001thank you yeah all right how's everybody doing great good thank you all right [Applause] uh we have a pledge of allegiance for us please I pledge allegiance to your wife [Music] is thanks everybody uh John for the fifth graders just a little bit a few special guests okay two kids [Music] so while these guys get set up with uh we're kind of moving uh business item number eight Williams number eight to the front for these guys the special guests come in here uh we could probably get to uh since we're going on board and is that okay with everybody yes hello Megan second all in favor so that's taken care of oh yeah so we're moving business item number eight to right now [Music] student councils are all fifth graders are here to ask for
002your permission to support them for a charity called Make-A-Wish Foundation this Foundation helps children with critical illness and Growers plan on starting the carnations and even the profit to this Foundation the student council will send Flyers home and they go a classroom to classroom to advertise and leave deleted information out students and family members will have the opportunity to purchase a carnation for students faculty members and also family members we will be purchasing the carnations from Danielson flowers and Wars the cost is 75 cents and we'll sell the carnations for two dollars each we'll start taking orders for the carnations on March 20th we will stop taking orders on March 30th before I say they need two weeks in between so we will give out the flowers on April 14th to give up the flowers
003available to each classroom and hand them out we hope you like our ideas anybody have any questions great job okay awesome all right um so should we have a motion to approve the Berlin memorial school fundraiser activity for carnations for thoughts Megan Julie II all in favor aye yes all right motion passes congratulations well hey they were brave enough to get out there and do it so that's one thing good stuff thank you um all right so back to the top of the agenda uh time for public comments I don't think anybody has any public comments I'd like to make oh yeah I see a hand raised over there so hi I'm Kyle Barnes from Berlin uh students at EMS also Association link the entire teacher Association just wanted to let you all know that
004the budget is topless parents um and so we are working collectively on a get out and vote campaign Place child care for the night of the Town boat that will be at on school grounds and cafeterias so that as many parents would be kissing first week there so we're we're talking we're learning from all of you we're continuing to learn from the town we have a computer thank you [Music] like today yeah okay hi Christina California [Music] I am the treasurer for the vespto so my turn to what those guys are doing in Berlin uh we are trying to get the word out for parents as to what this whole process looks like um the types of things that you guys are reviewing and that you're putting forward and voting off and we have similar
005plans to Rally parents to come out and vote um to support the budgets that we need for our students to continue to grow and have the experiences that they deserve thank you hi Patty Ann Inwood teacher was in elementary school I'm sorry I'm coming in a little on the Fly terrible service of the cremator tonight anyway um we just wanted to come tonight to represent our staff and friends at Wilson Elementary School I was able to listen in last night to the meeting between the financial committee and the school committees about what was happening with regards to the budget and one of the things that really struck me was someone said you know we're not being pitted against one another and we wanted to let you know that we're aware of that you know we've
006been talking a lot about how there's no bad guy in this situation that we're all coming together to try and find some balance between what the students need and what the town needs through a financial perspective so we really wanted to say thank you because we know how much you are valuing what we do and how hard you're working to try and make sure that what we do is appreciated and taken care of so thank you that we also wanted to make sure that you knew and I'm sure the folks at Berlin feel the same way we really love our jobs every single one of us we really value all of our new employees and would hate to lose any of them and last night when I was listening in on the zoom and I
007don't know who it was I apologize because the camera was only basically pointing to Caroline but someone made the comment they complimented us on the amazing job that we are doing um considering the the per pupil expenditure that we have in comparison to other school districts and they're not wrong and it's because we're working our tails off with what we have and parents may not know you know the roof is leaking in the library that my classroom was leaking for the past three years and I was wearing them I get the black lung was murdered I was going to get the black glove um my co-worker her um personal her laptop excuse me for work quit working and the tech department said I hope I can fix it because we don't have another one our
008students who are going to take the MCAS in a few weeks we don't have all the keys on the keyboard so the situation is not ideal but you're not going to hear that from us because every day we're coming in and we are getting the best experience that we can teach because we love your kids and we love being in Doylestown and we love being Improvement so we appreciate all that you're doing we have faith that the parties are going to come to the table we're going to figure this all out and without our fingers crossed all the parts crossed so thank you so much for coming together and doing all this hard work we appreciate you thank you anybody else's uh public content list any last comments we'll move on all right all right
009so we went through the consent agenda we have some reports now I know everybody's here for the budget discussion we are going to spend the majority of tonight on the budget discussion I imagine we'll be tired by the time that's done so we're going to get through a couple of things first real quick then we're going to focus on the budget so um Caroline do you have a report you'd like to give I do Caroline's our student rep for people who don't know class of 2023. yeah I'm a senior here at Toronto um I was class president for three years um but yeah hi everybody um I just want to comment on a couple things so last Thursday we had our first um eighth ninth grade transition night and welcome event um it was pretty
010low attended but the people who did go said that it was a very helpful event and actually this speaks to a pretty major problem we've been seeing a Toronto where many of our events have had written those programs this year like people have been putting Disney effort to make them but still there's kind of like this disconnect between people coming and to be honest it's been a little too long to continue to play cobit um there's an overall shot of apathy from the Big Lots of that needs to be addressed and cared for I know that many of my peers have mentioned that they feel as though they have it mentally aged almost since it started like I'm a senior in high school but yet I still kind of feel the mentality like I'm the
011dear headlights freshman still coming into high school and um throughout the school I've become the same feeling people who you know they had coveted them in third grade they still feel like they're in third grade even though they're now you know any kids are sex um and I think that we need to take some drastic measures to support students mental health in the aftermath of covet and try and do some things to try and fix this overall feeling students have been having yeah does anybody have any questions about that that's uh I don't know would you say mentally aged freshman yeah I was just like I've talked to a lot of students from all over Toronto in my sixth grade and they say that they feel as though no time has almost passed for them
012since clothing began like they feel as though they've just had a really long like for me I feel like I'm still in freshman year type thing and it's like whoa you know now I'm just looking at where I'll be in six months and it's like it's almost like there's like a disconnect a lot of students brains like from the time continuum um and so I don't know it's just it's been hard for some students to adjust to that because I feel like they're still behind where they like they feel like they've lost time in a sense and they're having trouble catching up I'm curious with the adjustment counselor kind of aware of that situation and we increased on [Music] is uh I don't know who the adjustment counselor is but is that person busy yeah
013they're very busy because they are very well aware of kind of the needs of all levels of our students at this time we're very fortunate that students are actually feeling more they're stressors and concerns it's tough enough being a middle school student as well as a high school student but when you compound that with mental health diagnoses family stresses that are going on We're just trying to let them know that we hear them and we want to help them process through their stresses just so that connection can can continue to be enhanced because we never want them to feel like their voice and their concerns aren't being heard um I was also present at the evening that Caroline was talking about on Thursday yes we would have loved to see more representation of our parents
014there but the parents that were there we did provide them with an exit ticket survey so they can give us really insightful feedback about what worked what didn't work what you would prefer in the future and we're really hopeful that this is something we can continue to do in the future they like the idea of just being very informative being able to kind of walk around even in the cafeteria at different tables of people that were there representing Clinton Savings Bank the library yearbook so that they they're hearing firsthand that yes academics is a huge priority but there's also the involvement of social skill set and the availability of staff to talk about them Carol do you have an idea of how many people did attend any fans I believe at one point I'm counting
015about 55 people yeah which is really nice to see back to the Consular Office yes are you able to describe was it workload Now versus you know three four five years ago is it changed is it different how is it different yes and I feel comfortable speaking on that because my first year here at Challenger was 2019. so I came in the covet Year I'm still being a school adjustment counselor and then I can definitely see the increase in student needs coming through we actually have a Google Chromebook assignment so we're able to track when kids are coming down are they coming down during preferred classes or non-preferred classes and they're able to really establish those connections so I would say our counseling office is very busy not only are they fulfilling the IEP Service
016delivery Grant just to make sure those social emotional use are being met or just simply teachers are great saying you know there's something up with John today can someone you know can someone check in with them just so we're establishing that vision of we're seeing and hearing differences then in the classroom so they're certainly busy I I hardly ever walk down there and that there's not a public present in an office everybody else all right has anyone ever turned away because they're too busy in being in that office in the event they're turned away it's not that long like a waiting okay period um then we have staff that are able to kind of switch and switch out we also want to prioritize the needs of our students when they arrive in there we're quick
017to notice frequent flyer math class we'll put two and two together you know there's something going on but we're able to you know just work with each other they work really well in the counseling office as a team and if there's overflow because they'll come and see me in my office and we'll just continue to keep everyone apprised at what's going on okay pretty good Thank You Caroline thank you all right so the next item is the chairs report and this is going to be our open seat interview so if you're not aware we just had our election in November 2022 there are seven candidates six elected all members on the committee are currently elected we did have one spot open up in January and we put on a call if anyone from Berlin was
018interested to fill that seat and I believe Lisa Mayer is here how you doing Lisa uh do you want to come up to the scene over there and uh I think we might have a couple questions an interview process so if you're not familiar with how the committee has operated the last three or four years when someone when there's an open seat the process according to the guidelines the way the committee was organized yeah that's fine is uh for any interested people from the towns represented put their name in and if there are we would appoint a new member so that's what we're here to do tonight uh we're here to interview Lisa and uh maybe may or may not the point depends on how the community goes but at least if you want to
019give us an introduction sure my name is Lisa Mayer I live in Berlin we've lived here since 1998. can you hear me okay um since 1998 my kids went to BMS and Carol was the principal at that time and we loved her and we had a great experience there my daughter went to Toronto my son ended up school choicing for not school reasons but for other reasons to Nashoba um so products of public school we loved it had a great experience I went to public school public universities myself and have a lot of respect for it and really would like to support it here all right so uh the committee has probably has some questions for you we can start Megan do you want to start we just turn around the table so this was
020a question that I was at I feel that it's um pretty important I'm wondering um a big part of being on this committee is we work together but we have to be mindful of open meeting law so social media kind of has taken over you know this generation um I guess my question is uh what's your presence on social media do you use Facebook and what are your posts usually like do you post political posts or are you usually try to stay relatively neutral on social media sorry it's a tough one I know yeah that's a great question and it's actually something that I've kind of changed a bit because um I was posting more political things um I guess since 2016 and um I ended up running for office I mean for Senate in
021this um in this district and I realized you know what it's probably not a great look you know because you don't have the opportunity to explain really people can just look at it and make assumptions about who you are and you know what you really intend and so I stepped way back and I I don't really go on there very much in fact my I don't really have like um a profile on my own thing oh okay yeah thank you all right you have a question um I don't have a question I know a lot about you Lisa because I researched um when you were running for election um I didn't want to bring something up because I think I'm curious about I think it speaks to who you are as a person could you
022speak about great is it braver Angels oh yeah yeah so I'm currently doing a training with this organization called braver angels and um they are an organization that's been in existence since 2017 and their mission is to depolarize um political discourse and I think we need that in a big way in our country you know just everywhere and so I am training to be an ambassador for them and also after that a moderator and to do that you really have to depolarize yourself and I I I've been working on that um because I think that we do need to listen to each other I think a lot of us are only hearing one side of the story um in terms of politics and it's just really important that we you know listen to each other
023we learn from each other and that we trust that we're all you know we have good intentions yeah so so I'm training with them and I'm very excited about it and if I am um appointed to the school committee I would use those skills that I'm learning there you know when difficult discussions arise thank you I just thought it lent itself so well one of the questions that we were asked when we were running for election was how would we deal with any animosity or difficulty um disagreements and I thought that that really spoke to your character as how you really view things because the people came from both parties that are polarized that have brought together to to for common goals yes thank you yeah thank you that's a good question I appreciate that
024um so my question is as school committee I wrote it down just so I've spoken many members one of our biggest goals is to it's important for all the community understand student achievement isn't measured solely by academic success we need to be considering a whole student not just the academic success of that student our kids right now are suffering as we just Justin Caroline's update so the overuse of devices particularly cell phones are contributing to kids Mental Health issues part of it is certainly in part his research is showing so my question is do you think that cell phone use in the schools serves as a benefit to student achievement or insurance and why that's a great question because they are so useful you know with checking schedules and things like that checking messages and
025emails you know things that are actually useful but I do think that probably overall especially with the younger generation but also with with our generation that it does tend to be um maybe not productive because we're looking at social media and we're comparing ourselves to other people who are just putting forth their A-game and it's probably not great for mental health and probably more of a distraction yes thank you Jesse um so thank you for applying to be appointee of the school committee and thank you again for answering the public questions that were put forth to us for the election um so I had a question so regarding the questions on potential controversial books or curriculum you say you trust the superintendent and teachers to choose the best materials for their lessons and under the
026next question regarding your individual stance your say you're committed to free speech and that's censorship censorship is a slippery slope which I definitely agree um but the next time did you say that political agendas with um new sexual and experimental and divisive content are being brought into schools and are another slippery slope um so my question is um how will you make sure our lgbtq plus students and staff and allies will feel supported and safe in our school I think that we need to have respect for each other no matter what and we need to listen to each other no matter what and we need to not bully each other no matter what um I think that that works for everybody including lgbtq community so if we have a community based on respect and understanding
027then that will help everybody thank you at least I don't have any questions for you other than just your availability um the reason this is here is because we meet on Tuesday nights there's been discussion about possibly changing when we vote on the calendar which would be the next month or the month after you were available on Tuesday nights at this time in earlier time or is another night I'm available on Tuesday nights yep I'm pretty I'm pretty flexible all right thank you uh does anybody else have any other follow-up questions or we can uh if anyone wants to make a motion to appoint Lisa mayor to the committee they can do so and then we can discuss anything that we need to discuss I think one comment sure I love your resume and your
028background that you're a yoga teacher and meditation and all that it's just a huge passion of mine so I just wanted to say I love it and I love that you went to the ini the nutrition school it's awesome okay I'm done for now if we had multiple candidates we would go to the next candidate and we would then see if anybody had a motion for anyone we have one candidate does anyone have a motion I'd like to make a motion to appoint this American Committee okay is anyone second that motion awesome okay go ahead sounds like Julie all right uh so any discussion on this all right I'll bear pointing Lisa to the committee anyone against okay Lisa your appointment uh thank you all right for tonight you can stay and hang out watch
029and listen you can vote or participate in new things you have to be sworn in about town but uh we'll get that going tomorrow or when their office is open thank you very much thank you Joy next is uh subcommittee reports I don't think any of the subcommittees other than the budget committee some budget subcommittee has met since our last meeting and Megan we're having a budget discussion in a bit do you have an update other than budget to me that is all we have been living breathing and drinking sleeping all we've been doing all right uh our last item before the budget then is a presentation of Ames with uh with Sally and Cara thank you foreign thank you all right so um our presentation is to help us to Hondo our sixth seventh
030and 8th graders take and uh take the age of them at the very beginning of the year almost immediately after school starts so that teachers can and then um each of the grades organizing ceremonies has again read about an individuals so usually towards the end of January or early February instruction and but it's not necessarily used so in regards to literacy and reading performance this bar graph depicts the average scoring levels of our 6th 78th graders our district role is to ensure that 80 of our students are performing at or above the 16th percentile as you can see that's happening in all categories for very proud of it also shows that growth is a measurement of the student progress from period to period so if we break down from Gray to gray we first take
031a look at grade six reading and you can see that this bottom line is the national um level and then at the top of our representative um not only our duty start off way above information but um we had groups that was higher than the nation as well and it's also depicted about the average being for our group was 10 points where the national was five and there's also a familiarity with sixth graders from taking things about an elementary school this is the seventh grade reading support where you can see again um the growth is not quite as deep as the national level is but again we are above and the seventh grade actually shares some observations with us you know just thinking that you know the growth may not be as high but it
032could be reasons such as complex as you know those in the year also that with regards to starting at high level there's nothing for improvement and there was also some comments that were made about the fact that um and we see this a little bit more instead of anything in sixth grade but the students really take it very very seriously when they first come into the very beginning there they still take it seriously in January but not they're a little more relaxed so and that may explain the fact that you know if you want the bathrooms did not have too much work we're still about the nation but we need to look in there again there's a there's complexity to the material um and then also as we talked about there was that observation that
033they don't take advantages so this one illustrates math performance again it adheres and shows that we met expectations for our distant pool six seven and eighth graders are all about the 16th percentile and performance level on the map and again the two measurements from period two period [Music] level of growth for the sixth graders in seventh grade is also the same and then take a look at um note on this one you can see that the actual national average there's less growth in comparison to follow Ranger but those seventh graders we saw a signal again growth our growth was seven points the national average was one I think one of the takeaways is that we have like actually many supports in front and place at school to help us and I think that's why our
034students are doing so well um for instance what everybody gets in a tier one level support is the fact that all our sixth graders take reading classes um all our seventh graders to take a class that we just started a couple years ago Post open called Middle School essential skills we can talk about the you know what they do in those classes in the next slide but and then of course there's English for tier two um we have um essential skills class and works on them one-on-one if they are students that are struggling on the April test and other things because I think that's just one tool we also have an Ela lab for grade 8 and we have a math labs for both ways sure and when it comes to tier three obviously that's
035an alert that there's more need for students for support we have Wilson we have Courtney Gillingham we're very fortunate that this year that's some of our specialized teachers are able to actually get trained to have more staff people to do that and again we have the Ells report classes for our middle school and high school I don't think I just thought of that we didn't put on here is that our great all of our sixth graders also take a quest class in sixth grade which is a intervention blog and the whole team works together to look at how students are doing and they will pull individuals you know to work on specific things with them that they you know whatever they specifically so that's a very helpful um and this slide illustrates the class targeted
036support staff enforcement that our staff members are able to provide for our students there's math lab instead of 18th grade it does not take place of their current math class it actually complements it so for students in that class have indicated they would be assigned to it based on teacher recommendations reports from aims web and Concepts staff so it helps them just to enhance that fundamental skills that they have and it's every other day in regards to the ELA lab runs similarly into math you're just enhancing your Ela skills so it's whether it's fluency literally content just knowing how to express yourself in writing and that also runs every other day and last but certainly not least is the middle solution essential skills class it's kind of helpful sorry um we implemented that right after
037opening because let's face it it's hard to get back from the routine so in this course they're talking about test taking strategies how to prepare how to study how to get ready for what's next in the class which we're very we're very confident that is just going to complement them as they go up in grade levels here at Donna Jones and they work on their writing skills excuse me questions just I think it's great um the class targeted support for the math lab and the ELA lab um I know how you said it doesn't take place in the regular map of the bla what class do they not have as a result of that it takes place in one of the electives obviously I think the aims web scores being so much about the national
038average speed to the efforts of the futures thank you yeah absolutely I just one question I'm sure it's not it's not you I know it's how aims web is I'm wondering if across the board we could see Ames Webb our district compared to Massachusetts oh really well I'm just thinking like Nationwide you know some of the states were different so even if it was like New England I just you know do we have that issue they used to and when they converted they upgraded to into a plus a couple years ago they still don't have enough data to do just a Massachusetts average they're hoping within the next year or two because the Massachusetts average are right was a lot higher when we compare our Massachusetts because these are you know Alabama kids well that's
039nice exactly why do you choose the 60th percentile for success and teams up too they all do it but I I don't know either because John did okay uh because of the sample that we're looking at we should be able to do better than like half of our kids and we could go and have to not when we roll it up to the 60th percentile you can start to feel good about our kids are making progress um and so that's what being made that our Target we it's a challenge sometimes to get there um it's more challenging um in the early grades than it is greater but it's been a good Target for us because it's still a stretch but again Heisman Middle School testing is a little different the sample size system is great
040what eighth grade do you show the client is that typical is this an anomaly year is that how does that compare the years past you know I can get that information so I'm one or eighth grade they're they're getting ready one of the nine degrees if they're not performing well in eighth grade is that one reason why they might be leaving the district have you looked into that at all if you do any sort of exit interviews for eighth graders that leave going into time because we do see quite a drop in enrollment in tonight right but I'm certainly part of the budget process that we're going through is trying to figure out what can we do differently to keep kids in the district versus going if they're going to go to a vocational school
041elect the plumbing can't help that but I think one more private school where are they going just because they don't like it and it's their chance to leave for whatever reason well that's one of the reasons we started the age of 9th grade transition meeting actually to give the information that we just didn't feel was maybe there enough for people to make those decisions you know so I think that's a start um but you know certainly the idea okay here's also the timing of the eighth grade reading test you know the last thought was teachers commented then they weren't as engaged so I'm curious if this is like a Friday afternoon before February break or you know like something we're making their attention wasn't as focused those are definitely all considerations we could take back
042to the team and just get more observation from them thank you great all right thank you all right that brings us to the budget of discussion but before I have a few comments to make about the last few weeks and months and I did write it down as well just like Julie so I don't Ramble On and you go on so um I'm just gonna get to it uh we have several special guests here from the select boards Finance committees I believe in town Christian that is here yeah uh just kind of help us along with uh tax implications of this budget that we're considering we agreed last night not to uh take a vote on it tonight with the finance committees just because they are still traveling around all their numbers uh we're probably
043gonna discuss this and vote maybe on the 21st of this month is as needed meaning maybe have that as our budget hearing but I want to start by saying thank you to the community for supporting your schools I want to thank Julie and Megan for working on the budget subcommittee so tirelessly bringing us through this process and Carolyn Nancy uh working beyond what anyone really should reasonably expect an employee to do to to get this work done how many hours on Sunday afternoon were we back and forth dealing with that um they've given more than anyone can know and uh I know you're working so good luck with that um thank you to the teachers of Berlin Boylston Regional School District you continue to show up despite the challenges thrown at you the past several
044years and everyone who watched last night's finance committee meeting in Boylston with the Berlin committee as well by now you know that we're in a situation where it is possible that we can have some positions that may or may not go if we don't find a way to fund a level service budget we'll hear more on that soon but I can't fathom the level of anxiety this might bring as as you go through these days teaching the social emotional anguish you might face knowing the situation remains unresolved yet you showed up today to teach our children and you'll continue to show up tomorrow to teach your children through all this so I feel confident saying that this committee is going to work and do everything we can to figure out the solution to this situation
045we are as we saw earlier tonight four months removed from the November election in this first election for the Regional School District which was delayed for two years many thought would never come and already in those four months we've seen our fair share of distractions changes challenges enough to sort of fill a decade of school committee work uh just a few short months reminisce of hiring multiple new leaders at our schools we have a new acting and soon to be superintendent Mrs Costello we're working for the first time with a new Finance director this year Mrs Kaminski we created the new budget cell committee headed by Mrs Brill and Mrs Lee and within weeks of the election we had unexpected challenges to deal with having only been a part of this team for a few
046days this is already stepped right in and helped us to get through we voted to hire an attorney attorney Mrs mosack she's been an invaluable help to this group as well in January our schools dealt with their own shelter in place order as our police handled an emergency situation close proximity to the buildings quite precisely the inopportune time that School dismissal all right so that that was a challenge um we've had to face the situation that we just completed tonight appointing a new member four months removed from our election so lots of distractions lots of challenges in there dealing with unprecedented budget changes that every town right uh most importantly though this committee is still relatively new to the job it's been a steep learning curve for everyone here myself included I'm happy to admit
047that but thank you everybody for your commitment to the job and your ability to act and react as fast as possible at anything that's thrown at you and we know you are committed to this job so with that uh Carol and Nancy would you please take us through the budget options sure um I also want to thank everybody who was there last night I think that we we talk to one another in a in a really significant way and I'm grateful for our time it's the first time we really all come together in that way and I said that last night and I'll say again I want to just reiterate that how much we appreciated the invitation from the boils and finance committee to come and join you in that conversation Berlin was there um
048Nancy's going to go through some of the slides that she shared last evening in just a moment I also just I have to take a moment to thank all of these people behind me and on the side to me that I work with and across there every day all of our teachers who I'm grateful for I know well we've spent many years together some of many of you um and there's certainly are new teachers and I do I do not Advocate enough for these people who are there every day with our children it means everything it's why I'm sitting here right now you know applying for this position in the fall I'm here because of your children all of them and um I am going to Advocate strongly and continue to do that for them
049and for all of you who sit there going every day you can take care of vehicles with that Nancy before you start if you want to mine for the committee if we can hold all of our questions until Nancy's done and then after Nancy folks from the town committees if you have something to say Kristen if you can talk to us a little bit about the process to get from here to stop meeting before the committee starts to ask questions my presentation is going to be brief I'm not going to go through the whole thing that's going to give you a summary of where we stand right now so when we originally came together for the budget we took our district Improvement plan we took all of our needs and all of our wants and
050we put them into our budget and that's where we started being very hopeful then as things started to come together meeting with the towns and kind of getting a grasp on reality of where we really stood some obstacles came in our way one of the obstacles was special education special education has skyrocketed for our next school year from budget to budget for special education from 23 to 24 it's gone up to 1.3 million that includes Auto District tuitions Personnel everything so that that was a huge obstacle that we could face another huge obstacle is health insurance our health insurance is going on 10.5 percent so with those two obstacles we knew we had to kind of really reevaluate and take a look at where we stand so what we did is we came together again
051and prepared two options that we thought we would share with the towns so I'm going to quickly go over those options with you to show you so the first one is a level service budget so this is your basic minimum required spending to keep your Educational Services flat from 2023. so nothing nothing changes your every all your services all your programming stays the same except for your contractual increases your vendor increases your teacher contracts all of that you go according to all the rules and regulations that's the only thing that changes so looking at that I have it split out by each School so for Berlin Memorial you can see that the you have the operating budget on top so the dollar increase is 550 000 for the 13 increase for Boylston the dollar increase
052would be 784 000 out of 16 increase in to Hunter would be a 1.2 million dollar increase at 13 percent then you have your capital budget which will stay the same throughout so and it's broken out for school again so for Berlin it's the increase is 284 000 at 173 increase Boston Elementary is an increase of 558 000 at 859 increase in Toronto 585 000 of the 21 increase our state revenue has come in in our district revenue is forecasted out so for our Chapter 70 Revenue we've got an increase of about 350 000 in our chapter 71 we got an increase of about 117 000. it's more than we've gotten in Prior years but it's not enough to make a difference I'll solve our problem our next option is looking at the below level
053service budget so with a below level service budget we lose everything from the above level service Plus a reduction in force of approximately 11 positions across the district including teachers and support staff support services for general education and special special education will be produced additional programs and courses will be eliminated class size increases across the elementary school holding class sizes will increase so that looks like this for Berlin it drops it to a nine percent with the 360 000 increase the capital stays the same we kept the same for Boylston Elementary and brought it to a 556 000 increase at 12 in for Toronto it brought it to a 763 000 increase at eight percent quickly I thought I just showed Jesus where what we requested for our Capital requests so as I heard earlier
054we'll start with the middle one Boylston Elementary from HVAC installation additional I.T support to help with the Chromebooks that was mentioned earlier to help with the switches in wireless access um half years in the building the kitchen floor and the kitchen needs replacement um requests for a truck facilities we have a new facility director who uses personal vehicle going from building to building it'd be nice to have a vehicle that we could use that we call our own that he could use the roof is it currently on here but we're looking into it because there's a lot of different things going we got to figure out what's really going on with the roof before we can put a dollar amount to it we're not sure we're having we are having a facility assessment done on
055the building and when that comes back we'll know what repairs need to be done for the group and then we'll reference again putting that on here and they're fully aware that that that's coming up in Berlin Memorial a new flat roof I.T support copiers plumbing repair a lot of the boys rooms the toilets and the sinks needs to be replaced we need replacement for some exterior doors and the trucks on there because it's split throughout the district a lot of the stuff in Berlin Memorial we did a building assessment two years ago so we're trying to kind of work on some of the issues that were brought up in the building assessment most of these things are spread throughout the district so you're going to see repeats of them throughout the school so you've got
056a security system upgrade we need to upgrade our security system in Toronto we need more cameras so we can kind of see what's going on inside and outside of the building copiers 3D printers for some of our programs to keep up with their everybody else HVAC upgrade and then you have your principal employment interest for the for the building and I think I'm just going to leave it at that I think we have a lot to talk about tonight um and then if anyone has any more questions that can pull there's a lot more slides here right thanks you would be the best that yeah that's great thank you yeah so before we get into the discussion so there have been some questions brought out below do the towns agree what a one-time agree is
057another time doesn't agree uh what's the process to who has to approve the budget how do people vote on the budget when does that happen how do we get there so uh Kristen from Berlin is here and she's gonna help us with some of those answers I'm right here so wherever you come from okay no problem this is where all those years so let me talk about kind of the process of how it goes on in Berlin first yeah what happens once the committee votes on budget what happens after that okay so we checked with this because I feel like this there should be a flow chart because there's a lot of if this happened and then this happens so it's a little bit complicated which is probably why you've gotten some different answers um
058and that's obviously confusing so I've actually spoken with our legal counsel the way that the process would work is your budget does go to the town meeting and there it would be recommended as either a recommended by the fincom or the fincom can recommend their own budget so it they can both be on there if it's just one that everyone comes to an been on it will be it would be the one that goes on there but your budget goes on the warrant as you vote it no matter what um and then there would be a motion say the budgets are different there would be the ability to make a motion to accept the higher budget should school budget be higher who makes that much um that motion can be made by any Resident on
059the Florida town meeting so at Berlin it would have to be in Berlin registered voter so I'm also the superintendent has afforded an opportunity to speak at the town meeting as well that is part of kind of the statutory guideline as it's outlined um and then basically if the budget is read-upon we all go forward and everything is great if there is a difference the town meeting is adjourned the school committee goes back and has an opportunity to take another look at the budget and present another budget to the town for another vote that is a 30-day typically 30 to 45 day process so the issue you have there is you're running up against a little bit of a timeline our child meeting is made first and I believe oil since is the same evening
060as well so trying to get the logistics of that we have to figure out because we need to get a budget agreed-upon in place by July 1st so say you come back a second time we still can't arrive at an agreement we will go to a district-wide meeting so that would be folks from that are registered voters in Boylston as well as Berlin um and it's a majority I'm sorry the district-wide meeting who calls at me is it both towns together the school committee school committee will call for that meeting is my understanding okay yeah so and then um hopefully we'd all agree um if not the you know worst case scenario is you go to What's called a 112th budget um and that's for every month until um you know we can reach an
061agreement and it's based on typically FY 23 or the commissioner gets involved from the state they can actually set that budget slightly higher than the FY 23 if they so choose um and hopefully you won't get that far down the road I you know I'm glad it's got all along I'd really like for us to kind of work together and come up with a plan um and it's definitely just an issue of the numbers and as we kind of talked about there's that access leveling capacity versus override which I think is a little bit confusing for some folks so I can kind of outline that if that's helpful relationships so Berlin is not taxed to the max basically so we have approximately uh 1.9 million dollars and it was called excess loving capacity that means
062we have the ability to tax that additional amount to the taxpayers but we don't tax it because they've made decisions over the years the fincom should try to be approval with those resources to access that capacity because it requires an increase in taxes above whatever your minimum contribution is every year which is typically a two and a half percent increase so what we did for our budget was we based it on your typical two and a half percent increase plus you're able to add in any new growth that comes in over that year and um then what we end up with is where we got our kind of numbers out of it on the town and our town went by two and a half percent budget increase unless there was a fixed cost like Worcester
063Regional retirement goes up health insurance as you mentioned we got hit with a 10 and a half percent increase on our side as well so there's some challenges like that that are fixed that we don't have a choice we have to we have to pay um and then basically what we do is we look at typically supplemental funding requests we looked at very few of them this year because we really wanted to give whatever we had left to the schools um the school system typically from looking over the years have done about a four to six percent increase um this year kind of looking at with everything in the mix where we're at we're at about five percent right now that does not include tapping into that excess Levy so just at the two and
064a half percent increase which brings us at the five percent for the schools that's and this is a rough number so I'm going to put about 17 caveats on this when I throw this number out because Berlin has a split tax rates small business exemption this is based on a calculator that's for fy23 numbers um and if there's any devaluation on the commercial side that gets formed by the residential side so please this is a wide burden of give and take on this number but based on the current budget you're already looking at a 400 increase in taxes just with the base two and a half percent so then if you're going into anything from five percent on to reach a level Services budget with the school you're basically tapping into that access loading capacity
065and adding in and so I did a little bit of a calculation as to what that would be and um you're basically coming down to the average single family home which again wide variety in most people's homes are worth so the state defines our the average single family home in Berlin at 558 thousand dollars so that's your benchmark give or take wherever you're at um so you add 400 as a base on an average single family home of 558 a give or take five I have to keep saying that's just an estimate um and then you're going to add on where you're at for the school so one of the things we talked about was and I think we're still close to this number and I know we've gone with percentages changed a little bit
066but 14 is about close to where you're at for your level Services number so that would require our budget to increase by another approximately 588 thousand dollars what that comes out to give or take I would say 50 to 100 is about three hundred and fifty dollars additional for your average single family home valued at 558 000 on top of your already 400. so you're talking somewhere between your bill going up 850 to about 900 total um so I'm happy to answer any questions I don't want to speak too long for you that's I think that's a diffusing part for people my notes as you were speaking said the five percent where your hat is not tapping into the extra Levy that's within like the two and a half percent which is your typical budget
067increase but then you went on like your next sentence was the two and a half percent cap on tax increases creates an extra 400 that's into it sounds like you were saying it goes into that Levy not that it's already calculated to the taxes no you're not on the timing of when all this happens as well so you're actually allowed you know typically within your your limits of proposition two and a half say we didn't have excess living you're allowed to go up two and a half percent over what your maximum tax ceiling is every year so we typically tax within that two and a half percent to keep it stable with other towns because we're retaining that excess leveling capacity so kind of the direction I've received from my select board and fincom start
068with the two and a half percent and look at what that increase represents as a base that's where the 400 comes from so in order to increase beyond that which that initial increase represents a 400 increase in taxes so you're looking at about another 350 to 400 to get to the 14 increase does that make sense where does that five percent come in again so the five percent was basically when we did our budgets at a two and a half percent increase and we backed out our fixed costs and the small increases that we had over departments and trust me they're they're really razor 10 barebone that was basically what we had left to allocate so we're basically giving everything that we had left over within that two and a half percent model or framework
069for budgeting so you're saying everybody's gonna well let's just say everybody's house is worth 558 000 because it's 200 right so you're saying everybody's gonna get 400 increase regardless but to get to level service so we don't have to let go of anybody it would be an extra 350 correct okay I wanted to ask a question about exemptions because I know there was a document floating around about the town of Wales evaluation and tax summary and I so it's similar in Berlin if not I apologize um but there are some exemptions for elderly and blind disabled veterans widows and or even minor children and I know with like the CPA being passed last year there was a certain cap like above under 150 000 income you were exempt from that so I'm curious what that
070would look like for taxes for people within the town how hard is that process is that something that people have already done and are aware of um it's definitely a process we do exemptions along with the maintenance regularly there are exemptions for veterans there's also what we call a senior work-off program where folks can help out with different town departments and exchange they get a reduction on their taxes so we definitely try to advertise that program and if anybody has questions come to the town offices talk to the assessor's office and we can get you more information what is that reduction I'll sub to well that's a good question right now it's up to about 1825 because minimum wage has increased but we're looking at lightning capping at 1500 that's the normal minimum wage has
071sort of thrown us off a little bit I had one question on the timeline so like you said the flow chart so school committee votes on the budget Goes to Town floor the recommendation of Capcom and then there's a school Community budget right so it could potentially need to ideally that but potentially two um somebody makes a motion on the floor to accept the school committee budget if it's a yay we're good yep if it's an a then you go through that process then but July 1st is the deadline so you're getting an agreed upon budget okay okay will that goes back so there would have to be a special town meeting then or just an agreed upon budget um if so say the town put forth this five percent um which it sounds untenable
072given everything that you've spoken about and I completely understand that um but say for some reason some miracle happened and we all were able to agree upon five percent you came back and said we can do the five percent then my understanding from legal counsel is that's considered an agreement because you're agreeing to the amount that was voted for at town meeting if you come back with an amount that's higher than the original amount of time and we have to have another town meeting to vote on that number worth the vote it's not a higher amount it's what someone makes them it's a school convey's budget so you this is whatever you guys vote you'll right now you have a couple of options in there yeah whatever you end up voting for that's what will
073go right to the folks at town meeting and um that's what can be voted on you cannot go higher than that number um someone could propose lower someone could perhaps propose in between but you cannot go higher than that number because what the whole idea of both leading law is it's posted in advance and folks have an opportunity to see that number and maybe somebody was okay at 10 but they're not okay at 14 and you know so you have to be able to get that information out to the public well yeah why did you want to open up yeah uh I know some most selected and can copy related if you want to add anything I do this yeah I'll introduce myself as an hour program I'm the Boylston on thin cup so before
074I talk about some of these things just the easiest way to say this is Berlin and boylston's budgeting processes are very very similar we're literally the same steps and everything else we've worked on the same two and a half percent increase in your sensibility to have level we also have a little bit of buffer in uh by the capacity that we try to reserve and we don't go up to that level uh those numbers of tax increases they're literally almost the same or the Royals decide for what we were backing out last night okay um but before I think a little bit more on that I want to do two public service announcements for everyone here in either Berlin and Boyleston if you're involved abort thank you if you're not please look in and follow
075into these towns work on Volunteers Of course fincon it's an unusual board members of financial committee are not supposed to be on any other Town board as my understanding okay so there's some Independence here it's an advisory committee we can't tell you this is what is going to be we advise the talent the select persons in that town meeting of what we think the town would do that's you again literally what Town Administrator in Berlin said in April on our side is going to say the same exact thing here so uh in some ways from what I'm hearing what we saw on our side of what else can cite I think we're a little bit better on our Revenue side and I Eric the chair needs to just go before the select person is here
076but I think the level of service budget is probably going to scope on the oils inside I think from what your discussions are so that's what I will leave it at on our site so whether that's helpful or not with the issue some information at this point and again the discussion last night was very useful it was it started as an oil spin finance committee meeting wow so you had started with the Boylston finance committee meeting we had discussions with Berlin we asked them to join us at the school committee and then he needed to get this whole thing I heard some people mentioned that it was on the uh the disabled Channel unfortunately there was only one camera there there were some microphones when I was turning their laptop and it takes a lot
077of technology to make you know cameras work and everything else Etc so um no I mean I think I spoke with Eric briefly last night when you um basically sharing with with you just shared with us all um I think I'll say you know obviously as a town we want to be careful of how much we're raising taxes we have we have our students we also have our senior citizens so we need to make sure that we're we're paying attention to um that being said there's there's costs especially this year in the special educational District tuitions that are kind of out of our control and I think the more we can evolve our state representatives our state senators to kind of hammer this home but this is a big issue right there's it's not just
078that there's how many of you guys know better than you know unfun advantage that are out from the state that they said you have to do this but we're not gonna we're not going to pay for it um it's getting to the point that it's going to break the tax right um and that goes along with you know they're pushing um housing which everyone deserves a nice place to live but it's also untenable for the towns so neither of our towns how the infrastructure right to support all that all the time so the state really needs to step up and I know um Senator Kennedy's team was at the meeting last night and encouraged us to write a letter expressing our our issues and our eagerness to get more out from the state so I
079think if people call teachers call and write letters and all that I know it sounds kind of wish I had to say write a letters they representative but I do think that's kind of right right now to handle that one across to them especially it seems like under Governor is interested in putting more money into education a little bit thanks man we heard the same thing so we contacted um our state reps and state senator I know our fincom contacted them uh select board and they said the more I don't want to say annoyages but basically it's sort of like the squeaky will gets the Greece we understand the fixed cost of special education and they said the more that you can put it out there put it on their radar it may not be
080a fix for this year because but there is a new governor in place and she is listening and starting to build her priorities so now is really the time to get that information out there and we've been pushing it on our end as well yeah I shared something on Dancing with Carol earlier today and we're going to talk about that tonight yeah I'm sorry Janelle and I took a look at it earlier and yeah we'll work on it cool yeah for Kristen or yourself if it passes in one town and on the other one that's what I was gonna ask that's the process it was outline so let's say it's it's early and it doesn't pass yeah throughout the following process it's the same process and it doesn't pass into the oil student decide but
081passes on them earlier now the question is what if it doesn't pass in both I think it comes back to you guys to figure out a budget again right it still goes to both towns again first is my understanding and then if both towns can agree then we come together at that District meeting okay let's hope we don't get to that point I would love not to uh so we heard from the Boylston select board finance committee any Berlin select Board of Finance here um well first I'm just glad that the numbers I was present you last night Christians match exactly with what I told him you know dependency there uh we are in sync about what we're talking about in Berlin trying to find a way to you know to fund is uh I
082think we have made some progress about you know we clearly our point of just targeting the level um budget or level Services budget and uh that definitely is a big product obviously that whole dollar amount we're still ways away um I'm still digesting what I received last night I do have some more questions about some of the funding numbers or some of the numbers especially in special education and I definitely want to reiterate with some people to talk about Olympia on special education I mean I I've been financing videos back in 2006 uh to 2012. I returned in the uh began 19 2021 and even back in those days special education was a big pain in fact at that one time I was referred to if I was a kid for a day two things
083that I would have done is the state take a while special attention special education costs and elimination of the Clinton building but one of those actually happened for a great extension to get rid of the Clinton villain the whole place to be on school on their extra incentives but there is hope that though maybe special education can be fun to understand because that is really our uh big issue here and next I think the piece that people most have to understand and I'm still trying to get my heads around exactly you know what our reimbursements are and the big issue is the fact that your costs are now will reimburse you next year and that's the thing next no because obviously this will follow up you know when you're talking about the budget next year
084we're going to be dealing with this because there is a big office special education here hopefully the state is coming back and getting you a big bump to compensate for that and then of course how you use those funds so this year is just one step of that process next year I think we're still going to be sitting here talking about the budget exactly where we go because I you know it's clearly see where you guys want to go um we try and keep things at the two and a half percent I don't know anytime I can remember schools living at the two two and a half percent um and as you start taking more and more of that Levy capacity access let me pass it away one day you will be looking at having
085to live at the two and a half percent without doing an override so there's something to think about expect we do have that capacity this year probably next year but if you start eating into it eventually that will be there and then you'll be looking at overrides so um I wonder if it would be a good idea if we set up some sort of some sort of committee between the district the finance committees and select Works to kind of start Maddie reading and forecasting uh a uh budget that firearm as well obviously won't be perfect but at least you have much more information we talked about that this morning actually me Carol and uh I think that's something we do have to do be in the one District now if we can live with a
086level service budget this year we still do have not just things that you want to want to do when you flash and searched as the actual means we heard from Caroline is uh tonight about actual Deeds so the more we work starting you know year round don't even start you know we typically don't start till December we started over the summer this year we we have been discussing that um is something I was going to bring up to you guys but uh yeah we need to do that because it's on the problems are only going to be broken not problems but the issues and concerns are only going to grow from here as the towns grow uh more diverse populations in town more needs diverse needs more housing more families more students it all just
087snowballs so being one District now a lot in three separate committees or three separate districts or however we're both in the past probably a lot more opportunity for that so let's do that I think of note too I know Nancy skipped over the what was included in the about level service kind of the vision of the district from Carol is that they're going to add on um special education teacher special education Aid and then also a board-certified behavioral analysts and occupational therapist in hopes of keeping more kids in District and eliminating some of those out of District tuition so you know I think the three-year vision is really important to invest up front so we don't continue getting these out of District costs thank you everybody Kristen Matt Awards finance companies everybody I hope everybody
088here has a better idea now better picture if we have a discussion to have Now's the Time to have it um so for this day if anyone who wants to take off the Free State it's up to you we're going to discuss it are you really going to make the flowchart not do you need anything else to do right now if you do I love it again it's like a big bright pink poster board yeah that's awesome so to start the discussion we did agree last night that we weren't going to vote tonight on the budget as a committee so the towns can continue working we can continue working but uh we've seen the presentation we have it you know what's in we know what's out does anybody have anything to say I got a
089question actually so I know I learned about the coven Esser grants which we got I think for three years and it ends this fiscal year um I was curious are those I know the adjustment counselor and the voting nurses included there is that in our love and service budget or is that are we going to lose those so for next year the Copic Grant actually extends in Toronto for the adjustment counselor for one more year we can we have we'll have approximately 57 000 left over to transfer over so the adjustment counselor is still there so they're supposed to find them yeah after that no no what other positions within the SR Grant with me for one second and just a point of clarification I actually believe that the adjustment counselor that's in that Grant
090is the adjustment counselor that's at Boylston elementary school as opposed to the women no I I don't think so it's just a point of clarification of where that adjustment counselor is is based out of oils yes so one of the nurses was part of the um and we just said that the floating nurse and wraparound services and that's it yeah you know I think earlier in the year Carol and Nancy had made some amazing presentations on the three-year plan District plan and um Anchorage will go back and watch those presentations because I think it really speaks to the strength of our schools and also the direction that our students and our schools need to go um you know some of the above level Services were um ains in the kitchen at the kindergarten classrooms um
091guaranteeing Three classroom teachers for each grade of Bes so teachers don't have to skip around grades um you know this is not about our personal children but my daughter's in fourth grade at Bes and she's a 23 Chief recommend today um classroom whereas my son is in a class of 16 in kindergarten but without a need in the class room so I think with the needs of the children as they come up you know I I really appreciate that Matt said we need to meet you know both towns in the district to really try to make that three-year plan happen I guess um kind of going off what Jess said um I mean just listening to everyone and I I feel like Julie we have been like on this train for so long but like
092listening to where everyone is tonight and the finance committees it sounds like the level service budget is probably going to be the most the one that everybody agrees on um I'm wondering if if Carol and Nancy if there's you know something from this list we have a list of I think it was 31 items um that we cut from our original budget that we approved in December I'm wondering if there is anything that we feel is critical that maybe we could squeeze in um you know looking at the capital budget I think there are some great things in there for for anyone that's you know we have the devices on there so to you know about the teacher that had the broken laptop and they didn't have one we do have the devices in the
093capital budget and you know so I think that's good the other thing we have that I'm thrilled about is we do have an HVAC coming to the es because it is unhealthy in the months when when the temperature is in the 80s outside so that's another great thing so I do I feel like we're making progress I wish we could push a little bit more understand think it's a great idea to work with the towns but I guess I'm wondering Carol if you know if there's anything before we vote and I know I don't want to make you have to redo the budget I'm just wondering if there's anything that we think that is a critical out of that list of 31 and you don't have to answer now maybe that we can squeeze in
094so it's March by the time we get to June 30th there's gonna be changes yes always yes with those changes let's hope there comes savings right yeah so with those savings that's when we get together and talk as to what we can do with them what could is there anything additional that we could bring in with those savings yeah so that's that's how usually I look at it you know and I mean God we talk about the budget every day and look at the line items and say what can we do here what can we do less with here so I I sure Carol I'm sure you feel the same way that that will be our what we'll be doing until June 30th I think we can do that with programs yes we may not
095have been able to get this time I certainly you know it's hard to look at this list and prioritize that's the thing prioritize you know because you're all needs they are all needs for different reasons yes you know I think we spoke so much about the special education piece of internet and and the fact that it's given these CPA an additional one those may help us down the road to keep students here um so as far as that would be a consideration I I do want to mention tonight you know I've been working with um some private companies about private organizations about trying to get some supportive devices um so we're working in other avenues to get some of those the technology in place those devices so we're trying to go outside on the box
096to get additional items thank you thank you for getting all the facilities assessment covered from outside yes assessment yeah so I do think that um we're on the right track and I love the idea of having a collaborative group work together so that we can get this list of items it might not be July 1st 2023 but it's coming it's on the radar and now it's going to be on the radar of the towns so and that totally looked at it this is a three-year plan yeah so I'm just still slightly confused about Maryland level is that so we're not super level I mean we have our meeting tomorrow okay with that vets I mean last night they they actually met so we're forgiving on Wednesdays so so we will discuss uh tomorrow attention I
097can expand this tiny little bit on here so what does the financial committee do with these meetings we take all the proposed budgets from each of the apartments with the specific requests of the Town Administration look at two and a half percent increases would have been the mandatories put that information in any wish list and see where our number starts and then from that we'd have to work backwards if we're well over that point and that's typically the process it's rather tedious because everyone has what 20 25 apartments and everyone wants everything the killers are roads Paving the cost of national keeps going up every month that's another hundred thousand dollars in that budget to pay for close and so they get a little bit and your thirty thousand dollars more each year so this
098is this is what it comes down to the machine all right you want this if you ask because that means we can give someone else tackled what they want to and that's that's really what this comes down so our drafts available to be so that information is a working document for the finance committee it does not it's not public records the meetings are public okay okay laws and we have to follow back foreign had the so many dollars per the average cost of house and how much more to me with a level service I was at your meeting until ninth grade last night listening and bless you all for what you do um do you do you think you know people are gonna be like well how much is this going to cost us some
099oils and I know you were doing some creative things with how to cover it what was the I don't get what the 0.5 mean per on the dollar so this is where I had to ask the chair Eric who's not here he has all these numbers off the top of his head for reasons of how I work and kids enter that new level so basically what we're saying here is that people pay the tax rate whatever it is expected to go up approximately two and a half percent on average each year we select the Two Towns to look at and occasionally we bump that up a little bit but then that keeps hitting that little Reserve buffer before we get the maximum Levy but then the towns are allowed to charge for taxes okay once
100you hit that limit to automatically move it to two and a half percent as mentioned unless the town folks do a talk to and have overrun which requires how do we end election results being positive and does that help in this case so by the way I think you're asking is what the assessed value of oil spent property is that what you were asking um no I guess she doesn't want to get you want to get to where you want to understand we've got a calculation of what vulnerland would have to pay what boy you know it was 350 but you said it to be similar numbers so I think in terms of the boils and we can assume if we hit Level service it'll be another 350 dollars if you have a 550 000
101house on top of the board but they on top of the four that you're going to have no matter what you have before so so for Boston uh from what the finance committee went through last night we're in a little better shape than what I just heard from the Berlin okay so we probably are not pushing that extra little limit but we are going right up to that two and a half to probably about three percent so if we are going a little bit higher than probably the two and a half rates to them okay okay so yeah it's gonna be it'll be like a couple hundred dollars maybe on a 550 000 house so no no that's above and beyond with a little too about half we have about to be on the Forum
102let's say hypothetically boils the property assessed with the same average rate which is a little less so if you use the 400 number and now you're adding a little bit more to get to that level service in coils that I think we're looking at um how you're really stretching my uh you're adding more than the 400. you're right yeah so it's not as much as Berlin correct right maybe 600 instead of 850 or 750. it's a high it's a high tax for people wondering we're not saying if we do level Services you're gonna have to pay another five thousand dollars a year okay if you have a 550 dollar house 000 house you're gonna have to pay an extra after you pay the 400 on the base increase which is about 400 again let's assume
103everybody has a 550 000 house or whatever the average home price is which is around 500 000. so you're everyone's gonna have to pay about 400 increase for you know just for two regardless in Boylston you might have another two hundred dollars in Berlin it sounds like it's 350. so we're not talking about breaking the bank for taxpayers to get to level service funding certain groups in my opinion yeah all right I want to go back to I'll ask thank you a year from now are you going to be coming back with that type of increase in your budget that we'll be talking about the same technique I want you to think about that do you see what your goal is about you know adding all the other things to imagine what it is we'll
104be back talking about the same knowledge actually relax the state's also considering more funding right not gonna probably help this year maybe next year we'll see it's a match point yes we probably will see another discussion like this next year but at that point we'll have been talking about for over a year so maybe something creative comes up in the meantime who knows uh I want to ask the principals to kind of change gears here a little bit if we had the Ames wood presentation particularly eighth grade John's early nervous website [Music] we have a low level service and a level service proposal right right it sounds let's just assume basically what we're hearing let's assume Boylston goes to the level service they agree Berlin doesn't let's say we had to come down in Berlin
105to some sort of low level service we talk all the time about test scores and how the kids achieve and what they learn and can we grow and can we improve I have I know every time you present you present a very nice picture of how well it is but it's growth from one to two still means you're at two when you're trying to get to five it's 100 growth from one to two but you're still not even halfway to five if you get what I'm saying so at a below level service budget what does that look for student achievement yes well all the principles because you're all going to be dealing with it so I think I I'm going to push back a little bit on your premise that if it's hypothetical I'll give
106you that well the theory of it well hey of course I know Berlin very supportive of the school system so I have confidence in that however I don't know when the ncbb you can help me with this if we come in at that reduced rate the cuts because of teacher contracts those 11 positions are based on seniority so in some ways even if it's Berlin that's saying no it's boils and it gets hurt correct because they're the ones with the newest teachers correct it's a challenge in Berlin is that you have classes that are small enough to be very attractive like in the Realty sense and certainly attractive in terms of good teaching 14 15 16 kids in a classroom they're small buying the standards of Worcester or North Pearl or any of those other
107places but you can't put them together because we only have two classes if you had five second grades you could distribute 16 kids and it wouldn't be too bad because you hit two second grades Chapter 30 32 35 kids in a class that's Devastator not that I think that's what's going to happen but that's kind of the mechanics of Berlin you know we keep talking at the elementary level about the importance of sending kids to Tahoma to hunt already and you've heard me go on and on about especially literacy and the importance of continuing to approve our literacy instruction when we had our meeting about aims about mid-year you know we identified one in four Bes students one in five BMS students read a year or Mobile upgrade love when you look at last year's
108MCAS results one in three Berlin Memorial kids doesn't meet the expectation one in two oils for kids does not meet the expectation so to reduce service and support you know so if we try to get there by like pulling the tutors out but who's going to become Network teachers are already maxed out you know you can do all the small groups you want all right it's after a while if we want to be the school system that we could be we have to find creative ways to continue to staff our schools of profitability are there things that you know we wish we could have Carol wishes we could have a World Language thing at the elementary level in the worst way I don't think that's happening in the near future and I think that's part
109of why it's a great idea to have that three-year discussion that's brilliant because we can start to plan together what can we what do we need what's good what's great so the people can plan and be realistic I additionally think that in in planning ahead we will begin to be able to project things like the 57 kindergartners who are already registered to come to bes in the fall um that is significant that's almost 20 Kindergartners in the kindergarten class um in three classes and without without Perez um and you know I I know it's something it's okay the birthday party that never ends and I those were the kind of conversations and you know the more we work together to be able to project those things and those numbers um will get ahead of of
110where we need to be because when we know when we as Educators here 57 in three classrooms it's panic panic right here how do we teach those kids their letters never mind when we get to sixth grade and seventh grade and eighth grade so I think that those are the things that we need to start to think about and it would be devastating as John said you know a majority of our new staff is in Boylston we have really worked hard to come together this year and we are on a fantastic trajectory but um it would be devastating if that was the result of one Town's decision making and the other town would be the recipient of the decision making I never realized that I didn't think of it that way regardless of which town
111if there were a town do not want a level regardless of that town contractual obligations legal obligations correct are going to affect the other Town yes yes I do not think we're like that yeah non-professionally Status staff members but but it would affect Berlin too because you we're gonna the teachers would have to shift so I mean it would just be utter it would affect everybody is what would happen if we don't get the level okay uh I'm sorry I don't want to monopolize but can I have just one suggestion I think some of the confusion that's coming in perhaps that would be great to clarify for services when we look historically over what has been given to bbrsd it's been about a four to six percent increase so I think there's a bit of
112a disconnect for folks and trying to understand why there would be Cuts giving them a five percent increase and is there a revenue drop off like I know the Esser grants are time limited and I think it might be helpful for folks to kind of understand what are your Revenue gaps and what are those costs that perhaps were being funded by those revenues that now require the towns to pick up those costs in order to fund that's why I think there's that might be helpful to kind of bridge that Gap there so folks really understand what that impact is because if you're just saying well we're going from five to fourteen percent and we're going to have to cut if not it may not register with folks but we haven't given that much reform we
113haven't had to cut so just wanted to add that if that might be helpful for you yeah I mean it comes yeah Revenue wise yeah that Esther grants you know the Kobe grants are going away there are decisions that have been fizzling as time goes on from 23 to 24 it's the floating nurse it's the adjustment counselor it's the wraparound Services um there's other miscellaneous supplies and materials that was in there that aren't being funded the 240 Grant I normally when Janelle rates the 240 Grant she puts supplies of materials this year we didn't do that I took the 240 Grant and applied on a district of tuitions to it because that's where our problem was so a lot of expenses have flowed to different areas um but at the end of the day it
114does wash out because the 240 Grant is the same amount and the expenses were applied to the general budget even though they were for different things so we really didn't lose that much in Revenue we just didn't gain that much revenue that's the problem we don't we I would love to have more revolvings you know we talk we talk briefly about maybe increasing rates I do think we got to look at Aftercare in preschool increasing rates there and that can help offset a little bit but as far as it's really the special education expenses that just hit so hard that that that is the issue and why I specialize so much this year what's the four teams versus the two percent so the private special education out of District tuitions went up by 14 so
115that was a huge hit what do they usually doing two to three three to four I haven't seen before over there no control of that totally State nothing is yeah so that's another thing we should be lobbying the state for right so and we have more kids and we need more services it's not just out of distributions it's Services too these kids are requiring more services more than we have I have ever seen we have preschoolers coming in that are just have very high means right Janelle I mean obviously like two and it's just it's hitting hard and unfortunately it's hitting these elementary schools hard because that's where our little kids are so those are the and and unfortunately that's you know it's the expenses in order to move forward as far as the state
116aid goes in so there's if you follow the Mac list sir there's a lot of talented doing the same thing there's a writing campaign going on through there yeah Holliston is one town who they shared what they did recently I don't think we should discuss it tonight because it's not on the agenda it's would take a lot to finalize I asked Janelle and Nancy for some numbers for it they're going to work on that I think we can assign this to the uh either the budget committee or the success committee uh to get work on that in the next week I feel like the success Community yeah yeah so let's assign that to the success committee thank you all right yeah um yeah and that should be I mean I don't think we need to
117rewrite I think it's you just gotta add in your twist I mean it's the same yeah yes the district is uh multiple districts across the state are feeling the same pain as us that's the other thing we are not alone in this I mean if you follow the news over the past five years multiple times past overrides multiple times you have the fight between the school committee and the finance committee I mean it's everywhere so I just I just feel like this is not like oh what's wrong in Boylston Berlin it's it's just the way the world yeah well I I do have a percentage and how much it was we received uh 263 868 over several years so this was like a three year I think it was three years so we divided up
118that money each year that's how we're able to fund any adjustment Council during covid um we were able to fund the job around Services through that some instructional technology we needed to purchase more devices to ensure that students had those the devices at home to be able to use during that we ran for two years in a row we ran a Summer Academy a ketchup Academy for the early grades elementary pretty much a kindergarten first second grade because they were so far behind where they were coming in the first year in particular were the kindergarten students who didn't have any preschool the year before we spent did some after-school tutoring um we had in that Elementary School adjustment counselor of all of that money I mean and then we also have thoughts about accessibility which
119was nothing much 2 and 220 but you know that sounds like a lot of money but when you figure those things it's not that it goes fast and again this was over we tried to break it up so that we can sustain some of these positions over these couple of years and this is what the other districts they're talking about they're losing all of this Mental Health Services now that they've that we've got from the federal government from the states to fund these important important positions right you need to have these things in place and then they're gone and nothing else has come to any of us since then so I think that was also alleviated some of the burden that we have fallen on the tasks that well I think it's really important we've
120talked about it before the quarantine the covid measures if you're talking about the kids that are coming in from kindergarten that didn't have preschool we're in this predicament far more needs now of what schools had to do during that time to get through and I think that's a big part of our ask is that we need more tutors we need more remediation we need more Mental Health Counselors and so I think that it's you know it's a lot it's like the perfect storm of a lot of things the other thing too lower in the bed so we've been funding tutors through the title one program and we don't get a lot of funding for title one very small amount that just funds probably two tutors does anybody have anything new that hasn't been said they
121want to say about it all right anybody going once twice all right so that that's our budget discussion we'll we'll take this to the success committee yes I'll talk to you about that I will set a date um we have a couple business items this is unprecedented we've never done this before I don't know if this is going to work several parents have raised their hand if they want to say something during this conversation it's confusing because other folks in the audience were speaking they're part of other accounting boards that's why they weren't ready here but their parent wants 30 or 60 seconds to say anything uh it's not even 8 30. so I'm not a parent but I I was hoping for Town leaving so again there is the difference that you were talking
122about and they saved you know the thing they're devoted no can someone another school committee say I'd like a motion to reconsider and then identify a number so the school committee has like an option like option like Backup Plan B number and say I'd like a motion to reconsider you know we'd like to present this number because remember you're voting on the number you're not voting on programs at that point it's the whole number is a motion to reconsider so then you don't have to go back into another meeting we don't have to go back I mean I was disabled umbrella companies for a long time and so there was this motion to reconsider I think I'd have to be very carefully planned with that um process ing Logistics question at the last at the
123last County meeting there was something I was voted upon and people didn't realize actually that that was the vote and they missed it why they came um and so there is I guess within like 10 or 15 minutes you can actually reconsider and revote it um but it was on the exact same emotion so I don't know I believe the moderate or else so you don't have to use more time to go to that yeah I like it going once or twice okay 60 Seconds um real quick uh a couple of group that was the I.T support that's not super idolized is there more information about what that is three printers at the same thing on the mechanical engineer one for cat software company it's kind of like jail um forty five thousand dollars for
124me Precision that seems necessary for it schools aren't bad Labs we have 3D printers there we're affordable ones in the thousand dollar three thousand dollar range um so that's I know that's that's small peanuts 45 000 on them 19 million but that's a pair of salary so I looked into whoever I talked about that as well as we have industry contacts to see what we can do um there is there's a fairly Commercial Valve I'm also finding one it's a favorite commercial development going on in who else right now FedEx for example brings in over a million dollars a year in tax rates in town um there are two other properties being constructed by Hill Drive Randy Whitney is one of them in a second Warehouse there the technically South there's another property being built
125um I'd like Dynamics to create old place but you guys are trying to buy it and saw it happen like part of the time of the Transformer all that stuff um so there's additional tax revenue coming in to this town our tax rates you know 14.40 is down from where it was it was just two years ago so I'm I'm in favor of the budget for the level service and even going above and beyond that but you know it's all the alternative in the contest of all the additional growth in town um and I think I don't I don't have a problem with the increase of all the parents I've spoken with text it with me on Facebook being you know the general consensus in favor of consistent service that we have will report so
126I'd love to talk to you whoever I can talk to about the itas and stuff separately for the creative and I'll take it right would you mind emailing me absolutely yeah let me provide one number to you so New Growth it's a one-time shot of the tax rate so that's one of the reasons why we're in a little better shape than girls mainly because defensively someone else we're trying to hire a math teacher here so maybe eventually anybody else will go once twice yeah um [Music] obviously everybody knows I said Arizona earlier um of two things a big thing um I think is the lack of transparency transparency around this whole process performance I think I got these slides that you guys reviewed yesterday and I had time because I worked at home work from
127home and I went to them and I marked them I would bet you that most parents didn't have time to look at these slides and now you guys are making a very important decision but you're going to make it very important soon tonight and parents have no idea what's going on so that is a major and I know we talked about social media and that's not being perfect is that there needs to be a better way for parents to know what's going on um and the decisions that are happening in this room up um I did want to get a point of clarification on the per pupil expenditures and why there's such a disparaging between Berlin and Wilson now I'm not saying that Berlin shouldn't continue to work towards as high as we can get
128over State averages that's they're they're looking amazing um but actually [Music] um did you get the handout from today because because it was revised they've been adjusted but to be on the scope service plan does it does it adjust that does it work towards bringing us all aligned to State averages right I it didn't sound like it did it didn't the level services so if you guys were post level service right from what you're talking about that's not where we need to be so I think if parents knew that by voting for level service it would keep them their students in Wilson under the average State loan spend that would be like they would be like no we're not doing them just be fair uh valid line with towns around across the district not saying
129that it's still below the opportunity there were above but where we are in capitalism the what skus and spend I suppose is layers of administration Chicago spends thirty thousand dollars it has less than 80 students not to be rude but then cut you off but that conversation is beyond what we're trying to attend um all right like I said it's unprecedented we've never done this at the end of a meeting so thank you guys for speaking up we appreciate it um yeah we do have a couple more items to get to just business items a few votes I think unless there's a pressing new concern from anybody in the back you know anybody twice Three Times Gone okay uh business items moving on uh number one the school year calendar it's there for first read
130uh does anybody want to say anything about the school year calendar in August um there's a half day in September so that's a half day half so I counted the peas and we did well originally we were splitting these up so that they were all these yeah except for the first one in August but then we realized we were short two teacher days okay so we had to we had to adjust that so we turned those into full days okay it's whatever was include one two okay and that one on March that's the one we have the Jordan PD and then the afternoon are the is the parent okay and then and then the rep April May June and is the PD is separate from the staff coming together within their teams to collaborate no
131that well that includes both that includes a full day and then those half days so half days well one of the reasons we tried to have the the half days in here um is because it gives us more opportunities for the year on a consistent basis for the teachers to come together in that way and collaborative time that they can meet so they they do get a lot more accomplished probably over time so that is and also it keeps the students we count the day right okay yeah also I really like and I think the uh uh parents will like that you're starting on a Wednesday instead of a Monday I think that was just a a really bad yeah really I was surprised how many vocalized thank you and three days historic I can't
132tell you how many kids got sick that week five days the next year and we still get out I mean yes exactly they need to um studies first read um so it's such a long document and I felt like this every time I go to help my kids navigate this um is there a way to do a middle school one and I know some of the courses are the same and then a high school one so parents when you're scrolling in the kids too it's not so daunting so just speaking to the fact that there are two separate schools I mean I appreciate that feedback we used to have it separate and then there was feedback that that should be together [Music] I mean it's just 120 Pages yeah and it was actually longer but
133we were like for instance all the classes over there I don't teach anymore like the double extension of that we thought oh who never teach you now utilize it in there okay well so is telecom visual communication is no longer going to be fun right sorry but is that true yeah is there nothing replacing with that it comes from the fact that our teachers are rtd5 courses instead of professional staff volunteering to teach things say that last part again it used to be the professional staff and volunteer in two states classes but now we don't have that so they just teach five so we had to drop that does not happen anymore a whole lot of red that's too bad some of it though um Jessica like for instance there's a class called 3D design
134and we put it in red because they've just kind of maybe more you know modernizative and they've changed the name to manufacturing so it actually still exists it's just a little different so some of those Reds are being replaced by something else if there was yellow after it but for some things like you know that telecom provisional communications class so there are some things there and then there was there was some cooking and sewing and yeah those were some older classes that we you know when we were in the hybrid here too we had some very different classes just for the structure of our schedules very different but we've gotten away from that so some of those things are moving from that uh anybody else so they're not going to do homemak in high school
135anymore or stop I don't know how to sell it I know all right okay but there was a finance class I saw in there right there's a required yeah my only suggestion is it's very difficult to read about the process the scheduling changes that's huge and all the bread oh yeah yeah all right all right what else uh Lori what's the situation with these two policies okay so the harassment policy this was struck from the agenda due to the policy meeting we couldn't get together during the busy budget season but I just want to explain to you the timeline we've actually we've approved this harassment policy policy was updated in May of 2022 by attorney du Pere he noted the change in the Massachusetts laws for protected classes he redid the whole policy for us
136we voted for it we passed it actually voted it down um in June and we requested that the policy subcommittee review and then we passed it in August of 2022 the confusing part was masc came linked to the party sent us an update and we're like oh we have to update it again so that's what we just kind of figured out so what we're going to do is we're just going to compare it all masd did was change the the language regarding protected like hair styles and things like that so we'll be reviewing that um and it will likely be I don't know Mike do you think it'll be a vote rather than a first read since we've already voted for it or will it just go to a first read and then vote I
137mean and then policy jfbb we actually voted on that last meeting and passed it so it's we're striking that from the agenda it's number five all right uh so the first vote we actually have a number six substitute pay Nancy two seconds on this yes um so in the subcommittee we met earlier in the year we kind of benchmarked certain positions one of the positions that we've benched hard was actually the substitutes so we would like to come to the committee to look for an increase in substitute rates um we reviewed seven neighboring towns most of the rates are between 110 to 120 per day and it increases with having a license um so we currently pay our substitutes 95 so I would like to ask the committee for approval to increase the substitute rates
138to a hundred dollars a day and if they have a licensure or are retired um we would like to ask the committee that they would be paid 120 increased cost of living in the extreme difficulty of finding qualified substitutes we just really feel that our rates are no longer adequate so and to stay competitive okay I have a motion to decrease substitute pay as stated some moved second I'll favor all right thank you thank you uh Nature's Classroom fundraising Julie did something to say Alice yes I think his classroom so excited um this is just to see any approval on any potential fundraiser any fundraisers Community our members are going to do for nature classrooms right now and May 9th all right we have a policy on this so as long as they call the
139policy uh could I have a motion to recruit the nation's classical fundraising so Jess second second Megan all in favor aye yes all right motion passes oh I missed the first read sorry there's a school choice recommendations first week oh yeah you're right all right does anybody have any questions on that Nancy Carroll do you ever say on that support we support it all right so that's the first read we'll come back and vote on that next time uh take a look at it if you have questions yes or no so we'll do that on the 21st okay all right uh that takes care of the business items because we're not voting on school budget tonight in Carroll is that something yeah I just quickly want to introduce Lisa courting which started today [Applause] assistant
140and oh my gosh oh no that's okay I just wanted to make sure before she left us you know how happy we are thank you so much um we have a future agenda items proposals on there anybody have anything um the granite Bes Lorena thank you yeah I did I reached out to the the show award and just have it again you mean the Board of Health yeah oh you're talking about actually yes that's what we talked about last time yeah yep so yeah since that was a brought up I got a quick comment on that yeah actually today and he was has been working on getting quilts for that yeah and everybody that he has reached out to says why would you get quotes for that because all the schools are a slap they're
141and they don't understand so I don't know that's what I was expecting to hear from the before to help yeah so we definitely wanted yeah can we do it can you do a I mean again this might sound like a dumb question when we tested for Radon to see if we had a problem on Compass Circle which is stone's throw from the school and we did have extremely high radon levels so I'm a little concerned it's very localized that's fair big problem when I lived on School Street so Nancy can can we do a test like can Dan do a self-test you know what I'm saying can you can you buy something from Home Depot and do it or is this like yeah the building's too big I think the building was too big I
142will check with him I did ask him at the very beginning and I believe he told me that the building was too big one of the other thoughts that I just had is I wonder if it could be part of the facility assessment because in the boylstones oh yeah yeah yeah that's a great idea yeah they should throw that in there yes yeah there's a radon mitigation system so I just want to throw something out there Mike and I both work in real estate we put out radon tests all the time you put them in the basement and you tell them to keep all the windows and doors closed yes um so we would have to talk to somebody if we were to do a radon test as to how you would do it on
143a first floor right all windows and doors being closed for a 48 to 70 hour period where no one can come and go like it's really I mean yeah the other point is that just to make people feel better A lot of times they do the great on because you have finished basements not to say it's not dangerous in the next level but you have more ventilation on the next model right now right just want people not to panic over the radon right just want to make sure we're making the right choice of getting it done it's quotes you know so far came back to Hanto I don't have in front of me it was around five thousand and the other two were like 3 500 to do the topics yes so I don't think
144the home testing's work because it's hard yeah yeah right you might need to do a bunch yeah all right so I just want to make sure agenda actually School Street the radon is low all right upcoming meeting dates everybody agreed to meet March 21st on the as needed date yeah all right we'll set that motion to adjourn tonight's meeting it's almost second second favorite thank you everyone all right we're doing well thank you