School Committee meeting 5/7/24

001[Music] okay rolling everyone's here good evening I would like to call this meeting of the Berlin Boon Regional school committee to order just a reminder that this meeting is being recorded your image and or voice may be broadcast let us please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the United States of America the stands indivis okay so we're gonna do our best tonight we've got a jam packed agenda we had not planned on having a robust budget discussion tonight um but I want to honor it looks like there's a lot of folks here I want to make sure I honor everyone that took the time to come tonight to speak so what we're going to do now is we're going to roll into public comment um we're going to let everyone that

002wants a chance to speak speak all right um and then what we were supposed to do do we have uh the Consultants yeah Paul here I'm gonna do my best to get you Paul is here and then Andy is on his traffic okay perfect so you know what we'll do so w don't since I think most of you are here to talk about the budget right is that why okay so what we'll do is we're going to do start with public comment Hillary right Hillary you're Hillary all right Hillary okay Hillary is here for something else so Hillary why don't you go first okay introduce yourself and let everyone know why you're here and then we'll roll into public comment I'm guessing most of this is about budget and then what the committee will do

003is we'll jump into a quick a brief budget discussion and then we have to get into our business um that we have um that we have on our agenda we do have the budget discussion on the agenda I had it on here as budget discussion if Berlin does not approve the school committee budget so we'll we'll jump into that first debrief from last night and then we'll move on to the other things just so I know everyone's trying to get back to Berlin for the rest of your town meeting okay all right so Hillary why don't you take it take got three minutes okay all right um so you can stand up if you want and introduce yourself okay I've just never been for before it's okay you're fine fine and introduce yourself so everyone

004knows who you are because I did not share your email with everybody okay okay hi I'm Hillary I live in Berlin um I have a third grader at BMS and do I need to say anything else about myself nope that's it okay um sorry I've never been to one of these before okay I know there was going to be so many people here this is all about the budget yeah I know yeah um so I actually had this like statement prepared about I I came tonight to advocate for Performing Art arts in the school district and I I prepared the statement like a few days ago um and I I'm not going to read it all because I think that some of I'm you know I was planning on advocating for like theater and music

005and things like that at um Berlin Memorial and um just the elementary schools in general and then advocating for some things that the music teachers have um expressed that they need just to a little background um at the beginning of this year I formed a committee where um through link and there's about eight of us on the committee and we um the Performing Arts committee and we've done actually a lot of work this year um to Advocate and enhance and promote the Performing Arts at BMS and um was one of the reasons why we have a a play happening this Friday at at BMS in the morning so it's really cute you can you should come um um so anyway I I think that some of what I was going to say is probably like

006not super relevant well it it hopefully will be relevant but maybe not right now so um but so I'm just not going to say all that that's okay you can email it to me and then what happens when you send an email it goes to the committee and it'll be public record we'll give it to our um our secretary and she keeps it it's public record okay so I will email that to you can can I come up there please okay um I just I made this packet and I have seven copies I didn't know how many I didn't really the committee there's six committee members in Carol so I'll do I'll just pass out the packet that I made with just it's just some information that like the music teachers have shared with us

007about their needs I'll just pass it out and then you guys can just look at it when you have a chance thank you so who are are you okay Julie Jessica Jessica oh Jessica hi oh we were on zo yeah we okay talk zo hi thank you so much for and Carol yeah myself and Lisa and then Lai and Mike thank you than you so much I'm sorry I know the timing on this is not thought about that this morning it's okay it's okay this is great it's great know unless somebody else no no that's okay no I think hi okay um I think I'm a Hillary I really appreciate this um and the time that you guys have spent working on this obviously I think this is very important so thank you very much

008thank you thank you very much for okay all right so we're going to roll into public comment if you would like to speak can you raise your hand just so I know who is planning on speaking and who's just reserving so we've got two over here oh no one else is planning speak okay all right that's great all right so who wants to go first Kyle let's do it thank you H Kyle Burns I'm the president of Link at the parent teacher organization at BMS anybody at town meeting last night was my voice a few times um so and I have done my level best to uh help link to help our community understand what's going on with our budgets uh and we came within 10 votes of actually passing it and we beat an

009effort to put it to ballot so I feel like there was a fair amount of win from last night um and there's a fair amount of learning and that's why I wanted to really come and articulate how the community is showing up today to me uh specifically and through messaging through link um and so the first and foremost I'm here as link to set to learn what the process from here going forward is so that we can rally the families to be in support of the budget that said our families have been very clear that last night's 10 votes could have been earned if there had been a lot more transparency in the budget that the school committee presents our We Trust our town to utilize our tax dollars appropriately and to that extent they

010give us a line item budget to see how they are using our tax dollars it is not unreasonable for our communities to receive line item budgets from the school committee so that when they say what the heck is this for you can very obviously Point Line to Line what it is for and the argument ceases so my request that I am echoing on behalf of many people who have reached out to me today is that the school committee approaches this next portion of coming up to this new town meeting with Clarity and the ability to provide a very transparent budget so that we all can easily defend the needs you have to serve our children and our community thanks thank you Kyle okay um so I'm going to talk about the budget in a little

011bit and give some clarity it's hard for me because a lot of stuff was said at I don't know the 20 meetings we've had this year at the subcommittee meetings I get it if I was not on this committee I would not be listening to all of it or watching all of it um a lot of the questions asked last night were addressed and if somebody had come to the budget Forum on March 19th and asked questions it would have been addressed you're not wrong so we're going to talk about that in a little bit but let's have the next public comment or the last public comment right um Jason pette I have a seventh grader here at Tano and a fourth grader at BMS um relatively new to the community we haven't even gone

012through one full Academic Year we moved in in the middle of last year this was our first town meeting so it was a little eye opening um the I had a prepared statement and I had asked if I could take five minutes now I had not coordinated with Kyle and I feel like I'm going to regurgitate a lot of what she said but um May I read or would whatever you're comfortable with yeah whatever you're comfortable with um I have a to wander if I don't have it written so I'm going to try to stay right on point so um regarding the contentious Berlin town meeting on Monday and the town's rejection of the school committee's uh requested budget I wanted to offer feedback about the discussion leading up to the failed vote um even

013as someone who voted for the budget um I was missing important information about justifying the budget um if we take example from the the Berlin Capital Improvement plan and the nin finance committee budget motion that were voted on before we got to Berlin at Toano data regarding the items in the budget and year-over-year changes were readily available in the warrant hand out uh when there was a discussion on a Point Town committee members mostly answered questions with specific information uh several of these budget items included um 6 to 8% upward changes despite a goal to keep the changes to 2% in other words the same challenges we've been hearing about in this body yet they all passed because the supporting justification was readily available and questions about details were generally answered so they earned the

014trust of the voting members similar information about the school budgets was not readily available to the Town members the explanations that leaned heavily on Draconian Cuts felt disingenuously scared of tactics I suggest more proactive distribution of summaries and commentary on the most Salient points of the overall budget it could have been a handout at the table when we entered it could have been mail out to town members in advance of the meeting not just the parents of school children in this District or at the very least a slide put up on the screen during discussion as for pointing to the website for meeting minutes from March I had a hard time finding them when I was actively seeking them out when I finally found the budget PowerPoint deck it was still confusing to read through

015without the context of the discussion and presentation the deck accompanied and it lacks breakdowns for what is behind those numbers most towns people without kids in the school system would have little reason to go look for this and it feels like that is the demographic that mostly voted against the budget even those that found the deck asked questions about large line items for instruction and other services they didn't get a clear answer additional evidence of the lack of transparency and diligence that eroded trust was apparent when asking for over 500,000 Capital expenses without supporting evidence of quot quot and plans only to find out that once quotes were received the budget request could have been a third lower this calls into question whether diligence was applied to finding reductions and savings elsewhere in the budget

016before resorting to cutting all alerts and Athletics I suggest putting more emphasis on highlighting what components of the budget cannot be changed and the reason why some information was mentioned very briefly and almost like an afterthought instead of being emphasized and clarified as the drivers of the budget I heard things like 3% increase mandated for teachers there was 4% for a different group of people and and this is to a point that salaries are the largest portion of the budget and those people and their families are experiencing the same inflation we are and their contractually mandated raises are already in excess of the 2 and a half% there was sort of an ambiguous reference to required spending that we can't cut but not a lot of clarity on what that was there's some other reference

017to some other nebulous State requirements and no information about what that meant there was a passing comment about dollar per student compared to other districts which I think is a fantastic data point to emphasize that we're already achieving great results with lower spend than other districts numbers of teachers versus Paris versus administrators versus others there was a slide in the deck listing over 600,000 in reductions that didn't get talked about the budget with versus without the new special ed program that is supposedly generating savings these evidential points should be summarized and articulated cohesively in a table to support the budget that is being requested not brought up reactively or defensively in passing discussion out of the 4 and a half million for BMS and the three and a half million for Toano what is the

018breakout of the numbers and the reason for the upward change Beyond Two and A half% what dollar amount makes up the non-negotiable and why is it non-negotiable versus discretionary Like Music Arts and Athletics remember that your audience isn't as entrenched in the detail as you all are we need clarification on details that you may take for granted given your regular exposure to them instead of only talking about the cuts show the simplified picture of what Baseline minimum is required what reductions have already been made what savings have already been achieved what is discretionary and therefore what any budget shortfall has to be taken from having the supporting evidence more readily available and answering questions more directly will instill confidence in the voting members remember that you're selling this budget to the Town members so make

019it easy for them to understand it on a final note regardless of what is or isn't legally required healing the dysfunctional relationship with the finance committee would certainly Grease the wheels with the Town members if the budget already agreed upon uh was recommended by the finance committee coming into the town meeting thank you all right thank you very much okay did anyone have that was it for public comment okay did anyone have any Communications want to share did you well it it was basically I just had a lot of conversations with people the community all day today but they were pretty much saying the same things that you guys already spoke about so yeah I probably don't need to repeat it yeah okay all right um is there a motion to approve the consent agenda

020so second L and Julie all in favor I any opposed all right that motion passes all right so I think um what we're going to do because it seems like a lot of people I'm guessing are here to are here to hear about what's going to happen with the budget I'm going to say a few things we'll push Emerson is not here so we'll push that to the end Lisa and then we're going to go into the budget discussion we have an executive session that's going to start at 6:45 at the latest um so we're going to stay on a on a schedule tonight and if there's anything that we don't get to we are going to have our um as needed meeting which I believe is May 28th we' originally scheduled it for Zoom

021if it's if if we need it for more time to actually discuss we had it on a zoom because we need to vote on two scholarships sh in Berlin um if we need to actually discuss anything it will end up being an in-person meeting um so if there's any overflow from tonight that's what we'll end up doing will be May 28th All right so a few things I wanted to say about the budget um I have some observations as well and I spent last night doing a lot of observing and and not speaking um it certainly was eye opening um so first off the process of the budget we start working on it probably um sometime in the fall and what happens is the principes and the administrators come in and they give a list

022of things they need extras right um we take that to the towns and we had a pretty robust list this fall this winter right we had a pretty robust list um we take that to the towns and they yay or nay it right they're like oh there's no way we can do this or you know so we start having informal conversations uh Julie and I actually went with Carol and Nancy on December 8th and we met with um the Berlin fincom uh Julie and I make up the budget subcommittee we meet every month um the meeting is an open meeting it's open to the public the agenda is published the minutes are published and the meetings are recorded so um if you want information about the details of the budget we discuss it at nauseum

023where we meet for about two hours every month some months twice a month uh those are all on our website um so we started back then we met I think the list included multiple heads at Tanto we had an SRO in there um I don't know if John had anything in Berlin I think the roof we had talked about solar panels and um and most of what we asked for both towns said we just can't do it this year we just can't do it so in we took it back to the table and and in Berlin Memorial we ended up taking everything out we added nothing new for Berlin memorial for Tanto we ended up deciding to add a finance teacher which is going to end up being a state mandate I don't think we

024added anything else right as far as heads goes just the ad moving yeah so we added one head at toono at Boon Elementary we ended up adding a teacher which was needed so this is all done through talks through December and January um on February 27th we had a draft of the budget that was presented to the school committee everyone in the community is invited to come invited to speak did anyone show up to that meeting guys I think we had two people was that one we had no one I can't remember um we open it up for questions it's in Mrs Costello's email the towns have it on their website it's blasted out to all of the boards the fincom the board of Selectmen so everyone is aware of it or at least to

025the best of our ability um I didn't get any questions so again we have budget subcommittee meetings we go to finance committee meetings we try to meet in the middle somewhere all of this was done and we presented our final Budget on March 19th at something called a public forum which is pretty much like a town meeting so any of you guys could have come and spoke and asked questions all the details were explained I think we met for two hours that night we literally just dug into the budget our Director of Finance presented it she explained everything we did have a line by line something that we cannot put out there because it includes salaries and very detailed information where you could pinpoint things that we you know might not want all that detail

026out there um so we did that on March 19 uh again I think we had two members of the public show up at that meeting um the budget passed at that meeting we had a lot of good discussion it passed with adding the things I discussed before the next next step after that is the budget goes to town meeting and at that point town meeting is not really a forum to discuss or change or explain the school committee budget it's a forum where the town should have knowledge of the budget and they either approve it or they deny it and it's based on you know maybe some information that might be explained at town meeting is the effect on taxes that would come from the town um so this is the process where are we

027now now the budget has failed in Berlin the budget has passed in Boon Boon funded the budget Boon is putting a roof on the elementary school and adding a teacher so Boon the budget passed Berlin the budget did not pass right now what happens in a Regional School District the budget comes back to the school committee we decide if we want to change it or if we want to create a new budget we vote on that budget again and then the town has 40 5 days to hold another town meeting where the budget is voted again that time in between when the school committee is voting and the town meeting that's the time for people to hopefully do their research review the budget watch the recordings because I understand it's really hard to get here

028I have two little kids too and a husband that's on the road all the time so I'm always scrambling for child care um I get it it's really hard so but that's a time where you should be looking the budget figuring out if there's any questions and asking those questions because going into that level of detail on Town floor is just not possible and I don't believe we've ever done that and as far as the warrant goes this is something that the town prints so they take the assessment as certified by the treasurer of the school district and they print this we have no say what goes in the budget what goes in the warrant and what does not as a matter of fact we have asked ful multiple times to just put the school

029committee budget in the warrant and and been told no by Berlin this year uh Boon had it in the way that um we had asked this year so that is where we are now I I love I welcome questions and feedback I think it's great um hold on Jackie um guys did I miss anything in there in that process can yes please I agree with you 100% but at this point going forward it's clear there's a disconnect absolutely I don't know where it is but whether we vote if we vote on budget tonight we do it a couple days from now whenever it is 45 47 days from now whenever that next vote takes place tell we we have to get someone to put this information together it has to like a simple one page

030y I agree data infographic whatever something it yeah I mean I didn't see their line item in there either but we we have to see I don't know why it was done that way but there's clearly a disconnect between what is working with the town and what actually happened I don't know where it was missed where it was dropped but yeah I think there's a lot of little things I don't know I don't know but yeah no I think it was a lot of little things the ball was dropped on the communication I don't know what last year was brought up for but the next three four weeks is going to have to be I mean it's simple there there's nothing new in there it's just it's what it costs tomorrow to pay for what

031we have today it's just inflation it's just what it is but we we just need to be better explain that yeah yeah Lor oh sorry I just had a suggestion um I was thinking and Jessica had a suggestion before and I I think it's good one um I'm wondering if I should go I I know um I can go to Vio and post our subcommittee meetings on our school committee page and then maybe we could share especially the budget ones yeah I going to watch sub committee I agree but I what it is we have it out there it's just another way for other people that might be able to see so it's just a little more transparent based on no I know but I'm just saying if you want to put it on I

032thought it was already on the Vimeo people get all their information from Facebook Square yes so I just feel like that it's another thing I'm not saying it's the answer I'm just suggesting from now on I'll put our subcommittee links there and that way people will say I can go and find it someone did comment that it was hard to find things on our website so if I can try to put things there that might be really helpful yeah the budget is right for anyone that's looking for the budget it's a PowerPoint presentation and it is right on the homepage I think of this District move it perhaps like or post the the power and then also like just not the whole meeting that was in but to cut it I think Britney said she

033could do that she just the portion on the budet gave her you know the beginning in the end time Mark or time stance yeah okay I think mik I think we can do what's being asked we can do that on our budget sub commmittee meeting um because the problem with this I know it because I've taken the time to know it because I was forced to take time to know it yeah um but for the general public these numbers I mean the 26931 and all of that um right this goes back to communication we want to be effectively communicating and I don't think the packet does that your CPA you get you can pick it up and move through you get it but for General people like myself included I did not get it until

034I got it yeah but on Town floor when we need to and and I would actually argue that point about these line items being readily available and I warrant I don't think they are at all and I've done the warrant with the town for over a decade um however I think we can do have what does that $500,000 represent what does that $255,000 for Tanto represent if we do not pass that 750 what's a list and then it will be more than that because in dant's portion of the 65% and see this is where all the towns people you don't understand it unless you've been a part of it so we can give we can do that we can do that I can take that on I can that Narrative of that so the only

035thing is um and again just to point the school committee does not have access to the general ledger uh that would be a segregation of Duties issue because we actually sign the warrants right so um we cannot go in we can ask the district to provide us with a detail to the budget yeah and we can use that and hopefully come up with something um but the school committee does not prepare the budget the district prepares the budget the school committee approves the budget the school committee does not have access to prepare the budget or to even know what should go in the budget that comes from the principles and then the Director of Finance who has general ledger access right so we don't have that type of access that I I think what we

036can do because we have the knowledge we can say oh we know what this makes up like what Julie tried to do on Town floor last night when somebody asked they were like what is this increase and she said okay there's a special ed Transportation increase and there was a um an increase in we hired four pair of Professionals for the bridges program and that's what this is so what we can do is we can document those increases in a summary but none of us are qualified or um should be certifying what is included in the general ledger or or how that stuff is broken down we're just essentially proving it we're not preparing it yeah so we can take what we have and try to summarize it um yeah and definitely I agree I

037think that something needs to go out I we we are not going to do a mailing we do not have the money to send a mailing it can go out in the newsletter it can go out schools and it can go to the towns we also do not have access to email everyone in the town is that correct Carol yeah I could send it to the towns we can ask the towns to send it out to the public but we cannot ourselves blast out an email to the towns so I think that's a great point that we can do you know for the Budget moving forward and I hope that we have a email copy of Jason's comments because he had some really excellent suggestions for yeah were you going to email me that yeah

038okay yeah um and all of those questions again should go to the Director of Finance because we unless we ask and we had for when we voted on the budget we had that spreadsheet right guys remember we had the spreadsheets with the detail that's not something we prepare or um we input into the system that's just something that we receive as a report ourselves and then we kind of have to figure it out um for those that don't know we are in between director of finances so we are working to hire a new one uh that's on the agenda tonight um all right so yes I just am I allowed to speak during yeah I mean not really but if you have I just I wanted to sort of reinforce the idea that we're not

039necessarily asking for detailed line items everyone's salary like if we take inspiration from the public safety lines on the warrant there's a top line for Police salary we're not getting individuals we're just getting total top line we absolutely have that spreadsheet and we debated about posting that and we did not post that so because it Sal and these are the things were not all it was 3% rate here's the Paris salaries and here's the thing we were not allowed to cut because 4% rat yeah we had that detail it was a very messy report we opted not to put that on the website because Nicole had asked yeah so we did have that detail it was messy all right Jackie my question was just about the process that you were saying going forward yeah um

040let's talk about that a little bit more did you want just does Boyston have to re I am still unclear on that I have put in a question to council and they are not sure because Boon passed their budget so I don't know that Boyston has to have another town meeting Berlin if the committee does not accept the town of burl so last night what was voted was the town of Berlin's fincom budget if the committee decides to accept that budget they do not need to have another town meeting um if the committee decides not to accept that budget and we vote on a different budget then Berlin must have another town meeting to approve whatever budget but if you change the budget Boon have to vote because if we change Boon's budget so like

041if we change Tonda or B Boon Elementary if we do not change anything for Boon I do not believe Boon has to vote our council is out of pocket today um so that question is in and as soon as we have the answer we'll let you know all right last question and then we're going to discuss the budget yeah just curious March 19th that's when you voted for the proposal don't debates end for all budgets like March 22nd it 45 days before town meeting so the school committee must vote 45 days before town meeting that's the law when does it actually close for debate with like incom or the select board or I think it's how long can they debate with you about it oh so they technically cannot the fin con technically really has

042no say in how the school committee sets the budget we try to negotiate that I up until the final vote and once the school committee votes then that budget is unchangeable unless we have another vote and we cannot have another vote um less than 45 days before town meeting the the vote has to be final 45 days within town meeting so this year town meeting was what was yesterday May 6th so it would have had been final um the last week of March so I think we had like a week to spare uh we voted on March 19th we tried to do our best to um that's why we present it in February as well so if there's questions or comments or changes we had that huge chunk of time in doing there's also laws

043like it had to be in the newspaper for seven days before we had our public forum so it was also in the TNG right car yeah seven days before um that um and it you know was a public form yeah Jess be explaining why our timeline was different this year than in past years I think that's yeah so um again we we the past two years we've done a somewhat different timeline where we have um so and again I'm not a finance director I'm not I'm a CPA I I'm versed in taxes but I'm not versed in governmental accounting something I had to learned a lot of this year but what happens is the assessment is not just the expenses of the district the assessment is a calculation of a set of other Revenue that

044comes in from the state and the federal government and other grants and so the Director of Finance gets all of that information some stuff doesn't come in until March so in order to be as accurate as possible in the past we had kind of estimated that stuff um it's really tough to do that we try to push it off as long as possible so that those actual numbers can come in um and we can use those so the assessment can be as accurate as possible before it's certified once the school committee votes then the assessment letters are sent to the towns by the district Treasurer so the Director of Finance draws up the letters and the district Treasurer certifies those letters signs off on them and sends them to the towns and that's saying here

045you go towns this is what we need in the warrant because this is what our budget is and this is what needs to be voted on and and the Consultants that came in that were mentors we did have Consultants come in that advised us to do that to wait as long as possible so that we could keep the assessment and the and the um expenses as accurate as possible so that was we were trying to kind of find a happy medium of not going too far but still again in Boyston we had zero issues we gotten in on the warrant on time I think we were like a day or two late but their their timeline is different than Berlin so I'm guessing the towns make the timelines as they feel feel or as they

046see fit all right so um my question tonight is um we're faced with us so school committee so I did speak with with Kim today briefly um and we're faced with decision of so she did say if we wanted to we could vote on the budget tonight um if we decide to keep everything relatively the same all right um the only change I would propose is because we did get a quote on the HVAC after we voted on the budget we might want to change the Berlin Capital assessment on the H to the amount that matches the quote um but I don't know how people feel do people want I'm I'm talking people on this committee do people want to talk to vote again on the budget tonight or do you guys want to think

047on it and wait do you w to propose some changes like uh and take things out or how are how are you all feeling on the budget go ahead Mike yeah you go first I I would like to know if we did accept the town's number from last night because that's what the B trips what would that look like in burlin so I assume you would looking at the books today at some point what would that look like in burlin and there's a Time component here the 45 days June 15th the deadline July 1st yes we have deadlines um if we can post something is it too late to post a meeting today for 48 hours to have something Thursday afternoon if we could postpone it just a day or two too late today reach

048out to you know SC the town just be like listen Friday all right Friday we could have a meeting Friday Mike okay so that's you know three that pushes our timeline out three days get pretty tight uh because then we're into the end of June and we've got July 1 deadline past the June 15th deadline where teachers need to be notified but maybe we can the town doesn't have to take 45 days they do it earlier if they act in good faith hopefully they'll do it earlier so we postponed it from tonight discuss it tonight y postpone vote and just one more time reach out to Scott okay I'd be happy to I don't know and see if you can chat yeah but I would like to know what the schools would look like if

049we accepted those members um did John and Lisa want to speak to that briefly first uh Lisa spoke to that last night so I just kind of reiterate the key points that you said last night um so what would look like so we have to be cognizant of what is required by the state because it's a middle high school high school in particular because we're giving them a diploma for graduation so we have to be very careful about what we um are able to cut because there are graduation requirements so then we look at um what what we are able to to cut in um in that realm we are able to cut Sports we are able to cut and and sports means coaches and transportation we know that transportation is a very large line

050um $30,000 um and let me just bring up because I I did work on the budget today um Lisa why you bring that up and ask another question yes so if we were to accept let's say the Tanto number which is different what the school can be voted would Boon then have to again Boon has to vote again I think we have to take that back to Boon fincom and Boon would have to so Boon would there there would see the cuts too because of the shared nature of T and the districtwide number Bo the town of Bo would have Cuts as well yes students in Boon would be affected by this as well if we cut to Hanto it would from my understanding it would actually leave oilon in a better financial position because

051we so in order to get so there's a gap of um$ 25,157 um between the school committee proposed budget and the Berlin um finance committee budget for the schools that 255,000 rounded is 35% of an allocation at Tonto so then what we would have to do is in order to come up with that amount of money to cover that discrepancy in the Berlin budget we have to cut a total of $730,000 over our entire budget because it's 30 right because it's yes Tanto is everybody clear Berlin there tant's expenses all right so tanto expenses are this is rough it's not that's not actually the number there is an actual allocation it's based on the number of Berlin students and the number of boil students that go to Tanto for rough number purposes because we don't

052want to say 36.66% we're going to say about 35% of the students go to are from Berlin and about 65% are from Boon so when we have an expense like when we do the budget we have all the expenses for Tanto and then in order to do the assessment the Director of Finance would take take 65% of the Tanto expenses and allocate that to Boyston assessment and 35% of the Tanto assessment or Tanto expenses and allocate that to the Berlin assessment if the Berlin the town of Berlin is saying you need to cut 255,000 for the operating assessment at Tahanto the total cost you can't just if you cut a head at Tanto only 35% of that head is allocated to boy Berlin so for example if you cut a $100,000 head Hond like let's

053say we cut this is a round number I'm not giving anyone salary a teacher for 100,000 that only Berlin would only see $35,000 worth of savings right so if $255,000 you divide that by 35% you get about $730,000 is what Lisa would have to cut it to Honda is there any room in the the agreement that that somehow could be waved for you know I I'm just wondering if the regional agreement can be looked at to see if there's some type of loophole that that we don't that's a question for uh Kim but I do not think that Boon would be okay with um funding yeah picking up because that's that's the boils to taxpayers I don't I don't think there's a loophole there yeah I don't know I have something to share [Music] okay

054all right go ahead Lisa just uh F two more minutes and then we got to shift GE okay so what I did today was I I looked at chunks of the budget that would not impact graduation requirements so we would have to come we would we would have to sit down and as an administrative team and look at this but I know that our extracurriculars so all of the clubs so if we cut all of the clubs that's approximately $46,000 so$ 45 826 if we cut the fall Athletics that's $45,500 now remember we're trying to achieve $730,000 so we're we're talking about nickel and diing this but this won't this will not impact graduation requirements so we have winter sports $3,573 we have spring sports 47526 for total of extracurricular in sports $123,600 then we

055can then we can look at stien positions so team leader positions department chair positions that would be um a savings of now please understand every everybody who is seeing this recording I am giving numbers to like values of chunks of things that are not going to impact graduation requirements I am not saying that these items are being cut I saying that this is how we can we're going to have to Nickel in dime $730,000 okay is everybody clear on that I am not saying we're slashing these things I'm saying this is what I have to look at and at the end of the day Lisa to be clear it would be by vote of school committee as to what actually the school committee would accept as a cut and as right the school committee would

056have to essentially determine correct so um Department shair team Le that's $ 27,825 have a um a retirement for World languages if we didn't fill that we would have a we would have one salary and one benefit package and that would be you know um over $100,000 you can understand that heads impact the you know what happens at in our school but it is those that's the largest chunk of money is um salaries um what would that do if we didn't fill that retirement Middle School language would be unavailable so students in the Middle School would not have language um opportunity for World Language exploration and we wouldn't have opportunities for maybe year four Spanish um we have other positions we can cut you know we if we cut the Arts and we cut music

057those we can we can essentially say $100,000 per head so approximately you know everybody's salary because everybody's on The Matrix those are the types of things that would and and I'm talking a $100,000 at a time or $50,000 at a time and we're trying to paying $730,000 [Music] that's going to be a massive implication and like good I I I can't may you could I people want to ask questions and that's not my you have to call on people yeah Lisa did you have something I'm just like that is so invasive like I can't even imagine that happening and I have a thought that is going to be probably very unpopular for people in Berlin but it almost seems like it could potentially just solve all of this for this year okay so that is

058a lot of suffering and a lot of degradation of our education and when you balance that against people being hot at BMS could we put off the AC totally unrated that that's not assment I realize it comes from a different F whatever that's something fund with cash but it's not gonna affect the 750 is that yeah well because Berlin is like upset about 250 right no they're upset about so they're upset about the um well at the end of the day I mean again we've gone back and forth with them I think at the end of the day they don't want to to um they really don't want to increase the taxes any higher than the 2 and a half% or whatever they the number they gave us so um I I so first off

059Capital is free C they use free cash to fund that can that get shifted they don't want to that's what happened last year they used free cash to fund an operating assessment and that's what they're complaining about about the $383,000 I understand it's like not you know it's the fund but well well they don't they're not they're saying they don't I don't know that they I I think getting rid of the air conditioner is probably something that needs to happen this year we can talk talk about it doesn't affect the operating it doesn't affect what Lisa is describing right now is reality because that's the number that was voted that's the number they're prepared to pay so this is reality right now unless we want to have this argument for the next 45 days yes

060this is the reality so what Lisa is describing is the reality in this town and it's not yeah Ahad and I'm not being dramatic like I really I wasn't trying to be dramatic it is the reality of that our budget is I I mean I can I can go down and I can be like okay so I can cut $500 um you know from you know the science budget and I can cut $400 from here but that is not going to even touch $730,000 so even if I tried to pair down every single thing where where no one would have any supplies for being here it's not even going to come close to even one person does everybody understand that so it is not dramatic is it possible to do this without affecting graduation requirements

061to do what cut it is but it's it's it's very complicated and um I would feel very uncomfortable discussing it in a public for I have spoken to my my faculty at faculty meeting and spoke to them very honestly about what $730,000 would mean I've spoken to in individuals because I did not want to have them hear me on the town floor saying we will'll not have a music program we will not have an art program without having spoken to them so although we we've talked about worst case scenario I'm I'm not prepared to share all the details because we could say because as you pointed out that in the end school committee can you know if I lay out all the possibilities you can say this one this one and this one so you

062could say no Middle School sports and these two Varsity Sports um and no and no Transportation they have to get there themselves you could say so it's a it's a puzzle piece that has to be put together and I I can provide all the information as the best I can that will not impact graduation requirement but in the end it's school committee that that will then have the decision or take my recommendation or however that process works so it's it's comp it's more complicated I do have shared with you some of the numbers all right this is good this is good I'm not trying to cut you off we got to move along so yeah no I um John tell us about what Berlin Memorial would look like if you have to cut $455,000 so

063I'll be way briefer because it's not possible um and I've tried to make this clear several times we don't have sports at burin Memorial School we don't have stiens at burin Memorial School we don't have department heads at berin Memorial School when you look at the teaching staff I have two teachers per grade I can't combine a grade into one room because the rooms aren't big enough yeah I have two special Educators I can't go to one special educator because the two can barely get the job done we can close the bridges program and save about $150,000 but those five kids are going out of district and five times the be a million dollars for us yeah it would be but it would be mandated so the state would come in and say you're pay

064you gotta do it you gotta do it yeah there is no you could cut art and music and somebody said that you know it was drama it's not drama it's really the only thing I can get rid of is Art and music and library and health because PE is required but if I do that those people only work for me two days a week we're talking $20,000 ahead it doesn't get me anywhere near and of course Lord knows what happens in boils because those very talented very capable people need full-time jobs so it it won't happen what they proposed can't happen because you can't run the school right you just can't and there's a whole process that I would you know encourage the committee to Avail itself of yeah which ends in a two-town vote

065just have patience with the process one last thing that I got to go because the moderator will yell at me if I don't to lock the doors do not I would strongly encourage this committee not to rush into a financial decision we don't have a handle on finances yep we don't know did a really nice job but as we trying to dig in what does this cost what ises that we can't tell you yet give us a couple of weeks to sit when we're not exhausted Y and frustrated and a little scared give us a couple of weeks to really dig through and make a reasonable proposal I don't think the number changes I think the school committee number is exactly what we need but let's give the town something to your point that they

066can really hold up want to this was our big mistake we expected them to come to us doesn't happen like that in Berlin you go to them and it's been that way for I ask any of those but guys they tell you we've been coming to them for years and and we have to do that again we have to be the people who reach out because it's as my mom would have said it's not enough to be right if you don't get what you need in the end we might be right but we're not going to get where we need to be you're you're 100% right and I'm sorry you can just stop the meeting right there trust me I would love to I'd love to go to my son's baseball game you're saying weeks

067we don't have weeks we have we actually do got 45 days no we have 30 days but town has 30 45 days from when we vote if we go past July 1 so if the town says like they did last night and we go to day 45 the state is GNA come in on July 1 because we don't have a budget yes they are and that is going to affect Boon that's part of the process but the the cut you're talking about in Tanto are going to affect Boon just as much the loss of Art and music those teachers will get new jobs is going to affect oilon just as much I think we'd prefer to get to that process before July 1st oh yeah I'm not saying take the whole 4 we do and

068hopefully they'll be able to get the meeting on the book but don't do it in the next two days because I got to TI tomorrow I'm sleeping in because I'm tired um and I know the superintendent is tired and I know the rest of the admin team is tired but next week sometime all right let me think about it let me think about it I mean quite frankly if you want my opinion I know I'm supposed to be moderating I I I'm ready to vote on the exact same budget tonight and maybe provide more information maybe that's because I'm so close to this budget except for the HVAC I I think the capital thing is totally separate and I appreciate you bringing that up um I think we can all get it for now that

069we've just done it in Boon we can get a steal of a deal it sounds like because the rebates are like 50% and I think the new quote is like $280,000 so then when you get the rebates you're looking at 270,000 297 297 and then what are the rebates like another and something thousand anywh between 25 50% 25 to 50% of that would be a rebate that would come back so I mean it's and what is this the same people that did Boon no oh it's someone different from town from town yes so it's somebody from the town of Berlin so it's putting business back into the town so anyways that's something we can talk about that just real quick just one point of information as you think about the air conditioning remember we have

070to go back about the roof and that's like an $800,000 job the roof's original the roof is actually going to be and that's gonna under the new lease the town has to deal with that that's not going to be a school they won't care because it's still tax we're literally doing this uh 76 that but ask me again in two weeks just looking at dates okay all right let's talk about dates July 1 is Monday okay so we have to be graft up with everything by June 28 okay 45 days before June 28th is May 14th that's Tuesday okay we need a couple days in there for letters and certifications yeah we can't vote on Tuesday we we'd have to have Friday would be the last day because we don't so for again I'm we're

071do it before July 1 this is the day yeah yeah we don't have a Director of Finance that's so Carol sorry no go Julie are you saying the date is this week no you're saying Tuesday but that's with no time between so you need a couple days that means they have to have the letters by May 14 Assessment letters I know you guys are it's from the day it's 45 days from the day we vote not when they get it is it yeah it's from the day we right yeah and then they have seven days to send it but it's 45 days regardless and then they have seven days to send the assessment letter yeah I mean I'm ready to vote to I'm all right so let's go around the room and see what everyone

072wants to do Jess I haven't heard from you tonight how are you feeling what's going on there was breakdown of communication which is frustra because last year you know we have both GTO and we're out there and going everywhere in the community so is frustrating that we weren't able to do that this year but I I I agree with Lisa's thing that we do have to cut something to show good face yeah you know like that we're meeting you know we we realize it's a large increase of the town but when push comes to shove there's really not much to cut because honestly you know I don't know if I want to send my daughter here next year and I've gotten several messages of to that effect too I don't you know that's not the

073Tanto that I know and would want to send my kid to so just half a second I'm Joe ainson I'm Jaden's dad sure everybody knows her um I'm already drawn blank so as far as the budget did you guys even consider that morons like me didn't know there was a meeting that was that important last night my wife and I two votes didn't are you burlin residence yeah we're burlin residence she was born and raised yeah she went here too not here down in town hall but Jorts J then you'll pay 20 grand a year for private school rights because was my choice if it was my choice and you said to me you got to raise your taxes 5% this year to said in Tonto I think you guys do such a great job

074here I would pay it and I would not even question I would do it any day that's to you and and I think that if I the I'm fixing day I'm definitely Jason my sister my brother-in-law thought it was a procedural vote they' never had problems approve they B that's the Joseph Sarah there's four votes right so did you guys read Carol's email every week no no I told you no Tex I'm all right I got it I got it want represented people that would have been willing to entertain the conversation were under represented but without the justification to feel comfortable saying I'm willing to pay me so I feel like we sorry if I'm taking to it but I feel like we were having a conversation backwards from what the tone of the town

075meeting was saying the questions coming were really more like where's the rest of the money going what's happening with the other $ three and a half million doll right not I don't want to pay 250 it was where what's happening with the other and I know you're going to say it's on the website it's in the minutes and it's but again this is this body's job to sell the budget and we have to make it easy on them to understand it so if yeah so like financial statements they're on the website they really are those audited financial statements are on the website but I get it I get it I get it I get it I get it and and just so you know just so all of you know again the school committee cannot

076do that we cannot produce financial statements and provide it to the public a little more detailed on the presentation than I don't even know that the that the school committee can do committee doesn't have I don't know that we can disseminate superintendent this district has to the district did show up to a link meeting but only two weeks before the town vote even acknowledged that this was an issue did the superintendent say the same thing to our stag team to allow Tahanto to have a chance to get those people out and I will tell you right now Stags BMS kids suffered last night and I will not be able to get two votes per household like we did last night unless we have a town meeting on a Sunday at noon help me sell yeah

077this just sitting right here she didn't go because she had to stay home with her kids for child her husband was there we sit right next to us are out there but they need to understand just email us and put it in simple dumb guy [Music] terms okay last last comment and then we have to move forward Stacy plunet president of the STA PTO Stacey to meet you nice to meet you as well well uh I just wanted to um like like we were saying the boy Bon wasn't even an issue past no yes I know yeah with Berlin it sounds to me it's unclear to me if it's that they didn't want their taxes raised or they didn't want to spend money for something they weren't clear on because if it's you don't want

078to spend so if you can be more clear like like they're saying give them the information and we were to no no new vote on the school committee we have a budget take that back with the data no budget no no no vote no change take it back with all the details behind it I Kyle and I and uh and Jackie we worked tirelessly last year to inform everybody about the budget issues and we were successful so I mean if there's something that we can do to Pro uh pre prep people to let them know it's a meeting to let them know how important is to let them know why we're spending all this money and what it's going for and then to let them know the response from Lisa and from John John that

079here's you know this is our minimum if you want to keep having arts and Athletics and this and that and that's that's the stick give them the carrot which says here's how we're gonna sell everything here's how we're going to use everything and just let us us as a you know like I can't vote in Berlin because I'm a boon resident but I certainly know half my PT half the PTO is from Berlin and we can always work you know with people that we know um because it's both the elementary school we want the elementary school to succeed because those are the kids who are going to come to us in the cple years we don't want them to lose anything we can Julie I agree we can do that we can work with Carol

080hopefully these support Consultants have been sitting here all night waiting to talk to us are G to be able to help us um all right so this is good so um and I I I'm Megan yeah just planning for the worst looking for the best working backwards for this policy July 1 is Monday okay if you want to have a districtwide meeting that's the third step in the process working backwards last day for that if that were to happen on June 28th which is the Friday for July 1st uh we need to give 48 hours notice at least right so that brings us to the 26th of June yeah uh they have uh 45 days to hold the meeting from whenever we votes or 45 days back from that notice period who decides that that's

081a good question I don't know but they have they have to do it within 45 days so ass use 45 days uh that brings us to which is a Sunday so we would have to do something before this weekend I if that if that does anyone want to vote I I'm ready to vote tonight I really think we should reach back out to burlin but I I I want to support that a bunch of people came to me and said Fin's opinion is really important and we need to repair that relationship we could I don't know we don't have an attorney here I don't know if we could do this we could vote tonight with a caveat that we will meet again in two days we could vote tonight we did this last year we

082could vote tonight and um we can talk to fincom and see I know they're going to ask if we can use some of our cash to fund the budget we can vote tonight to start the CL vote tonight to start the clock we could meet again and which is what I tried to do to see if they wanted us to use cash it's all in writing um after we voted I reached out to to Berlin and and said said you know we'd love to talk to you and maybe we can use some of our cash um so maybe that's something we can do is we can vote tonight to start the clock um unless now what we can't do tonight is if you're gonna say I want to cut this or I want to cut

083that besides the hbac the hbac is different it's a one number it's easy if you're gonna say I want to cut you know that one coach at Tanto like we can't play around that we don't have anyone here that can do numbers okay but if you guys are comfortable with rev voting the budget um I I think the capital stuff has to be that like because that's easy guess it doesn't it doesn't yeah the Berlin Memorial Capital but we have to vote on the budget AC out of we can just take the AC out of the budget and as a matter of fact again according to the new lease agreement with Berlin the town is actually responsible for installing and paying for an hbac so that would be something we could say we're not putting

084it in our budget but we are Dan got local a local business guy that can actually do this for you so all we got to do is take the town you've got you're putting business back into your town you can use your free cash you can take the rebates so we'll take that out of our budget tonight we'll just vote on the 143 which actually passed the town meeting last night um but what what would that 143 cover that's what's in The Bu cover walkies um that it walk did you say so walkies were 12,000 is yep walkies the swipe cards the it support that's it so security protectability y uh Athletic Field renovation uh HVAC controls non- student device repair walkie-talkies the paving of the walkway the lawn mower the water heater the boiler

085repair is this the wrong presentation so sub total 109,8 35% of that is that 38 page8 of March 19th presentation no no I know I wrote my note I have so many notes so it would cover it would cover Berlin's share the 143 is the Deb mm no no to what do they vote 143 sorry Berlin Memorial Julie it would cover the it support the update the security and the walkie-talkies I thought you said what would Tanto Capital covered there's no issue with Tanto Capital so Berlin Memorial Capital we would just take out that line of hbac installation 400,000 and it would cover the it support the security and the walkie-talkies somebody last night asked why we need walkie-talkies they will that was with the police station they were just talking like reason they HED

086in on that because it was the only number put in front of that's the only number they see so if we show them the offex budget okay we can have a more fruitful conversation yeah yeah all right so it support is you know obviously that's devices and we gave Capital I'm sorry I speak can I we gave them detail on all that and and and quotes so yeah for all that they did have that they could have shared that detail the capital I think that's important all right last question and then we have to move forward with this on the town in the town meeting as we were checking in and sitting down there were a number of handouts including the hand as much as I'm hearing this detail has been made available to town

087we should have just had the budget you just need to put out it doesn't have to be pretty like this I'm TR do it because they print in it doesn't have to be pretty don't it's just a piece of paper that's on the table for us to pick up so that when we when you stand up to make an amendment or we stand up to talk about why we are supporting that paper is there what town decided to print all right we could have just put yeah we could have just put the whole Budget on the table all right all right so um good lessons for next time um we went through this in Boon last year and it was a totally different process so I apologize um also we gave Boon the exact same

088information and did not have any of the issues that we had in Berlin so again two different sets of people they work differently and we got to manage that we got to do a better job managing that all right so let's um let's see so let's so they covered the Honda investment in total we have to vote on the total number correct that's correct so right now they haven't voted on the D that's the first thing oh no no that's tonight oh yeah sorry Jess they ended they ended Berlin they did not vote on the Tanto Capital assessment they voted on the Tanto operating assessment last night they did not vote on Tanto capital or the debt what's the number but the number in the finance committee approval is the full D assessment yeah no

089no the 200,000 left no they voted on the fincom number for the F for the um Tanto operating assessment last night and then they did not they have not voted on the Tanto capital or the Tanto debt but those numbers match the fincom so those are probably going to pass easy peasy tonight which it doesn't matter they're the same number all right so we need to let's take a vote right now so we can get this counter started and then we can yeah reach out to the towns maybe something so I mean if fincom is recommending the same amount of capital request for Tanto Tanto that should yeah that's going to pass tonight recommends in but it doesn't matter the budget is taken as whole so we have to vote on the whole budget again

090tonight because and we're making a change we're taking the H back out or that's what we're gonna that won't affect Boon so that should it will not affect Boyston so I will confirm with Council that Boyston should not have to have another town meeting if we vote on this budget but Berlin will Y no matter what Berlin is going to have to have another town meeting unless the school committee took the fincom budget which I don't know if anyone in this room wants to do no I do not there can't be a BMS then right John just said he could not operate that school with making those cuts so I mean could we have then like Mike said say vote on the budget minus bms's back off to the capital with the understanding that further

091talks will happen with the finance committee in 48 hours CU like because you want us to take a vote to start that 45 days correct yes we should yeah and then if we have to have another vote to um adjust it would our vote if we have to have a second vote it wouldn't be to change the budget it would be to allocate school choice funds to pay for the budget I don't know that we're GNA be able to do that because again we don't have why don't we yeah stipulation that we'll meet again in 48 hours after reaching out to Berlin to you know see what we can do whatever however you want so we'll have to meet meet Friday and Nicole will have to get the agenda will have to vote tomorrow morning

092y yeah we can meet Friday when what time you guys want to meet Friday I know you want to do it on Zoom No No need no all right what time you this is this is assuming they reach out they communicate and if not there's no need to meet what time are we gonna meet on Friday Friday is the 10th you want to meet at noon I don't know yeah bur up there Finance commit proba to yeah I mean o00 I know um keep it five it's our usual time do you want to do it five o'clock I mean that's tough right that's the thing it's two days I'm sure I mean I got a dance class I've already prepaid for for my um so what do you guys think Julie what do you think

093Tom you want to meet on Friday um I don't have time restrictions like other people do so I'm open to what other people suggest Jess you're working all day on Friday I have a conference but I can leave early I'd rather not all right what time's conference is it local yeah all right all right so let's see if we can do it but I mean I think also if we're inviting the finance committee we have to consider that other people I would find it highly unlikely that they're going to come but I'm hoping that we'll be able to speak with them planning for the worst hoping for the best positive spin on this let's yeah reach out to them tonight yeah they're busy but they'll have something I'll reach out to them tomorrow morning they're

094at town meeting tonight I'll see them whatever oh perfect that's great all right so what are you guys saying four five o'clock or no five not works for Lisa and L you want to do four four would be better want to do four La is that work for you does four work Mike Four J four all right so we'll plan to meet Friday at 4:00 um only if we have something else to vote on if we do not then we won't so no call we'll need to get that agenda out the only item on that agenda will be um discuss the budget and possible vote and yeah business item for um a budget vote all right so let's try take a vote right now um so let me see I'm going to have a hard

095time figuring out what the to so we vote on the total expense not the assessment correct guys you got to help me out we don't have a director Finance here vote on the budget as approved March 19th 2024 previous committee meeting less yeah less than 400 all right okay so could I please have a motion to approve to re-approve the March 19th 2024 school committee budget as stated less $400,000 for HVAC in the Berlin Memorial Capital right so L yes discussion so I think a big bone of contention was the 38 3,000 that was moved from some it wasn't moved it was they used this is what we're going to get ourselves into this muck again now they used cash to fund an operating budget and an operating budget by nature is an operating budget

096its heads it's recurring expenses but I think the line item that it was applied to originally is not the line item that it was applied to in the current budget no it it all right so what happened was we had children that were the assessment was approved that means it's the superintendent and the school committee's decision on what is done with that money we can't open up this can of worms where towns can come in after assessments are voted and say oh you got the money but you didn't have to use it well I want you to do it on this that's her job that's her job guys and then it's our job to vote on that to yay or nay that we did vote on that we voted on that I think it was

097December we had a school committee vote do you guys remember John proposed I wish he was here Cindy you might remember he proposed the bridges program to us he said we had five these children they were out of District the town and again it wasn't they were saying this 383 is for this what they did and I've consulted with Council various times on this the the school brought the assessment to them we don't owe them any level of detail they said we can't swing this so we'll take $383,000 of cash and we know we don't have a choice it's because it's the law and oh by the way the schools use $350,000 of our own cash okay to fund this and they said but we can't do this next year and we said okay and

098that was the agreement that was made there was no well we'll take this out next year we'll do this it was just like okay kind of like putting up a Hail Mary and hoping this works out and and it it it appears that it didn't it didn't work because they're upset about it and it's not like we tried to deviously steal this money so what happened was we had these children family moved out of town correct so then we had this ex these extra funds right these children were out of District children family moved out of town we had some extra funds what you can't give it back to the town it was out of districts right what does that mean does everybody we're trying to be transparent with the information out of District we

099heard this a lot last year this is what caused all the problems last year an out of District you can't provide the services that these special yeah Janelle why don't you speak to what an out what is an out of District placement and what is an average cost for an out of District placement so an out of District when we say out of District that refers to a student that needs a special education placement outside of our three school buildings um into the district it's part of the special education Continuum um and you know students with much more significant needs sometimes need a placement outside of the school district the cost for those placements range um there's a there's a huge range I made an attempt today to find an average cost for whatever that

100you know may be worth and I calculated that out at about 85,000 it can be less it can also per child Janelle correct correct plus Transportation um and that and that is based on the unique needs of a child I think is we're hearing through the entire budget process education in any context including in our own buildings is not is not inexpensive there are there are significant costs associated with buildings Staffing specialty Etc think Janelle so if you do five times 85,000 get certain number and if the bridges program was to close down or because sponsorship to that program which which absorbed five children which an average of 85,000 so then you have to pay that for out of District of the bridges minus two teachers plus trans plus transportation and there's also there's also

101I understand this is a conversation about finances but we have to keep in mind that these are and I know you I know you know that but just for the greater conversation these are conversations about individual students who have and families who have rights to privacy and confidentiality um this conversation Al makes me a bit uncomfortable I'd like to I'd like to finish and say that um in addition if we can provide for students in the district that is our responsibility it's not our option for these students to just say oh we're going to close this and send these students up if we can educate them in the district that's our respons there are neighbors there are friends and better for the child to be educated in the district with his or her peers and

102again it doesn't matter just from the financial aspect whether the child has to go out of District or the child is in District the district by law must pay for the child whatever the needs are it is the state law it doesn't matter so if we did close bridges down John said it would be five times the cost we would be mandated by law to pay for those tuitions so closing Bridges so that that money that 38 who looks at numbers that's what that was that the school committee voted we decided we were going to start the bridges program we use those funds to hire par professionals that run the bridges program so that's what that money was used for and the school committee did vote on it it was brought to us I Believe

103by John and Janelle we had a presentation on it we learned about the savings and we decided at the time since we had the savings that that was what we were going to use for so in the in the budget there's no actual savings there's movement in the line items um and I think having the transparency about that that that is an investment in our district in our children to keep our own children in the district but but because the finance committee curely looks at numbers if there's an estimate or guesstimate that that if you know this is the money that you're upset about this is where it went this is how it was invested I think quite smartly um you know emotionally and educationally and fiscally you know so but to say that if

104we were to close this program hypothetically numbers only this is what it could guesstimate equate to but if we keep it this is better for the children the district and so it was wisely invested and it wasn't you know some you know yeah I don't know where the breakdown of communication was this year with that because that was explained multiple times um I think it finally like hit home um at that Forum uh one that Kyle had like a couple days ago um they were like oh yeah that is a good idea so um yeah totally agree um and so now it's 6:30 right we've been here for an hour and a half trying to talk about this budget just trying to explain to people why this is not like a simple two second sheet

105on a page oh yeah I'm gonna get it I bet you're going to leave here more confused than you came in so I think this is just complicated stuff and it's not something that you're going to walk into town meeting and pick up and and look a she at a sheet and say I totally get it it's something that if you really want to understand you kind of have to follow along put the effort I do think we should be we need to be a little bit more transparent we should have printed the handout at print it and literally strike out the HVAC and and add a slide that says we can we can just adjust it we don't need to strike it out we can just I think we have access to change that

106yes yeah all right so we have a motion on the table we're discussing all right did I did you want to say something I did just want to say something just sure of course I I will on I will work on that sheet I want to take a look at what you have we're going to use that model we'll go through that I have access to the GL and we'll figure that out Carol has GL so we'll make sure we have that information but I think you're right I don't think it should sit there I want to go to your link get Link at least link and the Boyston pto's and the STS STS Stags I don't know if anyone meeting again year to are you guys now we can talk but I think I'll

107work on going over that with them but the other thing I think it up that's a good idea Carol is going over that with everybody and then also an idea I had too which was if we could get our PTO to set up with their through their committees to do a phone chain phone call about coming to the meeting so I think got addresses what you were talking about that we're not reaching I can't make that announcement like I do with school messenger for your snow days but but if our PTO can help with a phone chain the oldfashioned way hey can you come to the meetings that's what people need all 10 friends direct emails like if they agree like what like Berlin soccer sent out a message say support the fields oh they

108could have done the schools well we could we have to be really careful about what we do from our school committee emails because we're governed BYT she saying use the department oh for 100% 100% yeah Mike could go to Berlin soccer yeah everyone La can go to whoever she knows from yeah so we have a motion on the table right now yeah we have a motion on the table so any more discussion on that oh oh sorry this isn't maybe about the motion but just in terms of getting the word out a lot of the other feedback I got today was that the town's people who aren't necessarily following the school district need to get this communication somehow and I don't know how but I just want to put that M pardon 19 Carter have

109an email Carol went to 19 Carter I think twice and like 10 people showed up so I mean again it's not like it's not for right did you go twice but it wasn't it was not for the budget itdg this has this is this is a Berlin issue um in terms of the communication in Berlin and people that live there know this and everybody will attest to it too the communication is just subpar for community members it is and there needs to be the post office the General Store maybe right that's what you guys do if there's time for the I mean your Facebook page doesn't I mean the Facebook page is should we vote yeah let's vote any any more discussion what can you repeat the motion because did it remedia in 48 hours

110that's my only question sorry yeah repeat the motion or just Does it include no I didn't all right so um could you repeat what I said Nicole or did you not have that I wrote it says vote to reapo the March 19th 2024 school committee budget as stated less $400,000 for hbac in Berlin Memorial capital I don't think we need to put contingent upon speaking with the finance I can give you my word with a Berlin fincom I can give you my word I'm gonna I can make a a motion for an amendment what do you guys think do you want to put an put put that in the motion yes and was the budget as stated on the 19th of one be approved uh yeah that was the only budget vote we that differ

111the only budget made a change on March 19th which I don't remember and don't think we did it would be we made one vote on March 19th I can look at all right so the motion is on the floor does somebody want to make an amendment I make a motion to make an amendment to the motion on the floor that it is also conent on a meeting in 48 hours at a formal invitation to the finance committee of Berlin will be made okay so she has the motion we need a second second all right L second all right any discussion on that Amendment I'd be careful with that that's I would too I don't think we can determine what the r Finance committe yeah formal invitation a for you said on a formal invitation or

112acceptance or disc no I said formal invitation to the Berlin Finance Finance I think she said formal invitation like I just have to send an email or Carol they deal with you Carol can send an email to them yeah yeah yeah it just she a formal imitation so Carol will send an email sorry maybe you should s i don't send it I'll be happy to all right all in favor the amendment of the amendment yes I I'm an i as well all right the amendment passes so now this vote is going to be we've already seconded the first motion we have an amendment this vote is going to be to vote on the original motion with the amendment meaning we're going to approve the March 19th budget um contingent upon uh school committee chair is

113going to reach out with a formal invitation to the um the burlin fincom for um a discussion minus H for yeah yeah the budget is less the HB all right so we have that motion on the table it's seconded any more discussion on it all right all in favor I all right I'm and I as well congratulations we have a reconsidered budget today is day Zero the town of Berlin now has 45 days to schedule another town meeting in which the town will revote on this budget okay all right thank you so much guys um real quick um we're gonna switch gears very quickly um so if you were here just to listen to the budget we're done talking about that don't feel the need to stay trust me I would be leaving if I

114could thank Kim before we get to Kim I would like we have some wonderful folks that have been sitting here for an hour listening to what they may or may not be jumping into um so Carol I know we're gonna speak first can we just get them on and then we're gonna have to table um some of this other stuff Julie Lee was thinking that someone should be present at the burlin meetings cap Theo Capital the first item on the agenda even though it's what the finance you want to run do you want to Jet Julie so she has the I have the school choice we're gonna have to table that because we have to jump into executive session okay so we we'll table that to the next meeting which is probably gonna be Friday

115which or we already said it's Friday at 4M yeah are you okay with that Julie only for the St for that well all right so here's the de all right so here it is it's 6:37 we've got these guys here they're GNA they're from TMS I want to hear what they have to say because we've got a proposal from them for them to step in and be an interim Director of Finance very very important for us to get this taken care of um that is not something we have to vote on tonight but it is something that we want to um hear from so Carol can make a decision get our input on that so I think we had allotted uh 15 20 minutes for them to chat um so we're going to do that

116I think we're gonna have to move Carol's self assessment and the school choice discussion to our next meeting whether that's May 28th or um May 10th Friday May 10th if you guys want I'm asking what do you guys think I I I just be have to jump exact timeline no Friday meetings for any budget issues but school choice might affect that cash my question is what was the other date for the other the other meeting May 28th we have an AS needed meaning so we can do Carol's so the problem is May 22nd is when we're all getting her evaluation and she has to present her report I'm prior to that so here's what we can do um here's what we're going to do so I don't want to waste Kim's time okay so what

117we're going to do is we're gonna hear from TMS quickly they're going to leave I'm G to close open session all right if you have to leave you can go we still have a quum then we're going to go back into Open session for Carol's goals I know Cindy we got to vote on Nature's Classroom too we'll do that really quickly after you hear from TMS yes asking I don't mean to interrupt the meeting by but I had the opportunity to actually spend some time this afternoon reviewing everything that occurred last night at the meeting oh we would love to does anyone want to hear that I wouldn't recommend having anyone go it's not going to make a good difference you you already had am I not right three of the four pieces of the

118budget yes went in front of we just revoted a new budget tonight P yeah I don't two of the three went I think I thought three because I actually spent some time going through them and I think you had the capital as well as the operating budget for the elementary school we're already voted on and then the cap what was the other one the operating the operating budget for Tanto Tanto I don't have any passes or the fact of the matter is the way I'm looking at it in another Community they would put all of them together so you would have one budget they just piece meal parsed it out once you had one that failed and didn't pass your budget didn't pass what we said last so I'm thinking your attendance there is great

119if you want to go but I know that there's something you might want to participate in in the executive session so i' rather have everyone here that that's my ask I don't see Howe is gonna have value I me we can only do so much we've had this scheduled I never in a million years would I thought this budget was going to fail on Town floor based on conversations we did have with finance committee um ahead of time I um let's hear from TMS quickly let's let's we'll have they knew we had our meeting tonight so you know what you can do you can invite them to participate now and you can resume conversation with the budget if you'd like you can just say I'm going to put the budget on hole for a minute

120if you want to go back to it no we're done with the budget we voted on the budget I think what I think what we're going to do is we're going to have TMS speak so they can leave we're gonna close open session and we're going to go to Executive session and I know Julie does want to make an appearance at town meeting at some point after executive session if you want to leave um then Carol is gonna have to do our goals the school choice that's I I don't know what to do about that think about what you want to do about that go ahead you guys are you want us to go sorry um you know [Music] what um in an effort to get an interim some interim help and I tried in

121every direction to try to get some help in while we were in the process of hiring a new Finance director um I we reached out to one of our former superintendents who again recommended TMS to us we've had them in the past um and that worked very well for us they do a lot of this work and they'll speak to that around districts in the Commonwealth exactly what we need to kind of fill that Gap um and so I wanted to intro so I've sent you information on a proposal from them we had to go out to bid I did that Megan and I met with the with the president um Andy pette who spoke to us about what they can offer um and I also sent you there was a a brochure a while

122ago so I tried to explain that to you last Friday about about them coming in um I have with me tonight Andy Brown who's the vice president of strategy and communication and um Dr Paul Livingston um we were talking he's a former superintendent and uh and so both both of them are very experienced in this work and they if they are not going to do the work with us they they have a company it's a company and they and depending on what our needs are which I sent to them they send the folks in to work with us and I and a the timing is perfect because they heard everything tonight they were probably were probably writing reports yes that's okay they've walked into worse we wor walked into a lot worse yes so I

123I I'd like you just to top give a little summary and then folks had questions um here I have not hired them yet I wanted your input on this and and to let me know what you would like to do so I superintendent was kind of enough to introdu I'm Andy Brown I'm the vice president of strategy and Communications which is why a lot of this conversation was really interesting to me because a lot of it could be solved via Communications but that said we're here to talk about Finance which is more of Paul's specialty Paul has a background in in business and being a super superintendent um the company was founded in 2006 we have staff it varies depending on needs between 15 and 20 business managers communication experts curriculum experts all have worked

124in schools to some capacity we we have I ncpo uh we can pretty much do anything you need us to do um and one of the nice things here is none of this is anything we we haven't heard before this is not uncommon with regionals it's not for us it's not scary and one of the things Andy p and I talk a lot about one of the values and bring us in is we are AP political we we can go to the town side and say no this is the way it is these are the requirements this is the La this is how it has to be for the schools to function legally and for students to graduate with an a diploma so we can we can kind of take a lot of that emotion

125off of the whole equation Paul can talk a little bit more about what we what we actually do on the finance side good evening thanks for having us I guess we were here before M Andy or I were connected with the PMS when they were here but uh I think the values and energy are basically the same um as Andy said we are um all school people and when you work with TMS you don't work with either just Andy or me or whatever you're working with a team we we connect with each other so if we don't have an expertise in something there's somebody on the team that does which is very unusual with when you bring in your own individual business manager and certainly in today's climate you can't find you a bu manager

126it's very difficult uh def find town finance people as well your CPA here said fund accounting is very different than profit and loss account you know business so um it's just it's a it's a form of energy that we can bring into your system that has seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly everywhere um currently you know I'm working in lunenberg and down in Watertown I've been mentoring the business manager there in Watertown finishing there the end of May now and we're starting in Harvard um we've had many Regional experiences myself individually I will probably not be you know necessarily A but I I work retired from pentu Regional a while back and worked at Moga Regional when we actually became one big happy family way back when when I was in my 30s

127I was superintendent in Lancaster time Lancaster and put that District out of business and know became one of new C family that was a a great experience Finance wise and curricul so all of us have different experiences like that we worked at you know Regional Schools as an organization Mount grar Mohawk Trail Frontier uh we worked here Berlin Boon Southern Berkshire D HOV Farmington River I'm actually leaving here tonight to stay overnight in Westfield to go to Farmington River tomorrow it's a tiny little school district why they even exist is beyond me but it's 100 students 100 students and they have two two towns they have to get together and they have like two people that work in the office so you know I'm there to do sort of a review of their business practices

128and start to write a report and say what is best practice that's something that we can bring in from having seen it in so many places you have to honor the culture that exists in the district and in each of your communities but you have to find ways to bring that culture into best practice all the time and it doesn't happen overnight you don't change that you know like a V turning around it takes time but what are the steps and we've been successful in bringing some of those best practices forward whether it starts with policy and procedure or just knowing some knowledge I mean knowing in order we couldn't answer any of your questions probably tonight quite honestly because you have to know your town bylaws in each town you really have to know

129your Regional agreement and then still even knowing a lot of that stuff you have to have advice of council sometimes to make sure that it's going in the right way is Mass General law we're pretty experienced with um but those are the kinds of things that again when you hire TMS you hire a team of people and we're there we we're a political we're just here to do the job we've done it many places we aren't always on site perhaps heard that but we we work virtually I mean I'm working in lunberg one day a week but I'm working talk to my wife a lot of times and I'm fitting in water of time and that goes to the the way it kind of works we have a lead and we have a second and

130then we have our whole team so we would assign two people here um depending on what the agreement we come up with is we might be on the site one two or three days a week um to start with it might be more just to get our heads wrapped around everything and help you guys get through this this rough patch um and but after that just because we've left for the for the day and we're not coming back but say until next Monday that doesn't mean we're not still working that doesn't mean we're not still available we're still working on all that stuff behind the scenes we're still taking phone calls we're still answering emails we're still doing all the work but it's that that model nobody wants to talk about anymore that hybrid model

131that kind of came out of the pandemic nobody likes it it's an ugly word but we've been doing it since 2006 and it works it works really well because it means you get exactly what you need plus and you get really a bigger team on of it instead of having one business manager maybe a payroll person you get a business manager plus payroll who can also do um do Grant processing and a whole team of people who they can call call and say look we need some help with this bring them in get them up to speed and then that just gets done and maybe it's a special project and they move on um whatever the actual agreement is on what work we're doing just we don't walk around with a checklist saying that falls

132outside of the of it Andy Pucket fond of saying the business manager business card is the biggest business card out there because it's well you need some operations work done well that goes on the business card you need finan you need grant writing you need all of these different things we will do it all and we won't if if you if something comes up that it's slightly out of the realm of what we said we were going to do we'll just do it it's it's part of the nature of being a business manager that's exactly and I would be extremely great I just want to add that in if you could start tomorrow or maybe tonight I also I just want to you know add two that I what I had shared with the school

133committee I uh worked out a time timeline with TMS if they can join us until August 7th with the option of perhaps going out longer but I do want it to overlap if we do um if we do hire a permanent Finance director and that is out right now it's posted um we do have candidates for that um and I that's something I wanted to talk with the school committee tonight also about serving on that interview committee um one or two folks to join us for that um so I can tell you a little bit more about that but so they would be with us until at least August 7th because I think it's going to be important if we do get a permanent person to overlap and be able to kind of transition from

134from these folks into that new person and to Mentor them as well so that's my thinking I sent you the the quote um that they offered us um I do have the funds to be able to cover that at this time so I didn't know if you had any questions for them anything else you'd like to learn about I think a team sounds nice Andy pacquette did already helped us with something that we were stuck on we could not and he just did it and but what they do is similar to when I talk to Kim on the phone and her team I don't see Kim every day but if I give some I talk to you every day at night and weekend but but she doesn't know the answer she can't she has a

135team that she goes to specific like when we did the broland lease she got an attorney who worked specifically on that area and that's what they do and I I love that it's very complicated School Finance these days and one of the things you mentioned was that agreement and I heard that from our Mars folks again this today I was on the phone with Steve he say go back and look at your Regional agreement for information so all those pieces are a lot to look at that's the first thing we do anying engagement first thing we do is we read Regional agreement it's dry it's boring but we need to know how everything works and how is it connected to your school committee policy how are your policies connected to procedures simple things like how

136do you collect Revenue you know often is an issue in communities it's just not clean and those are the things that end up with districts getting in cou now on a short-term basis obviously through August 7th we have not going to be able to do all of that particularly when you're trying to end one year and start another year in a difficult when you don't even know what your budget is but um those are the kinds of things we've done studies of Contracting negotiations and projections of salar for the purpose of overrides uh we've done the mentoring we've done you know curriculum work we've done John Hopkins kinds of grants for places and others so U the experience is there and that's what nowadays is very difficult to find out in the public um you

137know many have looked and that's why we're fortunate to get any call we've been in car we've been in a about to go to hav uh we've been in the city of Watertown we've been in regionals so you guys sound so experienced and grounded and calm and I think we need that and I I'm just wondering do you guys ever act as the finance director like full-time for a school I had asked that I mean already asked or is this only for like interim type things no we we'll we'll function like long term we've been in wear for 15 years and what's the cost comparison it's hard to say but it it usually comes out to be between 60 and 80% of what you pay for a an in in in-house person wow um and

138it also depends on the services the services we request from from the company you don't have benefits or we have our own laptops right this is a good trial period to see how this fits for the District so that's why Carol and I kind of talked and we're like let's give it like a three we might love it and we might find we have no applicants we might find like an amazing applicant that were like oh we can grow this person we can still have these folks as mentors because we clearly could use I feel like as a district because we have so few people I think we could use you know all the help we can get one of the things that J we haven't mentioned is we have we have another side of

139the business and that's the side I run is that's the strategic planning and the the communications and every year we need that too well every year that's that's kind of where the business arm and the communications arm come together on bunch of presentations and how do we communicate the budget how do we explain the basically Goble so you could make you could make that she can you make can't make the sheet and sometimes it's it's as simple my my the story I like to tell is about when I worked with comp Rhode Island they they had a they knew they were going to have a tough budget process and one of the they so what we did back in October we identified four or five flash points that we knew one would help get past

140but two would get people behind the budget one of them was Librarians so we started they had one and a half Librarians for for three elementary schools and they wanted to increase that to two so they started telling the story of basically throughout the year social media posts about the library and media Specialists with what they were doing made sure with what the photographs we took were in different libraries in different schools people started connecting like wow she's all over the place and then when it came closer to the time when in the budget presentation it was explained look this is how many we have we want to increase it to this this is how much it's going to cost and the library and media Specialists that's something all of us grew up with as

141we got a special we got a library once a week and suddenly there everybody was up in arms the budget passed because of library because people people thought that was so important to their their share of experience that they wanted to make sure their kids had it and it it was just simple storytelling but that that's kind of like a bigger a bigger budget process as far as Communications go but it's not something you guys can think about in terms of next year yeah I mean we're going to again we we posted the permanent position which is pretty traditional for school for school districts to do we don't know who's coming to the table for us to meet we may find somebody that we really see potential in we may not find somebody I don't

142know I can't promise you um the pool is small and getting smaller um we just were with Asad Valley they had an emergency meeting today to appoint a new Finance director because the other one just uh announced that she's leaving um she's only been there not even the beginning of this year and um as a result they are in doing an in-house person somebody who was in a lesser kind of position and is taking over and they're going to train her up from there so that's what's starting to happen now they're going to in-house shury did the same thing they took a principal um Elementary principal and he is now the finance director of The District so so people are making creative decisions around you know making this work for them but I I respect

143your work and I I we are one of those creative decisions it's we we're an Al we're an alternative to the traditional model do you guys can you do bookkeeping too okay what about up here roll yep interesting I stand as a music teacher I was a music teacher for 12 years in Wayland became business manager in Franklin and had some very good connections with other business managers and and people can learn a great town accountant that I learned from play back that's true and then I was a superintendent for you know over 20 years um so um it's it's not hard to do necessarily but it's Unique it's different than when people yourselves walk into you know what people from the finance World um it's a different kind of thing but I think we

144know how explain it well and how to put it together well and so you can solve the problems that you saw us facing tonight every one of them in a week yeah do you see like this is like we're all volunteers and we're all picking up all this extra slack because we yeah you can put the things I am comfortable I wanted to make sure you were all com you don't need a vote is your decision correct but I still respect your opinions your your feedback and your and your questions too so I want to know I I just wanted to say my my my mom always used to say till the St she still does or something you know bad happens sometimes you get what you need and not what you want we don't

145want to be in this situation but boy do we need you and after everything that just happened you coming I feel say thank you because you you you've taken something that's been very stressful and you're his hope so I appreciate that always yeah great job Focus mandatory moving for so and a grand Position will never be approved so that's lovely that you do that as well yeah and like when when would you be able to start we that's more more of a decision between you and Andy but I know that there's a plan that um Nicole would who's been a she's been both a lead and support is ready to come on board and start start on the ground and then we have somebody else who needs to finish up an engagement and and then

146he'll he'll join her and take over his lead I I it sounds to me that the school committee is is supporting this and so therefore I will be in touch with you probably around 5 tomorrow morning if I get home ear I will be so just yeah because we have the bid again so I had to just own the bid and whatever process okay involves that so right this is great thank you guys so much for coming sorry can relay the information that is what we need help with immed good to you so much thank you so much Cindy before we um go all right go ahead I'm gonna have Cindy present Nature's Classroom and we'll do that vote Cindy could you present to us the donations for Nature's Classroom and let us just do

147that vote um we have to wait for Julie guys to get back into executive session right Kim we need Julie for executive session we can stop without her because I think she has she said she was coming back she yeah she'll come back I think she's going to try to attend the first uh motion town meeting okay a few minutes let's do um Cindy well Cindy has to before so why don't we have Cindy um it's gonna so we've got two votes and then we've got the policies so we can do those now while we're waiting let's give Julie like five 10 minutes to come back um so the vote for the approval of fundraising request by fourth and fifth grade music parents at the end of the year concert at Danto they are going

148to do that through link I don't know if they're going to do it anymore as Hillary stated tonight she had emailed me um a few days ago and said that she did not they didn't need to do a vote on that because if they were going to do anything link was just going to do they were gonna sell snacks at the concert at Tanto June 5th on June 5th and B PTO is gonna do the same thing so that was my or oh it's through them it's a joint effort it's a joint effort so one is going to do something with a food truck and the other one is going to sell snacks at the concert and they originally I think a group of parents was going to do it but then they just decided

149that link was going to do this fundraiser um so they do not need approval we do not need to vote on that so Cindy um we Cindy's GNA present I guess there were some various donations for Nature's Classroom Cindy's gonna present those and then we'll vote on those all right thank you thank you Cindy so we have a few um I tell you I'm going to do this again we're going to do this in September next year to get this out of the way so it's not last minute yeah um but we had a music fundraiser parents organized for, 126 we had a py op fundraiser and I didn't know what that was but it's a patreon pottery that Jess helped organize that was $40 and then we had a pasta dinner raffle dinner a

150raffle basket Penny wor for $ 4,689 C oh my God that was a huge one $4,000 with Penny Wars Penny it was three things raffle baskets which we served F night um those are for nature classroom I also had another one it was a PTO student council bait sale at the um oh yes that was something for $472 that goes into the student council account activities account all right so let's vote on the Nature's Classroom one first does anyone have any questions for those Nature's classrooms donations do you guys take a look at all those is it BMS too they have a bunch too no John didn't have any I think he got his done the last time he had few extra come in and plus I didn't do the pass but in the drives

151it was the the calendar ra stuff was there does John have yeah he does there's a bunch they because they yes sorry yes um sorry hold on one sec all right so we'll vote on those uh let me see so I mean I can kind of speak to it I've been on communication yeah Jess if you want to do that that would be great sorry I'm also running on about like Lisa and I were talking like four or five hours of sleep I know Mike too Lisa I mean we I think we got home midnight last night after ring night of so they did so similar to what they did last year was BMS parents uh did a calendar R so every day it was a different donation you could win a different thing on

152a day um so Beth had a meeting with she said they raised $3,534 um 5% of the sales has to go back to the state because there had to be a permit um and so she's writing that child to cover that what was this for this is Nature's class no sorry is this the raffle the raffle the calendar raffle and why do they have to put 5% back to the state so they were told as we were covering that for State San a raffle you need a oh because it's gambling okay fine it's probably excise tax yeah okay um and so it looks like some individual checks contributed to that because parents were selling so they wrote checks at the end all of them have notes on them say class of 21 raffle or nature

153classroom and best letter covers that as it was for the calendar raising the calendar uh looks like Mark Adams did a $500 donation from Berlin insurance company to cover the cost of the bus and any excess funds going to the class of 2031 all right so this is all the raffle stuff so John did have donations for Nature's Classroom Carol for voting on Nature's Classroom right now all right okay thank you Jess so does anyone have any questions on any of the nature classroom donations all right um so do you know what the total we do a vote on that on the last time noo $364 you want the to uh I would love the total that we're voting on tonight so the deposit from Berlin is $3,534 Right 3534 minus $186 right I know

154no one really knows because no one was involved in this that's in this room okay yeah 3534 okay that's that's for just the calendar ra yeah and then there was $500 from um Mark Adams I I guess the question is those I guess all of those checks from parents are included in best final total those yeah those those are these are the checks that make up that 35 34 okay all right so uh why don't we do Berlin first so the total amount is Mark gave another five is the 500 included in that no no it's a separ it's for the bus for nature class for bur all right so um the motion should be to approve um 3534 plus 500 so it's $434 right that's what Berlin got all right so could I um

155please have a motion to approve um the donation from various donors to the class of 2031 for nature classroom um in the amount of $434 second all right any discussion on that I might abstain just because uh yeah that's fine yeah for we still have a form all right all in favor all right I'm and I as well that motion passes all right so Cindy what's your total donations for Nature's Classroom is $598 70 cents other one that's separate yeah that take sear all right so could I please have a motion to approve um donations for Nature's Classroom um from various parents and fundraisers in the amount of $ 5,987 and um any excess funds will stay with the class of 2031 correct second all right was Lisa and Lai okay any discussion I I

156abstain Jess is gonna abstain all right all favor all right I'm an i as well that passes and then the last donation was for um that was the papaginos no B sale at PTO B sale collaboration yeah I so they that's right they had a bake sale at the talent show and they're donating that money to the Student Activity account $472 yes for student coun coun student council they're donating that money to student council they did it in collaboration so the kids all ran it but it's going to the student council yes and they so PTO is just donating 4 what's the amount 472 you said yes but they they kind of did it together so it's not like a donation they work together to do going to the school it's going to the student

157council account and in our Student Activities there $472 all right so could I please have a motion to approve the donation $472 raised from the PTO bake sale which will be used for the student council at oilon elementary school to approve gardening as for gardening well they want to work into the Gard they want to do are G the beds over so they're whatever they're going to they're going to do with this money is going by the Student Activity you know student council so yes that's the plan it's been gardening things but I don't know if it's going to need that much money so stay in that account all right so we just have it the motion is to ke go to the student council that way if the gardening is too much if there's

158not enough for gardening or if there's too much they can use it however fix so it'll go to the student council fund that's a motion on table Lisa move motion L second in it any discussion all right all in favor I all right I'm an i as well again okay she's OB staining thank you all right so that motion passes so those donations are all set thank you very much uh while we're at it you guys want to vote on these policies we had some no could I ask that we postpone the vote on these policies because we didn't get the chance with everything to fine-tune the the edits that we need to do absolutely do you want to postpone this to May 28 yep and but I is there for first read so we

159can include that in may as well all right as a vote yeah all right we also have the school committee calendar as a first read there was one typo on there um Nicole um we which we'll fix uh it was just that all the May meetings were as needed the first meeting in May should be just a regular meeting regular we call it a regular meeting okay all right let's see we just heard from Julie Julie is heading back now so we're moving the policies Julie's on her way back now all right so the only thing we did not get to was Julie wanted to open up school choice um which you need to make a motion on the table to open up so School Julie wanted to talk about school choice again I believe

160according to Robert's rules in order to reopen a motion a reopen a discussion we need a quarum we'd have to vote just to reopen the discussion okay um it doesn't mean we're going to revote on it again our vote is going to pass so I think that's something will push we're going to push the subcommittee updates because we've got Kim here and um why don't we take our executive session and then we'll come back and we can sit with Carol and do her goals we don't need everybody else here does that work for everybody let's get the executive session done all right so um what I'm going to do is I'm going to adjourn the meeting now now um so could I have a motion to adjourn Open Session and enter into executive session which

161we will after we conclude we will return to open session so wait I'm not adjourning the meeting sorry I don't no I believe you are I think you're adjourning this portion and then you'll somebody help me move to enter executive session to discuss strategy and potential litigation is the district and return to open session all right thank you so moved second all right Le a second all right any discussion on that yeah we all right all in favor what about huh the filming for when we reopen sorry Kylie you're gonna have to come back time uh no so we've done that J that we've come back and we have not filmed it Nicole will have to sorry stay and take minutes she's probably should stay for executive session to take minutes as well all right

162um the minutes from executive session will be confidential we'll review them at our next meeting you guys remember we R them on paper and then I believe we do vote approve Kim's gonna advise us on all that all right so the motion's on the table it's been seconded we're going to do a roll call vote Jess sorry L Mike Lisa I'm and I as well good job guys voted a budget