001get every time you did it yeah it [Music] worked okay ready are we on y okay all right so I'd like to call this meeting of the Berlin Boon Regional school committee order uh just a reminder that this meeting is being recorded so your image and or voice may be broadcast uh let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance FL United States of America [Music] okay uh I don't think there are any public comments um does anyone have any Communications all right so we have two business items to discuss um I'm going to do this out of order I think why don't we talk about the calendar first so um in order to comply with a 45 day requirement for town meeting and to be able to allow for as much time as possible for any
002state changes um we are proposing to to change the school committee calendar as follows so the proposal is to cancel the February 13th meeting have our preliminary budget hearing on February 27th have our final budget hearing on March 12th which would be a public hearing and then change our March 26 as needed meeting to March 19th and that would be when we vote on the final budget okay so did anyone have any discussion on that deal point would be the whatever agenda of the 13th is being cancelled would go on the 27th and then 19th would be okay all right do anyone else have anything to say and this is based on recommendations from Mars yeah this is based on recommendations from Mars yep exactly exactly thank you for adding that yeah one thing you
003the public hear you don't have to take any votes You're Just Hear It votes come at the next meeting we don't have to do a vot we don't have to do any votes yeah but if we have any business that we need to do then we will probably because that is our regular meeting not the public hearing at the 27th at the prelimin it's a presentation public in fo open a public hearing within your school committee meeting then you close it then you continue on your school committee or no I think that's confusing the public hearing with the preliminary presentation noar before that before right yes the 27th is what I was suggesting the basically not canceling the 13th meeting moving the meeting for the 27 is that hope I'm not confusing you yeah so
004the the 12th is simply the budget here you come in ncy presents the budget that was preliminary presented on the 27th public can comment whatever they want and then we're not voting that day we're just okay done and then the vote is on the me and you could do any deliberation you might want to on the budget based on what they say to give some direction to your Administration if there is yeah so the only vote we would need need is just to make the modifications to the calendar we don't need to put on the calendar when we're doing our preliminary budget hearing or our final budget hearing that's something that we can do after the fact I believe right we can and we have to we just have to announce it seven days ahead
005of time correct right we're just so we're just changing the calendar all right so could I have a motion to move February 13th meeting to February 27th and change the March 26th meeting to March 19th all right Julie and M all right all in favor oppos okay motion passes six okay all right so the last order of business is um we received a letter from the town of Berlin uh should be on the drive um and it was regarding um their their their request for uh our budget and they asked a few questions um did everyone have a chance to read the letter yes okay and then I believe Nancy and Carol worked to draft a response um okay here we go make sure you go to the one that says revised November 27th revised
006November 27 ask you a question about the town letter go ahead so the um the first paragraph after their initial three BL points they talk about um the budget being so high because of the need to cover the gap of special education for me and at the end of the letter they make a comment about you know your budget was more than half or about half the total Town budget being changed the change your your additional school budget was more than half of the town's total increase which school budget is less than is about half Town budget anyway and I think the changes that they stated were actually less than half but are they complaining about the special education cost there do they still not does Mar still not understand that that was a state
007thing that came with that we had no control over it says this additional onetime funding was given to cover the Gap and special education funding until reimbursement arrived these are not added to the base of SCH Bud as they significantly completed resources available for Capital go ahead I don't see that paragraph I'm really in their letter it's not your letter their the third parag it's under bullets increase yeah yeah it starts fy4 I got it okay about halfway through so what what's your question I'm sorry my question is I guess I don't know it sounds like they're they're blaming us for the increase in special education funding and that we can't do that again this year I mean that's sort of out of our hands I mean if we we go with what they're saying
008here we'd end up having to cut however many teachers programs whatever it is do they mention the special ed actually in there yes yes they did the second sentence right the third sentence that so so my interpretation when I read that and I could be wrong was that they thought we had kind of like a balloon year for special education that that would be different this year and do not maybe take that that amount and assume that we would be given the same amount I don't I mean that's a budgeted amount that's outside of our control right and our needs are still very similar I would guess those students have probably not gone anywhere they still there's been a little movement see in the budget but yeah they very well could be new ones coming
009in you they're just going to have to be educated that's beyond our yes I we went over that last year with yeah of all of our control what happens so I think once most of F I think a lot I'm sorry car no I was just going to say I think that toward the end one once they understood that for the most part I don't know individual understood or agreed with the decision but I think finar recognized was see I thought so too until I read this letter I think it I think you know I was watching one of their finom meetings and I think of a lot of it stems from we reported our Revenue very early very early before anything came out and I don't think that they had a lot of confident
010in our figures because we released everything so early we did that trying to work with them trying to work with the town you know so I think we're gonna we learned a lot and we're going to do it differently this year so I I think a lot of that stems from that also is is the whole circuit breaker thing I think a lot of the finance committee members were confused by that c I was confused by that I don't know if you guys all right thank you and I think again we these meetings starting in December as they have those questions again there to address them hopefully they'll have more [Music] backg F that situation I will say like I watched a couple of the fincom meetings and it was nice to hear how they
011understood what we presented you know and I think that that's important that this year that we really pay attention to where they're coming from too and what they're saying and that will help us in our presentation to them too so they understand our okay yeah good point Mike um so Nancy drafted a response um and in summary pretty much just says what we're able to provide right now and what we're not able to provide right now based on requests um so Mike you had suggested a few edits yeah I think the revised one the revised are Incorporated in there the only thing I would say on the revised one the first three bullets and the last bullet I would add the word just which is it says appr general budget is scheduled for vote on
012um based on the way that first part of the paragraph is which is to address these concerns which is schedu that's all I the first three bullets you're referring to yeah it just that bullet flows a little better from the initial paragraph so where it says the release of revenues that one the third bullet the third bullet down the third bullet in that group that gr approval SCH year 25 General budget by the school committee you just add which is sched it's just missing word you gotta change that date preliminary vote would be Y and so uh 27th yeah the 27th okay so it would be February 27th so that last bullet just needs to be updated all right was there anything else did anyone see anything else in this letter needs to be updated
013should we mention like based on recommendations from the Massachusetts ass Regional Schools I mean not that we're just pulling this out of a half you know just like there was a reason why these dates I think the reason in the second paragraph kind ofays off Theon version I don't know if you're in the PDF or the word I yeah if you're in yeah okay so Jess is asking if we should mention that uh I yeah I think the more just makes it more Angry so we could add that sentence in so Nancy Carol maybe you want to add a sentence in either the first or second paragraph that mentions that maybe collaboration guidance yeah I don't think it's necessary but I think it hurts [Music] sure you want I mean so like maybe the third
014paragraph say to address these concerns it's a little adversarial is why I don't do it because we're basically saying thanks to your letter we talk to our advisor and go SC this what we're going to do I mean the whole letter is I mean I saying it's based on data and experience of other you don't want to do we're saying we talk to other experts in the ski about experience and saying that our advisers are yeah we're being advised we're not just doing it in vacuum that's why I say it's a fair point but when you put it in writing it's kind of that a little well because we were trying to address concerns so we're trying to learn more about the process through them and since the Regional Schools you know your point we
015often told that we're a young school committee and you know we do things differently and so we' sought education which I think is very we sought guidance can can we just so go to to address these concerns we have we have decided consultation with the m Association school yeah are you comfortable with that we want to make sure we mention you in here get time CH I mean quite frankly it's more public access to the information that you've ever provided so it's they should be like applauding you not necessarily us but it's your real effort to say we're really trying to work along and to make sure you have the best information you can as soon as you can and there are limitations as to what access you have to to stuff from the state
016car the only suggestion I would make on your sentence there instead of and in after or consultation yeah or and after to address these concerns SM process and after also give some substance to our letter it's not just us in a vacuum we learned and also gives them notice that this time around we know a lot more than we did the first time we're not just okay anything else all right so could I please have a motion to approve the joint response you'll you'll edit it to get the last line up on the [Music] Ag and um yeah the Letter's mine just and um you guys can send this out tomorrow because I know they had sent it to us like a couple weeks ago we had a we wanted to um make sure the
017committee had the opportunity to deliberate on it okay oh right was addressed to all exactly okay so uh could I please have a motion to approve the joint response letter from uh the school committee and superintendent to the town of Berlin with the three changes we just made this evening second all right all in favor I I all right motion passes unanimously only sign I think it said at the bottom on of the it's fine yeah I can stop by and sign it if you want do you think I should sign it no it is what is it is I it's fine we're going to see them in a couple weeks okay so um we have our upcoming meeting on Tuesday December 12th is there any um future agenda items that anyone wanted to mention
018tonight before we adjourn I think use of the gym in the buildings shared use space for youth groups did you want to elaborate on that briefly or does everyone um I can or we can wait till the meeting all right long y sure all right I got that all right Jess you have something just the conference you to oh yeah that's definitely going to be on the agenda yep meeting like just a a brief recap of your conference yeah some exting ideas especially in regards to kids ask oh really exciting collaboration project in other districts okay all right anything else okay all right can I have a motion to [Music] aour all right roll call vote Julie Mike as well that concludes our meeting thank you