001Heat. Heat. today. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Jump. patience. I really appreciate you. we have managed to with Fernando's help uh defeat our technological problems and so now I should be able to put a presentation up online um and here in just a m just want to state that this meeting is being recorded by the Greenfield Community Television GCTV. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify the chairperson at this time. And I'm seeing that our intrepid reporter from the Greenfield Recorder is also recording. So with that, I would like to call us to order at 6:37 p.m. Member Webb, will you please call the role? And I know that we do have one online. >> Chair Ston >> here. I am here. here. >> Here >> sorry, member Dman. I
002think that I may have not had our audio on for that. We are in the middle of roll call and we would like to know if you're here. >> Present. Thank you. >> Member Goodwin is not present. >> We have a quorum with one absence. Um so with that um we have our fiscal year 2027 public budget hearing. I think do I have to open it formally? The public hearing is now opened. Um, we have just to walk folks through the agenda. It's in a slightly different order than you might be used to. We're going to hear the presentation first and then we'll have public comment and then we will do our discussion after we've heard from the public. All right. With that, give me two seconds. I'll put your presentation up on the Zoom.
003I am sharing my screen to the Zoom. Jeff, can you confirm that the Zoom is displaying that for you? >> Yes, I can see it. Okay, it is not displaying it for us in the room on the TV. We can see the zoom but not the presentation which is fascinating. content. >> Aha, success. All right. With that, I will turn it over to you, superintendent. Thank you. Um, members of the school committee and the public, so you have some of the materials that you have in front of you tonight. You do not have this. Um, you will have this after. I wanted you to pay attention to me, right, and not flip through it for the moment, but you will get this um have it queued up and ready to send to you any minute
004now. But you have in front of you things materials that we presented last week to you. Um the executive summary, an overview from the budget and finance some subcommittee about priorities and the actual um budget, and then the mayor was kind enough to pass some things out last week on the tax rate. um information. So, the FY27 budget hearing overview. Um obviously, we're starting the process, right? We're into it. Um this is a beginning number. This is this is beginning. You're going to see that our overview is roughly a 7.4% increase, about $1.7 million over last year. And what that represents is this year's budget and what it takes to run the Greenfield public schools rolled over into next year and adding some different things, right? Contractual salary obligations, um some any new special education
005out of district tuitions that came in throughout the course of the school year and some operational service district approvals rating increase OSD that will happen next year amongst some other things. So, we'll go over some of those things tonight. Um, what I wouldn't I'd like to do is kind of and I I'm going to use the word run seeing we're about, you know, just a little behind in this sense, but I'll run through it and not read everything to you because um I know you can read and some of you may know some of this and you'll get this afterwards and then any questions, please feel free to maybe write some down and make some notes for yourself if you want to ask questions at the end. And I'm fortunate to have Assistant Superintendent Sullivan
006here, business manager Andy Pocket, and special education director David Messing will be available as well for any types of questions. And obviously, we'll be back at this again next week. If there are some things that we can't get to you momentarily tonight, we will get those answers for you uh next week as well. So, there are priorities and guidance, and these are priorities that have been ongoing in the Greenfield public schools. uh some related to curriculum and instruction up there, high quality instructional materials, uh new literacy interventions to support our students supporting the district's SEAL program and anti-bullying as well as restorative justice at Federal Street. That's a pilot program and active bystander programs with anti-bullying. On the next page, it is to maintain and expand art and music opportunities, right? Including long-term stability and
007expansion. Um, and we know that we're not uh well, at least I don't I don't believe we're cutting tonight. I'm not cutting anything tonight. We're just presenting. Um, but these numbers that we are presenting for the increase and what things are going up, um, I don't think anybody, well, I don't myself believe that we're actually going to be granted all of this. And this is all doable from the mayor's presentation or the city council or whomever right weighs into what's what's out there. Uh we have there's a reality a reality factor and we know that. So, while we're presenting this tonight, this is what right in a perfect perfect world, everything rolling over plus a couple additions, which we'll get to, would would be in the budget, but we know that that's not going to
008be the case in that sense, right? And uh I stop at the first one here momentarily to maintain and expand art music because the music program has done a great job, right? They just had a great event last week, again, another one. Um and the art programs are growing, etc. And those are the first things that tend to come up uh when people talk about cuts um unfortunately. So we want to try to maintain and expand those programs. We also want to ensure other activities are aligned with grade level standards and to support our exploratory integrated arts because again the IAS whether they be physical education, music, art, technology, library, you name it a lot of times are first to go right when priorities have to come down. Uh in Greenfield we're in a unique
009scenario in some of our classrooms and our grade levels where these programs are supporting teacher prep time as well too. So there's a necessity to that as well as well as not just the prep time necessity but what they're learning from this as well. Some other priorities are staffing and volunteers to maintain the level of staffing to provide small enough class sizes and provide individual supports. I think the class size you'll see not so much tonight. We haven't cut down every numbers. You have enrollment numbers in front of you. But what's small to one is all relative. And I I mean that really politely. Um and what's a lot to some right? What's a lot of money to some person to one person is not always a lot to the next person. So what one
010considers a small class number somebody else may not. Um but those class numbers come with choices that are going to have to be made. There's no doubt we'll be coming before you whether it's April, May, saying yes. How would you like me to split um 48 students at an elementary level? Right? Is that two classes of 24 or is that three, right, of something smaller? And we all know what we like and want, but there are financial constraints with all of that. So, those are things that won't happen tonight, but they'll be out there and they'll be in front of you. You'll see the numbers and you'll see what happens with everything. um trying to consider additional resources for our substitute teachers, fully staffing our school, including priorit prioritizing, right, attracting full-time employees that we've
011previously been forced to use outside contractors and services for. And um we do not want to there's nothing more less than I want is to hire somebody from an outside vendor when we're paying a premium for that when they could have just applied directly to us. But um unfortunately in some cases we don't have that choice and to put people in but we are making every effort not to do that in terms of professional development to provide the resources to our staff and teaching our students neuro neurody divergent students and the consistency of our IEP implementation to support e English learner population instructional assistance PD in investing in our value core of equity particularly Ian works to advance anti-racism throughout our school communities and the restorative practices as we've touched before. In transportation, we were
012fortunate to hear a um presentation last week that we that you commissioned and we want to continue to ensure equitable access to sports after school um extracurricular activities as well as parent engagement and related district groups throughout. And we've been fortunate to do that this year where we've had some open houses and we've sent buses to people who didn't have transportation to bring people to our open houses and conferences at night. So I think we are making great efforts through our schools and our principles and the transportation department to move forward in that. Some of the assumptions and guidance in this FY27 school budget proposal would be to provide adequate resources to meet legal mandates. We obviously have to comply with collective bargaining agreements and other contractual obligations to maintain our programs and staffing levels
013to utilize the best available information to project changes in costs such as tuitions and revenues. Establish funding levels estimate sorry level funding for all federal and state grants. reducing and shifting costs so that we can save some money and aligning our Greenfield School Committee policy budget planning by ensuring the educational welfare of the children in our schools while attempting to balance the valid interest of our taxpayers because we know that people pay, you know, pretty decent taxes here in Greenfield and there's only a limit each year that things can go up. also achieving the greatest educational returns and contributions to the educational program for dollars expended and establishing levels of funding that will provide highquality education for all of our students. So, some of our budget numbers, you'll see the FY27 budget is a 6.39%
014increase in the all funds. That's all funds. And what you see a lot though is the local appropriation and that's what we talked about at 7.46 and you'll see that going from 23,600 to 254 for the local appropriation. When you total everything in you potentially could have a budget of 297 on that. Some factors that contribute to the local increase on the next slide are outof district special education tuitions increased by $67,000, right? A 19% increase. Um you guys have done a nice job here. You can't plan for that. You you can't plan for moveins unless you had a big bucket of money at the end of the rainbow. And it's there's no rainbow. It's raining out right now. contractual increases, right? We know that um you settled Greenfield settled with some collective bargaining agreements
015last year and we're going into negotiation with some other ones this year as well. Special education transportation needs increased by $233,000, a 21% increase. These are done to accommodate mid-year moveins and the needs as reflected in IEPs. Um something that potentially is being looked at to add next year and this is for next year. This is not this year would be the potential of an EL teacher possibly restored at federal and restoring a possible float custodian. Um these are some of the hopes that some of our schools have and some of the and some of those things aren't hopes. Some of those are we're going to have to pay some of those anyway regardless. Um on the next page you'll see a local appropriation comparison by cost center and you'll see you know the FY26
016revised local in the first column the increase or decrease in the second column the percentage in the third and the overall number there uh the high school is down And Andy, you mentioned if you can just help me. There's a reason it's down. It's not really down. Um I think it's being funded. >> Yes, we are using more school choice and we use our school choice at the high school. So that's why the all funds would actually be an increase, but the local is a decrease. >> Thank you. Um if you go to the those so those are the schools. If you go to the next page, you'll have some different categories. The budget has lots of categories. Those of you can see it online. Um, in EL, athletics, nursing services, superintendent, admin, technology, assistant
017superintendent. Um, I'm going to keep moving if you don't mind going through that. There's special education, 504 services, custod custodial and maintenance, transportation, personnel, school committee has a line item and the business department also has that. Some estimated other funding sources through grant funds. You will see some of our grants there. Um, and these are early numbers. Um, Assistant Superintendent Sullivan and I were on a call a week or so ago with the state um commissioner. It does not look like title one is going to be fully funded. It may be at about an 80% funding. Um, that's going to be a big hit to us in that sense. Um, so we'll end up seeing where that truly comes out. Those numbers haven't come out yet, but they're asking all cities and towns across the
018state to budget at 80% of what they received this year. And you'll see some of the other grants and some are non-competit obviously non-competitive grants that we get each year. On the next slide, you'll see school choice, circuit breaker, special education, tuition, transportation, revolving, um, AAL, preK students, and the totals there. The increase very small there at half of percent. Going on up in that in special education revenue funds. On the next sheet is a combined balance sheet and income statement. that shows the balance from 7125 projected revenues expenditures this year the June 30th 26 projected balance and the percentage change. So you have school choice, circuit breaker, special special education, tuition, transportation, and then the total on that. Some other these are the special education revenue funds continued. the balance on top projected right
019on 7126 and then going forward for school choice circuit breaker special education tuition and transportation. Um, we've heard a lot and um, you've asked us and we've I think we're giving and we're going to give you more information on staffing. So, here are each individual school, the Academy of Early Learning, AAL. What you'll see here is a total budget on the right, 1.1 million in that green box on the right. some grants that are helping out over there. $20,000 with special education in individual assistance. It shows the breakdown of teachers, adjustment counselor, principal, admin assistants, IAS, building base, subscial staff. So, you're going to see that for all of our schools flowing forward and what it takes to run here. So, this is just the line item chart. If you go to the next one,
020you'll see positions allocated by role. Um, doing at AAL, you have one principal, one admin assistant, one custodian, six preschool teachers, one special education preschool teacher, 6 adjustment counselor. That means we have somebody who goes there. Call that, you know, three days a week. preschool IAS nine regular education IAS four and a building base sub one so your total positions of at the bottom it's a little cut off there of 24.6 six for that. If you can see the total FTEES for that building so that we run through that for every school. I have no problem, you know, running through it. But you'll see the next school is Federal Street at $2 million total budget allocated to that. And the next page has all their staffing. Next couple have that and they're at over 30
021staff members for that building. Then you get to FTEES at Discovery 2.3 million for that. They have some grants and 48 staff members FTEES at Discovery at Newton. A little over $2 million budgeted for that. um 31 over just over 31 staff members at Greenfield Middle School, $4 million total budget allocated. And um have a breakdown of the IIA, special education, regular education, teachers, admin, and facilities. And uh I think I missed the total. I'll just have We'll get that. You'll get you that. I'm not going to add that up right now and mess it up. Mess it. Greenfield High School 4.6 million total budget again. Regular education teachers 17.6 IIA 11.2 two, special education 30, admin facilities, FTE 11, EEL, and then we we end up going to EL after the high school, which
022are English learners. And there are four um Discovery, Newton, Greenfield Middle School, Greenfield High School. Total $424,000 for that and and a tutor in there. Nursing services um one nurse in every building 6.0 FTEES $436,000 for that. Your special education department. Now we have departments from administration, therapy specialist, psychologists, and admin assistance. $1.6 6 million to run that department with 22 FTEES superintendent's office. Oh, 504 coordinator for a minute. I got I got stumped for a minute. thinking I knew there wasn't one, but potentially that's a category where somebody's in there for $413,000. Assistant superintendent, $213,000. That's not all for Stephen. Um technology department, six people there, $435,000 in that department. custodial and maintenance. Um the central office part of it is 204,000. Transportation 981,000 for that 22 people in transportation. The business office and
023staffing as four for 276,000. the school committee secretaries members stipens etc. 50,000 eight people on that and then you have a budget summary at the end FY27 district budget summary all school and total departments grant total of when you add those departments 21 million 299150 and grants on the right hand column go up to 1.2 two million for that. I'm going to send the school committee. You have it coming to you this presentation. So, you can look at that and um ask any questions. And and I do know that I ran through it. Um, but what we'd love to do is hear any questions you have or any areas that you'd like clarification for. If we can do that today, if not for next week for you, then I know that we'll obviously have public
024speakout as well too. >> Thank you for that presentation. Um, yeah, it it was pretty quick. Um, and I will just note for the future that this is the kind of thing I would have loved to have seen five days ago to be able to look through it. >> Noted. >> Um, thank you. Um, in the meantime though, for now, I would like to open it up to public comment, give the members a little bit of time to percolate on their questions, um, and get them written down. Note them however you'd like. Uh, I'm going to stop sharing my screen. so that I can see folks online. All right. Um, any public comment in the uh in person? >> Yes, we have Pamela Goodwin. >> All right. And if you could share your name and
025your relationship to the schools. Hi, good evening. I'm Pamela Goodwin. Um, I had a number of years teaching in the Greenfield system as well as well as some other area schools. Um, I'm in precinct 6. Um, I want to congratulate you on all the hard work. I have been following um much of the school committee's work this last year. Um, I also am thrilled to hear that maintaining arts, music, language, athletics is a bit of a top priority because I was a victim of being two and a half when I was teaching foreign languages years ago. Um, I also lost a contract that I had with the city of Greenfield um in the middle toward the end of a year and I was teaching foreign languages over at Newton Street and the school committee um
026canceled the only nurse in the building and broke my contract which is when I changed careers. Um that putting aside I also love hearing about restorative justice. Um at one point I was teaching in the elementary school in Cole Rain. All of those little children were very involved in restorative justice and we had to have that at the middle school back a long time ago when it was actually um a junior high setting. Um I was hired by the city of Greenfield to teach a little young either David was either fifth or sixth grade. He was an IEP child. Brilliant. I went to his small apartment. his mother rem um stayed in the apartment while I was tutoring him in all of his subjects. Um it's my understanding, the way I recollect it, is that
027maybe there was a lawsuit from the mother to the school system and so that might be one of the reasons, but he also had some tremendous behavior issues which toned were toned down with me working with him one-on-one. The good news is as a special needs child, I got him into Newton school. He sat at the computer. He was in the library by the end of all of the time that I was spending all of the time in his tiny little apartment with his mother being present. There was also a younger sister. Um, but he was brilliant. He just had special needs. Um, and I know that she wanted to have him continue to progress in like a summer school setting. So, I'm had a number of experiences in special needs classroom over the years
028and unfortunately if they have to be driven out somewhere to get their needs met, you know, we all know that no child left behind is kind of where we're coming from and we do have a lot of special needs kids, especially postcoid. Um, and sometimes it's just behavior and sometimes it's something much more serious. Um, and I had a number of um, IEP children in my mainstream classroom when I was teaching in the school system here in this city as well as in other cities. Um, I'm hoping that the volunteers that I had heard about who wanted to make it easier for people to come in and volunteer because we do have a budget problem and so paying instructional aids is a big problem. And if we can get more and more people in there
029on a volunteer basis to help with students, I would love to see that happen. And I can hear that time is up. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, anybody else in the room for public comment? And also, if you are online and would like to give public comment, please put your name in the chat and then I'll call on you when it is time. Anybody else? Going once. Public comment. Going twice. All right, I'm going to close public comment for this budget hearing and we'll return back to the members and open up discussion. >> Yes, member Den, >> I have two questions for you, superintendent, and one question for Andy. What what do we do with only 80% of title one? Like what's the plan is question number one. I'm sorry. And um question number
030two is super easy. Can we add your PowerPoint to the website under our meeting materials so that the public can look through it at their leisure? >> The plan was to do that in the morning. Yes. >> Wonderful. Thank you. So then I guess that's my question for you. What do we do with only 80% of title one coming to us? Stephen, no, I'm just kidding. But you know, but you're going to chime in here. Um, that's going to represent aboutund70 or what? >> 149. So that it's a potential loss of $149,000 there. Do you want to jump in on potentials? These are all whatifs right now. >> Yeah. Um, so it is a whatif. I think we're we've been asked by the department to plan for about 85 like a 15% reduction. Um so
031I think there's a couple of things that we could potentially do. One of it is monitoring how we're spending um title one funds for this current school year, right? and anything in excess could potentially be used. Title one, two, three, and four are 27 month grants. So you have a 27month cycle. So any savings that we have from this year's could help offset anything. But as you know, if we do that this like you start to kick the can down the road. So, we'd have to look at um potentially some changes to our approach to title to what we pay for out of title one. Um but it's tough to tell based on information that we're getting from the state and federal level if this is going to be long-term or if it's a blip.
032Um so I think we're looking at a couple different scenarios. >> Thank you. And then my other question is for Andy. Um, thank you so much Andy for making sure we had enough money at the end of the year to weather this storm of additional special education funding that we needed to give the services we needed to give to our students. And then I remember you telling us that the uh federal mandated minimum effort was 9.268, 268 right for Greenfield >> maintenance of effort out there. Yes. Go ahead. >> Okay. So, what is the total amount that we're spending um for special ed this year? Do you remember off the top of your head? >> Uh >> I was just trying to think of how much more we're spending than our maintenance effort compared to
033last year just so that I have the number going forward. >> If you give me a >> Oh, you take your time. You can email like you don't need to tell me now. This could be future. >> Continue on and I'll have it for you uh by the end of this meeting. >> Oh, okay. All right. Yes. I appreciate that. Um I guess I just when I read the executive summary, I was thinking this isn't any different than any of the other times. Like it's always 5 to 10%. It always always always is. this is just what you expect and you know that it's going to get cut, right? And that's just life. But I guess I just was thinking today as I was going over all these materials that like nobody here wants to
034cut any education for any of our students. Like we're we're all committed to that. The city is committed to that. I don't think anybody wants to do any of that. But like private healthc care is taking your child's education. So, if the Greenfield Brain Trust that I know exists here can put as much energy as possible as citizens to working on universal healthcare and on making your voices heard, like now's the time because this is just going to get worse every year. Like, what is it going to be next year? 30% increase. I don't know. But it's just never going to stop. And it has to start like now, not when the budget is about to be signed. Like, we need to do it now. So, if you have been wanting to throw your hat
035into local government or like help us, do that. Send us emails, talk to us. Like, take all the energy you put into the town Facebook page and direct it to Boston and tell them, please do it because we can't get this money for you all. Like, we try, but we need you. So, please do that. And thank you, Andy, for looking up that information that you can tell me later. And I'll give Mr. Messing the credit for this. Uh, current year FY26 9,944,779. 9.28 was last year. >> Thank you. Questions from other members? Yeah. Remember what >> um I just to say what Stephen said the title one is 85%. But um do we know how many full-time employees we are paying out of title one funds or is title one funds mainly for some
036of our afterchool events? >> It's a combination of personnel, supplies and materials, but currently we have allocated for nine positions out of title one. with with the title one funds being cut, would we be able to sustain those nine positions? I think that would be our priority with the funds that we do receive. I think our goal would be to maintain those positions that are funded or look at positions that were allocated that might have been vacant for a period and obviously prioritize the keeping maintaining the positions that have been filled first if we had to look at uh personnel cuts through that. But it could impact late bus transportation, supplies, material, things like that. Right. So, it is a combination, but personnel is a large chunk. >> Some of our events we have. >>
037Yeah. And member Webb, as you're you're fully aware, and I know the public is too, and the mayor is, um, when you when we have to cut, and not tonight, but we know we're going to have to cut. When schools cut, you cut the cuts are in personnel. That's where you have the savings, right? You don't cut um pads that you're buying for 89 cents from Staples or Amazon, right? Like it takes way too many pads to equal $700,000 or something like that, right? Um it's unfortunate. We want to keep cuts away from people, right? So, initially cutting supplies, materials, unfortunately, sometimes events, uh things that are deemed not even extras. I don't want to say like events are extras, right? things their priorities we have to vote on like teachers in front of our
038children or you know after school activities and things like that at times um we're not there yet but those are the tough things to do and to make savings right it's human beings that when you're char you're averaging teachers let's say I'm not saying they all make this but the average is $75,000 right or different jobs have different kind of averages that go with them you got to buy you got to stop buying a lot of dry erase markers to equal $75,000, you know, and it doesn't work that way. That's the unfortunate part about doing budgets. >> I did have another question. Um, and I know I'm early to this late to this party, but where would we be seeing is summer school in this budget or is that like a separate thing? >> Summer
039school's funded from a couple of different places, title one being one of those places. Um, but also and I'll probably get the grant wrong, so I'll defer to Mr. Messing. Um, And then there is a line item in the local as well um for summer school funding. any other questions, comments? Yes, Mayor. in the transportation one. How many of in the some in the what you just sent us? Seven the 7D drivers 11 and two CDL. How many of those positions are unfilled and have been unfilled this year? It's um yeah towards the end. It's about three or four pages from the end. I I would I we could use one more CDL and I think one other driver to have a sub. In that sense, we've done actually okay in terms of transportation this
040year. Um there are two CDL drivers right now. The rest are 70 which are for people minivans, smaller vehicles. Um the the CDL would be any of your yellow buses whether they're small, medium, or large sized. >> So So that's um that's 22 positions. They're all they're filled. >> No, I would I would off the top of my head I would say we have two openings. Thank you. Couple more. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Under it. Um I guess the hardware you call it did the grant that um we got jointly schools and the city um was that all figured out into the IT hard um I guess you call it hardware? >> Yes. The buying of computers and things like that. Yes. Okay. And lastly, I was looking at the numbers from one to
041the other. Will we be adding teaching staff as well in middle school? Will we be adding one teacher from this year to last year? >> I don't believe so. >> Okay. Yes, member Deniv. And then >> one last question. Um, the Medicaid reimbursement, did we get that last year and are we getting it this year? And who chases that down? Is that a mayor question? >> We >> Okay. >> Yes, we do. the there's the claims we we end up filing through Lower Pine Valley Collaborative. Um but it is a general fund receipt that goes to the city >> and then does it come back to us? >> It goes to it's a general fund revenue. So I mean the argument could be made that part of the money that comes to the schools is
042part of the Medicaid money, you know. So >> but is it a specifically earmark? You don't specifically earmark general fund revenues, but yeah. >> Okay. Well, maybe that's maybe that's a chatty moment with with you, mayor, later after you go through everything. Thanks. You have you have another question? >> Oh, member Dyman, do you have a question? >> Uhhuh. Yes. >> Uh yes, I do. Um so when I look at this increase um for middle school teaching staff salaries uh that and it says an increase of 34.8%. Um how much of that percentage has to do with increased health insurance premiums and how much of it has to do with contractual wage increases? It wouldn't it's not health insurance because that's on the city side of the ledger. So it's all wages related. >> Correct.
043If >> so and I guess I'm looking at >> if if I if I may I believe and maybe Andy or Stephen could help me. I believe that that has to do with when you the budget was presented last year. Um it was presented with some changes anticipated that were going to happen such as the fifth grade going down to maybe the elementarymentaries or the eighth grade coming back to the middle school and that had change. So that had been approved and I know that somebody will jump in and help me in a minute. That budget had been approved with changes that people thought were going to happen that did not happen. Is that a correct way to say that? >> Yes. But I just wanted to just double check on here. Uh, Miss Dr.
044Dyman, can you tell me where you're getting the I'm just looking here because the middle schools got an overall 11.13% increase. >> I am looking at line. Hold on a moment. Let me get back to it. GMS teaching staff 34. Uh, okay. Uh, I guess it's line 85. GMS teaching staff reggg ed. Oh, sorry. Oh, no. That's 34.8 full-time equivalent. I'm sorry. I'm I'm just learning to read this. >> Okay. No, no, it's it's not nearly that high of an increase. >> I I have a similar question to what member Oh, go ahead. >> Diamond was asking because last year I looked at last year's just because it didn't have FTEES from last year next to this year on this year's budget. So last year projected it was projected at the middle school that there
045were 64.8 and that was before the changes that didn't happen. And then this year it said 65.8. So that's why I asked if there was somebody else extra in middle school because last year when we got this budget because I pulled it out it was 64.8 It was the projection and that was adding folks I thought because we because we needed some extra people in the middle school. You know what I mean? >> It was it was taking into consideration the redistricting, right? >> So the actual FY26 revised FTEES and we can send it out and also put it on website. The actual revised FTEES at Greenfield Middle School for FY26 is 58.8 with that FI27 being the same. Correct. Right. That's the original pre that was with the redistricting and when we I talked
046about this in the budget finance subcommittee that uh the FY26 FTEES were showing because that was the voted budget with the voted redistricting occurring. What we have now is the revised FTEES putting the people back to without redistricting occurring. And with that being the case, the revised FY26 FTEES for the middle school is 58.8. >> Okay. So followup. So it was 58.8 and this year it is >> 58.8. 58.8 8 and FY26 is a revised FTEES because the 65 you're talking about had that was redistricting being undertaken to >> total in the whole school. Right. >> Correct. >> Okay. So not to belabor it but on the budget that we have you know the budget for the middle school that we have in front of us of the whole budget it says that the FTEES
047are 65 >> correct and that's for 27 27 >> doesn't say >> not for 26 for 27 it says 65.8 That FTE column is 26. That is not that's not 27 FTE. >> Oh, so all the numbers that we're looking at in the FTEES in the FY27 >> was published is FY26 FTEES. Correct. What I'm saying is we we've added in a PowerPoint the FY27 FTEES and then we have here, you know, an update that shows FY26 original FTEES, which was what you're looking at, FY26 revised FTEES, which is >> since redistricting didn't occur, and then comparison to FY27 FTEES. Um, I just had a question about the budgeting for the high school and you all had mentioned that that came from one of our revolving accounts where it shows it looks like it's a
048decrease but it's not actually a decrease because it's coming from a revolving account. Can you explain that to me again and why? >> Sure. we use and immediately it's not a lot because what it is again when we look at the personnel changes that had occurred there are there were say higher cost people in FY26 when we built the budget to where the revised FY26 staffing is now but we take some money from school choice we always use the school choice funds to offset the high school and then title one now we've already just discussed title one uh also goes towards regular ed teachers at the high school. So that those two combined is a $656,000 and change offset to the regular ed teaching line. Okay. I'm assuming you're saying that that's something that we've
049done. I've just never seen it actually presented clearly like this. So that's great. >> Yes, it's always >> and that's and we're projecting that's a sustainable practice if presumably it has been for the past several years. >> Well, if you look at that if you look at that combined balance sheet income statement, we are we're reducing those balances substantially if over the two years. is if you look at the school choice sped tuition, transportation, those numbers are going down as far as, you know, what it is that we we're planning on using, what we're projecting to receive. Um I'm just looking over your shoulder. Right. Right. So, we're we're looking at school choice. So, we're looking at a change in school choice for FY26 of a reduction of 40% available from what we started FY26
050with. And then FY27, we are looking at a reduction of 18% projected available with a two-year reduction of the school choice to the tune of 51%. So we're starting in FY26 with $655,000 in school choice. We're projecting to end FY27 with 321,000. So as far as your sustainability question, the normal best practice is you don't use current year receipts for current year expenses. >> There's a potential on FY28 if all things go according to plan that you would be using current year receipts for current year expenses. not ideal course can do but again going on the best practices department of revenue recommends similar things you know and so that's the the challenge that we're facing you know so it's a thing of we've heard prior year about the you know these quote unquote buildup of
051these reserves well for all intents and purposes when you look over the two years our reserves are going down by 30.87% 87%. So the sustainability question is a very valid question and concern. >> Yeah. >> Roughly speaking, if we weren't able to use that fund for offsets, what does that do to us in terms of FTEES? I mean, we're talking about school choice, so we're we're looking at, you know, six FTEEs average, right? And we've talked about um you know, everybody knows it's like these rainy day funds or excess and deficiency END accounts, etc. out there are for rainy days, right? And we know it's raining, right? Literally and figuratively outside right now. It's pouring. It's not just raining, but you build up some of those. And I know that the city obviously tries to
052do that as well, too. Um, during good times and probably not too many of us can remember some good times in the sense when you've been able to put some some money away in the bank account, but now we're spending that account and there's not many years left of that. >> Got a question? Go for it. >> Um, I kind of semi- know this answer. How many in the budget you presentation you just gave us? I know that we do not we do have some vacant positions that have gone unfilled for most of the school year. I'm just going to use the Academy of Early Learning for example. Like they do not have a full-time building based sub there. They haven't had one all year. I know they don't have um an adjustment counselor and
053they haven't had that there all year. How many vacant positions do we have that we're reporting on in this budget? And then my next question was I just want to like confirm what the mayor said that the number we're seeing right here is not for 65.8 FTEES. The number we are seeing is for the 58.8 full-time employees for Greenfield Middle School. I just wanted to make that clear. We're looking for the vacant positions for you. They're in flux, but we'll get you that number. >> Yeah, mayor. >> I have a couple more for AAL. Um the uh would you just as a question the AEL wraparound tuition revolving there's 526,197 in that one? Um account 1513 AEL wraparound tuition. Is there um a possibility of using some of that for AAL? This was from our
054last um from our last meeting. you sent that >> there's not $500,000 in the AAL. There's a prek tuition of the 526, but the wraparound is 55 and 526 >> is AEL wraparound tuition. It says 1513 on my paper. It says AEL wraparound tuition, >> right? 1513 has a remaining balance from the last report of 55,676. The preschool revolving account which we do use as an offset of 526. Um that is would be up for discussion as to what it is that we usually you know if you look and see we are uh we we will end up using some of that. It's just a matter of looking at as part of this process here. you know, it's I want to say to something that's six of one and a half a dozen the other.
055We could use that and or less of the sped tuition revolving. So those are, you know, they're interchangeable for all intents and purposes. But yes, it's a valid, you know, there's consideration as superintendent Joy is saying as we're starting this process to look and see as far as using more of those. So yes, it's very worthy of a discussion that will be undertaken by administration and budget finance subcommittee. >> Thank you. And would you mind going over on the whole budget the way over on the right um what the source is for that like in AAL it says total grants and SRF's $20,000 that's sped IDA like what where we're planning on taking each one of those things on the far right. >> Yes. So the $20,000 is the IDA262 grant. Uh if you look
056the 50,000 above is the A that's the tuition revolving the AAL prek >> and then Federal Street. >> Yes. The 161 762 is title one. Four corners the 85,615 is title one. Newton the 180771 is also title one. GMS 175630 is also title one. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I'm reading FYI 26. >> Yeah, I'm I don't have the same numbers. >> Yeah, sorry. I was in the 26 version. I'm going back to your vacancy questions, so my apologies. >> No, that's okay. So if we'll go back to the Federal Street Head 171. >> Yeah. >> 930. That's title one. Four corners 60,82 is title one. Newton 186012 is title one. Greenfield Middle 172938 is title one. Greenfield High 156614 is title one. 500,000 is school choice. >> Wait a minute. 500,000 is school choice. >>
057Correct. And the balance is title one. >> Okay. >> Down to the sped out of district tuition, the 2,647. >> Yes. 820,000 is the IDEIDA 240 grant. >> Say that again. >> 820,000 is the SPED 240 grant. >> Yeah. >> 1,527,398 is circuit breaker. >> Yep. >> $300,000 is sped tuition revolving. Then we get down to transportation and $400,000 is a transportation revolving. >> And that's it. >> Thank you. >> Yes, member. >> Um, I feel like I'm putting AL on the spot here and I apologize. When was the last time we had a tuition increase? >> I don't know. I don't know the history. And if you don't know, we'll get you the answer. >> We'll look it up. >> Yeah. >> Two years ago, right? >> Two years ago. Thank you, member D.
058Right. Do you have a question >> or comment? >> Comment. >> Okay. Member Tra. >> Um, so this is a lot of information to digest and questions. So I'm going to plug the budget and finance subcommittee meeting a week from today, next Monday, 11:30 in the afternoon at central offices, which is at the middle school and also on Zoom. So, uh, any members of the public are more than welcome to come and ask more questions or if they can't make it or if anyone on the committee has questions after the fact, by all means, email me your questions so that we can try to get answers for them. So, don't feel like you are limited to just this moment right now. You're on the spot. Questions are bust. Thank you. Okay, hearing that, I'll do
059one more call. Does anyone have question? I don't want you to sit here and rack your brain if you don't have them fully formed right now. >> We will. Okay. We'll be back next Wednesday. Great. Um, okay. So, if you have questions that pop up in your study of these documents between now and then, either email an or email the superintendent and we will find those answers. Um, and maybe even generate new questions. Who's to say? Um, but I want to thank everyone for coming out. Thank everyone for listening, for your attention. Um, I think that we have to vote to close a public hearing and then we vote to actually adjourn a meeting. Is that accurate? All right. Well, that's what we're going to do just in case. Um, all right. Please call the
060role to close the public hearing. >> Chair Ston, >> yep. >> Secretary Webb, yes. Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Mayor Disorger, >> yes. and member Dyman. >> Yes. >> All right. The public hearing has closed at 7:42 p.m. And now a vote, a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> Okay. Motion made. >> Great. Motion made by member child, seconded by member Deniv. Please call the role again. >> Chair Ston. >> Yep. >> Secretary Webb, yes. >> Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Mayor Disorger, >> yes. Member Dman. >> Yes. >> All right. We are adjourned also at 7 well 7:43 p.m. >> Thank you all.