we have as well so just know that but we're we're doing the very best we can with the information we have for this year and trying to be my the infamous word transparent can be to giving this information but honestly sometimes when you give all that information then people are down here looking at like okay this one point that's right and that's that's that's our world to try to figure that out as best as you can so yeah at a at a high level I'm really a lot of my questions have to do with the regional agreement are we really focus on applying it because the the costs that go out to the two elementary schools are a little easier thing to look at

115but I I I think we all know there's errors in the Baseline and if we're looking at a change from Baseline yeah we got to fix those we got yeah there's there's I'm sorry but how do you take it how do you take it to the voters huh you can't we we'll fix something we'll work on that yeah okay so I think this was helpful because we found out we have about 500,000 to play with in Boon looking at page 14 the operating assessment we at 495 746 now that doesn't include like we talked about Karen I believe the Tanto Aaron You're Gonna Want make note of this because I don't know if you knew this but Tahanto capital I don't think it's the debt I think you guys have something separate for the debt

116but double check on that and let us know I think it's just because the debts like a million dollars right the Tanto capital I think goes into the operating assessment in Boon so that 500,000 that she said that she it has to include the Tanto Capital the Boon Elementary it's whatever there it's like what Mary said they have the X amount of free cash to spend and x amount goes to the school and Vocational and vo they need the vocational y we'll get that for Berlin this was actually very helpful Mary you said between 200 to 300, no don't don't go to the bank on that money I'm just reacting to Karen's comment that is not an official Berlin number don't even go there I get it reasonable comparison yep I get it but we're

117at 575 right now so what you're telling me is that is probably a bit too high uh sure when we do the calculations we're looking at a 1.2 million increase that's where we that's where we sat last week when Scott Schultz didc numbers before we really Bank on P so this assessment number is accurate because that's pretty uh where we at this is page 13 so when you're looking at the change it's the budget that he was saying is what you're at Mary before that sheet you had that's the budget and I agree with you it's not correct but the assessment number you guys are paying that that's accurate I don't think ours is accurate well we can look at it and tie it out um like capital and all that absolutely you would to

118look at yeah are you if you're on page 13 we're only looking at 26 numbers not 25 if you look at the fy2 column there's nothing in it 7,887 that number that's your total assessment Aaron is saying that's what you guys pay are paying us this year does that match what's on your warrant the 7.8 million so you guys would have to look and tie that out and so that right there this calculation on this bottom of the page I get it has doesn't have any detail we're just talking high level yes just saying so when we're going into this boote we know are we in alignment are we way off are we a little off it s this is I'm guessing relatively close to Accurate 575 439 that's the increase where we're standing Berlin

119just operating that doesn't include any of the capital Tanto capital I don't know if you guys include Tanto capital in the assessment like filon does so so if I can also share the reason those are blacked out again feeds into that vote taken on the town the the floor of town meeting I don't know because that didn't change in accordance with a voted budget I don't know where that money came out of right so did it come out of the BMS assessment did it come out of obviously the mlc would have stayed the same but did it come out of the Tanto money there's no there's no record of where that came in and out of um well we should be a figure it out with ours might be able to there is in what

120you can back into it there is in what the town was voting for but the allocation debt and capital didn't change the operating costs on the June 17 vote the school committee take a vote on yes on Berlin Memorial and that number is not the number that the district is working with today well they they took a vote like an official vote a legal vote there was a posted school committee meeting on the 17th prior to the town meeting same adjustments were made on the floor of town meeting adjustments were made by the school committee vote ahead of going into the floor of the town meeting okay so the so the school committee and the finance committee and the select board met at 6 o' and then we went into town meeting I don't know

121it was an hour hour and a half later the amendment made by the chair of the fincom was not the number that the school committee voted on it was an error it was an innocent error he did not mean to his intent was to have the same number as the school committee but because everybody was working so quickly that number was not the correct number and that's where this whole situation and we had to provide all that information to the power education checked all that stuff so my challenge is is why can't the school committee stay with what the town voted to that that's what we did his number was lower though than what we agreed on so it this error was in our favor not yours so we did stick with that number because

122that was what Christen had said that we wanted yeah yeah my do you remember that uh it was it was a split of the U difference between the ask and the just just be careful right we want to be careful like the way that it was voted like Megan just said was exactly the way it took place it was too rushed it was an innocent mistake that was the number that was motioned did not tie out to what the school committee voted on they were two different numbers and it was no one's fault it was due to rushed error and then what happened was when they were trying to do the assessment letter to send it back to the town they didn't they they W you know the person that was in Aaron's job was

123reviewing the video and then reviewed the school committee minutes and it was two different numbers and that's where he was like what do we use and then they worked with Kristen and Kristen I think was involved in that every think was all memorialized in that letter that and so then that's why we had to get desie involved and that was that was one of the things so anyways all right so I think this is helpful though at least from what I'm hearing from you is that if this is accurate I understand your concerns about accuracy yep so we need to go back and tie this out and you know Aaron and I are going to have a little bit of a working session this week to kind of go but then then we still have

124a little bit of cut to make here yeah that that's what I'm here I'm just trying to I want some feedback so that we're not going into this meeting blind because we're really trying to be in alignment do you know what guys want I do but I know she's not in a position I I think she doesn't want to be backed into no I'm not I'm I'm not I'm not trying to say Mary give me a number but but I think in general a 7.4% increase is probably higher than in your yeah yeah we recogniz that they've said that since the beginning so if we vote this then it'll be with the intent to perhaps clean a few things up down the road well these are they're hard realities so yeah no I get it

125um um and there are a number of errors and erroneous assumptions from before I'm going to repeat what is clear is what the town's voted for so we got to see if the milon ties out the dollar amount the town's voted for is very clear and um and that's what you're paying us well I I assume so but I have to go back and check that the total assessment number I forget what I've heard on that but but um that should be what they're paying is the number somehow I have an erroneous number I'll change that if you have the BMS assessment numbers and the Tanto above mlc numbers I'll fill in those blanks they just need to add up to the the money right and then the disconnect as we have our conversations between

126town in the district has to do with some of that and right that's that's what do you mean by that say that again um well well there's two things there's also assess assessment percentages and there's operating there's actual budget percent and those are different but they're depending on the the words you use the definitions the financial definitions you're going to get different numbers um but my understanding is the the school committee vote in December on that number that was higher than what the Two Towns had voted for with respect to that's correct yes the budget not the assessment yes how to change the assessments uh what what the towns had voted to to um so the towns the assessments not the budget right right so those are two separate things okay okay but you keep

127saying vote of the budget the towns right my apology yeah it's a town budget the assessment is within the bud respect that's a huge piece to so people aren confused by that so so just we got to be careful on the semantics of that because that's important so the the school committee did not change what the town voted on the school committee changed how the school can spend that money if that's a more clear way to understand it we didn't change what you're giving us we don't have that Authority what we changed is how Aaron spends it that's what we voted on Aaron you have the authority to spend it this way we can't change what you guys are giving us so I think that's a clear way to understand school committee needed to vote

128Department of Education made it clear to to town of B School Comm need to vote on that number so that this way then it was it matched and that we could start somewhere and that's what school he needed a starting point right so he asked us respectfully to vote on these numbers this is what he was going to use as a starting point the assessment again I'm going to reiterate this and Aaron can go back and double check I know he doesn't want to rubber stamp his numbers just yet those numbers on that page the ones that we looked at those should be relatively accurate because I'm assuming he's taking that from the assessment letter which is what's actually getting paid to us every other month we get a payment from both towns every month

129or every other month um and he's he can easily reconcile that by taking that and multiplying it times six or 12 or whatever so you can go back and do that yes very easily and say okay at least the total I agree there's issues between what goes to what school but at least we have the total start one from and we can say all right this might be too high this is where we want to be or this or we have a little bit more wiggle room so I I feel like this was relatively productive because I feel like at least we have some type of guidance we may you know have a little bit of work to do totally I think we can all agree on that um so I want to thank you

130guys both for taking time out of your day to coming um to coming and and contributing to this um I hate to cut everyone off but in the interest of time I know Al has other meetings we all have other meetings I have to go back to work and you probably have to go back to work so um I'm gonna say um did you guys have anything to add okay all right so um like please no okay so um but this was a purpose please don't sing no no this was this was the purpose of the me to hear from scoop in in the community although we didn't have public comment written on there like this was important to hear from everybody so we know we're prepared for for Friday's and to know where we

131stand which is something like you know it was just to know where we stand so that this is good um all right so could I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting excellent okay Lisa I you just second second okay all right all in favor I'm and I as well all right moot a thank you everybody thanks everybody can I just have your email